I Am Not Sidney Poitier Read online

  Betty was teaching me about the evils of supply-side economics when Ted came into the room. Betty was just finishing a sentence, “. . . and though Keynesian economics is no kind thing to common people, Say’s Law is truly the work of the white, European, devil mind.”

  “I’d have to agree,” Ted said.

  This startled Betty. She had not seen him enter.

  “I believe that the market is driven by demand,” Ted said. “Otherwise, people get screwed up the hind end. The only thing that ever trickles down to poor people is rain, and that ain’t much more than God’s piss.”

  Betty didn’t want to agree with Ted, but she nodded.

  “How’s our student doing?” Ted asked.

  “Very well,” Betty said. “Not Sidney is quite smart.”

  “He’s got his mother’s brains. Have you ever had one of those itches in your ear that you have to scratch with your tongue inside your mouth? In fact that’s the only way to get to it.”

  Though I had a boy’s crush on Betty, I knew that I was but eleven and that all the brains and money in the world wouldn’t make her kiss me. I in fact had a kind of crush on Ted as well, and so I found that what I really wanted was for the two of them to kiss. So, I tried to Fesmerize them. I couldn’t stare them into submission at the same time and decided to begin with Ted, as I remembered that I might have had earlier success with Betty during the sandwich incident and so chose to save her for last. I raised my left brow and sharpened, then leveled my penetrating gaze at Ted. He stared back at me for a while with an expression that could only be called quizzical, and I thought that I might have been making some headway until he said,

  “Nu’ott, what’s wrong with your eye?”

  “He does that sometimes,” Betty said. “I think it’s gas.”

  “That doesn’t look good.”

  A less persistent person, or a saner one, might have stopped at that point, but I gave it another push.

  “Looks like the boy’s gonna pop. Nu’ott, you all right?”

  I gave up. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Funny little episode you had there.”

  “Just thinking,” I said.

  “Okay, well, I’m going to talk to a man about a German shepherd dog. They’re great dogs. I especially like the way they walk, all slung low like that. You’re in charge, Betty.” He said that, then leaned over and gave Betty a kiss on the cheek before exiting the room.

  Betty was taken by surprise, but hardly offended.

  I was more confused than ever. Had my Fesmered suggestion been received and, more importantly, processed? Was I in fact responsible for that unexpected, unseemly, and glaringly inappropriate action? I was left not knowing if I had succeeded or failed, a state worse than failure itself.

  “He kissed you,” I said to Betty.

  “Oh, that wasn’t a kiss. That was what we call a peck.”

  “Why do you think he kissed you?”

  “It was a peck, Not Sidney.”

  I let the matter rest, though I was no wiser or more percipient for my experiment or for having witnessed the event that I might or might not have caused. The only thing that was clear was that Ted and Betty now believed there was something wrong with me. I suppose I could have likened my new tool to a sort of psychological Swiss Army knife, as I said before, but to continue the metaphor, I could never know whether I was opening the scissors, saw blade, corkscrew, or leather awl, or whether it would open at all.

  No one was more surprised than I when Ted invited Betty to join Jane, himself, and me on a sailing day-trip, except perhaps Betty, who surprised herself into a silk sundress and equally inappropriate wedge-soled sandals and onto a bus to St. Simons Island. Jane was glamorous and aloof, attributes that I imagined fed each other. From behind her oversized dark sunglasses she addressed me politely and warmly, pronouncing my name as she had learned it from Ted, Nu’ott. She received Betty politely yet somewhat less warmly, as she was baffled by the presence of the chubby tutor in the silk wraparound. Joining us also was a niece of Jane’s, daughter of her brother, a freckled girl about my age named Wanda Fonda who took an immediate, intense, and indefatigable shine to me.

  It was sunny, but there were some clouds drifting around, and it was almost cool. It was cool enough that big goose bumps formed on Betty’s hefty thighs that were continually in view because of the attack of wind at her dress, despite her hands busily clutching fabric. Betty looked sorely out of place as she stepped aboard the Channel Seventeen, and I’m certain she felt that way as well, more so after Jane peeled off her raw linen trousers and white linen shirt, revealing her yellow bikini and cartoonishly narrow waist. There were no goose or duck or sparrow bumps on her as she lay out on the deck and appeared to have the sun’s rays zero in on her like a spotlight.

  While Ted motored the sloop out of the slip and toward open water, Wanda Fonda had attached herself to my side. “What kind of name is Nu’ott?”

  “My name is Not Sidney.”

  “Okay, Not Sidney,” she rather nicely said. “Just what kind of name is Not Sidney?”

  “One my crazy mother dreamed up.”

  “I think it’s a nice name. I find it much better than my name. I hate that my name rhymes.”

  “It’s not so bad. At least it doesn’t get you beaten up all the time.”

  Wanda Fonda put her surprisingly strong grip on my forearm and sighed. “Do they beat you up?”

  I was saved by Ted calling me over to him at the tiller. I moved to him, Wanda Fonda tethered fast.

  “Nu’ott,” he said, “what we’re sailing today is a sloop. A sloop has one mast and two sails—mainsail and foresail. This fractional rig sloop was made by some Frenchies named Beneteau, was made in their factory in South Carolina. They grow great peaches up there. I love to suck on the pit, but then I never know what to do with it. The wind is the most important part of sailing. Without wind, there is no sailing. Today you’ll learn about the wind. Next time, knots. Yep, today you just sit back and watch and I’ll teach you about the wind and the beat and the close reach and the reach and the broad reach and the run, about luff and what it means to be in irons, about coming about and jibbing and about sails. You ever see what the sun can do to a convertible top over time? I had a little MG when I was in college, and the sun turned the top into a shag carpet.”

  “Nu’ott, I’m going below for some lemonade,” this from Wanda Fonda. “Can I bring you some?”

  “You can bring me a tall glass, Wanda Fonda,” Ted said. The girl was always called by both names. “Bring some for Betty, too. You want some lemonade, Betty? Maybe you want some iced tea instead?”

  “Lemonade sounds nice,” Betty said. She was sitting not far from the tiller.

  “You want some lemonade, Jane?” Ted called forward.

  Jane waved her hand in the air in a way that could have meant yes or no or my nails are perfect.

  “What about you, Nu’ott?” Wanda Fonda asked me, again.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  With that Wanda Fonda disappeared down the companionway.

  We passed under the sweeping suspension bridge, and Ted turned to me and said, “This is the Not Sidney Lanier Bridge.” He chuckled. “Just joking. I think Sidney Lanier was a poet or something.”

  I looked at the bridge, looking both east and west along its length, but could not see where or if either end ever found land.

  Once past the bridge Ted switched off his motor and raised the mainsail. The feeling of moving under the power of the wind was thrilling even though we weren’t making great speed. The motion of the sloop was hypnotic, at least to me. To Betty, it was nauseating. She swayed against the boat’s rhythm and took on a greenish cast.

  Wanda Fonda came back with a tray of glasses of lemonade. The sweating glasses made me instantly wish that I had said I wanted some.

  “You look like you’re going to upchuck, Betty,” Ted said. “Do me a favor and lean over the side when you do.”

&n
bsp; Betty looked at the glass of lemonade being held out to her by the freckled Wanda Fonda, then turned to release her last meal into the Atlantic.

  “Attagirl,” Ted said.

  “Uncle Ted?”

  “Yes, Wanda Fonda?”

  “I’m glad you brought Nu’ott with us.”

  Ted smiled warmly at me. “Of course I brought him out here. He’s a sailor at heart. A lover of the sea. An admirer of the wind. A free spirit. A mighty Viking! Or perhaps a Moor.”

  My eleven-year-old ears liked the sound of that.

  “Go up there and raise the foresail, Wanda Fonda.”

  I watched as she did. The girl pulled a line and the sheet of canvas slid up the front side of the mast and I thought it was just beautiful. The sun found Wanda Fonda’s face and I thought she was beautiful as well.

  We sailed on, tacking once to make a forty-five-degree turn. Betty tried to put on a strong front. Ted tried to talk to her over the roar of the wind, and she politely pretended to listen, but she was not faring well. Wanda Fonda had found again her station next to me and had even managed to inch her arm close enough to mine that we ever so slightly touched.

  “I’d say we make a run!” Ted shouted. “Ready to come about, Wanda Fonda?”

  Wanda Fonda’s lithe body sprang into action as she made her way forward and grabbed a crank and some line, I didn’t know what, and clearly listened for Ted’s next words.

  Which were, “Hard-a-lee!,” if hard-a-lee is three words and not one. Ted let loose the line behind him, then pushed me down into the cockpit and let the boom swing quickly over me. The sail luffed, making a sound I immediately loved, then caught the wind as the boom swung out well to the starboard side of the boat.

  Wanda Fonda dropped the foresail, then cranked as fast as she could, and the blue and white spinnaker went up and ballooned out.

  “That Wanda Fonda is a heckuva sailor,” Ted said.

  Now, with the full strength of the wind, we were really moving. The spray, the sun, the breeze, Jane’s thighs, it was all intoxicating. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the movement, the smells, the wet luxury of it all. The sky was the bluest I had ever seen, and the ocean seemed a part of it.

  Betty was lying on the long cushion now, her face turned to the sky, as green as I had ever seen a person and growing paler. Jane was unimpressed by the coming about and lay still and magnificent under the sun; her skin seemed to bronze in front of me. She grew darker as Betty grew lighter.

  Betty looked from stem to stern and then to Ted and asked, “How much did this boat cost?”

  “A lot,” Ted said.

  “Does it bother you to have so much?” she asked.

  Ted paused, perhaps considering the question, perhaps considering lunch, and said, “Not yet.”

  “Well, it bothers me,” Betty said.

  “Then I won’t share it with you.” Ted laughed. “Did you know that horses can’t throw up? That’s all a cow does, back and forth, stomach to stomach, but a horse can’t. Strange.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Wanda Fonda asked me.

  “No, and I don’t want one,” I said.

  “I go to a private school. All girls.”

  “Girls beat me up, too.” I turned to hear Ted telling Betty about how to make perfect pickles every time. “Where the bathroom?” I asked.

  “The head,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s called the head. The bathroom is called the head.”

  “Where’s the head?”

  “Below,” Ted said. He turned to Betty. “Now, Nu’ott’s mother, she had a head on her shoulders. Brilliant woman. I wish I’d hired her, but, you know, I never thought to do that. Perhaps because I’m a privileged white male.”

  “Come on,” Wanda Fonda said, taking my hand. “I’ll show you.”

  I peed into the toilet, mostly into the toilet as the rocking of the boat made the project a challenge. When I came out, Wanda Fonda had pulled her pants to her ankles, revealing loud pink, high-waisted panties.

  “Would you like to see my tattoo? We’ve all got them.”

  I had never seen a tattoo, and I was, honestly speaking, interested, but I said, “You should pull up your pants.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Of me?” she asked.

  I nodded. “What’s the tattoo a picture of?”

  She pulled down the front rim of her underwear and revealed a red circle with a stem, obviously a fruit, and I said, “An apple?”

  “No, stupid, it’s a cherry.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It has to do with sex.”

  Oddly, it was when she called me stupid that I first took a liking to Wanda Fonda. Enough of a liking that I decided to try my cyclopean eye at Fesmerizing her. I leaned into my stare. Before she could complain or clock me one across the head, she relaxed into that cow-eyed state that I so welcomed. I looked about the cabin and wondered what I might have her do, and I came up with nothing. I did have her pull up her pants. Then I remembered that I was eleven, almost twelve, and though sexual activity or exploration with Wanda Fonda was clearly out of the question, I did very much enjoy the idea of seeing actual tits. I instructed Wanda Fonda to go up on deck, make her way to Jane, and toss Jane’s bikini top overboard. I knew that it was already undone; the ties were lying teasingly alongside her as she lay facedown on her towel. I gave a post-Fesmer suggestion that she would remember none of my instructions and spend the rest of the trip fawning over Betty.

  I followed back up the companionway topside. Wanda Fonda went directly to Jane and stood over her, blocking the sun.

  Jane lifted her head and looked back at Wanda Fonda. “What is it, Wanda Fonda?”

  The girl said nothing, but as Jane raised herself while lifting her shades to get a better look at the face over her, Wanda Fonda snatched the bikini top from the towel and tossed it into the air. The wind played with the abbreviated garment top for many seconds before letting it fly away from the boat and high into the air. Jane sat up and watched the article’s flight.

  I looked at her breasts, and though I was sort of thrilled to be seeing them, I thought finally that her chest looked a lot like mine, only puffier.

  “Why did you do that, Wanda Fonda?” Jane asked.

  “Do what?”

  Jane didn’t become even slightly upset, she just lay back down and said, “Never mind.”

  It was all terribly disappointing, the breasts and the reaction. The sight of Jane’s breasts was made the more uninteresting by the fact that she simply didn’t care that I was seeing them. She paraded her boobies out and about for the rest of the time on the boat. Her eyes, hidden behind the dark glasses, became of far more interest to me. It was her eyes, the ones I couldn’t see, that seemed to work on my under-construction libido. I wanted, needed to see Jane Fonda’s eyes. I therefore set to the business of casting my cyclopean stare her way.

  “What’s wrong with you, Nu’ott?”

  I was terrified once again that I would be thought insane, but I persisted, raised my left brow another millimeter.

  “Excuse me, but would someone, Ted, please ask this child what’s wrong with him?” Jane said.

  I wondered as I worked on her, if her sunglasses would diminish the effectiveness of my gaze. I could not see behind them to detect any shift toward the desired cow-eyed state, so I pushed my suggestion that she toss her glasses overboard. It turned out that the dark lenses must have actually amplified my power because she whipped them from her face and tossed them out into the ocean without the slightest pause. Jane’s eyes were sad-making, not weak, not really sullen, but cheerless, tenebrific. I pushed the suggestion that I was sorry and that she should not associate me with the action, but I knew that I needed to back off. My ability, two successes in a row, scared me greatly. I remained quiet for the rest of the trip. Betty was entertained mercilessly by the cherry-tattooed Wanda Fonda and Jane sat around wi
th eyes and tits unabashedly uncovered and Ted railed on about the first television—“It was nothing but static, but what moving static it was”—and how baseballs were made—“In Haiti, by women who bend all the way down and stand all the way up with every stitch”—and whether inflammable and flammable were really the same word—“I mean, invariably and variably don’t mean the same thing.” Except for the wind-driven ride itself, I had pretty much controlled the action on the boat.

  I never saw Wanda Fonda again, and Jane barely acknowledged me when I would greet her by the pool. I continued to sail with Ted, and time went by. Tutors came and went. My wealth grew, or so I was told by Ted’s accountant, an Indian man named Podgy Patel.

  “You have vast money,” he said in his singsong accent. “Vaster this week than last.”

  “How much money do I have?” We were sitting in the living room of my quarters.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Let me just say ‘vast.’ The actual figure might frighten you.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I cannot.” He smiled the smile he always smiled, a smile I imagined he would wear whether he was being tickled, being praised, or being fired. “I can only say that your wealth is … ”

  “Vast,” we said together.

  “Very good,” he said.

  “What if I want some money?” I asked.

  “Just ask.”

  “What if I want fifty thousand dollars?”

  “Just ask.”

  “What if I don’t want to ask?”

  “Write it down.”

  “Can’t I just go to the bank?”

  “You are thirteen. They will not give you fifty thousand dollars.”

  “But you will,” I said.