At last Tuck found a way to loop the power cord from the circular saw over a nail sticking out of the door above Eddie. The saw swung there like a pendulum, like the border between Eddie’s life before and who knew what. Eddie would need only to raise his wrists toward the blades if somebody stuck the plug in and the power went on.
Darlene spoke up, voicing her hopes. Maybe the saw will cut through the chain and the chain will fall off? she said. But that went against what everybody else could see would happen, and what Michelle and Tuck had braced themselves to deal with. Their brows knotted together.
I hope so, Mama, Eddie said hopelessly, as his anger crested, like a fever breaking, and fear took its place. He stared toward his mother. Darlene took a very quick glance at him and their eyes met for an instant.
Looking back later, from the distance of St. Cloud, Eddie would say that he reckoned he’d done well. Best thing that ever happened to me! he’d say. How could I have become the Handyman Without Hands if I had hands? I wouldn’t give up that experience for anything in the world. It’s unique, it set me apart from any other Negro stranger, especially up in St. Cloud. I do believe that God called me to be the Handyman Without Hands. People who have everything and everything works, those folks don’t even notice that they have it. But set an obstacle in a man’s way and he can see his whole life differently—not that everybody in my position could’ve done what I did. But if you’re stubborn like me, and you have to struggle to do what other people seem to do without trying—hell, without even thinking about trying—it changes your thoughts and your behavior. People who get the special treats of life think it’s easy, think anybody can do what they’ve done. I’ve seen some rich folks focus so hard on everybody they think is above them and who gets more than they do that they actually think they’re on the bottom. I tell you, the bottom is crackheads like TT and Michelle and Hannibal and my mom, out in that boiling heat, hunting for a brown lime on a barren tree. No, there’s worse than that. But it’s so much worse that if you saw it, you’d quit the human race.
Sirius apologized, then began to sing a slow ballad that Eddie didn’t recognize—badly—until Tuck asked him to shut up.
Eddie closed his eyes, stiffened his wrists, and imagined what was to come. Immediately he forced himself to think of something else—his backyard in Ovis, a rare memory of his father watching him play in the sun on a breezy Saturday.
The solution everyone agreed upon, to protect the identity of the cutter and to reduce Eddie’s terror, was that he would wear a blindfold. Darlene knelt behind him, wrapping a sweatshirt over his face. I can’t stay, Eddie heard his mother whisper to him. I’m going to walk as far away from this barn as I can so I don’t have to hear anything, I’ll cover my ears and I’ll wait right outside with these rags once I get the all-clear. It’s too much.
But I’ll be okay. Tuck says it’s temporary and they’ll get reattached. And by then we’ll be out of here.
Right, she said. Of course.
His mother’s reassurance did not sound convincing, but he had to admit he hadn’t convinced himself of what he’d said either.
I reckon I’m a weak person. Darlene sighed. I get sick of myself sometimes. I just go along with life because I can’t think myself out of the things I get into. I can’t move on. I can’t do that to Nat. I owe him.
How could you be weak after working at Delicious?
Darlene thwacked Eddie lovingly on his back.
Seriously, he said. Weak? Carrying those Carolina Crosses all day?
It’s a different kind of weak, Eddie. It’s like the Lord has asked me to walk through a hurricane and get across an ocean but didn’t give me rubbers or a raincoat or a lifeboat. Or even clothes. She finished tying Eddie’s blindfold and he heard the sound of her hands hitting her thighs.
So what. Your feet get wet and you swim.
That’s okay if you’re tough inside. You share that with your father. But I take everything to heart.
I don’t know what you mean.
You’re going to think I’m crazy, Eddie, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a pistol-whipping or a sunset, I can’t stop feeling overwhelmed. I don’t want to lose anyone anymore, I don’t want to lose anything. Why does being alive have to mean always losing, always losing everything all the time?
You can take pictures! Movies?
No. I mean things nobody can replace. Most people don’t even try. It doesn’t matter to them. Or if it does, they know how to ignore it. I can’t. I need to talk to Scotty. She laughed. Scotty helps me handle all of this.
She danced her fingers down to the ends of Eddie’s arms and he felt a strange kind of pressure there. She promised to make sure they’d get him to a hospital first thing—this veiled touch would not be the last sensation he’d ever feel with his fingers—and he stretched his mouth skeptically, doubting her ability to supervise that journey. But before he could say anything, she used his shoulder to raise herself from the ground and soon the cooler air from outside tumbled into the space and her footsteps grew fainter as they crunched through the leaves outside. Eddie thought he heard her weeping but it also sounded like coughing.