Betty Sue laughed at Grandma and poor Grandma said she ran all the way home crying loud and acting crazy.
Great-Granddaddy Lewis was not home when she got there, but she told her Grandma Nicey what Betty Sue said. Grandma Nicey started to cry too and held her girl until her daddy got home from the cotton field around suppertime. That’s when they told her about her real momma, Mae Fannie.
Mae Fannie got sick while she was giving birth to Grandma. So sick that she took her last breath when Grandma took her first. Grandma don’t know much else. She did say that Mae Fannie has a twin sister who is still living up in Baltimore and her name is Fannie Mae. She’s about one hundred years old now and she is blind. She don’t ever come to Rehobeth Road. But Grandma don’t visit her either. Grandma said, “What does being blind have to do with sitting your behind on a train and coming down South? If she don’t ever come to Rehobeth Road again, I will not go to Baltimore. Never.”
Anyway Grandma told Miss Doleebuck that after Betty Sue told her about her real mama, Grandma never talked to Betty Sue again. But it made her love Grandma Nicey even more for taking her and raising her like she was her own and all. That’s probably the reason Grandma was so happy to raise Uncle Buddy, being that somebody that was not her momma raised her.
Grandma Nicey must have been some kind of woman. And I’m looking at her dead folks’ paper right now. It is old and yellow, but I can read it. Folded in her paper is George Lewis’s dead folks’ paper. It don’t say much. Just stuff like he went to Chapel Hill Baptist Church and he was married twice. Grandma was his only child and all that. But no mention of a momma and daddy.
According to Uncle Buddy Great-Granddaddy Lewis did not know his folks. They were slaves and sold away from each other when GreatGranddaddy Lewis was a baby. He was raised right here in Rich Square all his days. I don’t know how he got to Rehobeth Road, or to Rich Square for that matter. I do know that when I am old enough I am going to go up to the county courthouse in Jackson and see what I can find out. My biology teacher, Miss Frances Clark, said that there is all kind of stuff about land and mommas and daddies up there. Maybe while I’m there I will look up something about my no-good daddy Silas Sheals’s folks. He left Ma for another woman. On second thought, I don’t care nothing about him or his folks. I’m a Jones to my bones and that’s all to that. Mama said the man who loves you is your daddy. So Grandpa and Uncle Buddy are my daddies and that’s that. End of story.
But it would be something nice to find out more about Great-Granddaddy Lewis’s folks. Well, maybe I don’t want to know too much. See, Uncle Buddy said that a lot of folks around here got half-white great-grandparents. “Look at these people.” he said one day when I ask him why Miss Doleebuck is so light skinned. “Some of these folks are just as yellow as a cake of butter.”
He is right about that and I ain’t that dark myself. Not like my best friend Chick-A-Boo. Surely she can’t have no white blood. That is one black pretty child. Ain’t no white folks able to be related to nobody that dark.
I believe if I look in this chest long enough I will find out who all my folks was. I believe I can even find out who Uncle Buddy’s folks was. Don’t nobody talk about Uncle Buddy’s folks no more. Grandma and Grandpa raised him up after they died over in Rocky Mount in a tobacco barn accident. But if I find out something good, I am going to tell Uncle Buddy. If I find their obituaries, I am going to give them to him, because he did tell me that he didn’t have much memory of them. Maybe there is something in the dead folks’ paper that will help him to remember. Lord, I can’t wait to get to Harlem to find him. Fixing on that Uncle Buddy is there, like folks is saying in the fields. They might be right. Might not!
After the funeral Ma said that I would be going back to Harlem with BarJean for a while. I am going to start packing come morning and I ain’t telling nobody what I am putting in my suitcase. I’m taking short pants, two dresses, and the makeup that Miss Nora gave me last week. And I am going to take some of these obituaries and read them on the train while BarJean is sleeping. I know she is going to fall asleep before we leave Rocky Mount. Rocky Mount is where the train is leaving from. The train don’t come through this little one-horse town.
Don’t nothing come through here but the cotton man to buy all the cotton that we pick and the tobacco man come and buy all the tobacco we pick. Of course the big old milk truck come every day to pick up the milk from Mr. Bay’s dairy that’s across the road from Jones Property. I want to go over there so bad and see how Mr. Bay get the milk out of them big cans into that even bigger can on the back of the milkman’s truck. But I can’t go over there because Mr. Bay ain’t that crazy about colored folks. Now he was nice to us when Uncle Buddy had to run away and he came to Grandpa’s funeral. But he still don’t want us on his land. When the white milkman comes, I run to the end of the path and put my thumb up and pull my arm down. That mean “hello” around here, and then he pulls this string in the roof of his truck and makes the horn blow real loud. Lord, that is so much fun to me. I think it’s just knowing that the milkman ain’t from around here that keeps my blood cooking on high. The license tag on the milkman’s truck reads Virginia. I ain’t never been to Virginia before and I just love knowing that I see someone from another state every day of my twelve-year-old life. I can hear him coming as soon as he turns off of Bryantown Road onto Rehobeth Road and that’s when I start running to the end of the path. Me and my dog Hobo. If I am here on Jones Property, Grandpa’s cat Hudson runs right behind us.
Last year I was here on Jones Property eating supper when the milkman came and the strangest thing happened.
“Grandma, please let me go thumb the milkman.” I would not dare get up from eating supper without asking the woman of the house. That’s the rule when I am here on Jones Property. I ask Grandma, not Ma, for permission to do whatever I think I am going to do. The reason I say “I think” is because you don’t get to do a thing without a grown folks yes.
Grandma said yes because I asked in such a nice way. If I had just jumped up, she would had taken her cane and dragged me back to the table the way she did when I jumped up to meet Uncle Buddy when he was coming home from work one day. You have to see her punish us with her cane to believe it. She sticks it out with the hoop pointed toward you. Then she catch your leg, right at the knee with that hoop. Down you go! One day that woman is going to break somebody leg with that old cane.
That day after she said, “Go on and thumb the milkman,” I ran to the end of the road and waited. When the milkman got close, I threw my arm high in the air with my thumb up. I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t blow. I threw my thumb up again. He still didn’t blow. That man saw me and did nothing. When he turned onto Bay’s Property, I noticed that it was not the driver that comes every day. But they all know about the thumb. What was wrong with him? Mr. Bay’s grandchildren were standing outside with their thumbs up too. When the milkman got in the driveway, he pulled his string twice for them. So he don’t like colored folks either. That thing hurt me so bad I did not know what to do. I thought about that time Chick-A-Boo really hurt my feelings when she laughed at my run-down shoes. When I told Uncle Buddy about her laughing at me, he said, “Gal, you get your love at home.”
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.
3
The Packing
I ’m going to miss my grandpa and having supper with him most nights of the week. Always on Fri
day. 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!
The Return of Buddy Bush Page 2