I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel

If I wasn’t digging myself deeper, I was certainly lengthening the trench.

My stomach felt empty and icy and hot and crowded all at once.

“You want to know why people are so fucked up? Son, that’s about the only question I can answer with even a small measure of authority. It’s because they’re people. People, my friend, are worse than anybody.”

“Why are people so fucked up?”

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.”

And so I was in a bad mood when we landed at National Airport, though, as was my wont, I did not let on to Maggie. One might ask then what was the point of the bad mood, and I can only answer, the satisfaction of personal suffering.

“Don’t be a sheep, Mr. Poitier. Be anything, be a deer or a squirrel, a beaver or a gnu, but don’t be a sheep.” “Okay.” “Be a gecko or a platypus. Be a panther or a sparrow, but not a sheep. Promise me that.” “Okay.”

I’m beginning to think the only difference between being black and being white is that if you’re white you just don’t know about your blood, you’re dumb to your blood, ignorant about that one drop. White people fear that one drop like we fear the rope.”

Who would want to own Peckerwood County? The reason it was what it was was because there was absolutely nothing and no one there of any value. It was a terrestrial black hole, rather white hole, a kind of giant Caucasian anus that only sucked, yet smelled like a fart.