“You do?”
“Yeah,” Hilly said. “But I didn’t wanna waste my time comin’ all the way ovah there again. You wanted the bullets and now you got ’em. I don’t see why you raggin’ on me.”
Ptolemy thought about what his great-grandnephew was saying. But it was as if they spoke different languages and came from different peoples far removed from each other by thousands and thousands of miles and many generations. Hilliard was a Catholic and Ptolemy a Hindu, or something else far removed from what his nephew believed in. He tried to think of how he could explain the great expanse of separation to the boy, but even the Devil’s injections had not made him that smart.
“You got Nina’s phone number somewhere around there?” Ptolemy asked after giving up on the young black man.
A familiar man’s voice came across the line. “Hello.”
“That you, Alfred?” Ptolemy asked.
“Who’s this?”
“Ptolemy.”
“Who?”
“The man Reggie used to look aftah. The one you met at Niecie’s house when you took Reggie’s wife away.”
“What you sayin’, man?” Alfred asked angrily.
“I’m sayin’, is Nina there?”
A few seconds passed before the receiver banged down and Alfred called out, “You bettah tell that mothahfuckah to be respectful.”
“Hello?” a feminine voice asked. “Who is this?”
“Ptolemy Grey . . . Reggie’s great-uncle.”
“Oh . . . Mr. Grey. Why you callin’?”
“I’m fine and how are you?”
“Oh, okay. Uh ...”
“How was the funeral?” Ptolemy asked, trying to repair the broken conversation.
“Very sad, Mr. Grey. The children were so sad. Reggie’s sistah come down from Oakland with her kids. What is it you wanted?”
“Did you bring Alfred to the funeral?”
“No . . . how can I help you, Mr. Grey?”
“I got everything I want,” he replied. “I don’t need a thing, thank you very much.”
“But why are you callin’ here?” she asked, beginning to lose patience.
“That Robyn is a miracle,” he said. “You know that?”
“She okay.”
“No . . . no, no, no. She’s a honest-to-God miracle.”
“I got to go, Mr. Grey.”
“When she come here to my house,” Ptolemy said, as if he had not heard Nina’s complaint, “she saw the mess and the junk and cleaned it all up from one end to the other. Washed and cleaned and threw out and poisoned the bugs too. And then, when she looked at me and seen that I was a mess, she took me to the doctor and got me the kinda medicine you people got out there today. Strong stuff, the kinda penicillin open up your eyes.”
“That’s, that’s wonderful,” Nina said. “You go, Mr. Grey.”
“Get off the phone with that old fool,” Alfred said in the background.
“I got to be somewhere, Mr. Grey.”
“So you know,” the old man went on, “when Robyn brung me to that doctor, that handsome Devil with the thick mustaches, I started to remembah things.”
“That’s nice but I—”
“One thing I just remembered was somethin’ Reggie wanted me to give you.”
“I said get off that phone!” Alfred shouted.
“Just gimme a minute, Al. I’ll be off in just a few minutes.”
“I’ma go wit’out you, Nine,” he threatened.
“Go on, then,” she said. “Go on an’ I’ll meet you there.”
Errant sounds came through the line for a time. This period was ended by a loud bang that Ptolemy thought was a door slamming.
“Mr. Grey? Are you still there?”
“Sure am. I hope I didn’t cause any trouble with your man.”
“Don’t worry ’bout him. He just get mad sometimes.”
