THEN LIKE THE BLIND MAN: Orbie's Story

by Freddie Owens Wegela

  “No Granny,” I said. “I didn’t do that.”

  “Who did then?”

  “It broke off by itself. I lost my truck down there, Granny. And Granpaw’s cross.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?”

  I started to cry. “I didn’t know it was going to break!”

  “You ought not have been up there in the first place! What if it was you that fell in?” I pictured the truck tumbling into the well and me tumbling in after. “Yeah,” Granny said. “That truck don’t matter.”

  “Daddy gave me that truck!” I shouted. “He won it… at Fords!”

  Granny let me cry a while, and then she told me how sad Momma would be if I was to fall in, how even Victor would be, and Missy too. How her and Granpaw would be beside themselves with grief. How they would have to bring my dead body up on a hook. “What were you doing up there anyhow?”

  “Looking.”

  “Looking? Looking at what?”

  “Things Granny. Rocks. A truck.”

  “That dump truck of yours?”

  “No, a truck Granny. A real truck. It came from up there.” I pointed up to where the road went over the hill. “I thought it was Momma. It looked like her, Granny. It looked like her car.”

  “I thought you said it was a truck.”

  “It turned into one when it came down the road. A colored man was driving it. He had a big black nigger hat on too!”

  Granny’s eyes flashed green. “Around here you say ‘colored’ or ‘negro’ or nothing at all! I told you.” We looked at each other a few seconds. “Probably old Moses you saw,” Granny finally said. “Moses Mashbone, whose house fell in with that tree. Remember?”

  “Uh huh,” I said. “His hair’s longer than Momma’s.”

  “That it is,” Granny laughed. “His own momma was pure Choctaw. Married a colored man down Mississippi way, she did.”

  “Momma told me he’s a medicine man,” I said.

  “That’s what they say,” Granny said. “He was struck by lightning once. Blacked out three years; then come back alive.”

  “Does he mash bones, Granny?”

  “Why no!” Granny laughed. “That’s just his name. He can heal people though. I seen that part.”

  “He saved Granpaw,” I said.

  “Ruby tell you that too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I never will forget how he helped Strode. Him bleeding the way he was.”

  Momma had told me the story of how Moses saved Granpaw many times; how one day he gashed the calf of his leg on a plow blade.

  “He liked to’ve bled to death,” Momma said.

  Granny tried to tie off the top part of his calf with a belt, but it did no good. Granpaw was hunched over on the couch, pressing his leg, trying to stop the blood. Granny was beside herself, walking up and down, grabbing first one hand then the other. Finally, Granpaw told her she’d better go get help. Said he’d be all right, that Momma was there and she could take care of him.

  “Nodded over to where I was standing,” Momma said. “Like I knew what to do. And me about to shit myself.”

  Granny got the mule from the barn and was just about to ride off when she saw Moses Mashbone come out from around the back of the house. Momma saw him too. Said it was real strange, the way he stood there with his hat and that long hair, his face black as the Bible tucked under his arm, the smoke curling up around him from a hand-rolled cigarette he held pinched between his fingers.

  “Why he looked like he’d been waiting out there back of the house. Waiting especially for something bad to happen,”

  Momma said. “Short and stout, built like a wrestler with thick legs and arms and big flat hands.”

  Said Granny jumped down off her mule like the world was on fire, run over to Moses and started yelling about Granpaw.

  Moses just shook his head and waved Granny off, like he didn’t need to hear anything about it, like he already knew. He threw his cigarette down, took a knife from his belt and cut two long pieces from Granny’s clothesline without even asking if he could. Then he went inside.

  Granpaw was still hunched over on the couch, hugging that gashed calf with a bloody towel.

  “I never seen anything like it,” Momma said. “Old Moses acted like he knew exactly what to do.”

  He told Granny to go get a pan of salt water hot. He undid the belt Granny had tied. Then he took the two pieces of clothesline and tied off the gash. He tied it off at the top where the belt had been, then at the bottom just above the anklebone.

  He told Granpaw to take the towel away, and when he did, Momma said you could still see the blood gushing out. The blood dripped down onto some old sheets Granny had laid up under Granpaw’s leg. “You’d a thought them clotheslines would have been enough to stop the blood from a lot worse, tied around the way they was,” Momma said. “But they didn’t.”

  The blood spread out like a smile, Momma said, a terrible bloody smile on Granpaw’s leg. Didn’t seem to bother Moses though. He just stood there looking down at Granpaw. Told him just to let the blood run. Then he opened his Bible and began to read.

  “Strangest thing I ever seen,” Momma said. “Granpaw sitting there, bleeding like a stuck hog and Moses reading from his Bible.”

  Moses read, “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee wallowing in thy blood, I said unto thee: In thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee: In thy blood, live.”

  Momma said while he was reading that, the bleeding just stopped. Just like that. Said it was a miracle.

  Said Moses told Granny to wash the cut with salt water, clean it out with kerosene and wrap it good. Granpaw and Granny were happy and thanked Moses for what he’d done, and Moses told how he had a church they could all come to anytime, and Granny and Granpaw were so happy they said they would, and they did.

  “And that’s how Mamaw and Papaw come to learn things from Moses. How we got started over to Kingdom. Kingdom Church Of God,” Momma said. “I must have been every bit of twelve or thirteen.”

  Kingdom was where the coloreds had church. White folk went to Circle Stump. That was Baptist. People there said Kingdom Church was awful. Said Moses Mashbone was nothing but a geechee witch doctor. Said he was bad – like the Devil was bad.

  “Claimed he put a spell on Mamaw and Granpaw,” Momma said. “Said they wouldn’t have joined no nigger church, unless they was ‘put on’ with some kind of spell.”

  Momma wanted to keep going to Circle Stump Baptist. It wasn’t that she hated or even disliked the coloreds, she said. It was just everything was so wild and strange at Kingdom. “Why that Moses even brought snakes in, handing them around to everybody like they was toys!”

  She didn’t tell anybody how unhappy she was though. She was too afraid. Afraid Moses might put her in a spell. Mostly she just sat off by herself and didn’t talk to anybody.

  “One day Moses seen me, you know, sitting off by myself. He came right over and asked me what the matter was; his voice like a little old lady’s, so kind and sweet natured it made me want to cry,” Momma said. “I just started in boohooing right there.”

  She told Moses how unhappy she was, what the Circle Stump folks were all saying, and how she was afraid of him putting a spell on her.

  Moses just looked at her for the longest time. Then he smiled and said there wasn’t anything in the world the matter with a girl that wanted to go to her own church. Said that’s where a girl ought to be.

  “Mamaw and Granpaw didn’t like it. They told Moses I was too young to be going off to another church all by myself. Said I’d just have to get used to things the way they were. Well, I’ll tell you what’s the truth, Moses threw him a fit,” Momma said. “He shook his head and spat and grabbed off his hat. That same black hat he always wears, you know, that one with the rattlesnake band. He grabbed that and threw it on the floor right there in the church house in front of Mamaw and Granpaw and all the rest of the churchgoers, stomped and mashed it flat with the heel of his boot. Then he stomped o
ff mad as a hornet. Left Mamaw and Granpaw standing there with their mouths hung open, long faced as two old Billy goats. Nobody had ever seen Moses get mad that way before.”

  They let Momma alone after that, and she went back over to Circle Stump. Circle Stump was where she met Daddy.

  “He was just a little old country boy come to church with his uncle,” Momma said. “Uncle Joe and Aunt Dolly Ray was the ones raised him. His own momma and daddy had took sick with fever one winter and died. That was your Granny and Granpaw Ray, Orbie, on your Daddy’s side. Buried up there to Harlan’s Crossroads. Joe found them in bed together froze to death. Said each had a poultice of lard and turpentine froze to their chests. Never would go to no doctors. Your Daddy was down in between them, down under the blankets there, still alive!

  “I tell you what’s the truth. If Mamaw and Papaw had got their way, if Moses hadn’t a freed me, I might never have married your Daddy. You and Missy might never have been born.”

  10

  Old Gooseberry

  The sky was a white frying pan turned upside down over Kentucky. You had to put your hand over your head and look between your fingers to see the sun. That’s how white it was. Everything that wasn’t in the shade fried. The porch steps fried. The dirt fried. The rocks. My bomber plane left out in the yard. Everything fried.

  It was Saturday. Granny’s calendar said ‘June’ with a big number ‘15’ underneath. Momma had been gone over a week. It rained only one time; little bitty sprinkle drops didn’t even get the ground wet. I was laying out on the front porch drawing sailing ships when suddenly this stumpy longhaired coloredman stomped up on the planks and leaned a stepladder by the door. It was the man I’d seen barreling by in that pickup truck. He wore a black cowboy hat with a snakeskin band. His hands hung half-open from the wrists, almost black, black fingers thick around, nails and knuckles spotted with white paint. He stood by the ladder, frowning down where I lay next to my drawing papers and colors.

  Granny came to the door. “I allowed that was you, Moses. That there’s Orbie. Ruby’s boy.”

  “I see you,” the colored-man said, frowning.

  “Down here from Detroit,” Granny said like she was proud of it. “Moses been painting our house a little to the time. Say ‘hidy’, Orbie.”

  I felt the word in my mouth but it wouldn’t go.

  The colored-man had a funny way of talking, making his voice go loud suddenly when he didn’t have to. “Cat got yo tongue. DON’T! he boy?” Long black hair made curtains down the sides of his head. “I SEE you.”

  I got to my feet, the ‘hidy’ word still stuck in my mouth.

  “Say hidy,” Granny said again. “Be nice.”

  Moses spied his eye at my drawing papers. “I know boy draw too.” His face was shiny with cracks and little dug out places, a piece of shiny black coal with eyes. “You be like PEACH tree leaves and CREAM!”

  “That would be Willis,” Granny said to me. “A little colored boy Moses takes care of. There’s one you could play with. Gone off to Tennessee now though. Peach tree leaves and cream is good for poison ivy.”

  I didn’t want to be no peach tree leaves and cream, not with no colored boy. Right then Granpaw came around the corner, ditch-walked to where we were and stopped. He spat, took his hat off and held it over his head like to shade his eyes with. He looked at the sky that way.

  Moses stepped out in the yard and gazed up with Granpaw. Granpaw was all white and silvery, Moses black. Salt and pepper shakers. Both thick around and short, with thick-fingered hands. Both acting like there was something serious important up in the sky. Granny had said Moses was a lot older than Granpaw. To me they looked the same.

  “See that?” Granpaw said. “That whorl in thar.”

  “Hmmm,” Moses said. “Old Gooseberry.”

  “Reckon it is?” Granpaw said. “It is, ain’t it?”

  “It won’t never rain then,” Granny said.

  Granpaw spied his eye on me. “There’s a black snake in them clouds by grabs. Look up thar!”

  I looked but it was too bright to see anything.

  Granpaw suddenly hollered, “Watch out boy! It’s crawling right toward you!”

  I jumped backward and knocked up against the wall.

  “Strode! Stop that,” Granny said.

  Granpaw slapped his leg and hee-hawed. Moses made a little disgusted sound with his tongue and went back looking up in the sky.

  Far as it mattered to me, they could both go to hell.

  “I’d be ashamed Strode,” Granny said.

  I got my drawing papers together and went inside. I let the screen door slam. Over the bed in the corner was the picture of Jesus and the Lord’s Supper. Always sad. Always waiting. I drew back with the drawing papers and let fly. They went ever which way across the floor. I wished I was back home in Detroit, playing with my friends, baseball and football and cops and robbers, away from this ignorant old goddamn place. Bunch of old hillbillies, gawking around. I sat down at one end of Granny’s couch and started to cry.

  Granpaw came up to the door. He mashed his nose against the screen, one hand cupped around the side of his face. “You all right in there son?”

  “Go away!”

  “Aw now.” Granpaw opened the door a little and looked in. “Ain’t no need a crying, son. Granpaw was just funning.”

  Tears streamed over my cheeks. “I hate you!”

  Granpaw came inside. “Aw now, son.”

  “I ain’t your son!” I said, something catching up in my throat. “My Daddy’s dead!”

  Granpaw ditch-walked over to the couch. “I’m jest a sorry old sumbitch, Orbie. Only thing sparks me anymore is some old ignorant fun.”

  “You don’t have to scare me to have it!”

  “You right there, you right. I’m sorry about it too. You can see I’m sorry about it, can’t you?” Granpaw set himself down on the couch next to me, his face covered with short silvery hairs. “Why, I’d hurt my own self before I’d hurt you. You my grandson.”

  Granpaw sat a minute, staring out the window. “You know, it’s hard to learn a old sumbitch like me anything.” He wagged his chin back and forth; whisker hairs throwing back the light. “I’ll bet you, you could though.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Learn me. Learn me to be nice. Couldn’t I do with that?”

  “Yes!” I said, still trying to be mad.

  “Yes sir. Granpaw could do with that. He sure could. You could tell him when he’s crossing the line. You know. Tell him so he’ll know when to quit. Sometimes folks will cross a line without even knowing it.”

  I’d stopped crying. What Granpaw said, how he was saying it, made me feel better someway.

  “Couldn’t you? I mean when I cross that line, you know.” Granpaw nodded his head at me and winked. A smile almost as warm and nice as Daddy’s used to be suddenly spread across his face.

  “I wished Momma would come back,” I said. “I don’t like it down here.”

  “Well,” Granpaw said. “I haven’t been much help I’m sorry to say. You can forgive old Granpaw though. Can’t you?”

  I sat there a long time, not saying a word. Granpaw sat too. He looked at me a while, then out the window. More time went by. The thought came to me he might could stay waiting like that a long, long time – that he meant what he said and that there was no other place he would rather be. I looked out at my drawing papers scattered over the floor. One was wedged up under Granny’s sewing machine. “What’s gooseberry Granpaw?”

  Granpaw cleared his throat. “Why, gooseberries is gooseberries. They’ll grow hereabouts some places. Sorriest fruits I ever eat. Worse than rhubarb, them is.”

  “What about what Moses said,” I said. “When you were looking in the sky?”

  Granpaw turned his head to look at the room. He looked at Granny’s sewing machine, the bed, the picture of Jesus and the Lord’s Supper. “You mean Old Gooseberry.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Old Gooseberr
y.”

  Granpaw stood up from the couch and stared out the window, stooping to look in the sky. “Like a shadow, it is. Or a shade. In and around them clouds, by grabs. A whorl.”

  “What’s a whorl Granpaw?”

  “Like in the Bible. A evil spirit. Don’t come to the eye direct neither; not like other things. Have to look sideways to see it. Look and not look at the same time.”

  “It’s the Devil, isn’t it Granpaw?” I said.

  Granpaw nodded. “Some say so. Why they ain’t been no rain to speak of.”

  11

  Brothers of The Watch

  Granny and Granpaw’s house had three tin roofs, one over the main part, one over the back porch and one over the front – all with patches of rust and nails sticking out. Except for the places Moses had painted, it looked dirty and sun baked, stained with orange dust from the road. When it was hot outside, I’d go in the crawl space under the house and play. I’d make forts and have battles and listen to the goings on up above. One time I was there Granpaw came stomping up the back porch steps.

  “Strode, that you?” Granny called from the kitchen. I could hear her through the floor.

  “It’s me,” Granpaw said.

  “You early ain’t you?”

  The screen door squalled opened. “Finished that south row. Yeah, I’m early. I’ll start in again in the morning.” Granpaw did that stepping-off-in-a-ditch walk. Soft step, hard. Soft step, hard. Then a chair scraped where he sat down. “Where’s that Orbie?”

  “Outside a playing, I reckon.”

  “Thought he might like to go with me over to Nealy’s. I need me a twist of tobacco. And we need flour.”

  “Not from Nealy we don’t. Costs too much.”

  “Have to drive in to town then.”

  “I’d rather do that as give Nealy our money.” There was a chopping sound, chop, chop, chop, chop, Granny chopping up vegetables for supper. Dust and little pieces of dirt came down from the under-boards where she stood.

  “Moses staying to supper?” Granpaw asked.