Percival Everett - I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“Passing through. And don’t call me boy.”

“What do they call you in Atlanta?” he asked.

“They call me Mr. Poitier.”

“Well, Mister Poitier, you can go on back to your room now while I call me a fella named Scrunchy in Montgomery. What bank was that?”

“First National Bank of Alabama.”

“You do a lot of business with banks, do you?”

“Some.”

“Take him on back there, Horace.” The Chief gave me one last disdainful glance. “Then I want to see you in here, you hear me?”

“I hear you, Chief.”

Deputy Horace took me back to the cell and I sat on the same bunk and looked across at the same face. “So, what’s your name?”

“Why, I’m Clark Gable.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“You can call me Billy.”

“I’ll do that.”

“So, they say you killed somebody,” Billy said. He was sitting way back on his bunk, his back against the wall. I noticed that he had one boot off.

“That’s what they say.”

“Well, I don’t believe it,” Billy said. “You don’t look like you could kill nobody.”

I understood this to be intended as an insult, and the thought occurred to me that I should take it as one as a matter of decorum, but I didn’t. I looked at him looking at me. “You’re right, I couldn’t.”

“Hmmm. So, who did you kill?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I take it you live around here. What do you do? To pay the bills, I mean?”

“A little of this. A little of that. Now and then. Off and on.” He ran a hand through his greasy hair. “Steal.”

Horace came back to the cell door. “Okay, boy, on your feet. Chief wants to see you again.”

I followed the deputy back into the Chief’s office. Horace pushed me to the chair in front of the desk and gestured for me to sit. The Chief was chasing a fly around the room with a swatter. He missed again.

“I suppose you can do better,” he said as he sat.

“Did you call the bank?” I asked.

The Chief called into the outer office. “Horace, get your sorry ass in here right this second.”

Horace entered and sheepishly walked over to stand by the window. He looked at his shoes.

“I want you to hear this, Horace,” the Chief said.

“Yes, sir,” Horace said.

“Well, Mister Poitier, I called the bank in Montgomery, and I talked to this Scrunchy, and it turns out he remembers you.”

“Therefore?”

“Therefore?” the Chief repeated, leaning back in his chair and looking at me with his head tilted. “Therefore? You hear that, Horace? Therefore.”

“I told you he talks fancy. Don’t he talk fancy?”

“Shut up, Horace,” the Chief said without looking at the deputy. “Therefore, Mister Poitier, you couldn’t have killed our dead man. And you know something? I don’t like you.”

I said nothing. I glanced over at Horace. He seemed amused. His ugly face seemed ready to break into a giggle.

The Chief looked at Horace, too. “And I sure as hell don’t like you right now, Horace.”

Horace straightened.

The Chief looked at me while holding the wad of bills in his hand. “You still ain’t told me where you got this money.”

“I got it from the bank. It’s my money.”

He looked at it in his hand, then pushed it across the desk to me along with my wallet.

“So, I can go?” I said.

“I don’t think just yet. I need you to take a look at our dead man and tell us if you know him.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I don’t know who he is,” the Chief barked.

“Well, I don’t know anybody around here.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Because the dead man ain’t from around here. If he was, I would know who he is. He’s got that in common with you. That and the fact that he’s a black boy.”

“I don’t know him,” I said.

“You might know him. It’s possible. You never know. Just do me this favor, Mister Poitier.”

I didn’t want to look at a dead man, and yet in some way I knew I had to. I looked out the window behind Horace at the late afternoon light. I remembered the money hidden under that tree. I felt cold with fear.

“Do you know another guy named Scrunchy? His name is Thornton, and he’s from around here? A strange-looking man.” I thought of the banker. “I mean, how many Scrunchys are there?”

Horace blurted out a laugh. “Hell, boy, you can’t turn around in these parts without bumping heads with a Scrunchy.”

His answer, not surprisingly, did not make me feel better. I was certain that there was no answer to that question that would.

“What about Thornton Scrunchy?” the Chief asked.

“Is he an architect?”

“I doubt it.” The Chief stood and walked around his desk. “Come on, let’s go look at the stiff.”

I stood on still-unsteady legs and realized for the first time that my feet were hurting from the dress shoes that no longer perfectly fit.

The Chief led the way outside, then along the road two doors down to a one-story wooden house with a sign on the lawn that simply read, Undertaking. We walked in through the front door without knocking.

“Donald!” the Chief called out. “Don-ald!”

“Who is that yelling in here?” a tall, gray-headed man said as he came out of the back. “Chief?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Donald adjusted the straps of his overalls and regarded me suspiciously. “What’s this all about?”

“Where’s the body?” the Chief asked.

“Which body?”

“How many bodies do you have, Donald?”

“Just one.”

“Well, that one.”

“What about it?” Donald asked.

“I want to see him,” the Chief said.

“Him, too?” Donald pointed to me with his nose.

“Him, too. Now, where is he?”

“I got him out in the garage.” Donald turned and started away toward the back of the house.

“Garage?” I said.

“It’s also my lab,” the man said without looking back.

The Chief looked at me, seemed embarrassed. “Donald is our coroner. Sort of by default.”

“I heard that,” Donald said.

“I know you heard me, Donald. That’s why I said it.”

We entered the kitchen, passed through another back room with stacked magazines, Boys’ Life and Outdoor Gazette and National Geographic, and through a door into what really was the garage. There was an old Plymouth on blocks on the far side and a stainless-steel table in the middle of the near side. Against the wall opposite the garage doors were three white chests that looked like deep freezers. Donald led us to the middle one.

“Here he is,” Donald said, then pulled up the lid. He stood there, his arm extended, holding it open. He scratched his neck with his free hand.

I was standing well behind the Chief, and he turned to look at me. “Well, step on up here. I’ve already seen him. Just tell me if you know him.”

I moved forward and leaned over. The man was young, black, with short-cropped hair. His eyes were closed. His lips were slightly parted. He was circumcised. He looked just like me. He looked exactly like me, a fact that was apparently lost on Donald and the Chief. I wanted to say, “That’s me.” The thought of saying it was strange feeling and scary. My chest was tight, and my ears were ringing. I was lying in the chest, and yet I wasn’t. I said, “I don’t know him.” I was lying, I thought.

“Okay,” the Chief said. “Close it up, Donald.”

Donald let down the lid. “I heard somebody say that he came here to help them crazy nuns or whatever they are.”