Nobody believed him.
———————
After about a week of playing together, we were all going down the road when Fable pushed into me and I yelled, “Nigger get away from me!”
Fable just laughed. The other boys laughed too, Willis and Vern and Dewey and Daryl, even Daryl’s little sister Jewel Ann. They all laughed at me.
It made me get ashamed.
Then Fable yelled, “Les beat whitey’s ass!” and they all jumped in on me. I ducked and waited for their hands to hit. Black hands — gorilla hands — pink monkey-nails digging in.
Instead, they started in tickling me.
I laughed so hard I almost peed myself. Then they started in tickling each other and it turned into that. I tickled Jewel Ann and she tickled me. I liked Jewel Ann. I liked her braids. I liked the way her eyes looked at me too, shiny black eyes — white cream all around.
Then Fable pointed to the railroad tracks. “Las’ one get up dare a piece of po white trash!”
We all ran over there then, laughing and screaming except for Willis who couldn’t run.
“Po white trash! Po white trash!” we all screamed at him.
Willis’s eyes slid off the side of his head, grinning.
———————
Whenever I heard a car I’d look up the hill to see if it was the black Ford. Two weeks had passed since the Fourth of July, and still there was no sign of Momma or Victor.
Seemed like every time you turned around it was time for church. There were regular church services on Sunday morning with Sunday school, singings in the afternoon sometimes with dinner on the ground, Bible study, Sunday night service and Wednesday prayer meetings. That wasn’t enough you could go to Saturday night meetings too.
The preachers hollered and jumped and slapped their Bibles and blew spit ever which a way, carried on about hell and the Devil and how God was going to throw people in a lake of fire. Then all of a sudden they’d go all quiet, start in soft talking the sinners, trying to get them to come down and shake hands with Jesus.
Only Jesus I seen was in a picture they had back of the preacher’s stand of Him hanging on the cross like usual, all hang jawed and helpless. Didn’t look to me like he could shake anybody’s hand. I had the thought maybe they kept the real Jesus out back somewhere. Maybe it was only the saved people that got to go back there to shake his hand. You wouldn’t catch me shaking hands with no dead person.
———————
Moses hadn’t been back to church since the time of the snakes. He’d about finished painting Granny and Granpaw’s house, though I never saw him do any of it. “Moses has a way of slipping around you won’t know he’s there most of the time,” Granny said. “Unless you looking right at him, of course.”
Church was different without Moses. During the time of the snakes, it seemed like the air and all the people were shocked through with some kind of special electricity. People still got excited, even without Moses, but it was just the usual kind of excitement — not the kind that left you wondering at the nighttime sky, not the kind that left you happy and thankful to be alive. Willis and me would sit in the back and throw spit balls at Vern and Fable. We would laugh and cut up till Granny or one of the colored ladies had to come back and make us be quiet. When church was over, we would ride off on Chester.
One time we came across those white boys, the ones broke out the church house window. They were all walking down the road on the other side of a barbed wire fence. It was after church on a Sunday and Willis and me were in a field, going the same direction, only faster because of being on Chester.
The boys were dressed up in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. Nice shirts. Clean blue jeans. That littlest boy was there, the one who’d gone all spastic, pretending the rope was a snake. He cocked his head back, grinning at us with a Bible under one arm and a piece of straw, sticking out of his mouth. The fat boy was with them too; wearing the gray ball cap, the one that looked like mine, with the red winged horse sown on the front. He stood apart from the others.
A rock hit the ground in front of us. Willis pulled Chester’s rope, and we started off in another direction. Another rock sizzled over Chester’s head. Chester stopped and danced backward. Willis had to pull the rope to keep him from running off.
I looked back to see the boys, standing there, staring like nothing at all had happened. The little boy with the Bible continued to grin.
“Nigger lover!” somebody shouted.
I wanted to yell back, but Willis kicked Chester into a run and we went bouncing up and down over the field away from the fence.
———————
“Chick, chick, chick, chick.” Granny threw handfuls of feed from a big white pan. “Uh huh, and how would you know they’s the one’s broke out the church house window? Here, get you some of this.” She reached the pan down to me.
I grabbed out a handful. “Me and Willis was over there and seen it.” I didn’t tell her we went inside.
“Ya’ll stay away from there when they ain’t no church on.”
“Okay.” I threw feed out over the ground and watched the chickens go after it.
“Sounds like them Circle Stump Boys to me,” she said.
“They’re like you Orbie. They think they better than colored folks.”
“I don’t think that Granny.”
“You did when you first come down here. It was nigger this and nigger that.” She reached the pan down to me again.
“I changed my mind though.”
“You just think you have. Chick, chick, chick!” Pieces of crushed corn sprayed out over the chicken’s backs. “Them white boys is like them friends of yours up in Detroit. You don’t see nothing wrong with the way they do.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t see because you a white boy. You think you’re better.”
“You’re white!” I almost shouted.
“I been around long enough to see a few things too!”
“I don’t think I’m better Granny. I like Willis. I like them Kingdom Boys. I like niggers, Granny — I mean, coloreds.”
Granny gave me a hard look. “You think because you handled a snake and made a few friends you different than you was before?”
“I am Granny. You don’t know.”
Granny gave me another look.
Elvis and Johnny were out there with all the other chickens — Elvis in the middle and Johnny by the fence. Two white chickens in with all the coloreds.
“Them folks over to Circle Stump is good people I reckon. Good Baptists. Like you are. Like your Momma.” Granny turned the pan over, dumped out the rest of the feed. The chickens went wild. She handed the pan down to me.
“I’m not no Baptist Granny. I don’t even like Jesus.”
“You better not say that.”
“I don’t care. He ain’t never around to hear me anyway.”
Granny started off toward the house. “Bring that pan and come on.” She opened the gate for me. “You’ll make Jesus sad talking that way.”
I hit the pan against the gate-post. “Jesus punishes people, don’t he Granny?”
“People punish people,” Granny said. “People punish they own selves.”
“God punishes people,” I said.
“God?”
“Uh huh. He made me come down here. Momma said it was God’s will.”
Granny was halfway up the back porch steps. “You think being down here’s a punishment?”
“No. Sometimes I do. Maybe. I don’t know.” I went up the stairs behind Granny. The pan banged loudly against the steps.
“Set that down a minute and come inside,” Granny said.
We both went in and sat down at the table. I could see the calendar on the wall next to the door. July 17th. Wednesday.
Granny put one veined hand on top the other and looked at me. “Circle Stump folks used to come by all the time. Younguns too, when your Momma was a girl. They don’t no m
ore though, not since me and Strode started over to Kingdom. Do you know why?”
“Uh huh. Circle Stump people don’t like coloreds. They don’t like nobody who likes coloreds. They don’t like you and Granpaw. Momma told me. But Granny, they don’t like me either. I’m not one of them.”
Granny raised her eyebrows. “You know, you just about the smartest little boy I ever laid eyes on. Folks is funny down here, Orbie. They say they love the Lord, but then again they won’t abide His people. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Uh huh,” I said. “Like Momma. She says she loves Jesus too, but she won’t let Missy marry no coloreds.”
“Lord!” Granny laughed. “How did you get to be so smart?”
“She says coloreds are nasty, Granny. She says they have blubbery lips.”
Granny slapped the table. “See, now that there’s what I’m a talking about! You been with Willis! You been over there to Kingdom Town with Fable and Vern and them other boys! And to that church too!”
“I know it.”
“All right then! Would you say they was all nasty and blubbery-lipped over there?”
“What are you hollering at me for Granny? I didn’t say they were!” I almost cried.
Granny laughed and patted me on the hand. “I’m not yelling at you hon. All this old stuff gets Granny’s blood up is all.”
She got up and went over to the cabinet behind me, took out some dishes and brought them around to the table.
I watched her set them out. “Victor says Momma says one thing and does another. They fight about it.”
Granny set one of the plates down in front of me.
“Victor give Momma a black eye,” I said.
Granny made a little whistling sound.
“He hits me and Missy,” I said. “But it’s right what he said about Momma isn’t it?”
Granny stopped what she was doing and sat down again. “Well maybe it is, a little bit. They’s a lot more to your Momma than that though. For one thing, she’s good hearted as they come. Too good, if you was to ask me.”
“Momma’s ignorant isn’t she Granny?”
Granny laughed. “She might be, a little. But you are too. We all are a little bit ain’t we?”
“She’s going to die, isn’t she?”
“Someday. We all going to die someday. How come you worried about that?”
“I don’t know. I just am.”
17
Even in Dreams
They were trying to get me to play the ‘pass out’ game, but I was afraid. “That train might come again. You don’t know.”
Fable made his eyes go wide. “Do too. Ain’t no two dream alike.”
“Some people dream the same,” I said.
“Yo turn boy,” Vern said.
“He don’t ha-has to,” Willis piped in.
Vern all of a sudden made his elbows go like wings and pretended to fly. “Caw! Caw! Caw!” We all laughed while he flew around to the back of me and stopped. “I hold you. Go head.”
“Chicken shit,” Fable said.
“He don’t ha-has to,” Willis said.
“It’s okay Willis,” I said. “I’ll kill you Vern, you drop me.”
Vern wrapped his arms around me. I put my thumb in my mouth and started to blow. Granny’s table with all her canning jars floated up in the air. Then it went all snowy like a snowy picture on a TV screen. I went down, or down went up, I couldn’t tell which, but then it didn’t matter because the world had turned black.
———————
I’m looking up into gazillions of stars. I feel the ground under me but when I look there’s nothing but more stars — gazillions of them I see on the other side of the invisible ground in front of me — and there’s a round moon too, bright glowing but not enough to block out the stars. Then I see it’s not a moon at all but a bright white tunnel that goes down in the invisible ground, with a silver ladder up one side. Way, way down inside the tunnel there’s a speck or a dot of something that gets bigger and bigger until I see it’s a man in a yellow helmet and coveralls climbing up the silver ladder. He climbs up and out and stands in front of me and he looks at me and his face is a crow’s face with a black beak and sharp black eyes and one of his hands is not really a hand at all but a bird’s claw — Daddy’s bird claw hand — and I think the man must be Daddy or a half-crow-half-man-Daddy and I want to go up to him and I want to run away too but I’m so scared I don’t do either.
Then lights come on and I see I’m standing on a cement floor. I see ladders and wires. I see pipes. Drums and big oily machines. More yellow helmets, moving in the lights above. Factory lights. Men climbing ladders, walking stairways, some laughing, talking, some sitting on catwalks with their legs hanging over the edges, eating floppy white sandwiches and drinking coffee.
Thunder noises start to pound up in the floor, making the air hot all around me. A furnace flashes full of fire. Daddy or that Crow Man or whatever he is throws a cardboard box in front of the furnace’s open mouth. The box stays a second then explodes into flames.
“Remember this place son?” It’s Daddy’s voice. The man standing in front of me is Daddy, his face back like it used to be, the crow’s face gone. A happy feeling swells up inside me. Daddy smiles. I run over to where he is and hug hold of him. Daddy laughs and hugs me back. I feel his claw hand go through the short hairs on my head. “Whatever you put your mind to, you can do,” he says.
We start to float up in the air together. We float up to a ledge where a fan in a casing big as a garage door sits with three motionless dusty blades. We land on a metal catwalk next to the fan. Daddy grabs one of the fan blades. “You got to pay attention, son. Even in dreams.” He gives the blades a spin. First they go slow, then faster, then faster than faster, blowing so powerfully Daddy and me sail off past ladders and machines and steel mill workers into a huge warehouse space of echoes and lights and black metal walls — a gigantic railroad station — where ingots are standing in long motionless lines on rail cars on tracks stretching far away. Daddy used to work on ingots. Tall triangular shapes with their tops lopped off. We sail down to one. Daddy takes up a push broom and begins sweeping the glassy slag off the top.
Above us a black ceiling of catwalks and factory lights shines down. Like before I see men in yellow helmets, walking, climbing up and down. I see a huge steel beam, moving along on tracks under the ceiling toward Daddy and me. Two arms hang from the beam; they are holding up a gigantic rust colored iron pot, black smoke boiling out the top. It floats along toward us — like the bow of a ship — so hugely quiet you wouldn’t know it was there unless you looked right at it.
I’m tugging at Daddy’s arm and shouting, “Look Daddy! Look!”
“Time you was going, son,” Daddy says.
I feel my feet lift off the ingot. “Please, Daddy! Pay attention, you said! Look!”
“Take care of your Momma son,” Daddy says. “She don’t see things all the way through.” He laughs and waves his bird claw hand. “I expect you know that already.”
I float away from him and down onto the cement floor. The beam with the giant arms and the pot rolls over Daddy’s head and stops. At one end of the beam is a cage with a white tiger inside. The tiger is pacing from one end of the cage to the other. It lets out a roar. The men in the yellow helmets turn into monkeys. The ladders, catwalks and machinery turn into jungle trees with long branches and vines. The white tiger roars again. The monkeys scream and run upward along the branches of the trees. A door opens at the bottom of the iron pot and a yellow liquid fire comes pouring. Daddy tries to jump out of the way. The fire knocks his helmet off, burns over his shoulder. He tries to struggle, to knock it away but the fire takes him down, crushing him against the top of the ingot. I’m screaming as loud as I can but no sound comes out of my mouth. I look again at the cage. I see a giant unlit cigar, slowly turning, pointing like a weather vane ornament — floating, floating, turning behind the bars.
——�
�————
I’m crying. I look up into a craggy black face, shiny like coal. Two black eyes stare back at me, diamond eyes that see right through me; that will not let me go. I can’t stop crying.
Moses rubs my forehead with the flat part of his thumb. It’s all sandpapery and stiff. “Rest you, little one. Rest you.”
I can see Fable and Vern, sitting up on the back porch rail, sniggering and poking at each other, trying to make each other fall off. Willis stands next to Moses, a worried look on his face.
“It was Victor done it!” I cry. “Victor!”
Moses moves his thumb over my forehead. His words go like a seesaw, high and then low. “Shhhhhh. Rest you little ONE. Rest you.”
I roll over on my belly. It is like the whole world is in a bad trouble and I can’t stop crying. I cry for Daddy and I cry for Momma and I cry for Missy. I even cry for Victor.
“Good,” says Moses. “Good.”
I can feel his hand, rubbing between my shoulder blades. When I stop crying, it is quiet. Moses’ hand is gone. I turn over and open my eyes.
Willis, Fable and Vern are standing over me.
“I cried a long time,” I said.
“Shit,” Fable said. “You wasn’t gone but two seconds. You didn’t cry.”
I sat up and looked around. I looked at Fable. “But you and Vern were sitting right up there on that rail. You saw me! And Moses was here.”
Fable looked at Vern. Vern looked at Fable. Then they both looked at me.
“Mo not here,” Willis said.
“He was. He put his hand on my back.”
Vern and Fable and Willis all looked at each other again.
“You wasn’t gone two seconds,” Fable said. “Time it take a fly to jump.”
Part Six
18
Butcher Knife
I was looking for crawfish, turning rocks over with Granny’s big butcher knife. It’d been over a month since Momma’s first postcard. Thunder shook the ground.
Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie's Story Page 15