I Am Not Sidney Poitier (15 page)

“Yes?” he said. “Mr. Poitier.”

“I’m sorry, but are you saying that a thing cannot exist without its opposite also existing?”

“I don’t know,” he said and looked truly puzzled. “Am I?”

“Is there an opposite to existence?” My question felt unbelievably stupid in my mouth.

“Precisely,” he said. “Dismissed.” Even though we were only halfway through the period.

As we walked out, the woman whom I had been watching walked after me. “Mr. Poitier,” she said.

“Hello, Ms. Larkin,” I said. That was all I knew of her name as Everett always called us Ms. and Mr.

“I liked your question,” she said.

“I’m glad you did. I don’t know what I asked him and I certainly don’t know what was ‘precisely’ about it. Tell me, do you know what he’s talking about?”

“Not a word. Isn’t he fabulous?”

“I guess.” I looked at Ms. Larkin’s soft features. Her red hair was pulled back tight. I noticed for the first time that she looked white, but that was true of many black people. I assumed she was black because she was attending Spelman. I felt stupid even wondering about it.

We walked toward the student center, not talking. I was thinking about class and then I realized I was thinking about class, though I was hard pressed to know what I was thinking about the class. I did know that somehow I felt as if I had been tricked into thinking that existence was a thing instead of an attribute, and then I wondered why I was thinking like that.

“Well,” Ms. Larkin said as we reached the doors of the center. She said “well” as if we’d actually had a conversation.

“What is your first name?” I asked.

“Maggie.”

“I’m Not Sidney.”

“I know,” she said. “Everyone knows.” She pulled open the door. “See you Thursday morning.”

That
everyone knows
was deadly. It cut through me. Yet I was not sure that she meant any harm by saying it. I had the sense, or at least wanted to think, that she was merely stating a fact, albeit a disheartening, if not disturbing fact.

I came across Professor Everett having coffee in the commons. He invited me to sit down and so I did.

“You’re distressed,” he said.

“I don’t know if I’d say distressed.”

“You don’t have to. I can see that you’re in a deep distression.”

“Is that a word?”

“Doesn’t matter. You know what I mean. That’s all I require of language.”

I was about to disagree, perhaps strongly, when I caught him staring outside through the window.

I looked to see Maurice and other frat guys dressed in black jackets, combat boots, and dark glasses stomping their way along the sidewalk. They would stomp with the left foot twice, once with the right, slide the left toe, and fall onto the right, and bark all the while like dogs. And every few steps, one would dash out of line to collect a discarded can or bottle.

“That’s strange,” Everett said.

“What part?” I asked.

“All of it.”

When I returned to my room I found it filled waist-high with plastic bags filled with bottles and cans. Morris was arguing with the brute Maurice. Since I had not given Morris the suggestion to act civilly toward me, he did not.

“What are you looking at, maggot?” he said.

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t attempt an answer. I waded through the containers to my desk.

“What are we going to do with all of this shit?” Maurice said.

“You tell me,” Morris said.

“You’re the one who started this. ‘Let’s recycle, let’s be green,’ you said. Well, the clubhouse is filled with bottles too and so is my room.”

“Let me think,” I said.

That notion struck me as funny in some way that made me feel bad about myself, and so a self-pitying laugh sneaked out before I could catch it.

“What about you, Poitier?” Morris said. “You got any ideas?”

“Yeah, keep your things on your side of the room.”

“We should have left all these motherfuckers in the garbage cans where we found them,” Maurice said. “Crazy fucking idea. Recycling, my ass. We don’t even have a truck. You got us driving these cans to the recycling place in two cars. Man, that’s crazy.”

I opened my book bag and pulled out a bottle of juice I’d started earlier, swallowed the last couple of ounces, and tossed it into the waste bin. Morris walked over and retrieved it, put it on his pile.

Maurice watched him. “Dude, I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you. I’m getting out of here. I’m going to my room and throw every motherfucking can I got back in the trash.”

I surveyed the room and realized that my stupid suggestion was compromising the quality of my own living situation. I Fesmerized poor Morris once again and instructed him to end the collecting madness and to drive the cans and bottles to the nearest recycling center.

And that’s what he did. Nonstop for two days, back and forth in his Corvette. I have to say that I felt a little bad, but only a little. I discovered that I too had a bit of a mean streak—a realization that left me both saddened and relieved.

It came as most dreams, while I was asleep:

My mother encouraged me to buy bubble gum at the convenience store and sell it at school. I was in fifth grade. I bought the balls for a penny apiece and sold them for a nickel. My transactions were conducted behind the cafeteria before school, and all went smoothly until a teacher got in line. She took me to the principal, who in turn called my mother. He was quite surprised to find out that my mother was upset only because I had been interrupted during the conducting of my business.

“Is there a rule against a child selling candy on school grounds?” she asked.

The principal was dumbfounded. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “It’s disruptive,” he haltingly said.

“Disruptive of what? Show me the rule in the governance.”

“I can’t say there is a rule, per se.”

“Then my son will be allowed to continue his business?”

“What will I get out of this?” he asked.

“A percentage,” she said. “How does 5 percent sound?”

The principal looked at me. “If he can answer a question.”

“Shoot,” my mother said.

“Explain supply-side economics,” the principal said.

My mother laughed.

I looked at his face and then hers.

“Tell me, honey,” she said. “And don’t forget to talk about the proper indicators and about inflation.”

I of course said nothing.

“Tell him!” my mother shouted.

“Tell me!” the principal shouted.

I started to cry.

“Is that sweater made of wool?” the principal asked. He touched my shoulder and cocked his head oddly to the side.

“It is,” my mother said.

“Doesn’t it itch?” he asked.

“Yes, it does,” my mother said. “But it itches him, not me.”

“And so that makes it all right?” he said.

“Yes, it does,” she said.

I began to itch and then to scratch and that made me itch even more. I scratched until I knew I was bleeding under the sweater.

“Don’t worry,” my mother said to me. And then she said nothing else, but sat in a chair against the wall.

The principal opened my wrinkled paper sack of gum balls and began to toss them, underhanded, to my mother, who clapped her hands like a seal and barked. She caught them in her mouth and seemed to swallow them. I shook my head, concerned about my mother swallowing the big purple, red, and yellow balls, but what came out when I opened my mouth was, “My profits!” I stood straight, looked left and right, wondered where those words had come from. I watched my mother swallow another yellow ball. I wanted her to stop, and again I opened my mouth and out came, “My inventory!” I slapped a hand over my mouth.

“Not Sidney,” the principal said.

“You must build,” my mother said, as if finishing the principal’s sentence. “Build is what … ”

“You must do,” the man said.

“Not Sidney?” my mother said, the voice more my mother’s than it ever had been in life.

“Yes?” I said.

“Wake up.”

And so I awoke to find myself sweating and frightened and unsure why. It had not been a terribly scary dream as dreams go, and yet I was terrified. But I had scratched my arm raw in a place.

Everett was doing push-ups in his office when he called for me to come in. He stopped and faced me while sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I used to be able to do seventy of those.”

“How many can you do now?”

“Six.”

“That’s not very good,” I said.

“It beats none. Why are you in my office?”

“May I ask you a question?”

“You just did, and I might point out that you did so without asking. What does that tell you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re troubled, Mr. Poitier.”

“No so much troubled as confused.”

“Then you’re not troubled at all. And if you’re confused, then I’ve done my job and so I don’t have a problem. Yet here we sit, me on the floor with my leg going to sleep and you in a chair.”

“Is this whole course some kind of object lesson?”

“That’s good. I’d never considered that. You’re a lot smarter than me. I have no problem with that. Some people are thinner than me, some taller, some uglier, cuter, faster, and many smarter. That’s the way it all shakes out.”

“I don’t feel very smart,” I said.

“What does smart feel like? If it feels like an orgasm, then I’m going to start studying right now. Me, I’m only slightly above average. It fits me.”

“Some of the students think you’re brilliant.”

“Yeah, well, like I said.”

“What did you say?”

“How many push-ups can you do?”

“I don’t know. Fifty maybe.”

“Probably more,” he said. “Have you had lunch?”

“No.”

“Well, you had better go grab some before they run out of whatever it is you eat. And close my door on your way out.” He said as I was halfway out, “Oh, and one more thing, don’t imagine that you have limitations.”

“Don’t I?”

“I’m sure you do, but don’t imagine it. Good day.”