Stories (2011) (34 page)

The blind man knew her Sunday preaching programs too, and
they talked about a few highlighted TV sermons. They debated the parables in
the Bible and ended up discussing important and obscure points in the
scripture, discovered the two of them saw things a lot alike when it came to
interpretation. They had found dire warnings in Deuteronomy that scholars had
overlooked.

Mrs. Harold got so lathered up with enthusiasm, she went
into the kitchen and started throwing an apple pie together. Mr. Harold became
nervous as soon as the pie pans began to rattle. This wasn't like her: She only
cooked a pie to take to relatives after someone died or if it was Christmas or
Thanksgiving and more than ten people were coming.

While she cooked, the blind man discussed wrestling holds
with Mr. Harold's son. When dinner was ready, the blind man was positioned in
Mr. Harold's chair, next to Mrs. Harold. They ate, and the blind man and Mrs.
Harold further discussed scripture, and from time to time, the blind man would
stop the religious talk long enough to give the boy a synopsis of some
wrestling match or another. He had a way of cleverly turning the conversation
without seeming to. He wasn't nearly as clever about passing the beans or the
cornbread. The apple pie remained strategically guarded by his elbow.

After a while, the topic switched from the Bible and
wrestling to the blind man's aches and miseries. He was overcome with them.
There wasn't a thing that could be wrong with a person he didn't have.

Mrs. Harold used this conversational opportunity to complain
about hip problems, hypoglycemia, overactive thyroids, and out-of-control sweat
glands.

The blind man had a tip or two on how to make living with
each of Mrs. Harold's complaints more congenial. Mrs. Harold said, "Well,
sir, there's just not a thing you don't know something about. From wrestling to
medicine."

The blind man nodded. "I try to keep up. I read a lot
of braille and listen to the TV and the radio. They criticize the TV, but they
shouldn't. I get lots of my education there. I can learn from just about
anything or anyone but a nigger."

Mrs. Harold, much to Mr. Harold's chagrin, agreed. This was
a side of his wife he had never known. She had opinions and he hadn't known
that. Stupid opinions, but opinions.

When Mr. Harold finally left the table, pieless, to hide out
in the bathroom, the blind man and Mrs. Harold were discussing a plan for getting
all the black folk back to Africa. Something to do with the number of boats
necessary and the amount of proper hygiene needed.

And speaking of hygiene, Mr. Harold stood up as his bottom
became wet. He had been sitting on the lid of the toilet and dampness had
soaked through his pants. The blind man had been in the bathroom last and he'd
pissed all over the lowered lid and splattered the wall.

Mr. Harold changed clothes and cleaned up the piss and
washed his hands and splashed his face and looked at himself in the mirror. It
was still him in there and he was awake.

About ten P.M. Mrs. Harold and the blind man put the boy to
bed and the blind man sang the kid a rockabilly song, told him a couple of
nigger jokes and one kike joke, and tucked him in.

Mr. Harold went in to see the boy, but he was asleep. The
blind man and Mrs. Harold sat on the couch and talked about chicken and
dumpling recipes and how to clean squirrels properly for frying. Mr. Harold sat
in a chair and listened, hoping for some opening in the conversation into which
he could spring. None presented itself.

Finally Mrs. Harold got the blind man some bedclothes and
folded out the couch and told him a pleasant good night, touching the blind
man's arm as she did. Mr. Harold noted she left her hand there quite a while.

In bed, Mr. Harold, hoping to prove to himself he was still
man of the house, rolled over and put his arm around Mrs. Harold's hip. She had
gotten dressed and gotten into bed in record time while he was taking a leak,
and now she was feigning sleep, but Mr. Harold decided he wasn't going to go
for it. He rubbed her ass and tried to work his hand between her legs from
behind. He touched what he wanted, but it was as dry as a ditch in the Sahara.

Mrs. Harold pretended to wake up. She was mad. She said he
ought to let a woman sleep, and didn't he think about anything else? Mr. Harold
admitted that sex was a foremost thought of his, but he knew now nothing he
said would matter. Neither humor nor flattery would work. He would not only go
pieless this night, he would go assless as well.

Mrs. Harold began to explain how one of her mysterious
headaches with back pain had descended on her. Arthritis might be the culprit,
she said, though sometimes she suspicioned something more mysterious and
deadly. Perhaps something incurable that would eventually involve large leaking
sores and a deep coma.

Mr. Harold, frustrated, closed his eyes and tried to go to
sleep with a hard-on. He couldn't understand, having had so much experience
now, why it was so difficult for him to just forget his boner and go to bed,
but it was, as always, a trial.

Finally, after making a trip to the bathroom to work his
pistol and plunk its stringy wet bullet into the toilet water, he was able to
go back to bed and drift off into an unhappy sleep.

A few hours later he awoke. He heard a noise like girlish
laughter. He lay in bed and listened. It was in fact, laughter, and it was
coming from the living room. The blind man must have the TV on. But then he
recognized the laughter. It hadn't come to him right away, because it had been
ages since he had heard it. He reached for Mrs. Harold and she was gone.

He got out of bed and opened the bedroom door and crept
quietly down the hall. There was a soft light on in the living room; it was the
lamp on the TV muted by a white towel.

On the couch-bed was the blind man, wearing only his
underwear and dark glasses. Mrs. Harold was on the bed too. She was wearing her
nightie. The blind man was on top of her and they were pressed close. Mrs. Harold's
hand sneaked over the blind's man's back and slid into his underwear and cupped
his ass.

Mr. Harold let out his breath, and Mrs. Harold turned her
head and saw him. She gave a little cry and rolled out from under the blind
man. She laughed hysterically. "Why, honey, you're up."

The blind man explained immediately. They had been
practicing a wrestling hold, one of the more complicated, and not entirely
legal ones, that involved grabbing the back of an opponent's tights. Mrs.
Harold admitted, that as of tonight, she had been overcome with a passion for
wrestling and was going to watch all the wrestling programs from now on. She
thanked the blind man for the wrestling lesson and shook his hand and went past
Mr. Harold and back to bed.

Mr. Harold stood looking at the blind man. He was on the
couch on all fours looking in Mr. Harold's direction. The muted light from the
towel-covered lamp hit the blind man's dark glasses and made them shine like
the eyes of a wolf. His bared teeth completed the image.

Mr. Harold went back to bed. Mrs. Harold snuggled close. She
wanted to be friendly. She ran her hand over his chest and down his belly and
held his equipment, but he was as soft as a sock. She worked him a little and
finally he got hard in spite of himself. They rolled together and did what he
wanted to do earlier. For the first time in years, Mrs. Harold got off. She
came with a squeak and thrust of her hips, and Mr. Harold knew that behind her
closed eyes she saw a pale face and dark glasses, not him.

Later, he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Mrs.
Harold's pussy had been as wet as a fish farm after her encounter with the
blind man, wetter than he remembered it in years. What was it about the blind
man that excited her? He was a racist cracker asshole who really knew nothing.
He didn't have a job. He couldn't even work a weed-eater that good.

Mr. Harold felt fear. What he had here at home wasn't all
that good, but he realized now he might lose it, and it was probably the best
he could do. Even if his wife's conversation was as dull as the Republican
convention and his son was as interesting as needlework, his home life took on
a new and desperate importance. Something had to be done.

Next day, Mr. Harold got a break. The blind man made a
comment about his love for snow cones. It was made while they were sitting
alone in the kitchen. Mrs. Harold was in the shower and the boy was playing
Nintendo in the living room. The blind man was rattling on like always. Last
night rang no guilty bells for him.

"You know," said Mr. Harold, "I like a good
snow cone myself. One of those blue ones."

"Oh yeah, that's coconut," said the blind man.

"What you say you and me go get one?"

"Ain't it gonna be lunch soon? I don't want to spoil my
appetite."

"A cone won't spoil nothing. Come on, my treat."

The blind man was a little uncertain, but Mr. Harold could
tell the idea of a free snow cone was strong within him. He let Mr. Harold lead
him out to the car. Mr. Harold began to tremble with anticipation. He drove
toward town, but when he got there, he drove on through.

"I thought you said the stand was close?" said the
blind man. "Ain't we been driving a while?"

"Well, it's Sunday, and that one I was thinking of was
closed. I know one cross the way stays open seven days a week during the
summer."

Mr. Harold drove out into the country. He drove off the main
highway and down a red clay road and pulled over to the side near a gap where
irresponsibles dumped their garbage. He got out and went around to the blind
man's side and took the blind man's arm and led him away from the car toward a
pile of garbage. Flies hummed operative notes in the late morning air.

"We're in luck," Mr. Harold said. "Ain't no
one here but us."

"Yeah, well it don't smell so good around here.
Somethin' dead somewheres?"

"There's a cat hit out there on the highway."

"I'm kinda losin' my appetite for a cone."

"It'll come back soon as you put that cone in your
mouth. Besides, we'll eat in the car."

Mr. Harold placed the blind man directly in front of a bag
of household garbage. "You stand right here. Tell me what you want and
I'll get it."

"I like a strawberry. Double on the juice."

"Strawberry it is."

Mr. Harold walked briskly back to his car, cranked it, and
drove by the blind man who cocked his head as the automobile passed. Mr. Harold
drove down a ways, turned around and drove back the way he had come. The blind
man still stood by the _garbage_ heap, his cane looped over his wrist, only now
he was facing the road.

Mr. Harold honked the horn as he drove past.

Just before reaching the city limits, a big black pickup
began to make ominous manueuvers. The pickup was behind him and was riding his
bumper. Mr. Harold tried to speed up, but that didn't work. He tried slowing
down, but the truck nearly ran up his ass. He decided to pull to the side, but
the truck wouldn't pass.

Eventually, Mr. Harold coasted to the emergency lane and
stopped, but the truck pulled up behind him and two burly men got out. They
looked as if the last bath they'd had was during the last rain, probably caught
out in it while pulp wooding someone's posted land.

Mr. Harold assumed it was all some dreadful mistake. He got
out of the car so they could see he wasn't who they thought he must be. The
biggest one walked up to him and grabbed him behind the head with one hand and
hit him with the other. The smaller man, smaller because his head seemed
undersized, took his turn and hit Mr. Harold. The two men began to work on him.
He couldn't fall down because the car held him up, and for some reason he
couldn't pass out. These guys weren't as fast as Sonny Guy, and they weren't
knocking him out, but they certainly hurt more.

"What kinda fella are you that would leave a blind man
beside the road?" said the bigger man just before he busted Mr. Harold a
good one in the nose.

Mr. Harold finally hit the ground. The small-headed man
kicked him in the balls and the bigger man kicked him in the mouth, knocking
out what was left of his front teeth; the man's fist had already stolen the
others. When Mr. Harold was close to passing out, the small-headed man bent
down and got hold of Mr. Harold's hair and looked him in the eye and said,
"We hadn't been throwing out an old stray dog down that road, that fella
might have got lost or hurt."

"He's much more resourceful than you think," Mr.
Harold said, realizing who they meant, and then the small-headed man hit him a
short chopping blow.

"I'm glad we seen him," said the bigger man,
"and I'm glad we caught up with you. You just think you've took a beating.
We're just getting started."

But at that moment the blind man appeared above Mr. Harold.
He had found his way from the truck to the car, directed by the sound of the
beating most likely. "No, boys," said the blind man, "that's
good enough. I ain't the kind holds a grudge, even 'gainst a man would do what
he did. I've had some theology training and done a little Baptist ministering.
Holding a grudge ain't my way."

"Well, you're a good one," said the bigger man.
"I ain't like that at all. I was blind and I was told I was gonna get a snow
cone and a fella put me out at a garbage dump, I'd want that fella dead, or
crippled up at the least."

"I understand," said the blind man. "It's
hard to believe there's people like this in the world. But if you'll just drive
me home, that'll be enough. I'd like to get on the way if it's no
inconvenience. I have a little Bible lesson in braille I'd like to study."

They went away and left Mr. Harold lying on the highway
beside his car. As they drove by, the pickup tires tossed gravel on him and the
exhaust enveloped him like a foul cotton sack.