Read Online The Return of Buddy Bush by Shelia P. Moses - Free Book Online

tell her that I am up here looking for Uncle Buddy. If that happens Ma is going to skin me alive.
    I am halfway home when I remember that I did not ask Mr. Tom about Mr. Wright living in Paris. I will have to ask him tomorrow.
    Tonight I don’t say a word to BarJean about running into Mr. Tom. We are eating catfish just like we do every Friday down South andthen we are going to bed. I will read some more obituaries until I fall asleep. BarJean works a half day on Saturday so I will be back at the shoeshine stand at ten o’clock in the morning.

9
The Gravediggers
    â€œ
G ood morning, Mr. Tom.”
    â€œGood morning, child. How you feeling this morning?”
    â€œI’m fine. Did you find my uncle?”
    â€œPattie Mae Sheals, what are you doing here, gal?”
    I feel love come all over my body. A love that only Uncle Buddy and Grandpa can make me feel. Uncle Buddy steps from around the building long enough to pull me back there with him.
    â€œUncle Buddy!” I crying out as my nose and eyes have a contest for which one can run the most water.
    â€œHush, child. Ain’t no need to cry. I’m all right.”
    â€œBut Uncle Buddy, where have you been?”
    â€œHiding, child. I’m hiding to stay alive.”
    â€œOh Lord, Uncle Buddy, Grandpa is dead.”
    â€œI know, honey. I know. Harlem ain’t nothing but home away from home for people from down South. I have known Papa was dead ever since the day he died.”
    â€œOh, Uncle Buddy, I’m so sorry you couldn’t come to the funeral.”
    â€œBut I
was
there, my child.”
    â€œYou were? Where?”
    â€œThe gravediggers. When someone dies don’t nobody ever pay attention to the gravediggers. There were three men that were suppose to dig the grave. The Masons got me a uniform and a digging tool and I helped dig the hole for Daddy Braxton’s finally resting place. When the undertaker asked the family to leave the cemetery, they opened the casket one last time so that I could say good-bye to him. It was raining so hard, folks didn’t even notice who was who. Them so-called smart white folks was so sure I was going to try to come inwith the pallbearers or the friends of the family that they never thought about the gravediggers. That is who I was that day As soon as the funeral was over, the Masons got me out of town and back up here.”
    â€œBut how did you get home from Harlem for the funeral?”
    â€œThe blue Cadillac, child. I rode with BarJean and Coy as far as Emporia, Virginia. From there a few of the Masons picked me up and I stayed down in the Low Meadows with Bro Smitty. Ain’t no white folks coming down there. They ain’t been down there since the flood of 1940 came and scared the mess out of them.”
    Oh, Lord, we hug and hug.
    We cry and cry.
    â€œThey caught them, Uncle Buddy,” I tell him. “The law caught the white men who tried to kill you.”
    â€œI know that too, child.”
    â€œWell, why are you still hiding? We can go home now.”
    â€œChild, I can’t go back. They ain’t going to send those men to jail and they ain’t going to give me afair trial because they think I tried to harm that white gal. Pattie Mae, I can’t ever go back.”
    I don’t say anything else. I just stand there and listen to my uncle Buddy tell me how he has been hiding ever since he left down home. How the good colored folks in Harlem have looked out for him. Especially Mr. Tom, who let him stay in his basement all this time.
    â€œIt’s time for you to leave, child. Do not tell BarJean you saw me. She don’t need to know where I am. She know I’m here somewhere and she know I’m all right. Now you go on and don’t come back.”
    â€œNo, Uncle Buddy, no. Please come with me.”
    â€œDon’t you talk back to me, child. Get out of here.”
    His voice almost scares me. I hug him and walk away. But then I