Bud, Not Buddy

  OK, this time I’m really, really going to grab that doggone . . . The cop and Lefty Lewis were standing at the door. The cop said, “I want to take a look in the trunk.”

  Him and Mr. Lewis went around to the back and the trunk opened and I heard someone rumbling around in it. I heard a loud bang and nearly jumped out of my seat.

  Whew! It was only Mr. Lewis closing the trunk. They walked back to the driver’s door.

  The policeman looked in the backseat and said, “What’s in the suitcase?”

  Mr. Lewis said, “Those are Bud’s things. He was visiting here in Flint and I’m taking him home to Grand Rapids.”

  The policeman looked at me and said, “Oh. Your grandson, huh? You two look just alike.”

  Lefty Lewis said, “Why, thank you, Officer, I always thought the boy was unusually handsome.”

  The cop didn’t have a good sense of humor, he said, “All right, you’re free to go. We can’t be too careful, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re having a lot of trouble in the factories here. We’ve been stopping all cars we don’t recognize. There’ve been reports that some more of those stinking labor organizers might be sneaking up here from Detroit.”

  Mr. Lewis said, “You don’t say.”

  The cop said, “Drive carefully,” and he touched the brim of his cop hat the way a cowboy in the moving pictures does.

  Lefty Lewis got in the car, started it and we pulled back out on the highway.

  He made a scary face at me and said, “Bud, this has really been a couple of lucky days for you. First I save you from being eaten by some vampires in Owosso, then you seem to have survived my daughter’s paincakes and finally that police officer saves you from the feared and loathsome labor organizers of Detroit! You are truly blessed.”

  Lefty Lewis was back to acting normal, but I kept wondering what was in the box he didn’t want the cop to see.

  I said, “What’s a labor organizer, sir?”

  Mr. Lewis said, “In Flint they are people who are trying to get unions in the automobile factories.”

  Before I had a chance to get my next question in Lefty Lewis said, “I’ma save your breath for you, Bud. I’ll bet the next thing out of your mouth was going to be, ‘What’s a union,’ right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A union is like a family, it’s when a group of workers get together and try to make things better for themselves and their children.”

  “That’s all, sir?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Then why are the cops after them?”

  “That’s a very good question. Look in that box you put under your seat.”

  I pulled the box out and put it in my lap and looked over at Lefty Lewis. He looked back at me and checked the rearview mirror. “Go ahead.”

  I stopped for a second. Maybe there was a loaded and cocked pistol hiding in the box, maybe Lefty Lewis would’ve shot it out with the cop if he’d tried to take us to jail.

  I started raising the top off the box, and just as I was about to get it open Lefty Lewis moved a lot faster than you’d think somebody’s granddad could and slapped his hand on top of it closing it back tight.

  Uh-oh. Maybe this was loot from a bank that him and Al Capone had knocked over! Maybe Lefty Lewis would have to rub me out if I saw what was inside! Maybe if I looked I’d know too much!

  He said, “Before you look, Bud, you’ve got to understand that what’s in there is very dangerous.”

  I said, “Well, sir, I really don’t think I need to see it, sir. I think I’ll just look out the window until we get to Grand Rapids, or maybe . . .” I gave a big fake yawn. “Maybe I’ll take a nap.”

  He laughed and said, “Ah, you’re a lot smarter than you look, Bud, you know it would’ve been curtains for us if that copper would’ve seen what’s in there.” He tapped the top of the box.

  All I could say was, “Yes, sir.”

  He said, “Go ahead and open it. But! You have to promise—no, you have to swear that you won’t breathe a word about what you see to anyone.”

  “Mr. Lewis, sir, I’d really rather take a nap.”

  “Well, first open the box.”

  I took in a big gulp of air and started to raise the top off the box again.

  Lefty Lewis yelled, “Bud!”

  I jumped so high I nearly banged my head on the roof of the car.

  I yelled back, “Yes, sir?”

  “I didn’t hear you swear to keep your lips locked.”

  “Aw, shucks, Mr. Lewis, I swear, but I’d feel a lot better if I could take a doggone nap.”

  I snatched the top off the box and got ready to be scared to death.

  It was just some paper with writing on it.

  Maybe the pistol or the loot was under all this paper. I kept lifting paper until I got to the bottom of the box. Nothing!

  I looked at Lefty Lewis. He said, “I warned you, pretty dangerous, isn’t it?”

  I must’ve missed something. I went through the box again.

  “How’s some paper dangerous, sir?”

  “Read it.”

  I took one of the papers out, it said:

  ATTENTION RAILROAD WORKERS

  THE NEWLY FORMED GRAND RAPIDS

  BRANCH OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF

  PULLMAN PORTERS WILL BE HOLDING AN

  INFORMATIONAL MEETING ON WEDNESDAY,

  JULY 23, 1936. ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

  PLEASE COME TO 2345 COLDBROOK AT 9:00.

  REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED.

  YOU KNOW WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST—

  PLEASE KEEP THIS AS CONFIDENTIAL AS POSSIBLE.

  It was starting to make sense. I said, “Mr. Lewis, are you one of those labor organizers?”

  He laughed. “Not really, Bud. I’m picking these up so we can pass them out in Grand Rapids. We’ve been negotiating to get a union for the Pullman porters for years now and nowhere in Grand Rapids will print these flyers for us. The only place that would do them is all the way in Flint. You were running away to a pretty hot town, young man.”

  “Wow!”

  “That trouble the policeman was talking about at the factory is called a sit-down strike. Instead of walking in front of the plant with signs the people who are on strike just sit down on their job. That way the bosses can’t bring other people in to steal their jobs. They’re going to sit there until the company gives them a union, so the company is trying everything they can think of to get them out. That’s why I said those flyers are so dangerous. The people who run the factories and the railroads seemed to be really scared. To them if a worker has any dignity or pride he can’t be doing a good job.”

  BOY, THESE AUTOMOBILES were great for making you conk out! Between the car floating real soft down the road and Lefty Lewis’s boring stories about the railroad and the union and baseball I was out cold in no time.

  When I woke up I looked out the window and stretched.

  Lefty Lewis said, “I was about to take you to Butterworth Hospital, I thought you’d left the earth for good.”

  He pointed out of the window and said, “Looking familiar?”

  Uh-oh. “Yes, sir.” I pointed at a gasoline filling station and said, “Yup, there’s the gasoline filling station.”

  He said, “I guess your daddy would have to burn premium in that big Packard, wouldn’t he? I don’t think those big engines can run on ethyl gasoline.”

  I said, “No, sir, that’s right.”

  He told me, “Well, you and your daddy sure have one beautiful machine.”

  I was getting real nervous but I said, “Thank you, sir.”

  We turned another corner and my heart started jumping around in my stomach. Halfway down the street was a building that looked like it was made out of giant chopped-down trees. The Log Cabin!

  Uh-oh. Right outside the place was a sign that said, APPEARING FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY IN JULY HERMAN E. CALLOWAY AND THE NUBIAN KNIGHTS OF THE NEW DEAL.

  My father had joined a new band!
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  Lefty Lewis pulled up next to a car that was as long as a big boat.

  He said, “Ah, there’s the Packard, he’s here.”

  I had to think real fast. I couldn’t let Mr. Lewis and Herman E. Calloway talk to each other. If they did I’d be on the first thing smoking back to Flint. And besides, I felt kind of bad about lying to Mr. Lewis, I wished I didn’t have to.

  Lefty Lewis cut the car off and pulled the key out of the dashboard.

  I said, “Mr. Lewis, this is going to be very embarrassing for me.”

  “What is, Bud?”

  “Can I go talk to my father by myself, sir? I swear I’ll turn myself in to him.”

  Lefty Lewis looked at me kind of hard. “Well, Bud, I don’t mean to sully your reputation, but you just ran away from that man all the way across the state, I think I’d better hand-deliver you.”

  “But Mr. Lewis, sir, I need to explain it to him by myself. I promise I’ll go in and not run away again.”

  Lefty Lewis looked out of the windshield like he was thinking. He reached back across the seat and put his hand on the twine keeping my suitcase together. He said, “I’ll tell you what, Bud, you don’t go anywhere without this, do you?”

  I said, “No, sir.”

  “OK, here’s the deal, I’ll give you”—he looked at his wristwatch—“five minutes to talk to your dad alone. If you’re not back by then I’ll bring your bag in for you.”

  It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. Besides, it gave me some more time to think.

  “Please promise that you won’t look inside of it, sir.”

  He raised his hand. “You’ve got my word.”

  I got out of the car and walked to the front of the Log Cabin. The doors looked like they were made out of chopped-down trees just like the rest of the building. I looked back at Lefty Lewis and he was still watching so I opened one of the doors.

  I knew it was one of those doors that Momma had been talking about. I walked in to see what was going to happen.

  Shucks, there was another set of regular doors inside. The front door closed behind me and I was in the dark. I tried the other door and it came open but I didn’t push it all the way in.

  I waited, then went back out to get my bag.

  I walked over to the driver’s side of Lefty Lewis’s car, smiled and said, “Thank you very much, sir. He’s in there, he was so glad to see me that I’m not even in a whole lot of trouble. He’s real busy right now and told me to tell you thank you very much and that he’d get a holt of you.”

  Lefty Lewis smiled too. “Well, he might be happy now, but if I know anything about your daddy I expect you’re gonna be having problems sitting down before this night’s over.

  “Now I know he’s going to tell you this but I gotta add my two cents. Son, there just aren’t too many places a young Negro boy should be traveling by himself, especially not clear across Michigan, there’re folks in this state that make your average Ku Kluxer look like John Brown. You know who John Brown is?”

  “Uh-uh, no, sir.”

  “That’s all right, he’s out there moldering somewhere. But the point is you were very lucky this time. You’ve got to be good and stay put. I know your dad’s not the easiest man in the world but, believe me, he’s mellowed a lot from when it was just him and your sister.

  “The next time you’re of a mind to do a little traveling you come on down to the train station and ask for Lefty Lewis first. I won’t tell anyone, but we need to talk before you set out on your own again. Lefty Lewis. Think you can remember that name?”

  “Lefty Lewis.” Well, at least he was using the alias all over and not just with me and his family in Flint.

  He handed my bag out of the window. “OK, get back on in there and tell your daddy I said hello.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lewis.”

  I stood waving until the big car turned out into the street.

  I sucked in a jumbo gulp of air and opened the front door again. This time I pushed the second set of doors open and walked in.

  It was dark but I could see that there were six men sitting in a circle on a little stage at the other end of the room. One of them was white.

  Five of the men had their eyes on the other guy. One of them had drumsticks in his hands and was leaned over softly tapping out a rhythm on the wooden stage floor. Three of them were drinking from bottles of pop, and one, a real old one, was using a rag to wipe the inside of a trumpet. The guy who had to be my father was sitting with his back to me wearing a hat.

  He was talking just like me! And it didn’t take much listening to tell he was lying, or at least doing some real good exaggerating, just like I do!

  That was all the proof I needed.

  His voice was a lot rougher and more tired-sounding than I thought it would be. He leaned back in his chair. “That’s right, after I won the Golden Gloves no one couldn’t tell me I wasn’t going to be middleweight champ within two, three years tops.”

  The drummer stopped tapping. “Middleweight? What, this was so long ago gravity wasn’t as strong as it is now, or did a pound just weigh less back then?”

  The others laughed but my dad didn’t let it bother him. “That’s right, middleweight. You got to keep in mind that I had more hair and fewer pounds back then.”

  He pulled the hat off and rubbed his hands over his glass-smooth head. My dad shaved his hair! That was something I always wanted to do too!

  He said, “My manager goes and lines up a bout against a fighter outta Chicago by the name of Jordan ‘Snaggletooth’ MacNevin.

  “From the name I’m expecting some young Irish kid with bad teeth but this guy was one of us and so old that he could have been a waiter at the Last Supper.

  “When the fight began I wasn’t about to show mercy, you understand?”

  All the guys onstage were nodding.

  “And to make a long story longer I go out and flick this halfway stiff right jab clean at Pops’s head and—”

  The horn guy said, “Herman, to this day I can’t believe you swung at that old man.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Jimmy? I wasn’t trying to kill him or nothing, I just wanted to put him down quick and quiet.”

  Jimmy went, “Uh, uh, uh . . .”

  “And the next thing I know I’m watching my mouthpiece and my chance to be champ flying out of the ring into the fourth row of seats. I ain’t never been hit so hard in my life.”

  The drummer said, “What, you lost one fight and quit?”

  Then Herman E. Calloway said the words that let me know I was right. I felt like someone had cut a light on inside me. I knew it’d been right for me to come all the way from Flint to Grand Rapids to find my dad.

  The idea that had started as a teeny-weeny seed in a suitcase was now a mighty maple.

  Herman E. Calloway, my father, said, “There comes a time when you’re doing something and you realize it just doesn’t make any sense to keep on doing it, you ain’t being a quitter, it’s just that the good Lord has seen fit to give you the sense to know, you understand, enough is enough.”

  That was the exact same thought I’d had when I got whipped by Toddy boy! Only two folks with the same blood would think them just alike! I sucked in a big gulp of air, got a good grip on my suitcase and walked into the light of the stage.

  The old horn guy, Jimmy, saw me first and said, “I thought I heard that door open. Did Miss Thomas send you, son?”

  I just kept walking onto the stage. I had to see my father’s face, I knew we’d look so much alike that the truth would hit him as hard as that Snaggletooth guy had. Even Lefty Lewis said he could tell me and Herman E. Calloway were kin.

  He turned to see who Jimmy was talking to and my mighty maple started shaking in the wind.

  My dad’s face was old.

  My dad’s face was real old, just like this horn guy.

  Maybe too old. But . . . there was just too much proof that this was my father!

  He smiled at me. He had
his arms crossed over a great big stomach with his head-wiping rag hanging out of his right hand.

  The first thing my dad said to me was, “Well, well, well, little man, what brings you here? Miss Thomas?”

  “I don’t know any Miss Thomas, sir.”

  “So what’re you doing here?” He put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the stage lights and looked out into the dark part of the bar. I noticed how wrinkly my dad’s hand was. “Who brought you here? Your folks out there?”

  “No, sir. I’m here to meet my father.”

  Jimmy said, “Who’s your daddy? Why’d he tell you to meet him here?”

  I kept looking at Herman E. Calloway.

  “He didn’t tell me to meet him here, sir. I come all the way from Flint to meet my daddy for the very first time.”

  All the men looked over at the drummer. He stopped tapping.

  He said, “Awww, man. Look, this child ain’t no kin of mine. What’s your momma’s name, boy?”

  I said, “You ain’t my daddy.” I pointed right at Herman E. Calloway’s big belly. “You know it’s you.”

  All the eyes jumped over on Herman E. Calloway. He quit smiling and looked at me a lot harder, like he was really noticing me.

  I knew if I was a regular kid I’d be crying buckets of tears now, I didn’t want these men to think I was a baby so I was real glad that my eyes don’t cry no more. My nose plugged up and a little growl came out of my mouth but I kept my finger pointed, cleared my throat and said, “I know it’s you.”

  THE CIRCLE OF MEN got very quiet. The younger guys looked like they wanted to laugh but were afraid to and the Jimmy guy and the man who must be my father were looking at me that way grown-ups do when they’re getting ready to give you some bad news or when they’re trying to decide which hand they’re going to smack you upside the head with.

  Finally Jimmy snapped his fingers and said, “Hold on now, is your name Bud?”

  He knew my name! I said, “Yes, sir!”

  Jimmy said, “Herman, don’t you see? This has something to do with that crazy telegram you got this morning.” He looked back at me, “And you said you’re from Flint, Bud?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s right, that’s right where I’m from!”