by John Ridley
For the fortunate few who were able to secure tickets to the recent Summit event in Las Vegas, one of the highlights of the show was seeing both Sammy Davis, Jr. and comedian Jackie Mann. Their performance with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin before an audience that included the man most believe to be the next president was a source of pride for our community. Onstage. Offstage, however, their antics left much to be desired. While we're happy for the success of both Davis and Mann, it seems to have come at the expense of acknowledging their race. Instead of spending time in the Negro community, both remained entrenched in the brighter, whiter Strip casinos that, by and large, will not even permit lesser Negroes on their premises. And though the rumors of all-night all-white sexfests attended by Davis and Mann may be nothing more than rumors, there is little doubt that Davis's romance with Swedish actress Mai Britt has influenced the younger Mann to travel a similar path. While we regret having to be the ones to remind Davis and Mann of their obligation to the Negro community, what is of greater regret is the necessity to do so.
If the piece wasn't full of lies, then they were half-truths. Yeah, I didn't hang out in Westside, but the blacks in Westside wouldn't hang out in Westside—nobody would hang out in Westside—if they weren't forced to. And, yeah, there were some wild parties … more than some, but the paper didn't seem to have any problem with the white acts attending, didn't say anything about how they were bringing down the white race.
But there was one part of the stoiy much more truth than lie. The part that said I was following in Sammy's white chick-sexing footsteps. The article only alleged it, but to give the allegation some teeth, the paper ran two pictures. One was of Sammy and his new girl, Mai Britt. The other was of me and Liliah, no doubt snapped by some scandal-rag photog while we were out to dinner.
I did a quick check of the byline. The piece was written by a woman. Figures. Hell hath no fury like a Negress eyeing a black man with a blonde.
It was the picture, the picture of me and some other girl—white or not, just some other girl—that had turned Tammi's head away from my approach. And that, the picture, is what I was going to have to do some serious explaining about.
It was time to get my lies straight.
I started things off with “Oh, baby, are you going to believe that?” I sat down, put a napkin in my lap, and looked at a menu as if the article weren't even worthy of my time. “You can't believe everything you read.”
“I didn't just read it. I'm looking at it. I'm looking at the picture, Jackie. You and that… that …” Tammi's voice did all kinds of things with every word from her mouth. By turns it was accusatory and hurt. It was also desperate to find a truth in the things I was telling her.
“Yeah. A picture of me and that actress—” Not Liliah. That actress. By taking away her name, I hoped to reduce her from a female threat to a thing. “And about five other people.” The picture the paper had chosen to run had, thankfully, some people leaning in around me and Liliah. Looked at with sympathetic eyes, you could almost believe that the two of us were part of a larger group. “You see how in the story they didn't mention any names. They didn't say I was dating the woman.” The woman.
“But then—”
“They couldn't, 'cause I'm not. I'm not dating her.”
“But then why put the picture with the article?”
“Well, they … It's not an article, first of all. That's the thing. It's not an article, it's an opin—”
“Why put the picture with it?”
Yeah. Why? “They have to put something.”
“They had Sammy's picture, Sammy and his girl. Why did they need your picture?”
All my years onstage, all my years honing my comic timing, and I was having a helluvan effort quick-thinking my way out of this. I was slowed down by all the willpower I was burning to keep myself from breaking out in a liar's sweat. “You don't just go after a cat like Sammy Davis. They don't dig that he's dating—that he's going to marry, I heard they're getting married—the paper doesn't dig he's with this chick. But a star his size, he's too big to be writing cracks about. So they write a piece and they make it scattershot, make it look like they're throwing punches at any Negro who comes in ten feet of a white woman. What am I supposed to do?”
“Stay more than ten feet away from white women.”
Tammi was softening some.
I said: “You going to stay more than ten feet away from all those wannabe crooners in Detroit?”
A beat.
“I guess I do sound a little jealous.” The way she sounded was light and even in tone; some deadweight that had been crushing her for a day or so had been lifted.
I'd sweet-talked my way out of the corner I'd lusted myself into.
Tammi: “But you're the one who said the only people who call it jealousy are the ones who don't know passion.”
“I guess I did, so I guess I'll let you off the hook. This time.” I made it clear I was strictly giving her bits, but even as a joke, putting it all on her was the masterstroke. “Now, are you going to give me a proper kiss, or do I have to go out and find me a European starlet for real?”
Tammi gave me the kiss she'd held back when first I'd come to the table. It was deep and long and full of “I miss you” affection.
Later, back at the apartment, we buried my lies with sex. We buried our days apart and our differences with long hours spent rediscovering each other. What we found was that time and distance do not make love fade.
After the act, in the dark, in bed, as I held Tammi and guilt held me, I propped myself up with Liliah's words: It was not marrying Tammi, if anything, that was wrong. But the lies I was living were good.
IT WAS ALMOST like things used to be, going on four years prior. I was back on a Village club stage, but this time doing warm-up sets for my appearance on Fran's show. A small room, stale air choked with smoke and the heat of tightly pressed flesh. The audience no farther away than the length of my arm. My ears catching Tammi's laugh above all others. My set tight and funny. Great stuff, and not just by my own thinking.
“Great stuff, Jackie.” A guy was coming toward me with a big smile and outstretched hand. “Chet Rosen,” he reminded me. “William Morris. Heard you were doing a drop-in, thought I'd come by.”
I gave him a hello, good to see you again, and introduced him to Tammi.
“Tammi Terrell. Sure. You're at Motown. Good place to be. That Berry Gordy is a sharp fellow. He's really going to break something big.”
He knew Tammi. I was impressed.
To me: “Heard you're doing The Fran Clark Show.”
“Next week.”
“She's a friend of yours, isn't she?”
“Yeah. Yes.”
“Same agent, the two of you. Sid …”
“Kindler.”
Chet made a face as though there were a couple of things beyond his understanding. “Wonder why it's taken so long?” he asked, not to me in particular, but just out loud. “You've got the same agent, wonder why it took so long to get you on the show? I think someone's napping at the wheel.”
Before I could jump in with any kind of reply, Ghet streamrolled on with “Hey, heard you were sensational in Vegas.”
“Sensational? Most of the people in the audience didn't pay attention to me, and the rest didn't even know who I was. It was like being vice president.”
“They gave you more respect than they would most comics. You've got something up there” —directing a thumb at the stage beyond us. “You've got some good opportunities coming your way, Jackie. I hope you capitalize on them. What's Sid got lined up for you?”
“… I'm doing Fran's show.”
“And?”
And …
Out in the show room a singer worked her way through some Cole Porter while I came up answerless.
“Well, listen, Jackie, all the best on the show. I know you're going to be a smash. Miss Terrell.”
Chet started away, stopped. “I hope you don'
t mind me saying so, but you two make a handsome couple.” And he was gone.
“There's a man,” Tammi said, “who knows how to say the right things.”
He did. And he knew how to make them stick.
“THE THING ABOUT FRAN'S SHOW, there are always executives around. CBS guys. Do well, they talk. That's only going to help you later.”
Sid was lying to me. I'd come 'round to get a pep talk before Fran's show; now all I was getting were lies. Sid wasn't lying with his words. Yeah, there'd be CBS execs at the broadcast, and, yeah, doing a solid set in front of them could only help me nail Sullivan. All that was truth. Sid was handing me other lies: his breath sweetened with mints to hide the fermented stink it carried, movements that worked at being precise and accurate to cover their being unfixed and clumsy. Instead, his every action came off meticulously planned, then executed in slow motion, great concentration put into picking up a pen from his desk so as not to knock over a lamp in the trying. All the effort he put into appearing sober: Those were the lies. After so many years sitting front row to my pop's drunk show, I was not even slightly fooled, though Pop never did me the courtesy of trying to hide his binges.
“I don't mean to give you the heebie-jeebies, just want you to know … it's not Sullivan, but we're working toward it.”
Sid talked at his desktop. Not looking at me, he wouldn't have to read the reflection of his deception in my eyes. Then we could go on with this little skit: him acting sober and me acting like I didn't know he was soused.
Man, how I hated drunks.
No.
I didn't hate Sid. What I hated, I hated a drunk's weakness, hated how they forced you to be an accomplice to their sin: I know you know what I'm doing, but please let me drink, or buy my booze when I can't buy it for myself, ignore my rants when I'm drunk and my blurry eyes when I'm lifted before noon. Please sympathize with my pain or problem, and if you don't, that's all right. Just don't say anything; go along like I'm fine even when I laugh too loud at something that's not funny, pass out in the middle of a sentence, or trip and fall down when I'm walking on a smooth, even surface. And when it gets that bad, just make a veiled comment about somebody else's ldquo;situation” that I can tsk-tsk at along with you, us both secretly knowing who you're really talking about. Then I'll go clean myself up. Dry out. For a little while. A couple of weeks. Maybe a month. Or the rest of the day. Then let's all pretend again.
Sid … How could he do this to me? He knew how I felt and what I'd been through, so how could he … And the day before my first TV shot!
And that was the thing: I didn't care about the why of what shoved Sid off the wagon. I only cared about the why me. I didn't need this, and it was so not good coming right on top of Chet already trying to poison me to Sid.
“You're going to do great, that's all I'm trying to say. This is … this is going to be big for you.” Very slowly Sid's hand went to his brow, slid away beads of sweat.
“Yeah. Great.” Then, pointed, hardly bothering with the veil: “Sorry my father's not around to see this.”
IT WAS UNREAL. It was that way in a couple of meanings. It was unreal—surreal—the feeling: Is this happening? Is this truly, finally … And it was unreal—not real: Viewed not through the milky reception of a Zenith, but seen up close, the sets looked like what they were—painted plywood and decorated muslin. Lighting cables— giant black snakes lying dead to the world—zigzagged across the massive space. All around were union guys, beefy in size and in the volume of sweat and stink they produced despite the fact most of them seemed to draw a paycheck for standing around watching everybody else do something. But not even them, with their workman, day-laborer presence, could plane the luster from the moment. To me it was all some-kind-of magic. The moment remained unreal. Surreal. It was Oz. It was Shangri-la. It was the TV studio from where Fran's show was broadcast, and it was, right then, the place more than any other where I most wanted to be.
The lights, the cameras—big, four-eyed RCA monsters—the disarray, people shouting at each other, wanting this done or that changed, or wanting to know why in the hell they were just then finding out about something and all of them running around like ants in a fire. Chaos breeding confusion. And this was still twenty-four hours prior to broadcast. The insanity was contagious. My heart was a metronome that rapid-fired in time to the organized riot happening around me.
Fran was onstage. I'd seen Frances on television, sure, but it hadn't been since my pop's funeral that I'd seen Frances in the flesh. She'd changed. Or, rather, she'd been changed. She'd slimmed down some, and at the same time got blonded up and coiffed. She didn't wear clothes, she wore high fashion from designers all too happy to give her their best stuff on the off chance she might sport it on the air. These days Frances didn't look like a kid from Williamsburg. She'd been Doris Dayed into a suburban white chick at-a-moment's-notice-ready to head to a PTA meeting.
She was saying, as she would be saying in a day's time: “This next gentleman I'm so very glad to be welcoming to the stage not only because he's a dear friend, he's also the most sensational young comic around. Making his television debut, please welcome Jackie Mann.”
From the wings I strutted myself onto the stage, getting a play-by-play from the floor manager every step of the way.
“You come right around here, Jackie,” he directed. “Keep walking over to Fran …”
I did as told. Fran took my hands in hers, squeezed hard, gave me a kiss on the cheek for luck. Except that we were in a soundstage with all that broadcast equipment, dozens of technicians and suits watching the rehearsal, making sure everything ran smooth as silk, it was just like Fran and I were back on Fourteenth Street.
The floor manager: “Okay, Fran steps away …”
She did.
“Jackie, you hit your mark.” He pointed down at a star painted on the floor. “Then you look right into the camera and be funny for twenty-two million Americans.”
“But no pressure, right?”
“Hey, that's not the cocksure Jackie I remember.” Fran had a reassuring hand on my arm, a calming light in her eyes.
I corrected her. “The way I recall, it used to be us standing on a street corner, me scared as hell of tomorrow, and you going on about how everything's going to be okeydoke.”
“We're a long way from a street corner, Jackie.”
I nodded to that. We passed a smile back and forth.
Fran gave my arm a good grip, a shot of confidence.
“Frances.” Across the stage, a couple of guys in suits calling for Fran.
Her expression went sour. With her head she made a couple of quick side-to-side shakes while her eyes did “oh, please” circles.
“Be right back.” She crossed to the suits.
“Didn't mean to get you at all nervous,” the stage manager was saying. “Fran's talked you up a lot. I'm sure you're going to do great.”
“Can I ask you something? Twenty-two million people, that's really how many are going to be watching?”
“Well, a little more than half that live. The rest of the country gets it on the West Coast rebroadcast.”
My heart found another gear and pumped out an exhaust of sweat over my palms. I had a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, and I knew they were going to be on me like a shadow for the next day.
I got myself over to the craft services table, tried to make a cup of tea but shook so badly, I couldn't get it to my mouth without scalding my hand. Food was out of the question. To my stomach—steely for the stage but new to television—the deli platter sitting out looked about as inviting as razors on rye.
A thought came to me, again: Maybe Sid was right. Maybe I wasn't ready for Sullivan yet. I wished he'd been there. Said he was feeling under the weather. Yeah. I took it for meaning he had to go and get himself clean.
I tried to never-mind my nerves, tried to focus on what Sammy had told me when I first met him back in Vegas: that I was strictly a star now. Stars don't get nervous. I went for
a sip of my tea. My shirt took most of it.
“Jackie?”
There was a guy suddenly behind me. I hadn't heard him walk up, I hadn't caught any movement out of the corner of my eye. There was just a guy suddenly behind me like he had risen up from the ground. He was a kid-faced fellow. Well manicured. Clean-cut. Clean everything. He looked like he could slide headfirst through a cow pasture and come up wrinkle-free and sweet-smelling. And he had a smile. He wore a big old grin for no apparent reason except that maybe grinning was what he got paid to do. I sort of recognized him as one of the suits Fran was talking with not but a few minutes earlier.
“Jackie Mann? Les Eisner.” He took my hand, shook it without giving me any choice in the matter. “Fatima cigarettes. We sponsor the program. Listen, Jackie, I was wondering if we could have a talk about a few things.”
“YOU'RE CRAZY, do you know that? Both of you, you're both … you're …” Fran was red hot. Hot with anger and red from the hard-pumped blood surging her veins, making her fair skin flush. “You're just crazy! ”
There were four of us in an office. Fran, me, Les—his grin had downgraded into a condescending smile—and right next to him some CBS guy, the other suit I'd seen Fran talking with. Just about as clean-cut as Les but on a budget. He wasn't smiling at all.
The CBS suit said: “Frances, it's just a kiss.”
“That's right. It's just a kiss. So do you want to tell me why I can't kiss my friend—”
“Frances,” Les started.
“My friend on my television show?”
“Frances, I can understand your fe—”
“It's The Fran Clark Show. And if I wan—”
“It's The Fran Clark Show, sponsored by Fatima cigarettes.” Now it was Les who was doing the cutting-off. “And the fact of the matter is there are some people who are not going to be pleased by the sight of you kissing a colored.”
