Percival Everett - I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“No, it’s my own personal check.”

“I see.” She showed no reaction. At least she showed no reaction that I, not knowing her, was able to read. She began to rearrange the items on her desk. She moved her stapler a few inches to her left, then her coffee cup of pencils and pens toward her a short distance. She fussed with the edge of the blotter. “The problem, young man. What is your name?”

“Poitier.”

“The problem, Mr. Poitier, is that I don’t know you.”

“That’s very true,” I said.

“I’ve never seen you.”

I nodded. I understood her position and her reservation completely. “Would it be possible for me to have the funds transferred here from another bank?”

“You mean a wire transfer?”

“Yes.”

“You could do that. That would give us permission to dispense the money, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t create the cash for us to dispense. You see, we don’t have that kind of money.”

“This is a bank?”

“A savings and loan,” she corrected me. “Mr. Poitier, this is Smuteye, Alabama.”

I nodded.

“The only reason I’m not stepping on the alarm under my desk, aside from the fact that it doesn’t work, is that any fool can see that there’s no money here in this godforsaken hamlet.”

All of this was no doubt true, and I felt the requisite amount of pity for her and her community, but all I said was, “So, how would I go about getting my money?”

“I guess you could go over to Eufaula. Troy is closer. The bank in Perote might be able to help you. That’s not far at all.”

“Thank you.” I started to leave, then asked, “Are there any architects around here?”

She pretended to consider my question. “I don’t think so.” I was impressed that she was able to say it without a hint of sarcasm. Neither did she show any interest in why I might need or want so much money in Smuteye.

I nodded.

As I drove those desolate Alabama back roads it became clear to me, through no feat of intellect, that my merely suggesting to someone that I’d like to cash a personal and out-of-state check for such a large amount would do far more than find a raised eyebrow as accompaniment to a resounding no. And like the Smuteye Farmers Savings and Loan, the local Western Union offices were not likely to have enough money to accommodate such a hefty wire. So I was left to wonder just how I would deliver the money I had promised to the sisters. I stopped at a truck stop, a lot full of big rigs and Confederate flags, and called Podgy from a pay phone. From where I sat I watched a fat trucker play a video game and watched another walk out of the washroom still brushing his teeth.

“Okay, Podgy, how can I get fifty grand down here to Smuteye, Alabama?” I asked.

“I will wire it to you.”

“They don’t … nobody here has that kind of money. Not even the Western Union office.”

“You must go to a bigger city.”

“Or you can bring it to me.”

“I will not come to a place called Smuteye.”

“Podgy,” I whined.

“No.” Then, away from the phone, he said, “Cool, I will be right there, my good dog.”

“All right, Podgy. Find a bank in—” I looked at my map, “—Montgomery that can or will handle the transfer and let me know where it is. I’ll call you in a few hours so you can tell me. What are you doing?”

“I am running your network.”

“Good,” I said. “Carry on.”

“Awright, dog.”

I hung up and rubbed my chin, found it stubbly. I bought a razor and some shaving cream in the little store and then walked into the giant washroom. There I shaved while truckers in undershirts brushed teeth and washed hairy pits. No matter how they scrubbed they looked nothing like Sidney Poitier, but I looked just like him and so they stared. They stared at Sidney Poitier’s face in the mirror and I stared at it, too. The face was smooth, brown, older than I remembered, handsome. The face in the mirror smiled and I had to smile back.

It was very late afternoon when I arrived in Montgomery, and it was everything I thought it would be and less. It was a sad and depressed place, but it was clear it felt it had some chance of revival. People greeted me, waved, said hello, and were generally quite polite. I grabbed a bite in a diner in which every item on the menu was fried, ate a chicken-fried-steak sandwich and drank a very sweet iced tea. The banks were already closed, and I had yet to call Podgy to find out where I would collect my money. I had come to understand that my skin color and youth were an impediment to my being taken seriously, and so I thought I might overcome a bit of this appearance difficulty by at least dressing in a suit. I stopped at a JCPenney located in a mall on a giant circle of a road and bought one. It was black, the jacket snug fitting in the shoulders, the trousers tapering in the leg and slightly short at the ankle. With the crisp white shirt and the narrow black tie and black leather-soled shoes to replace my sneakers, I could have added dark glasses and been of the Fruit of Islam, but instead I was, I believed, nonthreatening, safe.

I checked myself into a motel, lay back on the too-soft bed, and called Podgy, and he told me the name and address of the bank that would be expecting me. I hung up and stared up at the particularly gross ceiling. I could have questioned my motives for helping the sisters, and the fact that I think it now must mean that somehow I did, but I don’t recall doing so. I watched television and settled on my own network. Music video after music video, a gospel-music special, a stand-up so-called comedy hour, and Punjabi Profiles. I drifted in and out of sleep until I was moored in an awake state and looking back and forth at the lightening sky through partially closed blinds and paid programming about a very special mop. I remembered a troubling dream that I’d had. In it my new black dress shoes were far too small and this worried me greatly as I had someplace to be, but when I tried them in the morning they fit perfectly fine, oddly better than they had in the store.

At the First National Bank of Alabama, I straightened my tie and walked inside. The bank building was far larger than the one-room savings and loan in Smuteye. It was in fact grand. A uniformed guard stood near the glass and brass front doors, a line of tellers stood behind a grand carved wooden barrier, and an island of the same ornate wood dominated the center of the vast room. Behind the tellers, bank people did bank work and talked bank talk and walked bankly back and forth. I walked to the reception desk, signed the list, and sat in the waiting area.

The bank officer, a Miss Hornsby, who received me did not rise from the seat behind her desk, but said as I sat, “My, but you look just like Sidney Poitier. I mean just like him.”

I nodded. “I’m Not Sidney Poitier.”

“Of course you’re not.” She was a middle-aged woman who had probably grown up on a steady diet of Sidney Poitier. Her graying hair was dyed blond and her makeup did more to reveal cracks than cover them.

“No, what I’m telling you is that I’m Not Sidney Poitier.”

“And I’m telling you I understand that fact.”

I looked at my notes from having talked to Podgy. “Is there a Mr. Scrunchy here?”

She looked offended. “Yes, there is.”

“May I speak to him?”

She was certainly offended. “I’ll get him.”

Extremely tall and bald Mr. Scrunchy answered the intercom call by walking over to Miss Hornsby’s desk. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.