The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey - By Walter Mosley Page 0,20

the white man killed.”

“Him?” Coydog said with a pained grimace. “They ain’t no special numbahs for the victims. Just ’cause they grabbed you and chained you, just ’cause they beat you an’ raped your sister don’t mean a thing when it come to that line. God don’t care what they did to you. What he care about is what you did.”

Ptolemy was Li’l Pea looking up at the man who had just opened the alphabet for him, the man who stole for him, sacrificing himself to the judgment of the great beyond.

“Mr. Grey?”

The newscaster was talking about a criminal in a cornfield somewhere, a woman was singing sweetly, and his name came in between the two.

“Mr. Grey.”

Looking up from his place on the floor in Coy’s room, no, in his own apartment, looking up, he saw Robyn, her short skirt hiked up even higher, her hands holding unidentifiable gelatinous masses of blackened rot.

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“Are you lookin’ at my legs, Mr. Grey?” she asked with surprise but no anger in her tone.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“I think pretty is your ugly little sister,” he said, repeating a compliment that he’d heard Coydog use a thousand times.

It worked on Robyn just like it had on all the young women that Coy had courted.

“That’s sweet. You a playah, huh, Mr. Grey?”

“What’s that in your hands?” he asked.

“It come out from under the sink an’ in the bathtub. It’s a mess. How do you go to the bathroom at all in there? The toilet don’t even flush.”

“For number one I use a coffee can and I . . .” He hesitated. “I pour it down the sink.”

“An’ what about numbah two?” Robyn asked, neither ashamed nor disgusted as far as the old man could tell.

“I usually wait for Reggie to come by. He usually take me to Frank’s Coffee Shop for breakfast or lunch an’ aftah I get my coffee I go.”

“So you ain’t been to a toilet since you was at the wake?” she asked.

“I guess not.”

The girl was staring at the old man while he inspected the floor.

“You really let this place fall apart,” Robyn said.

“I’m sorry ’bout that. It was just that when Sensie passed I stopped doin’ things, movin’ things around, makin’ ’em bettah.”

“Do the sink work in the kitchen?” Robyn asked.

“Uh-huh. There’s stuff all around it, but it works.”

He was having trouble leaving Coydog’s lectures behind him so that he could give the girl and her lovely strong legs the proper attention. He wanted to get up on his feet but there wasn’t enough strength in his arms to lift him.

While Ptolemy thought about standing up, Robyn went into the kitchen. He began listening to the singing again but there came a loud crash and the old man found the strength to push himself up and grab on to the ledge at the top of his console radio.

He went through the kitchen door and found the girl throwing piles of pots down from the sink onto the floor. Hundreds of roaches of all sizes and breeds were scuttling madly from the wild woman’s attacks. The black gunk from her hands was coming off on the pots and pans and and even the dishes that she was putting on the floor.

“Stop,” Ptolemy said, but Robyn didn’t even slow down.

“I can’t, Mr. Grey. I gotta wash my hands and clean this house and get rid’a all these roaches an’ shit.”

“But you the one messin’ it all up.”

“It’s already a mess, Mr. Grey. It’s already messed up,” Robyn said. “Look at all the junk just piled up and moldin’. Look at all these bugs.”

“They only out ’cause you th’owin’ everything around,” the old man argued.

By this time the sink was clear enough that Robyn could turn on the water and wash her hands.

“Oh no,” Ptolemy said, feeling as if maybe the walls would fall down or a fire would erupt from the stove. “This is bad.”

Turning to him, smiling, her hands dripping because there was no dry towel, Robyn said, “We have to clean up this place, Mr. Grey. You can’t live like this with a house full’a garbage and bugs.”

“But it’s too much. Too much stuff. We should just leave it and go to the store. I don’t have to cook.”

Robyn whipped her hands back and forth through the air to get off the excess water and then came to Ptolemy and put her arms around him. She hugged him to her chest and put her cold hand on the