She kissed him a second time and then walked away down the hall. When she got to the front door of the building she turned and waved before going out the door. He stood there for long minutes with the news and medieval recorder music behind him. He watched that closed door with many people on his mind: Robyn, and Coydog, and Reggie, who had been coming to his house for more than five years.
Then Reggie the man was standing next him in the hall but next to them was Reggie the corpse in the whitewashed pine coffin. The children were on the floor. Ptolemy wanted to call to them but couldn’t remember their names.
“Children shouldn’t be in the room wit’ dead peoples, Reggie,” he said into the empty corridor but also, in his mind, he was in the small bedroom of Niecie’s house where the dead man lay.
The front door to the hall came open and a woman the color of dark redwood came in carrying a bundle of envelopes and magazines. She looked familiar.
“Mr. Grey?” she said, walking toward him.
He usually slammed the door and threw the locks when someone came in the building but this time Ptolemy hesitated.
“Miss Dartman?”
Approaching him, the tall colored woman said, “I haven’t seen your face in almost two years, Mr. Grey. Sometimes I be droppin’ the mail in your slot and I think, ‘Maybe he’s dead in there.’”
“Not me. Old Man Death done lost my numbah, I think.”
The phrase was used by Coy McCann when someone hadn’t seen him for a while and assumed that he’d died. Almost all of Ptolemy’s automatic coherent sentences came from his old friend Coydog.
The tall woman smiled and handed Ptolemy a bundle of mail.
“I was outta town seein’ my brother for the last few days so I didn’t get the mail. Maybe I should give you back the key so that nice grandnephew of yours could collect it for you.”
“Reggie got hisself killed.”
“No!” Miss Falona Dartman cried. “How did that happen?”
“They lynched him. A mob drived by and kilt him.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Grey. He was ...” she said, and then sighed. “He was such a nice young man. Oh no. What are they doin’ to our young black men?”
“Killin’ ’em,” Ptolemy said. “What they always done.”
“Who’s gonna come take care of you now, Mr. Grey? You can’t be here all by yourself.”
“My great-granddaughter Robyn come from down Alabama, or someplace, to he’p me out. She cleaned up my bafroom today. Worked all day at it. All day long she cleaned and th’ew away garbage. But I’ma miss Reggie.”
“Was he married?”
Ptolemy nodded. “An’ they had some kids.”
“Oh no.”
Ptolemy placed the mail in a neat stack on Robyn’s lawn chair. Then he went into the bathroom, put the top lid down on the commode, and sat there. Robyn had brought new lightbulbs and screwed them into the seven sockets above the sink. The light was so white in there that it made him laugh. He was happy sitting on the toilet and watching the bathtub.
Now and then a curious roach would dart in and then scurry away again, daunted by the brightness of the room. Four times he went to the sink and turned the corroded spigots, just to see the water run. There was a leak at the base of the hot-water faucet, but the water dripped into the sink, causing no problem.
At midnight he took a shower. The nozzle could only muster a few sprays but it was enough to wash his body clean. He used an old T-shirt for a towel and another one for a bathrobe.
That night when he wrapped himself in the thin blanket under the south table Ptolemy had a feeling of giddiness that kept him up for what seemed to him like hours. He thought about Robyn’s ability to clean and polish and throw out things without hurting him or those things that he needed to keep. She was better than Reggie at understanding what was important.
A flute was playing on the all-night classical program and the newsmen and -women droned on. Ptolemy had trained himself not to listen when he was in his bed, but this night the background racket was a bother to him.
On other nights, before Robyn had come, Ptolemy shared space with the music and news. They were as much a part of the room as he was. His mind was like an open field over which these sounds and opinions passed unhindered. But on that night Ptolemy was thinking about the tragedy of Reggie and the blessing of Robyn. She was an orphan taken in and protected by, by, by Niecie. And the boy and baby girl were orphans too.
The flute scratched at these thoughts. The news commentators seemed to be trying to talk him out of the value of Reggie and Robyn, the boy and his baby sister. In the dimness he cursed the radio and the flittering shadows cast by the TV. Rage opened up in Ptolemy’s breast. The anger took over his mind like a swarm of biting fire ants. And then, when he was angry enough to break something, the passion ebbed away, leaving that old familiar open field.
It reminded him of a portal at the end of a long corridor behind the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church. When he was a child and the minister’s sermon went overlong, he’d sneak away from the pews and walk down the long hall to that doorway. It was always ajar, emitting a cool breeze year-round, even in the summer heat. There was almost no light in there, but Li’l Pea could see the dim image of a white cross in the depths of the chamber. It was leaning against something dark and massive.
The child called Pity would walk up to the threshold of the sacred room and strain his eyes, trying to glean its tale.
Remembering this important, spiritual moment in his history, Ptolemy Grey drifted off into sleep.
In the dream he was trying to pull Reggie up out of his coffin, to shake his shoulders until the boy woke up. All around the casket were women seated in white folding chairs and dressed beautifully, mournfully, with hats and handkerchiefs and black gloves. Robyn and Niecie, Letta Golding and Shirley
