Percival Everett - I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“Drive on, Gilbert,” I said.

Gilbert did, and he took me to the Shrine Auditorium. Hundreds of people cheered and applauded as I stepped out onto the red carpet. Cameras flashed and flashed and flashed. People called my name. A woman with dyed blond hair, too skinny for her own good, and who looked just like the woman walking several yards behind her, came to me and said, “This way.”

I followed her to a room with champagne and caviar and well-dressed people who welcomed me with raised glasses. I drank wine and ate cheese. I was hugged by Elizabeth Taylor and kissed on the cheek by Harry Belafonte.

“I love your dress,” I said to Liz.

She twirled. “Thank you, Sidney.”

Harry handed me a glass of champagne. “Big night,” he said.

“The world is my oyster,” I said.

And then I didn’t understand a word that was said to me. But of course I was there. Was I Not Sidney Poitier or was I not Sidney Poitier? The emaciated blond or one like her came, took me by the arm, and showed me to my seat in the second row, near the left aisle.

After award after award in categories I didn’t know and didn’t care to know, I found myself squirming in my seat. The emcee made a joke about Jack Nicholson and everyone laughed, mouths open, heads tossed back. He then became solemn, almost sedate. He looked at me. “And now,” he said, “to present the next, special award, Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Taylor.”

“A tribute tonight to an icon of American character,” said Liz Taylor.

“To a man that sets the standard,” said Harry. “This special award for Most Dignified Figure in American Culture.”

“Goes to none other than Sidney Poitier,” Liz said.

Applause erupted. I was pushed to standing by the people beside and behind me. I walked down the aisle and then up the stairs to the podium. I was handed an award — a statue of a standing man, gold in color, his arms bent and his hands disappearing in front of him.

I faced the microphone. “Thank you,” I said. “I came back to this place to find something, to connect with something lost, to reunite if not with my whole self, then with a piece of it. What I’ve discovered is that this thing is not here. In fact, it is nowhere. I have learned that my name is not my name. It seems you all know me and nothing could be further from the truth and yet you know me better than I know myself, perhaps better than I can know myself. My mother is buried not far from this auditorium, and there are no words on her headstone. As I glance out now, as I feel the weight of this trophy in my hands, as I stand like a specimen before these strangely unstrange faces, I know finally what should be written on that stone. It should say what mine will say:

I AM NOT MYSELF TODAY.”

PERCIVAL EVERETTis Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of seventeen novels, including The Water Cure, Wounded, and Erasure.