Percival Everett - I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“This man here, who has informed me that he is not Sidney Poitier, refuses to understand that I don’t believe he is Sidney Poitier.”

“So, you’re Not Sidney Poitier,” Scrunchy said.

“I am,” I said.

“I’ve been expecting you. Why don’t you come over to my desk, Mr. Poitier.” Then to the woman, he said, “I’ll take it from here, Miss Hornsby.”

The stunned Miss Hornsby licked her painted lips and said nothing as I rose and followed Scrunchy to his office. Scrunchy walked with a slight limp, the rhythm of which I found it difficult to not fall into. I followed him into his office. One wall was a window that looked out into the bank. He walked around and sat behind his giant desk, and I sat opposite him in a chair somewhat lower than his.

“Mr. Poitier,” he said.

I nodded. “Mr. Patel has arranged everything?” I said.

“He has, indeed. He wired the money this morning. If I may see some identification?”

I pulled my wallet from my hip pocket and removed my driver’s license, realizing as I was doing so that it was bogus. I had never bothered to get a real one. He took it from me, glanced quickly at it, and returned it.

“I’m satisfied,” he said.

“May I have my money?”

He signaled through the big window and across the room to another man. “Of course you may have your money,” he said. “It’s an awful lot of cash to be carrying around.”

The man came into the office, and he had with him a small green vinyl satchel that he placed on Scrunchy’s desk. He was broad in the shoulders and thick in the belly, with sunken eyes and dark bushy brows punctuating his stern expression. He gave me the once-over and then walked out.

“Cheery.”

Scrunchy pushed the bag across the desk toward me, and as he did I realized that he was frighteningly correct. It was a lot of money to be walking around with. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“You should count it,” Scrunchy said.

“I trust you,” I lied.

“I’m afraid I have to insist that you count it. Liability and all that. You can do it right here. I should watch of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

And he did watch while I opened the satchel and pulled out ten-thousand-dollar bundle after ten-thousand-dollar bundle.

“It’s all hundreds,” the banker said.

“Of course,” I said.

He watched while I counted to 100 five times, fanning through the bundles, having to stop and start over a couple of times.

“That’s a lot of money,” he said as I finished.

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, if that’s all,” he said and turned his attention to a stack of pages on his desk.

With the money back in the bag, I stood to leave.

“Be careful, Mr. Poitier,” he said without looking up.

I felt like an idiot walking out of the bank with the money. More, I felt like a sitting duck, a dead duck, a chump, easy pickings, a babe in the woods, dead meat, a victim waiting to happen, a complete and utter fool. In the bright sunlight I was immediately concerned with what or who was behind me, beside me, waiting for me. I hoped Podgy had not babbled anything to Scrunchy about Smuteye, so at least no one would know where I was going. I could hear him saying in his singsong way, “I must wire the money because I cannot bring myself to go to a place called Smuteye. What kind of name is that anyway?”

I suppose there is no need to mention how terrified I was as I fell in behind the wheel of my car. Though I was not savvy or talented enough to spot them, I knew they were there — the watchers, the robbers, the highwaymen, snaggletoothed spawn of aging grand dragons. I drove my shaking and stupid suited self to the edge of town and beyond, into deep Alabama. It was still early in the day. At least I had that going for me and then I imagined it would be going for them as well, as I was fairly easy to spot — my black face behind the wheel of my yellow Skylark. I drove past the suburbs and onto the highway and, when there were no cars in front of me or behind me, I pulled off onto a little dirt lane and from that into a firebreak, out of view from the road, There I sat, for hours, waiting and hoping that I was waiting for nothing. Cars hummed past on the highway, and I didn’t know who they were or where they were going, only that they kept going. I fell asleep.

Night fell and I awoke to find it unwanted and all over me. I once again recalled the song “Stars Fell on Alabama” and again thought that was never true. This night was even darker than the last one. I moved to start my engine and then I heard it — singing or chanting. I reached up and removed the cover from my dome light, then removed the bulb. I opened the door and felt my way about twenty yards to the edge of a clearing. As if waiting for me to arrive, a torch was put to a tall cross, and it lit up darkness some two football fields from me. I watched the hooded heads walk around doing hooded things and making hooded speeches that I could not hear. The only thing that was certain was that I wasn’t going anywhere at that moment. The white-clad idiots hadn’t spotted me, and unless I decided to do something stupid like light a cigarette or shout out to them, they weren’t going to. They prayed and sang and yakked, and then some two hours later they began to clear out in a single-file queue of glowing headlights. I waited until the last pickup was gone, and, not until I thought the cross was cold and only then, did I go back to my car, start it, and leave.

It was just before daybreak when I pulled into the yard of the sisters. There was no one up, not even the chickens. I waited in my car, put my head back, and drifted off to sleep. I dreamed I died. I didn’t know how, but I was dead and yet I was staring down at my dead face on the ground. I awoke to see my face in the outside rearview mirror. I looked dead enough. I glanced over the yard and saw a blue pickup truck that I hadn’t seen in the darkness. The house door opened, and Sister Irenaeus emerged smiling and clapping her hands. She called back for the others, and they came out equally full of glee and good cheer. They must have smelled the cash. They danced around my car chanting some nonsense or other; two of them were lost in tongues. It all made for awful music as I worked my stiff limbs free of the car.

“Do you have our money?” Sister Irenaeus asked.

I didn’t like the way she said our money, but I responded, “Yes.”

Just then a man walked out of their quarters. A short, wide-shouldered man with a matching broad face and a shag of stringy white-blond hair. He had bad skin that somehow looked okay on him.

“This is Thornton Scrunchy,” Sister Irenaeus said.

Well, of course he is, I thought, and nodded hello.

“He is our architect,” she said.

“I didn’t know you had an architect.” There was something different about Sister Irenaeus. The other sisters were still prancing around like loons. But Sister Irenaeus was standing near me, with Thornton Scrunchy. Scrunchy’s blue eyes were piercing, but only because of their color, I thought. In fact, he seemed to have the glassy-eyed look of an alcoholic or at least of someone who was drunk. There was a toothpick sticking out the corner of his mouth.

He shook my hand. “So, you’re Mr. Poitier. Mr. Poitier. Mr. Poitier. The sisters have told me all about you.”

“You’re an architect here in the town of Smuteye?” I asked. “Smuteye, Alabama?”

“Well, that’s a yes and a no,” he said, “Mr. Poitier.” He seemed to like saying my name. “You see, I’m a man of many professions. It’s so kind of you to help the sisters out. They’re such good souls.” He turned to Sister Irenaeus. “We’re going to build us a church, ain’t we, Sister?”