I Am Not Sidney Poitier

by Percival Everett

  They talked and laughed about old times. I learned that Robert was a business major, a member of some fraternity, and already had a summer internship lined up with Stanley Morgan or Morgan Stanley. Then Lydia brought up the old days in Jack and Jill and they all laughed.

  “What’s Jack and Jill?” I asked.

  “It’s a club, an organization,” Jasmine said. It was a rather uninformative and mysterious answer.

  “It’s a club for children,” Maggie told me.

  “What kind of club?” I asked.

  “A social club,” Robert said. “For cultural and social enrichment. It was started in nineteen thirty-five in Boston.”

  “Nineteen thirty-eight in Philadelphia,” Maggie said.

  “I stand corrected.”

  “Who gets to be in it?” I asked.

  They looked at each other. “You have to be sponsored by someone who is in it or who has children in it or was in it,” Sophie said.

  “And then you have to meet other criteria,” Robert said.

  “What criteria?” I asked. “Is it for black children?”

  “Yes,” Jasmine said. But it could have been any one of them speaking, as they had all blurred together for me, even Maggie.

  “What criteria?” I asked, again.

  “There’s a whole selection process,” Maggie said.

  I could see I was getting nowhere, so I shut up.

  “So, do you play any sports?” Robert asked me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Robert’s on the lacrosse team and the swim team at Dartmouth,” Lydia said and watched me closely.

  “I’m not a very good swimmer,” I said.

  “Do you play golf?” Robert asked.

  “Never have.”

  The room was fairly quiet, but not in an interesting way. Sophie finally said something to Jasmine who said something to all of them and then they were chatting again and, this time, with no pretense that I was to be kindly included. Instead, I was kindly excluded and I felt somewhat happy about that. I had a sneaking realization, however incapable I was at articulating it, that my presence was essential to them, not in some singular, specific way, but in a broad and pervasive and insidious way that none of them would or could understand or acknowledge.

  On the way home as Maggie drove the luxury coffin of silence, I watched the streetlights reflect off her fair skin. She was lovely and monstrous, but also sad as I knew she had invited me home as a wedge to use between herself and her parents. However, she had no mallet to give the wedge even a light tap, and so it (I) lay there on its (my) broad side. We managed our way into the house and into our separate rooms without so much as a grunt or hiss, though the hiss was implied. In my quarters, I showered, trying to rinse off whatever had been dumped on me. I felt, remarkably, okay and somewhat better for the steam. I was drying off with a stiff towel when, startled by a woman sitting on my bed, I covered myself.

  “I’m Agnes,” she said.

  “Not Sidney.”

  “So I hear.”

  “I’m naked.”

  “So I see.”

  “Why are you in here?”

  “I hate my sister,” she said.

  “She’s not in here,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to have sex with you.”

  I understood everything she was saying and yet still I said, “I don’t understand.” My jeans were lying uselessly on the bed beside her. I pulled the towel tighter. “She’s your baby sister, you’re supposed to look out for her.”

  “I suppose one of us should,” she said.

  “I honestly don’t believe she’ll be terribly upset.” I was recalling the events of the evening.

  “Oh, she’ll be upset.” Agnes stood and stepped toward me. She wore a powder blue flannel gown that looked comfortable, if not alluring. She was slightly shorter than Maggie and in a strange way prettier, perhaps because of an oddness in her features, a too-high forehead and a hawkish nose. More than Maggie, her face seemed to have a story, or at least wanted a story.

  She brushed against me, laid her head against my chest, and then quickly pulled away the towel. She and I were impressed as we looked down at my erection. It was one of my penis’s better efforts.

  “Well, well,” she said.

  I was in no position to deny my arousal, however confusing it might have been to me.

  Agnes latched on with a fist, then lowered herself, finding me with her mouth. It was agreeable, the sensation. In fact, I am ashamed to say, I was surprised to feel that either Agnes was quite good at it or I was as invested in upsetting Maggie as she was. I caught a glimpse of us in the standing mirror, and the image was a bit of Gothic porn. I looked so much like Sidney Poitier that I was momentarily distracted, until I remembered that Sidney Poitier would never have appeared in a scene like this one. I closed my eyes, stood there, and had a remarkably relaxed and floatingly nice time, during which I dreamed.

  I dreamed it was 1950 and that I was a young doctor with a Bahamian accent and that no one believed I was a doctor and yet I was given a patient, a white man who called me nigger and tried to spit in my face. He had been shot and the bullet was near his heart and he went into cardiac arrest and the other doctors, all white and believed to be doctors by everyone else, stood around and told me it was my call. I attended to the heart attack, asking for adrenaline, compressed the chest, but the chest wound was severe and the man died.

  My elderly white mentor patted me on the back and said, “What could you do? Nothing, that’s what.”

  Into the scene walked a man with a skeletal face who said he was the brother of the dead man and wanted to know why he had died. All the white doctors and nurses and my elderly mentor turned and pointed to me and said, in unison, “The nigger killed him. That nigger killed him.”

  “That nigger?”

  “Yes, that nigger.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “There was nothing that I could do. Ask my elderly mentor.”

  But when I looked, my mentor was gone and there was a white female nurse standing there and she said, shaking her head, “And I never liked the way he looked at me.”

  “You killed my brother, nigger,” the skeletal man said.

  “He was already dead,” I said.

  Outside in the street I could hear chanting, like a riot starting or wanting to start. I could hear the voices of dark faces like my own demanding to be left alone. And then the white man pulled out a gun. I could see that he was handcuffed, but he had no trouble aiming the pistol at me.

  “I’m going to kill you, nigger,” he said. “And all your kind out there in that street.”

  “He was already dead,” I said. I looked around for someplace to run, for some door or window, but there was nothing, no way out.

  I watched his finger slowly squeeze the trigger.

  All of this while sister Agnes sucked on my penis and knew that the whole time I was dreaming, and it felt good the whole time I was terrified that I was about to be shot. I wondered what kind of mind had such a dream while having oral-genital relations and this scared me more than anything. Still, I could not shake myself out of the dream. As the pistol fired off the round, so too did my penis. Time stopped, my breathing stopped.

  I awoke naked and alone in my too-soft bed with the stiff sheets and impossibly pressed bedspread. I sat up and slowly remembered my encounter with Agnes and wondered how it would play out. I had a fleeting, quickly dismissed thought that Agnes wasn’t so terrible, at least at a certain thing. I walked to the window and looked out at the morning, at the turned leaves still half filling the trees. Then I heard their voices. Again, through the vent I was hearing Ward and Ruby.

  “Get in here,” Ward said, “and shut that door.”

  “Did you find out something?” Ruby asked.

  “I had Mitchell make some calls. I told him get in there and dig deep. He was on the horn all night.”

  �
��And?”

  “And he’s rich.”

  “So, he’s got a little money,” Ruby said.

  “He’s got a lot of money.”

  “How much?”

  There was a rustling of pages. Then I sneezed.

  “What was that?” Ruby asked.

  “What was what?” Ward cleared his throat. “Here it is. It seems the boy owns a television network. NET.”

  “Nigger Entertainment Television?”

  “He just bought it. Paid cash for it. He’s somehow involved with Ted Turner, but none of this is clear. What is clear is that he can buy and sell everyone we know a couple of times over.”

  “But he’s so dark,” Ruby said.

  “He’s fucking rich is what he is.” Ward paused. “I knew there was something about that boy I liked.”

  “He’s so black.”

  “We might have to overlook that. You know, he does look quite a bit like Sidney Poitier.”

  “He does that,” Ruby said. “But our little girl. She’s so fair.”

  “So, be nice to him.”

  “I’ll try,” Ruby said.

  “And tell Agnes to be nice to him.”

  Ruby laughed. “You know I have no control over Agnes.”

  “Well, talk to her.”

  I was, to say the least, stunned, not only by the highly objectionable nature of their conversation and thinking, but by the unsettling fact I had been set on a course for matrimony. A snake of ice slithered up my too-dark ass and lodged itself at the base of my spine.

  “Agnes, get in here.” It was Ruby, and I was still hearing them through the vent. “Sit down.”

  “What is it?” Agnes asked.

  “We want you to be nice to that boy upstairs,” Ward said.

  “Why?”

  “Just be nice, that’s all,” Ruby said.

  “Something’s up,” Agnes said.

  “He’s your sister’s boyfriend,” Ruby said.

  “They’re serious?”

  “They will be,” Ward said.

  “What’s going on?” I could feel Agnes sitting on the edge of whatever leather seat she’d chosen as the solemn and mocking faces of nature stared dead-eyed at her from every wall.

  “He’s rich, okay?” Ruby said.

  “Really rich,” Ward said.

  “Why should Maggie get him then?” she asked.

  “Shut up and don’t be that way,” Ruby said.

  “They’re not even serious. She just brought him home to mess with because of his dark skin.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ward said. “Be nice.”

  There was a knock at my door and before I could cover myself, Violet came in with some clean towels.

  “Lord, have mercy on my soul,” she said, threw the towels on the floor, and backed out, slamming the door. Just as quickly the door reopened, and an obviously upset Maggie walked in.

  “I have a feeling Violet didn’t like the look of my penis,” I said.

  My words seemed to have no meaning for her as she said, “Was Agnes in here last night?”

  Having been generally no good at lying in my life and being apparently too stupid to give it one more try, I said, “Yes.”

  “What did she want?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She introduced herself and I think she said she wanted to upset you and I think she has.”

  “That bitch,” Maggie muttered. “That crazy bitch. What else? What else happened?”

  I looked out the window.

  “You didn’t,” she hissed.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. I believed this to be pretty much true. I hadn’t kissed or inserted anything or even fought her off. I’d done nothing. I could not even say that I had had sex with Agnes, only that she had had sex with me. Perhaps if I had moved a muscle instead of having a muscle merely move, I might have remembered a bit or detail of the encounter. But all I was left with was the general impression that Agnes was pretty good at blow jobs.

  Maggie stormed out of the room.

  I dressed and walked down the stairs to the kitchen where I found Violet beating eggs in a bowl. I asked her if there was a phone I might use.

  “Long distance?” she asked.

  “Collect,” I said.

  “You can use the phone in Mister’s study. Just the phone. Don’t be touching anything else.”

  It seemed that none of the Larkins were around, but I knew they were. I cautiously walked into Mister’s study and parked myself behind his massive desk. It felt like a blind from which I might draw a bead on any of the twenty prey that lined the walls and floor. I placed my first call to Ted.

  “So, how is DC?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m calling because I needed to hear a friendly voice. I want your opinion on something.”

  “Shoot.”

  As I looked at the head of the rhinoceros (how could I have missed it before?), it occurred to me that I didn’t know how to approach this subject with Ted, the whole thing about skin color. “I don’t think Maggie’s parents like me,” I said.

  “Hell, that dynamic is as old as butter,” Ted said. “Did you know that India eats more butter than any other country? My mama always swore by butter. Never did turn to margarine. Turns out she was right, too. That margarine is bad for you. What’s the weather like up there?”

  “It’s cool.”

  “Don’t worry about her parents hating your guts. It’s natural. They’re almost required to hate you.”

  “Thanks, Ted.”

  “Well, I’m off to Montana tomorrow, so I won’t see you when you get back. Just try to relax.”

  “Okay. Bye.” I hung up and placed my next call to Professor Everett. I got his number from directory assistance.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Professor Everett, these people are crazy,” I said.

  “Listen, you’re calling me collect, so don’t call me Professor Everett. At least not all the time.”

  “What should I call you?”

  He thought about it, then said, “Call me Sir.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Of course not. I want you to call me Dave.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Seriously, call me Dave. I want you to call me Dave. I could ask you to call me Bill, but what sense would that make?”

  I was terribly confused by now. “Why do you want me to call you Dave? That’s not your name.”

  “So what? I like it. It’s got that … that … that American thing going on. Dave, please call me Dave.”

  “Okay, Dave.”

  “See, that wasn’t hard. Not, why the hell are you calling me during my precious Thanksgiving break?”

  “I needed to hear a sane voice.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this to Everett, of all people.

  “Then I’m glad you called. What’s up?”

  “These people hate me,” I said.

  “What people?”

  “Maggie’s parents. I heard them talking through the vent, and all they could talk about was my skin color.”

  “First, why were they talking through a vent?”

  “I just heard them through the vent.”

  “Your skin color? What about it?” I could hear Everett leaning back and lighting his cigar.

  “They think I’m too dark.”

  “Too dark for what?”

  “For them. For their daughter.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means they’re a bunch of fucked-up people is what it means. It means that I don’t want to be here.”

  “Well, if you know that, then why are you calling me? All I can do is tell you that your assessment is correct. What, do you want me to fly up there so that we can present a dark wall of solidarity?”

  “And then I found out that they found out that I’m rich, and now that’s all they care about, my money.”

  “You’re ric
h? How rich are you, Mr. Poitier?”

  “Very rich.”

  “I need three hundred and fifty dollars,” he said. “Just kidding. I say you sit back and have some fun at their expense. I just want you to remember one little thing though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You are a bit on the dark side. Not that I care, but a fact is a fact.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Have you ever known me to say anything? Well, anything that matters? Listen, just remember that nothing puts you at an advantage like knowing what someone is thinking when they don’t know you know what they’re thinking. Do you know what I’m telling you?”

  “No, not exactly.” I paused and thought for a second. “You’re telling me to give them hell?”

  “That’s right. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Once off the phone with Everett I sat back and stared at the carcasses around me. Talking to my professor had not been a waste of time, as usually it was, but I was certainly less clear about how I was to exploit the situation than he was. I surveyed the desktop and tried to take it in without feeling that I was snooping; perhaps I was trying to get a sense of the man, perhaps trying to avoid dead eyes. There was a pen-and-pencil set centered on the outside edge of the leather blotter. The pen and pencil were set as two mats on the deck of a brass schooner. The engraving at the base was thanks for support from the Lions Club. There was a leather checkbook set off to one side, but I didn’t touch it. And there was a miniature brass golf bag that contained pens shaped like gold clubs. I was holding and examining the putter when Ward walked in. I quickly put the pen back into its slot. “I’m sorry, Violet told me I could come in here and use the phone,” I said.

  “Of course you may, son,” he said. “Of course you may.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Calling family?”

  “A friend.”

  “Not a girlfriend, I hope.” He laughed and tossed a nervous glance over his shoulder as he closed the door. He sat on the leather sofa against the far wall and beneath the water buffalo.

  “That would be awkward,” I said.

  “Where is your family?”

  “I don’t have any,” I said.

  “None?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “That’s too bad.”