The Return of Buddy Bush (3 page)

So I ran back to Jones Property after the white milkman broke my heart because he didn't blow at me. I didn't go home to tell Grandpa. I went home to be loved. I didn't tell Grandma, because she probably would have walked right off of Jones Property onto Bays Property and showed that driver how she can use her cane.

When I got in the kitchen, my folks were smiling at me. Grandpa said, “So the milkman pulled his string twice today.”

“Yes, sir, he did.”

I lied.

We ate our supper. I ain't thinking about that milkman.

I get my love right here on Jones Property.

I
'm going to miss my grandpa and having supper with him most nights of the week. Always on Friday. On Friday me and Ma leave our house and come here to Jones Property for our catfish supper.

I miss Uncle Buddy too. Maybe when I go to Harlem and find my uncle, I can bring him home. Then he can be the man in the house. Now that Grandpa is dead, Uncle Buddy should be the man around Jones Property and the slave house. When I find Uncle Buddy he will smile
when he read Grandpa's obituary and the good stuff written about him. I want Uncle Buddy to see his name on the dead folks' paper. See, blood kin or not, his name is still put on this here obituary as Grandpa's son.

I tuck Grandpa's obituary in my pocket for Uncle Buddy right here, right now. I will come back for some more dead folks' papers before leaving for Harlem.

Out in the sitting room, Ma and Grandma going through Grandpa's things. They done almost wiped the wallpaper off the kitchen wall, they scrubbed it so hard. Now the controlling women talking about giving all Grandpa's clothes to Mr. Charlie. I don't know if I like that or not. But if they have to give them to anybody, Mr. Charlie is the person Grandpa would want to have his belongings. Grandpa had some nice things. The hats that Aunt Rosie brought him every time she came home from Harlem are still in the boxes. She even brought one when she came home for the funeral. Ma asked her why she brought a hat for Grandpa knowing he was
dead. Her answer was sad. Sad like this house has been since Grandpa went on to heaven.

“Li'l sister, I been bringing Pa a hat for thirty years. I just couldn't come down South without a hat.”

They put the new hat in Grandpa's casket, right beside his glasses. I will never understand a Jones funeral. You don't need your glasses in no casket because dead folks can't see. You sho' don't need no hat, like it's going to rain.

But it is fine with me that Aunt Rosie brought that hat. I just wish she would have left that crazy Collie up North. She come down here every summer with Aunt Rosie, Cousin Irene, and her mama, Aunt Louise, she cries from the time she get off the train to the time she leaves Rehobeth Road. Cries because she says she don't like “no South.” Ma says if Miss Collie so citified, why is she saying “no South”? She is real light skinned, like her daddy's folks. So when she cries, she is red for a whole week. Grandma says there ain't no way in hell she listening to that mess for a week, so that foolish girl sits in the living room most of the time or she sleep. Sleep in my room.
I act just like she ain't here. She ain't no better than me and Chick-A-Boo. And if she think she is, she should see them bugs in the outhouse the next time she go in there to pee. They will bite her little red legs just like they bite ours. Ooh, that's it. She crying because she don't want to pee in the outhouse. Why didn't I figure out that Miss Collie did not want to pee outside five years ago? Well, I will have to fix that. In the morning I'm going to put some red ants in the outhouse for the city girl! Let's see how she likes that while she peeing!

“Grandma, are you going to give all of Grandpa's stuff to Mr. Charlie?”

“Hush up, Pattie Mae,” Ma says.

“Let the child talk, Mer. She hurt just like you and me.”

I can't believe my ears. Grandma actually thinks I can ask a question. Maybe this grown folks business will be over on Rehobeth Road sooner than later.

“Well, baby, we going to give away most of it,” Grandma says real, real sad. “I thought I would save his hats for your uncle Buddy. Buddy can't wear his clothes because your grandpa was taller
than him. I think I will give Buddy his hats and his shoeshine box.”

My uncle Buddy always wanted that shoeshine box. Grandpa made it with his own two hands. He even made a footrest on each side of the box. I can't wait to find Uncle Buddy and tell him that the shoebox and all the polishes and rags are his now. He is going to look some kind of good in Grandpa's hats.

All night they separate clothes, even after they make me go to bed. I ain't putting up a fight, because I am so tired I don't know what to do. For a week we have been sitting up with folks who loved Grandpa. It seems that all of Rich Square has been by here to pay their respects. At least I know all of Rehobeth Road done been by here. From the time the colored undertaker Mr. Joe Gordon came and got Grandpa's body folks have been piling in and out of Jones Property. When colored folks see that hearse leaving town, at least one person jump in their car and follow Mr. Gordon so they can find out who is dead. Then they take their nosy self right back to Rich
Square and tell the whole town. I don't know who followed Mr. Gordon up here when Grandpa died. I hear tell it was Flossie Boone's boy that they call Radio who followed Mr. Gordon to Jones Property. They call him Radio because he talks all the time. I do know that within one hour we had a house full of folks. That did not stop until tonight. My citified aunts are sick of our company and I am a little tired too, but the visitors are still our home people and that's the way we do stuff on Rehobeth Road. If my aunts don't like it they should take Collie and leave.

Me, I'm going to sleep right now.

In a few hours I'm right back out of bed. Grandpa's rooster crowing woke me up. That means it's morning. 5:30 in the morning. That is what time he crows. He thinks he is still waking up Grandpa. He don't know that Grandpa is dead. Dead and gone.

I don't think that roosters are as smart as cats and dogs, but I am going to go out there and tell that rooster to stop his crowing. I should yell,
“Shut up, old rooster! Grandpa can't hear you no more. Grandpa can't hear none of us!”

Well, maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe I will just leave things the way they are. The rooster ain't bothering nobody but Collie. That fool screams every time the rooster crows. I laugh every time she screams.

I don't want too much to change around here. The rooster kind of makes you feel like things the same. He makes me remember how things use to be. How they were when Grandpa was alive. I want to look around and see Grandpa's face in the cotton, in the strawberry patch. I want to see his smile when I look down in the coffee that I ain't suppose to be drinking but Grandma gives to me anyway.

Yep, I think I will let that rooster keep on crowing and thinking that Grandpa is alive. It ain't hurting nobody.

Breakfast sure smells good. Ma cooking early like she do every day of her life. She cooking some extra eggs today because Bay Boy, who lives over in Scotland Neck, is here today to help Coy
do some work around Jones Property. They have to move some beds to get to the rest of Grandpa's stuff. Bay Boy ain't no kin to us. He is about forty years old and he helped Grandpa and Uncle Buddy to build the other rooms onto this house. He has his own building company that he runs from the back of his truck. He just go from house to house helping folks to do whatever they need doing. Folks use to tell him he needed to get a job. They shut they mouth when he got that new truck and a new house all in one year. Grandpa told Bay Boy “Now, Bay Boy I ain't worked for the white man in forty years. You do not have to work for them either. You just keep on getting up in the morning, working hard, and mind your business. The Lord will pay your bills.”

That's what Bay Boy did, and he and Grandpa have their own land. They own their own house and every piece of furniture in it. Grown folks can talk their heads off, but it ain't going to change nothing. And Bay Boy learned a lot from Grandpa.

I can hear Bay Boy in the kitchen just hollering
and carrying on like a woman. That's the reason he didn't come here after the funeral. Grandma told him to stay home, crying and carrying on. He know good and well he should not be in there crying and upsetting everybody all over again. But he miss Grandpa something bad. Now Ma crying and Aunt Louise done started that city hollering again. I peek in on crazy Collie and she done got back in my bed again and covered her head so she can't hear the hollering. She got a nerve, as much as she cry. My cousin Irene ain't paying them no attention, because she too busy packing. Packing because she said she done heard all the crying she can take. She said this is too much for her city nerves. Grandma walks in the kitchen and puts a stop to all this mess.

“Look a here, Bay Boy, Braxton Jones is dead. He is dead and he ain't coming back. I ain't never seen him cry in the whole fifty years that I was married to him, so I do not want to listen to you cry either. Now stop that mess.”

Poor Bay Boy wipe his nose on his shirtsleeve and eat his breakfast. Ma runs out the back door
to the barn to cry some more. Grandma don't care where she go as long as she leave her kitchen. She even grabbed the dishrag out of Ma's hand as she ran out of the door. Grandma ain't that softhearted about nothing.

She make herself a cup of coffee and start telling Bay Boy what to do. Coy was suppose to help, but she said, “Bay Boy can do this and you do the driving.” Now she going to work Bay Boy to death. “Clean under the beds. Get them boxes out of the smokehouse. Go outside and get some wood for the stove. When you finish that, pick the weeds out of the flowers.” The list just go on and on. She does not shut her mouth until Bay Boy starts telling her what he just heard about Uncle Buddy.

“Miss Babe, I got word about Buddy.”

“Word from who?” She sounds real mad. “And why folks telling you, not me?”

“Well now, Miss Babe, ain't no reason to get mad. A few black Masons told me that Buddy definitely made it to Harlem and he just fine. They did not tell you because the law pass here all the time looking for Buddy. They know if a Mason
come up here too much, then they just coming with news about Buddy. You know and I know that a Mason will end up in jail or dead. The law don't think much about me coming around because they know I use to help Mr. Braxton from time to time.”

Grandma listen for a minute and then she start fussing again. “First of all, don't be telling me not to get mad, boy. I helped birth you into this world with your ma crying like she was having a cow. Second, if you had this news, why you just now telling me?”

Grandma should be shame of herself for talking to Bay Boy about his ma crying like a cow. She don't care nothing about hurting your feelings. Just because she delivered every colored baby in the county, she think she they mama. I don't care if she is my grandma, it ain't right. It just ain't right. Poor Bay Boy just can't win for losing. I just think I will go out back to Grandpa's old shed so that I will not have to listen to her telling the poor man off. Lord, she is getting louder!

Out in the shed, Ma louder than Grandma.

Jones Property is just loud this morning.

I can't see no peace nowhere so I might as well go back in the kitchen to save Bay Boy.

“Good morning, Grandma,” I say “Good morning, everybody.” That's the way you speak when other people are in the house. You have to use Grandma's name first, then you can say “everybody” to the other folks. But you better say “Grandma” first. Let me tell you why. You have to live on Rehobeth Road to know what it is like to live around Babe Jones. She got her own rules and we follow them. She says to speak to her first because she is the oldest person on Rehobeth Road. She wasn't but two weeks older than Grandpa was. You think she care about that, but she don't. She care about having her way. Period!

We eat breakfast and wash the dishes in total silent. After breakfast we all pray one more time and start working around Jones Property. She's almost working us to death.

“Grandma, are we going to take the white sheet off the mirror in there where Collie is?”

“Yes, Pattie Mae, you can take the sheet off the mirror in Collie's room,” Grandma says. “And you do not have to laugh at her to do it.”

I'm just going to run into my bedroom where that crazy Miss Collie is and grab the sheet right off the mirror and scare her behind. Wrong again. I grabbed the sheet off the mirror and Miss Citified Collie just laughed at me. Good! Laugh your tail right out that door. Laugh all the way to the train station. Laugh all the way back to Harlem.

For the rest of the week, we work around Jones Property. Me, Hobo, and Hudson walk back and forth between Grandma's and the old slave house to get my clothes ready for my trip.

Chick-A-Boo said she is coming by to help me pack today.

“Hey, Chick-A-Boo.”

“Hey, Pattie Mae,” she says as I jump off of Grandpa's front porch to hug her. We always hug real tight. Chick-A-Boo said we should do this in case something happens to us, like what happen to June Bug and Willie.

Hobo barks at Chick-A-Boo like he always do.
He don't want her to touch me. Hudson could care less. They're all following me to the slave house. I think Hudson and Hobo are friends now that Grandpa is dead. They did not like each other much before that. I think Hudson didn't wanted to share Grandpa. Now they just got each other.

Me and Chick-A-Boo helping Ma wash at the slave house. It takes us half the day to finish washing all the dirty clothes. When we finish, we put all the clothes for my trip in a pillowcase and take them to Jones Property. Grandma said Ma do not iron worth a cuss. She is going to iron all the clothes I'm taking to Harlem.