THEN LIKE THE BLIND MAN: Orbie's Story

by Freddie Owens Wegela

  “There’s somebody out here Momma,” I said. “There’s somebody shoveling our walk.”

  “Who? Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. He’s orange. He’s got sunglasses and a big bushy hat.”

  When Momma looked out the window, she got all happy – then worried. “It’s Victor! I didn’t ask for no help.”

  After while he came on the porch and rang the doorbell. Momma put her coat on and opened the door. I pulled the blanket tight around my shoulders and went next to Momma. The day was so bone chilly cold the insides of my nose holes stuck together. I looked up at Victor. “Momma said she didn’t ask for no help.”

  “Hush,” Momma said. “I was just thinking how you ought not have bothered with all that, Victor.”

  Victor smiled. He looked at us through the dark glasses, his voice all deep and friendly-like. “Jessie was my best worker. A good friend. I’m honored to help you Ruby.”

  Victor’s breath came out in little white rags of steam that vanished almost as soon as they appeared. Snow shovels scraped in the distance. Victor’s pickup truck sat in our driveway with a plow blade straight across the front. All the snow behind Momma’s Ford had been cleared away. Momma looked at it all and started to cry.

  “You and the children,” Victor said. “Orbie here, and Missy, well, you’ve become almost like family to me.”

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s been so hard.” Momma pulled a Kleenex out of her coat pocket and blew her nose. “I can’t talk about it right now.”

  “You don’t have to Ruby. I understand. You need time.” Victor lifted the snow shovel onto one shoulder. “We all need time.”

  It wasn’t two days Victor called again. He kept on calling too, checking was everything all right, was there anything he could do? Finally, Momma let him come and fix the basement windows. Then a whistling noise in the refrigerator wouldn’t go away and he had to fix that too. He shoveled more snow. He spread salt over our icy front steps. He spread it along the sidewalk in front of our house. In the spring time he came and raked dead leaves, got Daddy’s old push-mower out and cut the grass.

  People in the neighborhood liked Victor, all except our baby sitter, Mrs. Profit, who was bone skinny and nervous and talked a mile a minute. She didn’t like it when Victor made things simple so she could understand, when he tried to talk like a hillbilly, saying things like You all come, or Fair to middlin’.

  “Why, he don’t even got the accent,” she said to Momma one day. “He’s a broke-mouthed hillbilly you ask me.”

  “People over to church think it’s sweet,” Momma said.

  “Sweet? Well, I don’t. It’s like he’s talking down to me. Like he thinks I’m dimwitted or something.”

  “Oh, I think he’s just trying to get along,” Momma said.

  Mid spring he was calling Momma every week. Then it seemed like everyday. Everyday, there Momma would be, talking to Victor on the telephone. She was still on bad times though, Momma was. She cooked and cleaned house, got Missy and me washed up and ready for bed. She was our mother, and she loved us, but I could see there was still something sad she was dragging around inside. It was like a dead cat I saw once all froze up in the back yard, something you couldn’t do anything with.

  Victor leaned in on Momma. He leaned in on Missy and me too, saying what a good boy I was, how Missy would grow up to be a beautiful young woman some day – just like her mother – how he wished he had a little girl like her. Said he damn sure wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life working for Ford Motor Company. Breathing those factory fumes. Chasing after lazy good for nothings, just to get them to do an honest day’s work. Not when he could make triple or even quadruple the money working for himself. Said if a man really wanted to get ahead, he had to have plans that were significant.

  I liked that word significant, even if at the time I didn’t know quite what it meant, I liked how it felt in my mouth, on the tip of my tongue, like something that if you didn’t pay attention to it, it would cause you a whole heap of trouble. I liked going around the house saying it.

  Significant. Significant. Significant.

  I liked that Victor liked us, but I didn’t like the way he was all the time trying to be on my mind. It was too close together somehow – like when Momma started talking about Jesus and wouldn’t shut up. A Dark Thing would come then, so sticky hot it would gum up all my army men and tanks, making them so they couldn’t move or explode or be in battles and wars like they were supposed to be.

  After some time Momma started feeling better. She looked better too, started to put makeup on, not much, just a little lipstick and color for her cheeks. One day Victor asked her to go to the picture show, and she said yes. After that they started going out all the time. First to the picture shows. Then dinners. Then dancing. I think Momma liked dancing the best. Her and Victor would stay out late, come home making noise, laughing, whispering, Mrs. Profit, our baby sitter, shushing them not to wake Missy and me, smoking, clinking glasses, Mrs. Profit saying goodbye, then kissy stuff, and Momma telling Victor ‘no’. Then Victor laughing, saying goodbye, going out the door, the whole place smelling like beer.

  One Saturday after dinner Victor came in drunk. He got down on his knees in front of Momma, crying, wrapping his arms around her like some big cry-baby-bear. He loved Momma, he said. He loved me and he loved Missy and he wanted us all to be a family together. Momma told him she wouldn’t talk to him about it until he sobered up. She made him lay down on our couch. He was there when I went to bed and he was there in the morning when I got up.

  I thought Victor was all right, but I didn’t want to be a family with him. I didn’t care he was trying to be so nice. He didn’t joke around or laugh or anything, not like my real Daddy had. I didn’t like his smell in our bathroom either. Cigars and toilet shit. Daddy never smelled that way.

  One time, Missy and me were playing in the living room, and for no reason he told us to keep it down. We weren’t even making any noise. I got mad and told him to shut his mouth and he drew back his fist like he was going to hit me. I saw then he had something like worms, slimy red worms turning over in his eyes, twisting around on sharp glass, cutting themselves in there and getting mean.

  Momma said he looked like Superman in disguise. “Why, with them glasses, he looks just like that Clark Kent. Don’t he look just like that Clark Kent?”

  I thought he did too, a little bit maybe, especially with his hair combed back the way it was. I didn’t want to say it, but really he looked better than Clark Kent. That was because of his glow. But when the glow wasn’t there, he’d be just all by himself, watching things dead on. It was like he’d somehow gotten bored with everything and was waiting – for what, I didn’t know.

  Momma said he might make Missy and me a good Daddy – with a little practice he might. “He’s got a good job. And good prospects too! And he wants so much to take care of us all!” I think that’s why she left Missy and me with Mrs. Profit one day and went off with Victor to the Justice of the Peace. That was in September of 1957. That was why she married him. That and their dancing, and that smoochy stuff I heard him and Momma do on the couch late at night, Momma saying ‘no’ and ‘no’ and ‘no’ and then nothing. Nothing at all.

  6

  The Alamo

  1958

  “Orbie, turn that down,” Momma said. “Me and Victor’s talking here.”

  “Aw, Momma. It’s Davy Crockett.”

  “I don’t care what it is. It don’t need to be that loud.”

  Davy Crockett was pointing his gun over a wall, shooting at the Mexicans. “Aw, Momma.”

  “You heard your mother!” Victor said. “Turn it down, or turn it off!”

  I got up and turned it down. We’d finished eating supper a while ago. The whole house smelled like fried chicken and dishwater. I could see Momma and Victor out the corner of my eye. Four empty beer bottles stood like smoke stacks on the coffee table’s glass top.

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nbsp; “Imagine that,” Victor said, “a Negro.” He took a swig off his beer and pushed his eyeglasses up. He held the bottle upright on the arm of his chair. Blue Ribbon beer. He’d been drinking it all through supper. “At work. He wanted to talk to me about Jesus. Asked me if I knew Jesus.” He looked at Momma like she’d be stupid not to know what he was talking about.

  “Victor honey, that don’t matter. Jesus loves everybody. It don’t matter the color a person’s skin is.” A big King James Bible lay open-faced across her lap.

  “Oh, you Christ-Sellers are all alike,” Victor said. “Would you let Missy marry one?”

  “No,” Momma said.

  “Why not? Your own mother would. She’d even come to the wedding.”

  All the air went out of Momma’s chest. “I wouldn’t let her do that Victor. Marry one, I mean.”

  “But I thought Jesus loves everybody, Momma.”

  “Well He does,” Momma said. “He’s God’s only son.”

  “God’s only son,” Victor said. “You really believe that.”

  “Yes I do, Victor. With all my heart.”

  Victor took out a pad of paper and a blue ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket. He wrote something on the pad and gave it to Momma.

  Momma read the letters out loud. “A-T-H-E,” she began and gave Victor a sideways glance.

  “Go on,” Victor said. “Read it.”

  “A-T-H-E-I-S-T.” Momma gave Victor another look. “You always coming up with something big, Victor. What is this?”

  “Atheist Momma.”

  “Atheist?”

  Victor smiled. “That’s right. Means I’d no sooner believe in God than you’d let Missy marry a Negro.”

  This was how they argued – Momma on God’s side, Victor on the Devil’s.

  Victor put the pad of paper back in his shirt pocket. He held onto the pen, his good looks spoiled now by the worms in his eyes.

  “And here I thought you coming to our little church meant something,” Momma said.

  Cannon fire exploded from the television set. The Mexican army men, dressed in gray coats and white pants, stormed over the hills, some of them carrying wooden ladder-things that looked like backbones with the ribs chewed off. Black smoke boiled up over the walls of the Alamo.

  Momma said, “There is a God, Victor. Even you ought to know that.”

  Victor took another swig of beer. He threw his head back, turning the bottle practically upside down. Bubbles and foam jumped up inside the neck. He set it on the coffee table empty. That made five. Five empty brown bottles with blue ribbons on the coffee table. He worked the push button on his pen, making it click. “Prove it to me Momma.”

  Momma closed the Bible. “Prove what? That they’s a God? Victor honey, I never heard tell of such a thing. Prove it yourself. All you need do is look around.”

  “I do look around, and do you know what I see? I see a lot of pious do-gooders like yourself. Like that Negro preacher at work. I see them sticking their noses in where they don’t belong.”

  “But Victor honey that ain’t…”

  “I’m not finished yet,” Victor said, holding his hand up like a cop. “These people, they act so good, so pious, so ‘above it all’. But when push comes to shove they’re just hypocrites. Like yourself.” He waited for that to sink in. Then he worked the button on the pen. Click-click, it went. “If Jesus loves negroes, Momma, why don’t you?”

  Again the air went out of Momma’s chest. Me, the empty beer bottles, Victor’s pen, even the Battle of the Alamo – all seemed to be waiting for Momma to speak. “Can I talk now, Mr. Two-Years-of-College?” she finally said.

  Victor raised his arm from the elbow up, fingers curled around the pen, thumb on the clicker. He watched Momma like that, smirking, like he knew everything there was to know and Momma would be a fool to doubt him.

  “They’s different people, Victor,” Momma said. “Just because I don’t mix with every kind don’t mean I’m not trying. At least I’m trying to be like He was. The Lord’s ways are mysterious.”

  “Who says?”

  “Why, it says so in the Bible!”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that Momma,” Victor said.

  “No I won’t. I won’t have to do no better.” Momma put her hand on the Bible. “It’s God’s Word we’re talking about here.”

  Victor wore silver pants and a white short-sleeved shirt, unbuttoned at the top. There were a few spots of beer on the belly. “The Bible is just a fairy tale Momma. Just a made up story you would have to be a fool to believe.”

  “It’s God’s word!” Momma said.

  “Prove it to me Momma. Prove to me there’s a God.”

  Be quiet Momma. Don’t make Victor mad. Don’t make The Dark Thing come.

  It was nighttime outside. A picture window rose up in back of Victor framed with dark red curtains. A roar swelled from the television set. Mexican soldiers were swarming up the wall of the Alamo. Davy Crockett knocked one off with the butt end of his rifle.

  “I don’t have to prove you nothing,” Momma said. “What did they teach you in that college? That they’s no God? Well, there is one. And His word is right here.” She thumped the Bible with the palm of her hand.

  Click-click, went Victor’s pen. “Prove it to me Momma.”

  “Quit calling me that!” Momma said. “I ain’t your Momma, and I don’t have to prove you a damned thing!”

  “Better watch those cuss words Momma. What will the Lord think?”

  The Dark Thing was getting big now, getting heavy, mixed in with all that chicken grease from dinner – chicken grease and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

  Momma slammed the Bible onto the coffee table, yelling now. “I said don’t call me Momma! Your Momma’s dead! Wasn’t nothing but a drunk let her own kid go hungry! If it hadn’t been for your Daddy you’d have been out on the street!”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “It is too the point! You ain’t had no raising is the point!”

  Victor took off his glasses and tossed them on the Bible. A thousand Mexicans charged the Alamo.

  “Your Daddy sent you to that college didn’t learn you a thing! Bunch of fifty dollar words nobody understands!”

  Victor hauled off suddenly, throwing his pen across the room. It sailed all the way past the TV set and into the dining room, smacked against the wall there and broke apart, landing on the dining room table. “You Bible-Thumping-Bitch!”

  Okay Momma stop it now! Can’t you see?

  But Momma couldn’t see. Couldn’t see that pen. Couldn’t see the greasy red mole next to Victor’s nose, how shiny it had become. Couldn’t see the worms. “Your Daddy had you working in that store of his for nothing! Wouldn’t even let you out to play!”

  Victor slapped the arm of the sofa chair. “Son of a bitch, Ruby!”

  “Son of a bitch, yourself!” Momma yelled. “You ain’t no child! I ain’t your Momma neither!”

  I held my breath. More cannon fire exploded from the Alamo. I could see the moon – a pale thumbnail rising in the glass of the picture window behind Victor’s head – floating peacefully as if, quietly tilting over the watery half-reflection of the television set. Suddenly there was a humungous loud crack and the coffee table’s glass top, Momma’s Bible, Victor’s horn rims and all the beer bottles dove straight toward the floor.

  “Bastard!” Momma yelled. “You goddamn bastard!”

  I jumped up.

  Victor’s hand was bleeding. I could see the heart tattoo, wrapped around with the snake’s tan-colored body, ‘Born To Lose’ written there in green letters. Victor looked at the hand. Then he looked at Momma. Then he cocked the hand back in a tight knuckled fist and rabbit-punched her square in the face. The sound of it was awful, like a mallet on wet meat. Brown curls of hair fell across Momma’s forehead. Victor came back around with his open hand and slapped her across the back of the head. A plate of false teeth popped out bloody on the couch. Victor grabbed Momm
a’s hair and bent her head back, his eyes all over the front of her. “You want Jesus! I’ll give you some Jesus!”

  Momma’s mouth had dropped open. She cried out, trying to flail at Victor with both fists.

  “You leave my Momma alone!” I shouted. I ran between them, pushing backwards, trying to make Momma far away. Momma wrapped an arm around me, holding her other hand over the place Victor had punched. Victor stood over us, his fist raised, trembling to come down.

  “Get out of the way, you little shit!”

  “No Obie!” Momma hugged me to her. “Ooo tay!” She was trying to talk without her teeth. “He ma boy!”

  “You leave my Momma alone! I’ll kill you, you hit her again!”

  Momma grabbed up her teeth and pushed them back in with her thumb. Hugging me, dragging me along with her, she slid to the end of the couch.

  Victor took a step toward us, his fist still raised.

  “Victor, please! Please don’t!”

  Victor stood there, looking down at us, frowning, the red mole shining. It was like he didn’t know what else to do. He unclenched his fist. Blood made red cracks over his fingers, over his fingernails. The snake on the tattoo looked at me sideways and slid away.

  Victor’s eyes began to well up, his chin to quiver. Crocodile tears began to bulge and stream down his cheeks, one then another, over the red mole and around the twitching corners of his mouth. That’s what he did when he got drunk, when he was mad, when he wanted to hurt me, hurt Momma, hurt Missy, hurt the walls, the tables and chairs, anything he could get his hands on, crying like he was so sorry, like he was somebody you had to feel sorry for. His hand dropped to his side.

  “I’m so sorry, Ruby,” he said.

  “It’s too late for sorry.”

  Victor reached out with his bloody hand, but Momma pulled back. “I just want to look at that eye.”