Walter Mosley - The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

“A long time ago,” he said. “I seen a lotta people die. Dead in bed, and lynched, but the worst of all is when some stranger come to the do’ an’ tell ya that your father is dead an’ ain’t nevah comin’ home again.”

“You have big hands, Mr. Grey,” Robyn said. She was squeezing the tight muscle between the forefinger and thumb of his left hand. “Strong.”

The pressure hurt and felt good at the same time.

“He stoled my money,” he said.

“Who did?”

“I had three checks at the place but he only give me the money for one. I give ten dollars to this woman had a green ring and then thirty-two dollars and thirty-seven cent fo’ my groceries. But now all I got in my envelope is a hunnert an’ sixty-sumpin’ dollars and a few pennies. That adds up to two eleven, but I had three checks for that much. I know ’cause I save ’em up so Reggie only have to go to the bank with me once ev’ry three weeks. We put one check in a account for my bills to be paid and we spend one on groceries.”

“Reggie stoled your money?” Robyn asked.

“Yeah . . . I mean no. Reggie wouldn’t steal. It’s that big boy, that, that, that ...”

“Hilly?”

“There, you got it.”

So much talking and thinking exhausted Ptolemy. Then remembering that Reggie was dead and that they’d never go to the bank again made him sad.

Robyn squeezed his hand and tilted her head to the side so that he’d have to notice her.

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Grey,” she said. “It’s all gonna be all right.”

“How?”

“Reggie gonna go to heaven an’ Hilly gonna go to hell.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I am,” Robyn said, her young features set with grim certainty.

Such serious intentions on a child’s face made Ptolemy smile. His smile infected her and soon they were giggling together, holding hands, sitting next to Reggie’s corpse.

After a while the girl stood up, pulling Ptolemy to his feet. Together they left the dead man and went back down the long hall. When they approached the room where the woman cried, Ptolemy asked, “Is that the girlfriend?”

“They been married for three years.”

“His wife?” Ptolemy remembered that Reggie was gone for four days once because of his wedding. Then he’d gotten a job at a supermarket and would bring him strawberry jam and old-fashioned crunchy peanut butter almost every week.

Robyn nodded. “And their children. She sat down in Niecie’s room on the way back from seein’ Reggie an’ now she cain’t stop cryin’.”

Ptolemy pushed the door open and walked in.

The room was filled with yellow light. The walls and the floor were dark, dark blue. A high-yellow woman was slumped across the blue sheets of the bed, crying, crying. Lying next to her head was a toddler girl in fetal position and sucking her thumb. Next to the girl sat a five-year-old boy who was turning the pages of a book. Both children were much darker than their mother.

The boy looked up when Ptolemy and then Robyn came in.

“You readin’ that book, boy?” Ptolemy asked slowly as if each word was a heavy weight on his tongue.

The boy nodded.

“What’s it say?”

The child shrugged and looked back at the book.

“His name is Arthur,” Robyn whispered.

The boy looked up and said, “It got pictures of people with no skin an’ pictures of hands and feet and other parts.”

“Aunt Niecie was goin’ to nurse school for a while,” Robyn said. “It’s prob’ly one’a her schoolbooks.”

Arthur nodded solemnly and scratched his nose.

“Nina,” Robyn said then. “Nina, this here is Mr. Grey, the one that Reggie helped out.”

The woman raised her head from folded arms. Ptolemy could see that she was young, in her early twenties, no more. Her face was devastated and beautiful; far more lovely, Ptolemy thought, than Robyn. But he still liked Robyn better. He liked her way around him. She knew how to speak when he needed her.

Nina rose up and put her arms around Ptolemy. Again he felt lost in a soft hug. It was like sinking into a warm tub at the end of a hard day.

“He loved you so much, Mr. Grey,” Nina said. She smelled sweet from perfume. Too sweet.

“What happened to him?” the old man asked, pulling away as he spoke.

When Nina fell back on the bed the toddler whined and Arthur put his hand on her cheek. She embraced her brother’s fingers with her head and shoulder. This gentle show of affection seemed to make the room clearer to Ptolemy. It was as if he was seeing something the way that minister had, in front of his white church so long before.

“They shot him down,” Nina said.

“Who shot him?”

“Drive-by.”

“Who’s that?”

“Nobody knows,” Robyn said. “Somebody jes’ shot him when he was sittin’ on a porch of a friend’a his.”

“But they say his name was Drivebee.”

“No. The men drove by in their car and jes’ shot him.”

The little girl was crying. Arthur lay down behind her and put his arms around her shoulders.

“Why?” Ptolemy asked.

“Nobody knows.”

Ptolemy squinted, trying to see with his mind’s eye the reasoning behind Reggie’s murder. He remembered his hidden box and a promise he’d made Coydog before the old man was dragged off and killed like some wild animal. It was something that happened to colored men and boys ever since they left the land of Ptolemy, father of Cleopatra.

There came the sound of heavy feet down the hall.

“Nina?” a man’s voice called from outside the room.

Ptolemy turned just in time to see a man come through the door. It was a freckle-faced, strawberry-brown man with straightened, combed-back hair. He was handsome but had a wild look to him as if there were something or someone right behind him, ready to strike. The man was tall and wore a purple shirt that was open down to the bottom of his chest. He wore a thick gold chain that held a pendant which formed the name Georgie, written in slanted letters.

Reggie’s wife rose from the bed like a creature coming up out of the water. Her movements were fluid, graceful. The idea of dancing came into Ptolemy’s wandering mind.

“Alfred,” she said.

They grabbed each other, kissed on the lips, and then pressed their cheeks and bodies together.

“Who’s that, Mama?” Arthur asked.

“Who’s this?” Alfred asked, looking at Ptolemy.

“This is ...” Nina began saying but she had forgotten the name.

“Mr. Ptolemy Grey,” Robyn said, snipping her words to their shortest possible length. “Reggie’s great-uncle.”

“Who’s that, Mama?” Arthur asked again.

“Oh,” Alfred said. “Hey, Mr. Grey. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“If your name is Alfred, how come you got a sign sayin’ Georgie hangin’ from your neck?”

A flash of anger crossed the haunted man’s face.

“He don’t mean nuthin’, Alfred,” Robyn said. “It’s just a question.”

“Georgie was my brother,” Alfred said angrily. “They shot him down.”

“They shoot your brother too?”

“What?” Alfred said, jutting his head toward Ptolemy.

Robyn moved between the men.

“He’s a old man, Alfred,” she said. “He sit all day in his house listenin’ to German music and readin’ old papers.”

“He bettah get some news, then,” Alfred said threateningly.

Nina went to Alfred’s side and took his arm.

“We bettah get outta here, Alfie,” the grieving widow and mother said.

But Alfred was not finished staring at the old man.

Ptolemy thought it was funny that a fool like that would try and intimidate him. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid hardly at all.

“Yeah,” Alfred said. “I come to take you and the kids back to your house.”