Legend of Buddy Bush (9781439131824) (9 page)

Miss Nora just smiles and talks. She seems happy to tell me all about the big city. I can tell she loves the city life. So why did she leave? I just have to find out. But I know that's grown folks business like everything else on Rehobeth Road except the weather and the time.

I want to drop my hoe and run over there and shake her back to her senses and say, “Get out of here while you can, lady! If you stay, you will chop
all summer, pick cotton all fall, and carry wood until March, maybe April, of next year.”

Instead, I watch her carefully pull up the weeds and lay them down like they are babies. I want to yell again, “Just throw the damn thing on the ground, please.” Better not do that, either. Ma would kill me for cursing. Finally, I get up the nerve to ask Miss Nora about my uncle.

“Miss Nora, can I ask you a grown folks question?”

“What is it, child?”

“How did you meet my uncle Buddy?”

“How did I meet him? I don't ever remember
not
knowing Buddy. I grew up right here on Rehobeth Road, too. Buddy was my boyfriend in high school. He just up and left for Harlem one day and the next year I followed him there. Of course, Buddy had a new girl by the time I got there. But he never did marry. Me, I eventually married someone else.”

“Well, why did you two come back here? Ain't nothing here.”

Miss Nora is looking at me like Grandpa does when I have said something stupid.

“Honey,” she says, “it's always something at home. I just came back a few months ago after my divorce was final. Buddy never told me why he came back. But I am glad. Your uncle ain't lost his charm one bit. We just started going to the movies together on Friday nights about two month ago. I feel so guilty about what happen to him.”

I can't believe this woman is feeling sorry for Uncle Buddy after he done gave her the worms. I better try to comfort her.

“Don't feel guilty, you didn't do nothing wrong.”

She still loves my uncle after all these years. Maybe that's what Grandpa meant when he said, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.”

Miss Nora says nothing.

I say nothing.

Instead, she is sad and so am I, as we both think about Uncle Buddy.

I check the time with my foot. Grandpa said you ain't a real farm girl if you don't know how to tell time with your foot. I have no plans of being a farm girl for long, but this telling time thing comes in
handy. Uncle Buddy don't like it when I do this. But he can solve that and buy me a watch. Ma says, “Don't be begging your uncle.” Watch or no watch, he don't think I'm going to be a good city girl if I don't break my country ways. But I know I will be, one day. I move my foot to the head of my shadow.

There it is, right on the nose. It's lunchtime.

“Miss Nora, it's twelve noon. We can stop for lunch now.”

Miss Nora looks at me and smiles, like she knows my little secret way of telling the time.

Everyone rushes to the old oak tree to have lunch. When I get there, all the Edward children have beaten me to the best shade spots. They sit together and laugh at Randy's jokes. I usually sit with Chick-A-Boo, but not today. Today I am going to sit right here with Miss Nora. If I sit close enough, I will probably see the worms.

Miss Blanche cooked her children two chickens, some bread to share, and she froze them some Kool-Aid, that I plan to ask for a glass of later. Ma never froze me Kool-Aid, just iced tea. She told me
that tea is cheaper and Miss Blanche know good and well she can't afford no Kool-Aid. Sometimes Randy will trade me Kool-Aid for tea, if I ask him.

My little lunch bag with my name on it is lying on the table that Randy put here every morning. It's his job to put our lunch bags out at 11:50. If he put it out too early, the ants will eat and we go hungry.

Miss Nora didn't bring a lunch bag. Just an apple rolled up in a napkin and some water that she left on the dashboard of the truck. I hope that Chick-A-Boo doesn't see her get her apple out of the truck. That will really push Pretty Lady over the edge. Because she want Miss Nora to eat pork and beans just like we are eating. Miss Nora told me why she's only eating an apple and drinking water. She's on a diet. Now that's big stuff in Rich Square. A person on a diet.

She bites her apple slowly and don't drink all of her water at one time, the way most grown folks do around here.

We only have thirty minutes for lunch. That is just enough time for me to eat my pork chop
from last night's dinner and my can of beans.

Ma's leftover salad would spoil before I could eat it, so pork and beans with pork chops is my lunch.

When we finish lunch, everyone takes their positions back in the field where they have left their hoes and hats. Our straw hats are all different colors, like we are in a fashion show. Every summer, when chopping time is over, I bury my hat on Jones Property. Not that I want a new one next year. I just never want to see this one again. I take my hat to Jones Property to put pie on Ole Man Taylor's face. He can't hear me, but it's my way of saying, “Take your hat. Take your land. My grandpa got his own land.” Then I give that stinking straw hat a funeral. Me, Hobo, and Hudson. This year, I think I will burn them, hat, hoe, and all, the morning I leave for Harlem.

Burying just isn't permanent enough. Last year I buried the ugly shoes that Ma had bought me at the thrift store over in Jackson. I carried them in my lunch bag to Grandpa's and buried them at the far end of Jones Property where no one ever walks.
Ma was looking for Hobo one day after I had buried the shoes, and there they were. A big rain had washed those ugly shoes up and I had to wear them to school until they were too small. Ma said, “I hope you have learned a lesson.” I definitely had. Burning is better than burying. Uncle Buddy laughed at me for a month. He said, “Now Pattie Mae, never try to outfox the fox. Mer is a fox.” I wish he were here with me now to laugh. To do anything.

After lunch, it seems like the day is going by so fast. I am glad because I want to get home, change clothes, and find out if there is any news about Uncle Buddy and Grandpa's condition. I bet he will feel better after the doctor gives him something to throw up all those roots Grandma has put in his stomach over the last fifty years. That's how long they've been married. That's how long she's been trying to control my grandpa.

Ma told me to get off the truck at the slave house so that we can get more clothes. Last to pick up, first to get off the slave truck. After I get my envelope from Randy with eight dollars in it for the
last week's pay, I run down the long path to our house. Friday is usually payday, but we didn't work Friday because of the big rain, so we get our money today. And I would have gotten ten dollars if we had worked on Friday.

“Good-bye, everybody. Good-bye, Miss Nora.” Pretty Lady is rolling her eyes at me just because I'm waving good-bye to Miss Nora. But I'm not thinking about Chick-A-Boo with her spoiled self.

M
a is in the slave house kitchen. But I know something is wrong the minute I walk near the stove because ain't no supper on it. Ma always have supper ready when I am done chopping. She never chops until 6 o'clock with us. At 4:30 each day, Randy have to bring her home. If he is not there, Ma will just walk. No matter how far, Ma just walks.

“Evening, Ma.”

“Evening, child. How's your day?”

I don't know why Ma asks me that. My day was terrible out there in that hot damn sun from sunrise
to sunset. I don't say a word, but Ma can tell I am cursing to myself.

She finally say, “We took your grandpa to the doctor today.”

“I know. Is he okay?”

“No, Grandpa ain't okay. The doctor says he got some kind of brain tumor, just like Dr. Franklin said. They say he too old for them to operate on him and sooner than later he will go blind.”

I want to scream, but nothing will come out. I just can't imagine Grandpa not being able to see me. What if he can't see Grandma's strawberry patch no more, his rocking chair, Mr. Charlie, Jones Property? He has to see Uncle Buddy get his freedom back. I wonder if Grandpa is going blind because Sheriff Franklin hit him on his head all them years ago. If I learn that to be so, when Uncle Buddy gets out of jail we will go out there and flatten some more tires.

I try so hard not to cry. Please, Jesus, I don't want my grandpa to go blind.

“What about Uncle Buddy, Ma? Is he coming home today?”

“No, child. Uncle Buddy ain't coming home today. His trial been set for the thirtieth of June. But Poppa going to try to get him out on bail next week. He just ain't feeling well enough today. And the law wouldn't talk to him right now anyway.”

“What about Uncle Buddy's job?”

“He don't have a job no more. The sawmill fired him. Mr. Quick came by Jones Property today while we were in Rocky Mount. He told Ma Babe that Bro can't work there no more.”

I'm not asking another question, because Ma's tone is saying that she has said all she is going to say. She has three tones and I know them all well. Tone one is Ma is in a good mood, we can talk about anything. Tone two is a serious tone, and don't mess with me. Her third tone is so sad that it always makes me sad.

Knowing she's in her third tone, I do my chores without saying one word. First, I bring the clean clothes in off the clothesline in the backyard. Then I pump some water and pour it on the flowers around the doorstep. No need to pump water for supper, since Ma says we will be leaving soon for
Jones Property. I bring the ax inside and put it behind the kitchen door as tears roll down my face. I can't help thinking about Grandpa and his ax that he brings in every night from the woodpile on Jones Property. He told me, “Ain't no need to lock the door if you leave the ax outside.” I asked him what that meant. Two things, he said. One, someone can break in your house. The other meaning is don't trust nobody with your business. I think about all the things he has taught me as I finish my chores.

Every time I do my chores, I think about that song that Miss Annie Bell sings on fourth Sundays. The words go like this: “One of these days and it won't be long, you will look for me and I will be gone.” Now, she is singing about going to heaven. Well, I ain't ready to die and I don't want Grandpa to die, but I am ready to get out of this slave house and go North.

When I finish my slaving, we gather our pillow slips filled with clothes for a week and start our walk to stay on Jones Property. Ma carries the big pillow slip of clothes and I carry the little one. She
is real quiet until she looks up at the heavens.

“It's surely going to storm tonight, Pattie Mae. Just look at the cloud heads.”

Sometimes I almost forget that Ma is a little girl at heart. She's Grandpa's little girl, his baby girl. And she has never forgotten all the things they used to do when she was little. Like looking up at the sky and finding different-shaped clouds that look like different animals. Grandpa taught her and she taught me. Now Uncle Buddy can pick cloud heads too, but he says that it's countrified so he hardly does it. When he does pick them, he always find people up there, not animals. He showed me one that looked like Deacon Smith one time when they were mad at each other about parking spaces on the church ground. I think I will just stick to animals so that Ma will not tear my tail up again for doing disrespectful mess.

“Look at that one, Ma. It looks like a cow.”

Ma joins me in my search for cloud heads.

“That one looks like an angel,” she says and actually smiles.

“Do you believe in angels, Ma?”

“Of course I do and you should, too.”

“I do, Ma, and I believe they are watching over Grandpa and Uncle Buddy right now.”

“Shoo they are, child. They looking over all of us.”

We pick cloud heads all the way as we walk down Rehobeth Road. When we get to Mr. Bay's dairy, I start to walk fast trying to avoid the bulls.

“Slow down, girl.”

“But what about the bulls?”

“Can't go through life being scared of anything, girl, not even a bull.”

Ma smiles and walks slower. Then she opens her top so that the bulls can see her red T-shirt. She looks at those bulls like “I can wear red whenever I want to.” I feel so safe with Ma, safe on our way to Grandma and Grandpa's. Safe on Jones Property. The place Grandpa said will always be my home.

G
randma's rooster that I named Felix wakes me up at 5:30. He and Grandpa don't let 5:31 come around and their eyes still closed. Can't believe Ma let me oversleep. On chopping days, I have to be up at 5:15, not a minute later. I ease out of bed and into the hallway. Grown folks are talking on the front porch. Everyone is there: Grandma, Grandpa, Ma, Mr. Charlie, and Miss Doleebuck. They are out there having a grown folks meeting.

Grandpa, as sick as he is, he is definitely in charge. See, when Grandpa calls a grown folks
meeting, even the controlling women stop all their mess.

“We won't be able to see the bail bondsman until sometime next week. They been putting me off all week. Mer says that ten percent of the two-thousand-dollar bond is two hundred dollars. Is that right, Mer?”

“Yes, Poppa, that's right. You got enough money buried under the house to pay it. Or you can use the house for collateral and you wouldn't have to use your cash.”

“What's collateral?” Grandpa asks.

“That's when you use your land or house as money to secure something. If that person jumps bail, the law will own the land and the house.”

Grandma don't seem too pleased with that idea. So she adds her say. “We will use the cash. White folks will never own Jones Property again. Not as long as me and Braxton got blood running through our veins.”