by John Ridley
Unaware of myself, my fingers bit at the counter, dragged me along it closer to the TV.
… Crawl to his wife and children, who rushed from the house to hold their dying man. He held on long enough to get loaded into a station wagon by friends and get raced to University of Mississippi Hospital, and just long enough to make it into the emergency room, where white doctors didn't exactly snap to operating on a shot black man. He held on that long, but no longer.
On the TV: another picture of the house. What I thought was paint on the drive was a slick of blood.
Medgar Evers. Husband. Father. My savior. Dead. Dead, because he thought black people should have the radical, unheard of, uninfringeable right to be able to sit where they wanted at lunch counters, ride where they wanted on a bus. Maybe even vote.
The news bulletin over, the broadcast went back to a soap.
Murmurs from the diner: The mayor's out of his mind, out of his damn mind if he thinks … The Yankees are nothing but bums, and what they need to do is … A guy telling another guy about some skirt at work—a looker, divorced—who was ready for a little …
Murmurers. Nothing about Medgar. No one was murmuring about him. For me, until that moment, he'd been a face without a name. For most of the rest of the world, he wouldn't even be a memory.
“Order up.” Down the counter, the waitress with my food. “Your order's up.”
I got up, went for the door, stopped, went back, and tossed over some money. I left.
THIS IS HOW IT WAS GOING TO BE: It was going to be the Moscow circus … actually, first it was going to be Ed. Ed would come out, do his “hello-we've-got-a-great shew” bits, then give hellos to any stars in the house. There were always stars in the house, because stars loved getting their mugs flashed coast-to-coast just for all the non-effort of showing up and sitting in Ed's audience. So it would be Ed and his hellos, and then the circus, and then me. It was all standard procedure. The gospel according to the man himself. Bob told me Ed's rule was “Open big, have a good comedy act, put in something for the children, keep the show clean,” Kill, be entertaining, have a great set, but be clean. Clean, safe, pleasing to the people was what Ed Sullivan was all about.
As we walked through the rehearsal, I had an experience of déjá vu times déjá vu. I'd lived the moment so many times in my head, it was as familiar to me as any real-life event from my past. Despite the frenzied moil going on around me—the growing panic of the crew who, no matter how many times they'd done this before, were moving closer and closer to having to go out live to America—I was as I'd been since Bob shook my hand and told me I had the show, very calm. It was as if I were ghosting through a moment already completed, watching it specter-style. All there was for me was to play my part as scripted.
Except, the script didn't exactly read the way I always thought it would. It had changed severely in the days since Medgar Evers caught a bullet.
The stage manager called me over to what would be my mark, wanted me to run through my set right quick for the cameras. Like a gambler's ritual, one more time I pulled some papers from my pocket—yellowed, torn, but never thrown away. Stationery from the St. Regis in San Francisco. I looked quickly at a routine long dormant but never forgotten. I took my mark, looked into the camera, said: “Hello, my name is Jackie Mann. I'm a Negro.”
IT WAS ME AND CHET AND BOB in Bob's office. Bob was being sympathetic—as sympathetic as he could be, considering—but his compassion was being drowned under apprehension that, moment by moment, he was taking on through the hole I'd just blown in him. Chet was red-hot-volcano-style, but he held it in. Let Bob do the talking. Probably for fear of what would happen should he let his fury flow.
Bob said, delicate but to the point: “He's furious. Ed is absolutely … Your set was—”
“It was tunny,” I said.
“It was—”
“Funny. You heard those people at the rehearsal laughing. And the crew, they've heard, what, a thousand comics? Heard every possible joke? They were—”
“Nervous laughter.”
“Laughter.”
“Let him talk!” Chet barked at me. “Just let the man talk.”
I didn't look at Chet. I didn't look at him or Bob. I didn't want to be hypnotized by whatever emotion came pouring out of their eyes. I just kept up a blank stare at a nonexistent spot somewhere in front of me.
Bob took a second, let everybody get calm. “You see the problem here, Jackie? You did a set for us at the Delmonico, a set we approved, then not only do you change it at the last minute, you do all that … going on about race, and Vietnam, for crying out loud.”
“I'm talking about what's going on in the world.”
“Half the people in the country couldn't point to Vietnam on a map. I mean, who in the heck cares what's go—”
“I'm talking about what's going on with Negroes. I'm telling jokes from my point of view. What's wrong with that?”
“… Nothing. Nothing in particular—”
“It's not like I'm cursing. It's not like I'm going blue. I'm just talki—”
“In its place, nothing's wrong with any of that. But on national television on a Sunday night? That's not what we do. That's not what America wants to hear.”
“How do you know if no one's ever talked about it before?”
“Jesus Christ,” Chet spat.
Bob just looked exasperated. Still, he tried to get me to understand things. “Jackie, Ed Sullivan and this show are as committed to supporting Negro entertainers, Negroes period, as any television program on the air. Lincoln-Mercury gave Ed big trouble for hugging Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey. He didn't care. Ed has never once shied away from … Do you remember the heat he gave Winchell for snubbing Josephine Baker at the Stork Club? But regardless of how Ed personally feels about Negroes, or civil rights, that doesn't mean you get to turn the eight P.M. time slot into a soapbox.”
Bob stopped trying to sell me, and got very plain about the situation, “I think I can square things with Ed. I'll tell him … I'll tell him something, but I can keep you on the show only if you do the set you showed us at the Delmonico. I've got to have your word on that, Jackie. I've got to have your word you'll do the set we agreed on. Yes or no?”
I said nothing.
Chet said to Bob: “Let me talk to him a minute.”
Bob nodded, got up. He started to go but first reduced the entire discussion to its essence: “Jackie, do not fuck with Ed Sullivan.” He left his office to Chet and me.
Chet washed his face in the palms of his hands, then slid them up to his head, slicked back his hair. Little rituals for calming.
He said, asked: “What are you doing?”
“I'm doing my act.”
“You're killing yourself, that's what you're doing. It's like … it's like you're taking a gun—God, I can't even believe you'd … It's like you're taking a gun and putting it to your head and spreading your brain all over a wall. It's suicide.” Chet worked loose the knot of his blue spotted tie. “The Sullivan show! Why in the hell would you—”
“He saved my life.”
“… What?”
“Medgar Evers saved my life.”
Chet didn't know what to say to that. He tried a couple of times to come up with something, but it didn't amount to much more than his mouth opening and closing.
“Years ago. Kept me from getting beat to death.”
“So now you've got to … what? You gotta do a memorial to him?”
“No. Not for him. I think I have to do this for me.”
“Okay. Okay, that right there is the problem: For you, you're doing this for you. You even thought about what you're doing to Bob? You're putting a fire to his ass! He went to bat for you! I—” Chet's hands clenched up, he rolled one of his fists on his forehead, made a couple of sharp, herky-jerky moves, working hard to check his anger.
After he rode it down: “I went to bat for you, Jackie. You come to the agency, you come to me, you say you want Sull
ivan. I get you Sullivan. I make the calls, I put on the pressure, I—GET—YOU— SULLIVAN! I put my neck out for you and now you're swinging the ax. Christ!” Chet did a little more anger-wrestling. Anger was getting the upper hand.
I did what I'd been trying to avoid. I looked Chet in the eye. No rage there, not like I'd thought. There was some hurt. There was a lot of pleading.
“Yeah, you know something, your set was funny. That stuff about race, civil rights … you can do things with that. Monday morning, you can do some serious damage with those jokes. Monday, after Sunday, after Sullivan, after you're a star, If you want to do something for yourself, make yourself a star, Jackie.”
If I wanted to do something for myself … Was I doing this, doing my San Francisco set, for myself? Was I being selfish? Was I so desperate to soothe my grief over a man I hardly knew, my guilt that a man who worked for positive change was dead while I, working for nothing greater than more money and better fame, was still very much alive, that I was just putting all that ahead of the reality of the situation? Was I just trying to make me feel good about the shit of a human that I was?
I didn't know.
I didn't know. I'd been lying to myself so long, lying about what was right or wrong or okay to do for the sake of getting ahead that I didn't know what was truth anymore. Chet had put himself out for me. He had delivered as promised. He had gotten me Sullivan. How fair was it for me to turn around and do every unkind thing short of hitting him with a shovel so I could feel righteous about myself?
It wasn't fair at all. That much I knew to be truth.
Monday. Come Monday I could tell just about any joke I pleased just about anywhere I desired. Monday after Sunday there'd be plenty of chances for me to do things the way I wanted. But for now …
“Okay. Tell them I'll do the other jokes.”
THE SMOOTH AND STEADY SWEEP of a bright-red second hand over the plain black-and-white face of the clock that was hung up on the wall. Minutes now. Minutes instead of years, days, hours. Minutes until eight o'clock P.M. Eastern Standard Time, until the start of the Sullivan show. From my dressing room I could hear a dull hum, the audience filling the house with their bodies and their swelling excitement. I didn't think anything of it. I remained relaxed.
At intervals a voice would come over a loudspeaker, staticky, giv ing instructions to the crew and counting down the time to air.
Minutes.
Chet was off somewhere else in the studio, shaking hands, greasing wheels, getting the world ready for Jackie Mann. Fine. I was glad for the time to think and be still. And I would be very glad when all of this was behind me. I was tired of the struggle. For as long as I could remember, the Sullivan show had been the focal point of my) existence. It had been my Sunday nights, my escape, my dreams. In a way, in a very real way, it defined me. It had been my life. I wanted my life back.
I started to go through a mental checklist, give myself little reminders: Stand straight. When you walk out onstage, stand straight. Smile. Make sure you smile for the people. Be confident. Own the moment. Why shouldn't I own it? I'd been paying for it on installment for years.
A knock at the door. It came as a gunshot, made me jump. I was more nervous than I would admit to myself. Even now, always lying.
It was Bob. “All set, Jackie?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It's going to be a great show.” He stuttered a bit. “I'm glad we could work things out.”
“Sorry about all that. I owed you better for what you've done for me. I owed Chet, too.”
“He's a good agent. I was glad to hear it when Sid told me you went with him. Nothing against Sid, mind you, but William Morris …”
Bob talked on, but I sat for a second, maybe it was a couple, not hearing him, not hearing what he was saying but processing what he'd just said. “Sid told you?”
“Yes.”
“You talked to him?”
“When I called to tell him I wanted you to audition.”
“You called Sid?”
“Yeah. He'd been working me for you a good long while. When I called him, told him I was ready to give you a look, he said you were with William Morris now, and I should—”
“And then you called Chet.” Slow. Deliberate. “You called Chet and you told him you wanted me to audition?”
Bob couldn't quite figure what to make of my reaction. He couldn't figure why I looked so shocked, hurt. Why I looked as if a knife—long and jagged—had been slid, none too gently, deep inside me.
“Yeah. I called Chet. … He's your agent.”
The god-voice came back over the speakers, told us it was three minutes to air.
“I've got some things to take care of, Jackie. A page will come get you about five minutes before your spot. Break a leg.”
Bob left.
I'm not sure what I did.
I WAS STANDING IN THE WINGS.
Ed was before the cameras. “… Right here, on this stage … Sensational young … Television debut…”
Couldn't focus on the words, couldn't even …
Out of the corner of my eye, somebody giving me the thumbs-up.
From Ed, my name.
The orchestra. People clapping.
My legs begged to shake. My palms slicked up.
I walked out to center stage …
Stand straight. Make sure you walk out straight.
Walked out to a little star that was painted there …
Be confident. Own the moment.
My heart went supersonic, the sound of it pumping made me deaf to the world. I looked at the audience but couldn't see them with the electric white of the lights in my eyes. Just dark silhouettes—that living ink blot. Clapping shadows—and the television cameras. Three bulky beasts staring me down. The whole of America looking at me through them.
And smile. Make sure you …
Couldn't work up a smile.
Couldn't.
The applause died out.
It got quiet.
The quiet again. Same quiet I'd spent so many years facing down. The empty void.
Only …
This time the void wasn't empty. This time, as if I were watching a movie show of my life just prior to dying, pictures of the past jumped up before my face. Call it: Story of a Man. Me, years ago, seventy blocks and a world away, watching Ed Sullivan up at Grandma Mae's. Me working the burly-ques, the Village clubs, the Copa, Tahoe and Vegas, the stars I'd opened for, the shows I'd closed. I saw the road traveled and the mountain climbed. I saw all it took to get me to the very moment when I stood where I stood.
All it took.
I saw me shuckin' and jivin' so the crackers at a lumber camp wouldn't beat me. Dancing so rednecks wouldn't lynch me. Dodging while Frances put her career on the line just to kiss me. There's me getting chased from Liliah by Hollywood thugs. Me marrying a woman I didn't care for. Me letting the woman I'd loved more and longer than anything else slip further and further away.
And then there's me cutting Sid Kindler out of my life so some other guy could grab the credit for getting me where I was.
All it took.
All it took …
All it took from me.
In the void I saw Jackie Mann ducking and sliding and kowtowing and yawsuhing and bootlicking and cowering and truckling and groveling and chipping, and chipping, and chipping away at himself until what was left couldn't even occupy the space where he stood.
Jackie Mann.
Jackie Mann?
Jacking Nothing. Not one single thing. I was nothing.
Jackie Mann?
Jackie Mann.
I said to the audience, I said to the world: “Hello, I'm Jackie Mann … I'm a Negro. I have to tell you that because I wasn't always a Negro. Used to be colored. As I understand it, pretty soon we're going to be calling ourselves black. We keep changing what we call ourselves all the time. I think we're hoping we can confuse white people into liking us: 'I hate them.' 'Who?' 'Those col … Ne … bla
… Never mind!'
“I think Negroes are finally starting to get respect. Used to be if you were a Negro you had to sit at the back of the bus, wait at the back of the line. Now they're sending soldiers over to Vietnam, everyone's like: 'Oh, no, please, you Negroes go first.' See, I think Negroes are going to make real good soldiers in Vietnam. We're going to get sent to a strange place where we're hated and people want to kill us for no good reason. For us, that's like another day in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm not even sure if there's any fighting going on over in Vietnam. I think Governor Wallace finally figured a way around integration: ‘Now, yew Negroes jus’ git on this heyah boat, 'n' sail away … we all come 'n' git ya later.”
People didn't laugh. The hell they didn't. People screamed. People screamed and they screamed in waves. That hip, smart, New York audience had never seen, never heard, never conjured up anything like me, a young black man not talking about his mother-in-law or the last crazy date he went on—cooning with himself. I was taking the stage full of confidence, making a stand. Standing up for myself, my people. I was joking with a point of view. I had a perspective.
I had a voice.
I hit one bit—won't pick cotton from a bottle of aspirin—and I had to stop dead for all the cheering and clapping. I had to wait for the audience to clap themselves out.
In my mind I started cutting jokes, fearing I'd run three minutes long over my original five.
Five minutes.
And I filled them. I filled them until they burst. If there was a smoother comic, you tell me who. If there was a funnier man alive, you give me his name. For those five minutes I was fresh and sharp and dangerous. The best I'd ever been. As good as I would ever be.
And no one outside that studio would ever see or hear a word I said.
