by John Ridley
Between pictures, Liliah had some free time and, despite her change-a-minute nature, decided on spending it with me. Nearly all of it. In that first week of shows she was front and center every night and the first face I saw every morning. In between, Liliah introduced me to the tables and got no trouble about it from the roughnecks who previously wanted to strong-arm me toward the nearest door. During the run of The Summit the color lines in Vegas got scratched out, even if just temporarily. There was too much dark-skinned talent in town for the show—Nat King Cole, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte—for the management to be picky about who was spreading money around the pit. And with Frank on the premises, no one wanted to chance getting caught tossing around any Jim Crow jazz. I strolled the casino floor openly and freely, as I had always wanted, and better than I had ever dreamed. I strolled the casino floor with Liliah Davi wrapped around my arm.
The first thing I learned, the first thing she taught me, was the last and only game I had ever played: roulette.
“The simplest of games,” Liliah said as I stared at the thirty-six numbers, the zero, and double zero, bordered with the outside bets. “Zhust play the action numbers.”
“What are those?”
“Ten through fifteen, and thirty-three. They are spread evenly along the wheel.”
“What difference does that make? I mean, the odds are still the same, right?”
The only answer my question got was Lilian discarding a couple of hundred bucks onto the table. “Black,” she said, and the dealer swapped the bills for two hundred-dollar chips. Those got placed, by Liliah, on twenty-three, red.
“Black inside! ” the dealer called.
“What about the action numbers?” I asked.
Liliah held up a cigarette before her. “Light me.”
With her lighter, which I still had, I did as asked.
The dealer spun the ball.
A tap on my shoulder. I turned. Jack Entratter.
“Jackie!” His arm was around me long-lost-buddy-style. “How you been, kid?”
“Good. I've been real—”
The ball dropped.
The dealer called: “Seventeen, black.”
Chips got scooped in. Some bets got paid out.
Liliah let another couple of hundred float down to the table.
Looking at me, Jack tilted his head a little toward her.
“Liliah, I'd like you to meet Jack Entratter. He runs the place.”
Liliah smiled, nodded. “Hallo.” Her attention got returned to her betting.
“Black inside!”
“Well, listen, Jackie, if there's anything you need, anything at all, you just let me know,” Jack said to me but for Liliah's benefit. “I'll take care of it personally.”
If Liliah heard him, it didn't show.
“You, uh, you enjoy yourself.” Feelings hurt, Jack slipped back into the crowd of people who wandered the floor, clutching money, just looking for a good spot to lose it.
I looked back to the table as the ball dropped.
“Double zero, green.”
Chips got scooped in. Some bets got paid out.
“In Europe, in the casinos, they have only one zero on the wheel,” Liliah sighed. “That's all right, having one zero. Zero is a number. Everything begins at zero, yes? Not positive or negative, good or bad. It is zhust there.
“But Las Vegas is different, Zhaqué. Las Vegas has double zero. Why is that? Double zero is not a number. What is two times nothing? More nothing. You cannot have more nothing. To be zero is as nothing as something can be.”
Liliah was in rare form, as far beyond my cognizability as ever.
Rushing to Lady Las Vegas's defense, I gave the only response I could come up with on the quick. “Double zero, that's just … that's the edge. You know, the house has got to have an edge. One more chance they've got to win and you've got to lose.”
Liliah took herself a look around the casino, all the people scurrying from table to table, the hard count being dropped and racked in and on occasion paid out just to be dropped and raked in again.
She said: “It is the hole that this city was built upon.”
I nodded to that. “I guess.”
“And it is what fills it, a tribe of double nothings. What other kind of person would make this hell a home but twice the fool one would find anywhere else?”
She held up a fresh cigarette.
I lit it.
Well, let me tell you: When a woman talked the way Liliah did, all deep and philosophical, whether she's making sense or not, there's something in her lingo that makes you just want to sex her.
From somewhere in the casino came the call: “Money plays!”
I WAS IN MY ROOM, on the phone. On the other end, a good chunk of the country away, was Tammi.
“The guys are crazy,” I was telling her. “Stand up onstage, drinking, telling jokes to themselves. They don't do a thing, and it's still a hell of a show. You should see it.”
“I'd like to.”
“Well … it's a spectacle, I mean. I don't think you'd much enjoy it.”
“The show's not what I'd be coming out there to see.”
“I know. I know, but, you know, now's not a real good time. Frank, he's like a … He likes to do a lot of boys' stuff, just the guys. Forty-something, and the cat's like a kid. And he … when he says do something, you've got to be there.”
“So when do I get to see you?”
The phone was getting warm in my hand. “I've got another week here in Vegas, then … I was thinking of going back to L.A. for a little bit.”
“You're starting to like L.A.”
“… I'm making some connections. But it's not like I have anything I can't skip,” I offered with just a touch of reluctance.
“No. You should be there. I can meet you in New York after that.”
“It's a date, baby.”
Tammi gave a sigh. “I miss you, Jackie. I miss you, and I love you.”
“I love you more.”
We both hung up.
“That was very good of you,” Liliah said.
I turned to her, her body naked under the sheets of the bed. “That was good of me? Lying to my girl was—”
“You did that for her. You did that so she would not hurt, told her that you miss her, you love her.”
“It's the truth.”
“Then you weren't lying. Even better.”
“Better still if I wasn't cheating on her.”
“It would be, yes, but it would be impossible.”
Liliah stretched her arms above her, revealing her brown areolas and thumb-sized nipples. No, there was no dismissing those.
“So,” she said in summation, “the second best thing to do is to lie. It's all right. It is her you love. Not me.”
“That doesn't mean I—”
“It's good of you to worry about my feelings, but you said that you love her.”
“… I do. I'm going to marry her. I already have the ring.”
“Then why have you not given it to her?”
“Because it wouldn't be fair. You should hear her sing. Her voice is like … I couldn't do that, you know. I couldn't take her away from people.”
“That's wrong.”
“That's … Lying to her is good, but allowing her to sing is bad?” I snapped.
Giving a broad yawn Lilian made her boredom with my outrage obvious. “You are not not marrying your girlfriend for her sake. It is for your sake; it is for your freedom so that you may do as you please, live as you please.…”
“You're wrong.”
“I'm never wrong.”
“Says your ego.”
“No, it is not my ego. Not regarding men and their motivations. A woman chooses one of two things when she is beautiful: to be aware or to be stupid. A stupid woman is happy believing a man loves her for something more than her tits, and that the good things that come to her are not trailed by the hope of sex. And such a woman is very, very content in her convi
ctions.
“But I am not such a woman. I am aware. I know that I am zhust time and sagging skin away from loneliness.” Liliah drew a finger across her cheek. “I am zhust one horrid scar away from solitude. I know this. I know all of this, and sometimes the things I know make me want to … they make me …”
“You came to me,” I reminded her. “In my dressing room, at Ciro's. It wasn't like I tried to pick you up. Never in a million years would I have thought I could. You came to me.”
“Yes. I came to you. And you have a woman who you love. So, would you even be with me if it were not for these?” Her hands slid over her breasts. “Or this?” Her hands below her waist now.
“That doesn't make—”
“Do you even care for me as a person, Zhaqué, or am I to you zhust a … an object of sex?”
Did I care for her as a person? Beyond the cursory jazz we engaged in before and after we made hey, what did I know of Liliah? Where she was from, her family, what she dreamed of as a child, or what she would do in life if she weren't doing what she did.
Nothing.
Right then I became aware that all the disaffection and coolness I'd for so long read in Liliah was something besides the aloofness of a goddess. It was the sadness of her state of being.
Liliah was aware.
She was painfully aware. And right then I wanted to take her and hold her and kiss her, my motivation, for the first time, something more than lust. And the truth of that made me very ashamed.
Liliah got out of bed, dressed her naked body. I asked her not to go.
“It's all right,” she said. Her voice calm and reassuring. “I will be back. You and I, we are not yet finished.”
She gave me a light kiss and left.
I sat for a while.
With nothing better to do, I went down to the casino and let Las Vegas have a piece of me.
A BLURT. In one excited spasm it all came spilling out of Sid: “We got you television!”
“Sullivan?”
Might as well have punched Sid in the stomach for all the wind I took out of him. “… Fran's show.”
I had mixed emotions on hearing that. Part of me thought: It's about time, not blaming Fran, knowing that CBS hadn't been excited about showcasing a relatively unknown black comic on their freshman program. My other feeling was of great disappointment. I wanted Sullivan. After the Copa, the Sands, Ciro's, I figured I rated Sullivan. Yeah, it'd be a boost to do Fran's show, but at the end of the day it was Sullivan that mattered.
“It's good exposure, Jackie.”
“I know.”
“Fran's show is doing good, and television, any television, is a good break.“
“Sid, I know.”
“Yeah, and I know you're disappointed—”
“How am I going to be disappointed about doing my best friend's show,” I lied. If it took, it would be a miracle. Sid knew me like a brother. Even over the phone he could read the feelings in my voice.
“They've got you scheduled in three weeks,” he said flatly. “I'm lining you up some dates in the city, let you work on your routine. You've got to have a sharp five.”
“Sure. That's great.” I put effort into sounding as if I meant it. “And keep a night open for dinner.”
“At least one.”
Sid hung up.
I hung up.
“ORGANIZATION. That's the key. Individual activity is righteous in a way. It shows whites that what's going on in the black commuity—the civil unrest—isn't confined to just one area, one region. But limited individual activity only has limited results. The key is organization.”
Andre was talking. Andre was a black man, black besides just his skin. He wore a black leather coat, black pants, shades despite being indoors. And his lingo, delivered in cadence that was very dark. I'd never met him before. He was brought 'round to my New York apartment by Morris, the former Li'l Mo, who just sat off to one side, giving me a quizzical staring like it was him, not Andre, who was unfamiliar with me. Morris was different. More than just his hard attitude and his distant nature, he was physically different. Things besides the passing of years had made him so. His face was scarred, the most obvious defect being an indentation on his temple near his left eye that looked to have been molded by a policeman's billy club.
Andre: “The sit-ins we've had this year all across America have been effective. Woolworth's has had to open their lunch counters. Black Americans everywhere have been able to sit down and eat just like white folks. That's the power of organization. You don't appeal to their hearts, you attack their pocketbooks. They start losing money, you best believe they'll start opening their doors. And next May with the Freedom Rides—”
“What?” I asked.
“Integrated buses,” Morris said from his corner. He said it very quietly so as not to disturb the careful staring he was doing at me.
“Blacks and whites riding together,” Andre clarified. “We start in Washington, D.C., and ride down to Birmingham. Sit where we want, use whatever facilities we want, like the law says we're supposed to be able to. But all that takes organization, Jackie. That's what I'm talking about: organization.”
“And what is it… I mean, why are you coming to me?”
“We're coming to you for support. We're coming to you to lend your name. Look, we have a protest or a march, it gets written up as: Black agitators cause trouble. We get someone like you involved, all of a sudden it's Jackie Mann leads demonstration to end segregation.”
“You talk like I'm a star.”
“Star enough. Every time I turn around, I'm seeing your name somewhere.”
“I'm not that… People don't know me that well.” I could hear the squirm in my voice.
Andre looked to Morris as if for confirmation that the dodging he was witnessing was for real.
Morris screwed his lip.
Andre: “They know you a damn lot more than they know any of us.”
“But it's not… I'm not Harry Belafonte. I'm just a comic.”
Morris came at me with “So's Dick Gregory.”
“But that's his thing. You know. He's more of a … Yeah, he's a comic, but he's more of an activist.”
“And what you are, a non-activist?” The crack was sharp enough it could've come from a whip.
Andre tried to mediate. “We're not asking you to march on the front lines. We're just looking for help, at fund-raisers at least. You show up, a crowd comes along.” A beat. “You can do that, can't you?”
Could I do that? Could I get involved with political groups whose politics I'd just been introduced to? Yeah. I could. Except it'd taken a good long time to get on Fran's show—my own friend's show—just as a black man. How long would it take me to get on the Sullivan show as a race agitator?
I hesitated with my answer to Andre's question. Just a second. That was a second too long for Morris.
“Damn, man.” He was up out of his chair, swinging hands in my direction, swatting away the stink of me. To Andre: “Told you coming to him was a waste of time.”
“How's it a w-—”
Rolling right over me: “All he cares about is livin' on the easy. Don't want to do nothing to upset massa.”
“You come around once every couple of years, telling me how I'm letting down the race, and then I'm supposed to throw away my career on your say-so?”
“Your career as a house nigger?”
“Yeah, I'm a house nigger. You know why I'm a house nigger? 'Cause I worked my ass off to have a house to be a nigger in. I'm a house nigger, I'm a big-Cadillac-driving nigger, I'm an expensive-watch-and-fine-clothes-wearing nigger. And the only thing worse than all that is being the I-ain't-got-nothing nigger who comes to me for favors.”
Funny lines, but I hoped they hurt. From the you-make-me-want-to-spit look Morris sent me, I was sure they did.
What he said was: “If I'm an ain't-got-nothing nigger, it's 'cause of brothers like you. Instead of getting involved, you're too busy getting over. You'r
e too busy staying in your white hotels and eating at your ofay restaurants to even know what time it is.”
“It's called integrating. I'm doing exactly what you're protesting for—staying where I want, eating where I please.”
Morris asked: “How many other blacks you see at your hotels and restaurants except the ones clearing the tables? When you're the only one getting in, that's not integration. That's selling out. If you ever once knew what it was like to be black” —he rubbed at the indentation on his temple—” you'd know the difference.” To Andre he said: “There's nothing here,” and was out.
Andre lingered, ready to go but not wanting to storm off, hoping, maybe, in the time it took him to get to the door I might change my mind about things.
My only offer was to make a donation, write a check. I wrote it. Andre took it and left.
To hell with him. Him and Morris both. Especially Morris and his stoved-in head, coming around acting like I was doing nothing besides living high. Acting like I didn't know how it was to be black.
I got hot right then. I filled up with anger I hadn't known in years. I remembered being on a lonely dark road in Florida. I remembered facing my own extinction. When you're solo in the night in the South, standing against three rednecks and their collected hate … that's when you find out what it means to be black. But all my indignation was wasted. I was alone in my apartment, and as usual had picked an impotent moment to be self-righteous.
So what? I had other concerns. I wasn't going to let Morris drag me down when there was so much else to lift me up.
I WAS LATE. The Broadway traffic that was snarled to a standstill was doing nothing but making me later. I told the cabbie to pull over, tossed money at him, and took off on foot without waiting for change. I traveled at a run/walk pace, wanting badly to get where I was going without working up a sweat while getting there. Couldn't afford to be sweaty. I was late for a date with my girl. Tammi was in town.
B'way and Fiftieth. I got to Lindy's. Moving quickly through the door, eyes rolling. Spotting Tammi, I swept past the maitre d'. I moved for her, all light and smiles. As I went to kiss her, she turned her head so that I caught only cheek. Her eyes lowered. I followed them down to the tabletop, to what lay there: the Amsterdam News— a black newspaper. It was folded open to an article headlined: TOO FAMOUS TO BE NEGRO? It read:
