Percival Everett - I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“Well, on foot is all we got,” I said, feeling rather colloquial.

“But if’n you was to jump the freight.”

I tilted my head. “What?”

“The freight train. It goes to Atlanta. And it be going real slow up the ridge. Kinda steep. I jumped on it when I was little. We rode it fer fun. We always jumped off befo’ it topped the hill.”

“Where is the train?”

“The train ain’t always there. It come by once a day going one way and at night goin’ tother.”

“Where are the tracks?”

“Across the branch, through the holler, over the hill, and round the bend. At least that where it used to be. I ain’t been there since Mama burnt out my eyes.”

“Which train goes to Atlanta? Day or night?” I felt terribly sorry for Sis, but she was making my head hurt.

“Day, I think.”

“And how far away are the tracks?”

“It’s a fir piece,” she said.

“How fir?”

“Fir nuff.”

“Is it two miles or twenty?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Well, which?”

“Depends on what way you go,” she said. “Any fool know that. Bobo could show you the way, I think.”

I looked over at the sleeping child. “I’m pretty sure he could. Do you think he would?”

She didn’t answer. She leaned back, her face in shadow now, and she might have gone to sleep. I looked at Patrice’s sleeping face, then over at the boy. These were sad people, and for the world I wanted to think of them as decent. Perhaps they were decent enough, but the place that made them was so offensive to me that all who lived there became there. I wondered how a little education might benefit them, but I came to the same conclusion. Well, sort of a conclusion, as I hadn’t reasoned toward it at all. I believed they were all ego, but hardly conscious. As insipid as that model of mind seemed to me, it proved useful in my surface understanding of them. And I could see that any sort of hypnosis was unlikely to work as there was no sub- or unconscious to tap into.

“You two luv birds through yapping?” Patrice said.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was tryin’.”

“How is your back?”

I didn’t know why I was asking. I certainly didn’t care. Now that we were no longer chained together, there was no reason for us to remain together, except that Bobo probably would not take me to the train tracks, but he would lead the way for Patrice. I needed Bobo and therefore I needed Patrice, that was my conclusion, with a therefore and everything.

“I’m in treemundus pain. So, what was you and Sis talkin’ ’bout?”

“I thought you were awake,” I said.

“You was keepin’ me awake. There’s a difference. And I heard y’all, but I tweren’t listenin’.”

“Another interesting distinction.”

“So, what she say?”

“She said there’s a freight train to Atlanta that runs near here.”

“Where?”

“That’s the problem. We need Bobo to show us how to get there.”

“And I ain’t goin’ do it, less’n y’all take us to Atlanta wit y’all,” said Sis, sitting up and bringing her face back into the moonlight through the window.

“Ain’t happenin’, Sis,” Patrice said.

“Then y’all on yo own.” She crossed her arms on her chest and stuck out her chin in defiance.

“Well, naw, Sis, there ain’t no reason to be all like dat,” Patrice said. He reached over and put his hand on her knee. “I bet a purty gal like you got so many beaus round chere that you really don’t want to leave.”

“Ain’t no beaus and you can stop yer sweet talkin’. We’s going to Atlanta wit y’all or nobody goes.”

“I don’t want to argue,” I said, “and I don’t much care who hops the train with me. I just want to get on and get out of this hellhole. Bobo, what time does the eastbound train go by?”

“About dusk. If we leave at dawn we’ll jus’ make it.”

I leaned back and closed my eyes again. “We’ll need our rest,” I said. “I’ll need mine anyway.”

I slept a dreamless sleep this time, but I awoke to the nightmare of Patrice and Sis having sex in the cot. Across the room Bobo was eating cold beans out of the pot on the stove. I covered my ears to block out the grunting and moaning. Luckily the noise was short lived, and soon they were both snoring. I tried to repress my humanitarian thoughts of helping the poor blind girl find a school so she could learn to read.

At first light I was standing out in the yard, happy for the sun to be coming up, happy to be out of the beans-, sweat-, and sex-stinking confines of the cabin. Then Patrice walked out with Sis dressed in a fresh tattered calico dress. Their faces appeared even more vacant than before.

“Ain’t it a beautiful mornin’, Potay?” he said.

“I cain’t even see and I know it beautiful,” Sis said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’s in luv,” Patrice said.

I shook my head. “And?” But I knew what was coming and then it came.

“Sis and Bobo is comin’ wit me to Atlanta,” Patrice said.

Bobo stepped out of the house and stood by them. He pulled at his sister’s sleeve.

“That’s great. Congratulations.” And it kept coming.

“Since you know folks there, we was thinking maybe you’d let us stay wit you fer a little while, til I get on my feet, ya know?”

“Are you crazy?” As I asked the question, to which I of course knew the answer, I remembered that I needed the boy to lead me to the tracks.

The hounds howled in the distance. The sound was chilling.

“If them is Jubal Jeter’s dawgs, they gone be on y’all real fast,” Bobo said. “Dem dawgs is mean, too.”

“I’ll do what I can to help,” I said.

“See, Bobo,” Sis said. “I told you, Potay be a good nigger.”

I looked at the three of them, standing there against the backdrop of that cabin like an Andy Warhol parody of American Gothic, residents of a cul-de-sac at the end of Tobacco Road.

It was just sunrise, and the air was already hot and sticky. As parched as I was I refused to drink any water from the well. I could only guess how many rodents had fallen into it to drown and decompose. Neither was I hungry enough to consume just one more bean or rock-hard piece of bread. The hounds called and they sounded closer.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Before we could leave, Sis and Bobo grabbed a few things, and Patrice had an idea to throw the dogs off our trail. He covered the ground with black pepper and every other seasoning he could find in the house.

“It’ll take ’em awhile to sneeze dat out,” he said. He giggled. “I wish I could be here to see when dey do.”

Finally, we set off, Bobo leading the way, struggling with his oversized rucksack and a brown paper bag. Sis and Patrice followed after, each carrying a worn leather valise as she held his hand for guidance. A bad situation no matter how one looked at it, unless of course you were blind and in fact they all were, and perhaps I as well. I noticed the sad detail that Sis’s shoes did not match. Both boots were black and worn, but the heel of one was at least a half-inch higher than the other and so she limped. I brought up the rear. I carried the boy’s twenty-two rifle, mainly so no one else would, but a bit of thinking made me realize how quickly the presence of that weapon in my hands could get me killed, so I tossed it into the brush just after we crossed the creek.

The sun cooked us as we dragged ourselves up and down hills. Patrice helped Sis over fallen logs and over puddles, and I imagined I saw some tenderness there. Perhaps I did. Then we came to the tracks. Bobo assured us that we had made it with a couple of hours to spare, so we found some shade and rested.