The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey Read online

  “Yes, I am,” he said simply.

  “Reggie told me that you was havin’ some problems with your, um, thinkin’.”

  “Robyn Small took me to a doctor give me some medicine help me put my words and my thoughts together.”

  Strong smiled broadly, saying, “Robyn, huh? That little girl gotta backside on her that’s a crime.”

  Ptolemy smiled in response. Even when he was in his confused state he had noted Robyn’s hips.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Grey?”

  “Lemme buy you a drink and ask you a couple’a questions is all.”

  “You wanna go to a bar?”

  “Someplace quiet an’ upscale, so we don’t have to get in no fights.”

  “No place around here like that. We have to drive if you want to go to a nice bar.”

  “You drive and I’ll buy,” Ptolemy said with a sly grin.

  “Julio,” Billy exclaimed.

  “Yeah, Bill?”

  “I’ma be gone for a hour or so. Look after the place while I’m out.”

  “You got it.”

  You know my nephew long?” Ptolemy asked Billy Strong at the Aerie Bar, on top of the Fredda Kline Professional Building on Grand Street in downtown L.A. If they had turned away from the bar they would have seen all the way to the ocean through a blue and amber sky.

  “’Bout six years, I guess,” Billy said. He had put on a pale-gray sweater and a pair of dark trousers as formal wear for the bar.

  Billy ordered a beer. Ptolemy asked for a double shot of sour-mash whiskey. Billy had convinced the older man to leave his steel pipe in the car.

  “Somebody kilt him,” Ptolemy said. “They murdered my boy, shot him down like a dog.”

  “I know. I was at the funeral. I didn’t see you there, Mr. Grey.”

  “Niecie sent Hilly to get me, but I don’t like that boy, he’s a thief.”

  “Yeah. He’s not the kinda son I’d be proud of.”

  Ptolemy smiled.

  “Why somebody wanna shoot a boy sittin’ on a stoop mindin’ his own business?” Ptolemy asked.

  Billy took that opportunity to sip his drink.

  “I mean,” Ptolemy continued, “I don’t know much about the streets today. When I was movin’ around, there wasn’t gangs or these drive-bys, but Reggie wasn’t a part’a no gang, was he?”

  “No, sir. Reggie stayed outta that.”

  “So you think that it was just some mistake, somebody thought he was somebody else?”

  Billy finished his beer and Ptolemy raised his hand to catch the bartender’s attention. When the slim, mustachioed white man looked their way, Ptolemy pointed at the empty glass. He was astounded by this simple gesture, aware that only weeks before it would have been beyond him.

  “Did Reggie talk to you about moving away to San Diego?” Billy asked.

  “Uh-uh. At least I don’t think so. You know, the medicine I took cleared up my mind, but a lotta things I heard when I was, I was confused are still jumbled up. You sayin’ Reggie was gonna move outta town?”

  “Yeah.”

  The bartender brought Billy’s second beer, along with an outrageous tab. Ptolemy put two twenty-dollar bills down on the bar.

  “Why?” Ptolemy asked.

  Billy sipped again.

  “Why?” Ptolemy asked.

  “You know Alfred Gulla?”

  The image of the brutal man with the name not his own hanging from his chest sidled into Ptolemy’s mind.

  “Reggie’s wife’s boyfriend.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said. “Reggie found out that Nina was still seein’ Alfred and he decided that he was gonna move with her an’ the kids down to San Diego. He asked me if I could find somebody to look after you, because he didn’t trust Hilly either. But before we could make plans, he got shot.”

  Ptolemy tried to slow his mind down, to make himself believe that he didn’t yet know enough to say who had killed his great-grandnephew. He tried to make his mind muddy again so that confusion would wash away the words that Billy was saying. But he could not turn his mind’s eye away from the ugly man that had his arm around Reggie’s woman.

  “When did they shoot my boy?” Ptolemy asked.

  “Eight weeks ago yesterday.”

  “What time?”

  “It was four in the afternoon.”

  “Bright day?” Ptolemy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Out in the open?”

  “Car drove by and opened fire. Every damn bullet hit Reggie.”

  Billy looked up into Ptolemy’s eyes. The truth was there between them, like a child’s corpse after a terrible fire that no one could have prevented.

  Billy parked the car in front of Ptolemy’s apartment building. After hearing about Melinda Hogarth, he offered to walk his friend’s great-uncle to his door. A man shouted at them from across the street.

  “Hold up!”

  It was a big dark-skinned man with bright eyes and a nose that had been broken more than once, a man who wouldn’t be daunted by a ninety-one-year-old man swinging a steel pipe. Behind him was Melinda, her finger wrapped in thick white bandages and gauze.

  “You done attack my girlfriend,” the man said to Ptolemy.

  The old man wasn’t afraid. His revelation about Reggie had taken up all of his feelings and pain. The blustering man in army surplus pants and purple T-shirt was nothing to him; death was nothing to him. All he wanted to do was remember if Reggie had talked about going to San Diego.

  In his oversized gray sweater Billy didn’t look powerful or strong. He was shorter than Melinda’s brute, but he still moved into the space between Ptolemy and the big man, who, on closer inspection, was past fifty and paunchy.

  Ptolemy expected Billy to say something, to warn off the thug boyfriend of the woman mugger. But instead Billy threw a straight punch, hitting the man in the throat. After that the bodybuilder kicked and bludgeoned the big man until he was on the ground, crawling away down the sidewalk. There was a streak of blood on the pavement behind the bully, and the only sound was the beaten man coughing, trying to catch a breath through his bruised windpipe.

  “Go on in, Mr. Grey,” Billy said in a mild, friendly voice. “I’ll stay out here and watch these mothahfuckers until you inside.”

  Ptolemy saw that Melinda had retreated across the street. She wasn’t complaining or even trying to help her boyfriend.

  “Mr. Grey?”

  “Yeah, Mr. Strong?”

  “If you need it, I’ll come by an’ get you anytime, ya hear?”

  “Yes sir, I sure do.”

  Inside the apartment Ptolemy thought about Robyn, who was so quick to fight, and now Billy, who didn’t even utter a warning. He could see that the world outside his door had become more dangerous than it was when he was a younger man. Poor people had always fought and killed each other, but it wasn’t so fast and unpredictable. People shot out like rattlesnakes on these modern streets. There was no warning anymore.

  The phone rang at 7:27 that evening.

  “Uncle Grey?”

  “Yeah, Robyn.”

  “I’ma be home late, okay?”

  “Sure it’s okay. But be careful when you come back in. That Melinda got her some boyfriend threatened me.”

  “What you do?”

  “I was wit’ Billy Strong. He beat the bejesus out that man.”

  “Billy? He’s nice.”

  “He said the same about you. What time you comin’ home?”

  “’Bout eleven.”

  “Okay. I’ll prob’ly be up.”

  “You don’t have to wait up for me, Uncle.”

  “No. I’m just thinkin’ ’bout things.”

  “What things?”

  “The modern world.”

  At 8:30 there came a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?” Ptolemy asked.

  “Dr. Ruben, Mr. Grey. Can I come in?”

  Ptolemy opened the door and said, “Hello, Satan.”

  The
doctor was wearing a herringbone jacket, black trousers, and a dark-red dress shirt that was open at the collar. He seemed to grimace under the bale of hair that passed for a mustache.

  “How are you, Mr. Grey?” the beady- and green-eyed doctor asked, forcing his scowl into a smile.

  “Burnin’ up and singin’ in my veins, rememberin’ all the things that went to pass like they was just this mornin’ and not fifty, sixty, seventy . . . eighty years ago.”

  The doctor’s smile grew as Ptolemy watched him. This standoff went on for a while, until the doctor asked, “Can I come in, Mr. Grey?”

  Ptolemy spent maybe twenty seconds more trying to think if there was some rule against letting Satan in your door.

  “Come on, then,” he said when he couldn’t think of any strictures pertaining to the Devil and simple civility.

  Ptolemy sat on his lightweight stool and bade his guest sit on Robyn’s couch.

  “Your mind is working well?” Ruben asked. “You’re remembering and able to get your words out?”

  “Bettah then evah. I could tell you the kinda cake my mama made on my sixth birthday, and what the driver talked about when I took the bus up to Twenty-third and Central this afternoon.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you take the bus by yourself?” Ruben asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Do you have any problem walking, handling things?”

  “Naw. Mattah fact I seem a little more handy than I was.” He was thinking about the pipe he had swung at Melinda. “I seem to be more—what you call it?—coordinated.”

  The doctor smiled and nodded.

  “And you say you have fever?” he asked.

  “I get so hot sometimes I can feel it comin’ off my skin. I take aspirin an’ a cold shower an’ it go away.”

  “That’s just right, Mr. Grey. A shower and aspirin will work for a while. Maybe a long while.”

  “Fevah gonna kill me?” Ptolemy asked with no self-pity or regret.

  “Could be,” Ruben said. “But you say you feel an electrical sensation inside?”

  “In my veins,” Ptolemy replied. “Like a trill played on a flute. It makes me feel like I got butterflies for blood.”

  “That’s the medicine,” Ruben said. “It’s working on your chemistry and your body’s electrical system, your wiring. But it should only be in your brain. That’s what we’re trying to work out . . . how to keep the brain alive and functioning well without affecting the other parts of your body. May I take your pulse?”

  “The Devil playin’ a healer,” Ptolemy said as he extended his right hand.

  After feeling various points on the old man’s arm, Ruben said, “Your blood pressure is elevated.” He reached into his pocket and came out with a small green bottle.

  “These pills are very small but potent. There are a hundred of them. Take one when the fever and flute playing bothers you and it should subside for a while.”

  Ptolemy took the green bottle and shook it, listening to the beads of medicine tinkle against the glass.

  “Tell me sumpin’, Satan. Will I live to finish off this bottle?”

  “To tell you the truth, Mr. Grey, I thought that you’d have died by now. I came by to make sure that Robyn was keeping your agreement.”

  The candor of the demon brought a smile to Ptolemy’s lips.

  “Coy told me about you.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My uncle. Well, he wasn’t really my blood but just a old man who taught me everything I know—almost. He told me that even though you called evil in the Good Book that I still had to give you respect. Yes he did.”

  Ruben leaned forward, clasped his hands, and placed his elbows on his knees. He was looking deeply into Ptolemy’s eyes.

  “I ain’t crazy, Dr. Ruben, if that’s what you want me to call ya. I ain’t crazy at all. But I know the Devil when I see him. You don’t need no college degree to see evil in front’a yo’ nose. Man play with life have crossed ovah. That’s a fact.”

  “But . . . Mr. Grey, I’m helping you, aren’t I? Didn’t you come to me and ask for my help?”

  For a passing moment Ptolemy felt fear. Had he sold his soul and not quite realized it? Had he been tricked as so many before him on the long road to ruin?

  “But we traded, right?” Ptolemy asked. “You wanted my body, not my soul.”

  Satan smiled on Ptolemy Grey. His whole face was alight with friendliness.

  “That’s right, Mr. Grey. I only want your body. I’m trading that light in your mind and that tickle in your veins for your body after you no longer need it.”

  “Will you shake on that?” Grey asked, and both men extended their hands and grasped each other, reaffirming an oath that they both wanted and needed.

  After a moment or two of silent reverie, Ruben asked, “Where’s your niece?”

  “Out with her boyfriend.”

  “She leaves you alone and you can take care of yourself?”

  “If I had a fifty-gallon drum I could barbecue a pig in the cement yard,” Ptolemy said proudly.

  “I bet you could, Mr. Grey. I bet you could.”

  For a long time after the Devil had left, Ptolemy considered their conversation. He remembered every word and intonation, every gesture and phrase.

  Satan had called the feeling in his body a tickle, meaning that he knew about the Tickle River and Coy and the theft of the gold coins. He was telling him that Coy had sinned but that he would be forgiven if Ptolemy lived up to his side of the bargain over the disposition of the treasure.

  It was a delicate transaction, dealing with the Devil, but in Ptolemy’s mind that was his only hope. How else could he save Letisha and Artie, and Robyn too? How else could he make sure that Reggie’s killer did not escape judgment?

  Ptolemy was feeling giddy after such a close call with oblivion, because he knew meeting the Devil was always a threat to the immortal soul.

  What’s a soul, Coy?” Li’l Pea had asked his mentor and friend.

  For a long time the old man sat and puffed on his cherrywood pipe. After a few minutes went by, Ptolemy thought that he wouldn’t get an answer to his question. This wasn’t unusual. Sometimes Coy didn’t answer. Ptolemy knew that sometimes he had to find his own solutions.

  “Do you look at your mama sometimes and feel love in your heart for her?” Coy asked.

  “Yeah . . . I guess.”

  “It’s either yes or no.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes when I come home and she’s cookin’ an’ the house smell like chicken and dumplin’s an’ she see me and smile I get the jitters in my legs and start laughin’ an’ she smiles harder and calls me her li’l brown nut.”

  “That love in your heart is your soul,” Coy said.

  “But . . . but what if I said no?”

  “Some people lose they souls along the way. They don’t feel no love or pride or that there’s somethin’ in the world bettah than they lives.”

  “How do you lose your soul, Coy?”

  “Because,” he said, “it is a delicate thing, a special thing. You can live without it, but you might as well be dead. That’s why heaven an’ hell is always fightin’ over the souls’a men. Our souls, when we got ’em, is so beautiful that angels always lookin’ to take ’em. That’s why when the Devil comes up on you you got to hold tight on the love in your heart.”

  Ptolemy picked up the phone and dialed a number that he remembered thanks to the Devil’s medicine.

  “Hello?” Niecie Brown said.

  “Hey, Niecie. How you doin’?”

  “Pitypapa, is that you? You dialin’ the phone by yourself ? I don’t believe it. I mean, I believe it, but it’s still a shock.”

  “Hilly there, baby?”

  “Uh-huh. He here watchin’ the TV. I told him that he was gonna have to pay you back for what he took. But you know he ain’t a bad boy. He just feel like he been cheated, losin’ his daddy so young and all.” />
  “Lemme talk to him, honey.”

  “Hello?” Hilly said, bringing to mind some big dense creature like a hog, or even a hippopotamus.

  “I need some bullets for my pistol.”

  “Say what?”

  “I need some bullets for my pistol, an’ I don’t want you tellin’ your mama about it neither.”

  “What kinda pistol?”

  “Twenty-five caliber. You get me that and we even. You won’t owe me a dime.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring ’em ovah tomorrow.”

  “Put ’em in a can of peanuts.”

  “I gotta buy them too?” the brooding boy complained.

  “Yeah. You got to buy them too.”

  “All right. But we even then, right?”

  “Right.”

  The evening after that went smoothly for Ptolemy. He found a music station that was playing Fats Waller recordings.

  He’d once seen the great Moon Face playing in an after-hours big-city juke joint in Memphis. In those days the music halls only allowed whites, except on special days, and so after a performance in front of an all-white audience there were many famous musicians that went to the black part of town to jam with their people.

  Listening to the song “Two Sleepy People,” he was remembering a girl named Talla who turned to kiss him because the romantic lyrics made her. He remembered the smell of beer and the sawdust on the floor, Fats Waller himself winking at the momentary lovers, and a feeling that being Ptolemy Grey was the best thing in the whole world.

  “Uncle?” she said, and the vision evaporated. “Uncle, you okay?”

  Ptolemy turned his head, feeling pain between each vertebra, but he didn’t wince or curse.

  “Is it eleven already?”

  “It’s past midnight,” Robyn said. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

  “Your boyfriend here?” Ptolemy asked, looking toward the bathroom.

  “No. He walked me to the door, but then I heard the music an’ told him to go on.”