“Oh, I see.”
I heard voices out of the room and then footfalls on the stairs. “Is that my baby up there?” a woman said. “My baby come from college?”
“We’re in here, Mommy,” Maggie said.
“And not alone, I understand, not alone,” Maggie’s mother said as she turned into the bedroom. She was a tall woman with no shoulders, and though her clothes were not made of metal, it seemed to me she was wrapped in foil. She glittered, but maybe not in a good way. She was wrapped in gold necklaces and bangles. Surprisingly, however, she wore no red.
I stood and glanced back to see if I had rumpled the bedcover. It seemed I hadn’t, but still I smoothed it.
“Mommy, this is Not Sidney.”
My name, as it did with so many, gave her pause, and I could see the thought bubble over her head, Then what is his name?
“Not Sidney,” I repeated. I reached out and shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Not Sidney,” she said.
“Not Sidney,” Maggie said, “this is my mother, Ruby Larkin.”
“Ms. Larkin.” I let her hand go and it hung there in space.
“Not Sidney goes to Morehouse.”
“Not Sidney,” Ruby Larkin said. She cocked her head to the side and regarded me. “That’s a very interesting name.”
I nodded. “My mother was eccentric.”
“Was?”
“Not Sidney’s mother died when he was eleven,” Maggie told her.
Ruby Larkin looked blankly at me for a second, then said to Maggie, “Well, you two get situated. Daddy will be home in an hour or so.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Mother kissed daughter’s cheek. To me, she said, “Not Sidney,” turned, and left us alone. To get situated.
Maggie informed me that we would be grabbing a bite out, eating light, and saving ourselves for the coming feast, as she called it, of the next day. I didn’t remember Thanksgivings with my mother. I did remember that she found the day somewhat ridiculous as she railed on about how the soon-to-be-removed Indians were actually saving the starving and stupid Pilgrims and not having some warm and fuzzy picnic. The truth lay somewhere in the middle of those two depictions, I was sure, and though her reaction had not left me with bad feelings about the holiday, I found it difficult to generate a lot of enthusiasm.
Maggie left me so that I could get ready to go out, though I didn’t know what getting ready really entailed. I showered, standing with raised goose bumps under a nearly icy spray as I’d grown tired of waiting for the water to heat up. I put on fresh clothes, but after seeing the attire of Maggie and now her mother, I thought, as I buttoned and zipped, that my clothes were more clean than fresh. Then, as I sat on the ladderback chair near the window I discovered that one could hear conversations quite well through the listening device that was the heating vent. Mr. Larkin was no doubt home, and Ruby had a few words to say about me, beginning with:
“He’s just so dark, Ward.”
“Well, how dark is he?” Ward Larkin asked.
“Black.”
It hadn’t occurred to me, but now it did that the Larkins were all very light in complexion. It hadn’t dawned on me that I should have noticed or cared. More fool me, I guess.
“Well, what’s his name?” Ward asked.
“That’s the other thing,” Ruby said. “His name is Not Sidney.”
“Then what is it?”
“That’s it. Not Sidney. The word not and Sidney.”
“Hmmph. Some kind of ghetto nonsense, no doubt.”
“I don’t like him. He acts all nice. But you know what nice and a nickel will get you.”
“Nothing costs a nickel anymore,” Ward said.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll check him out. What’s his last name?”
“I don’t know,” Ruby said.
“I’ll get it from Maggie.”
“Are they eating here tonight?” Ward asked.
“No, they’re going out. I’ll go let Maggie know you’re home.” I could hear Ruby less clearly now as she, I assume, was leaving the room. “Ward, it’s just that he’s so dark.”
I pulled my white socks over my black feet and laced up my sneakers. Maggie came in and observed the expression on my face, an expression that though I’m certain I cannot describe, must have conveyed a bit of terror, some disgust, and a dash of get-me-the-hell-out-of-here.
“Daddy’s home. Ready to meet him?”
“You bet.”
Maggie led me down to the red-carpeted first floor, through the living room, and to a set of double doors. The doors were dark wood and ominous enough looking, but then she asked again, “Are you ready?”
I wondered now if I was ready, and I don’t recall responding at all when she pushed open both doors. She pulled me into the room that was paneled with dark hardwood like the door and was washed in yellow lamplight. The severed heads of once-large animals covered the walls. There was an actual bearskin rug, the head of which nearly tripped me as I stepped fully inside. Leaning on the edge of his oak desk with the window and late afternoon light behind him, Ward Larkin cut a distinctly unimpressive figure.
“Daddy, this is Not Sidney.”
“Welcome to our home,” Ward said, and though he didn’t say it, I heard the word boy.
“Thank you for having me.” I shook his hand and paid particular attention to the fact that his grip was overly firm and that he was slow to let go.
“What’s your last name?” he asked.
“Poitier.”
“Like Sidney Poitier.”
“Just like that,” I said.
“Any relation?”
“None that I know of.” I looked around at all the heads, reminding myself that they were called trophies. At the leopard, the moose, the lion, the water buffalo, the boar. I settled on the boar and asked, “Did you kill all of these animals?”
A bit of a hush fell about the room, and Ward cleared his throat before saying, “No, I didn’t.” He turned and moved around to the other side of the desk.
“Which trophies are yours?” I asked.
“Hunting,” he said with sort of a laugh.
His laughter put me briefly at ease. “I think hunting is stupid, too,” I said. “I just thought since you had all these heads … ”
“Daddy’s not against hunting,” Maggie said.
I felt ambushed, as no doubt did others in that room. I imagined my head filling the narrow gap between the tiger and the yak.
“No, young man, I believe hunting is a demonstration of man’s primacy in the order of nature.”
“It probably is,” I said, trying hard to sound just slightly more cowed than sardonic.
Still, Ward cut me an unfavoring glance. “I’ve never myself been hunting. I have a bad leg. As well, I have no desire to visit Africa. Do you?”
I’d never thought about it and I certainly didn’t see the question coming and so I said, “I’ve never thought about it.”
“Let me ask you this, do you consider yourself African?”
These were not difficult questions, but they were confusing. However, I was not so young, naïve, and stupid that I could not spot a classic case of self-loathing. “Well, somebody in my family line was from Africa.” I made a show of looking at my brown hands.
“Hmmph. Young man, let me just say this, I’m one-sixteenth black, an eighth Irish, two-fifths Choctaw, one-thirty-second Dutch, a quarter English, and a ninth German.”
I didn’t, nor did I want to, do the math, but it was clear that he was ten-tenths crazy.
“Do you know what that means?” he asked.
I said nothing.
“It means that I’m nothing but an American. I’m no needy minority. Do you understand?”
“I suppose.”
“Well,” Maggie interrupted, “Not Sidney and I have to get going. We won’t be out late.”
“We’ll chat later,” Ward said. “Just the two of us.”
>
“That went well,” I said, once Maggie and I were well away from her father’s study.
“Daddy can be a little intense,” she said.
“Really? Let me ask you something. Do your parents have a problem with dark-skinned people?”
She was noticeably irked by my question and said, looking away and out the kitchen window, “No, they don’t.”
“Then I guess it’s just me they don’t like.”
“Don’t be silly, they’ve only just met you.”
We put on our jackets and exited the same side door through which we had entered. Maggie fell in behind the wheel of the beige Cadillac. I buckled my belt as she adjusted the seat.
“Big car,” I said.
“Mommy’s old one,” she said. “They kept it so that my sister and I could use it when we’re home from college. Since Agnes has come back to Georgetown for law school, she has her own car.”
“Your sister’s name is Agnes?” I asked. “Are your parents Catholic?”
“No, why?”
“Your names. Margaret and Agnes just seem so Catholic to me.”
“No, we attend the Methodist Church.” The way she said it made me feel unsettled, and it turned out the feeling was rightly placed as she then said, “You’ll like it. We’re going to service Sunday morning.”
I didn’t complain. I didn’t know enough to complain. I’d never been in a church. My mother had specified in her will that there be no church or religious crap, as she put it, associated with her funeral. I stared ahead through the windshield at the oncoming traffic.
“So, where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going to my friend Lydia’s house. She and I grew up together. We’re like sisters. More like sisters than Agnes and me.”
It crossed my mind to ask and so I did, “Does she know that you’re bringing me along?”
Maggie’s failure to respond could as easily have been her turning her face to me and roaring, “Nooo.” Still, I took no offense, however much I might have been starting to worry. I looked at her profile as she drove the monstrous car through one of the circles. She was almost pretty and I liked that, though I was unsure whether it was the pretty or the almost I more admired.
“It’s okay that you didn’t tell her,” I said, trying to be reassuring, but knowing that I was being a bit sarcastic. “You didn’t tell me about her either.”
“It just slipped my mind,” she said.
Slippery place, your mind, I thought, but said, “The traffic’s not too bad.” Then I asked, “What made you choose Spelman?”
“It’s a good school.”
I nodded.
“Why do you ask that?”
“I don’t know, just seems as if your parents might have a problem with a traditionally black college.”
“What are you trying to say about my parents?”
“I’m not trying to say anything about your parents,” I said. “You mention that your mother is opposed to affirmative action.”
“What’s that have to do with Spelman?”
“Nothing, really.” I looked at the fingers clenched on the steering wheel. “Nothing at all. It was a stupid question.”
“Yes, it was.”
I sought to change the subject and recalled Maggie’s comment about her father and boating. “So, does your father sail?” I asked.
“Does my father what?” She was on the defensive or the offensive, I was unsure which, if in fact there is a difference.
“You mentioned that your father would like the fact that I know a little bit about sailing. So, I assumed that he sails.”
“No,” she said, softening. “Daddy doesn’t sail. He’s afraid of the water, but he likes the idea of it. I know he would love to talk to you about it.”
“So, we’re going to Lydia’s,” I said.
“Yes. A few other friends will be there. Robert will be there. I mentioned Robert. He’s at Dartmouth.”
“The boyfriend who was like a brother,” I said.
She said nothing.
I wanted to say that it all sounded rather Faulknerian to me, but I decided that was mean and perhaps unfair, but I was at least momentarily tickled by something. I suppose my private amusement somehow showed on my face, as I noticed Maggie staring over at me.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Thanksgiving week was unfurling as a highway of decidedly bad turns. I could feel Maggie’s growing regret at having invited me home, or more precisely over my having accepted that invitation. However, on some level, or even a particular level, my presence was serving a desired end, namely to upset her parents. She had to know, and I’m certain she did, that even the simple matter of dark skin would be a cause of consternation for her parents. I came to imagine them as Ward and June Cleaver. I recalled my mother happening upon me watching that television show one afternoon. It launched her into such a fit of hysteria that I was afraid she might become pregnant again.
“How dare they put that propaganda on the television?” my mother barked. “But of course that’s what the box is for, isn’t it? Here is my black son sitting here in his black neighborhood watching some bucktoothed little rat and his washed-out, anally stabbed, Nazi-Christian parents.”
“There’s a brother, too,” I said, being six or so and not really understanding the tirade.
“Oh, a brother, too. I see him there, an older lily white acorn fallen so close to the tree. Turn that crap off. No, leave it on. Study the problem, Not Sidney. Soak it in.” With that she marched off to make cookies.
Sadly, even my innocent satirical private and lame joke soured quickly as I played out the possible meanings of all the words; Beaver was an unfortunate way to refer to Maggie.
“What are you thinking?” Maggie asked while we sat at a particularly long red light.
“I was thinking about the faces of the animals in your father’s study,” I told her. It was a lie, but one of my better or at least quicker ones. My mind did then move to the poor dead beasts. “They all look so … so … surprised.”
“I never liked that he has them,” she said. It sounded like an attempt to settle into my camp or at least on my side of the river. Then she said, to obliterate that naïve notion, “But they’re already dead. He didn’t kill them. And you shouldn’t be so judgmental.”
“I didn’t mean to be.”
“My father has gone through a lot to get where he is. From dirt poor Alabama to Yale.”
“That’s impressive,” I said.
“It’s very impressive. My father is one of the biggest and most successful lawyers in DC.”
“Wow.”
The family home of Maggie’s sisterlike friend Lydia was little different from Maggie’s own. Except that the décor was more pronouncedly gold than red, and the accents were blue, every bit as garish, yet somehow as ugly. Lydia was sitting in an overstuffed chair when we entered without knocking. Two other women were seated on the sofa. All three rose, and the four women hugged and squealed in a way that seemed like fun, but made for harsh music.
“This is Not Sidney,” Maggie said. “This is Lydia, Jasmine, and Sophie.” She pointed to each woman in turn and I nodded to each, making eye contact only to have it broken by them. The women, all similarly sized and lightly complected, paused as they regarded me, leaving a tiny empty space in time that led me to my antecedent remark about their skin color. I was becoming, sadly, irritatingly, horrifyingly observant of skin color and especially my own.
“Let’s sit down,” Lydia said.
We did. I sat between Lydia and Maggie on the sofa, and the other two women sat across on a love seat.
“Where are you from?” Lydia asked me.
“I live in Atlanta,” I said.
“But Not Sidney’s from Los Angeles,” Maggie said.
Sophie sat up. “I love LA.”
“Well, I haven’t lived there since I was eleven.”
“And you’re at Morehouse,�
� Lydia said.
I nodded.
“What’s your major?” from Sophie.
“Philosophy, I guess. It’s not clear.”
“Are you in college?” I asked them.
“Tufts,” Jasmine said.
“Smith.” Sophie.
I looked at Lydia.
“Howard,” Lydia said, flatly.
“That’s here in DC, right?” I asked, more to make conversation than anything else.
“Yes.”
“So, tell us about Atlanta,” Jasmine said to Maggie.
“There’s not much to tell. Spelman’s okay. Classes are okay.” Maggie smiled at me. I wondered how Maggie’s answers were influenced by my presence. I imagined them asking about the guys at Morehouse and Maggie telling them how many cute ones there were or weren’t.
But before the conversation could fail to get going, the doorbell chimed. Maggie knew, Maggie’s friends knew, and I knew that, according to the rules of bad drama, according to my evening’s apparent and particular adherence to a steady and predictable awkwardness, Robert was at the door. Brotherlike Robert, five eleven, trim and fit, handsome and appropriately shaded stepped into the room. I could picture the insane mothers of these insane women sneezing out dating advice between sessions on the stair machine and the treadmill, “Light not white, girl, light not white.”
Robert shook my hand and seemed friendly enough as he gave me the once-over. I suppose I was doing the same. He paused at my name.
“Then what is your name?” he asked.
“My name is Not Sidney,” I said.
“Not is a part of Not Sidney’s name,” Maggie said.
“Knot, with a k?” he asked.
“Not with a k,” I said.
“That’s what I said,” he said.
“N-O-T,” Maggie said.
“Sidney?”
“Not my name is not Sidney. My name is Not Sidney. Call me Not Sidney.” Though he was the one being dense, I was the one in the middle, feeling stupid, trying to explain the unexplainable. And for no good reason.
We sat and the children’s song ran through my mind, “Fly’s in the buttermilk, shoo, fly, shoo.”
I Am Not Sidney Poitier Page 14