Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (29 page)

I began to feel some of my audience drifting away. I handed the dealer a hundred dollar bill. “I’ll take some of those five-dollar chips, baby.” Without counting them I pushed a stack of blue chips forward. Someone said, “Yeah. Go, Sammy. Break the bank.” I won. I let it all ride. A woman yelled, “Arnold, come over here. Sammy Davis is playing. Hurry, Arnold.” The dealer was all but handing me the chips in a shovel. He looked at the mountain of them spilling over the whole table in front of me. “You want twenty-five-dollar chips for these, Sammy?” “No thanks, baby. These are doing fine for me.” The crowd was three deep around the table now. I pushed the whole pile forward. “Shoot the works.”

“Oh my God, Arnold, will you look what he’s doing?” “It’s peanuts to him. Do you know what he makes a week?”

The dealer flipped the cards around the table as casually as if he were dealing to silver dollars. The crowd was silent. The ace of diamonds slid face up in front of me. I opened my down card. The jack of hearts. There was a roar behind me as if I’d just gone off on “Birth of the Blues.” Arnold’s wife was going out of her mind and people were pounding me on the back as the dealer stacked hundred-dollar-chips against my bet and then added half again, the bonus for blackjack.

I wasn’t going to top that moment. I pulled the mass of chips toward me and dropped a handful of them into the dealer’s shirt
pocket. “Thanks, Sammy.” A woman moaned. “You’re not stopping, are you?” I smiled. “It’s a definite quit while I’m ahead.” As the crowd opened up for me I heard, “Hurry. Sit there, Arnold. It’s a lucky seat.”

I walked through the casino, both hands holding the bundle of chips against my chest … “Hey, Sammy, y’want some help gettin’ rid of those?” … “How much you sock ‘em for, kid?” … “The rich get richer, don’t they?” … A deputy rushed ahead of me to help me with the door.

Outside, alone, I had to fight an urge to throw the chips in the air like confetti. It was such a joke. Such a big, fat joke.

On my way to breakfast, I passed a couple of the chorus kids sunbathing around the pool. I did bits with them for a few minutes, had some coffee, wandered over to the casino and sat at the bar drinking a coke and watching the action. A middle-aged guy with a swinging-looking blonde raised his glass and smiled. “You’re the greatest, Sammy.”

The bartender said to me, quietly, “Now there’s a guy who lives. Hits town every Friday like clockwork. But with a different wife every week.”

The manager sat down on the stool next to me. “Sammy, I hope you won’t mind, but, I’d consider it a favor if you’d try not to spend too much time around the pool.”

I looked him in the eye, waiting for “It’s not that
we
mind but you know how people are….” A woman was screaming “Jackpot! Jackpot!”

He said, “You saw what happened in the casino when you played last night. There were shooters playing ten times as big as you were, but nobody paid any attention to them. Whenever a star sits down at a table he draws a crowd. And it’s fine, no harm there. But if you hang around the pool during the day you’ll attract crowds there, too, and frankly we’d just as soon not have you pull them away from the tables. Naturally, if you feel like a swim, fine, but we’ll appreciate it if you’ll keep it down to a minimum.”

The pulse in my forehead began slowing down to normal again. I smiled. “I don’t know how to swim anyway. Besides, I’ve already got my tan.”

I walked around, found a blackjack table that looked good and ran $500 into a twenty-five-dollar chip. I dropped it into the dealer’s shirt pocket and stood up. “Thanks, Sammy. Tough luck.”

“I’ll get even tonight, baby.”

He smiled and continued shuffling the cards.

I stopped at a dice table and watched a comic I knew from the coast. “How y’doing, baby?”

He made a wry face. “Great. I got here in an $8000 Cadillac and I’m leaving in an $80,000 bus!”

I grinned at the old joke, did one back at him, and wandered around a while longer doing all the Vegas clichés. As I walked toward the steam room I knew I should be concerned over losing $500 in ten minutes, but I just couldn’t feel it.

I was dressing after the second show when one of the boy dancers came into the dressing room. “No party tonight?”

“Sorry, baby. Gotta run into L.A. I’m doing the sound track for
Six Bridges to Cross.”

He looked at my rack of clothes and stroked the sleeve of a gray silk. “Crazy-looking threads.”

I lifted the suit off the rack and handed it to him. “Wear it in good health.”

“Hey, Jesus, no—I didn’t mean—”

“No big deal, baby. I’d like you to have it.”

I heard him down the hall. “You won’t believe what Sammy Davis just did. I was standing in his dressing room looking at this suit …”

I felt like Frank had always looked—like a star to my fingertips.

As I stepped out of the dressing room, someone grabbed my arm. “Whattya say, chicky?”

“Jess, you nut. When’d you get in?”

“Ten minutes ago. How’s it going?” He walked outside with me.

“We’re doing all the business in town and it’s been the ball of all time.”

“What’ve you been doing?”

“I do what everybody else does.” I stopped at the sound of my own words, gripped by the understanding of their meaning. I snapped myself out of it. “Listen, here’s the skam. I’m driving to L.A. to do the sound track for
Six Bridges
, I’ll be back tomorrow, sixish, we’ll grab some steam, then it’s a little din-din, and you can catch the show.” I tapped him on the arm. “Meanwhile, grab a chick, have some booze, sign my name, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I took the long way around to my room, through the casino, just for the sheer joy of walking through it. The deputy sheriff standing
just inside the door gave me a big “Hi’ya, Sammy.” I waved back and kept moving through all the action. Some guys at a dice table made room for me. “Come on in, Sammy. We’ve got a hot shooter.”

“Thanks. Can’t tonight. Gotta run into L.A. Catch y’tomorrow.”

I browsed through my clothes. Something sporty … gray flannel slacks and a cashmere jacket, and maybe a plain black silk shirt. Perfect. Not “Hollywood,” just casual. Very “cinema.”

I took out a pair of levis and a sweater to wear in the car and called Room Service for a hamburger.

I’d just finished showering when there was a knock on the door. One of the chorus chicks was standing there, smiling.

“Hey, this hotel has crazy room service.” She laughed. I told her, “Darling, I sent Charley around to say there’d be no party tonight. I have to go into L.A.”

“I know.” She stepped in. “But he said you weren’t leaving ‘til three. I thought maybe you’d like some company while you were getting dressed.” I watched her disappear into the bedroom. The doors weren’t only opening, they were swinging!

Charley was waiting in the car. I climbed into the back seat and stretched out. The big neon sign in front of the hotel was flashing my name on and off and I lay there enjoying a delicious drowsiness. As we turned off the Strip and onto the highway I said, “Keep it under fifty, baby. Let’s break this car in so smooth that she’ll sing ballads.” I felt around my chest for my mezuzah. I sat up. Maybe the chain had opened. I reached inside my shirt, around my waist, but it wasn’t there. I distinctly remembered taking it off to shower, but I couldn’t recall putting it back on again. It must have slipped off the dresser, and with the chick there and in the hurry of leaving, I hadn’t noticed. I was tempted to turn around and go back for it, but we’d been traveling at least twenty minutes and it would mean losing an hour.

I lay back watching the stars through the window. There were three particularly bright ones in a row, like magnificent diamond studs on a black velvet vest. The desert air was sweet and clear and it seemed a shame that all that beauty had always been there to be enjoyed but when I’d most needed this kind of contentment I’d never had the peace of mind to be able to find it; somehow, it had never looked the same through the windows of a bus. I closed my eyes. The rolling of the car increased my drowsiness, and I let myself sink deeper and more comfortably into it.

Why do they always say hospital sheets are cool and crisp? They were hot and sticky. And I didn’t have to ask “Where am I?” I sensed it or smelled it or remembered it. The room was very dark, I turned my head from one side to the other but there wasn’t a crack of light—a bulb, the moon—nothing! It was too dark just to be night. I must have been near an open window because I felt a gust of air pass over me, hot and thick like it never is at night. I heard cars moving outside. Slowly. A lot of them. I could hear a radio soap opera playing, people talking in a daytime tone and walking carelessly down the corridor. There definitely was daylight around me. I just couldn’t see it.

I grabbed for my legs but my arms wouldn’t move. My hands could feel iron bars on both sides of me and if I had hands then I had to have arms. I kicked my legs and heard them swishing against
the bedsheets. I banged my feet together so hard that they hurt. Thank God I had feet. There was terrible pressure around my head. I stretched my neck toward my hands to feel what was wrong.

“Don’t touch your bandages, Mr. Davis. Everything is all right.”

It was a woman’s voice. I fell back against the pillow. Oh, God. I can’t see, I can’t move, and everything-is-all-right-Mr. Davis. “Are you a nurse? Am I blind?”

“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“But I can’t see! Am I blind?”

“You have bandages over your eyes. You were in a bad automobile accident.”

“Please!
I know that. Just tell me yes or no.
Am I blind?”

“No. You’re not blind.”

Naturally she’d say that. They wouldn’t let a nurse break it to me. Not like this, not the second I wake up.

“If you promise not to pull at your bandages I can take the straps off your arms now.”

“Thank you.” I felt my legs. They were okay. There was a small bandage on the palm of my right hand. I put my hands to my face, slowly, so she wouldn’t think I was pulling at the bandages. I started touching them at the top of my head but I couldn’t feel my skin until I got to my mouth. I was wrapped up like a mummy.

I turned my head toward the sound of footsteps coming into the room. “Good morning, Mr. Davis. I’m Doctor Hull. How are you feeling?”

I nodded, waiting. He wasn’t saying anything and I was suddenly afraid he would. “Look doc, I know this sounds like a B-movie, but, where am I?”

“This is the Community Hospital at San Bernardino. You were operated on last night.”

“You operated on me?”

“Yes.”

“Doctor, please—will I be able to dance? Am I … blind?”

“You’re not blind. You’re going to see. You’ll be able to dance and sing and do everything you ever did. But I removed your left eye.”

I distinctly heard the words, but the tone—it was like “Shall we have lunch?” Nobody could be so casual as to say, “Ho hum, I took out your eye.”

“Mr. Davis, losing an eye isn’t as tragic as it seems when you first hear it.”

He really
had
said it.

“Try not to touch the bandages.”

I dropped my hands. I felt like an idiot. Here a man tells me he took out my eye and I’m checking to see if he’s kidding.

“You’re handling it very bravely.”

“Doc, you’d better tell me some more about it ‘cause I’m about to be the scaredest brave man you ever saw.”

“We’ll discuss it in detail when you’re rested, but for the moment what it amounts to is that you struck your left eye against the pointed cone in the center of your steering wheel. When you were brought here yesterday morning …”

Yesterday? If a whole night went by, then what happened in Vegas? Who did the show?

“… the doctors on duty felt that although the eye was severely damaged there was still a possibility of saving it, so they called me because I specialize in this sort of operation. When I examined you I agreed that it might be saved. However, from the amount of damage done, the best you’d ever have had in that eye would be ten per cent vision. Although that would seem to justify saving it, we’ve learned that the damaged eye pulls, or leans, so heavily on the good one that eventually the healthy eye is weakened and the patient suffers what we call ‘sympathetic blindness.’ As a result, in a few years you might have had almost no sight at all and for that reason I recommended the removal …”

The bed was turning and I grabbed for the bars … I don’t have to hold on, I can’t fall off. The bed isn’t really moving. I took deep breaths, trying to fight the nausea.

“With one perfectly healthy eye you’ll have excellent vision. As for appearance, you’ll have an artificial eye and eventually no one but you will know the difference.”

“A glass eye?”

“We don’t use glass any more. They’re made of plastic. In any event you’ll be wearing a patch for a while.”

“Aha. Floyd Gibbons, eh?”

His hand was on my arm. “That’s the spirit. I know it’s a tremendous shock to find that you have only one eye, but the eye is lost and that cannot be changed. You can take the attitude that everything else is lost, too—and it will be, or you can take the attitude that you still have one perfect eye. You can see. You have both legs and both arms. You have a relatively small adjustment to make
before resuming a completely normal life. Try to not think of what you’ve lost but of how much you still have.”

Suddenly I was exhausted. I felt myself falling asleep as he spoke.

My father was holding my hand between both of his. Will was on the other side of the bed, patting my shoulder.

“Hi, Dad, Massey. Where’s Mama?”

“I’m right here, Sammy.”

“How y’doing, Mama?”

“I’m fine.”

“When’d you hear about it, Dad?”

“Well, Will here was sleepin’ when it come over the radio and someone got him up and told him. I guess I was kinda good-timin’ it downtown, but he found me and we caught the first plane out and got a car here from L.A.”

“You flew?”

“We didn’t know what shape you was in. The radio didn’t say nothing but that it was a bad crack-up.” He was squeezing my hand hard. “And what reason’ve I got to live without you, Poppa?”