Grandma, I hope that she is feeling better. In silence she sure did take Grandpa’s dying kinda hard. But I know Mr. Charlie and Miss Doleebuck will check on Grandma every day. And Ma ain’t going to never stop going to Jones Property.
I wonder what Mr. Charlie going to do for a best friend now that Grandpa done met his maker. He’ll probably do nothing because Grandpa said you only have one best friend in a lifetime. Best friends like me and Chick-A-Boo. We were born and raised right there on Rehobeth Road together, and she will always be my best friend. On second thought, I love Chick-A-Boo so much that I will think about calling her Caroline for one week when I get back to Rehobeth Road. Lord, we all been through some stuff this summer and where in the world is my uncle Buddy? I can tell you one thing, if he is here in Harlem, I am going to find him. Yes sir, sure as the sunrise in the morning, I am going to start looking for Uncle Buddy. There ain’t a building in Harlem big enough to hide Uncle Buddy from me.
Look at this place. We passing the Apollo Theater now. Just look at all the lights. The sign says DUKE ELLINGTON in big lights out front. I wish I could go inside. I wish I could see Mr. Ellington in person. Miss Nora got a picture of him in her pocketbook. She told me that she and Uncle Buddy go to the Savoy Club on Lenox Avenue and dance to his music all night. That’s a nightclub for colored folks, according to Miss Nora.
When I told Miss Nora BarJean’s address, she said it’s not far from where the Cotton Club used to be, but BarJean lives closer to the Savoy. The Cotton Club is the place where Mr. Ellington played his music years ago, but colored folks couldn’t go in. That’s a shame that white folks like our music, but they do not like us. Now black folks can go in the Savoy. Lord, there it is! The Savoy! Its a line of folks wrapped around the building.
The taxicab driver finally pulls up in front of a big redbrick building.
“This is where I live, Pattie Mae,” BarJean says as the taxicab driver stops along the sidewalk. I see in real life the redbrick two-story building that she had already showed me in the pictures on the same day she came home for Grandpa’s funeral.
I can’t move! I can’t move one inch!
A real apartment building that I am going to spend the night in. Not just one night, but a few weeks. I can’t believe it.
“That will be two dollars, miss,” the driver says to BarJean. She reach in her faded brown bag to pay him. See there, Grandma cannot come to Harlem. Right here in the middle of the street she would be putting her hand in her bra to take out her money.
I can’t believe that driver ain’t helping us get our bags out of the boot of the car. As soon as he drives off, I’m going to speak about how this man is acting.
Off he goes with his no-manners self.
“That man didn’t even help us take our clothes out of the boot,” I say to BarJean. Suddenly I believe BarJean is going to have a fit. But she ain’t even mad about the rude taxicab driver. She mad at me.
“Boot! Pattie Mae, don’t say the word boot here in Harlem. Say trunk. The trunk of the car.”
Harlem sure does change folks. BarJean know good and well we don’t say the word trunk on Rehobeth Road, we say boot. She ought to be shame of herself. She really should. When I see Uncle Buddy, I am going to tell him about how citified she trying to be. All the way to the third floor, while we climbing the stairs I am thinking about Miss BarJean’s mess.
So this is what an apartment looks like. Just like on TV. I just know heaven ain’t no better than this. It ain’t. It can’t be. I’m going to sit my suitcase down and go straight to the bathroom. A real toilet! Not an outhouse. A sink, not a face tub. I can feel BarJean breathing down my neck just because I am still standing in this door looking at her bathroom. She might as well go somewhere and sit her fast self down, because I’m going to look at this bathroom until I get sleepy.
Maybe she does call the boot a trunk now, but she knows a bathroom ain’t no outhouse. She knows what it feels like to want to get up in the middle of the night to pee but you hold it till mornin’ cause the fire done gone out in the woodstove and it’s just too cold to get out of bed. Them nights when you can’t hold it no more, your pee freeze before it hit the bottom of the pee pot. She knows what that’s like. She knows what it’s like to go in the kitchen to warm your bath water and it’s cold before you get it back to the bedroom to take a bath. If Miss Citified don’t remember nothing else, she remember them snakes running her out of the outhouse before she can pee. And I bet you a million dollars that she use to pray for a bathroom before she got her monthly period, just like I do now.
“So, how do you like it?” she asks, while I’m rubbing the sink like I am waiting for it to come alive.
“I like it, sister, I like it just fine.”
“Well, good. You can take a bath in the morning.”
“In the morning? Can I take a bubble bath now?”
“You can, city girl,” BarJean say with a laugh.
She reach to the back of the tub and gives me some bubble bath. I really am going to die. I ain’t never used real bubble bath before. When I take a bath in the big tub on Rehobeth Road, I just use a little lye soap that Ma makes three times a year. She makes that lye soap to sale to Mr. Wilson at the grocery store. I’m going to take Ma some of this bubble bath.
I just have to turn the faucet on and watch the bubbles and water fill the tub to the top. As my behind touch the bottom of the tub I can feel a tear rolling down my face.
Maybe I am going to be a city girl after all. Me and Uncle Buddy use to talk about it for hours. I can hear him now.
“Now, Pattie Mae, be careful not to let the cotton bows stick in your hands. City girls got nice hands.”
I have to close my eyes tight. Real tight, so I can just see Uncle Buddy’s face. See his smile. I miss him. But I know he’s safe. He’s alive. Not dead, like them people in the obituaries.
I’m not going to think about dead folks right now, because I might get to hollering right here in this tub. Instead, I stay in the tub until the water gets cold.
BarJean fitted me a nice bed. Those sheets ain’t white like Ma’s and Grandma’s. They pink and they smell so, so good.
I peek out the window and just like Miss Nora said, it’s beauty here in Harlem. Black folks walking down the streets all dressed up. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight. It seems like morning ain’t never going to come. I just want the sun to shine. I want the rooster to crow. Lord, what am I saying? Ain’t no rooster going to crow in the morning. I’m in Harlem now. Ain’t no rooster here in the city at all.
· · ·
I don’t need nobody to tell me it’s morning now because I can hear BarJean moving around in the kitchen. She got to be back at work today because she done missed a whole week’s work when she was down South with us for the funeral. She singing away just like Ma. I can hear her real good, because my little room is right next to the kitchen just like it is at our house down home. She don’t sound as good as Ma. Ma can sing, “May the Work I’ve Done” all she want to. And I tell you another thing, Ma can praise God and sing at the same time. Yep, she sing stuff like “May the work I’ve done speak for me.” Right in the middle of a note, she will scream “Yes, Lord, yessssssssssss!” BarJean don’t know how to do that yet. I don’t even have to get out of bed to talk to my big sister. I can just yell across the room.
“Good morning,” I say, trying to sound like a city girl.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty. How did you sleep last night?”
“I didn’t sleep much. Just excited, I guess.”
“You can get some sleep today. I have to work until five and it takes me about thirty minutes to walk home. You know the rules. No going outside, and call downstairs to Miss Sylvine place if there is any trouble. Her telephone number is right here on the icebox. Most of all, do not open that door for nobody but Miss Sylvine, Coy and me.”
I don’t know what she talking about Coy for; he ain’t even back from down South yet. I know them wo
men folks are about to drive him crazy. Crazy as a bedbug. When he get back to Harlem, he will have to sleep for a week.
“But I don’t know what Miss Sylvine looks like,” I say, hoping for a brief telling of the woman.
“You don’t need to know what she looks like. She is from down home just like us. Her voice tells who she is.”
BarJean right about folks on Rehobeth Road. They all talk just alike: Country! Country! Country!
“Besides she has never seen you, missy. So there! You don’t know each other. I will take you downstairs when I get home so you two can meet.”
I know not to ask another question. As a matter of a fact, I will just shut up, period. BarJean just like Ma. She done made up her mind what I’m suppose to say and do. That’s that.
I got to get up, walk in this kitchen, and watch BarJean finish cooking breakfast. She can’t fry an egg, so this is going to be some meal.
She really looks like Ma. She fuss just like her too. She can fuss all she wants to. The minute she walks out that front door I’m leaving this apartment so I can find my uncle. You know, I bet he done found himself a new city woman and forgot all about Miss Nora. If that’s what he has done, he ought to be shame of himself. I’m not going to mention that to BarJean, because if I do she is just going to tell me that’s grown folks business, and she will force me to use the mason jar here, too.
When BarJean turns the water on to make her a cup of coffee, I almost jump out of my skin. The only time I have ever heard the sound of running water before in my whole life is at the schoolhouse and when I took my bubble bath last night.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” BarJean says while she is laughing at me.
“Nothing, I just ain’t use to no running water in the house.”
“Ain’t it something, little sister, how we did without so much all our lives?” she says in between a laugh and almost crying.
She didn’t say nothing after that. We just sitting here looking at each other. Looking at each other like we know something that other folks don’t know. Things that only folks that were born and raised on Rehobeth Road know. Rehobeth Road is a strange place. The houses are old and the white folks are long gone. All except Mr. Bay, who is getting on up there in years.
The colored folks that live on Rehobeth Road don’t own nothing but the shirts on their backs. Everybody except Grandpa. He owned Jones Property, and now that he done met his maker, my grandma owns Jones Property. When she leaves this earth, it will belong to my ma and her sisters. When they leave here, Jones Property will belong to the grandchildren. That’s the way Grandpa wanted it and that’s the way it is. He said Jones Property ain’t never to be sold. Never!
“All right, Miss Pattie Mae, I’m leaving for work now.”
“Oh, sister, don’t worry. All I am going to do today is sleep. I promise you that.” I have my legs crossed under the table because I’m trying to break the lie. Chick-A-Boo says if you tell a lie for a good reason you should cross your fingers or your legs and the Lord will forgive you. I am definitely lying because as soon as BarJean goes to work, I’m going out the door.
“Bye,” BarJean yells as she is walking out the door.
Just wait till I find Uncle Buddy I’m going to tell him about her talking about don’t say the word boot. Well, maybe I will tell him that after I tell him that they caught them mean white folks who tried to hang him. Wait till I tell him that they are going to have a trial for them mean men. The day right before Grandpa’s funeral, they caught the seven men who tried to kill Uncle Buddy. They all going to court for kidnapping in a few weeks. After I tell Uncle Buddy the mean men are going to court, I think he will want to come home. Back down South. Back to Rehobeth Road where he belongs. Somewhere in this grown folks conversation, I will have to tell him about Grandpa done met the man upstairs. Then I will show him the obituary. I’m going to tell him all about Hassie Lee reading it aloud at the funeral. Hassie Lee is the church secretary. She always reads the obituary.
Ma put poems and stuff the people in town and on Rehobeth Road told her to write in the obituary. In the space where Ma wrote who was singing the solos, she wrote my friend Daniel’s mama, Miss Novella’s, name twice because she did all the singing. Miss Blanche, Chick-A-Boo’s ma, can sing too, but not like Miss Novella. Miss Novella sings, “May the Work I’ve Done” better than Ma can. Now, that was Grandpa’s favorite song, probably because he done heard Ma sing it till her voice ran dry. Miss Novella got bad knees, but ain’t nothing wrong with her mouth. When she opened her mouth at Grandpa’s funeral, it sound like heaven was right here on earth. She rocks from side to side when she sings. At Grandpa’s funeral she got to rocking and shouting, but she never stop singing. The other women in the choir took their obituaries and went to fanning Miss Novella. She sang louder when they cooled her off. She got children that can sing too. That Pearl can sing all she want to. She lives somewhere up here in Harlem and I heard that she was on the radio a few times. Miss Novella’s baby girl Dorothy sings at school on Jamboree Night. Miss Clark, who moved to Rich Square from Carr, North Carolina, to teach us biology, started Jamboree Night. I don’t know what they do in Carr, but Miss Clark said there was nothing to do in Rich Square so she started this talent show every Saturday night at Creecy School in the gym. Ain’t no need to enter the talent show if Dorothy is in it because you can’t outsing her and you sho’ can’t outdance her. She moves like she ain’t got no bones in her body. Miss Novella said she better not be shaking her bottom parts. Honey, please! Everything on that Dorothy girl shakes. She got talent like her mama, who sang so loud at Grandpa’s funeral that I know he heard her. Yes, he did.
7
The Walk
I ’m all dressed now and all I have to do is get past Miss Sylvines door downstairs without getting caught. I’m wearing my red short pants that Uncle Buddy gave me and a white blouse that was too big for Chick-A-Boo. She said I can wear it until she is big enough to wear her own blouse. Then she said I got to give it back to her. I might and I might not.
I am just about to open the door when I hear folk talking downstairs.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning, Gloria.”
“Where you off to so early in the morning, Miss Sylvine?”
“I’m going to a meeting over at the church.”
Well, they just made my day. Miss Sylvine is leaving and this Gloria person ain’t nobody that BarJean ever mentioned to me. So I’ll just leave when they finish gossiping in the hallway.
Soon as Miss Sylvine leaves, I make my escape.
This street feels like it is paved with gold. I want to cry. You don’t know what it is like to want to be in a place like this while you in a hot peanut field chopping weeds. Sometimes I think I just chopped up a half a row of peanuts daydreaming about Harlem. Now I am here. Thank you, God. Look at these people. They don’t know what my little twelve-year-old heart has been through. Ohhhhh, they so dressed up. I am glad I got Chick-A-Boo’s new blouse on. I don’t know if I look like a city girl, but I feel like one.
Everyone in Harlem must have a job because ain’t too many folks walking the streets this morning. The few that are walking around ain’t even noticed me. Even if they do, they don’t know me from Adam.
One thing for sure, folks here ain’t as nosy as folks back home. Let me just try to walk down Main Street at home without Ma. Before my heels could hit the ground, someone would be on Rehobeth Road to tattle to Ma. If they can’t find her, they going straight to Jones Property to tattle to Grandma.
Look at this place. Look at all these stores. There is even a grocery store on the bottom floor of BarJean’s building. I better not go in there because I bet you the shoes I’m wearing BarJean has told everybody in there to keep an eye on me.
Uncle Buddy said all these people in Harlem are from down South, but they don’t look like it. They look like they been up here all they lives. They come here so they can get some respect. Uncle Buddy said he didn’t know
what it felt like to be treated like a man until he came up here to Harlem. Maybe he should have stayed up here. Yep, maybe he should stay here now. Maybe it ain’t right for me to want him to come back home with me. If Uncle Buddy had not come back to Rehobeth Road in 1942, he would have never got in the mess he in today. Till this day, we don’t really know why he came back. He wrote us a letter one day and said he was coming home soon. Home! That very next Sunday morning, there he was. For five years he lived on Rehobeth Road in peace and worked at the sawmill in Rich Square. At least he did until that terrible Friday night. That would have never happened to him here in Harlem. Now I have to find him and tell him they caught the white men who tried to kill him. I have to tell him they going to give him a trial too. At his trial Uncle Buddy can tell them that he didn’t try to hurt that white woman. He can’t tell the truth if he don’t want to go home.
It sure feels nice walking down this street with cars passing. Don’t many cars come on Rehobeth Road, except for Mr. Charlie and folks that farming. White folks and Randy ride up and down Rehobeth Road all summer. Ole Man Taylor owns most of Rehobeth Road and he let Randy, who ain’t old enough to drive, do all of his driving. Of course you see the milkman. Other than that, you don’t see a soul from sunrise to sunset. But here in Harlem, cars are everywhere. Right in front of my eyes. It’s too many to count. But I better stop looking at these cars and pay attention to the street signs so that I will not get lost or worse. I might get hit by a car the way Flossie Mae’s brother, Wink, did last year.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how you get hit by a car on Rehobeth Road. You can hear a car coming a mile away because it’s so quiet around there. Mr. Bud was driving over to see Grandpa when Wink stepped out in front of his car and it knocked him clean into Mr. Bay’s cow pasture. He better be glad he wasn’t hurt too bad to run, because them bulls had started coming toward him. Old as Mr. Bud is, he jumped that fence and helped Wink out with a broken arm before the bulls broke all his bones. If that boy had not got out, his obituary would be in that chest on Jones Property too. Right beside the paper for Mr. Bud, who died last winter.
The Return of Buddy Bush Page 4
