18.
DR. RILEY Most people your age, when they have burns as bad as yours was, take months to recover. PTOLEMY I always healed fast. Black man in the cotton fields ain’t got time to play sick. REGGIE I told him that he can’t make coffee no more, Doctor. I disconnected the gas to the stove. PTOLEMY ...yeah, one time I could pick three hunnert pounds’a cotton on a
summer’s day. Other niggahs be droppin’ in the dirt cause’a the heat but I’d work till the June moon rose in the sky. The June moon. DR. RILEY (to Reggie) Physically, your uncle is the healthiest man of his age I’ve ever seen. The doctor gets up to go sit behind his desk. REGGIE
They tell me that when he left the Delta to go up to Chicago he was only twelve and he went by foot, barefoot. PTOLEMY I ran. DR. RILEY (settling behind desk) His recuperative ability was the reason I suggested him for this process.
Ptolemy’s attention wanders. Dr. Riley reaches down under his desk, fumbles around a bit, then... DR. RILEY(CONT'D) Mr. Grey.
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