Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (59 page)

“Hold it. I didn’t chase anybody anywhere.”

“Then how come they ain’t around no more, Poppa?”

“They’ve got their own lives. I see them but do I have to have them living with me?” He smiled sadly at having won the point. “Look, Dad, I don’t need to be told how to run my life.”

“The hell you don’t.” We stood there glaring at each other. “Poppa, I know you don’t like bein’ told nothin’, but I just wish you didn’t need all them people around you all the time.”

“I don’t want to talk about it any more. If I can’t have some people over after I finish working and doing benefits and doing Barry Gray, without you deciding I
need
them like I’m some kind of a mental case …”

When he’d gone I sat down behind my bar and scanned the room. I knew
less
than half their names. I glanced from face to face. I feel nothing for them—I don’t even want to talk to them—but I want them here. Somebody I didn’t know was shaking my hand. “Sammy, I’ve got to tell you, baby, you’re the greatest! I mean you’re
it
, man, y’know what I mean? I’ve seen performers in my life, I’ve seen ‘em
all but you’re the greatest, I mean the greatest …” I smiled, not thanking him because I didn’t want him to stop. “… probably sound like an LP or something but I mean it, you’re the greatest!” When he’d run out of words the party sounds came surging back, harsh and vacuous, and I gazed around the room, mesmerized by the scene: hoards of people swarming over my apartment, sprawled over my chairs, dropping ashes on the floor, handling my records, my books … I watched two girls sauntering into my bathroom like it was a public john in a hotel lobby. I was spending money I didn’t have on people I didn’t care about, I was hooked on them, like a junky, loathing them and the need for them, yet needing more and more of them all the time.

I tried to remember the last time the group had been up. It had been weeks. Yet how could I blame them? I picked up the phone and spoke to the night man at the desk. “Ring Mr. Gilbert’s apartment for me, will you?”

“Mr. Davis …” He was hesitating. “I talked to him about an hour ago and he said he was going to sleep then.”

“Ring him lightly. It’s okay.”

I heard the buzz, then the receiver being fumbled with. I held my hand over the mouthpiece, muffling the noise around me. George cleared his throat. “H’lo?” His voice was groggy.

“You sleeping, baby?”

“Sammy?”

“It’s your very own star. Listen, I’m sorry if I woke you. Go back to sleep—unless you feel like a little drink or something.”

There was a pause, he was listening. He said, “It sounds like you’ve got the American Legion up there. I think I’ll go back to sleep …”

“It’s just a few people. But okay … catch you around the theater.”

A guy named Dick had sat down across the bar from me. He waved his hand in front of him clearing away the clouds of smoke, then opened a window and came back smiling. “Not that it’ll help.” He looked at me curiously. “Do you
ever
get any fresh air?”

“Sure. I had some once.”

“I’m serious.” He leaned forward. “Listen, one afternoon next week why don’t we drive out to the country, up to Westchester. I’ll put the top down, you’ll breathe in some clean air, you’ll look at the trees. I know a duck pond where we can sit and look at the ducks,
it’s better than a psychiatrist. We can stop off and have a quiet dinner at my brother’s place—he’s got a little restaurant up there—and be back in town by eight o’clock.”

He was reaching out to be nice and I hated to tell him I wasn’t especially interested in sitting around looking at some ducks. He was the only person in this whole crowd who’d shown the courtesy to bring up a few bottles of scotch and I remembered appreciating the gesture.

“Baby, I sleep late; could we make it around four o’clock some day?”

“Sure. And we don’t have to overdo it with the back-to-nature bit. Just one lungful.” He smiled, pleased. “It’ll do you a world of good. I’ll call you and we’ll set a day.”

I moved around the room emptying ashtrays and putting used glasses in the sink. I can stand these people as long as they’re here but when they’re gone I don’t want to be reminded of them. I noticed one of the chicks helping me, bringing glasses into the kitchen. I knew her name was Betsy and she was with one of the new musicals. She was young and small and she had a gorgeous body. She was starting to wash some of the glasses. I turned off the faucet. “Thanks Bets, but the maid’ll do it in the morning.”

She wiped her hands, smiling. “I’ve been here three times and this is the first time I’ve ever spoken to you.”

I laughed. “It does get kinda hectic.” She made a face, her eyes looking up.

“One of these nights,” she said, “well, I live alone, and if you’d like I could give you my phone number and if you ever feel like talking, I mean if you’re not too busy …”

I glanced at her fantastic build but I felt cheap, lecherous; she was just a star-struck kid, naïve and wholesome. She was looking at the floor, blushing, and I enjoyed the flattery of the whole scene that was like out of an Andy Hardy picture. I took the piece of paper she was secretively offering and I smiled, college-hero-to-the-coed, “Thanks, Bets. That’s a great idea. Love to sometime.”

There was a commotion over by the couch. A couple of chicks were arguing. I’d been a little interested in one of them but now, maybe because she was drunk, she’d forgotten to hold in her stomach and her slacks looked too tight. She saw me looking and walked over. “Sammy, you settle it, willya? Who’s got a better chest, I or Rhoda?” She was pushing her chest out at me, just
another cow in a whole stockyard, but grinning, smug, like “Here’s a thrill for you.” The crudeness of it brought the rest of the room back into true focus—the faces without names, the loud laughter, impersonal as street sounds, crashing around me like empty tin cans—it was the same scene I’d been watching for weeks and suddenly I couldn’t define which night it was and I had to restrain myself from yelling, “Out. Everybody out. Please … go away!”

Dick was waiting in front of the Gorham. He saw me coming down the street and hurried toward me, smiling. “I was afraid you forgot. I called upstairs but the operator said you were out.”

“I never forget.” I smiled. “I was over at Decca, baby.”

The car wound steadily up the parkway through Westchester and I sat back against the seat wrapped up in a furry blanket. It was new and I had a feeling he’d bought it for this occasion. I bundled my coat and scarf tightly around my neck, enjoying the warmth of the heater on my feet, and the cool, crisp air streaming in through the open top of the convertible. Dick glanced up from the road and smiled and I appreciated not having to talk, not having to be on. A car horn was honking repeatedly; a little boy was waving out the window. I waved back, pleased at realizing that I hadn’t been looking for anyone to recognize me. I wrapped the blanket tighter around me and closed my eyes, lulled into a delightful feeling of well-being.

The car was slowing down and turning off the parkway. “You getting a little hungry, Sam?”

“Whatever you like, baby.”

He drove through a small town and stopped in front of a restaurant. There was a sign in the window: “Sammy Davis Jr. Day.”

Dick smiled, embarrassed. “That’s my brother for you. You know how it is, he’s proud that I know a celebrity.” He looked at me anxiously. “I hope you don’t mind all the people.”

As the crowd swarmed around me from every direction, from tables, from the bar that was packed three deep, I saw a man taking down a poster—not quite fast enough: “Admission $5.00 per person.” He stashed it in a corner, face against the wall, and pushed his way through the crowd. “Sammy, I’m Dick’s brother. Welcome.” He was pumping my hand. “When Dick told me he’d get you to come up I thought he was crazy! But he’s some kid, that brother of mine, huh? He’s nuts about
you
. Come on, we’ve got a
seat waiting for you over here with the family … it’s beautiful of you to do this for us.”

George leaned against the wall of my dressing room. “We’re going to gross $59,000 this week.” He dropped the words like a jeweler spreading diamonds on velvet. “The word is all over town that you’ve single-handedly beaten the critics.”

I let myself sink back against the chair, floating on the pleasure of the moment. “We did it. We really goddamned did it.” The countless interviews, the television shows, radio shows, the handshaking, the appearances at parties and clubs, the month after month of pushing uphill—all the strain of it was washed away in that one glorious moment.

“Can you appreciate what this means? It’s like
for the first time!
You’ve really made Broadway history.” He sat down, smiling. “When you said that you were going to beat the notices …”

“Yeah … remember that night? God, they really knocked the wind out of us, didn’t they?”

He nodded and we sat in silence, remembering that night and all the nights that had brought us to this moment.

“Hey, look, I’ve got no benefits tonight. I’m clear. Whattya say we get Chita and Michael—we’ll find Jane and Burt and we’ll go some place and celebrate. I’ll have the elevator guy at the hotel get rid of everybody. We’ll really make a night out of it.”

“Michael’s already left with some people. And I know that Chita’s got some boy she’s going with …”

“Well, how about you? We can take a walk down Broadway. Look, I know it’s corny but I just feel like doing it.”

“Well, I have … wait a minute, maybe I can cancel an appointment I’ve got …”

“Never mind, baby. Look, it’s not such a big deal.”

“Sammy, I …”

“Hey, we’re grown men, right?” I started putting on my shoes. “Look, if it could’ve worked out it would have been pleasant but it’s not life and death.”

I took extra long signing autographs at the stage door, doing bits with the people until I was afraid they’d begin to notice that I was giving them too much attention. On Broadway I saw Hal Loman and his wife Barbara standing in front of our theater holding hands and staring up at his name on the marquee. When they saw me
watching them they blushed like tomatoes. I shook my head. “Of all the corny things I have
ever
seen: two grown people, pros, stand in front of a marquee with gaping and staring and holding hands? Now let’s be honest, I mean you don’t think maybe you’re just a wee bit sickening about it? And you could at
least
stop holding hands while I’m talking to you!” I grinned and gave Hal a shot on the arm. “You two are beautiful. Hang onto what you’ve got.” As I watched them walking away holding hands again, and as I stood there under my own name twenty times bigger, I got a creepy feeling that I personified the lonely star cliché: “his name in lights but nobody to look at it with.” I hurried away from there, toward the Gorham. I stopped. I couldn’t face that crowd, not this early. I turned and headed downtown. At least I could kill a few hours at a movie.

“We can up the year’s gross by $30,000, if you’ll accept this Miami offer …” Sam Bramson sat across the table from me and Will in the board room of the Morris office, holding a sheet of yellow, lined paper with penciled-in dates, names of clubs and figures, plans for after the show closed. His voice was tentative. “They’ve agreed to a beautiful suite …”

“What about letting colored people in to see the show?”

He looked down at the paper, avoiding my face. “Well, that’s the only problem, Sammy. It’s not that they don’t want to go along with you but the custom down there …”

“The custom stinks. We’ve been through this before, Sam. I don’t play to segregated audiences.”

Will nodded. “That says it for me, too.”

Sam held up his hands. “I’m with you a hundred per cent. I’m just telling you what the offer was. Now, Julie Podell says you’ve agreed to go in there in the spring.”

Will grunted disgustedly. “Sammy, the dumbest thing you could’ve done was to go borrowing money from Julie Podell and committing us to play for him this spring. That’s hardly three months from now. Who’s going to come and see us?”

“I know, Massey.”

“We shoulda stayed away for a year. Six or eight months at least. Here we’re gettin’ offered the best money from clubs that we’ve ever got—and I credit the show with that—but what good is it if we can’t cash in? If Julie Podell’d had to come to us, we could’ve sat
down and set a new price with him just like we’re doing with everybody else—not countin’ those clubs you used for banks.”

“Massey, I’ve already said you’re right. Can we forget it, please? It’s done and it’ll work out.”

“Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. Either way it’s time you stopped leaning on your talent and used your head.”

I stared at his indignant, angry face. “Yeah, Massey. You’re right. I really should use my head.”

One of the Morris guys said, “Sammy, the fact is, your uncle is right. But it’s not just borrowing money, it’s a lot of things. I don’t know if you’re aware of it but the publicity you’ve been getting, well, it hasn’t been good. You really ought to do something about it. For your own good …”

Another chimed in. “And it was a terrible mistake to overexpose yourself on television …”

Will nodded, annoyed, grumbling. “That’s right. Here we waited out this whole dead year, but instead of lettin’ them build up interest from not seein’ us you’ve been jumping into their living rooms every couple of weeks.”

“Hold it, Massey. I was just being told my publicity was bad. Do you think it’s a good idea for people to read I owe this one and that one? Now, how did you expect me to get the money to pay off?”

“Sammy,” another Morris guy was speaking gently, pacifying, “we can certainly understand your personal money problems, but you haven’t done the over-all picture any good.”

“Another thing you’ve got to stop doing …”

I didn’t look up or even bother trying to associate the voice with any of the faces surrounding me at the table. I stared out the window, hearing them planning where I’d work, when my voice would need a day off, how long it would take them to ship me from Pittsburgh to Detroit—figuring the best things to do about me: how to package me and sell me so everybody’d get the most out of me. They were feeding on me—hacking away at me—cutting me up like a goddamned melon, carving their slices and telling the melon it was for his own good.