Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (3 page)

My father told me this was my mother and that I wouldn’t be doing the show that night so I could spend time with her. Then he left us alone in the dressing room.

I looked up at her. “I can dance.”

“No kidding. Let’s see.”

I did one of my father’s routines but she started crying again. “Don’t you like the way I dance?”

“Darlin’, I love everything you do. I know that dance and you did it real good. As good as your daddy.”

That was more like it. I did half our show for her. Then we went outside and she held my hand while we walked.

“You like show business, Sammy?”

“Yes.”

“You happy?”

“Yes.” From the moment we’d left the theater all I could think of was my father and Will would be doing the show without me.

She asked, “How’d you like a nice ice cream soda?”

“No, thank you.”

We came to a toy store. “Let’s go in and buy you a present.” I
didn’t want a present. I just wanted to get back to the theater, but she bought me a ball. Outside, she said, “Let’s see you catch it, darlin’.” I’d never done it before and I put my hands up too late and it hit me on the cheek. It didn’t hurt but it scared me. I just watched it rolling away.

“Get it, Sammy.”

“I don’t want it.” I was sorry as soon as I’d said it.

We walked a few more blocks. “Is there anything you’d like to do?” I didn’t tell her, but she understood.

I ran ahead of her into the dressing room. My father was putting on his make-up. “You do the show yet, Daddy?”

“Nope. You’re just in time.”

I ran for my costume. My mother started to leave but I grabbed her skirt. “Don’t go.”

As I danced I saw her watching me from the wings, and smiling. She liked me and I hadn’t even done my tricks yet. When I went into them I could only see her out of the corner of my eye, but she wasn’t smiling any more. I wasn’t able to turn around again and when I got off she was gone.

My father picked me up. He was hugging me very tight, patting my back, as he walked toward the dressing room. “Your mother had to leave, Poppa. She said to tell you she loves you.”

For no reason I could understand I started to cry.

Mama smiled at the truant officer, “Yes sir, I’ll bring him over tomorrow.” But when he’d gone she told me, “You’re five years old and they want you at the school but I don’t want you to go. You’ll meet all classes of children and I don’t want you playing with nobody’s children.”

From then on she watched at the window for truant officers. The first time she spotted one she told me, “Sammy, now we’re gonna play a game called Fool the School. There’ll be a knock on this door but just sit in your chair and don’t make a sound. We can wait long as he can knock.” Mama stayed at her post near the window until she saw him go down the street. Then, she put a roll of music on the piano and we danced to celebrate how we’d fooled him.

That night, she told my father, “You gotta get him a tutor when you’re on the road ‘cause the bulls are going to lock me up sure if they catch me!”

I stayed around the apartment listening to the radio while my father and Will were at the booking offices looking for work. Sometimes I sat at the window watching the kids skating or throwing a ball around but I had no desire to join them. I didn’t think of things like skating and football or any of the sports kids played, nor did I miss them. They just didn’t fit into my life.

Whenever they could, Will and my father found someone around the theater to tutor me in how to read and write. We’d go into the dressing room between shows and work, and nobody else was allowed in until it was time to dress for the next show.

We moved from New England into the Midwest, working steady, covering most of Michigan in theaters, burlesque houses, and carnivals, changing the size of the act to as many as forty people depending on what the bookers needed. We were in Lansing doing a “Four and a Half”—Will, my father, two other dancers, and me as the half—when a woman came storming backstage with the theater manager. “There he is. It’s shameful.” She was pointing at me. She knelt down and put her arms around me. “Everything’s going to be all right now,” and, glaring at Will and my father, “You Fagins! You should be in jail for what you’re doing to this poor, suffering child.”

I had no idea what a Fagin was, but I knew for sure that I wasn’t suffering. My dancing was getting better, the audiences liked me, and I was always with my father and Massey—I had everything I wanted.

The manager paid Will off that night. “Sorry, but I can’t fight her. She’s too big. If she says the kid’s too young to be on the stage then he’s too young even if he was fifty.”

Will asked, “How about if Sammy don’t work?”

He shook his head. “With the kid you’re a novelty, but I’m up to my ears in straight dance acts.”

Weeks passed as we hung around the parlor of our rooming house hoping for some booker to call, but my benefactor was powerful enough to have closed off all of Michigan to us and all we heard was the landlord telling us: “You owe me twenty-eight dollars now.”

We went to dinner at our usual restaurant and Will looked at the menu hanging on the tile wall.

“The Special is beef stew.”

“That’s what I want,” I said.

My father went to the steam table and brought back a Special. I’d half-finished it when I noticed that they weren’t eating. “Our stomachs are a little upset, Poppa. But you clean your plate. You needs food to stick to your ribs in this kind of weather.”

They watched me eating my stew and the roll that came with it. My father snapped his fingers. “Hey, Will, maybe a cup of soup’d do our stomachs some good.” He finished his soup and crackers. Then he wet his finger, ran it around the inside of the cracker paper and licked off the crumbs that stuck to it. He took a small piece of my roll. “Maybe I’ll just mop up a little of your gravy, Poppa, to see if it’s fresh cooked.”

The next night the Special was chicken and rice but they only had coffee.

“You still sick, Daddy?”

“I’m just not up t’snuff, Poppa.”

“Massey, too?”

“Now Poppa, just eat your dinner and don’t worry none ‘bout us. It’s just bein’ out of work and not doin’ nothin’ for so long, well, we older men don’t need food ‘less we uses up the energy at somethin’.”

The landlord sprang out of the parlor just as we hit the stairs. “No point tryin’ to get into y’r rooms. You’re locked out! I’m holding your things ‘till you pay up.”

Will was stunned. “In all my years in show business nobody ever had to hold my clothes to get paid….”

“Well, I’m holding ‘em now. I’m sick of you show business dead-beats. Maybe you wanta go through life happy-go-lucky without doing a day’s work t’get a day’s pay, but I’m a businessman and I mean t’be paid for my room. If you’re not here with my money in a week I’ll sell your things for junk. Now get outa here before I have y’locked up.”

We stood on the sidewalk outside the rooming house. The temperature had dropped below freezing. Will said, “We’ll go over to the railroad station. It’ll be warm there.”

While I slept on a bench wrapped in my father’s overcoat they took turns walking around the waiting room pretending to use the telephone and asking the station patrolman questions like: “You mean there’s no train out of here ‘til morning?” so we wouldn’t be arrested for vagrancy.

My father was shaking me, gently. “Wake up, Poppa. They’re lockin’ up for the night. We’ll go over to the bus station.” When that
closed at midnight we started walking, looking for any place that would be warm and open, stopping in doorways every few minutes for a break from the fierce wind. Finally we saw a building with a lighted sign, and we ran until we were in front of a small hotel.

My father said to Will, “Lemme handle this.” He sauntered over to the room clerk. “Good evening. I’d like to rent two of your best suites for the night.”

The clerk didn’t look up at him. “We don’t have rooms for you people.”

My father was pointing toward me. “Look, I have a six-year-old boy—can we at least stay in the lobby?”

“You can’t stay here.”

“How ‘bout if we just leave the boy for a few hours? It’s freezing cold outside.”

My father patted my head. “They don’t like show people here, Poppa.” He picked me up. “How’d you like a free ride?” He unbuttoned his overcoat and closed it around the two of us.

Outside, a woman came running up to us. “Excuse me, my name is Helen Bannister. I was in the lobby and saw what happened. I’m on my way home and you’re welcome to come with me, if you like.”

She cooked bacon and eggs and as we all sat around the table Will explained that we were in show business and told her about the trouble we were having. She said, “I have an extra room you can use until you get on your feet.”

Two days later Will burst into the house holding up a handful of money. “We’re booked in Atlanta, Georgia, and I’ve got an advance.” He tried to pay Miss Bannister at least for our food, but she wouldn’t accept anything. “What happened to you the other night was inexcusable. I’m embarrassed by it. We’re not all like that. I’m happy that I was able to help you.”

As we left my father said, “Once a year we oughta say the name of Helen Bannister. That lady saved our lives.”

We were playing a roadhouse in Hartford, Connecticut. My father said, “Tell y’what, Poppa. We got the day off, whattya say we take in a movie?”

Halfway through the picture he leaned over and whispered, “You stay here and watch the picture, son. I’ll just be next door at the bar gettin’ me a few skull-busters. Be back for you like always.”

The picture was going on for the third time when I felt his hand on my arm. “You ready to go now, Poppa?”

We stopped for dinner, then he took me back to the hotel. “See you later, Poppa. I’ve got some things to do.”

I knew he was going out drinking. He’d been doing it for some time.

The next day, in the dressing room, I asked Will why. “Your daddy’s lonely, Sammy, that’s all it is. There’s no one he cares about and it makes him feel bad. The whiskey makes him feel better.”

“Don’t he care about me?”

“He cares the whole world about you, Sammy. But he needs a woman to love, too. You’ll understand some day….” He took hold of my hand and made me stand up. “Take off your clothes and hang them up. Never sit around in what you wear on the stage. We’ve always had the name of the best-dressed colored act in the business and we’re gonna keep that name.”

I undressed immediately, embarrassed because I’d known better. One is about all we ever had of anything but you’d never see wrinkles in our pants or make-up on our shirts and we shined our shoes every time we came off so they were ready for the next show.

As I started my big number my father slipped out into the audience and on cue, a half-dollar flew toward me and clanged noisily onto the stage. I danced to it, picked it up, flipped it in the air, caught it, put it in my pocket and nodded. “Thank you,” without losing a beat, and it started raining money.

My pockets were so heavy with coins that I could hardly dance in our closing. When we got to the dressing room I dumped the money onto a table, “Hey, Poppa, this looks like our best night yet.” He stacked the nickels, dimes, and quarters. “Twelve eighty-five! You realize this is as much as we get in salary for a whole night’s shows?” He swung me in the air, laughing. “You’re the breadwinner, Poppa. Damned if you ain’t. You, I, and Will are gonna bust loose tonight. We’ll put on our best clothes, go over to the Lobster Restaurant and have us some real full-course dinners.”

Our party was going full blast when my father was suddenly very drunk. I tried not to let him see I’d noticed but he snapped, “Why’re you lookin’ away from me?” All the laughter was gone and he was glaring across the table at me. His eyes narrowed. “You’re holdin’ out money!” Before I could deny it he slapped me and I fell off the chair. “I’ll teach you to cheat your own father….” I lay on the
floor waiting for something to happen. I opened my eyes and looked up. He was standing over me, crying, his arms hanging loose at his sides, staring at me, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he’d done. He knelt down, picked me up, and carrying me in his arms walked out of the restaurant hugging and kissing me. “Oh God, I’m sorry, Poppa. I didn’t mean it. Honest I didn’t mean it.”

“I didn’t hold out money, Daddy.”

“I know, Poppa, I know.”

In the middle of my big number the next night I saw him watching me from his place behind me. He looked sadder than I’d ever seen him. I kept trying to let him see me smiling at him so he’d know it was okay.

When we got off Will took me aside. “You didn’t have your flash tonight. And you weren’t dancing, neither. Now I know you’re troubling and you’re worried about Big Sam, but you can’t take any thoughts onstage with you except the show you’re doing. That’s the first rule of show business. Always be thinking when you’re out there or the audience’ll start to out-think you and then you’ll lose them.”

I knew I’d done badly. “I’m sorry I lost ‘em, Massey.”

He put his arm around me. “We all have troubles sometimes, Mose Gastin, but those people out front don’t want to know ‘em. No matter how bad you’re hurting, leave your troubles here in the wings, and come on smiling.”

I’d seen a lot of show business by standing in the wings watching the other acts in theater after theater and I couldn’t fail to learn from them. I’d been on the stage for almost four of my seven years and I was developing a feeling for “timing.” I could watch other acts perform and anticipate when a gesture, a fall, or an attitude would or would not work. I remembered everything I saw. If anyone in our troupe missed a cue or forgot a line I’d remind Will and he’d have it put back in.

I was seven and we were in New York when Will started taking me with him to the booking offices. “I want you to listen carefully to everything that’s said, Sammy. There’s two words in show business, ‘show’ and ‘business,’ and one’s important as the other. The dancing and knowing how to please the audience is the ‘show’ and getting
the dates and the money is the ‘business.’ I know you like to dance and sing and be on the stage in front of the people but if you don’t get money for it, then you ain’t doing nothing but having a good time for yourself. You have to know how to make deals, which to take and which to let go by.”