Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie's Story

by Freddie Owens

  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.”

  “Stay away from me!” Momma’s voice was trembling now.

  “You’re right, Ruby. My mother was a drunk, a drunk and a whore.” Victor’s throat swelled with a sob he tried to gulp down. He looked at the television set — at the ruin of glass, the King James version of the Bible, its gilded pages crushed against the floor, at the beer bottles pointing in every direction. Then he heaved up a sigh and let loose with a kick, the shiny brown toe of his shoe catching the empty frame of the coffee table, smashing it, flipping it up and over and upside down in front of the television set. He stood over the mess of everything, looking at nothing, his face crazy with tears.

  “Victor honey? I’m so sorry,” Momma said. Then she started to cry too.

  The Battle of the Alamo was over.

  ———————

  I could hear them through the wall.

  First Victor, blubbering and mumbling like somebody under water.

  Then Momma in a smooth sad voice saying, “Victor honey, it’s all right. I didn’t mean to. I was just mad was all.”

  I lay in bed, looking up into the dark. The room was pitch black except for the window over Missy’s bed, backlit by a sky of sparkling stars. Pinholes to heaven, Momma called them. She said nighttime was just a black sheet with pinholes God put over the world so people could sleep. Said He left the pinholes so no matter how dark it got, people could still see heaven’s light.

  A white square slipped in against the wall opposite my bed. Car lights. It slid over Missy’s teddy bear, over the Indian war bonnet Momma got me for Christmas. I could hear crickets chirping outside the window, Missy sleeping in the bed across from mine.

  Victor and Momma’s bedsprings started to creak — soft and slow at first — then louder — then faster and louder. Then like a train, squalling, blowing clouds of lightning and dirty black wind.

  “Orbie? What is that Orbie?” It was Missy, sleepy-talking from her bed. “What is that? You sleep?”

  “Hush,” I whispered. “Momma and Victor’s making a train.”

  That Dark Thing would grow. It would get big.

  “That ain’t no train,” Missy said, awake now.

  The springs began to beat even louder — faster. Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive!

  Momma cried out, “Oh! Oh Victor!”

  Missy jumped into my bed. Her baby doll’s plastic head whacked me in the face.

  “Get back in your own bed!” I said.

  “I’m scared Orbie.” She pushed her back up against mine.

  I was scared too, and mad at Victor. Mad at Momma. I wanted to jump up. Run in there. Save Momma. Then I heard her turn over in bed. Laughing.

  ———————

  We had a screened-in porch with jalousie windows you could angle out to let in air. That was in the summertime mostly when Momma fixed on people’s hair. Momma liked to fix on people’s hair. She was good at it too, and she didn’t cost a bunch of money, not like a for real beauty operator would. She was going to go to beauty school some day she said, but there was no telling when that would be.

  A lot of people came over to get their hair done. Jenny Dee Danielson, Opal whose husband had lung cancer, Sheri Slabodnik, Mrs. Brown, the Lane sisters from church who sang pretty. Then there’d be people in the neighborhood like Pat Nichols who was a Mormon, a great big fat lady who wore black slacks with sweaters stretched tight over big giant titties. Her and Momma would argue on the Bible. Sometimes they’d get to arguing on Joseph Smith or Jesus or if you could have more than one wife, if that was okay with God. Momma said it wasn’t. Pat Nichols said it was.

  All kinds of people would come over. Momma would work on them, even when her eye was puffed out, the bruised skin covered with layers of cracked makeup. Nobody said anything about it except old nosey Mrs. Profit. She came over one day to get her hair fixed. Momma had put silver clips in it and was trying to trim up the ends. Bone skinny Mrs. Profit, the skin peeling off her hands, sitting in Momma’s beauty chair — smoking one cigarette after another.

  I was running my dump truck along a board propped up at one end with a brick. Momma’s Victrola was going like usual. And like usual she was too busy to change the records so the last one on the stack a happy Sunday song called This Little Light Of Mine played itself over and over again.

  This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

  This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

  Everyday, everyday, everyday, everyday!

  I’m gonna let my little light shine!

  At first Mrs. Profit didn’t say anything about Momma’s eye. She started in on old man Slabodnik and his accordion instead. The music he played sang out over the neighborhood. I liked it. Kids in the neighborhood did too.

  “Why, he’s disturbing what little peace they is around here!” Mrs. Profit said, her voice like fingernails on a blackboard — so screechy-keen it near made my teeth hurt.

  Momma tried to go along with her. “Lord, Mrs. Profit. I hope you don’t mind me playing my records then?”

  “Course I don’t. You don’t play’em all over the neighborhood like he does. I tell you what’s the truth Ruby. If I had me a gun I’d shoot that thing of his. Shoot him too!”

  “Now Mrs. Profit, you don’t mean that.”

  Mrs. Profit gave Momma a dead-on look. “Where did you get that eye Ruby?” The question came so quick Momma’s mouth dropped open. “That Polack hit you, didn’t he?”

  “Mr. Slabodnik?” Momma said.

  “No, Victor!” Mrs. Profit screeched.

  “Victor?” Momma touched the cracked patch of makeup next to her eye. “Why no, Mrs. Profit. I got this on the car door while I was getting the groceries.”

  “Groceries?”

  “Why yeah. I slipped on one of Orbie’s roller skates.” Momma pointed a skinny black comb my way. “Isn’t that so Orbie?”

  What really happened was our secret. I liked having secrets with Momma. I liked having the go ahead to lie.

  Momma winked. “Go on. Tell Mrs. Profit.”

  “Yeah, Mrs. Profit. Momma banged her head on the car door.”

  Mrs. Profit’s splotchy hands were joined at the fingertips, pushing at one another. A spider doing push-ups on a mirror. “You got to get the hell away from him Ruby.”

  “Now Mrs. Profit. Don’t be talking that way.” Momma walked around to the back of her. With the comb she pulled up a wall of black hair and started trimming along the edge. “That’s Orbie’s Daddy now.”

  “He ain’t my real Daddy!” I said too loud.

  Momma looked at me over the top of Mrs. Profit’s head. She puckered her lips like a fish and shook her head for me to shut up. “Victor’s been real good. Why, he even went to prayer service the other night.”

  Mrs. Profit knitted her eyebrows together. “That’s right Orbie. He ain’t your real Daddy!”

  “Orbie, go on outside and play hon; ain’t no need of you being
in here with us old women.”

  “Aw, Momma. I got my truck and everything in here.” I knew there wasn’t any use arguing though, not with Momma mad like she was. I picked up my truck and the board and the brick and went outside. I went around the porch where Momma was fixing on Mrs. Profit’s hair, slammed the truck down in the yard and hit it with the board. Right away I got a bad feeling because of its being a present from Daddy.

  I looked around the yard. It had holes and patches of dirt. Toward the back of the fence sat a rusty swing-set with a broken seat. One of the legs had pulled loose from the cement. Water dripped from a spigot under the kitchen window onto a green hose that lay in a tangle next to Daddy’s old push-mower. A smell of rubber and burnt grass came up from there. I could hear Momma and Mrs. Profit through the open jalousies.

  Mrs. Profit’s voice screeched over the happy Sunday song. “I seen him over here! Hungry like a man!”

  Momma was mad. “Mrs. Profit, you don’t know nothin’!”

  Hide it under a bushel — NO!

  I’m gonna let it shine.

  “…not two weeks in the grave! Nice my ass!” It was Mrs. Profit again.

  “Why we didn’t start to go out, it was almost a year!”

  “Yeah. But even ‘fore that…”

  …gonna let my little light shine!

  “Yes you’d better!” Momma yelled.

  The music stopped.

  Mrs. Profit sounded sad. “I’m trying to help you Ruby.”

  “You ought to be ashamed!”

  “Ruby, honey, listen to me!”

  “Get out, I said! And don’t come back!”

  The patio door slammed.

  I heard Momma say, “You old snake.” Then she started to cry. I heard her in there, catching up her breath, real low and quiet like. I wanted to go in and comfort her, but then she would know I’d been listening.

  I picked up the dump truck. There was a little mashed in place over the driver’s window where I’d hit it with the board. I went over to the water spigot and turned it on. I put the truck under so the water would run over the mashed in part — make it all better.

  7

  Feelings

  Thursday, June 6th, 1959

  The sun hadn’t come up yet, and there were about a gazillion streetlamps. Momma’s Ford went like usual, like somebody’s old washer machine, rattling and clatter knocking down the big empty street. I could see its reflection, snaking in, and then out of the dark, glassy-eyed store windows. There were lighted billboards everywhere. Wanting you to buy Five-Cent White Castle Hamburgers. Velveeta Cheese. Wanting you to see the Detroit Tigers. Buy 21-inch Television Screens. Huge buildings went up in the shadows on every side — so tall they hurt my neck to see the tops, diamond stars twinkling up there in the black sheet God had spread over the world, not a bit of real daylight anywhere.

  Momma said, “This ain’t the way to Kentucky.”

  Victor looked straight ahead, both hands on the steering wheel. He was chewing the end of a dead cigar. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt, ‘Ford Motor Company’ wrote in red squiggly letters across the pocket. A muscled arm went out from his shirtsleeve to the steering wheel. “I’ve got a little business with Armstrong. Then we’ll be on our way.”

  “It ain’t even light out. I thought you was finished with all that.”

  Victor took the cigar out of his mouth. “This isn’t about the Hotel Momma. It’s about ‘you know who’.” He put the cigar back in.

  Momma sent fast eyes back to Missy and me. Missy was curled up in the back seat with her thumb in her mouth asleep. I was up on my knees next to the side window, pretending not to listen.

  “I thought all that was over with Victor,” Momma said.

  “So did I,” Victor said. “So — did — I.”

  ———————

  When Victor came out of Armstrong’s, the sky was just starting to get light. An upside-down-moon sliced the skin under Victor’s nose, an upside-down-moon with a dead cigar sticking out. He was carrying his green file box, the one he kept all his business papers in. He kept poems in there too. Momma had a magazine with one of his poems in it. He said poetry was a waste of time.

  “How come you wrote it then?” I’d asked one day.

  “I don’t know. Habit, I guess. Something I got into when I was in school.”

  “How come you got into it?”

  “Never mind how come. I got into it, that’s all.”

  He walked up to Momma’s window and handed in the box. “Put this on the floor, would you Ruby?” He came around to his side, got in and slammed the door. I could see he was mad.

  “What did Armstrong have to say?” Momma said.

  Victor didn’t answer. He just stared out the front window, chomping his cigar.

  Armstrong was Victor’s lawyer friend, a big fat man with a fat man belly and a fat man face. He had a black feathery mustache and wore dark blue suits with red ties and shoes that were so shiny-black I could see the kitchen table in the toes. He carried a black leather case shaped like a box with a big gold buckle and a gold lock with a little gold key. He would come in our house on Leroy Street, spy me on the floor under the kitchen table and grin a mouth full of big yellow teeth. They reminded me of old piano keys, the teeth did.

  He owned the hotel Victor might be the boss of in Florida. The Pink Flamingo Hotel. If things worked out good, Victor might get to be partners with Armstrong. That’s what Victor wanted. Him and Momma talked about it all the time. To be partners would cost a bunch of money. Victor had money in the bank. Momma had money from Daddy’s insurance. They could put that in with the money from the house. That’s how they talked. It was money, money, money, all the time — even when Disneyland was on.

  Every time Armstrong would come over, him and Victor would go off in the bedroom and talk business. They didn’t let anybody come in there either — not even Momma.

  “You know. The Unions are ruining this country,” Victor said, talking on one side of his mouth; the other was taken up with his cigar.

  Momma put her hand on Victor’s neck, resting it just above that shrapnel wound. “What’s wrong hon?”

  Victor shook his head and Momma’s hand flew away. “Now the goddamn Union Steward’s in on it!”

  “Watch your language hon,” Momma said. “In on what?”

  Victor started up the engine, took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at Momma. “You said not to talk about it. Not in front of the kids you said.”

  “Well, can’t you talk around it?”

  “I don’t want to talk around it!” Victor put the cigar back in his mouth and slammed his fist suddenly into the ceiling, rattling the rearview mirror. “I get enough of goddamn talking around it at work!”

  “I’m sorry hon,” Momma said. “Really I am.”

  “Sorry doesn’t get it Ruby.”

  ———————

  There was an office on the other side of the gas pumps with a desk and chairs and a pull-knob candy machine. Stacks of pop cases stood inside the door, stretching along the bottom half of a big plate glass window. The window was partly lit with the morning sun, revealing on its surface a layer of light blond dust. There were Venetian blinds hanging cockeyed in the window. A man stood in there in the dim office light, pulling at the cords of the blinds, trying this way and that to get them to straighten. On the other side of a narrow alleyway was a sign over a broken awning that said ‘Family Restaurant’, and down from there was a double door under another sign painted to look like blue frost that said, ‘Cold Beer’.

  Missy got up on the seat next to Momma. “Pee-pee Momma.”

  Victor brought out a black wallet from his butt pocket. “This is Flat Rock Momma. We’ve got to get gas.”

  Momma was busy reading her King James Bible. She was following the words along with her finger, mouthing them as she did.

  “Pee-pee,” Missy said.

  Victor’s eyes became slits. “Momma?” he whispered. �
�Oh, Momma?”

  The Bible lay open across Momma’s lap. She wore a tight black skirt and a white blouse with blue and red roses. The blouse had a V-neck you could see the soft part of her titties in.

  Victor caught my eye and nodded toward Momma. “Momma, oh Momma? Are you in there, Momma?” He wanted me to see something on Momma. I didn’t want to see anything on Momma — not with him.

  “Ruby D.,” he said. “Call for Ruby D.”

  “Momma,” I said. “Victor wants you.”

  Missy beat the back of Momma’s seat. “Pee-pee, Momma!”

  “Shit!” Momma marked her place with a piece of paper and closed the Bible. “I can’t get nowhere on this!” She looked at Victor. “Gas? We’d better get us a car first! You got to have a car before you can put gas in it!”

  Victor grinned. “It’s your car, Momma. You said it would take us anywhere we wanted to go.”

  “We don’t choke to death first,” Momma said.

  ———————

  Momma and Missy went off to the toilet to pee. I stayed in the car. Victor stood out front with his arms crossed — Clark Kent in a Ford Motor Company dress shirt — the boss of the whole world.

  The man who’d been trying to straighten the blinds came out wearing a gray ball cap with a red winged horse on the front. He wasn’t a very tall man, but he was built stocky and square with orange sideburns and hair and an orange sunshiny face. He stepped up to Victor, smiling, wiping his hands on a blue rag. Victor said something to the man; then he frowned and made a gesture toward the car.

  The Orange Man nodded and grinned and wiped his hands. Then he came over and raised the hood. It went straight up in front of the window, blocking my view. I crawled over the seat and opened the door on Momma’s side, got out and slammed it shut. Right away the Orange Man bumped into me. I went five fingers flat into a pool of oil. The oil was warm with purple and yellow wavy lines.

  “Uh oh, son!” The Orange Man said. “I didn’t see you there.” He had a warm friendly voice. He reached down a hand with freckles and hair, pulled me up and set me safely on my feet. His face had a million freckles. He wiped my hand with the blue rag. “You okay kiddo?”