Granny jumped down off the porch and stepped in between us. “Put that knife away Victor! This is still my house!”
“It is for the moment, old woman,” Victor said. “Get out of the way!”
“Over my dead body!” Granny stood up to him. She was big but not nearly as big as he was.
“Victor!” Momma yelled. “Put that knife away!” She was standing up with Missy now.
I could feel my heart beating almost up in my neck. The light from the porch, from the other kerosene lamp and from the light bulb in the front room cast a strange glow over the yard. Victor frowned, tried to smile, and then frowned again. He held the knife pointed toward Granny, its blade dimly catching up the light.
Granny stayed put.
“Are you crazy!” Momma yelled from the porch. “Put it away! Put it away before somebody gets hurt!”
Granny made a fist.
Missy hugged herself tighter around Momma’s neck.
“Whoremongers!” Granpaw yelled from his wheelchair. “Pharisees!”
“This isn’t over, old woman,” Victor finally said. “Not by any stretch of the imagination. Least of all that boy’s.” Then, knife still in hand, he stormed off around the house toward the trailer.
The whole yard smelled of kerosene. Kerosene and burned blanket. Lightning bugs blinked in the crown of the Jesus Tree. Crickets chirped by the well. Momma sat back in the rocking chair with Missy, her face half in shadow. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Mamaw. He gets that way when he’s upset.”
“When he’s drunk you mean,” Granny said. “What was he going on about anyway?”
I picked up the drawing pad and handed it to Granny.
“This is what.” Granny looked at the picture, then walked it over to Momma. I told them all about the dream I had. “He killed Daddy, Momma! He poured fire on him!”
“Reckon there’s anything to this?” Granny asked.
“No,” Momma said. “Anybody would be upset. I mean if they was accused of something like that. You ought to be ashamed Orbie.”
“Maybe they would be upset,” Granny said.
“Not if they didn’t do it,” I said.
“It ain’t right to go around accusing people,” Momma said. “Just because you had a dream. Just because you don’t get along with Victor.”
“You sure you all right Ruby?” Granny said. “You sound a thousand miles away.”
“I’m all right. I got to get ready for bed Mamaw. We all have to.” Without saying another word, Momma got up with Missy and went inside the house.
“I never seen the like,” Granny said. She looked at Willis and me. “Clean all this up now, you boys. Fable. You and Vern too. It’s time for bed.”
———————
Willis lay in bed next to me, sleeping. Moonlight flooded in through the window, making with the crosshairs of the frame a black cross that stretched over the floor. I still had my Rain Skull, but I was absent the knife. How was I going to help Momma now? Keep her body from being snatched away? It worried me that she didn’t believe me. And I wondered if Granny did.
I had lain in bed a long time, thinking about everything, when suddenly I heard the screen door in the kitchen yawn open. I got down from the featherbed and tiptoed over to the window. There in the distance was the barn, a black shape against a black hill. And there was the trailer, a light still on inside. Somebody was walking out there in the moonlight, a ghost in a bathrobe walking toward the trailer. Momma.
Part Eight
26
Complaints
“What I got here Ma’am, is paypahs from the court. It ordahs you to desist using hired help to work yo land. Until futhah notice, that is.” Reverend Pennycall held the papers up for Granny to see. The way he talked sounded like somebody reading out a book. “Complaint is issued on behalf a one Nealy Hawlan of Hawlan’s Crossroads.”
Granny had been hanging out towels and washrags on the back porch line. Now she stood, glaring at Reverend Pennycall. “Complaint? What you talking about, complaint?”
“Says here ya’ll usin’ hired help, Mrs. Wood.”
“T’ain’t nobody’s business if I am,” Granny said.
Willis and me were sitting on stools, breaking up string beans for supper. The sun was so hot, not even bugs wanted to fly. Elvis and Johnny were out in the chicken yard, the only chickens out there, bobbing their heads up and down at the water trough.
Reverend Pennycall pulled out a white hankie and wiped his forehead. “It is somebawdy’s business Ma’am, if ya’ll agreed not to.”
“I never agreed to such a thing Reverend.”
“Well, begging yo pawdon Ma’am, but you have. See here, cawdin’ to Mista Hawlan, ya’ll agreed not to bring in no help less it was okayed by him. When ya’ll rented the place.”
“Okayed? By Nealy Harlan?”
“Yes Ma’am.” He held out the papers for her to see. “It’s right here on this paper ya’ll signed.”
Granny came down the steps half way and squinted at the papers. “Where’s it say that? Show me.”
“Right there Ma’am.” Reverend Pennycall pointed and gave the papers over to Granny.
Granny glared at the papers. “He’s going to hold us to this?”
“Well, yes Ma’am, I reckon he is.” Reverend Pennycall ran his thumb behind the police badge on the strap of his suspenders. It wobbled sunlight back to us.
Granny looked off across the road to Old Man Harlan’s. Without looking back at the Reverend she said, “I got me a sick man laid up in the house. Did you know that?”
“Well, yes I do Ma’am.” The Reverend took off his hat, wiped the inside band with his hankie.
Granny looked away off over the fields. “When it rains it pours don’t it?”
“That’s what they say Ma’am.” Reverend Pennycall looked at Willis and put his hat back on. Then he looked at Granny. “That’s a court ordah Ma’am.”
“I can’t have them boys working for me because they’re colored?”
“Cawdin’ to Mista Hawlan, ain’t got nothing to do with colored.”
“Hell it don’t,” Granny said. “Excuse my French, Reverend Pennycall, but I don’t need this sorry-assed business.”
“No Ma’am, I don’t reckon you do. Ya’ll have to talk to the judge anyhow. See, right there.” He pointed a stubby finger to a place on one of the papers. “Day aftah tomorrah. Up Circle Stump way.”
“If this don’t beat all.” Granny stood looking over the papers.
“I don’t reckon ya’ll would have a cold drink a watah? I’m a might thirsty Ma’am,” Reverend Pennycall said.
“Orbie, go get the Reverend a drink of water,” Granny said.
I went inside and got a dipper full of water, brought it out and handed to Reverend Pennycall.
“Much obliged son.” Reverend Pennycall got the dipper in his hands and turned it up over his nose. Some of the water circled around his mouth to the fat part of his chin. From there it dribbled to the ground. When he was done, he handed the dipper back to me. “Nothin’ like cold spring watah on a hot day is they?” His fat cheeked eyes smiled on Willis. “You Moses Mashbone’s boy, ain’t you?”
Willis nodded that he was.
“Ya’ll seen him recently?”
“No. We ain’t,” Granny said. “None of us has.”
Reverend Pennycall looked at the house, up over the porch where Moses had painted. “I thought he was working over here.”
“He was,” Granny said. “What’s this about Reverend?”
The question caused him to pause. He seemed to take stock of things a minute. He looked at Willis and a sadness came in his eyes. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this son, but they hung one a yo kind t’othah day. Up to Mudlick. Bunch a that renegade Klan. Hung him from a sycamore. He had that long hair too. Like yo Moses.”
Something heavy sat down inside me when he said that. I remembered the vision I’d had in the cave, of Moses hanging upside down from
a tree, his long hair almost touching the ground, the blood around his wrists.
The smile fell off Willis’s face.
“They Lord!” Granny said in a loud voice. “I thought I heard just about every lie there was till now!”
Reverend Pennycall’s face soured over. “I ain’t in the habit of telling lies Ma’am.” He walked out to the police car and grabbed something off the front seat. He walked back. He held out a dusty old black hat with a snakeskin band. “You evah see this befowah?”
Willis stood up from the stool, got his walking stick and put it under his arm. “Dat Mo hat.”
“Mmmmm. I thought it might be,” Reverend Pennycall said.
“Where’d you get that at?” Granny said.
“Them renegades burned a cross up Kingdom Church last night and left this on a stake. I’m reckoning they sending a message. I’m reckoning this here hat belonged to that niggah they hung.”
“I’m reckoning you done forgot your manners Reverend!” Granny was almost shouting at Reverend Pennycall. “I’m reckoning you done wore your welcome plumb out!”
“I’m sorry Ma’am, if I have. I’m just tryin’ to do ma job.”
“Why don’t you do it then? Why don’t you put that renegade bunch in jail? You know who they are!”
“I can’t just go around arresting folks Ma’am. Ya’ll know that.”
“Humph!” Granny said and looked at Willis.
“I’m sorry Ma’am. I’m sorry son,” Reverend Pennycall said. “I reckon I best be on ma way.”
“I reckon you best,” Granny said.
Reverend Pennycall looked up again at Moses’ paint job. “I see he’s missed a patch up there.” He took a step backward as if to study the place over the attic window.
Nobody said anything.
“Well, ya’ll let me know if he shows up.” He turned then and started walking away, his white hankie hopping up and down in his butt pocket.
“Walks like a fat ass duck, don’t he?” I said.
Willis wouldn’t even look.
When Reverend Pennycall got out to the police car he opened the door and looked back. “Ya’ll can’t work’em boys now Mrs. Wood, not till ya’ll talk to the judge.” He squeezed his belly in behind the wheel of the police car.
“He don’t know nothin’,” Granny said. “Bunch of rumors and old horseshit is all he knows.” Without looking at Granny or me, Willis walked himself down the steps of the porch and disappeared around the corner.
———————
The day after Victor threw his fit he stayed in the trailer. Momma had to take his food out there. That was Tuesday. Granny’s calendar had said September with a big number 8, the same day Reverend Pennycall had come. The next day, Wednesday, Victor showed up to breakfast on a hangover.
He frowned at the coffee Momma set before him. He picked up a slice of bacon and smelled of it. He looked at me and put the bacon all in his mouth, all at the same time, chewing it with his eyes on me. Wormy bloodshot eyes.
I tried to eat my oatmeal. Some dripped on the table.
“You’re making a mess,” Victor said.
Momma reached over with a rag and wiped it up. “Orbie honey, be careful.”
“Coffee Momma,” Victor said. “And bring me the aspirin. This head’s killing me.”
Momma brought him his coffee and aspirin. She sniffled around like somebody with a cold, her hair rolled in big pink curlers. She was wearing her bathrobe, pink with white swans on the pockets. One of the pockets was all bulged out with Kleenex. She set the coffee and four white aspirins on the table next to Victor. That’s when I saw the shadows under her makeup, new bruises on both sides of her neck.
Victor watched me while he chewed his bacon. “What are you looking at?”
I wanted to ask him the same question. I looked at my oatmeal. A pad of butter floated on top. I poked it with my spoon.
Victor popped all four aspirin in his mouth, washed them down with coffee. “You managed to put one over on me, didn’t you? The other night. You and your little colored friends.” He leaned back, unbuckled his belt and slipped it off. He wrapped it around and around and set it coiled on the table next to his plate.
I pushed the pad of butter underneath the oatmeal, dug it back out again.
Victor grabbed hold of my wrist. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” His breath was heavy with coffee and bacon.
“Let go of me!”
Something crashed behind me. I turned to see Momma trying to set the coffee pot straight. Coffee dripped through the cracks in the stovetop, sizzling down into the flames underneath.
Victor jerked me back around. “I said look at me!”
“Don’t do this a way,” Momma said, her voice empty of spirit, not telling Victor but asking. She stood with her back to the stove, a rag full of coffee grounds wadded in her hand. “It wasn’t him, hon.”
“The hell it wasn’t!” Victor pulled me off the chair. I tried to break loose.
“You’d like to hurt me wouldn’t you? Your old stepfather.” He picked up the belt with his right hand and let it uncoil to the floor. Then he gathered it into a loop and brushed the end of it along my cheek. “By the way, I’m going to keep that knife of yours. Yeah. I know what you’ve been up to. I know how important it is.”
“Victor, leave him alone hon,” Momma said, her voice trailing away. I felt like I was falling down a black hole with nobody to help me. No Daddy, no Moses, no Momma, no knife.
“This is going to hurt you way more than it’s going to hurt me,” Victor said. “I can guarantee you that.”
“Hey ya’ll! Somebody in there! Come get this door!” It was Granny. She was yelling from the front door. “We finished shaving out here!”
“Just in time, as usual,” Victor said. “Go on. Go let your grandmother in. We’ll finish this later.” He let go of my arm. The place where he’d grabbed me burned like fever.
“Do like he says, sweetheart,” Momma said.
I went around his chair and into the front room. Missy was in there sleeping — even with all the noise she was. Granny and Granpaw filled up the whole front door almost, one lumpy shadow with the morning light a glare behind them. “Come hold this door for us old people,” Granny said. “You get old, you’ll wish you was young.”
I went over and held the door open. Granny pushed Granpaw in the wheelchair over the bump into the front room. She looked at me. “What was all that ruckus about?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Didn’t sound like nothing to me. Come on.” Granny pushed the wheelchair across the living room, through the kitchen door and up to the table. “Somebody in here mention a knife?” I squeezed around behind her and went off down to the end of the table away from Victor. Granny looked at me. “I thought I heard somebody mention a knife.”
“Victor did,” I said.
Granny looked at Victor. He was busy again, eating his eggs. He shoveled up a fork full and put it in his mouth. The belt was still on the table. “It was you walked off with my knife the other night,” Granny said.
Victor looked at Granny then continued with his eating. “It’s in safe keeping, Mrs. Wood.”
“What you keeping it safe for?”
Victor gulped and swallowed and wiped his lips with his napkin. “It’s safe, that’s all.”
Granny tied a rubber thing around the muscle of Granpaw’s arm. “Knives belong in a kitchen.”
“Tell that to the boy,” Victor said.
Granny reached around in back of her to the top part of the cabinet. She brought down the little black case with Granpaw’s medicines and the hypodermic needle she used to give him his shots. “I got plenty of knives. In my drawer yonder. Keeping one out won’t make a bit of difference somebody wants to stick you with one.”
“Mamaw now,” Momma said.
Victor sipped his coffee.
Granny squirted some of the medicine out the end of the needle. She put her mouth close to Gra
npaw’s ear. “Strode. Make a fist now, hon.”
Granpaw blinked and made a fist.
“Hold that a minute now.” Granny finished giving Granpaw his shot and untied the rubber-thing. Momma was still standing by the stove, arms crossed, the coffee-ground rag balled up in one hand like before. Granny put the black case and Granpaw’s medicines back atop the cabinet. “Victor, you remember what you said to me t’other night? When you called me an ‘old woman’? I said this house was mine and you said it was for the moment. You remember that? For the moment, you said.”
Victor kept eating.
Granny tied a dishtowel around Granpaw’s neck, straightened it down the front of his chest. “It was awful strange Reverend Pennycall showing up here like he did. Talking about court orders. All that old stuff about Moses and his hat. The cross they burned over to Kingdom Church. And now I got to go to Circle Stump to talk to that judge. I was just thinking Old Man Harlan wouldn’t have had sense enough to do all that. Not by himself. He wouldn’t know a court order from a chicken’s ass, it staring him right in the face. You have anything to do with that Victor?”
Victor answered with a mouth full of food, “I don’t know what I said the other night and I don’t care. I don’t know what you mean.” He jabbed his empty fork toward where I was sitting. “What you should be concerned with is that boy. He needs a good straightening out.”
“Now let’s just all of us eat our breakfast why don’t we,” Momma said in a weak little voice. “There’s been enough upset for one morning.” Momma was wrong though, I could feel she was.
“Did you know he’s been threatening people with that knife?” Victor said. “Not just me and not just the other night. He’s been threatening some little boys down by the creek. Mr. Harlan told me.”
“With that knife?” Granny said.
“Yes,” Victor said.
“They were scaring me and Willis,” I said. “They pushed Willis in the water and threw rocks at him.”
“Willis wasn’t even there,” Victor said. “You went after those boys by yourself for no reason. Mr. Harlan told me.”
Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie's Story Page 24