“Mr. Poitier, so good to see you,” the young woman said.
“It’s good to see you, too.”
She was pleased that I had perhaps remembered her.
“May I say that you’re looking younger?”
“You may,” I said. “And thank you.”
I accepted my key, with a graze of her soft hand, and was led up to my suite by a quiet little man. I showered for a long time, put on a robe, and ordered a sandwich from room service. I then sat on the sofa and watched a man who looked for the world like me in a movie called For the Love of Ivy.
At six thirty, a valet delivered black dress pants, a white shirt, and a dinner jacket to my room. At seven, I was dressed. I walked through the lobby, and a young woman came up to me and asked for my autograph. She said, “I just love you, Mr. Poitier.” I didn’t know why. I asked her name. She said it was Evelyn.
I wrote: For Evelyn, All the best, Not Sidney Poitier.
She was puzzled as she read. “You’re not Sidney Poitier?”
“I am.”
Gilbert was entering the lobby as I approached the door. He seemed upset that I was there before him.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Poitier.”
“That’s okay, Gilbert.”
“We’ll be there in no time.”
“Very well, Gilbert.”
“Good to be back?” Gilbert asked.
“I suppose.”
“Big night,” the driver said.
“If you say so, Gilbert.” I noticed that he was taking me toward the middle of the city, toward my old neighborhood of West Adams. “Gilbert, could you turn here please?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“And a left here,” I said. I was feeling my way through a place that had changed and that I didn’t remember all that well.
“Yes, sir. This is a rather, shall I say, rough neighborhood.”
“It’s okay, Gilbert.”
“May I ask what we’re looking for, sir?”
“We’re looking for my home,” I said.
Gilbert said nothing.
We were a source of interest to the people on the street. My window was down, and everyone could see my face. Some women seemed to recognize me. They didn’t wave, they pointed.
We wended through the streets.
And there was the house I’d lived in with my mother. Other children played in the yard now. A fat man rocked on the porch. It was less profound for me than I had imagined. I wanted to hear my mother’s voice, but it never came. I stared at the same front door through which I had passed so many times. I could smell my mother’s cookies, cookies that were always just okay, she would say, and she was correct. I could see the flow of her open housecoat as she crossed the yard. But I couldn’t hear her voice.
“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 EVERETT is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of seventeen novels, including The Water Cure, Wounded, and Erasure.
I Am Not Sidney Poitier Page 24