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grown folks. I just take my mason jar and put it to the door and get me an ear full. I sure hope theygot mason jars up North. I have got to get me a mason jar. If I can’t find one, I am going to send Chick-A-Boo a few quarters and she can mail me one. I miss Chick-A-Boo already. Before I left she told me she did not want to be called Chick-A-Boo after she turns thirteen next December. She wants to be called by her real name, Caroline. She done lost her mind. The first thing I am going to say when I see her little face is, “Chick-A-Boo, Chick-A-Boo, Chick-A-Boooooooooooooooooo!”
    I’m thinking about Chick-A-Boo and folks back home as the train is rolling into New Yorks Penn Station. BarJean said from here we are taking a taxicab to her apartment. I ain’t never been in a taxicab before. I wonder if it is as big as Mr. Charlie’s car. I’m so excited as we get in the taxicab.
    All I can see is lights, lights, and more lights. I just believe I am going to faint. It’s a sight for my eyes to see. People everywhere like it ain’t even nighttime. I’m trying to see everything. Trying to count every light, but there are just too many. It is quite a ways to BarJean’s apartment fromthe train station because we still riding. It’s at least fifteen miles. I got butterflies from all this excitement. BarJean looking at me like she think I have lost my mind. But I ain’t crazy; I’m just free. Free from chopping them fields on Rehobeth Road. Free from picking cotton come fall. Lord, I’m free from picking strawberries with Grandma until I can hardly stand up.
    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 getback 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 coloredfolks 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.
    â€œThis 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