“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.