by Davis, Sammy
“Well, now that you mention it”—he couldn’t resist smiling—”I did wonder when they were going to start your crap game.”
“You see? You did catch it.”
“Well …”
I leaned across the bar. “Listen, y’know the old cliché ‘Some of my best friends are colored’? It’s been up-dated. Now it’s ‘My kid goes to school with Ralph Bunche’s son.’ ”
He smiled slightly, holding back, knowing that his complete reaction would only steam me. He shrugged, trying to minimize it. “Well, I don’t want to do a cliché, too, but you’ve got to remember that to most people,” he made a face, “particularly that crowd today, you’re the first Negro they ever met socially and they just don’t know how to handle it.”
“Baby, if that’s the case, and it probably is, then they’ll have to get somebody else to practice on. Let them go out and hire some colored kid who needs the dough. Let them sit down and talk to him ‘cause I’ve had it with running classes for learners.”
“Well, I can understand that it’s not exactly kicks, but at least you know their intentions are good. You know how they feel about you. They certainly wouldn’t be throwing parties in your honor if they were prejudiced or anything.”
“I know exactly how they feel about me. The trouble is they don’t know how they feel about me. Let’s not celebrate National Brotherhood Week just because a woman throws a party for me instead of keeping me out of school. They wanted to show off to their friends that they know Sammy Davis, Jr. Fine. I’m only flattered. But let’s carry it a little further: here’s a woman who adores herself for being a liberal and having ‘a colored man’ to her apartment, right? But do you want to do about ten minutes on what a shake-up it would have been if instead of you I’d brought Charley Head with me? Or any colored guy who dresses well, who makes a lot of dough and has been around—but isn’t famous. I’d have set back her personal integration movement by fifty years. There’d be lorgnettes dropping all over the place, with mumbling, ‘Well, we like him but did he have to bring his friends?’ ”
“I don’t know why I’m defending her, but as long as I’m involved, how can you be so sure she’d react like that? Okay, they tried to do something they weren’t experienced at and they blew it, but that doesn’t mean …”
I came out from behind the bar. “Look, you’re talking to Charley Optimist. I don’t just casually jump to the conclusion that people are prejudiced. I’m hoping and praying I won’t see it. Further, if I expect people to give me the benefit of the doubt then obviously I’ve got to give them the benefit of the doubt. But when a woman says to me, ‘I like the colored people. It’s the spicks I hate,’ this is a prejudiced woman. Here’s an educated, presumably intelligent person lumping a whole group of people together—millions of them in one swoop—and judging them. It doesn’t occur to her that if her Negro maid didn’t come in one day you don’t go around saying Ralph Bunche, Sidney Poitier, and Thurgood Marshall are unreliable. By the same token there is nobody justified in hating all the Puerto Ricans ‘cause nobody has met all the Puerto Ricans. But this woman wants me to believe that she prejudges one group without prejudging another. Impossible. Either you see people as individuals or you don’t. My God, you can’t even say, ‘All of last year’s string beans were lousy’ so how can you do it with people?
“Then another cat tells me, ‘I’ve got ten Negroes and six white men working for me.’ Here’s a man who’s counting people by color, but he makes a trip across the room to brag to me that he’s a liberal. Do you realize that the only cliché I escaped is: ‘Oh? I didn’t even notice you were colored.’ ”
“Small world. Somebody said that to me”
“George, you’re rotten to the core.”
He frowned, pleased. “I know.”
“Now, Act Two: I’m reaching for an hors d’oeuvre and a man smiles broadly at me: ‘I want to shake your hand. You’re a credit to your people.’ Here this phony all-too-liberal is telling me colored people are rotten but I’m okay and he’s waiting for me to say thank you.
“How do you fight someone like this? The worst thing in the world is when you’re up against people who don’t know they’re prejudiced.
“They bring me to their homes, put their arms around my shoulder and walk around the room insulting me, patronizing me, hurting me just as much as a hater would, maybe even more, but they expect me to say ‘Thank you.’ They go to bed puffed up with the satisfaction of being humanitarians, patting themselves on the back: ‘I’m not prejudiced, I even had one to my home,’ and they fall asleep counting colored people coming to their parties.”
I stood up and gave a bar stool a little spin with one finger and watched it wobble slightly as it turned. “I’d be the last person in the world to say that anybody must be anything but what he wants to be. And even if he decides he wants to wear the badge of liberal I’m not asking him to turn over his income to the NAACP, or to go ride Freedom Buses—but he’s got to know there’s more to it than not throwing rocks.”
George was looking into his glass, turning it slowly, troubled, seeing something he’d seen around him all his life but which had to look different from the inside.
The doorbell rang. He looked up, and as surely as if he were putting on a different coat I could see him getting ready to hide again behind the facade of sophistication. He grinned. “Your fried chicken is here.”
When I noticed the Paramount clock showing 4:30 I closed the blinds so the kids wouldn’t notice it beginning to get light outside. I put the tape recorder on the bar. “Okay. Chita will be Leticia Vanderveer, Washington hostess whose salon is, in reality …”
“Lamont Cranston.”
I gave George a look. “Whose salon is, in reality, a hotbed of undercover agents …”
“Hot bed? Hot bed? What do you mean by that?”
An hour later the tape ran out, the loose end ticking each turn around the spindle. I jumped up to change it.
Michael yawned. “It’s just as well. I’m so tired I can’t see.”
Chita was putting on her coat. “I’m crazy. I’ve got a class tomorrow at eleven. How can I possibly dance with no sleep?”
I shrugged. “I know someone who’s the star of a Broadway musical who manages to do it and people don’t exactly hiss and boo me.”
Burt said, “We’ve got to get home and do the column.” “And why are you pulling up your tie, George? You’re only going downstairs.”
He pulled it open. “That’ll show you how tired I am.”
I turned off the tape recorder. “Then that’s it, folks, right? It’s a definite run-out-on-old-Sam.”
Michael asked, “Have you ever tried sleeping?”
“Okay. Don’t let me keep you. All of you do what you feel you should. I’ll just stay here alone—with all my friends.”
George said. “Now really, it is five o’clock.”
“No need to apologize. Get your sleep.” I handed out a set of Shakespeare books. “Tomorrow night we’ll have Hamlet readings. I’ve got a benefit so we won’t meet here until one. You’ve all got until then to learn your parts. You don’t have to know them by heart but it’ll be much more fun if you’re familiar with your lines.”
I snapped my book closed and rolled on the floor hysterically. “That’s it, folks. That’s it. Michael—I’m sorry, baby, but we’re all family here so I can say it—Polonius you ain’t!”
Chita yawned. I glared at her. “It’s only three o’clock, Chita. If you start in with that dance class jazz again …”
“But I do have a lesson and I was rotten today.”
I stood up. “Never let it be said that I hampered anybody’s career. It’s too bad though, that I went to the trouble to think up things that might be amusing for the few people I care about …” They were watching me curiously, defensively, as I unwrapped a Monopoly set.
Chita picked up the racing car, then she inspected the other tokens. “Are these real gold?”
“Quite.” I smiled bitterly, disappointedly. “I thought it would be a pleasant change for my friends to play Monopoly with solid gold instead of little pieces of tin.”
At around six-thirty George stood up. “Why am I still playing? I hate this game.”
Chita looked at me beseechingly. “I’ve really got to go.”
I lifted the board carefully and placed it on the bar. “Okay, we’ll finish tomorrow night. Everybody remember what they are.”
I stood at the door while they waited for the elevator. “So, the buddies are running out on me again, eh? A man has to write a column—maybe that I can understand, he’s got a deadline. Although I don’t see why you can’t bring your typewriter over here. But you, George, and Michael, and you Chita,” I gave them the tragic look, “I suppose it never occurred to you to skip your class just once and help bring joy to a poor soul who, this evening alone, has entertained thousands, a man who’s brought happiness to total strangers and asks nothing for himself but to be surrounded by his few close friends.” As she stepped into the elevator I called out, “I hope you get great big muscles in your legs!”
I watched the door slide closed and went back into the apartment. It was getting light outside. I washed my face, purposely using warm water so I wouldn’t wake myself up. The lid of my bad eye was hanging one-third closed, the sure sign I was tired. I opened my bed, but I had no desire to get into it. I sat at the bar and looked at the Monopoly set, embarrassed by it and by the Shakespeare books—the traps I’d used to keep friends with me until I’d turned them into prisoners. I stuffed the money, the deeds, and the gold tokens into the box, gathered up the books and put them in the closet.
As my head touched the pillow it was as though I’d hit the lock on a giant Jack-in-the-Box which sprang open and out flew the clown, jeering, sneering, shattering the quiet of the room, razzing me with words and images that belonged in the past, but that I could only keep locked away through the warmth of an audience or the security of friends. My pillow was hot and I turned it. I tried to ignore the sounds, to concentrate on the good things: the audiences, the people at benefits looking at me with approval, as though color didn’t matter, as though they didn’t know there were such things as scandal magazines and gossip columns. I strained to remember, to nourish myself on their affection—but by memory, the hatred and anger was stronger, louder.
Eventually the first rays of the morning sun were streaming through the Venetian blinds, casting shadows, like prison bars, on the walls of my room.
I sat behind my bar looking through the mail, autographing pictures, occasionally glancing up to see how George, Chita, and Michael were doing. The bell rang and Michael opened the door for Jane and Burt. I waved. “So the wandering journalists have returned home after another glittering night of gathering tomorrow’s news today, eh?”
Jane slipped off her shoes and walked over to glance at herself in the mirror. George asked, “And where were Mr. and Mrs. Manhattan this evening?”
“The usual.” Burt’s voice came from the closet. “There was an opening at the Plaza … we looked into Morocco …”
“Don’t knock it,” George grumbled. “These four walls.”
I listened to them talking, realizing that it had been weeks since we’d been anywhere except Danny’s for dinner. It was always the benefits, maybe a drop-in at Barry Gray’s show, then straight back to the apartment, to the island I’d created, to the few people I’d allowed to live on it with me—like a recluse, avoiding aggravation. Not only had I given up everything I’d come to New York for, but by doing so I was giving sanction to the idea that I had no right to it. It was frightening. I was the guy who comes home from the office and goes for a dip in the ocean, closing his eyes, luxuriating in feeling the tensions and pressures easing—unaware that he’s drifting from shore, further and further …
“Burt.”
“Yes, Sam?”
“What’s it like at El Morocco?”
He thought about it for a moment. “I guess it’s about the best place of its kind in town, probably in the world. It’s gay, sophisticated type crowd, glamorous …”
“But you’re never going to take me there, right?”
“Just say when.”
“It’s only one o’clock. Let’s go tonight?”
Chita jumped up. “You really mean it, Sammy?”
“How long will it take you to get home and change your clothes?”
She rushed for her coat. “I’ll be back in less than half an hour.”
Michael was already out the door and ringing for the elevator.
When the door closed I told Burt, “Maybe you’d better make a reservation … tell them I’m in your party.”
He dialed a number. I opened a window, got a camera and started making shots of the lighted buildings, appreciating the tripod which kept the camera steady, concentrating on the methodical clicks of the shutter that cracked across the room like gunshots until they were drowned out by the sound of Burt’s voice, angry, pinched, straining to be calm, but vibrating with emotion. I glanced around quickly and saw the skin pulled tight around his jaw, the muscle in his cheek throbbing; Jane started going through her purse, George picked up a photography magazine which he’d already looked through earlier in the evening. I heard the phone being set slowly on the receiver.
“They don’t want me, right?”
He sat down, stunned, his face totally drained of color, chalky. I walked over to him and gently pinched his cheeks. “Baby, it’s okay to be white but you’re overdoing it.” I sat behind my bar. “Well, I went for broke and I got it.” I looked at Burt. “Well, let’s hear it, don’t leave me in the dark. Oops. What do I mean by that?”
He was shaking his head slowly, staring at the phone, holding a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, not moving to bring them together. He looked at me blankly. “It was unbelievable … he started to say they didn’t have any tables but he didn’t go through with that—he knew I’d know that’s ridiculous at this hour. Then he said he wanted to speak to John Perona—he’s the owner. I don’t know if he actually did or not but he came back in a minute and said, ‘We’d rather not.’ I told him we weren’t asking if they’d rather or not. Then he asked me what you looked like.”
“What I look like?”
“He said … ‘He’s very black, isn’t he?’ ”
“You’re kidding!”
“I wish to God I were. Then he started copping-out by saying, ‘I mean he’s not light-skinned, I mean it’s awfully dark, isn’t it?’ Then he asked me to hold the phone again and came back with a new idea. He said you’ve been in Confidential and the scandal magazines and that’s the reason they don’t want you—because they don’t want to encourage people like that…. Sam, I should have mentioned a dozen of their steady customers who’ve been in those magazines, to say nothing of Bob Harrison who publishes Confidential—he’s there almost every night …” His voice lost its momentum. “But I was so dazed I … I just hung up.”
“Did they actually say, ‘No. He can’t come here’?”
“No. They know better. That’s against the law. They just said you’re not welcome and that you won’t be treated nicely if you appear there.”
I ground my fist into my hand, drawing my fingers tightly over the knuckles, watching my skin changing color under the pressure, overwhelmed for the millionth time by the great goddamned difference people saw in it, disgusted by my incredibly naïve optimism that had survived so many moments like this and had, again, inexcusably, suckered me into going for the rare chance that maybe this time it would be different.
“Sam?”
I looked up. Burt’s face was racked by the hurt and bewilderment of someone who’d always known fire was hot but now the first searing touch of it had shown him how hot it really is. He smiled grimly. “As he was saying you weren’t welcome, just as I hung up—the dance band was playing ‘Mr. Wonderful.’ ”
“Well, folks. It’s a small world. Pa
rticularly if you’re colored.” I stood up. “Okay, let’s forget it. It was a bad idea and it ain’t gonna get any better with you guys giving me the June Allyson smiles.” Nobody could think of anything to say. I looked around the room at Jane, Burt, and George. “At least you’ve got to admit this is the first funeral parlor you ever saw with TV, hi-fi, and booze.” The doorbell rang.
George groaned. “Oh, God …”
Nobody was making a move for the door. I stood up. “Well, somebody’s got to answer it.”
Chita was framed in the doorway, dressed to the teeth, posing Vogue magazine-style. She yawned, “I left my large diamonds in the vault.” Michael was behind her, all smiles.
I bowed them in. “This way, dear friends. Services will begin in a few minutes.”
The strip of street lights that ran up and down Broadway went off, a second later they went off at Seventh, then Sixth, Fifth—as if somebody were running across town pulling switches. I sat in front of the window and sifted through a batch of newspaper clippings—the reading of the public pulse, the sum total of what I’d accomplished: fair, fair, lousy, rotten; judgments, indictments, jokes that didn’t even pretend at good humor, pictures of me and white girls that had been taken at cast parties in complete innocence but were published dripping with innuendo. I looked at an item from the Negro press: “The Negro girls at Sammy Davis, Jr.’s dinner party at Danny’s Hideaway last Tuesday were only there as cover-ups for the white woman who was really his date.” My date had been Ruth King, an old friend and a top Negro model. But whoever had seen us, ten of us, had automatically assumed I was with a white woman. As if it was impossible I’d be with a Negro. It was only the ultimate in the same old story.
