Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (30 page)

Mama snapped, “Sam! You won’t do him no good that way.”

I asked, “Hey, how about Charley?”

“He’s down the hall. His jaw’s broke and he lost all his teeth, upper and lower, but he’ll be okay.”

“What happened in Vegas? I mean, the show?”

“Jeff Chandler went on for you last night, Poppa. He called here after the first show and he said when you wakes up to tell you the people was sitting at their tables and cryin’ just thinkin’ about what happened to you.”

I couldn’t help smiling over what an emotional “show biz” scene that must have been. But it was odd to picture myself the reason for it. I wondered who’d have come to my funeral if I’d been killed. “Massey? What about our name? Is it still up?”

“Well, it was up when we left there….”

My mind was shooting off in ridiculous directions. I visualized them hiring one act after another—the best, Frank, Dean and Jerry, all of them—but the audience was just sitting on their hands and saying, “Nobody’s as good as Sammy Davis was,” and the hotel owners onstage announcing, “The club is closed until Sammy can come back,” and all the columns would write what a beautiful gesture that was. Sure! Sentiment’s fine but you sweep it out in the
morning with the cigarette butts and you hire a new act or there’ll be no customers at those crap tables.

My father had walked across the room and he must have been holding his hands or a handkerchief against his mouth so I wouldn’t hear him crying. Somebody kept trying to light a match and Will was clearing his throat. I was glad I couldn’t see their faces.

“Well, folks—I guess this wraps us up.” I waited, hoping somebody might say it didn’t make any difference, that we’d be as strong as ever. But nobody said it and I’d have laughed if they had. What chance was there? Sure, they’d cry for me on one dramatic night. People always cry at funerals. Then they go home and forget you. They sure as hell aren’t going to be laying down their money to see any one-eyed dancers. A one-eyed colored dancer who sings, tells jokes, and makes people sick.

The nurse broke the silence. “I think you’d better let him rest now.”

What a lousy joke. What was there to rest for? I remembered telling Will: “You don’t understand, Massey. Nothing can stop us now.”

The nurse was buckling the straps on my arms. I could hear her putting up the sides of the bed so I wouldn’t fall. It seemed so pointless.

“Nurse?”

“I’m right here.”

“What’s that smell? Flowers?”

“It’s all the flowers in San Bernardino. We can’t bring any more into the room or you’ll suffocate. But there’s a line of baskets leading from the door all the way down the hall. You’ve cleaned out the shop downtown. They can’t fill the rest of the orders ‘til tomorrow. You’ve also gotten over five hundred telegrams.”

“I don’t even know five hundred people. You don’t have to do cheer-up bits with me.”

She took my hand and ran it against a stack of envelopes that must have been a foot high. “We’ve got eight bundles like this one. I’ll tell you the truth. I knew you were in show business but I had no idea you were such a celebrity.”

“There’s gotta be a mistake. Will you read me the names on the flowers?”

I waited while she pulled up a chair and started reading. “Betty and Charles Schuyler …”

“Darling, I told you something was wrong. That’s not for me. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“It’s addressed to Sammy Davis, Jr. The card says, Though we have never met you, our hearts and prayers are with you. Have courage. Betty and Charles Schuyler.’ ”

What a beautiful thing! Total strangers go to the trouble and expense of sending me flowers.

She continued, then went through the telegrams, reading off names of governors of states, mayors, movie and TV producers, stars, bit players, headwaiters, and vaudeville performers I hadn’t seen or heard of in years. But mostly they were from total strangers.

The door opened and I heard somebody coming in. “Well, chicky, this was a great little publicity stunt you dreamed up.”

“Jess?”

“Yep. I thought you’d like to know that you’ve won the hearts of a grateful Hollywood for knocking Eddie and Debbie off the front pages. Even Korea couldn’t do
that.”

“Baby, slow up a minute. Are you saying I’ve been on the front pages?”

“What’s the matter? Don’t they read the papers around here?”

“Jess, there’s been a few other things going on. Like, for openers, I lost an eye.”

“I’m hip. Well, then lemme be the first to tell you. You’ve made page one clear across the country for two days running. But I mean with pictures, stories, the whole bit. The wire services haven’t been off my phone since it happened. Every ten minutes it’s ‘Send us pictures, send us background’ …”

“Jess, if this is your idea of a gag …”

“Chicky, it’s emmis! You’re the hottest thing in the business. The coverage has been fantastic and it’s all sympathetic. Real sob stuff like ‘Can the little man with the big talent survive this blow to his career?’ … ‘Just as his dreams of a lifetime were being fulfilled …’ You know the kinda jazz. Look, Florence Nightingale out at the desk said I could only stay for a minute so I’ll leave these clips for you. You can read ‘em tomorrow when they take the Invisible Man costume off you.”

My father said, “It’s almost nine o’clock. Let’s see what Winchell’s got to say.”

I hadn’t even known it was Sunday. I waited while he tuned in the
radio, listening for the wireless ticker and the stacatto voice that had meant Sunday night at nine for as long as I could remember. We’d done it last Sunday and here we were doing it again, the same as always. It seemed impossible that I’d lost an eye in between.

“Good evening Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press! New York: a 22-story building in the heart of …”I felt like Charley Ham lying there listening for my name, hoping he might mention me. “Wall Street … Chicago … Buenos Aires … Hollywood …” The importance of the news dwindled to a small-time actor’s wedding. Then they started the commercial. I lost an eye and my whole damned career, how could he not have mentioned me?

“Hell, Poppa, I kinda figured he mighta said something ‘bout you.”

“Come on, Dad. I’m yesterday’s news. It’s already been in the papers. What’s there for him to say about it?”

“And now back to Walter Winchell!”

“This is your New York correspondent winding up another edition with a word of advice to young Sammy Davis, Jr., in a hospital somewhere in San Bernardino, California. Sammy: if you can hear me … never forget that behind every dark cloud—a brilliant star is shining! Remember … no champ ever lost a fight by being knocked down. Only by
staying
down!”

I reached for my watch. My hand touched a glass straw, and I remembered. Whenever I’d thought about a blind man it had only been “It must be rough never to see a sunset or a movie or a beautiful chick.” I’d never thought about this part of being blind, not even being able to look out the window to tell if it’s day or night.

The hospital was very quiet. There was an occasional pair of rubber-soled shoes making its own quiet sound down the hall. I felt around on the night table, hoping they hadn’t taken away my cigarettes, but they had. I heard the day nurses coming in. That would make it seven o’clock.

The vibration I’d had in my stomach since I awoke increased as the hospital sounds picked up momentum. I visualized Dr. Hull coming in for the big dramatic moment … I’m sitting up in bed smiling, Will and my father are waiting. Finally Dr. Hull has all the bandages off. Then comes the great movie cliché: he passes his hand
in front of my face but the eye doesn’t flicker. He and the nurse and my father and Will are all looking at each other. Nobody knows how to tell me. I’m still smiling like an idiot. “Come on, Doc, let’s go. Take off the rest of the bandages.” Then I hear the silence and I catch on just before he tells me, “They
are
off, son.” How would I play it? Do I shrug, “Well, just get me a white cane, Doc”? No. There’ll be no bitter bits. I’ll play it Charley Brave like the world has never seen.

The nurse was taking away the breakfast tray when my father and Will burst in.

“Aren’t you guys up a little early?”

“Mose Gastin, we’ve been outside over an hour waiting for them to let us in. We got news like you never dreamed about.”

“Poppa, what would you like to have more than anything in the world?”

“Oh, come on, Dad.”

“No kidding!”

“I’d like to have my goddamned career back.”

“Read it to him, Will.”

“Sammy, this is a telegram from the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.” He cleared his throat. “It says, ‘Firm offer for Will Mastin Trio Featuring Sammy Davis Jr.
Twenty five thousand per week
, first available date, please advise.’ ”

“They must be crazy.”

My father was almost hysterical. “Crazy like a fox, Poppa. Will called the Morris office and they say clubs all over the country are breakin’ their necks t’get us. With all the publicity and everything, they’re offerin’ money like we never even heard about. The Frontier’s tearin’ up our old contract to meet this price. We’ll be lightin’ cigars with what we used to make. We can write our own ticket across the country and back and all the way to London, England!”

I heard the window shades being pulled down. The nurse said, “Dr. Hull is on his way down the hall.”

“Poppa, just relax yourself and get ready for when the bandages come off, ‘cause Will and me’ll be standin’ right here with this telegram and you’ll have something beautiful to see.”

I’d planned to be pleasant and maybe throw a little joke at Dr. Hull when he came in but I couldn’t think of one. My hands were clutching the tightened muscles of my legs under the blankets. There were five of us in the room but it was so quiet that I could hear my
father breathing and the sound of the scissors cutting through the gauze, strand by strand. Then I heard the scissors being placed on a metal table. My father whispered, “Easy, Poppa.” It was still dark but I knew I was okay as long as I could feel Dr. Hull’s hands moving around my head, unwrapping the gauze layer by layer.

Suddenly light appeared on the right side of my head. It kept growing stronger as he unwrapped more and more, and as he removed the last layer, I had to put my hand over my eye, shielding it from the glare, uncovering it little by little.

I saw Dr. Hull’s arm. My father and Will were at the end of the bed. I was shaking with laughter. I didn’t know what to look at first. “Doctor … thank you.” I leaned against the pillow and caught my breath. The nurse mopped my face with a piece of Kleenex. “Do you wanta know about a cat who ain’t gonna take his sight for granted no more … Massey, you’d better call Vegas and tell ‘em to get our name back up.”

Dr. Hull smiled. “Not so fast. You’ve got to learn how to use your one eye, first.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’ll be a while before you get back your senses of balance and distance. For example, you’ll have trouble pouring water into a glass, objects will appear flatter than they did before….”

“Doc, I don’t care if
Marilyn Monroe
looks flat just as long as I can move around a stage. Hey, can I have a mirror?”

I stared at my nose. It was flatter than ever. This third break had really collapsed it, and there was a big gash across the bridge. “Oh, now wait a
minute
, Doc. I was never exactly a debutante, but this is ridiculous!”

He took the bandage off my left eye. I’d expected to see a hole, but the lid had been sewn closed like a Boris Karloff make-up job. I put the mirror right down.

“We took thirty stitches inside and outside the lid.”

I forced myself to look again. I could see how the lid had busted, like a paper bag, and all the ragged ends that must have been hanging loose had been sewn back together to make one piece. In the midst of that grotesque piece of flesh I had long eyelashes. Dr. Hull explained that he’d slit open the edge of the lid and stuck the hairs in one by one, like putting toothpicks into an orange, so that I’d have something there until the new eyelashes started growing.

“Maybe I’ll break into pictures, yet, Doc. I can play Frankenstein monsters.”

The nurse was motioning my father and Will to leave the room with her. I turned away from the doctor but he put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re entitled to a little self-pity. Just don’t let yourself enjoy it too much. It won’t bring back your eye but it will undermine the strength which has carried you through this so well. I’ll be back tomorrow. Feel free to get out of bed, but move carefully.”

I listened to him walking away. It hadn’t been so bad until he’d taken off the last bandage. I was so high from being able to see that I hadn’t been prepared for it—but if it was covered with a patch, or with make-up … I saw the telegram propped against the dresser mirror. I’d thought I’d be able to see half what I used to see, like when I’d had two eyes and closed one. But it was less than half, almost as though they’d built a wall over my nose that blocked out everything to the left of center. I stood up, but I got dizzy and fell back against the bed. When the dizziness passed I started walking slowly across the room toward the dresser. I reached for the telegram but my hand passed right by it and touched the mirror at least three inches away. I slid my fingers across the glass until I had it. I felt dizzy again and I started back to bed. As I turned, something struck me in the hip. A chair had been right next to me on my dead side. As I got to the bed the steel rim banged into my knees and I fell across the mattress. The telegram flew out of my hand. I groped in the air trying to catch it, but it fluttered to the floor.

The nurse walked in and helped me under the covers and I lay there exhausted and embarrassed, wondering how much she’d seen. “Don’t let it get you,” she said, “it’s natural.” She picked up the telegram and held it out to me. I shook my head. I didn’t want to look at it. I could just picture myself doing my stumbling act in Vegas. And getting a nice big round of pity.

Why the hell wouldn’t she stop looking at me like she was so damned sorry for me? I tried to think of something to talk about. I pointed to the adhesive tape on the palm of my right hand. “Hey, isn’t this kind of a strange place for me to get a cut? I mean I was holding onto the steering wheel with both hands.”