The Return of Buddy Bush Read Free Page B

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 heturns 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.
    â€œGrandma, 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 thehoop 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.”
    â€œYes, 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 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 smilewhen 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.