I Am Not Sidney Poitier (29 page)

“Can you hear me, Chief?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell me your full name.”

“My name is Francis Rene Funk.”

“Really?” I leaned closer to him. “When did you learn about the fifty thousand dollars?”

“When you told me,” he said.

“Do you know who killed the man in the chest?”

“No.”

“Do you suspect anyone?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Whom do you suspect?”

“Thornton Scrunchy.”

“Why?”

“Because of what you said. He thought the black boy looked like you. He does look like you.”

“Do you want to hurt me?”

“No,” he said.

“Will you hurt me?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you believe my life is in danger?”

“Yes.”

“Look into my eyes,” I told him, and when he did, I said, ‘When I say ‘Chief, I need your help,’ you will help me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You will defend me, protect me if I need you, if anyone is trying to hurt me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

I told him to go back to sleep and wake up in ten minutes. I sat there just a little less afraid than I had been, convinced at least of the fact the man with me meant me no harm. I was certainly no less confused. I felt terribly guilty for the man who looked enough like me to have been killed. I didn’t know what to do about the money. I had been stupid about it. I should have taken Sister Irenaeus to the bank and simply had her open an account, but it was too late to change any of that. I thought of the money hidden in the satchel and wondered how it was faring in the rain and wind. For all I knew one-hundred-dollar bills were floating all over southern Alabama.

The rain was letting up when Chief Francis Rene Funk awoke, but there was no sign or promise of a blue sky to come. There was only gray, dark clouds, wind, and mud. We got back into the Chief’s car and slipped and slid our way back to the highway. We drove to the diner, and I saw my car in the parking lot, at least what was left of it. It had been stripped and left open and bleeding in the pouring rain. The only consolation to what I saw as the loss of a friend was the fact that the thugs had not found what they were looking for.

“What now, city boy?” the Chief asked.

I shook my head, shrugged.

“Well, let’s eat something.” He parked beside my Skylark. “Need to eat something.”

“Tell me, Chief, what is a Smuteye?”

“You never had corn smut? Come on, boy.”

In the diner, Diana was surprised and pleased to see me. “Sidney,” she said. “They didn’t kill you?”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” I said.

She laughed.

“Give this boy some corn smut,” the Chief said.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Diana asked.

“No. What is it?”

“Corn cancer is what it is,” said the man in the tractor cap who was sitting right where he had been seated when I was arrested.

“It’s a fungus,” she said. “Tastes real good. We eat it with eggs. The Mexicans called it
Huitlacoche.
”

“What Mexicans?” I asked.

“The two that come through here about three years ago. They said it means raven shit.”

I looked at the Chief’s face and recalled his charge to not let any harm come to me. I nodded. “Okay, let me have some.”

Diana scrambled some eggs in a pan, divided them onto two plates, slapped some toast beside the servings, and the opened a plain jar from which she scraped black matter. She slid the plates in front of us.

“Have at,” the Chief said. “The Mexicans said it’s good for you-know.” He glanced down at his crotch.

“What happened to these Mexicans?” I asked.

The Chief smirked. “Well, we chased them into the swamp, and one of them never come out. We caught the other one, what was left of him, and sent him to the county jail farm.”

“What did they do?” I asked.

“I don’t rightly recall.”

I finally took a bite of the corn smut. I didn’t gag like I thought I might. It was a little like mushrooms. I at once sort of liked it and wanted to spit it out across the counter.

“What do you think?” Diana asked.

I was saved from having to answer by the opening of the screen door. A familiar voice split the room.

“Anybody here seen a fellow who looks just like Sidney Poitier?” It was Ted.

“Ted,” I said.

“Nu’ott?”

“It’s me,” I said.

“If you say so. Podgy told me you needed some help. What are you eating?”

“It’s called corn smut,” I said.

“And you’re eating it? Is it good?”

I shrugged.

Ted looked at Diana. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” said Diana.

“Fix me up a plate of that,” Ted said.

“You can have mine,” I said.

Ted sat beside me, and I pushed my plate in front of him. “Ted Turner,” I said, “this is the chief of police.”

“How you doing?” Ted said, a mouth full of eggs and corn smut. “This ain’t terrible.” He pointed his fork at Diana. “But I wouldn’t order it a second time. No offense.”

“None taken,” she said.

“And this is Diana,” I said.

“You ever notice how some people spell your name with two n’s and some with one? How do you spell it?”

“One,” Diana said.

“Now, see, that makes sense to me. Why would you need two of them doing the same duty? What is this shit called again?”

“Corn smut,” I said.

“I don’t doubt it. Tell me, Nu’ott, why am I here?”

“Someone is trying to kill me,” I said.

He looked at the plate in front of him.

“Not with that.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

I wanted to suggest to him further that perhaps I had already been killed, but that would have sounded as crazy to him as it did to me. “I did something stupid. I needed fifty thousand dollars to help these religious women build a church, and I got it in cash, and now somebody wants to kill me for it.”

Diana and the tractor-cap man were hearing about the money for the first time, and their mouths dropped open. The story I had just tried to tell in shorthand would have come across as nutty and surreal to anyone but Ted.

“Did you get your money in twenties or hundreds?” Ted asked.

“Hundreds.”

“That’s where you went wrong. People go crazy for hundred-dollar bills. You can give a caddy seven twenties and he’ll forget you in a week, but give him a hundred, and he’ll remember you forever.” He nodded to the Chief. “And that’s why I don’t play golf.”

“Who are you?” the Chief asked.

“My name’s Ted Turner. What’s yours?”

“Chief.”

“Interesting.” He ate another bit of corn smut. “You know, Diana-with-one-n, this is isn’t half bad. It’s more like three-quarters bad.”

“Glad you like it,” Diana said.

Just then Horace burst into the trailer. “I got him, Chief! This time I got me the right one! No question about it!”

“Got who?” the Chief asked.

“The killer. Caught him snooping around the outside of the hardware store. He’s a nigger, so I arrested him.”

“Well, let’s go see what the hell you’re talking about.” The Chief slid off his stool and walked out. Horace, Ted, and I followed.

“What exactly is going on here?” Ted asked me as we sat in the backseat of the Chief’s car.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

At the police station, we filed in and heard laughter coming from the cells. The big-haired dispatcher said, “Been like that since you put him back there, Horace.”

The Chief walked toward the back, and I followed. And there was Professor Everett, doing push-ups and counting loudly. “Sixty-three.” He paused at the top and laughed. “Sixty-four.”

Billy, my former cellmate, was counting with him, laughing as well.

“What the hell is going on here?!” the Chief shouted.

“Push-ups,” Everett said.

My first thought was that he could not possibly have done sixty-four push-ups. My second thought was an affirmation of my previous suspicion that Horace’s murder suspect was Everett.

Everett sat on the floor, his back against the wall. “Okay, Billy Bob Jack, whatever-the-fuck your name is. Beat that.” He looked up at me and smiled. “I’ve been working out.”

“I guess so.”

“How are you, Mr. Poitier?” Everett asked.

“You realize you’re in here for murder,” I said.

“My friend Billy told me as much. Who did I kill?”

“Me,” I said.

He looked me up and down. “I didn’t do a very good job.”

“Who is this guy?” the Chief asked me.

“He’s one of my professors. I called and asked him to come down here.”

The Chief moaned. “Horace, would you please let this man out of the cell? And don’t speak to me for the rest of the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Horace said and unlocked the door.

Everett stretched as he exited the cell. “Billy, it was good doing time with you. Look me up when you get out.” He looked at me. “Now, tell me, what the hell am I doing here?”

I didn’t answer his question, instead I introduced him to Ted. “Percival Everett, Ted Turner. Ted, this is my professor.”

“Was,” Everett said. He looked at my face. “You look a lot older.”

“He’s right,” Ted said.

Everett shook Ted’s hand. “Ted.”

“Prof.”

“Well, ain’t this just sweet and friendly,” the Chief said. “This is a damn jail. Everybody out of here.”

Everett reached through the bars and shook hands with Billy. “Take care of yourself, you pathetic peckerwood motherfucker.”

“You, too, you darkie sumbitch.”

Everett smiled at me. “It’s a special thing when you do time with a fellow.” He led the way back into the main room of the station. “So, tell me how I killed you, and why it didn’t stick,” he said.

I ignored Everett’s question and told him what I’d told Ted, that someone wanted to kill me. I then told him why.

“That was stupid,” he said. “That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.” He looked over at Ted. “I hate colorization.” He then turned to the Chief. “I’m not speaking metaphorically.”

“I have mixed feelings about it myself,” Ted said. “Don’t you just hate when you’re watching a movie, and you can’t remember if it’s the first version or a remake. You know, like
Heaven Can Wait.
”

“No, I kind of like that feeling.” Everett turned and looked me up and down. “What’s with the monkey suit?”

Ted looked at his thumb. “What do you call it when you get that painful bit of nail on the side of your cuticle and you can’t help but push up and make it hurt more and you never have a clipper with you?”

“I never knew what that was exactly. Is that what I’m supposed to call a hangnail?” Everett asked.

“I guess that’s what you call it,” Ted said.

“You’re right, though. It is really annoying,” Everett said. “I always get them right before I’m about to have sex for some reason.”

“Would you two shut up?” I said.

The Chief and Horace looked on as if they had been invaded by Russian-speaking madmen. The big-haired dispatcher dozed in her chair. The rain had started up outside again, and the wind howled.

“I say we go get your money and put it in the bank,” Ted said.

“I agree,” Everett said. “That doesn’t mean it’s the right or smartest thing to do, but I agree with it.”

It was the thing to do. And as long as I kept the Chief with me, I figured I was relatively safe. Even though the rain was falling more heavily than ever, I felt an urgency about getting the money. I looked out the window and at the black sky.

“Listen, I want everybody out of this goddamn station right now,” the Chief barked.

The dispatcher sat up and said, “Weather Service just announced a tornado watch for all of Bullock County.”

Horace whistled. “It does look bad out there.”

“What’s the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning?” Ted asked. “I mean, which one is worse?”

“I think a warning means somebody’s seen one,” Everett said.

“But how can you watch something that’s not there?” Ted asked.

Everett scratched his head.

Ted looked at Everett’s face. “Percival Everett. Didn’t you write a book called
Erasure
?”

Everett nodded.

“I didn’t like it,” Ted said.