The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

“People were always smiling at him now that he was so old. Even people who looked old to him smiled because, he knew, he looked even older to them.”

Random strangers smile at Ptolemy on the bus. Somehow, society views old people as harmless. While this might seem endearing, harmlessness invites victimization. Ptolemy will learn this lesson from predatory family and friends.

“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.”

In the early pages of the book, Ptolemy is bedeviled by faces from his past. He’s forgotten names, but they still continue to visit. Meeting Robyn represents a respite from this constant effort to remember.

“‘What if your mama wanted to put you in a, in a . . . a sto’ place?’ ‘My mama’s dead, but I’m alive, Papa Grey.’ Patting the door to his deep closet Ptolemy said, ‘All my stuff is livin’ too.’”

Reggie wants to throw out some of Ptolemy’s belongings. He doesn’t understand that the mementos of Ptolemy’s past are still alive in his memory. Ptolemy’s past is so alive that it bedevils him constantly.

“Robyn’s face was only inches from Ptolemy’s. Her eyes were asking for something, pleading with him. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know how to ask her what she wanted. But he knew that he would have done anything for that child. She was his child, his baby girl. She needed his protection.”

At this point, Ptolemy is still in the throes of dementia. He can’t analyze or articulate the connection he feels toward Robyn. However, on a visceral level, he recognizes a kindred spirit who needs his help. She will recognize the same need in him too.

“They ain’t no special numbahs for the victims. Just ’cause they grabbed you and chained you, just ’cause they beat you an’ raped your sister don’t mean a thing when it come to that line. God don’t care what they did to you. What he care about is what you did.”

Coydog is explaining his philosophy of the afterlife to the very young Ptolemy. He says that bad people must wait in a much longer line than good people to reach the pearly gates. Ptolemy expects special treatment for the survivors of abuse, but Coydog draws an important distinction: A person isn’t judged virtuous because of what was done to them. The only thing that matters is what they did themselves.

“‘The great man say that life is pain,’ Coydog had said over eighty-five years before. ‘That mean if you love life, then you love the hurt come along wit’ it. Now, if that ain’t the blues, I don’t know what is.’”

Here we see Coydog’s philosophy of life. He will endure great suffering for the coins he stole, but he believes the sacrifice is worth it. His theft will make life better for his people. Blues notwithstanding, he is willing to embrace everything that life has to offer.

“It occurred to him that before now, before this moment, the content of his mind was the radio and the TV, that he was just as empty as an old cracked pecan shell—the meat dried up and crumbled away.

Before Robyn arrives, Ptolemy likes to play the radio and the television continuously. Perhaps this is an attempt to drown out the ghosts and memories in his brain, and to silence loneliness. The above lines describe Ptolemy’s thoughts after he removes the tarp from his bedroom. The pall that covers his mind is being lifted.

“‘It’s like they’s a jailhouse in my mind,’ he said, ‘an’ I’m in the prison an’ they’s all these people I know outside yellin’ to me but I cain’t make out what they sayin’.’”

For much of his life, Ptolemy has passively accepted events. He avoids trouble and is slow to initiate action of any kind. His dementia may be a final attempt to forget the deeds that he has left undone. However, the ghosts of conscience still rise up. He can’t quite make sense of what they want him to do, but he will never be able to silence them completely by forgetting.

“When he was alone with his TV and radio, nobody asked him anything and he didn’t have to put together any responses. People talked in his head, and on the TV, but there were no questions that he had to answer.”

Robyn has just asked a question. Her presence in Ptolemy’s apartment forces him to interact with the real world in a new way. Without realizing it, she is grounding him in reality long before Ruben’s medicine.

“‘Rich man is the man live in his own skin,’ the old thief countered. ‘Black as oil, white as cane sugah, yellah like gold—that’s riches for ya, boy. All the rest is jes’ wastin’ time.’”

Coydog demonstrates his lack of concern for worldly wealth. His theft of the coins isn’t about personal gain. He already feels himself to be a rich man. The theft is meant to strike a blow for justice. Sometimes, illegal actions are required to right a wrong. Ptolemy’s execution of Alfred falls into the same category.

“Ptolemy didn’t mind the doctor explaining to the child. She was his eyes and ears in a world just out of reach. She deciphered what things meant and then told him like a busboy in a restaurant that runs down to the waiter and then comes back with information for the cook.

When Ptolemy first visits Ruben, he has trouble understanding what the experimental drug is supposed to do for him. In this instance and many others, Robyn acts as the intermediary between a befuddled Ptolemy and the real world. Their roles will reverse dramatically by the end of the story.

“Devil the most honest man walk the earth […] He offer you his treasure and take your soul. They call him the Prince of Liars, but he ain’t no different than a bartender: you pays your nickel and drinks your poison.”

Coydog sets the tone for Ptolemy’s later dealings with Ruben. Even though Ptolemy is ambivalent about using the memory drug, knowing it will kill him quicker, Ruben doesn’t lie to him about its side-effects or duration. Ptolemy develops a perverse fondness for the man who will take his life, just as Coydog expresses perverse admiration for the devil.

“‘A gift from God,’ he said again. ‘Without you I wouldn’t even be here.’ ‘Somebody else woulda come,’ Robyn said, bowing her head. ‘Yeah. They’da come, but I still wouldn’t be here. It’s me that’s the lump’a clay and you that’s the hand of God.’”

Ptolemy has had other caregivers in the past, but none of them has understood him as well as Robyn. Because of her, he feels visible again. He is not forgotten. More than any other quality, this sets her apart from the rest of his family. Ptolemy acknowledges here that Robyn was the only one who could reach him and make a difference.

“When you get old you begin to understand that no one talks unless someone listens, and no one knows nuthin’ ’less somebody else can understand.”

As in the preceding quote, Ptolemy is reinforcing the distinction between hearing and understanding. He can communicate with Robyn in a way that was impossible with anyone else in his world. She broke him out of the prison inside his mind not simply because she cleaned his apartment, but because she understood what he was trying to say.

“‘The older you get the more you live in the past,’ Coy intoned like a minister introducing his sermon. ‘Old man like me don’t have no first blue sky or thunderstorm or kiss […] My world is made outta ash and memories, broken bones and pain.’”

Ptolemy recalls another of his childhood conversations with Coydog. Coydog is describing the future that Ptolemy himself will experience. However, because Robyn is different than anybody Ptolemy has ever met, she represents a first for him instead of a last.

“Her voice was the constant refrain defining the form of his improvised last days. ‘Uncle?’ Robyn would say, and all the words and thoughts that went before formed into sensible lines, became plain memories that no longer engulfed his mind.

Before Robyn arrived, Ptolemy’s mind was crammed with noises from the television, the radio, and conversations with dead people. Her voice draws him out of himself. She is real, and his memories aren’t. He can’t make this simple distinction without her being there to pull him back from the brink.

“For a moment Ptolemy understood that the doctor’s medicine had made him into many men from out of all the lives he had lived through the decades. It was certainly a Devil’s potion, one that could give him the power to relive his mistakes and failures and change, if only slightly, the past events that hounded his dreams.

Through flashback, the reader experiences Ptolemy’s life from the perspective of a young boy, a grown man, a husband, and a senior citizen. Unfortunately, most of these flashbacks remind Ptolemy of his failures, and he replays them constantly, like a broken record. Ruben’s medicine gives him the mental clarity to sort out his mistakes and fix what he can. This is the only way he will ever be free of his memories of past failures.

“Inside the apartment Ptolemy thought about Robyn, who was so quick to fight, and now Billy, who didn’t even utter a warning [...] People shot out like rattlesnakes on these modern streets. There was no warning anymore.”

In two instances, Melinda has accosted Ptolemy and been beaten by Robyn and Billy. With his new mental clarity, Ptolemy can see the difference between the people of his own generation and today’s youngsters. When viewed in this light, even his benign protectors are frightening in their sudden violence.

“That’s why heaven an’ hell is always fightin’ over the souls’a men. Our souls, when we got ’em, is so beautiful that angels always lookin’ to take ’em. That’s why when the Devil comes up on you you got to hold tight on the love in your heart.”

Coydog defines the soul as the feeling of love that one holds for someone else. Ptolemy obsesses over losing his soul to Ruben. He fails to note that his love for Robyn is too strong to ever relinquish. Ruben will take his body, but Ptolemy’s love and his soul will remain intact.

“He got to his feet without arthritic pain in his joints. He took a deep breath and went back to his bed, where he could recall history and change it slightly—an old man deified by the whim of evil.”

This quote alludes to Ruben’s drug as demonic. The doctor is unconcerned with questions of right and wrong. He simply needs test subjects for his experiments. In this sense, his restoration of Ptolemy’s mind is nothing more than a random whim. However, Ptolemy makes use of this to extract meaning from his remaining days.

“‘I almost threw it all away, Sensie,’ Ptolemy told the memory. ‘I almost failed at my duty. A man only got to do one thing to set him apart. A man only got to do one thing right.’”

Ptolemy is having a vision of his dead wife. He articulates the essential lesson that his dementia has taught him: He procrastinated for so long that he forgot his duty. Ruben’s drug is a wake-up call. Ptolemy realizes that he’s been given one final chance to set the record straight and fulfill his obligations before it really is too late.

“Even when you couldn’t think so good, and then when you could, you wanted to look aftah me. I don’t need nobody to take care’a me, not no more. I just need somebody to want to.”

At many points in the novel, Ptolemy articulates his feelings for Robyn and expresses gratitude for the difference she has made in his life. In this quote, we hear her side of the story. Robyn is a neglected orphan who was forgotten in much the same way that Ptolemy was. His concern for her well-being has made all the difference in her life, and she responds with gratitude toward him. Both have been neglected and abandoned. Their experiences have made them grateful when anyone cares.

“Ptolemy appraised his grandniece’s attempt to convince him, and maybe convince herself, that he really owed her something […] He resented her trying to make him feel indebted, but on the other hand he did owe her what she said. She had sent Reggie, and Reggie had tried his best. She had sent Robyn to him.”

When Niecie realizes that Ptolemy has a substantial amount of money to bestow, she tries to guilt him into giving her the lion’s share. With his mind restored, Ptolemy recognizes her transparent manipulation. At the same time, he also recognizes the justice of the debt. This is why he doesn’t completely disinherit Niecie and the rest of her lazy brood.