The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

Two blocks away they came to a small house that was once painted bright blue and yellow, Ptolemy remembered, but now the colors were dim and dingy. There were cars parked in the driveway and at the curb at the house across the street. Men and women in their Sunday best were standing on the brown grass and up beyond the cars.

“What’s today?” Ptolemy asked Hilly.

“The fifteenth,” the young man replied.

Four rose bushes had died under the front window. A fifth rose was still alive. It had nine or eleven bright green thorny leaves and a bud that might one day blossom. Ptolemy noticed a spigot behind the struggling plant and realized that it was a leak that made it possible for that rose to survive.

Hilly held Ptolemy’s elbow as they went up the wooden stairs that had worn down into grooves from the heavy foot traffic over the years. As they approached the screen door, Ptolemy could see that there was a party going on. Dozens of people were crowded into the living room, talking and smoking, drinking and posing in their nice clothes.

Hilly reached for the screen door but it flew inward before he touched it.

“Pitypapa!” a woman yelled. “Pitypapa, I ain’t seen you in six and a half years.”

Big, copper-brown, and buxom Hilda “Niecie” Brown folded the frail old man in a powerful yet cushioned embrace. For a brief span that extended into itself Ptolemy was lifted out of his pained elderly confusion. He floated off into the sensation of a woman holding him and humming with satisfaction.

She kissed his forehead and then his lips. When she let him go he held on to her arm.

“Oh, ain’t that sweet?” Niecie said. “You miss me, Pitypapa?”

Ptolemy looked up at her face. Her skin was smooth and tight from fat. Her mouth was smiling, showing two golden teeth, but in spite of the brave front Niecie’s eyes were so sad that he felt her agony. He raised his hands through the pain of his shoulders and placed them on the sides of Niecie’s arms.

“Niecie,” he said. “Niecie.”

“Come on in, Pitypapa. Come on in and sit with me.”

The crowded room smelled of food, cigarettes, and booze. Four children were playing on a green couch but Niecie shooed them away.

“Sit with me, Papa,” she said. “Tell me how you been doin’.”

Ptolemy sat looking around the room, remembering the house. He had come here for Niecie’s wedding and later, when her mother, June, had died. June was his oldest sister’s child, he remembered. She died of pneumonia, the doctor said, but anyone could have told you that she really died because she went wild with drink and dance after Charles had died.

“You remember my house?” Niecie asked.

“I only remembah it bein’ old,” he said. “I was already old when you got married. There ain’t nuthin’ here young or childish.”

Even Niecie’s smile was sad now.

A short girl came up to stand next to Niecie. She was dark-skinned; not as dark as Ptolemy but almost.

“You remember Robyn?” Niecie asked. “But maybe not. Maybe she came here to live wit’ me since the last time I seen you. Her mother died an’ me an’ Hilly took her in.”

Robyn was no more than eighteen and she was beautiful to Ptolemy. Her almond-shaped eyes looked right into his, not making him feel old or like he wasn’t there. And there was something else about her: she didn’t remind him of anyone he had ever met before. Usually, almost always, people looked to him like someone he’d already met along the way. That was why he found it so hard to remember who someone was. Faces usually made him want to remember something that was lost. He felt sometimes that he had met everyone, tasted every food, seen every sky there was to be seen.

“I seen it all,” old Coydog used to say, “but that don’t mean I seen everything.”

Ptolemy understood now because Robyn was someone, something, new to him.

“Hi,” she said with perfect lips that smiled briefly, showing off her strong white teeth.

“You grinnin’, Pitypapa,” Niecie said. “All the men here be grinnin’ after Robyn.”

“I have never seen anything like you, girl,” Ptolemy said.

Robyn put out a hand and he took it, staring at her.

He was suddenly aware that somewhere a woman was crying. The faraway, muted sobs were pitiful. For some reason this made Ptolemy remember.

“Where’s Reggie?” he asked Robyn.

With her eyes she indicated someplace behind Ptolemy. He tried to turn his head but his old joints wouldn’t cooperate.

“Why don’t you go with him, Robyn?” Niecie said.

Ptolemy was still holding her hand. She pulled gently and he got up with a minimum of pain in his knees. Robyn was just about his height. He grabbed on to her elbow and she guided him through the mob of guests in the living room. They went into a narrow hallway that made the house seem larger because it was so long.

They passed a room from which came the sad sobbing. He removed his grip from Robyn’s arm. Gently she took the hand in hers.

“Why she’s cryin’?” Ptolemy asked.

“She been like that for hours,” the girl answered.