I Am Not Sidney Poitier

by Percival Everett

  “Well, I suppose I could try.”

  “You will do more than try. You will do it.” With that she marched off and left the other women to stare at me. I offered a smile and glanced back at my engine.

  The battered service manual for my Skylark suggested that the job of tightening the belts would be simple and fairly quick. In fact it said, “This adjustment is simple and quick,” the rather clear subtext being that any idiot could do it. I read this recognizing that I was not just any idiot. I put the car manual aside and picked up the book that had been given to me by the old woman, How to Roof a House.

  She stood over me while I read. “It is clear?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll do this, but then I’ll have to go.”

  “We will see,” she said.

  I climbed the ladder to look at the roof. It was a simple flat roof that required only that I remove the bad surface, replace the bad wood, roll out the new roofing paper, and paint the seams with tar. It would take awhile, but I was happy that I at least understood the project.

  I called down, “It’s a big job.”

  “But you can do it.” It was not a question.

  “I can do it.”

  It was thankfully November, so, though the air was insanely humid, it was not insanely hot. Nine hours later, just as the sun was setting, I finished the roof. I was dirtier than I had ever been, smellier, more tired, and yet I felt a kind of vague peace. I washed up at the outdoor spigot at the side of the house. The water was cold, but I didn’t mind. I dried my face and underarms with a stiff white towel that one of the women had set down near me.

  The oldest came and said, “Come, you eat with us.”

  “Don’t you want to see the roof?”

  “You have fixed it. That is all that matters.”

  Clean and wearing a fresh shirt I stepped into the building to find the women dressed alike in what might have been habits and sitting around a rectangular table; the oldest was at the head. She finally introduced herself as Sister Irenaeus. She introduced the others as Sisters Origen, Eusebius, Firmilian, and Chrysostom.

  “Really,” I said, somewhat astonished. “My name is Poitier.”

  “Poitier,” Sister Irenaeus said.

  “Poitier,” the others whispered.

  “Where are you from?” I asked. I had been trying to place Sister Irenaeus’s accent.

  “We are from North Dakota.”

  It was hardly the answer I was expecting. “You’re a long way from home,” I said.

  “We are indeed. Have a seat, Poitier.”

  I sat in the woven-cane chair opposite Sister Irenaeus. The room was quiet and damp and dim, and lit by two brass standing lamps. There was a dark, heavy wooden buffet against the wall behind Sister Irenaeus, and to the left of that was a book stand supporting what I was certain was a very large and tattered Bible.

  “I didn’t know you were nuns,” I said.

  “We are not Catholic,” Sister Irenaeus said. “We are of the Church of the Ever-Holy Pentecost of Our Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “We are all children of God,” said Sister Firmilian, who was by my estimation the prettiest of them. Then and now, thinking this made and makes me shudder.

  “We say grace,” Irenaeus said.

  They all put their hands together and for some reason I did as well.

  Sister Irenaeus cleared her throat. “Dear Jesus, thank you for this day, this bread, our roof, and our new big man, and he is a black man just like William J. Seymour and his one eye, but his eye was open to only you, Jesus, only you, and so you have sent him to us to help us in our mission, our quest to bring your word of love to every breathing human creature that walks the face of your beautiful Earth and, Jesus, this road is difficult, arduous, but not hard as you have kissed the trail we travel with your divine lips, full, Godly lips, so that our feet might tingle with the joy of your love with every step, O Jesus, our Jesus.”

  And with that Sister Origen, the stockiest and shortest of the five, began to tremble, and inside I felt myself take a step back. Sister Origen’s mouth opened and her tongue fished around in the air and sounds came out, though I found them incomprehensible, but strangely clear. She said, “Ailalossolg si eht eugnot nekops yb em nema nema nema nu sam msitpab yb yloh tirips ninzela lump zaba zabalee zabael yliem si devol ehs si enim bleedle peetle leetle little zaba za zalee.” She went on that way for what seemed like four or five minutes. Then she shook her face violently and was done and the sisters said, “Amen,” and sat. I sat too and watched as they passed around a loaf of sliced white bread. I took a slice and pushed the basket back to the middle of the table.

  “This is supper?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Sister Irenaeus. “You may have a second portion if you like. You are a big man.”

  “So I understand. I’ll be leaving in the morning,” I said.

  Sister Irenaeus shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  “God has sent you to us.”

  “He didn’t mention it to me.”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  “He might.”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  “Tomorrow, you build a fence,” she said. She closed the door and I found myself outside, alone in the dark. The sky was very clear and I could see Cassiopeia and Orion and maybe Canes Venatici, but I was never too sure about that one. I lay back on the hood of my car and stared upward for a while.

  I would have tightened my engine’s belts then, but frankly I was too exhausted. I was still hungry after what had passed for supper, but luckily I had one doughnut left. Finally I crawled into the backseat of my car and drifted into a fitful, dream-racked sleep.

  The wind blows steadily across the rolling Texas prairie. A rust-muddy river flows some hundred yards away, marked on either side by cottonwoods with white seeds floating all about. I am standing only a few yards from an old man who is tossing pieces of bone onto the wrinkled surface of a spread-out blanket. No, wait. There is no wind, just a stillness of arid air. Monument Valley. Spires of red rock rise into the cerulean sky, a blue bluer than blue. An old man, gray haired and weathered, tosses bones on a tattered blanket. Other men, younger men, watch.

  “We go on,” the old man says.

  One of the younger men turns to me. “You know that DeChenney and his army ain’t gonna let us go. They want us back to work their land.”

  “Buck,” an older man says, “we’s a-goin’ on. If Old Deke says we go on, then we go on.”

  “All right then,” I say. I take off my Stetson and wipe my brow, stare out across the plains at the mountains in the distance. “Be ready by the time I get back here tomorrow. Be about midday.”

  “We be ready, Buck.”

  “Good. And you’re going to have to pare down some. Those mules gonna have to pull you a long way.”

  “All de way to de green valley,” he says.

  I nod. I step away, nodding at the women who were cooking over the fire, tip my hat. I mount my bay quarter horse and rein him in a tight circle and then trot, no, canter off away from the camp and not on a bay but on a palomino, flaxen mane and tail full of the wind.

  A shake of the head. A clearing. I am saying again:

  “All right then.” I push up the brim of my Stetson and look at the unforgiving western sky. Then I look at the mountains in the distance. Lavender hills capped with snow. “You all be ready,” I say. “I’ll be back tomorrow around midday and you all just be ready. You hear me?”

  “We be ready, Buck.”

  “You see all this furniture and these heavy trunks. You gotta pare down something fierce. These same sad mules gonna have to pull you all the way over those mountains.”

  “All de way to de green valley,” he says.

  “Why are you talking like that?” I ask.

  “Sorry, Buck.”

  I step away and acknowledge
the women who are cooking at the big fire. I tip my hat to them and smile. They giggle at the sight of my smile. I mount my palomino and ride off; his flaxen mane and tail are full of the wind.

  I ride through a stream and through a canyon as my horse kicks up a steady red cloud. I approach a cabin, a homestead. I am looking for my woman, Bes. But something isn’t right. The farm is too quiet. The cabin is too quiet. There are the usual animal sounds—chickens, pigs. The cow is standing where she always stands. Bes’s brother and his wife and children have been living here too, and there’s no sign of them. One of them is always outside. The cabin is small, two rooms, and it gets crowded inside, but where are they? I dismount some distance away and lead my horse to a teamless buckboard next to a sycamore. Bes steps out into the shadow on the porch, stands there. A breeze moves her blue gingham dress. Her yellow dress. She slowly raises her hand to wave, a stiff wave. I wave back, knowing that something is bad wrong. I slip off the leather keep from the trigger of the pistol holstered on my hip. I study Bes’s eyes. I look closely at the windows of the cabin, at the barn, at the smokehouse. The chickens walk about in front of Bes. Then she runs, and a white man behind her starts shooting his pistol at me. No, he pushes Bes to the side, she loses her balance, falls into the dust. He shoots, and other men shoot from the windows of the cabin, the smokehouse, and the open barn doors. I dive to take cover in the pig corral, sliding through the mud to the far side where I kick out the bottom fence rail and roll out. Bullets whiz by my head, and I can’t see where to shoot back. I spot Bes running to the trees, her skirts full of the wind, and I wave for her to keep going, to get clear. The faces of the white men are fierce, evil, full of hate. I run and slip and slide and squirm to more cover and still more cover as the bullets ricochet by my ears. I get to my horse and dash away, hunched low over the saddle, a cloud of dust pluming behind me. Soon, the white men have found their horses and are chasing me and though I can’t see them, I can feel the posse’s hooves drumming the ground. I ride into the night. No, I’ve ridden hard for a couple of hours. My horse is slick and foamy with sweat. He is walking now. I’ve ridden him so long and hard.

  At a watering hole I see a man bathing, wearing nothing but a hat. He splashes around in the pool on skinny brown legs while I admire his chestnut horse, no, black horse. The animal is hobbled next to the man’s camp, his clothes are laid out on some big rocks next to a dead fire. I remove my saddle and the sweat-drenched blanket from my palomino and quietly approach the black horse. He becomes nervous, whinnies, and I put a hand on his neck to settle him down.

  “Who’s that up there?” the man calls from the water.

  I draw my pistol and point it at the man’s chest as he climbs naked up the hill toward me.

  “Excuse me, brother, but there seems to be a misunderstanding here. That horse, the one you’re putting a saddle on, belongs to me.” He holds his hat over his private parts.

  “We’re trading,” I say. I nod over to my palomino.

  “A trade usually requires agreement, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t have time for agreement. My horse is a good one. You’ll find that out once he’s rested.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, brother. So, why don’t you sit here for a while and have some coffee and let him rest?”

  “Don’t have time.”

  “My name is Jeremiah Cheeseboro and I’m a man of the cloth. Does that make any difference to you, friend?”

  “Another day it might.”

  The man makes a move toward his clothes.

  “That’s far enough,” I say and pull back the hammer on my nickel-finished peacemaker pistol.

  “I was just reaching for my drawers,” he says. “I’m feeling a little exposed out here in my altogether, if you know what I mean.”

  “You’re doing just fine.”

  “So, you’re just going to steal my horse,” he says.

  “Trade.”

  “You say.”

  “I say. Now, why don’t you just walk on back down that trail and get in that water.”

  “I’m clean enough,” he says.

  “Go on.”

  “You’re no Christian, brother,” he says as he shuffles backward to the water and in. “Your deeds will catch up to you.”

  “Better them than the posse that’s chasing me,” I say. I climb onto the back of the black horse, give a final nod to the preacher, and then gallop away.

  I’m seeing this from high above, like a god, only shorter, I suppose. That preacher from the watering hole is dressed in black, dusty from the trail, dismounting and tying my palomino to the post in front of a livery. The preacher is minding his own business, his big Bible under his arm, no, held to his chest. He makes his way down the side of the livery to the back door of a saloon.

  He takes off his hat and bows to a young boy. “Son, I would be much obliged if you would see fit to take my two bits into this here establishment and procure for me a bit of the spirits.”

  The boy stares at him, dumbfounded.

  “I want you to go in and buy me a whiskey.”

  “Why didn’t you say that?”

  “I’m sorry, lad. I’m afraid I overestimated your ability to comprehend simple language.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t realize that you’re stupid.”

  The boy goes inside and slams the door.

  The preacher walks back to the street where he finds his horse encircled by dirty, dusty white men. “Is this here your horse?” a lanky man asks, stepping close and spitting tobacco juice onto the preacher’s shoes.

  “Messy,” the preacher says.

  “I asked you a question,” the white man says. “I asked you if’n this here horse is yourn.”

  “Not exactly, brother, not. You see I was baptizing my body anew to the knowledge of the Lord when my own horse was stolen by a cowardly heathen, and that heathen left this wretched animal in the place of my own. He was almost lame when he was delivered unto me, but prayer, brother, good old prayer restored him to his present condition of health. My name is Jeremiah Cheeseboro, conveyor of the gospel, a shepherd of men’s souls.”

  “Should we shoot him now or later?” asks a man standing on the other side of the palomino.

  “I wouldn’t shoot me at all,” the preacher says.

  The lanky man spits more juice onto the preacher’s boots. “And why is that, Mr. man of the cloth?”

  “Because it is clear to me that you are searching for the very heathen what stole my horse.”

  “Do you know where Buck is?”

  “I didn’t even know his name. Thank you for telling me. But if I find him, I’ll be happy to inform you and your associates of his whereabouts.”

  The man looks at the other thugs. “I like you, preacher man.”

  “Thank you. I like you, too.”

  “If you do find out where Buck is, you ride on out to Rusty Gulch and tell Mr. DeChenney.”

  “DeChenney.”

  “You do that?”

  “As sure as Moses floated to safety in a basket.”

  “Let him go,” he says to the other white men.

  They all step away and let the preacher mount the palomino.

  The lanky man says, “Preacher, if’n I see you again and you ain’t got no information for me, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “I sincerely thank you for your overwhelming Christian generosity of spirit,” the preacher says and canters away.

  While I’m aimlessly riding around the vast and mysterious landscape, things are happening at the camp of the newly freed slaves. White men, eleven of them, no, fifteen of them gather on horseback at the edge of the dark woods.

  The white men rein their horses in tight circles and then charge the camp, wildly galloping down the sloping meadow, hooting and shouting. Moonlight. Black doughnuts around rocks. Moonlight. Women scream. Moonlight. Children cry out. A few men take up their few arms and are shot for the trouble. Perhaps because of the darkness, perhap
s because of their drunkenness, the marauders kill only three people—two men and a young boy. They wreck a covered wagon, upset it, and leave it ablaze, sending gray smoke into the purple sky. The white men take the strongbox. Women weep. Men weep.

  At sunrise I approach the wagon train. From the ridge I can see the smoke rising from the burnt wagon. I kick the black horse and gallop into the camp. My hat blows off as I dismount while the black horse is still running. I don’t ask what happened; I don’t need to ask.

  “How many were there?” I survey the damage—the three bodies covered from the neck down some yards away. The faces are ashen, unreal seeming. The dead boy looks younger the longer I study him.

  “I don’t know, Buck,” one of the men says. “It was quiet and peaceful and then all hell broke loose. Nothing but the flash of powder everywhere and bullets whizzing every which way.”

  While I stand there listening and not listening, someone taps on my shoulder. I turn around to find that preacher from the watering hole. He doesn’t say anything. I can see the anger in his clenched jaw and gritted teeth, and then he rears back and punches me square on the jaw.

  I wake up and I’m confused; sunlight cuts through haze and my dusty back window. I come fully awake to the nudging and pointy-fingered prodding of Sister Irenaeus. She had the driver’s-side door of my Skylark open and had pushed forward the driver’s seat.

  “Mr. Poitier, wake up,” she said. “It is time to work. It’s time for you to build our church.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m on my way to California.”

  “You have to build our church. That is why the Lord has sent you to us poor sisters.”

  “I really believe you misunderstood him,” I said. “I don’t know how to build anything, not even a doghouse.”

  “We don’t need a doghouse. We don’t have a dog. We need a church, and you have been sent to build it.”

  I moved her away and out of the car and followed her into the chill of the morning. Whether it was the previous day’s hard work on the roof, I do not know, but I felt stiff, creaky, considerably older. I did not have on a shirt and my dark skin glistened; I could feel it glistening, and I became aware of my partial nakedness. I leaned back into the car and grabbed a T-shirt, pulled it on while she pointed with an open hand past the chicken coop.