The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

“Bettah then evah. I could tell you the kinda cake my mama made on my sixth birthday, and what the driver talked about when I took the bus up to Twenty-third and Central this afternoon.”

“By yourself?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you take the bus by yourself?” Ruben asked.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Do you have any problem walking, handling things?”

“Naw. Mattah fact I seem a little more handy than I was.” He was thinking about the pipe he had swung at Melinda. “I seem to be more—what you call it?—coordinated.”

The doctor smiled and nodded.

“And you say you have fever?” he asked.

“I get so hot sometimes I can feel it comin’ off my skin. I take aspirin an’ a cold shower an’ it go away.”

“That’s just right, Mr. Grey. A shower and aspirin will work for a while. Maybe a long while.”

“Fevah gonna kill me?” Ptolemy asked with no self-pity or regret.

“Could be,” Ruben said. “But you say you feel an electrical sensation inside?”

“In my veins,” Ptolemy replied. “Like a trill played on a flute. It makes me feel like I got butterflies for blood.”

“That’s the medicine,” Ruben said. “It’s working on your chemistry and your body’s electrical system, your wiring. But it should only be in your brain. That’s what we’re trying to work out . . . how to keep the brain alive and functioning well without affecting the other parts of your body. May I take your pulse?”

“The Devil playin’ a healer,” Ptolemy said as he extended his right hand.

After feeling various points on the old man’s arm, Ruben said, “Your blood pressure is elevated.” He reached into his pocket and came out with a small green bottle.

“These pills are very small but potent. There are a hundred of them. Take one when the fever and flute playing bothers you and it should subside for a while.”

Ptolemy took the green bottle and shook it, listening to the beads of medicine tinkle against the glass.

“Tell me sumpin’, Satan. Will I live to finish off this bottle?”

“To tell you the truth, Mr. Grey, I thought that you’d have died by now. I came by to make sure that Robyn was keeping your agreement.”

The candor of the demon brought a smile to Ptolemy’s lips.

“Coy told me about you.”

“Who’s that?”

“My uncle. Well, he wasn’t really my blood but just a old man who taught me everything I know—almost. He told me that even though you called evil in the Good Book that I still had to give you respect. Yes he did.”

Ruben leaned forward, clasped his hands, and placed his elbows on his knees. He was looking deeply into Ptolemy’s eyes.

“I ain’t crazy, Dr. Ruben, if that’s what you want me to call ya. I ain’t crazy at all. But I know the Devil when I see him. You don’t need no college degree to see evil in front’a yo’ nose. Man play with life have crossed ovah. That’s a fact.”

“But . . . Mr. Grey, I’m helping you, aren’t I? Didn’t you come to me and ask for my help?”

For a passing moment Ptolemy felt fear. Had he sold his soul and not quite realized it? Had he been tricked as so many before him on the long road to ruin?

“But we traded, right?” Ptolemy asked. “You wanted my body, not my soul.”

Satan smiled on Ptolemy Grey. His whole face was alight with friendliness.

“That’s right, Mr. Grey. I only want your body. I’m trading that light in your mind and that tickle in your veins for your body after you no longer need it.”

“Will you shake on that?” Grey asked, and both men extended their hands and grasped each other, reaffirming an oath that they both wanted and needed.

After a moment or two of silent reverie, Ruben asked, “Where’s your niece?”

“Out with her boyfriend.”

“She leaves you alone and you can take care of yourself?”

“If I had a fifty-gallon drum I could barbecue a pig in the cement yard,” Ptolemy said proudly.

“I bet you could, Mr. Grey. I bet you could.”

For a long time after the Devil had left, Ptolemy considered their conversation. He remembered every word and intonation, every gesture and phrase.

Satan had called the feeling in his body a tickle, meaning that he knew about the Tickle River and Coy and the theft of the gold coins. He was telling him that Coy had sinned but that he would be forgiven if Ptolemy lived up to his side of the bargain over the disposition of the treasure.

It was a delicate transaction, dealing with the Devil, but in Ptolemy’s mind that was his only hope. How else could he save Letisha and Artie, and Robyn too? How else could he make sure that Reggie’s killer did not escape judgment?

Ptolemy was feeling giddy after such a close call with oblivion, because he knew meeting the Devil was always a threat to the immortal soul.

What’s a soul, Coy?” Li’l Pea had asked his mentor and friend.

For a long time the old man sat and puffed on his cherrywood pipe. After a few minutes went by, Ptolemy thought that he wouldn’t get an answer to his question. This wasn’t unusual. Sometimes Coy didn’t answer. Ptolemy knew that sometimes he had to find his own solutions.

“Do you look at your mama sometimes and feel love in your heart for her?” Coy asked.

“Yeah . . . I guess.”

“It’s either yes or no.”