Freddie Owens - Then Like the Blind Man - Orbie's Story

I put my hand over Granpaw’s pouch and squeezed. If Victor were a cloud I might could melt him away. I’d have to do it with love though, and nothing seemed more unlikely than that.

Granpaw’s station wagon, with Granny driving, suddenly sloshed up into the yard behind the Ford and stopped. In the back seat sat Vern and Fable. In the front, on the passenger side, sat Granpaw. He stared out the window zombie-eyed. Granny got out and slammed her door, opened a black umbrella over her head. “What is all this? Victor? What you think you doing?” Victor didn’t even turn around — went on to the porch and inside. The screen door slammed behind him.

Granny walked around to the side of the Ford and saw Momma. “What in this world!” She opened the car door. I could just see her, trying to untie Momma’s hands.

Willis and me ran over to the station wagon, to the other side where Victor couldn’t see. I tried to get Granpaw’s attention, but he just sat there frozen.

“Where Miss Alma?” Willis asked Vern.

“In dat Reverend car,” Vern said.

“Had ‘nuff a her ole mouth,” Fable said. “Dey gone electricute her now.”

“No they ain’t,” Vern said.

Victor came back out of the house with another armful of our things — comic books, drawing papers, Missy’s plastic make up kit. He walked past Granny around to the trunk and dumped it all in there. Willis and me went around the back of the station wagon where we could see.

Granny stepped away from the car. “I said what do you think you a doing here, Mister? ”

Victor walked up to Granny, stood a couple feet away from her. Granny had to look up to meet his eyes. He made like to straighted out the pens in his shirt pocket. Then he just hauled off and backhanded Granny across the mouth, knocking her sideways to the ground. Her umbrella went upside down in the mud.

“This is my family!” Victor yelled.

Granny tried to get up, but Victor, with the muddy toe of his allegator shoe, kicked her hard in the stomach. She let out a cry and fell back in the mud. Then Victor kicked her again.

I was so scared I peed my pants. Lucky the rain had soaked them through. I looked back up the road. No sign of Miss Alma, only the graveyard and the hill. I held up the knife, trembling, remembering how it had once glowed.

Take care of your Momma son.

Willis pointed suddenly up to the house, shaking his finger at the place over the attic window. It had been painted. “Mo back!”

I don’t know what but something came up inside me then, something good and strong. With the knife raised, I jumped out from behind the station wagon.

Victor turned my way, unconcerned now, in charge of things. “Well now, look at the little waif.”

“Get away from Granny!” I shouted but my voice was almost gone.

“You’ve strayed so far away. Haven’t you? Little waif. So far, far away.” Victor’s words made me feel all sad and undone. He was right. I was far, far away, down here in Kentucky inside a storm with a butcher knife dressed in shorts that smelled like pee.

Victor stepped toward me and stopped.

“Stand back!” I said. “Get away from Granny!”

“Shhh, hush now son. You think I don’t love you, but you’re wrong. I’ve got plans for you and Missy — for Momma too.”

He looked away into the stormy light. Rain dripped from his hair — from the hook-shaped curl. I could see Granny in back of him, struggling to get up. His chin began to tremble; then he was crying again — like so many times before — big crocodile tears streaming down his face.

He continued to look into the light, weeping, talking to no one in particular. “Of course, there was that letter. But they’ll never pin that on me. Circumstantial. All of it. Still, I didn’t mean for her to see it. Not until I could explain. That was too bad, wasn’t it? Unfortunate. Well, no matter. None of it matters now anyway.” He looked at me. “Does it son? We’ll be so happy, won’t we? All of us together?”

What letter? What didn’t matter?

“You tied Momma up,” I said. “You kicked Granny!”

A shadow passed over his face. “They were interfering, son. I can’t have that. People interfering.” In the rain, crying and talking crazy like he was, he seemed dangerous and pitiful at the same time — more even than I imagined myself to be. I hated him. I hated him for making me see him this way. For confusing me. I hated him for what he had done to Missy, to Momma — what he had done to himself — for what he was doing now.

I raised the knife; hoping that the blue light would come, make Victor go away, make things to be good and normal again — like when Daddy was alive. The knife stayed dull.

A low rumble of thunder crawled overhead. The rain came harder. Victor stood, arms down, hands open, a question in his eyes, waiting. His eyeglasses sat crooked across the bridge of his nose. In my mind’s eye I saw the boy in the cave again, his eyeglasses, the frame held together with electrical tape.

Victor pushed his hand through his hair, frowning at the knife. “Come on. Don’t be stupid now.” I could see the worms in his eyes, sad worms, crazy.

Granny lay still in the mud.

I was holding onto the knife so tight I thought the bones in my wrist might break and I was sure I had peed myself again. I felt of Granpaw’s pouch, the Rain Skull inside there tied around my neck, its power contrary and useless. Red puddles had formed in the yard, all of them trembling in the falling rain.

There was nothing I could do to bring Daddy back. Killing Victor wouldn’t do it. Melting clouds wouldn’t. The Rain Skull wouldn’t. I wanted Victor out of my life — that was for sure — but killing him, even if I could manage such a thing, would be killing the little boy too, and that, I realized, I was unwilling to do.

Inhaling one deep rain-misted breath of air, I stepped forward and placed Granny’s butcher knife on the muddy ground in front of Victor.

Stepping back I said, “In thy blood live, Victor.”

Victor shook his head. He seemed confused. He looked again into the stormy light. The rain was coming down in thin slapping sheets. There was a rush of splattering wind and the gassy smells of animals killed by the storm. He bent over and picked up the knife. “Is this what they’re teaching you down here? To point knives and utter mumbo jumbo at your elders?”

“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “God will forgive you.”

Victor smirked. “What do you know about forgiveness? Shoot-em-up in the backseat with your army men. Blood and guts and bombs away! What do you know about God?”

Right then, I saw another light. Not blue but shiny red, flashing off Granny and Granpaw’s windows.

“Answer me goddamn it!” Victor grabbed up a handful of my tee shirt along with Granpaw’s pouch.

“That’s my Rain Skull,” I said.

Victor jerked it from around my neck and back fisted me across my face. I tasted blood; I saw lights — factory lights in the black ceiling of the steel mill — an old jalopy dropped from a claw, thundering into a metal bin; the bones of my skeleton falling like junk onto the wet rocky ground.

“I told you not to interfere!” Victor yelled. “Didn’t I tell you not to interfere!” He tossed the pouch away.

I brought myself around onto both hands and got to my feet. My lip cut and bleeding. I stood, holding myself with both arms, trembling. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”

Victor back fisted me again even harder. There were more lights, explosions of fire and more blood. Again the old jalopy dropped into the metal bin. A white piece of bone with a bloody root lay in the mud before my eyes.