I stopped at the crossroads. The rain was starting up again. Mud had splashed up along my legs and onto my shorts. “Go there behind the well, Willis. Don’t let anybody see you!”
“Wha-What you gone do?” Willis said.
“I don’t know yet. Go behind the well. Wait for me.”
I ran up Nub Road a ways and climbed the bank. Fat cold drops of rain smacked against my legs. I ran around to the back of the house to the porch, crawled under there next to the steps and over to the board that went over the hole where I kept the shoebox. I took out the knife, Grandpaw’s pouch and the Rain Skull. I looped the leather cord of the pouch around my neck, gripped the knife and crawled out. Granny’s washtub lay upside down on some boards by the steps. Raindrops thumping across the bottom. I looked up the path toward where the barn had been. The trailer had blown sideways — had mashed through the fence into the pig yard. Black planks and splinters of wood were scattered everywhere all over the chicken yard. I ran around to the front of the house. Momma’s Ford sat near the fence with its trunk raised. Momma was there too, inside the car on the passenger side, eyes closed, her head thrown back against the seat. “Momma!” I yelled, running up to the car. Her hands were tied together with clothesline. Missy sat holding onto Momma’s arm, eyes wide open, trembling like a bird.
“Momma! Wake up Momma!”
“No Victor, don’t,” Momma said, her eyes still closed.
“Momma? It’s me Momma.”
Momma’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at me. “Oh no. No. Orbie, sweetheart,” she whispered, her voice raspy as sandpaper. “Orbie, you got to get away from here. Victor. He’s… What you said about him. Honey…” She closed her eyes then and went back to sleep.
The rain was coming almost straight down now. My tee shirt had soaked tight to my skin. I looked around the yard. There was the Jesus Tree, the picture of Jesus, hanging with his belly against the cross. There was the well with its round roof full of flowers tilted back in the rain. Willis peeked out from behind it. I hurried over. “Victor’s got Momma tied up in the car, Willis.” I looked up the road. “Where’s Miss Alma?” Up on the porch I could see Victor’s green file box had turned over, its papers scattered and stuck to the wet floor.
…spirit’s robbed away! Ain’t it? In ‘at box!
All at once, the screen door opened and out stepped Victor with Momma’s blue suitcase. He set it down on the porch and went back inside. In a minute the screen door opened again. I ducked back behind the well. “Stay down, Willis.” Victor stepped out with my army tank and Missy’s baby doll under his arm. He stopped and picked up Momma’s suitcase. The whole front of his shirt was soaked dark pink with rain. His hair was soaked too. One black curl fell like a hook down the middle of his forehead.
He stepped down off the porch; talking out loud to himself now. Crazy talk like before. “It’s the only thing. Yes. I know it is. No! Don’t say that! Just get everything in the car. Then we’ll see. Then we’ll be on our way. Florida? Forget Florida. We can go anywhere Momma. Tucson. Yes! That’s right Momma! No, goddamn it! Just do what I tell you to do!” He walked to the car, put the suitcase, Missy’s doll and my tank in the trunk. He took up a jar and started back toward the house. He stopped next to the Jesus Tree and unscrewed the lid. Green black clouds circled overhead. He drank from the jar and looked up in the sky. In a big booming voice he yelled, “The falcon cannot hear the falconer! Things fall apart!” He tried to stand straight, staggered backward and yelled, “The centre cannot hold!”
I put my hand over Granpaw’s pouch and squeezed. If Victor were a cloud I might could melt him away. I’d have to do it with love though, and nothing seemed more unlikely than that.
Granpaw’s station wagon, with Granny driving, suddenly sloshed up into the yard behind the Ford and stopped. In the back seat sat Vern and Fable. In the front, on the passenger side, sat Granpaw. He stared out the window zombie-eyed. Granny got out and slammed her door, opened a black umbrella over her head. “What is all this? Victor? What you think you doing?” Victor didn’t even turn around — went on to the porch and inside. The screen door slammed behind him.
Granny walked around to the side of the Ford and saw Momma. “What in this world!” She opened the car door. I could just see her, trying to untie Momma’s hands.
Willis and me ran over to the station wagon, to the other side where Victor couldn’t see. I tried to get Granpaw’s attention, but he just sat there frozen.
“Where Miss Alma?” Willis asked Vern.
“In dat Reverend car,” Vern said.
“Had ‘nuff a her ole mouth,” Fable said. “Dey gone electricute her now.”
“No they ain’t,” Vern said.
Victor came back out of the house with another armful of our things — comic books, drawing papers, Missy’s plastic make up kit. He walked past Granny around to the trunk and dumped it all in there. Willis and me went around the back of the station wagon where we could see.
Granny stepped away from the car. “I said what do you think you a doing here, Mister?”
Victor walked up to Granny, stood a couple feet away from her. Granny had to look up to meet his eyes. He made like to straighted out the pens in his shirt pocket. Then he just hauled off and backhanded Granny across the mouth, knocking her sideways to the ground. Her umbrella went upside down in the mud.
“This is my family!” Victor yelled.
Granny tried to get up, but Victor, with the muddy toe of his allegator shoe, kicked her hard in the stomach. She let out a cry and fell back in the mud. Then Victor kicked her again.
I was so scared I peed my pants. Lucky the rain had soaked them through. I looked back up the road. No sign of Miss Alma, only the graveyard and the hill. I held up the knife, trembling, remembering how it had once glowed.
Take care of your Momma son.
Willis pointed suddenly up to the house, shaking his finger at the place over the attic window. It had been painted. “Mo back!”
I don’t know what but something came up inside me then, something good and strong. With the knife raised, I jumped out from behind the station wagon.
Victor turned my way, unconcerned now, in charge of things. “Well now, look at the little waif.”
“Get away from Granny!” I shouted but my voice was almost gone.
“You’ve strayed so far away. Haven’t you? Little waif. So far, far away.” Victor’s words made me feel all sad and undone. He was right. I was far, far away, down here in Kentucky inside a storm with a butcher knife dressed in shorts that smelled like pee.
Victor stepped toward me and stopped.
“Stand back!” I said. “Get away from Granny!”
“Shhh, hush now son. You think I don’t love you, but you’re wrong. I’ve got plans for you and Missy — for Momma too.”
He looked away into the stormy light. Rain dripped from his hair — from the hook-shaped curl. I could see Granny in back of him, struggling to get up. His chin began to tremble; then he was crying again — like so many times before — big crocodile tears streaming down his face.
He continued to look into the light, weeping, talking to no one in particular. “Of course, there was that letter. But they’ll never pin that on me. Circumstantial. All of it. Still, I didn’t mean for her to see it. Not until I could explain. That was too bad, wasn’t it? Unfortunate. Well, no matter. None of it matters now anyway.” He looked at me. “Does it son? We’ll be so happy, won’t we? All of us together?”
What letter? What didn’t matter?
“You tied Momma up,” I said. “You kicked Granny!”
A shadow passed over his face. “They were interfering, son. I can’t have that. People interfering.” In the rain, crying and talking crazy like he was, he seemed dangerous and pitiful at the same time — more even than I imagined myself to be. I hated him. I hated him for making me see him this way. For confusing me. I hated him for what he had done to Missy, to Momma — what he had done to himself — f
or what he was doing now.
I raised the knife; hoping that the blue light would come, make Victor go away, make things to be good and normal again — like when Daddy was alive. The knife stayed dull.
A low rumble of thunder crawled overhead. The rain came harder. Victor stood, arms down, hands open, a question in his eyes, waiting. His eyeglasses sat crooked across the bridge of his nose. In my mind’s eye I saw the boy in the cave again, his eyeglasses, the frame held together with electrical tape.
Victor pushed his hand through his hair, frowning at the knife. “Come on. Don’t be stupid now.” I could see the worms in his eyes, sad worms, crazy.
Granny lay still in the mud.
I was holding onto the knife so tight I thought the bones in my wrist might break and I was sure I had peed myself again. I felt of Granpaw’s pouch, the Rain Skull inside there tied around my neck, its power contrary and useless. Red puddles had formed in the yard, all of them trembling in the falling rain.
There was nothing I could do to bring Daddy back. Killing Victor wouldn’t do it. Melting clouds wouldn’t. The Rain Skull wouldn’t. I wanted Victor out of my life — that was for sure — but killing him, even if I could manage such a thing, would be killing the little boy too, and that, I realized, I was unwilling to do.
Inhaling one deep rain-misted breath of air, I stepped forward and placed Granny’s butcher knife on the muddy ground in front of Victor.
Stepping back I said, “In thy blood live, Victor.”
Victor shook his head. He seemed confused. He looked again into the stormy light. The rain was coming down in thin slapping sheets. There was a rush of splattering wind and the gassy smells of animals killed by the storm. He bent over and picked up the knife. “Is this what they’re teaching you down here? To point knives and utter mumbo jumbo at your elders?”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “God will forgive you.”
Victor smirked. “What do you know about forgiveness? Shoot-em-up in the backseat with your army men. Blood and guts and bombs away! What do you know about God?”
Right then, I saw another light. Not blue but shiny red, flashing off Granny and Granpaw’s windows.
“Answer me goddamn it!” Victor grabbed up a handful of my tee shirt along with Granpaw’s pouch.
“That’s my Rain Skull,” I said.
Victor jerked it from around my neck and back fisted me across my face. I tasted blood; I saw lights — factory lights in the black ceiling of the steel mill — an old jalopy dropped from a claw, thundering into a metal bin; the bones of my skeleton falling like junk onto the wet rocky ground.
“I told you not to interfere!” Victor yelled. “Didn’t I tell you not to interfere!” He tossed the pouch away.
I brought myself around onto both hands and got to my feet. My lip cut and bleeding. I stood, holding myself with both arms, trembling. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”
Victor back fisted me again even harder. There were more lights, explosions of fire and more blood. Again the old jalopy dropped into the metal bin. A white piece of bone with a bloody root lay in the mud before my eyes.
“Stay down now!” Victor yelled. “I’ll kill you!”
Look at it like you loved it more than anything. Like it was the only thing in the world. That cloud.
I wanted to do as he said, just to lie there, not to interfere anymore. Drift off. Go to sleep. “People punish people,” I sobbed. “God don’t.” I got to my feet.
He grabbed me again but the bright threat in his eyes had vanished. He drew back to strike, but I could see his heart wasn’t in it, that there was fear, that there was shame. Something had gotten through. I had gotten through. I shook my head, not at Victor but at Willis who was about to swing his walking stick. Victor caught it in mid air, shoved the stick with Willis at the other end backward to the ground.
Somebody laughed. “Little Jimmy Crow to the rescue!” It was Old Man Harlan. He was standing with Reverend Pennycall up from the police car. The police car was parked on the side of the road, its red bubble-light going around and around. Miss Alma sat in the back seat.
A hairy thick-knuckled fist with coils of muscle bulging around the wrist came out of nowhere — out of the sky as if. Like a rock it hit Victor up side the head. He let go of me and staggered sideways. Granpaw stepped around me and hit Victor again, this time square between the eyes. His eyeglasses cart wheeled off his face. He fell backwards in the mud, the bridge of his nose cracked and bleeding. Granpaw spat. “Been wanting to do that ever since you come back.”
Reverend Pennycall pulled out his gun. “Hold on there now, Mista Wood.”
“You hold on Reverend!” Granpaw shouted. “Last I recalled this is still my house! This man assaulted my wife and was about to kill this boy. He got my daughter tied up in that car over yonder. Don’t tell me to hold on!”
Reverend Pennycall pointed the gun at Granpaw. Old Man Harlan stepped up next to him. “Only assault I seen is you, hittin’ this man here. That right Reverend?”
“That’s right,” Reverend Pennycall said. “That’s how I seen it.”
Victor tried to get up but slipped and fell back on his knees. The knife was still in his hand. Blood mixed with tears ran from both his eyes. He began to crawl like a blind man, feeling around in the mud for his eyeglasses. When he found them, he sat back on his knees and put them on. They were bent cockeyed, one corner up, one corner down. I thought again of the little boy in the cave.
Granpaw stepped forward to hit Victor again, but I grabbed hold of his arm. “No Granpaw, don’t. It’s enough.”
Victor sat back on his knees, crying, blubbering to himself now, barely holding onto the knife. “Don’t hit me anymore, Daddy. I’ll be good. I’ll mind.”
Granpaw spat.
Reverend Pennycall looked at Old Man Harlan and shook his head. He put the gun back in his holster.
A roar started up in the sky, like before, only this time like a hundred railroad trains, all at the same time, all running down from the whirling clouds.
I saw Bird, standing up next to the well with the Rain Skull held out over her head. The blue light had swallowed her hand, surrounded the skull and the whole length of her arm. She screeched inside the roar. “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee, wallowing in thy blood! I said unto thee! In thy blood live!”
Victor jumped up with the knife and ran at Granpaw.
“Watch out, Granpaw!” I yelled, but the roar slammed my voice away. On the other side of the fence, inside the pig yard, a giant black funnel whirled in a coiling length, stretching and shrinking, fifty feet or more across, chewing up everything, tearing out big chunks of ground.
It was one a them racers I think. And it come at me so quick!
Fence posts, trees, the pig trough, what was left of the trailer, all flew up and around in a whirl. Victor raised the knife. The funnel jumped over the fence and whirled above the yard. Old Man Harlan and Reverend Pennycall ran for the police car.
I looked up through a gigantic green-glowing tunnel-hole — its walls solid, then vanishing, then solid again — like mist but deadly powerful — wind driven, whirling, spiraling up in the sky, threads of lightning zapping, rising, arcing upward across a heaving gap. I saw Victor and Granpaw struggling in a haze. Victor stabbed Granpaw through the heart with the knife.
I grabbed hold of a place in the middle of my chest, my fist wrapped in blue, shining like a blazing heart. “In thy blood!” I cried, trying to remind myself, trying to remind Victor.
Victor turned but the knife was gone. The blue light spread over my chest and down my arms. I was bigger than Victor now, taller, looking down on him, the worms in his eyes twisting to get away. He tried to run but one of his alligator shoes sucked off in the mud. Still, I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted to help. I wanted to tell him that everything would be all right — only he had to stop. But then it was like the whorl had grabbed him by the nap of the neck and he was pulled backwa
rds toward the well, arms flailing — surprised now, afraid, not strong, not like Superman anymore, not like Clark Kent — and while the whole world seemed to rise with the wind, the well broke and the posts and the well’s roof, all the flowers up there and the circle of rocks, everything around it, with Victor in the middle dove into the ground.
———————
I’m in Granny’s featherbed. It’s nighttime, and it’s raining outside. I can hear it on the tin roof, a light rain. By the bed a kerosene lamp burns. It makes yellow light on the beams overhead. I feel the soft blanket against my skin. It feels warm and good. There’s a leftover smell of ham and pinto beans in the air. I try to snuggle down in the featherbed. I wonder how I got here, how long it has been.
The rain gets louder. A gust of wind presses against the tin, makes the beams tick. The lamp goes out. I’m looking up into the dark. Rain pours like a waterfall, millions of raindrops all at the same time, pounding against the tin roof. There’s thunder and lightning. More wind.
I feel a chill. I pull the blanket over my head to keep warm. There’s something wet and warm, spreading out from the middle of my back. It spreads all around me and then it turns cold. I’ve peed the bed. Granny will be mad. Granpaw will laugh.
But Granpaw’s dead! Stabbed through the heart with a knife!
I start to cry. Tears stream down my face.
Sharp things are picking into my back. I can’t move out of the wet. The blanket presses down on top of me, hard but soft too, like a wall with a carpet. A musty carpet. It’s pitch black dark. I smell cigars and moonshine. I hear a voice. I can’t tell whose. It’s muffled and far away.
“Orbie! Ah Orbie!” it says.
I beat against the carpet. “I’m here! Here I am!” I try to yell, but my voice falls flat against the carpeted wall thing. I hear huge splashes of water, somebody, a giant outside Granny’s house, crashing through huge puddles of mud. The carpeted wall thing shifts. Light comes in. I think it’s the sun. I think it’s morning and the sun has come up and it’s shining in the attic window, but still it rains.
Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie's Story Page 28