Then Like the Blind Man Chapter Reveal and Kindle Fire HD Giveaway
Title: Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie’s Story
Author: Freddie OwensPublisher: Blind Sight Publications
Pages: 332
Language: English
Genre: Historical Fiction/Coming of Age
Format: Paperback & eBook
Purchase at AMAZON
A storm is brewing in the all-but-forgotten backcountry of Kentucky
Nine-year-old Orbie already has his cross to bear. After the sudden death of his father, his mother Ruby has off and married his father’s coworker and friend Victor, a slick-talking man with a snake tattoo. Since the marriage, Orbie, his sister Missy, and his mother haven’t had a peaceful moment with the heavy-drinking, fitful new man of the house. Orbie hates his stepfather more than he can stand; this fact lands him at his grandparents’ place in Harlan’s Crossroads,Kentucky Florida
As Orbie grudgingly adjusts to life with his doting Granny and carping Granpaw, who are a bit too keen on their black neighbors for Orbie’s taste, not to mention their Pentecostal congregation of snake handlers, he finds his world views changing, particularly when it comes to matters of race, religion, and the true cause of his father’s death. He befriends a boy named Willis, who shares his love of art, but not his skin color. And, when Orbie crosses paths with the black Choctaw preacher, Moses Mashbone, he learns of a power that could expose and defeat his enemies, but can’t be used for revenge. When a storm of unusual magnitude descends, he happens upon the solution to a paradox that is both magical and ordinary. The question is, will it be enough?
Equal parts Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn, it’s a tale that’s both rich in meaning, timely in its social relevance, and rollicking with boyhood adventure. The novel mines crucial contemporary issues, as well as the universality of the human experience while also casting a beguiling light on boyhood dreams and fears. It’s a well-spun, nuanced work of fiction that is certain to resonate with lovers of literary fiction, particularly in the grand Southern tradition of storytelling.
Nine-year-old Orbie already has his cross to bear. After the sudden death of his father, his mother Ruby has off and married his father’s coworker and friend Victor, a slick-talking man with a snake tattoo. Since the marriage, Orbie, his sister Missy, and his mother haven’t had a peaceful moment with the heavy-drinking, fitful new man of the house. Orbie hates his stepfather more than he can stand; this fact lands him at his grandparents’ place in Harlan’s Crossroads,
As Orbie grudgingly adjusts to life with his doting Granny and carping Granpaw, who are a bit too keen on their black neighbors for Orbie’s taste, not to mention their Pentecostal congregation of snake handlers, he finds his world views changing, particularly when it comes to matters of race, religion, and the true cause of his father’s death. He befriends a boy named Willis, who shares his love of art, but not his skin color. And, when Orbie crosses paths with the black Choctaw preacher, Moses Mashbone, he learns of a power that could expose and defeat his enemies, but can’t be used for revenge. When a storm of unusual magnitude descends, he happens upon the solution to a paradox that is both magical and ordinary. The question is, will it be enough?
Equal parts Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn, it’s a tale that’s both rich in meaning, timely in its social relevance, and rollicking with boyhood adventure. The novel mines crucial contemporary issues, as well as the universality of the human experience while also casting a beguiling light on boyhood dreams and fears. It’s a well-spun, nuanced work of fiction that is certain to resonate with lovers of literary fiction, particularly in the grand Southern tradition of storytelling.
CHAPTER ONE
EVERYBODY ON EDGE
Momma and even Victor said I’d be coming to St. Petersburg Kentucky Florida
Momma’s car was a 1950 model. Daddy said it was the first Ford car to come
automatic. I didn’t know what
‘automatic’ was but it sure had silver ashtrays, two of them on the back of the
front seats. They were all popped open
with gum wrappers and cigarette butts and boy did they smell.
One butt fell on top a bunch of comic books I had
me in a pile. The pile leaned cockeyed
against my dump truck. Heat came up from
there, little whiffs of tail pipe smoke, warm and stuffy like the insides of my
tennis shoes.
It rattled too – the Ford car did. The glove box. The mirrors.
The windows. The knobs on the
radio. The muffler under the
floorboard. Everything rattled.
We’d been traveling hard all day, barreling down
Road 3 from Detroit Kentucky
I’d seen pictures of Florida Kentucky
Road 3 took us down big places like Fort Wayne Muncie
Missy couldn’t read.
“Piss with care,” I said.
“Oh Orbie, you said a bad word.”
“No.
Piss with care, Missy. That sign
back there. That’s what it said.”
Missy’s eyes went wide. “It did not.
Momma’ll whip you.”
Later on we got where there was a curve
in the road and another sign. “Look
Missy. Do not piss.”
“It don’t say that.”
“Yes it does. See.
When the road goes curvy like that you’re not supposed to pee. But when it’s straight, it’s okay; but you
have to do it careful cause that’s what the sign says. Piss with care!”
“It don’t say that.”
“Does too.”
We crossed a big pile of water on a
bridge with towers and giant ropey things looping down. On the other side was Louisville , Kentucky
I had me a war on all the towns going
down.
Tat
Tat Tat Tat! Blam! There goes Cox Creek!
Bombs
away over Nazareth
Blam!
Blam! Boom! Hodgekinsville never had a
chance!
“Let’s keep it down back there!” Victor said.
“A grenade rolled into Victor’s lap!” I
whispered. “BlamOOO! Blowed him to smithereens!”
I wished Momma’d left him back there in Toledo Louisville
I liked to watch them bust on the
road.
“Pretty country, Kentucky
**
It was the end of daytime and a big orangey-gold
sun ball hung way off over the hills, almost touching the trees. The Ford jerked over a ditch at the foot of a
patchy burnt yard, thundering up a load of bubble noises before Victor shut it
down.
“Get off me,” Missy said.
“I ain’t bothering you.”
“Yes you are.”
“But Missy, look!”
A big boned woman in a housedress had come to stand
in the yard down by the well. She was
looking into the sun – orange light in her face - standing upright, sharp edged
and stiff, like an electrical tower, one arm bent like a triangle, the other
raised with the elbow so the hand went flat out over her eyes like a cap. She stared out of wrinkles and scribbles and
red leather cheekbones. Her nose was
sunburned, long but snubbed off at the end, sticking out above a mouth that had
no lips, a crack that squirmed and changed itself from long to short and back
to long again.
Missy’s eyes widened. “Who is that?”
“Granny,” I said.
“Don’t you remember?”
I saw Granpaw too, sitting squat-legged against
Granny’s little Jesus Tree. He was
turning in one big hand a piece of wood, shaving it, whittling it outward with
a jackknife. The brim of a dusty Panama
As we got out of the car, the big boned figure in
the housedress let out with a whoop, hollering, “Good God A Mighty! If it tain’t Ruby and them younguns of
hers! Come all the way down here from
Dee-troit!” Blue-green veins bulged and
tree-limbed down the length of her arms.
Victor stayed out by the Ford, the round top of my
ball cap hanging out his pocket. A gas
station man had given it to me on the way down.
It was gray and had a red winged horse with the word ‘Mobilgas’ printed
across the front. Victor had swiped it
away, said I shouldn’t be accepting gifts from strangers. I should have asked him about it first. Now it was in his back pocket, crushed
against the Ford’s front fender where he leaned with an unlit cigar, rolling
between his lips. The sun was in back of
him, halfway swallowed up by a distant curvy line of hilltop trees.
“Hidy Victor!” Granny called. “Ya’ll have a good trip?”
Victor put on a smooth voice. “Fine Mrs. Wood. Real fine.
You can’t beat blue grass for beauty, can you?” A long shadow stretched out on the ground in
front of him.
Granny laughed.
“Ain’t been no farther than Lexington
Granpaw changed his position against the tree,
leaned forward a little bit and spat a brown gob, grunting out the word ‘shit’
after he did. He dragged the back of his
knife hand sandpaper-like over the gap of his mouth.
“I want you just to looky here!” Granny
said. “If tain’t Missy-Two-Shoes and
that baby doll of hers!”
Missy backed away.
“Aw, Missy now,” Momma said. “That’s Granny.”
Missy smiled then and let Granny grab her
up. Her legs went around Granny’s
waist. She had on a pink Sunday dress
with limp white bows dangling off its bottom, the back squashed and wadded like
an overused hankie.
“How’s my little towhead?” Granny
said.
“Good.”
Missy held out her baby doll.
“This is Mattie, Granny. I named
her after you.”
“Well ain’t you the sweetest thang!” Granny grinned so big her wrinkles went out
in circles like water does after a stone’s dropped in. She gave Missy a wet kiss and set her
down. Then her grin flashed toward Momma. “There’s my other little girl!”
Momma, no taller than Granny’s chin, did
a little toe dance up to her, smiling all the way. She hugged Granny and Granny in turn beat the
blue and red roses on the back of Momma’s blouse.
“I just love it to death!” Granny said. “Let me look at you!” She held Momma away from her. Momma wiggled her hips; slim curvy hips
packed up neat in a tight black skirt.
She kissed the air in front of Granny.
Like
Marilyn Monroe. Like in the movies.
“Jezebel!” Granny laughed. “You always was a teaser.”
They talked about the trip to Florida,
about Victor’s prospects – his good fortune, his chance – about Armstrong and
the men down there and that Pink Flamingo Hotel. They talked about Daddy too, and what a good
man he’d been.
“It liked to’ve killed us all, what
happened to Jessie,” Granny said.
“I know Mamaw. If I had more time, I’d go visit him
awhile.” Momma looked out over the
crossroads toward the graveyard. I
looked too but there was nothing to see now, nothing but shadows and scrubby
bushes and the boney black limbs of the cottonwood trees. I remembered what Victor’d said about the
nigger man, about the crane with the full ladle.
“I want you
just to look what the cat’s drug in Mattie!” Granpaw had walked over from his
place by the tree.
“Oh
Papaw!” Momma hugged Granpaw’s rusty old
neck and kissed him two or three times.
“Shoo! Ruby
you’ll get paint all over me!”
Momma laughed and rubbed at a lip mark she’d left
on his jaw.
“How you been daughter?”
“All right I reckon,” Momma said. She looked back toward Victor who was still
up by the Ford. Victor took the cigar
out of his mouth. He held it to one
side, pinched between his fingers.
“How’s that car running Victor?” Granpaw
called.
“Not too bad, Mr. Wood,” Victor answered,
“considering the miles we’ve put on her.”
Granpaw made a bunch of little spit-spit
sounds, flicking them off the end of his tongue as he did. He hawked up another brown gob and let it
fall to the ground, then he gave Victor a nod and walked over. He walked with a limp, like somebody stepping
off in a ditch, carrying the open jackknife in one hand and that thing, whatever
it was he’d been working on, in the other.
Granny’s mouth got hard. “Ruby, I did get that letter of yorn. I done told you it were all right to leave
that child. I told you in that other
letter, ‘member?”
“You sure it’s not any trouble?” Momma
said.
Granny’s eyes widened. “Trouble?
Why, tain’t no trouble a-tall.”
She looked over my way. “I want
you just to look how he’s growed! A
might on the skinny side though.”
“He’ll fill out,” Momma said.
“Why yes he will. Come youngun.
Come say hello to your old Granny.”
“Orbie, be good now,” Momma said.
I went a little closer, but I didn’t say
hello.
“He’ll be all right,” Granny said.
“I hope so Mamaw. He’s been a lot of trouble over this.“
Veins, blue rivers, tree roots, flooded
down Granny’s gray legs. More even than
on her arms. And you could see white
bulges and knots and little red threads wiggling out. “I’ll bet you they’s a lot better things
going on here than they is in Floridy,” she said. “I bet you, if you had a mind to, Granpaw
would show you how to milk cows and hoe tobacco. I’ll learn you everything there is to know
about chickens. Why, you’ll be a real farm hand before long!”
“I don’t wanna be no damned farm hand,” I
said.
“Boy, I’ll wear you out!” Momma said. “See what I mean, Mamaw?”
“He’ll be all right,” Granny said.
The sun was on its way down. Far to the east of it two stars trailed after
a skinny slice of moon. I could see Old
Man Harlan’s Country Store across the road, closed now, but with a porch light
burning by the door.
A ruckus of voices had started up by the
Ford, Granpaw and Victor trying to talk at the same time. They’d propped the Ford’s hood up with a
stick and were standing out by the front.
Victor had again taken up his place,
leaning back against the front fender, crushing my ball cap. “That’s right, that’s what I said! No good at all.” He held the cigar shoulder level – lit now –
waving it with his upraised arm one side to the other. “The Unions are ruining this country, Mr.
Wood. Bunch of meddlesome, goddamned
troublemakers. Agitators, if you catch
my drift.” He took a pull on the cigar
then blew the smoke over Granpaw’s head.
Granpaw was stout-looking but a whole
head shorter than Victor. He stood there
in his coveralls, doubled up fists hanging at the end of each arm, thick as
sledgehammers – one with the open jackknife, the other with that thing he’d
been working on. “Son, you got a
problem?”
“The rank and file,” Victor said. “They’re the problem! They’ll believe anything the goddamn Union tells them.”
Granpaw leaned over and spat. “You don’t know nothin’.”
“Anything,”
Victor said.
“What?”
Victor took the cigar out of his mouth
and smiled. “I don’t know anything is what you mean to say. It’s proper grammar.”
“I know what I aim to say,” Granpaw said,
“I don’t need no northern jackass a tellin’ me.” Granpaw’s thumb squeezed against the
jackknife blade.
Cut him Granpaw! Knock that
cigar out his mouth!
“Strode!”
Granny shouted. “Come away from
there!”
Momma hurried over. “Victor, I told you.”
“I was just sharing some of my thoughts
with Mr. Wood here,” Victor said. “He
took it the wrong way, that’s all. He
doesn’t understand.”
“I understand plenty, City Slicker.” Granpaw closed the knife blade against his
coveralls and backed away.
“Ain’t no need in this Strode!” Granny
said. “Victor’s come all the way down
here from Dee-troit. He’s company. And you a man of God!”
“I’ll cut him a new asshole, he keeps on
that a way,” Granpaw said.
Momma was beside herself. “Apologize Victor. Apologize to Papaw for talking that
way.”
“For telling the truth?”
“For insulting him!”
Victor shook his head. “You apologize. You’re good at that.”
Over where the sun had gone down the sky
had turned white-blue. Fireflies winked
around the roof of the well, around the branches of the Jesus Tree. Victor walked around to the front of the car
and slammed the hood down harder than was necessary. “Come on Orbie! Time to get your stuff!”
I couldn’t believe it was about to
happen, even though I’d been told so many times it was going to. I started to cry.
“Get down here!” Victor yelled.
Momma met me at the car. She took out a hankerchief and wiped at my
tears. She looked good. She always looked good.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said.
“Oh now,” Momma said. “Let’s not make
Victor any madder than he already is, okay?”
She helped bring my things from the car.
I carried my tank and my box of army men and crayons. Momma brought my dump truck, the toy cars, my
comic books and drawing pad. We put them
all on the porch where Missy sat playing with her doll. Momma hugged me one last time, got Missy up
in her arms and headed to the car.
Victor was already behind the wheel,
gunning the engine. “Come on Ruby! Let’s go!”
“You just hold on a minute!” Momma put Missy in the car and turned to hug
Granny. “Bye Mamaw.”
“Goodbye Sweetness. I hope you find what you’re looking for down
there.”
“Right now I’d settle for a little peace
of mind,” Momma said; then she hugged Granpaw.
“I’m real sorry about Victor Papaw.”
Granpaw nodded. “You be careful down there in Floridy.”
“Bye Momma! Bye Missy!”
I yelled.
Momma closed her door and Victor backed
out. I hurried down to where Granny and Granpaw
were standing. The Ford threw dust and
gravels as it fishtailed up the road.
Granpaw tapped me on the shoulder. “This one’s for you son,” he said and handed
down the piece he’d been working on. It
was a little cross of blond wood about a foot high with a burnt snake draped
lengthwise along its shoulders. Granpaw
moved his finger over the snake’s curvy body.
“Scorched that in there with a hot screw driver, I did.”
It was comical in a way, but strange too;
I mean to make a snake there – right where Jesus was supposed to be. Like most everything else in my life, it made
no sense at all. Momma’s Ford had
disappeared over the hill. Pale road-dust
moved like a ghost into the cornfields under the half-dark sky. It drifted back toward the skull of Granpaw’s
barn, back toward the yard. I stood
there watching it all, listening as Momma’s Ford rumbled away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK TRAILER:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Then Like the Blind Man:
Orbie’s Story Tour Page:
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