The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

The street was narrow, with three-story structures down both sides of the block. One or two of the commercial buildings were painted dirty white but everything else was brown. Apartment buildings mostly—a few with ground-floor stores that had gone out of business. The only stores that were still operating were Blanche Monroe’s Laundry and Chow Fun’s take-out Chinese restaurant.

Ptolemy pressed his back against the wall and rose on painful knees. He was trying not to tremble or cry, biting the inside of his lips to gather his courage.

“Who is she?” Hilly, his savior, asked.

“Melinda Hogarth,” Ptolemy said, uttering one of the few names he could not forget.

“Do you owe her money?”

“No. I don’t owe that woman nuthin’. One day a couple’a years ago she squeezed my arm and said that she needed money for her habit. She just kept on squeezin’ an’ sayin’ that and when I finally gave her ten dollars she squeezed harder and made me say that I’d give her that much money whenevah she needed it. Aftah that she come an’ push in my do’ an’ took my money can. That’s why I nevah go anywhere unless Reggie come. Where is Reggie?”

“Come on, Papa Grey. Let’s go to the store.”

Why you shiverin’, Uncle?” Hilly asked when they were walking down Alameda toward the Big City Food Mart.

“It’s cold out heah. An’ they’s that wind.”

“It’s just a breeze,” Hilly said. “And it’s ovah eighty degrees. I’m sweatin’ like a pig as it is.”

“I’m cold. Where we goin’?”

“To Big City for your groceries. Then aftah that, Mama want me to bring you ovah to her house.”

“You got money?” Grey asked.

“No. I mean maybe five dollars. Don’t you have money for your groceries?”

“I got to go to the place first.”

“The ATM?”

Ptolemy stopped walking and considered the word. It sounded like amen, like maybe the big kid was saying, “Amen to that.” But his face looked confused.

“What’s wrong, Uncle?” Hilly asked.

Ptolemy looked behind to make sure he knew how far he was from his house. He noticed that Melinda Hogarth wasn’t following him like she once did when she knew that he was going to the place.

“You really scared him,” Ptolemy said to Hilly, shifting their conversation in his mind. “He slapped me an’ knocked me down an’ you said, ‘Get outta here,’ an’ he run.” Ptolemy giggled and slapped his hip.

“You mean she ran,” Hilly said. “Not he.”

“Yeah. Yeah, right. I mean she. She ran. She sure did.” The old man giggled and patted the big boy’s shoulder.

“Do you wanna go to Big City?” Hilly asked again.

“I gotta go to the place first.”

“What place?”

“The place for in my pocket.”

Hilly noticed then that his uncle was holding on to something through the blue fabric of his pants.

“You got somethin’ in your pocket, Uncle?”

“That’s my business.”

“Do you want me to help you with that like I helped you with that bitch slapped you?”

Ptolemy snickered. He would hardly ever use a curse word like that, but he felt it, and the big boy saying it made him happy.

Laughin’ is the best thing a man can do,” his aunt Henrietta used to say back in the days after the Great War when all the black folks lived together and knew each other and talked the same; back in the days when they had juke joints and white gloves and girls that smiled so pretty that a little boy like Ptolemy (who they called Petey, Pity, and Li’l Pea) would do cartwheels just to get them to look at him.

“Do you want me to help you with what’s in your pocket, Papa Grey?” Hilly said again. He reached for Ptolemy’s hand but the old man shifted away.

“Mine!” he said protectively, shaking his head.

Hilly put his hands up, surrendering to his great-uncle’s vehemence.

“All right. All right. But if you want me to help you, you have to tell me where you want to go.”

“The place,” Ptolemy said. “The place.”

“The ATM?”

“No, not that. Not where they say amen. The place where, where the lady behind the glass is at.”

“The bank?”

When the old man smiled he realized that his tongue was dry. He had to go to the bathroom too.

“What bank?” his nephew asked.