Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie's Story

by Freddie Owens

Cut his dick off, Lawrence. Cut Whitey’s dick.

  I hawked up a gob and spat it at the colored boy. “Get away from me, nigger!” Squeezing through the fence I ran across the chicken yard; Granny shouted after me. I ran to the chicken house and stepped over the plank threshold, waiting there a few seconds until my eyes caught up with the dark. There were chickens, sleeping in lines on railings going diagonally up and down. Some were hunkered in little boxes along the wall.

  I squatted in a corner away from the door. Some of the chickens looked at me. Elvis and Johnny looked at me. Granny could go straight to hell. I thought about Momma and Missy and Victor. I thought about Florida and Superman and Jesus. I wished somebody like that would come, somebody strong, take me away from this chicken shit farm. I wished Daddy would come.

  A stick poked itself inside the door, then a bumpy bare foot. “Orbie? You in da-da-dare?” It was the colored boy, his voice all high-pitched and sissy-sweet.

  I tried to make myself small. “Go away!”

  “Miss Mattie. She se-se-send me for da eggs.” Willis walked in to where there were chickens sitting in boxes right above my head. He balanced on his good foot and waved the stick in front of him, trying to feel his way through the shadows.

  “Watch out with that stick!” I said.

  “I gots to get da eggs.”

  “Get them then. I ain’t stopping you.”

  The colored boy looked down where I now sat hunched in the corner. “Day ya’ll is! You want to see ha-how I does it?”

  “No.”

  “Ha-How I gets da eggs?”

  “No, I said! You can’t hear so good, can you?”

  He didn’t answer. Then, before I could say anything else, he began to sing.

  Just a closer walk with thee

  Granted Jesus is my plea.

  It was the same song they sung at Daddy’s funeral. A sweet sad song that made me think of Daddy going up to heaven with the angels. The colored boy sang so sweetly I could feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. He felt his way to the boxes over my head, still singing, not stuttering now at all.

  I got up from the corner.

  The chickens weren’t nervous or anything. They just sat there in their boxes while the colored boy reached in under and got their eggs.

  Daily walking close to thee

  Let it be, dear Lord. Let it be.

  When he finished the song, he looked at me. “Hold deze.” He gave me the eggs and turned with his walking stick toward the door. I went with him; still under the spell of his singing. The eggs felt warm and good on my arms. I walked all the way back to the house that way; still making sure to keep a little distance between him and me.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked.

  “What you mean?”

  “With them chickens. Making them be quiet like that. When Granny gets eggs they run all over.”

  “Mo teach me,” the boy said.

  “Mo?”

  “Mo.”

  ———————

  “Didn’t I tell you they was kids down here?” Granny had a big grin on her face, standing in the doorway with the screen pushed open.

  The colored boy and me came up the steps, and I gave Granny the eggs.

  “That’s Willis, Orbie. That’s his name.”

  Willis grinned with all his teeth.

  “You better get on home,” Granny said to Willis. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  “Yessum,” Willis said.

  Granny and me followed him around to the front of the house where his mule was tied. The mule’s name was Chester. He was old with a curvy back and no saddle, a piece of metal in his mouth with a rope on each side. Granny got one of her chairs and put it next to the mule. Willis climbed up, grabbed the hair on the mule’s neck and pulled himself to where he could hike his potato foot over. Granny handed him his walking stick. He sat up there and grinned.

  Granny and me watched him ride off.

  Later on I said, “He sung a song Granny. He made all them chickens just be quiet.”

  Granny looked at me and smiled. She was busy fixing up ham and biscuits for supper. “He might come over again sometime.” I watched her mix white flour and ham grease in a pan. “You don’t have to play with him though. Not if you don’t want to.”

  ———————

  Next day I was out on the front porch, drawing airplanes dive bombing a battleship. I made the sky full of smoke and some of the airplanes on fire. There was a submarine too. I was just about to explode the ship with a torpedo when I heard something sounded like water pouring out by the well. What it was, was Chester, Willis’s mule, peeing a big yellow stream there. Willis sat on top of him, smiling, a red scarf tied over his head.

  “Go away!” I shouted.

  He didn’t move or anything, just sat up there on that mule, smiling.

  “I don’t have to play with you!” I said.

  He watched me a minute more, then turned the mule around and rode off.

  The next day it happened again. I was out there drawing, and there he was by the well again, sitting on Chester. I hadn’t heard him come up or anything. It kind of spooked me, but then I remembered myself and pretended he wasn’t there. Without looking at him, I got up and went in the house. I sat in there in the front room on Granny’s couch, pretending to be busy with my drawing. When I went back outside, he was gone.

  13

  The Postcard

  “You ain’t young no more,” Granny said.

  “That’s a fine thing to say and us with Nealy to pay.” Granpaw sat in one of the cane chairs on the front porch, his forearms resting on his thighs.

  I was looking at a Superman comic book, at a picture of Superman who was lying down, dying from being next to Kryptonite. Kryptonite was green rocks from the planet Krypton — the only thing that could kill Superman.

  “If you was to drop dead he sure wouldn’t get paid,” Granny said. “Then where would I be?”

  “Ain’t nobody dropped dead yet,” Granpaw said.

  “You already had one stroke,” Granny said. “You was to ask me, you about to have another.”

  Granpaw spat. “See now, that there’s the thing of it Mattie. Nobody asked you.”

  Granny sat on the other side of the door away from Granpaw. She’d stretched a pillowcase over a silver hoop and was pushing a needle trailing pink thread up from the bottom. “It would be good if you was to rest a little.”

  Right then a man with stick legs rode up in the yard on a skinny black bicycle. The front wheel bumped over a rock. The man had to jerk the handlebars this way and that to keep from falling.

  “Morning Cecil!” Granny said.

  “Mrs. Wood.” Cecil got off the bicycle, put down the kickstand and went around the front to a scuffed leather bag that made a belly over the handlebars. He wore a black ball cap, the bill turned backward so that the back of his neck was under shade. He fished around inside the leather bag and brought out a handful of letters.

  “I plumb forgot you was coming,” Granny said.

  Cecil made a face and walked over to the porch, nodded to Granpaw. His voice came out deep as a bullfrog’s. “Mr. Wood.”

  “Cecil,” Granpaw said.

  “It’s Friday Mrs. Wood. I always come on Friday.” Cecil handed the letters to Granny.

  “You skinny as a rail Cecil,” Granny said. “Stay to lunch, and I’ll fatten you up.”

  Cecil grinned a mouthful of crooked teeth. One had broken off slantwise. “I best be getting on. Thank you.” He stepped back away from the porch and looked up at the sky. His bullfrog voice could well have belonged to a man twice his size.

  “You reckon there’s rain in them clouds Mr. Wood?”

  “No. I don’t reckon there is,” Granpaw said.

  Cecil took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. His adam’s apple had a way of going up the length of his throat, making a u-turn up there and dropping back down. “Shore is hot.”

  “Shore is
,” Granpaw said.

  Granny looked up from the letters. “Orbie, go get Cecil a cold drink of water.”

  “No, now Mrs. Wood,” Cecil said, “I got to get on with the mail. Much obliged though.”

  “Well,” Granny said. “You welcome.”

  Cecil wiped his face. He kicked the kickstand away and pushed off. “Ya’ll take care now.” The front wheel jerked side to side till he got it straight. Then he rode off.

  Granpaw looked in the sky at the clouds; heaps of them piled everywhere. “No. I don’t reckon there’s any rain in them clouds.” He stood, took off his hat and slapped the brim against his pant leg. “Reckon I will lay down a spell, Mattie.”

  Granny was looking through her letters. “Go on then. Rest.”

  “What ya’ll reading there son?” Granpaw asked me.

  “Superman,” I said.

  “Superman? What’s that?”

  “A man, Granpaw. He’s made out of steel. Nothing can kill him except Kryptonite.”

  “Crib Night?”

  “Kryptonite Granpaw. It makes Superman weak.”

  “I never heard of such a thing.” Granpaw’s face looked tired. “Must be some of that Crib Night around here the way I feel. You reckon there is?”

  “I don’t know Granpaw.”

  Granpaw laughed. The laugh turned into a cough. Granpaw pulled the screen door open and went inside. I went back reading my comic book. Superman was almost dead. Big drops of sweat were popping out all over his forehead.

  Granny knocked the letters and all her sewing off on the floor. “Looky here, Orbie! It’s a postcard from Ruby!”

  ———————

  I beat the rain barrel with a stick. Then I beat a place under the window. Pieces of paint flew off. I was mad. Mad at Momma. Mad at the postcard she sent. I went around the back of the house. Moses had scraped most of the old paint off there. I sat down on a rock and poked the ground with the pointy end of the stick. On the front of Momma’s card had been a picture of a pink flamingo-bird. It was dated June 18th. That was Tuesday, almost a week ago. Now it was Monday.

  The flamingo-bird stood single-legged on a long white beach. In back was the ocean. You could see people swimming in the ocean and boats. Granny said it was pretty. She thought Momma’s handwriting was pretty. They were all doing just fine in Florida, the card said. Momma and Missy and Victor all had gone on a speedboat ride. Missy got sunburned. Momma did too. They still had a lot to take care of down there. Victor did. It might take another week. Maybe two. They would be back though. Maybe not as soon as I’d like, but soon. They all loved me and wished I was there. I should give their love to Granny and Granpaw, the card said. I should mind Granny and Granpaw and go to bed when they told me to.

  A hand suddenly lay heavy on my shoulder. I jumped away from the weight of it, dropping my stick. Moses stood across from me, his long blue-black hair coming down out of his cowboy hat. Willis stood next to him.

  “Thing seem bad. Den GOOD COME!” Moses said, his voice going up from down like a seesaw.

  Willis picked up my stick and handed it back to me, smiling his mouth full of teeth.

  “Tree mash my roof,” Moses said. “Dat bad thing. Uh huh. BAD THING, sho ‘nuff. but you know WHAT?”

  I remembered the tree. The roof. The chimney that’d been knocked sideways.

  “Wouldn’t have learned ‘bout no trees and rooftops hadn’t it been to happen is WHAT!” Moses hooked his thumbs over his belt and frowned. “I about to learn to set a roof right too! Soon as old Foley finish Grinestaff’s.” Foley was a carpenterman that lived in Circle Stump. “You knows what to look for, you ALWAYS find da good.” He winked at Willis. “Ain’t dat right boy?”

  Willis smiled at Moses but shook his head ‘no’.

  “WHAT? You supposed to back me up on dat, RASCAL!” Moses quick reached down, grabbed Willis up in his arms and twirled him over his head. I was surprised at how fast he moved. Willis kicked out his potato foot and laughed. Moses laughed too — a big friendly laugh — his black face shining. I thought of Daddy, when he used to play like that with me.

  Moses set Willis down and looked at me, egg white eyes, black diamonds in the middle. “I know ‘bout yo Daddy, don’t think I don’t. I know he DEAD. Dat a bad thing too, SHO is, but jus you WAIT. Dey be somepin good come bye and bye!” He put his hand on Willis’s head. “Dis boy mammy die. He got dat bad foot too. Dat sad, SHO ‘nuff. But LOOK HERE now! Dis boy. He sang like da angels. Uh huh. Nobody sang like he DO, not even up Kingdom way. Dey plenty folk SANG good up Kingdom way too!” Moses patted Willis on the head. “Nobody DRAW like he do NEITHER. Gone send DIS boy Louisville. Gone be a AH-tist! Gone BE! somebody.”

  Willis smiled.

  “See now! You gots to WATCH out fo da good!” Moses said.

  I looked at Willis’s foot. I thought about how good his singing was the other day in the chicken house, how strange and peaceful it had made me feel. Maybe good things did come from the bad.

  I couldn’t see anything good coming out of Daddy’s death though. And what about Old Man Harlan and Reverend Pennycall? They hated Moses. Where was the good in that? There was a ladder lying on the ground. Moses picked it up and set it against the house. He climbed up and started scraping off what remained of the old paint.

  Willis smiled a wide, wide smile.

  I whipped the stick through the air in front of him and went the other way.

  ———————

  Next morning, I was out on the porch drawing, and there was Willis again. This time he was sitting with his back against the Jesus Tree. He had a pad of paper and was drawing too. How long he’d been sitting there I didn’t know.

  I tried to go back with what I was doing, drawing a sailing ship on a rough ocean with big waves and whales, but I couldn’t think of where I had left off.

  Willis pulled himself up on his walking stick, and came over to where I was. “Dis fo-fo-fo you,” he said in a quiet little voice. He slid his pad of paper down next to me on the porch.

  What was there was a picture of me, sitting on Granny and Granpaw’s porch with a drawing pad in my hands. It was drawn only with a pencil, but it looked real. The boy in Willis’s picture looked just like me. The house looked just like the house. The porch did too.

  “You want to look at my comic books?” I pushed the pile over to him. “You can look at my comic books if you want.”

  He bent his head sideways and smiled.

  “There’s Superman and Flash Gordon,” I said.

  “Who-who dey?”

  “Don’t you know Superman? He’s on TV. You know. Faster than a speeding bullet?”

  “Marshall barber shop got TV,” Willis said. “In town. Can’t go dare doh.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  “White folk.”

  “White folks won’t let you?”

  “Uh huh,” Willis said. He picked up one of my comic books.

  Superman was on the front.

  “That’s him,” I said. “Superman.” I looked at the drawing Willis made. “This is good Willis. You draw good.”

  Willis sat down on the edge of the porch. He smiled. Then he looked at the comic book. Sideways.

  14

  Friends

  Willis and me got to be friends. All the rest of that week and on into the next, we played. We had a corncob fight in the barn. It wasn’t fair though, because of Willis’s potato foot. He couldn’t throw fast. I hit him in the eye. Granny made us quit. Then we played like there was a murderer in the barn. I told Willis I thought the barn looked like a skull.

  “There could be a murderer in there,” I said. “For real!”

  “Uh huh,” Willis said. “Dey could be.”

  We went like detectives then and tried to find him out. We played good that way.

  ———————

  Granny’s calendar said June 29. It was Saturday. We had just finished breakfast and were out on the back porch. Elvis and Johnny came up to
the back porch steps and made their heads go cockeyed, trying to look where I was. “I’ve been feeding them,” I said. “They might be in a beauty contest. That’s Elvis. And that’s Johnny. See how Elvis has long hair? Johnny’s hair is short.”

  Willis looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Sometimes they follow me,” I said. “You want to see something?” I went into the kitchen and got me a piece of loaf-bread. When I came back out, Granny was standing at the bottom of the steps with a basket of clothes under her arm.

  Elvis and Johnny had jumped up on the porch.

  “Them chickens better not shit on my canning jars,” Granny said.

  “They won’t,” I said. “Watch. Watch how they do!” I tore off two pieces of loaf-bread and put them on the railing. Elvis and Johnny, right away, jumped up there and pecked up the bread. They bent their heads cockeyed, waiting, trying to see if I had any more bread and what I was going to do with it.

  “I never seen the like,” Granny said.

  I tore off two more pieces of the bread and put the rest in my shirt pocket. I held the pieces up in the air, one in each hand. “Flap your wings!”

  Elvis and Johnny flapped their wings. They did it, both of them, at the same time. I fed them the bread.

  “Lord God,” Granny said.

  “They do it by themselves, Granny. I just hold out the bread.”

  Willis nodded his head like he seen it all before. Like he knew all about it.

  The railing ran along the length of the porch even with my shoulders. “Watch this.” I went up to where the chickens stood and turned around. I broke off two more pieces of bread and held them up, one over each shoulder. The chickens hopped onto my shoulders then and I fed them the bread. I made myself stiff so they wouldn’t fall. “All you have to do is feed them.”

  Willis smiled with all his teeth.

  I turned around then to face the railing. “Fly!” The chickens jumped out over the railing into the yard, flapping their wings.

  “The Lord as my witness.” Granny laughed. “They’ll shore win that beauty contest now!”