The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey - By Walter Mosley Page 0,17
wanna talk. Go away and leave me alone.”
There came a spate of silence filled in by electronic babble.
“Mr. Grey?”
“Go on now.”
“I’m putting my card under the door. If Reginald or someone else comes by to help you—”
“Reggie’s dead. Drivebee killed him. Now, you go away.”
Again Ptolemy pressed his ear against the door. There came a soft rustling and then a sigh. After that he heard footsteps going away down the hall.
On the floor at the old man’s feet was a bright white card. Using the wall for support, he leaned down and picked it up. Putting Antoine Church’s business card in his pocket was reflex more than anything else.
Hilly kept coming by but after three days Ptolemy never opened up or even asked who it was. Sooner or later they all went away.
The knock came again.
He concentrated on the TV to keep the person on the other side of the door out of his mind.
“. . . the convicted killer was found innocent. The DNA test did not match the blood found at the crime scene,” the woman was saying.
“Mr. Grey,” a girl called.
Ptolemy leaned forward suspiciously, wondering if somehow the TV had learned how to talk to him.
“Mr. Grey, it’s me, Robyn.”
Robins. They gathered in the trees outside his parents’ house in September and October and sang a sweet song to the cool winds that eased the last heat of summer. If Ptolemy sat still enough with week-old breadcrumbs scattered on the ground, the robins and other birds would gather around him in the grass next to the cypress tree.
“That food gonna attract rats,” his father would say, but Li’l Pea didn’t believe him.
The knock came again.
“Mr. Grey, are you all right in there?”
That was the right question. Hilly had never asked how he was. Hilly was a thief and even though he had saved him from Melinda Hogarth he still stole his money and then lied about it.
Ptolemy used to give Reggie money. Reggie wanted to help him. But then Reggie got lynched.
“Mr. Grey, if you don’t talk to me I’ll have to go call the police. I’m afraid that you might be hurt in there.”
Ptolemy opened his mouth to tell the girl that he was okay but he hadn’t spoken in days and his voice was gone. He got up and coughed, took a step, coughed again.
“I’m here,” he rasped.
“What?”
“I’m here.”
“It’s me, Robyn, Mr. Grey. Can I come in?”
“Who?” he wheezed.
“Robyn. You remembah, I took you in to see Reggie’s coffin. Then we took a taxi here.”
The image of Reggie’s body came up out of the floor at Ptolemy’s feet. He gasped and sobbed, remembering the death of his beloved son or nephew or great-grandnephew, yes, great-grandnephew.
He took the chain off its hook and flipped the four locks Reggie had installed. He opened the door and Robyn stood there in a little black dress with an ivory locket hanging from her neck. Her hair was tied back and her eyes saw things that he wanted to see.
“Hi,” she said.
Ptolemy smiled because this was the girl that didn’t look like anybody else he ever knew.
“Robyn,” he said.
“Can I come in?”
He nodded, not moving.
The child swiveled her head and moved toward him; then, just as she came close, she kissed him on the cheek. He moved backward, grinning and touching the place she had kissed.
When Robyn moved around him Ptolemy turned with her, feeling as if he were dancing with Sensia at the big band shell at Pismo Beach.
“Dog!” Robyn said as she came into the congested room. “Where do you sleep, Mr. Grey?”
He pointed at the oak table against the southern wall of the room. It was piled almost to the ceiling with brown boxes.
“In them boxes?”
“No. Under.”
She stooped down, putting her hands on her bare knees and turned her head to see the thin mattress and sheer olive blanket.
“You sleep on the floor under a table?”
He nodded, suddenly shy and ashamed.
“What about rats and roaches?” she asked.
Smiling, he was reminded of red-breasted robins singing brightly, thanking him for their breadcrumbs.
“You wanna sit down, girl?”
“Where?” she asked, her left nostril rising.
“There’s chairs everywhere,” he said. “But I gotta special one for guests that I keep in the kitchen.”
He walked there feeling but not minding the pain in his knees. He’d found the aluminum garden chair set out in front of a house with six cars parked on the lawn.
“They got so many cars, they don’t have room for no outside furniture,” he said to himself as he dragged