CHAPTER 5

Some part of me (whether generous or not, I don’t know) tried to convince the rest of me that there was something to be learned from the color-challenged Larkins, or at least that some perverse fun had been had. But the rest of me was not accepting it, and so the flight back on the evening puddle jumper was nothing more than sad and tedious, though welcomed. I felt some vague regret as I considered that Maggie might actually have held a few sincere feelings for me, but now I would never know. There was never any future, I thought, and I laughed at the thought because, of course, there had been no suggestion of a so-called future. Still, I was sorry, if at the same time mildly satisfied, that I had caused them more family turmoil than was normally theirs. I certainly had not contributed significantly to the intense family sickness.

Off the airplane in Atlanta I was met by a rather animated and giggly Podgy Patel. I was more than a bit surprised by his presence and so I asked, “How the hell did you know to be here?”

“It is very simple,” he said in his singsong accent. “I make it a habit to track your credit-card transactions.”

“I’d like you to break that habit.”

“As you wish. But who would have picked you up?”

“A taxi,” I said. “A bus.”

“Now, you are just being silly.”

“Why are you so giddy, Podgy?”

“Oh, for good reason, very good reason. Our network is a big success, a major success. We are making money foot over fist.”

“Great, more money.”

“I detect sarcasm. Am I to understand that you want no more money?”

“Does it really make a difference?”

“All the difference in the world,” he said.

We were walking through the parking garage. I turned to him and looked at his smiling face. “Really, Podgy, it’s just that I feel I have too much money.”

“You are not very American,” he said.

“I suppose not.”

“Then perhaps you should give some of your money away. You should give much away and not much would be different, as you say. It is actually a very lucrative practice. It is a wonderful write-off, charity.”

I watched as he unlocked the car doors. “Thanks, Podgy. I believe that’s a really good idea.”

“You will find, however, that it is harder to give away money that one might imagine. Very much harder than it seems.” He started the car. “Shall I drive you to your dorm at the college?”

“Please.”

As we drove through a pleasantly deserted Atlanta I considered my previous venture with philanthropy, my gifts to the college. They had not been donated in the spirit of giving, however, since they were more payoffs or bribes, and they had gotten me no more than a college admission I didn’t really want and a standing invitation to diddle the very sad Gladys Feet. I had spread no joy to anyone and certainly had been left with none. I was headed back to campus to pack up and leave and where I was going was anybody’s and especially my guess. But first I would call Professor Everett to see if he could offer any good argument for my staying put. Why I held his opinion in any regard was beyond me, but I did.

Everett answered, sounding tired but awake. I put the question to him with no warning. “Why should I remain in college?”

“You’ve got me,” he said without a pause.

“That’s the best you can do?” I said.

“How much money do you have?”

“More than I know what to do with,” I said, honestly.

Everett sighed. I could hear him lighting his cigar. “I suppose you could remain in school for the sex. I hear there’s a lot of it. Or not.”

“What about an education?”

“Hell, you can read. You know where the library is.”

“You’re a professor,” I said.

“If you say so.”

“If you were me,” I said, “would you stay in school?”

He said nothing.

“Well?”

“I think you should come over to my house so we can talk head to head or face to face, however it goes. And bring some doughnuts, the kind with the sprinkles.” He told me his address, and before he hung up he said, “You know, we mustn’t judge people by what they drive.”

“What does that mean?” I asked an empty line.

I drove my car over to Everett’s home, a narrow two-story brick house with an enclosed front porch. He held open the screen door for me as I walked past him into the foyer. I followed him into the living room, such as it was. There was a low yellow, floral-print sofa in the middle of the room facing a windowless wall against which sat a small television on a wooden table. On the screen two men boxed.

“Do you like boxing?” I asked.

“Hate it.”

I looked at the television. “Why are you watching it?”

“Because I love the sublime violence of it. In a way. It’s a lot like doing drugs, if you know what I mean. And even if you don’t. What bullshit I’m spouting.”

I handed him the doughnuts.

“How thoughtful,” he said. “You shouldn’t have. I can’t accept them, though. I’m watching my weight, before anyone else does. You have them, enjoy them. They have sprinkles. Now, what’s this business about dropping out of school?” He sat on the sofa.

“Why shouldn’t I?” I sat beside him.

“Don’t you want a degree?”

“I never really thought about it.”

He shook his head. “That’s a damn good answer. I wish I’d said it. I wish I’d thought it. I will the next time.” He took his cold cigar from the ashtray and stuck it in his face. “Now that you’ve thought about it, do you want one?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“There I have what?”

“What do you get after four years of college?” he asked.

“A degree.”

“And you don’t want a degree. So, there you have it. Go sailing or skiing or something.”

“What about an education?” I said.

“Listen, if you want to stay in school, then stay in school, but don’t ask me to tell you what to do. Truth is, I don’t know or care what you do.”

“Is that true, that you don’t care?”

He paused to think it over. “Pretty much. Eat a doughnut. It will make you feel much better. It will make me feel better if you eat one.”

“For some reason, maybe because you’re a professor, I thought you’d try to talk me into staying.”

“It’s a bitch, ain’t it? The things we assume.” He looked at his watch. “Hey, it’s ten o’clock. Time for some real entertainment.” He walked over to the television and changed channels. “Now, this is genius.”

A man’s white-turbaned head appeared on screen, disembodied and floating against a blue field, slowly, from one corner to the other. The head wore a white turban and sang in what I took to be Hindi. The title grew large enough to read: Punjabi Profiles.

“Absolute genius,” Everett said. “Listen, Poitier, you’ll get your education. Hey, you’re already a smart guy, smarter than most, better educated than most of my so-called colleagues. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in higher education, but you’ll find your way. I don’t worry about you. Doughnut?”

“Why do you teach?”

“Money.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m no good at anything else,” he said.

I wanted to tell him that he was no good at teaching.

But then he said, “As if I’m any good at teaching. But you know what? Who the fuck cares? You know what I mean? Still, I can teach you two or three things, among them how to perform a tracheotomy on a squirming and unwilling patient, but you probably don’t believe that.”

I sat quietly for a few minutes while we watched an Indian music video. I thought about my visit to Maggie’s home, about the Larkins, about the dinner. “Why are people so fucked up?” I asked.

“Maybe you do need college, Poitier,” Everett said. “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.”

I was not certain whether I was troubled more by his answer or by the fact that he had called me son.

Everett, as usual, had been of no help whatsoever. He insisted as I left that I take the doughnuts, sprinkles and all. He said that they would kill him, but he’d be happy to know I was enjoying them. I took the doughnuts and ate them as I drove back to campus and my dorm. The place was so empty, so quiet and dead, that there was a sudden and strange appeal to it, but I refused to be seduced. I would have liked to talk with Ted, but he was off at his ranch in Montana doing something with buffaloes. And what would he have said to me anyway except, “Why is it that the buffalo’s head is so disproportionately large?” or something like that. I’d always wanted to see Turner and Everett meet, imagined it a little like Perry Como performing with Ornette Coleman. I resolved as I walked across campus to again attempt my drive west. Only this time I would stick to the interstate system, the homogeneous tangle of the ribbons that made up the fifty-first state. I would observe each and every traffic rule and avoid people whenever possible. I realized that I could simply board a plane and fly to California, but being there wasn’t the point, getting there was what I was after. I didn’t know anyone there or what I would do and so the drive would afford me time to formulate some kind of plan. Also I still harbored the young, romantic, naïve, and stupid notion that a cross-country trek would be a valuable learning experience, a rite of passage. That night I packed up my Buick Skylark and headed west once again, my heart pounding, my palms sweating against the plastic of the steering wheel, a thermos of coffee beside me next to a sack of my newest addiction, doughnuts with sprinkles.

The Georgia that surrounded Atlanta had lived up to its billing on my first migratory attempt. I made the short drive to the state’s edge in a quick dead sprint and fell into the next state, which turned out to be Alabama. Of course, I knew it would be Alabama, but still I don’t think anyone is ever quite prepared for Alabama, though I imagined it appropriate and decent preparation for Mississippi; decent is a term the connotation of which I am here unable to articulate.

My chosen route seemed simple enough. I would take Interstate 85 to Interstate 65 to Interstate 10 and that would take me to Los Angeles. There were no turns involved. How could a person get lost? I got lost. I was somewhere in Alabama, in the dark, and it turns out that night in Alabama is darker than night anywhere. I recalled the song “Stars Fell on Alabama” and thought, no, they didn’t. I was further disheartened by a sign telling me I was near a town called Smuteye. Look at the map. And then of course my Skylark began to shutter and make a new unfamiliar, though not terribly alarming sound.

I managed to roll into a lonesome and unlit gas station on a dirt road. The dark sign hovering over the pumps read Rabbit Toe’s Filling Station. My car’s wheels tripped a bell that might as well have been a siren for the way it split the still night air. But nothing and no one stirred. A dog barked far off in the distance and though that reminded me of life, it did more to make me fear death. I was at once terrified that there was no one there and that at any moment someone would appear. And someone did.

An extremely tall, extremely thin, extremely washed-out, and extremely white man walked out of the darkness beside the building and into the white glow of my headlights. He bent at the waist and peered through the driver’s-side window and said the scariest thing I could imagine. He said, “Boy, you must be lost.”

“I must be,” I said. “Can you fix my car?”

“Can but won’t”

“May I use your garage to try to fix it myself?”

“You may not.”

“Are you Rabbit Toe?” I asked.

“That’s what they call me.”

“It’s not your name?”

“That’s what they call me,” he repeated.

“Why do they call you that?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

The belts of my engine were squeaking and squawking. I spotted some WD-40 on the rack with the oil by the pumps. “I’ll take some of this,” I said.

“It’s for sale,” he said.

I handed him some money. “Keep the change.”

He nodded.

“Well, thanks for nothing,” I said.

“You bet.” He gave me a hard stare.

I started the engine and the sound was not there. I made it another few miles and the noise again started up. It was just about sunrise and I found myself off the dirt road on a dirt drive in front of a small house. Three women were trying to build a fence around a chicken coop. Another older woman spied my approach, crossed herself, and looked up at the sky. I thought I could read her lips and I thought she said, “Thank you, God, for sending me a black buck.”

I got out of my car and opened the hood to look stupidly at the troubled engine. The oldest of the women walked over and stood behind me.

“Your car is not running?” she asked.

“I’m afraid that’s true,” I said. “Would you mind if I worked on it here? I think the belts are loose, but I can tighten them. Do you mind?”

“No, we don’t mind.” The other women had come to stand with her. “Our roof needs to be fixed.”

“Really?”

“It leaks when it rains. And you will fix it?”

“I don’t know how,” I said.

“It’s simple,” she said. “We have a book that explains it.”

“Well, I suppose I could try.”

“You will do more than try. You will do it.” With that she marched off and left the other women to stare at me. I offered a smile and glanced back at my engine.

The battered service manual for my Skylark suggested that the job of tightening the belts would be simple and fairly quick. In fact it said, “This adjustment is simple and quick,” the rather clear subtext being that any idiot could do it. I read this recognizing that I was not just any idiot. I put the car manual aside and picked up the book that had been given to me by the old woman, How to Roof a House.

She stood over me while I read. “It is clear?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do this, but then I’ll have to go.”

“We will see,” she said.

I climbed the ladder to look at the roof. It was a simple flat roof that required only that I remove the bad surface, replace the bad wood, roll out the new roofing paper, and paint the seams with tar. It would take awhile, but I was happy that I at least understood the project.

I called down, “It’s a big job.”

“But you can do it.” It was not a question.

“I can do it.”

It was thankfully November, so, though the air was insanely humid, it was not insanely hot. Nine hours later, just as the sun was setting, I finished the roof. I was dirtier than I had ever been, smellier, more tired, and yet I felt a kind of vague peace. I washed up at the outdoor spigot at the side of the house. The water was cold, but I didn’t mind. I dried my face and underarms with a stiff white towel that one of the women had set down near me.

The oldest came and said, “Come, you eat with us.”

“Don’t you want to see the roof?”

“You have fixed it. That is all that matters.”

Clean and wearing a fresh shirt I stepped into the building to find the women dressed alike in what might have been habits and sitting around a rectangular table; the oldest was at the head. She finally introduced herself as Sister Irenaeus. She introduced the others as Sisters Origen, Eusebius, Firmilian, and Chrysostom.

“Really,” I said, somewhat astonished. “My name is Poitier.”

“Poitier,” Sister Irenaeus said.

“Poitier,” the others whispered.

“Where are you from?” I asked. I had been trying to place Sister Irenaeus’s accent.

“We are from North Dakota.”

It was hardly the answer I was expecting. “You’re a long way from home,” I said.

“We are indeed. Have a seat, Poitier.”

I sat in the woven-cane chair opposite Sister Irenaeus. The room was quiet and damp and dim, and lit by two brass standing lamps. There was a dark, heavy wooden buffet against the wall behind Sister Irenaeus, and to the left of that was a book stand supporting what I was certain was a very large and tattered Bible.

“I didn’t know you were nuns,” I said.

“We are not Catholic,” Sister Irenaeus said. “We are of the Church of the Ever-Holy Pentecost of Our Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“We are all children of God,” said Sister Firmilian, who was by my estimation the prettiest of them. Then and now, thinking this made and makes me shudder.

“We say grace,” Irenaeus said.

They all put their hands together and for some reason I did as well.

Sister Irenaeus cleared her throat. “Dear Jesus, thank you for this day, this bread, our roof, and our new big man, and he is a black man just like William J. Seymour and his one eye, but his eye was open to only you, Jesus, only you, and so you have sent him to us to help us in our mission, our quest to bring your word of love to every breathing human creature that walks the face of your beautiful Earth and, Jesus, this road is difficult, arduous, but not hard as you have kissed the trail we travel with your divine lips, full, Godly lips, so that our feet might tingle with the joy of your love with every step, O Jesus, our Jesus.”

And with that Sister Origen, the stockiest and shortest of the five, began to tremble, and inside I felt myself take a step back. Sister Origen’s mouth opened and her tongue fished around in the air and sounds came out, though I found them incomprehensible, but strangely clear. She said, “Ailalossolg si eht eugnot nekops yb em nema nema nema nu sam msitpab yb yloh tirips ninzela lump zaba zabalee zabael yliem si devol ehs si enim bleedle peetle leetle little zaba za zalee.” She went on that way for what seemed like four or five minutes. Then she shook her face violently and was done and the sisters said, “Amen,” and sat. I sat too and watched as they passed around a loaf of sliced white bread. I took a slice and pushed the basket back to the middle of the table.

“This is supper?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Sister Irenaeus. “You may have a second portion if you like. You are a big man.”

“So I understand. I’ll be leaving in the morning,” I said.

Sister Irenaeus shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

“God has sent you to us.”

“He didn’t mention it to me.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He might.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Tomorrow, you build a fence,” she said. She closed the door and I found myself outside, alone in the dark. The sky was very clear and I could see Cassiopeia and Orion and maybe Canes Venatici, but I was never too sure about that one. I lay back on the hood of my car and stared upward for a while.

I would have tightened my engine’s belts then, but frankly I was too exhausted. I was still hungry after what had passed for supper, but luckily I had one doughnut left. Finally I crawled into the backseat of my car and drifted into a fitful, dream-racked sleep.

The wind blows steadily across the rolling Texas prairie. A rust-muddy river flows some hundred yards away, marked on either side by cottonwoods with white seeds floating all about. I am standing only a few yards from an old man who is tossing pieces of bone onto the wrinkled surface of a spread-out blanket. No, wait. There is no wind, just a stillness of arid air. Monument Valley. Spires of red rock rise into the cerulean sky, a blue bluer than blue. An old man, gray haired and weathered, tosses bones on a tattered blanket. Other men, younger men, watch.

“We go on,” the old man says.

One of the younger men turns to me. “You know that DeChenney and his army ain’t gonna let us go. They want us back to work their land.”

“Buck,” an older man says, “we’s a-goin’ on. If Old Deke says we go on, then we go on.”

“All right then,” I say. I take off my Stetson and wipe my brow, stare out across the plains at the mountains in the distance. “Be ready by the time I get back here tomorrow. Be about midday.”

“We be ready, Buck.”

“Good. And you’re going to have to pare down some. Those mules gonna have to pull you a long way.”

“All de way to de green valley,” he says.

I nod. I step away, nodding at the women who were cooking over the fire, tip my hat. I mount my bay quarter horse and rein him in a tight circle and then trot, no, canter off away from the camp and not on a bay but on a palomino, flaxen mane and tail full of the wind.

A shake of the head. A clearing. I am saying again:

“All right then.” I push up the brim of my Stetson and look at the unforgiving western sky. Then I look at the mountains in the distance. Lavender hills capped with snow. “You all be ready,” I say. “I’ll be back tomorrow around midday and you all just be ready. You hear me?”

“We be ready, Buck.”

“You see all this furniture and these heavy trunks. You gotta pare down something fierce. These same sad mules gonna have to pull you all the way over those mountains.”

“All de way to de green valley,” he says.

“Why are you talking like that?” I ask.

“Sorry, Buck.”

I step away and acknowledge the women who are cooking at the big fire. I tip my hat to them and smile. They giggle at the sight of my smile. I mount my palomino and ride off; his flaxen mane and tail are full of the wind.

I ride through a stream and through a canyon as my horse kicks up a steady red cloud. I approach a cabin, a homestead. I am looking for my woman, Bes. But something isn’t right. The farm is too quiet. The cabin is too quiet. There are the usual animal sounds—chickens, pigs. The cow is standing where she always stands. Bes’s brother and his wife and children have been living here too, and there’s no sign of them. One of them is always outside. The cabin is small, two rooms, and it gets crowded inside, but where are they? I dismount some distance away and lead my horse to a teamless buckboard next to a sycamore. Bes steps out into the shadow on the porch, stands there. A breeze moves her blue gingham dress. Her yellow dress. She slowly raises her hand to wave, a stiff wave. I wave back, knowing that something is bad wrong. I slip off the leather keep from the trigger of the pistol holstered on my hip. I study Bes’s eyes. I look closely at the windows of the cabin, at the barn, at the smokehouse. The chickens walk about in front of Bes. Then she runs, and a white man behind her starts shooting his pistol at me. No, he pushes Bes to the side, she loses her balance, falls into the dust. He shoots, and other men shoot from the windows of the cabin, the smokehouse, and the open barn doors. I dive to take cover in the pig corral, sliding through the mud to the far side where I kick out the bottom fence rail and roll out. Bullets whiz by my head, and I can’t see where to shoot back. I spot Bes running to the trees, her skirts full of the wind, and I wave for her to keep going, to get clear. The faces of the white men are fierce, evil, full of hate. I run and slip and slide and squirm to more cover and still more cover as the bullets ricochet by my ears. I get to my horse and dash away, hunched low over the saddle, a cloud of dust pluming behind me. Soon, the white men have found their horses and are chasing me and though I can’t see them, I can feel the posse’s hooves drumming the ground. I ride into the night. No, I’ve ridden hard for a couple of hours. My horse is slick and foamy with sweat. He is walking now. I’ve ridden him so long and hard.

At a watering hole I see a man bathing, wearing nothing but a hat. He splashes around in the pool on skinny brown legs while I admire his chestnut horse, no, black horse. The animal is hobbled next to the man’s camp, his clothes are laid out on some big rocks next to a dead fire. I remove my saddle and the sweat-drenched blanket from my palomino and quietly approach the black horse. He becomes nervous, whinnies, and I put a hand on his neck to settle him down.

“Who’s that up there?” the man calls from the water.

I draw my pistol and point it at the man’s chest as he climbs naked up the hill toward me.

“Excuse me, brother, but there seems to be a misunderstanding here. That horse, the one you’re putting a saddle on, belongs to me.” He holds his hat over his private parts.

“We’re trading,” I say. I nod over to my palomino.

“A trade usually requires agreement, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t have time for agreement. My horse is a good one. You’ll find that out once he’s rested.”

“I’m sure that’s true, brother. So, why don’t you sit here for a while and have some coffee and let him rest?”

“Don’t have time.”

“My name is Jeremiah Cheeseboro and I’m a man of the cloth. Does that make any difference to you, friend?”

“Another day it might.”

The man makes a move toward his clothes.

“That’s far enough,” I say and pull back the hammer on my nickel-finished peacemaker pistol.

“I was just reaching for my drawers,” he says. “I’m feeling a little exposed out here in my altogether, if you know what I mean.”

“You’re doing just fine.”

“So, you’re just going to steal my horse,” he says.

“Trade.”

“You say.”

“I say. Now, why don’t you just walk on back down that trail and get in that water.”

“I’m clean enough,” he says.

“Go on.”

“You’re no Christian, brother,” he says as he shuffles backward to the water and in. “Your deeds will catch up to you.”

“Better them than the posse that’s chasing me,” I say. I climb onto the back of the black horse, give a final nod to the preacher, and then gallop away.

I’m seeing this from high above, like a god, only shorter, I suppose. That preacher from the watering hole is dressed in black, dusty from the trail, dismounting and tying my palomino to the post in front of a livery. The preacher is minding his own business, his big Bible under his arm, no, held to his chest. He makes his way down the side of the livery to the back door of a saloon.

He takes off his hat and bows to a young boy. “Son, I would be much obliged if you would see fit to take my two bits into this here establishment and procure for me a bit of the spirits.”

The boy stares at him, dumbfounded.

“I want you to go in and buy me a whiskey.”

“Why didn’t you say that?”

“I’m sorry, lad. I’m afraid I overestimated your ability to comprehend simple language.”

“What?”

“I didn’t realize that you’re stupid.”

The boy goes inside and slams the door.

The preacher walks back to the street where he finds his horse encircled by dirty, dusty white men. “Is this here your horse?” a lanky man asks, stepping close and spitting tobacco juice onto the preacher’s shoes.

“Messy,” the preacher says.

“I asked you a question,” the white man says. “I asked you if’n this here horse is yourn.”

“Not exactly, brother, not. You see I was baptizing my body anew to the knowledge of the Lord when my own horse was stolen by a cowardly heathen, and that heathen left this wretched animal in the place of my own. He was almost lame when he was delivered unto me, but prayer, brother, good old prayer restored him to his present condition of health. My name is Jeremiah Cheeseboro, conveyor of the gospel, a shepherd of men’s souls.”

“Should we shoot him now or later?” asks a man standing on the other side of the palomino.

“I wouldn’t shoot me at all,” the preacher says.

The lanky man spits more juice onto the preacher’s boots. “And why is that, Mr. man of the cloth?”

“Because it is clear to me that you are searching for the very heathen what stole my horse.”

“Do you know where Buck is?”

“I didn’t even know his name. Thank you for telling me. But if I find him, I’ll be happy to inform you and your associates of his whereabouts.”

The man looks at the other thugs. “I like you, preacher man.”

“Thank you. I like you, too.”

“If you do find out where Buck is, you ride on out to Rusty Gulch and tell Mr. DeChenney.”

“DeChenney.”

“You do that?”

“As sure as Moses floated to safety in a basket.”

“Let him go,” he says to the other white men.

They all step away and let the preacher mount the palomino.

The lanky man says, “Preacher, if’n I see you again and you ain’t got no information for me, I’ll have to kill you.”

“I sincerely thank you for your overwhelming Christian generosity of spirit,” the preacher says and canters away.

While I’m aimlessly riding around the vast and mysterious landscape, things are happening at the camp of the newly freed slaves. White men, eleven of them, no, fifteen of them gather on horseback at the edge of the dark woods.

The white men rein their horses in tight circles and then charge the camp, wildly galloping down the sloping meadow, hooting and shouting. Moonlight. Black doughnuts around rocks. Moonlight. Women scream. Moonlight. Children cry out. A few men take up their few arms and are shot for the trouble. Perhaps because of the darkness, perhaps because of their drunkenness, the marauders kill only three people—two men and a young boy. They wreck a covered wagon, upset it, and leave it ablaze, sending gray smoke into the purple sky. The white men take the strongbox. Women weep. Men weep.

At sunrise I approach the wagon train. From the ridge I can see the smoke rising from the burnt wagon. I kick the black horse and gallop into the camp. My hat blows off as I dismount while the black horse is still running. I don’t ask what happened; I don’t need to ask.

“How many were there?” I survey the damage—the three bodies covered from the neck down some yards away. The faces are ashen, unreal seeming. The dead boy looks younger the longer I study him.

“I don’t know, Buck,” one of the men says. “It was quiet and peaceful and then all hell broke loose. Nothing but the flash of powder everywhere and bullets whizzing every which way.”

While I stand there listening and not listening, someone taps on my shoulder. I turn around to find that preacher from the watering hole. He doesn’t say anything. I can see the anger in his clenched jaw and gritted teeth, and then he rears back and punches me square on the jaw.

I wake up and I’m confused; sunlight cuts through haze and my dusty back window. I come fully awake to the nudging and pointy-fingered prodding of Sister Irenaeus. She had the driver’s-side door of my Skylark open and had pushed forward the driver’s seat.

“Mr. Poitier, wake up,” she said. “It is time to work. It’s time for you to build our church.”

“What are you talking about? I’m on my way to California.”

“You have to build our church. That is why the Lord has sent you to us poor sisters.”

“I really believe you misunderstood him,” I said. “I don’t know how to build anything, not even a doghouse.”

“We don’t need a doghouse. We don’t have a dog. We need a church, and you have been sent to build it.”

I moved her away and out of the car and followed her into the chill of the morning. Whether it was the previous day’s hard work on the roof, I do not know, but I felt stiff, creaky, considerably older. I did not have on a shirt and my dark skin glistened; I could feel it glistening, and I became aware of my partial nakedness. I leaned back into the car and grabbed a T-shirt, pulled it on while she pointed with an open hand past the chicken coop.

“It will be built over there,” she said.

Sister Irenaeus led me across the yard, past the chicken coop where Sisters Eusebius and Firmilian were trying to stretch and staple wire netting about twenty yards on to a large clearing. “Here,” she said. “You will build it here, and we will help you.”

I laughed. “Sister, I told you, I don’t know how to build anything, much less a building. No, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll fix my car and get back on the road before you ask me to turn water into wine.”

The other sisters had formed in a huddle behind us. They said nothing, neither to me nor to each other. I smiled weakly as I stepped by them and back toward the chicken coop. Sister Irenaeus and the others followed me back to my car where they hovered like bees making no sound, and yet I could feel them buzzing.

As suggested in my trusty car-service manual, tightening the belts was not so difficult. I used my lug wrench as a pry bar and stuck it between the alternator and the water pump. While I was tightening the bolt on the alternator bracket, contorting my body to keep sufficient pressure on the bar to keep the belt taut, I noticed the faces of the sisters under the hood with me, staring at my progress. I managed to get the bolt tight, and they all said, “ahhhh,” as I pulled away.

“You are good with tools,” Sister Irenaeus said.

“Nice try, Sister,” I said.

I tossed my tools in the trunk and shut it, then fell in behind the wheel. I turned the key and the engine started and ran smoothly, at least as smoothly as it ever had. I decided that it was best to say good-bye from inside the car, that I might feel less guilt if I were already rolling away, as opposed to a more formal standing, hand-shaking farewell. Even then I laughed at myself, wondering why I should feel guilt at all. For what? Refusing to perform a task I was incapable of doing? I drove away. I leaned out the window and waved as I approached the bend in the dirt drive. They did not wave, but looked to the sky. The mere thought of them praying should have been enough to keep me driving and yet their faces were so innocent, so open, so, so stupid. I got to the highway and drove back toward Smuteye.

My stomach was twisted with hunger, and so I stopped at the sadly, but no doubt aptly, named Smuteye Diner. It was not a railcar, not even a large Airstream trailer, but a sad rectangle of a mobile home, set up on cinder blocks with a bent set of prefab metal stairs. I entered and sat at the counter.

A large woman turned to me and smiled. “Food?” she asked.

“Please,” I said.

She pointed over her broad shoulder at the menu hand printed with a marker on a poster board.

“What’s good?” I asked.

“It’s all good,” she said. “At least it’s all the same.”

“I’ll have two scrambled eggs.”

“Bacon or sausage?”

“Bacon, I guess.”

“We’re out of bacon,” she said.

“Then why did you … ”

“I was just joking,” she laughed. “We got bacon, lots of it.”

I was relieved and relaxed by her sense of humor.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “It’s hard to get here and here ain’t on the way to no place else. Believe me, I know. So, you’re family to somebody here, which I doubt, or you’re lost.”

“I was lost. I think I know where I am now.”

“You think so, you do?” she said. “You want coffee?” She was already breaking eggs one-handed into a bowl.

I didn’t want to stop her. “Maybe later.”

“Got lost in the night?”

“Late yesterday. I ended up fixing a roof for some crazy nuns or something. I guess they couldn’t be nuns.”

“Pentecostals,” she said.

I nodded. The sound of the bacon on the griddle and the smell of it were making me hungrier.

“Those poor sisters,” she said. “They come here from Montana or someplace because somebody left some land to their church.”

“North Dakota,” I said.

“What?”

“They came from North Dakota.”

“What did I say?”

“Montana.”

“Well, it don’t make no difference no way. It might as well be Russia, it’s so far away. Anyway, I suppose they’ll be hitchhiking back there soon enough. You can’t eat dirt.”

“They want to build a church,” I said.

The woman laughed a big laugh. She had a big laugh and it went with her big hair. It was a mountain of black hair with red streaks and big loop earrings stuck out of it.

“They might do it.”

She smiled at me. “You liked them, huh?” She slid the paper plate of eggs and bacon in front of me. I studied the plate as the grease stained the paper around the edges of the food. “Toast will be right up.”

“Thanks.” I took a bite. “Good.”

“If them sisters build anything, it’ll be a miracle.”

“I think they’ll do it.”

“You’re as crazy as they are. What’s your name, crazy man?”

“Poitier,” I said. “Sidney Poitier.”

“You do look just like him. But what’s your name?”

“Sadly, that is my name.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. What’s your name?”

“Diana Ross,” she said. “Got you!”

“That was good.”

“You name’s not Sidney Poitier, is it?”

What a question she had put to me without even knowing what she was doing, and so I answered truthfully the question she didn’t know she was asking. “It is.”

“Must be rough,” she said. She scraped the griddle with a wide spatula. “Having the same name and looking so much like him.”

“Not so rough. I’m better looking.”

She laughed. “I like you. Where you on your way to?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Sidney Poitier would be.” She put a plate of toast in front of me.

“So, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not as pretty a name as yours. My name is Diana, but it’s Diana Frump.”

“Frump?”

“Frump.”

“I like Poitier better,” I said.

“Thought you might.”

“Diana is a pretty name.”

“Thanks for saying so.” She poured ketchup from a big plastic bottle into smaller plastic bottles.

“Tell me what you know about the sisters.”

“Oh, they come around here every so often. That bossy one gets on my nerves a little, to tell the truth. What’s her name?”

“Irenaeus,” I said.

“Yeah, whatever. And that’s another thing, who the hell can say those names, much less remember them? There’s Oxygen and Firmament and then the others. Anyway, they come round here looking for donations. I don’t get many customers in the first place, and I don’t want them bothered for handouts.”

I nodded.

“They even asked me for money. Want to build a church. I ain’t got nothing extra. Nobody around here does. I say, ‘Why don’t you get it from your main church office, whatever you call it?’ and that Sister Iranus gives me this dumbass look like she’ll pray for me. I don’t say nothing. I’m a good Christian. I’m a Baptist. I should be the one praying for her. Hell, we got us a church.”

The screen door opened, and a short man in a ball cap walked in. “Hey, Diana,” he said.

“Hey, Dan.”

The man sat next to me at the counter and said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said.

Diana put a cup of coffee in front of him. “We were just talking about the sisters.”

“Those crazies?” he said. “Gonna build themselves a church. Out of what, is what I want to know.”

“They might,” I said. I didn’t know why I said it.

“I don’t see how,” he said. “They ain’t got no money. I wish they did. We could use some jobs around here. There used to be a paper mill up the road about a thousand years ago.”

I put down my plastic fork and knife and wiped my mouth with my paper napkin and considered just how much money I had. I could finance this church myself. The thought of it was repulsive in some ways, since I found religion generally offensive and off putting; my mother had always been adamantly opposed to absolutely anything having to do with the notion of a so-called higher being. But my impetuous, abrupt, and inexplicable desire to assist the forlorn sisters had nothing to do with a god, religion, a sudden onset of a messiah complex or/and certainly not my own (perhaps, sadly needed) salvation. It had simply to do with a newfound and fairly ironic way to spend my ridiculously easy-to-come-by money.

“May I use your phone?” I asked.

“There’s a pay phone on the side of the trailer over there.” She pointed. “Next to the porta-johnny. It’s the only phone I got. Need quarters?”

“No, thanks.” I excused myself, nodded to Dan, and left the diner. The screen door slammed. The phone was not in a booth, but bolted to the vinyl side of the trailer. I placed a collect call to Podgy, and while I waited to be connected I studied the words, names, and numbers scratched into the wall.

I hate Farley

Jiggles Boatwright sucks for free

Call Janifer 234-756

Sheraff Purkins is a shithole

If you here reading this you fucked

Podgy accepted my call. “I need you in Smuteye, Alabama,” I said.

“Who is this?”

“It’s me. Sidney.”

“I know no Sidney.”

“Not Sidney,” I corrected myself.

“Mr. Poitier?”

“It’s me. I need you down here in Smuteye, Alabama.”

“Surely, there is no such place.”

“There is and I’m here.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No, I want you to build something.”

“What?”

“A church,” I said, not quite believing it. There was thick, awkward silence. “Podgy?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s me, Podgy,” I said, again. “Not Sidney.”

“I will not come to a place called Smuteye,” he said.

“I want to build a church for someone.”

“I know nothing about building. You have money. Hire somebody. I am too busy with the network. I am producing a special about the rap music.”

I looked at the phone in my hand. He was right. I had a checkbook. It was my money. I didn’t need Podgy Patel holding my hand. “You’re absolutely right, Podgy,” I said.

“I know I’m right. Just as I know there is no Smuteye. You are too funny, Mr. Not Sidney. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back with my posse.”

I drove back to the sisters’ place and found them, frighteningly, much as I had left them, with their heads upturned stupidly to the sky. Of course my return could only be construed as prayers answered, and who was I to dispute this belief? After all, my complete faith in the nonexistence of their god notwithstanding, I was at a loss to explain my reappearance.

“We knew you would come back,” Sister Irenaeus said as I got out of my car. There was an arrogance in her tone that made me immediately sorry I’d returned. Yet I did not leave. Inexplicably.

“I’d like to talk to you,” I said. “To all of you.”

They stared at me.

“Can we go inside?”

We marched up the one step, through the solid wooden door, and into the austere two-room building. I assumed the room in the back was where they slept. I gestured for them to sit and so they did. The windows were shut tight and so it was not only hot inside, but airless.

“So, you want to build a church,” I said.

“You know that is true,” Sister Irenaeus said. The others nodded.

“Do you have a plan for this structure?” I asked.

“We do.” Sister Irenaeus looked over at Sister Firmilian and nodded. Sister Firmilian got up and walked to the writing table against the far wall. She opened the drawer, withdrew a paper, and brought it to me.

I looked at it. It was a crude sketch on lined, white-notebook leaf. Two angles were depicted—from above and from in front. The church was to be a rectangle with a pitched roof.

“What do you think?” Sister Irenaeus asked.

“I don’t know how to build a church,” I told them. “However, I have a lot of money.” I let this sit with them for a moment. “And I’m willing to pay for the materials and labor to have it built.”

All their eyes lit up.

“God has answered our prayers,” Sister Irenaeus said.

Sisters Chrysostom and Eusebius immediately went into a state and started rattling away in tongues; their eyes rolled up into their heads and pretty much scared the living shit out of me. The other three carried on as if nothing was happening.

“As I was saying, I will pay for your church. But you’re going to have to find an architect to draw something usable.”

“You will do that for us,” Sister Irenaeus said.

“No, you have to do it.”

“God has sent you.”

“No, bad judgment has sent me.” I pulled out my checkbook and started writing. “This is for fifty thousand dollars. This should get you started.”

“I do not have a bank account,” Sister Irenaeus said.

I looked at her.

“We have no money,” Sister Origen said.

“You will take care of it for us,” Sister Irenaeus said.

“No,” I said, sick of saying it. “I’ll find a bank, cash a check, bring you the money, and then I’ll leave.” With that I walked out, thinking that I should forget everything, but I’d told them I’d give them the money and so I would. I wondered as I fell in behind my steering wheel if there was a bank in Smuteye.

The sign on the one-story brick building set between a dry goods store and a defunct mortuary said Smuteye Farmers Savings and Loan, and I had no reason to doubt it. I parked diagonally in an unmarked space, only because the one other car there was so parked. It was across the street from nothing. The bank was quite naturally tiny: one old-fashioned teller’s window with one old-fashioned teller, a man, and just one desk on the floor behind which sat an old white woman with a canister of platinum blond hair set upon her small head. Since the check I sought to cash was relatively large I went to the desk instead of the teller.

“I’d like to cash a check,” I said.

“I see,” she said without really looking up at me, though I knew that she had looked me over and was still doing so. “Well, have a seat and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

I sat.

“I don’t believe you have an account with us.”

“That’s true, I don’t have an account here. And it’s a rather large check I’d like to cash,” I told her.

“Hmmm. How large?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

She whistled and I thought I saw a disbelieving smile behind her cat-eyed, horn-rimmed bifocals. “Hmmm. Is it a cashier’s check?” she asked.

“No, it’s my own personal check.”

“I see.” She showed no reaction. At least she showed no reaction that I, not knowing her, was able to read. She began to rearrange the items on her desk. She moved her stapler a few inches to her left, then her coffee cup of pencils and pens toward her a short distance. She fussed with the edge of the blotter. “The problem, young man. What is your name?”

“Poitier.”

“The problem, Mr. Poitier, is that I don’t know you.”

“That’s very true,” I said.

“I’ve never seen you.”

I nodded. I understood her position and her reservation completely. “Would it be possible for me to have the funds transferred here from another bank?”

“You mean a wire transfer?”

“Yes.”

“You could do that. That would give us permission to dispense the money, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t create the cash for us to dispense. You see, we don’t have that kind of money.”

“This is a bank?”

“A savings and loan,” she corrected me. “Mr. Poitier, this is Smuteye, Alabama.”

I nodded.

“The only reason I’m not stepping on the alarm under my desk, aside from the fact that it doesn’t work, is that any fool can see that there’s no money here in this godforsaken hamlet.”

All of this was no doubt true, and I felt the requisite amount of pity for her and her community, but all I said was, “So, how would I go about getting my money?”

“I guess you could go over to Eufaula. Troy is closer. The bank in Perote might be able to help you. That’s not far at all.”

“Thank you.” I started to leave, then asked, “Are there any architects around here?”

She pretended to consider my question. “I don’t think so.” I was impressed that she was able to say it without a hint of sarcasm. Neither did she show any interest in why I might need or want so much money in Smuteye.

I nodded.

As I drove those desolate Alabama back roads it became clear to me, through no feat of intellect, that my merely suggesting to someone that I’d like to cash a personal and out-of-state check for such a large amount would do far more than find a raised eyebrow as accompaniment to a resounding no. And like the Smuteye Farmers Savings and Loan, the local Western Union offices were not likely to have enough money to accommodate such a hefty wire. So I was left to wonder just how I would deliver the money I had promised to the sisters. I stopped at a truck stop, a lot full of big rigs and Confederate flags, and called Podgy from a pay phone. From where I sat I watched a fat trucker play a video game and watched another walk out of the washroom still brushing his teeth.

“Okay, Podgy, how can I get fifty grand down here to Smuteye, Alabama?” I asked.

“I will wire it to you.”

“They don’t … nobody here has that kind of money. Not even the Western Union office.”

“You must go to a bigger city.”

“Or you can bring it to me.”

“I will not come to a place called Smuteye.”

“Podgy,” I whined.

“No.” Then, away from the phone, he said, “Cool, I will be right there, my good dog.”

“All right, Podgy. Find a bank in—” I looked at my map, “—Montgomery that can or will handle the transfer and let me know where it is. I’ll call you in a few hours so you can tell me. What are you doing?”

“I am running your network.”

“Good,” I said. “Carry on.”

“Awright, dog.”

I hung up and rubbed my chin, found it stubbly. I bought a razor and some shaving cream in the little store and then walked into the giant washroom. There I shaved while truckers in undershirts brushed teeth and washed hairy pits. No matter how they scrubbed they looked nothing like Sidney Poitier, but I looked just like him and so they stared. They stared at Sidney Poitier’s face in the mirror and I stared at it, too. The face was smooth, brown, older than I remembered, handsome. The face in the mirror smiled and I had to smile back.

It was very late afternoon when I arrived in Montgomery, and it was everything I thought it would be and less. It was a sad and depressed place, but it was clear it felt it had some chance of revival. People greeted me, waved, said hello, and were generally quite polite. I grabbed a bite in a diner in which every item on the menu was fried, ate a chicken-fried-steak sandwich and drank a very sweet iced tea. The banks were already closed, and I had yet to call Podgy to find out where I would collect my money. I had come to understand that my skin color and youth were an impediment to my being taken seriously, and so I thought I might overcome a bit of this appearance difficulty by at least dressing in a suit. I stopped at a JCPenney located in a mall on a giant circle of a road and bought one. It was black, the jacket snug fitting in the shoulders, the trousers tapering in the leg and slightly short at the ankle. With the crisp white shirt and the narrow black tie and black leather-soled shoes to replace my sneakers, I could have added dark glasses and been of the Fruit of Islam, but instead I was, I believed, nonthreatening, safe.

I checked myself into a motel, lay back on the too-soft bed, and called Podgy, and he told me the name and address of the bank that would be expecting me. I hung up and stared up at the particularly gross ceiling. I could have questioned my motives for helping the sisters, and the fact that I think it now must mean that somehow I did, but I don’t recall doing so. I watched television and settled on my own network. Music video after music video, a gospel-music special, a stand-up so-called comedy hour, and Punjabi Profiles. I drifted in and out of sleep until I was moored in an awake state and looking back and forth at the lightening sky through partially closed blinds and paid programming about a very special mop. I remembered a troubling dream that I’d had. In it my new black dress shoes were far too small and this worried me greatly as I had someplace to be, but when I tried them in the morning they fit perfectly fine, oddly better than they had in the store.

At the First National Bank of Alabama, I straightened my tie and walked inside. The bank building was far larger than the one-room savings and loan in Smuteye. It was in fact grand. A uniformed guard stood near the glass and brass front doors, a line of tellers stood behind a grand carved wooden barrier, and an island of the same ornate wood dominated the center of the vast room. Behind the tellers, bank people did bank work and talked bank talk and walked bankly back and forth. I walked to the reception desk, signed the list, and sat in the waiting area.

The bank officer, a Miss Hornsby, who received me did not rise from the seat behind her desk, but said as I sat, “My, but you look just like Sidney Poitier. I mean just like him.”

I nodded. “I’m Not Sidney Poitier.”

“Of course you’re not.” She was a middle-aged woman who had probably grown up on a steady diet of Sidney Poitier. Her graying hair was dyed blond and her makeup did more to reveal cracks than cover them.

“No, what I’m telling you is that I’m Not Sidney Poitier.”

“And I’m telling you I understand that fact.”

I looked at my notes from having talked to Podgy. “Is there a Mr. Scrunchy here?”

She looked offended. “Yes, there is.”

“May I speak to him?”

She was certainly offended. “I’ll get him.”

Extremely tall and bald Mr. Scrunchy answered the intercom call by walking over to Miss Hornsby’s desk. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“This man here, who has informed me that he is not Sidney Poitier, refuses to understand that I don’t believe he is Sidney Poitier.”

“So, you’re Not Sidney Poitier,” Scrunchy said.

“I am,” I said.

“I’ve been expecting you. Why don’t you come over to my desk, Mr. Poitier.” Then to the woman, he said, “I’ll take it from here, Miss Hornsby.”

The stunned Miss Hornsby licked her painted lips and said nothing as I rose and followed Scrunchy to his office. Scrunchy walked with a slight limp, the rhythm of which I found it difficult to not fall into. I followed him into his office. One wall was a window that looked out into the bank. He walked around and sat behind his giant desk, and I sat opposite him in a chair somewhat lower than his.

“Mr. Poitier,” he said.

I nodded. “Mr. Patel has arranged everything?” I said.

“He has, indeed. He wired the money this morning. If I may see some identification?”

I pulled my wallet from my hip pocket and removed my driver’s license, realizing as I was doing so that it was bogus. I had never bothered to get a real one. He took it from me, glanced quickly at it, and returned it.

“I’m satisfied,” he said.

“May I have my money?”

He signaled through the big window and across the room to another man. “Of course you may have your money,” he said. “It’s an awful lot of cash to be carrying around.”

The man came into the office, and he had with him a small green vinyl satchel that he placed on Scrunchy’s desk. He was broad in the shoulders and thick in the belly, with sunken eyes and dark bushy brows punctuating his stern expression. He gave me the once-over and then walked out.

“Cheery.”

Scrunchy pushed the bag across the desk toward me, and as he did I realized that he was frighteningly correct. It was a lot of money to be walking around with. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“You should count it,” Scrunchy said.

“I trust you,” I lied.

“I’m afraid I have to insist that you count it. Liability and all that. You can do it right here. I should watch of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

And he did watch while I opened the satchel and pulled out ten-thousand-dollar bundle after ten-thousand-dollar bundle.

“It’s all hundreds,” the banker said.

“Of course,” I said.

He watched while I counted to 100 five times, fanning through the bundles, having to stop and start over a couple of times.

“That’s a lot of money,” he said as I finished.

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, if that’s all,” he said and turned his attention to a stack of pages on his desk.

With the money back in the bag, I stood to leave.

“Be careful, Mr. Poitier,” he said without looking up.

I felt like an idiot walking out of the bank with the money. More, I felt like a sitting duck, a dead duck, a chump, easy pickings, a babe in the woods, dead meat, a victim waiting to happen, a complete and utter fool. In the bright sunlight I was immediately concerned with what or who was behind me, beside me, waiting for me. I hoped Podgy had not babbled anything to Scrunchy about Smuteye, so at least no one would know where I was going. I could hear him saying in his singsong way, “I must wire the money because I cannot bring myself to go to a place called Smuteye. What kind of name is that anyway?”

I suppose there is no need to mention how terrified I was as I fell in behind the wheel of my car. Though I was not savvy or talented enough to spot them, I knew they were there—the watchers, the robbers, the highwaymen, snaggletoothed spawn of aging grand dragons. I drove my shaking and stupid suited self to the edge of town and beyond, into deep Alabama. It was still early in the day. At least I had that going for me and then I imagined it would be going for them as well, as I was fairly easy to spot—my black face behind the wheel of my yellow Skylark. I drove past the suburbs and onto the highway and, when there were no cars in front of me or behind me, I pulled off onto a little dirt lane and from that into a firebreak, out of view from the road, There I sat, for hours, waiting and hoping that I was waiting for nothing. Cars hummed past on the highway, and I didn’t know who they were or where they were going, only that they kept going. I fell asleep.

Night fell and I awoke to find it unwanted and all over me. I once again recalled the song “Stars Fell on Alabama” and again thought that was never true. This night was even darker than the last one. I moved to start my engine and then I heard it—singing or chanting. I reached up and removed the cover from my dome light, then removed the bulb. I opened the door and felt my way about twenty yards to the edge of a clearing. As if waiting for me to arrive, a torch was put to a tall cross, and it lit up darkness some two football fields from me. I watched the hooded heads walk around doing hooded things and making hooded speeches that I could not hear. The only thing that was certain was that I wasn’t going anywhere at that moment. The white-clad idiots hadn’t spotted me, and unless I decided to do something stupid like light a cigarette or shout out to them, they weren’t going to. They prayed and sang and yakked, and then some two hours later they began to clear out in a single-file queue of glowing headlights. I waited until the last pickup was gone, and, not until I thought the cross was cold and only then, did I go back to my car, start it, and leave.