Walter Mosley - The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

“I don’t wanna live there no more,” Pecora, who was named for her mother, had said.

“Why not?”

“’Cause they nasty an’ mean an’ you my real father an’ my mother have died.”

“I cain’t take you,” Ptolemy said. He didn’t question that she was his, one look at that face and he knew it must be true. He and Pecora Johnson had spent a weekend together a dozen years earlier, but she never said anything about a child.

Ptolemy and Sensia had discussed children, and Sensia said that she was no mother and so would have no child.

Ptolemy had girded himself against his own blood frowning at him and Pecora turned away. He watched the child walk down the hall. She got all the way to the door, and he would have let her go into the cold arms of the street except that Sensia came home just then. All she had to do was look into Pecora’s eyes and she knew everything: that this was her husband’s love child, that she had come seeking shelter, and that Ptolemy turned her away because he didn’t want to lose Sensia’s love.

“Come on in with me, child,” Sensia said.

Pecora and Ptolemy had two things in common: their faces and their love of Sensia Howard.

“I started her out on the road,” Ptolemy would say to Sensia, “but you brought her home.”

Yes?” he said when she knocked.

“Can I come in?” Robyn asked through the door.

“Come on.”

She had been wearing jeans and a red T-shirt when she’d come in from shopping, but now she wore a green dress that made her look younger.

“I’m sorry, Papa Grey,” Robyn said from the doorway. “I didn’t mean to get all mad. It wasn’t my bed right then but just a couch in the livin’ room and what you do ain’t none’a my business anyway.”

“Come on in an’ sit down, baby,” Ptolemy said to the girl.

Robyn slouched into the room and sat at the edge of the bed across from his wicker chair.

Robyn had her head down while Ptolemy looked at her, thinking that every heartbeat in his chest was like a grain of sand through an hourglass.

“Every minute I got wit’ you is precious,” he said at last. “I don’t care if you get mad.”

“You don’t?”

“You bein’ mad is just that you love me. At least I’m old enough to know that. But I want you to be nice to Shirley. I need you to take care of her after I’m gone.”

“Why you got to talk about dyin’ so much?”

“Because I’m dyin’, baby. Dyin’ just as sure as the sun go down.”

“I’m sorry, Papa Grey.”

“Sorry ’bout what?”

“Gettin’ mad. Takin’ you to that doctor.”

“If I was fifty years younger and you aged twenty years ...”

Robyn smiled, and then she giggled.

“And then would you only look at my legs?” she asked. “Or would I find you on the couch with Shirley Wring?”

“I might be lookin’ but the couch would be all yours.”

“One’a my mama’s boyfriends used to make me take off my clothes an’ lie up on top’a him,” Robyn said, answering a question he’d asked days before.

Ptolemy did not reply right away.

Robyn squirmed, turning her left shoulder toward him and averting her face. Then she twisted the other way, shoving her right shoulder in his direction. Finally she got up from the bed, falling down on her knees at his feet. She put her head in his lap and he placed a hand on the side of her face.

“When I was a boy I had a friend named Maude. She was so black that even the darkest little children made fun of her.”

“But you didn’t?” Robyn asked into his fingers.

“No.”

“Did you think she was beautiful?”

“I guess. But even if she wasn’t lovely that wouldn’ta mattered because she was my friend. She was my friend and she died in a fire and nobody could save her.”

Robyn raised her head to regard him.

“You are my girl, Robyn. Everything I have is yours. Everything. Do you understand me?”

She took his hand and squeezed it.

“How do you feel when I tell you about that man?” she asked.

“That I would kill him if ever I saw his face.”

“I only ever told you about it.”

While they were eating takeout Chinese for dinner a hard knock came on the door.

“Who is it?” Robyn asked while Ptolemy came up behind her, thinking about his pistol.

“Police.”

Robyn opened the door.

Two Negro policemen stood there, wearing uniforms and stern frowns.

“Yes, Officer?” Robyn asked.

“Can we come in?” one of the policemen asked. He was shorter, maybe five ten, and lighter-skinned. A plastic rectangle on the left side of his chest said ARNOLD.

“What for?” asked Ptolemy. His throat was filled with phlegm and so he coughed twice.

When the old man spoke up, Robyn moved back, giving him the lead.

“There was a man attacked in front of your apartment building a few days ago,” Officer Arnold said. “Darryl Pride. He was seriously hurt, hospitalized, and we’re here investigating the assault.”

That was the first time since his coma receded that Ptolemy felt his mind slip. He was confused for a moment, just a moment. He didn’t understand the words, or where he was, or why people were complaining.

He tried to speak but the words were caught in his mind, and then these words, his own thoughts, were incomprehensible to him.

“Sir?” the officer named Arnold said.

Ptolemy didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say.

“Papa Grey?” Robyn said, and the wheels started turning again.

“Darryl Pride?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t know the name but do he have a girlfriend name of Melinda Hogarth?”

“That’s him, sir.”

“You are a very polite young man. It’s nice when a policeman is civil.”

Officer Arnold smiled.

“You young men come on in,” Ptolemy said, once again master of his own mind.

The officers, Arnold and Thompkins, sat on the couch while Ptolemy took the folding stool and Robyn brought out a chair from the kitchen.

“Ms. Hogarth says that you were involved in Mr. Pride’s beating,” Arnold was saying.

“Did she tell ya that she been muggin’ me on the street for three years? Did she tell ya that she pushed her way in this house an’ stoled all the money outta my spendin’ can an’ slapped me to the ground an’ here I’m ninety-one year old?”

“We’re not here about that,” Officer Thompkins said. He had a baby face and dark skin that was so smooth, it could have been called perfect.

“When my great-grandniece come to stay wit’ me, she told that heifer that she bettah not be robbin’ me no mo’,” Ptolemy said. “That’s when she turned to this man Pride. Imagine that. A man named for self-respect tellin’ me I got to pay up.”

The officers looked at each other.

“He stole from you?”

“No, sir. No, he did not. He told me that I should pay, but I told him that I would call the cops.”

“He says that you were involved in his beating,” Arnold repeated.

“Look at me, Officer. Look at me. How’m I gonna beat up a man the size of a icebox? I might could shoot him if I owned a gun. I might’a would’a shot him if I did. But all I said was that I didn’t have no money and that we was gonna go to the cops if they do anything else. He’s afraid’a the cops. Him and Melinda both dope fiends. Both of ’em.”

“So you deny that you had anything to do with Pride’s beating?” Thompkins asked.

Ptolemy did not answer.

“Did you see him get beaten?” Thompkins pressed.

“No, sir.”

“Did you, ma’am?” Thompkins asked, turning to Robyn.

“I don’t even know who you talkin’ ’bout,” she said. “Papa Grey had some trouble with that bitch, but I gave her the news.”