“Rest on, Braxton, rest on,” he says like he is giving Grandpa permission to die.
Miss Doleebuck comes on the porch.
“Is he gone, child?” she ask in between tears.
“Yes ma’am, he gone.”
Mr. Charlie lays his wood and knife down and gets his walking stick. Miss Doleebuck hugs me and takes my hand.
Together we walk back across Mr. Charlie’s yard, across Rehobeth Road, on to Jones Property. Grandma has quickly changed into a black dress. She is going in every room covering the mirrors with clean white sheets. The women on Rehobeth Road believe that it’s bad luck to look at yourself when someone in the house is dead, but not buried. I don’t know if that’s so, but I know we didn’t look at ourselves for a week when June Bug drowned.
“Now, Pattie Mae, don’t touch a mirror on Jones Property until after the funeral.”
“I wouldn’t, Grandma.”
Grandma has closed the door where Grandpa is now. And we all go and sit on the porch, waiting for Joe Gordon. Everybody except Mr. Charlie. He leans on the closed door like he can’t move. Even in death he is standing by his best friend.
It don’t take long for Mr. Gordon to get here in his white hearse with two other men. Now I am crying. Crying because I know when they leave, things will never be the same here. I sit in Grandpa’s rocking chair until I hear Mr. Gordon at the front door.
When they come out, they have my grandpa. I can see his hand from under the sheet. I stand up and touch his hand. I hold it and I don’t want to let go. It is still so warm, like his kisses. Ma pulls me away and they are leaving with Grandpa. He is leaving Jones Property for the last time. The place he worked for. A place for Ma. A place for Uncle Buddy. A place for me. Slowly they take Grandpa down the steps.
“Grandpa, come back!” I scream and run in the house.
What will I do now? Grandpa gone to heaven and Uncle Buddy can’t ever come home again.
It doesn’t take long for folks to realize Grandpa done gone to meet his maker. The house is full of folks. They pray and bring pies, cakes, you name it. Mr. Gordon sends two men to get about twenty chairs for the guests to sit in. They bring a dead folks’ wreath and hang it on the door. Folks just keep coming throughout the day and evening. I am sick of them by nightfall and I go to bed early. I can’t sleep and I hear so many voices—Miss Thelma, Miss Blanche, Miss Nora, and a lot of other people.
Grandma has decided we will bury Grandpa next Saturday and folks start spreading the word. All week, the women folks work on the funeral arrangements. Everyone from up North are coming today by train. Aunt Rosie, Aunt Louise, Irene, and kinfolks that I have never seen before. BarJean and Coy ain’t coming by train. They driving Coy’s new car.
A Cadillac.
A blue Cadillac.
Uncle Buddy would be tickled.
Friday evening seems to take forever as we get ready for the sittin’ up. Joe Gordon drives up with his helpers and they take Grandpa’s body out of the hearse. So I was wrong last week when I thought Grandpa would never be on Jones Property again. I forgot that on Rehobeth Road when someone dies, the night before the funeral, Mr. Gordon brings the body back to spend the night.
They bring Grandpa’s body back in a coffin that he paid for ten years ago. The brown wood is shining like Uncle Buddy’s shoes used to.
I just stand there as they set the coffin down in the sitting room like it is a piece of furniture from Sears. Mr. Gordon does the job of opening the casket so that folks can see Grandpa. They start going in a few at a time to sit with Grandpa and talk about how much they liked him. But not Mr. Charlie. He ain’t leaving that coffin. He sit there all night, even when Grandma is not in the room. I only go in that dark room one time.
Grandpa don’t really look dead. Just asleep.
I finally go to bed and I sleep off and on, knowing my grandpa is dead in the room next to me. I just can’t imagine this house, this life of mine without him.
Grandpa’s rooster sound so different this morning, but I’m up to the sound of his crowing. Two hours later Mr. Gordon is back to pick up the coffin in the hearse for the funeral, and I leave the house. Down to our favorite tree I walk. Mer’s tree. I already watched them take my grandpa last week. I can’t bear to watch them take him again.
It ain’t long before Ma sends Coy to get me because we will be leaving soon for the funeral.
I don’t want to be a flower girl. Uncle Buddy said flower girls make funerals look like weddings. BarJean is a flower girl and Coy is a pallbearer. Everyone is wearing black except me. I’m wearing my outfit that I wore to the picture show with Uncle Buddy.
Poor Uncle Buddy. I wonder if he got word about Grandpa. I hope not, because he can’t come back here anyway.
After they put Grandpa in the hearse, Mr. Gordon starts to arrange the funeral line. We have to line up in the order of kin.
I bet if Uncle Buddy were here, no one would care about blood kin. We line up in twos as Mr. Gordon calls for us.
Miss Babe Jones.
Daughters.
Grandchildren.
Nieces.
Nephew.
He calls every kinfolk one would think of, except son. The only son Grandpa ever had is out there on the run somewhere. As we pulls off, I look out the car window and there he is. It’s Hudson. He’s back. He jumps in Grandpa’s rocking chair and I swear every hair on his back stands up. I ain’t telling nobody what I just saw. Nobody!
When we get to the church, we get out of the family cars slower than we got in. Our time with Grandpa is almost over. The church bell rings just as we walk inside. Reverend Wiggins leads us in.
The choir sings “May the Work I’ve Done Speak for Me” first.
Everybody in Rich Square is here for Grandpa’s funeral. Even a few white folks are here: Ole Man Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, and Mr. Bay.
But not one Franklin. They know better than to show their faces.
Mr. Charlie stands up to say a few words about my grandpa. His tears look like they are connected to a string, they are coming so fast.
I look in every face, looking for Uncle Buddy to come in, hiding under a hat. Of course, Miss Nora is here, and she is crying a lot.
You ain’t never seen so many flowers at a funeral before in your life. “Give me flowers while I can smell them,” Grandpa always said when I would pick him buttercups to put in his shirt pocket. He was just trying to tell me to be nice to people. “Tell them you love them.”
I love you, Grandpa. We all love Grandpa.
I keep looking for Uncle Buddy. When the choir start to sing “Precious Lord,” I stop thinking about Uncle Buddy and cry until service is over. Aunt Rosie, Ma, and Louise cry the whole service, too. Except when William Spencer Creecy speaks. Mr. Creecy speaks at every funeral. I don’t think folks in Rich Square believe a colored person is dead if Mr. Creecy don’t say a few words. He has been the principal here at Creecy School and the funeral speaker ever since Ma was a little girl. He says for us not to cry. “The same train that came and got Brother Braxton will be back for you,” he declares.
There!
It is official: Grandpa is dead.
We lay Grandpa to rest right beside June Bug in the colored folks’ cemetery next to the cotton field. Then we leave him there in that lonely ground and go back to Jones Property.
It raining so hard we are wet from head to toe when we finally make it home.
Miss Doleebuck says, “If it rains the day of a funeral, the Lord is washing someone’s soul to heaven.” Chick-A-Boo is here holding my hand, but she don’t say much. This girl finally figured out when to shut up. She just stand at the window with me and watch the rain. I wonder how long it will take for Grandpa’s soul to get to heaven.
Ma and her sisters are talking to all the folks that I wish would go home. Miss Nora is here and she is mostly talking to me now. She says she staying here in Rich Square. She says she have to work in the fields the rest of her life, she ain’t going to let white folks run h
er off unless Uncle Buddy sends for her. After all they done to Uncle Buddy, she is staying. Miss Nora says it ain’t nowhere else to go with no money and no education. Ma hugs her and Grandma does too. I can tell they really like Miss Nora.
When everybody leaves, Grandma takes the sheets off the mirrors and announces that we are going on with life.
“Now, Braxton wouldn’t want us to grieve long. We got to keep on going.”
No sooner than the words are out of Grandma’s mouth, Ma makes her own announcement: “Pattie Mae, next week I’m sending you back to Harlem with BarJean. That will give me, Ma, and my sisters time to take care of Poppa’s business.”
I can’t believe it. I’m finally going North. But it’s not like I thought my send-off would be. Grandpa isn’t here to kiss me good-bye. Uncle Buddy ain’t here to tell me how to act when the train stops in Rocky Mount. Harlem don’t seem so sweet no more.
17
The Train
I get up early on leaving day. Me, Hudson, and Hobo go over and say bye to Miss Doleebuck and Mr. Charlie. Then we walk down the road and say good-bye to the Edward children. Chick-A-Boo is crying like she really is going to miss me. I know I am going to miss her some kind of bad.
Coy drives us to the train station. He is staying down South a few more days to do the driving for the women folks. Mr. Charlie’s blood pressure has been too high since Grandpa died; Dr. Grant says he can’t drive right now.
“You be a big girl now,” Coy says as I climb out of his car.
Ma hugs me and kiss all of her lipstick off onto my face. Grandma never moves from the front seat. She just waves and tries not to let me see her cry.
“See y’all in two weeks,” I yell as they drive off.
BarJean pulls my hair.
“Now, don’t say ‘y’ all’ in Harlem.”
We laugh.
It feels good to laugh.
• • •
This train is much bigger than I thought. The conductor looks just like I knew he would. Tall and white, with a funny-looking hat on.
“All aboard!” he yells like Grandma used to yell at Grandpa and me. I gather my two suitcases with most the clothes I have in the world in them, and get on the train. The train I have waited for as long as I can remember.
“Can I sit at the window?” I ask BarJean as we walk down the aisle.
“Yes, you can.”
I sit down with ease.
I am suppose to be happy.
But I want to jump off the train and run to the cemetery and dig up my grandpa, so that I can hold him one more time. Maybe if I run back to the swamp, I can find Uncle Buddy.
“I’ll get us a soda pop,” BarJean announces, as I get lost in my thoughts. I look up and the old lady across from me is smiling with the one tooth she has. She has on her Sunday go to meeting clothes. With serious, serious eyes like Grandma. They look into mine.
“Child, what’s ailing you?”
“Just thinking about life.”
“Life? Child, you ain’t old enough to think about life. Where you from?”
“I’m from Rich Square. Where are you from?”
“Florida, and I have been riding all night. These old knees of mine hurt some kind of bad.”
Those serious eyes look right through me.
“Did you say you were from Rich Square?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“I been reading about that place. They must be some prejudice white law folks there, the way they treated that boy, Buddy Bush.”
I can’t believe this. All the way in Florida, people know about my uncle.
“Miss, you know about Buddy Bush?”
“Child, everybody that can read know about that boy. He the one who got away from the Klan. It’s about time somebody outsmarted them.”
She just laughs like she know something that I don’t.
“Do you know Buddy Bush, child?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Honey, if he ever come back to Rich Square, tell him that this old lady glad he got away.”
“I will, I will!” I turn my head and look out the window. For miles all you can see is cotton fields. White as the pure undriven snow. Then I close my eyes to pretend I am asleep. I see Uncle Buddy’s face, his smile. I see Grandpa. I want to go back home and things be like they used to be.
At the funeral, Reverend Wiggins said we will surely see Grandpa again. Until then, I just imagine him up there with the cloud heads, with the angels. And maybe, just maybe, I will run into Uncle Buddy in Harlem.
Author’s Note
The Legend of Buddy Bush is indeed a labor of love. Let me first say that I have never met Buddy Bush. He came into my life through the voice of my grandmother telling his story over and over on her front porch, on Jones Property night after night when I was a little girl. No, she did not raise him after his mother died. I doubt if she even knew him, other than his name.
In the beginning I was trying to write two novels: one about my family and a second one about Buddy Bush. They soon became one story of a surviving people that emerged into a summer of fun, honor, death, and love. There may be people at home who remember Buddy Bush and know what really happened, and this note is to let readers know that he was a real man who is a part of American history.
Beyond the fiction of this novel, Goodwin “Buddy” Bush was a Rich Square native who worked at the sawmill in Rich Square. His real parents were from George, North Carolina, a little unincorporated town two miles north of Rich Square.
His story began one night in 1947 when he was waiting for his date to get off work. Trying to pass the time away, he sat down on the ground and started fooling with a few rocks. Margaret Allen Bryant, also a Rich Square native and newly separated from her husband, walked past Buddy as she was leaving the beauty salon. Knowing better than to get too close to a strange white woman, he stood up to let her by. She took his gesture as an attempted attack. Upset by her reaction and her scream, he went to the local Myers Theatre without his date and watched the movie alone. After the movie was over he met his date at the local ice cream parlor, where they sat eating together. Within minutes the local sheriff came to arrest Buddy, who had simply moved to let Margaret Allen Bryant pass.
Word spread quietly throughout the black and white community that Buddy had been arrested for trying to rape a white woman. Black people were afraid for him, and white people were outraged by what they assumed he had done.
The horror of that night was just the beginning of what would become the most talked and written about event that ever happened in Northampton County. In May 1947, seven white men with white towels from the local barbershop over their heads went to the county jail in Jackson and took Buddy Bush from his cell. Into the dark night they drove off, after putting him in the trunk of their car. Within a mile of his capture, Buddy Bush jumped from the unlocked trunk and ran for his life. One of the kidnappers ran behind him, firing a single bullet that Buddy Bush later described as “a bullet flying past my head.”
For two days, he hid in the swamps, until he finally made his way back to Rich Square, where he found W. S. Creecy, the local principal, and minister P. A. Bishop to help him. Those two brave African American men drove him to Norfolk, Virginia, for safekeeping. While they were hiding Buddy, the local sheriff and half of the white people in Rich Square were hunting him down like an animal. The newspapers began to write about the incident, and within a few weeks the newspapers were printing articles about an attempted lynching in Rich Square. This publicity forced Sheriff Frank Outland to arrest the seven white men involved, which outraged the white community.
With Buddy still a wanted man, Creecy and Bishop brought him back to the Jackson Jail, after working out a plan for protection with the sheriff. Buddy was then transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, for safekeeping. This incident was so far out of the sheriff’s control now that North Carolina Governor R. Gregg Cherry and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover became involved and sent in the St
ate Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and the FBI to Rich Square to investigate. The story had become an international one, making the London Times.
After a very short trial, all seven white men were acquitted, and so was Buddy Bush.
Embarrassed by the injustice of the trial, Governor Cherry called for a retrial, and two of the seven men were arrested again. After a second acquittal, knowing justice would never be served, Buddy Bush left Rich Square for good.
Somehow, the fact that Buddy Bush came back for two trials and the fact that this was an international case was secondary to the black folks in Rich Square. It didn’t matter then and, to those who remember, it doesn’t matter now. They have one story, and the only one that matters to them: “Buddy got away.”
Grandpa’s barn
Baby Jones (Grandma)
Jones Property
Jackson County Courthouse
Braxton Jones (Grandpa)
Buddy Bush and P. A. Bishop
Acknowledgments
Mothers are our earthly gods. This book is possible only because of God’s grace and the prayers of my mother, Maless Moses. I thank her and my nine siblings—Barbara, Daniel, Johnny, Scarlett, Larry, Leon, Loraine, Gayle, and Jackie—for all the joy they have given me.
I am grateful to my extended family: April Russell; Deborah Rogers; the Abnatha family; Sonia Sanchez; Karen Tangora; Pat and Jack Shea; Lennie and Felicia Joyner; Morgan Freeman; Trenise Pots; Darryl, Elliott, Eric, and Trelita Goins; Michael and Chloe Rowell; Xernona Clayton; Jeffery Baurmind; Wanda and Lauren Linden; Dick Gregory; Shelia Frazier; Barbara Austin; Paul Benjamin; Bill Duke; Randy Glover; Kim Miller; Sharian Williamson; Mr. and Mrs. William Creecy; and Pastor William Sheals.
There are no words in the dictionary to express my gratitude to my attorney and friend, Darryl Miller, and the entire staff at Miller and Pliakas. Special, special thanks to Eric Goins, who read this book over and over to help get it right. The wind beneath the wings of this novel is my editor, Emma Dryden. I am forever grateful to her and to everyone at Simon & Schuster for understanding the voices of my ancestors. Thanks so much to Laquita Green, Pauline Delotach, and Maggie Taylor, who works at the Jackson County Courthouse, where the Buddy Bush trial took place more than fifty years ago.
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