I could feel my heart start to pound. The Orange Man smiled. “He’s all right, sir.”
“Go on!” Victor said. “Get back in there! Get out of the way!”
The Orange Man held onto my shoulder. “He’s all right, sir. It’s my fault. I was just going to show him how to pump gas.”
Victor didn’t even look at the Orange Man. He pointed at me and he pointed to the car. “Get in there I said!”
I looked up at the Orange Man. The smile was gone from his face. “Maybe next time, son,” he said. He stepped to the door and opened it for me. I climbed in, my heart falling down a hole in the middle of my chest. The wings on the Orange Man’s ball cap flew out toward Victor. “He’s okay now.”
“Mind your own business,” Victor said.
The Orange Man stood with his mouth open.
Victor took his glasses off and started wiping them with his handkerchief. He turned and walked back to where he was before, the hood of the Ford blocking him from view. The Orange Man looked in through the open window. “We’ll get that gas another time son. Here.” He took off his ball cap and handed it through the window. “Go on, take it. For good luck.” I took it but then I looked away, ashamed of Victor; ashamed that I had to have a stepdaddy like him.
“Look there on the inside,” the Orange Man said. There were letters stitched in blue on the inside of the cap just above the hem, a letter J and a letter C. “Stands for Jim Conlin. That’s me. Friends call me J C.” The Orange Man smiled his sunshiny smile.
“I said to mind your own business!” It was Victor again; he’d walked back around. “Or are you hard of hearing?”
“No sir,” the Orange Man said. “I can hear just fine. Always have.”
“Okay then. I’ll take care of the boy, you take care of the gas.”
“Of course sir,” the Orange Man said. “I was just about to do that.” He went off then to pump the gas. I could hear him get the nozzle in and turn the handle. The gas hummed in the tank. When he finished with the gas, he went around to the front and closed the hood. Victor stood out there again like the boss of the world, looking around at everything, checking things, wiping his glasses, frowning at the gas pumps.
I ran my hand over the gray bill of the ball cap and studied the winged horse. I looked at the blue letters on the inside. I thought how if I had a horse with wings I could fly away to Florida all by myself, be up in the sky with the seagulls and the pelicans, looking down on all the blues and the whites and the greens and the pinks. It wouldn’t be anybody’s business either, not Momma’s, not Victor’s. It would be mine.
“Where’s Victor?” Momma said.
“I don’t know Momma. He was up there.” I pointed to the front where Victor had been standing.
Momma got her Bible down. “Gone off to the toilet, I reckon. Did you see him go off to the toilet?”
“No Momma.”
She took a puff off a cigarette and opened the Bible. It was hot outside. I sat back on the back seat away from her; afraid she might start in on Jesus.
“Hey there, son.” It was the Orange Man again at the back window. He handed in two Coca Colas. “Thought you kids might enjoy these.” I gave one of the Coca Colas to Missy and kept the other for myself.
“Awful hot out today,” the Orange Man said.
Momma looked around from the front seat and smiled. She mashed her cigarette in the ashtray. “That’s real nice of you, Mister. Orbie. Missy. Say thank you to the man.”
“Thanks Mister,” I said.
Missy just stared.
I showed Momma the gray ball cap. “He gave me this Momma. Look on the inside there. See the letters. People call him that.”
“I’m sorry to say, but it’s true,” the Orange Man smiled.
“J C,” Momma said. “I like that. Just like our Lord.”
The Orange Man laughed. “Hardly Ma’am. I get a fair amount of teasing about that.”
“If it was me, I’d be proud.” Momma said.
“I’ll try and remember that Ma’am.”
“Ruby,” Momma said. “My name is Ruby.”
“Ruby.” The Orange Man smiled, his hair all shiny orange in the sunlight. He looked at me, then at Missy. Then back at Momma. “I better get back to work. Real nice to meet you Ruby. You and your kids.” He winked at me and went off toward the office.
“Real nice feller,” Momma said.
“Uh huh,” I said.
Missy had stood up. She was leaning against the back of the back seat, hugging the Coca Cola bottle to her chest with one hand – the other hand pushed up between her legs.
“You got to pee again?” Momma said.
Missy shook her head and pointed out the window. There was Victor, standing under the ‘Cold Beer’ sign, watching us. He started toward the car, carrying a six-pack of beer in one hand and a bag of ice in the other. He put the ice and the beer in a cooler he got out of the trunk and set it in the front seat between him and Momma. Suddenly, he reached over the seat and yanked the gray ball cap out of my hand.
“Hey, the gas station man gave me that,” I said.
“You didn’t ask me about it.”
“It doesn’t belong to you.” I looked at Momma. “Tell him it doesn’t belong to him Momma.”
“I’d be ashamed Victor,” Momma said.
“Shame has nothing to do with it.” He put the hat on his own head and adjusted the bill over his eyes. “Too big for him anyway.”
Outside Toledo the road was so slicked over with grease you could hear the tires lick through it. The Ford slowed to a stop.
“My, my. Would you look at this traffic?” Victor pushed the bill of the ball cap up and took a sip off his beer. He looked over at Momma. “What did that guy want back there in Flat Rock anyway?”
“That gas station feller?”
“Fellow,” Victor said. “Him. Yes. That fellow.”
“Why nothing. Come over to give the kids Coke Colas.”
“What did he want in exchange?”
“Exchange?”
“Tit for tat, Momma. Exchange.”
“Nothing. Just passing the time of day.”
“What was he smiling about then? I saw him smiling.”
“Can’t a man smile at me? I don’t get upset when some woman smiles at you.”
“Hell you don’t. You know how I am, Ruby.”
“Yeah,” Momma said. “I know how you are.” She set the Bible on the dash, reached down on the floorboard and brought up a magazine – the one Victor had his poem in – Motor City Love in glossy white letters written across the front. Below the title a pretty woman in a long, curvy red coat leaned back against a white Thunderbird with her arms crossed. One naked leg stuck out from where the coat came together, you could see up the side. Momma fanned herself with the magazine. “I wished it would hurry up and rain.”
“It will. Don’t worry.” Victor looked at Momma and grinned. “That magazine will keep you cool. As long as you don’t read it.” Before Momma could answer him he said, “‘Where Feelings Fail’, by Victor Denalsky,” his voice like somebody on the radio, deep and smooth, wanting you to like it even if you didn’t. “She promised to me herself, and I accepted. But what is a promise, she never promised herself? What was accepted, where feelings fail.”
“That’s so sad,” Momma said.
“An old flame,” Victor said. “She broke my heart. I broke hers. My one and only publication.” He took a sip off his beer.
“That’s so sad,” Momma said.
“It’s crap,” Victor said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Black and blue clouds bulged overhead. A light flashed inside them. Then came thunder.
Doom! Da doom doom doom!
“Been looking like rain ever since Flat Rock,” Momma said.
I stood on my knees, looking over Missy’s shoulder. There was a yard of junk cars out there, and behind it a long gray building like a battleship with antennas and windows. Smoke stacks pointing up
in the sky like guns. A siren started and a fiery-red mouth opened inside the building. A creepy orange mist filled the dark windows, spilling out over the junk jalopies and truck cabs piled atop one another like bugs.
“Fire,” Missy said.
“They’re making steel in there,” I said. “Remember when Daddy took us?”
“No.”
“Where Daddy worked. Don’t you remember?”
Missy looked again at the building. The misty light made an orange belly on the clouds. “Daddy don’t work in there Orbie.”
“I know that silly. This is Toledo.” I punched her in the arm, not hard, just enough so she’d remember.
“Momma,” she whined.
“Hush. I’m just playing with you. Daddy did work at Fords. Remember? He worked in Detroit.”
“Oh.”
“This is Toledo. See?”
Missy put two fingers in her mouth and looked at me. Then she took the fingers out and smiled. “Yeah, Detroit.” She climbed up with her doll, up on the back of the front seat next to where Momma was. “Momma, look at the fire. It making steel like Daddy.”
Momma fanned herself with the magazine. “I declare. It is ain’t it?”
“Daddy worked in Detroit didn’t he Momma?”
“Yes he did, sweetheart.”
Victor cleared his throat. “Your father worked at Fords Missy. You already know that.”
“She’s just a child Victor,” Momma said.
Victor finished his beer and put the empty somewhere on the floor. “Why can’t you just say what happened and be done with it? It’s been three years.”
Something in Victor’s voice caused me to sit up straight.
“You’re talking like a man who’s had one too many Victor. I told you about that.”
“Beer’s got nothing to do with it, Momma.”
“It wouldn’t have, you didn’t drink it all the time. You already half drunk!”
“Not yet, Momma. I am working on it though.”
Missy said, “Say what, Momma?”
“Nothing sweetheart. Victor’s just talking old foolishness is all.” She looked at Victor. “I don’t know what’s eating you, but I’ll tell you one thing’s for sure. You keep on the way you have been and you can put me and the kids both on the next bus home!”
“Oh, come on,” Victor laughed. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would too! You’d get plenty of peace and quiet then. I told you Victor. They not ready.”
“They not ready! They not ready! What is that? Some kind of hick Latin?” Victor’s beer-breath floated back over the seats. “How do you know they’re not ready?”
“They just kids, that’s how,” Momma said.
At the gray building the fire mouth started to close down; it sucked away the blood color from the clouds, from the yard, the junky cars and truck cabs. Black smoke poured out from the stacks. More lightning. Thunder.
Da doom doom doom!
Victor pulled out another beer and popped off the cap. I could see the snake around the heart tattoo on the back of his hand.
Every living thing eventually loses. Suffers and dies.
Missy was on her knees; pushing herself up next to Momma. There was a bruise mark along her leg, a smoky submarine under yellow water. Victor had spanked her the other night for refusing to eat her black-eyed peas.
“Not ready for what, Momma?” she asked.
Momma frowned at Victor. “See what you started?” She turned to Missy with a softer voice. “Nothing sweetheart. Victor’s just talking about Daddy is all. You knew he died didn’t you?”
Missy nodded, putting on a baby voice. “And I was too liddle.”
“That’s right sweetheart. You was.”
“Where did Daddy die?”
Victor looked back at Missy, impatient. “You know that already, Missy.”
“Victor hush,” Momma said without looking at him. “You already know where, honey. Remember? He died up there in that steel mill in Detroit.” She looked around at the long gray building. “Like Victor said. Like over yonder. It was an accident.”
Missy looked at the building. I looked at it too. A block of lights and smoke looked back. Something bad was in there – I could feel it – something worse even than the Dark Thing. All of a sudden I got this all-over numb feeling – like I was asleep and awake at the same time – and then I was floating – floating up toward the ceiling. My whole body. Or maybe it was just my head. Anyway, I was looking down. Looking down on Momma and Missy. Looking down on Victor.
Then it was like the ceiling wasn’t there anymore and I was floating a few feet above the car. Victor and Momma and Missy were still below, but sitting in theater seats now, eating popcorn, wide eyed, watching as if a scary movie, gray and white lights flickering over their faces. I could see a long line of traffic going in either direction, how it had boxed in the Ford, trapping it in just one place. Then the line started to move and I was back inside the car again, still floating along the ceiling.
“How Momma?” Missy said. “How did Daddy die?”
“Go on. Tell the girl,” Victor said.
“Shut up Victor!” Momma’s voice had razor blades now, razor blades and knives. She reached around and tried to smooth Missy’s hair. “It was an accident, sweetheart.”
There. See? It was an accident. That’s all it was. Shut up now! Stupid little mouse face!
Victor slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Accident my ass! Some son of a bitch, a Negro, poured hot steel on Jessie! That’s what happened. Burned him up alive!”
Something rolled over in my stomach – a mess boiling up – eggs and tears mixed with tail pipe fumes and clotted milk.
“Victor!” Momma shouted.
But Victor went on like he hadn’t heard, adjusting the bill of the ball cap. “Jackson was his name. We called him Black Jack.” He drove the car slow behind all the other cars. He growled at the windshield. “Had no business on that crane with a full ladle, that’s all. They should’ve investigated it then! Not like they’re doing now! After the fact! Bringing in that smart-ass Union Steward!”
Momma threw the magazine at Victor. He ducked but it hit him anyway.
“Son of a bitch, Ruby! I’m trying to drive here!”
“I’ll kill you! You bastard!”
I could see my own self now – still from the ceiling – my own body, skinny bird legs, red shorts, tooth pick arms in a white Davy Crockett tee shirt, trembling like a squirrel on a cold branch. I could see my head, too big for my body, the ears sticking out lopsided like Daddy’s pear halves, the cheeks stretching away from the nose holes, the mouth open, eyes steamy red with tears.
When the scream blew out of me, it was like I’d come back from a long way away. “You never said that Momma! You never said he got burned up! It was an accident you said!” Hot tears flooded down my face.
Momma looked lost. “It was an accident sweetheart. The man done it made a mistake was all. Sometimes things happen by mistake. Wasn’t nothing anybody could do.”
It came up all of a sudden, blue jam, chunks of banana and bacon and raisins – everything from this morning’s breakfast – splashing in a yellow gush against the black vinyl seat.
“What’s the matter now?” Victor said.
“Lord, God!” Momma said. “Orbie’s puked all over the back seat!”
“Jesus H. Christ! We can’t stop here!” Victor yelled. “There are some rags under the seat there. Hell!”
Da doom doom doom!
Momma found the rags. “You can just drop us off at the next bus station Victor! I mean it! I had just about all I can stand of you cussing and carrying on. Taking the Lord’s name in vain. Bringing out what happened to their Daddy! If that don’t beat all!” She leaned over the back seat and started in wiping at the puke. “You ought to be the one back here cleaning this!”
Missy sat in her corner with her baby doll. “You sick Orbie?”
Inside my mouth a so
ur milk taste burned. I tried to wipe my mouth on my arm.
“Here honey, let Momma help.” Momma looked at Missy while she wiped my mouth. “He’ll be all right.” She had me take my Davy Crockett tee shirt off. Davy Crockett had puke all over his face. Momma said she’d get me another shirt as soon as we could stop. She finished wiping the back seat and threw the rags out the window. She rolled up my shirt and put it under the front seat.
“It stinks Momma,” Missy said.
“It’ll clear. We can’t stop here.”
I was still crying but soft now. “Did that man really… burn him up Momma? Did he really do… like Victor said?”
Momma looked into my eyes, her lips dark red. “It was an accident, honey. Wasn’t nothing anybody could do. Try and understand.”
“I unnerstand,” Missy said.
“That’s good sweetheart. I know you do.” Momma turned toward the front.
Fat drops of rain started to slap across the black hood of the Ford, first one then another. Slap! Pop! Pop! Slap! One at a time they hit. Cool air rushed in through the windows.
I looked out at the sky. The clouds had gone from black to gray, stretching out over the sky like an upside down ocean with lights flashing inside it.
“You kids roll them windows up,” Momma said.
I rolled up my window, still crying.
The rain exploded so hard it looked like white dust, a mist all over the cars and the road. The gray building was behind us now. I could see it way back there behind the white dusty rain, a black battleship going down under the clouds.
“He’s got nothing to cry about,” Victor said.
“How you can be so smart and stupid at the same time is beyond me,” Momma answered. “I told you not to never mention what happened to their Daddy. They got feelings Victor.”
The rain drowned over the windshield wipers.
I thought about Black Jack and the fire. I thought about coloreds. Negroes. Niggers. Mean niggers in Detroit with knives. Daddy burned up alive by one.
Not no accident, not like Momma said.
I looked outside at the rain. The sky exploded like a bomb. One mountain crashed into another mountain. Thunder. Rain smashing and smoking over everything.
THEN LIKE THE BLIND MAN: Orbie's Story Page 8
