Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr.

by Davis, Sammy

  She tossed off the coat. “Sammy, I voted last year. And I’m not sorry for anything I’ve ever done. Now, may I have a drink? Scotch and water, please.”

  I mixed it for her and stayed behind the bar. She sat across from me, caught a look at herself in the mirror behind the bar, and smiled, satisfied, then raised her glass. “Well, here we are.”

  I smiled, looking straight at her face so as not to encourage her by letting her see me enjoying the sight of her body.

  She asked, “You won’t be in New York much longer, will you?”

  “Just another month or so.”

  “You can play any club you want to, can’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I read in Variety that you signed a million dollar contract with the Sands in Las Vegas. They must want you pretty badly.”

  “Well, if you read the story you saw that it’s over a period of five years….”

  She finished her drink, came behind the bar, stood in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders, flexing her body, posing, inviting. “Sammy? I’d just love to work in the line at the Sands; the girls make great money out there; if you even mentioned my name to Jack Entratter I’ll bet he’d give me a job. I’ll never get anywhere on Broadway; I know I haven’t got any talent. But I’ve got the looks for Vegas, haven’t I?” She stepped closer and put her arms around my neck.

  At least when a drunk gets rolled he has an excuse.

  As I turned away from her I saw my face in the mirror: the nose, the scars, the dead eye, the features jammed together—it looked so vastly different than I had felt.

  I tore my gaze away and was confronted by her face again, the looking glass in front of which I’d primped and pranced, gorging myself on the joy of playing Sir Galahad, Lancelot, and Walter Raleigh, all rolled into one big clown.

  I lifted her arms off my neck, walked past her, out from behind the bar, and dropped her coat over her arm.

  She looked at it as if it belonged to somebody else. “You don’t want me?”

  “Some other time. I’ll take care of Vegas.” I walked to the door.

  “You’re mad at me.”

  “Darling, I love sirloin steaks but I don’t have to consume every one in America. I’m tired. It is seven o’clock in the morning, right?”

  She put on her coat and closed it around her, smiling like she’d made the phone call and gotten her dime back, too. “Okay, but whenever you’re in the mood I’ll be available. Aren’t you going to take me home?”

  “I never take anybody home. Here’s twenty for a cab. I’ll let you know about Vegas.”

  The door closed softly behind her.

  I poured a coke and watched the foam rise above the edges of the silver goblet, hang in mid-air, then run down the sides and form a puddle on the bar. I touched my finger to it and wrote “Sammy Davis, Jr.” on the bar top. I sat there staring at it. It no longer seemed like the name of a person.

  I could see the chick’s underpants outlined against her slacks as she walked toward me and plunked herself down on my lap. “What’s wrong with poor Sammy?” She cooed, “Such a long face. Everybody’s having a good time except him, and it’s his party.”

  “Darling, why don’t you get yourself another drink? You’re wrinkling my suit.”

  She stood up, pouting, playing it hurt. “I was only trying to be friendly.”

  “There’s a time and place for everything.” I glanced at my watch. “For you the time will be five-thirty sharp. That’s when I want you ringing my doorbell. Go out and have a cup of coffee while I clear the room.”

  She blinked, stupidly. “But the party’s just getting started …”

  “That’s right, and it’s in my honor. Now if you don’t want to play the home team’s rules—there’s the door.”

  “Well …” she stalled, “you could at least be a little bit of a gentleman about it.”

  “I don’t have to be a gentleman. I’ll see you at five-thirty.”

  “Well, I don’t know … we’ll see.” She was trying to gather her dignity.

  I laughed. “You ain’t never gonna find it.”

  “Huh?” She blinked. “Find what, Sammy?”

  “Skip it.” I tapped my watch. “Five-thirty.”

  I pulled a fail-asleep on the couch and got rid of everybody. I checked my watch against the Times clock. In twenty-five minutes the doorbell would ring and a woman would arrive to go to bed with my name. She’d smile and say, “I decided to give you another chance even if you are awful.” But as she took off her clothes she’d be telling me, “You can have anything you want because you’re a star. You insulted me but here I am anyway. It doesn’t matter what you do, how you act, because it isn’t you I care about at all, it’s Sammy Davis, Jr.”

  I set a stack of my own albums on the record player. I put on a silk robe with a large “SD Jr.” monogrammed across the breast pocket. Then I walked behind the bar and faced myself in the mirror; I ran my finger slowly along the scar which circled the bridge of my nose, I touched the eyelid that was drooping like a dope addict’s. “You’re ugly. You’ve got nothing going for you except your talent and the fact that you’re a star. You didn’t see any chicks running after you when you were hungry and you haven’t gotten better looking since then. They want to hang around you because you’re a star and they dig being around success. That’s all they care about. So take what you want without ever looking back. They’re getting theirs and you don’t owe them nothing! Just never kid yourself why they’re here. Say it every day: you’re ugly.”

  I sat down at the bar, propped my watch against an ashtray and watched the sweep second hand wiping the minutes away. At exactly six seconds after 5:29 I heard the elevator door slide open at my floor, and the bell ring. I looked in the mirror. “You see?” I poured a coke and the bell rang again, timidly. I took a long slug of my drink, holding the goblet in the air, savoring the nectar of arrogance. I saw my reflection in the silver, staring back at me, the smile twisted and broken by the design of the goblet. I stood up and took my time walking to the door.

  As I passed through the bar at Danny’s, Jack E. Leonard nodded toward the other room, “Your team is waiting in there for you.”

  I made my entrance and sat down at the head of my table. The guy who had the seat next to mine looked at his watch. “Sammy … we’ve been waiting an hour.” He softened it with a nervous laugh.

  “Baby, I’m not the Pennsylvania Railroad. I don’t run on a schedule.”

  He panicked. “Gee, don’t get me wrong, Sammy. I was just worried you wouldn’t have time for your dinner. I mean, I know you need time to digest it before you go on …”

  Pete came over and I said, “I’ll start with some scampi, then a sirloin—with spaghetti on the side in honor of the fact that you’re Italian.” I stood up. “Excuse me, everybody.”

  Marty Mills was at another table.

  “Where’ve you been, Marty? How come I don’t see you anymore?”

  “I’ve been around but you’re kinda busy …”

  “Hey, don’t give me that jazz. We go back a few years, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Come on, Marty, don’t do hurt bits with me. You know how busy I am with the show and the interviews and with record sessions, but you could’ve picked up a phone and called me.”

  “I’ve called you, Sammy.”

  “I swear I never got the message.”

  “Well, what’s the difference? You’ve got a million guys around you all the time, you’re a big star now …”

  I walked around the restaurant looking for anyone else I knew, table-hopping until my food was on the table. Across the room Marty was talking to his friends as though he didn’t know I was there, like he’d crossed me off. I called Pete over. “Baby, put Marty Mills’ party on my tab. When he asks for his check tell him ‘X-2 took care of it.’ ”

  The scampi smelled good but I didn’t feel like eating. The guy next to me said, “What’s wrong S
am?” He was wearing expression #17: Sincerely Concerned. “Everything okay?” The guy next to him nudged him and whispered, “Anything wrong?” The first guy made a worried face. “He seems a little down.” Then they both looked at me, Concerned, and it moved down the length of the table like a row of swimmers peeling off into a pool. I was glum, so they looked glum. I smiled. They smiled. They’re a bunch of idiots. I went from face to face, playing the friendship game: this “friend” figures if he hangs around I’ll leave the Morris office and let him bring me over to his agency; this friend wants me to record his songs; now, what the hell is this friend’s angle? He just digs being around “names,” for his social position and his sex life; this friend’s been bugging me to do that benefit way the hell out in New Jersey so he can be big with his in-laws….

  But do they have to lay it on so thick? Where’s their flare? How about a little artistry?

  As my glance swept the table they grinned, winked, and smiled at me. I signed the check and stood up. “Well, friends, I’ve gotta go meet the public, catch you all at the apartment later.”

  I began putting on my make-up. Charley Head was packing the things I wouldn’t be using again, putting a year of my life into boxes. George came in and looked around the dressing room at the stack of telegrams, the flowers, the table of little gifts from the kids, and the World-Telegram that was opened to our “Last Performance” ad. He leaned against the wall and spoke to my reflection in the mirror. “I hear some of the brokers were getting a hundred dollars a pair for tonight.”

  “That’s a pretty nice send-off for the unwanted child.” There was a silence in the room. I looked up. “You’re coming to the Harwyn, aren’t you?”

  He seemed hurt as he said of course he was and I was sorry I’d asked, but I’d wanted to be sure.

  He smiled nostalgically. “I’ll have to hire someone to call me in the middle of the night and wake me up.”

  “You’re not going to change, are you, George?”

  He stared at the floor. “I’m rotten to the core.”

  As I waited in the wings to go on for the last scene, to close the show, there was a gasp of surprise from the audience and I looked onto the stage. The Palm Club set was packed with tables of celebrities, stars of other Broadway shows and of every important nightclub in town. Walter Winchell was seated at “ringside,” next to him were Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin, Jerry Lewis, Tony Bennett, Shelley Winters. George, dressed in the headwaiter costume, was ushering a customer to a table: Jule Styne, wearing Ruth Dubonnet’s mink coat.

  In the middle of my act the entire choruses of Fair Lady, Li’l Abner, and Bells Are Ringing arrived from their theaters and seated themselves on the stage; Edward G. Robinson who was appearing in Middle of the Night down the street walked on with his cigar, the slouch hat, his hand in his pocket, Little Caesar style. He took the mike out of my hand, cased the stage. “Kid, you’re making a big mistake, see? Y’got a good setup here, see? Lotsa dames. Of course we got dames over at my place but they’re all old married dames.” Jerry Lewis sprang from his seat and began dancing around the stage, still wearing his make-up from the Palace where he was doing his first “single.” It was the hottest ticket in town, the talk of the city. I waved. “Hi’ya Jer. What’re you doing in town?”

  It got a laugh. He gave me a smug look. “I just finished my show at the Palace. And Sam,” he paused for emphasis, “I’m not closing!”

  The audience screamed and he did his strut around the stage heckling everybody. I could ad-lib with Jerry because he could hit back. I folded my arms, Jack Benny style, and watched him with mock impatience while I was looking for the right line. My father had come back to the show for closing night and he and Will were in their usual places. I motioned toward them, “Jer, I’ve still got my partners.”

  Shelley Winters got up from a table and took the mike. “Ladies and gentlemen, all these people sitting up here came over after doing their own shows to pay tribute to a great performer and it’s been a lot of fun but you’ll have to excuse me for adding a serious note because there’s something that should be said. Sammy made something important happen on this stage for the past year. Mr. Wonderful is more than just a hit show. It’s the first show in which both Negro and white performers worked together on the same stage and after five minutes nobody cared or even noticed the difference.”

  As I finished my closing number—row by row, like waves popping up on an ocean, sixteen hundred people stood, applauding. The cast gathered around me, we took twelve bows, and the audience was still applauding and shouting “Bravo” as the curtain fell on Mr. Wonderful for the last time.

  “You really did it, Sammy.” “… fantastic personal triumph.” “… tremendous accomplishment!” “… you really made it.” I moved from table to table through the Harwyn, which I’d taken over for my closing night party. From person to person the words hardly changed as the people kept smiling, patting me on the back, asking me to sit with them—showing and telling me in every way they could that I’d made it. But I couldn’t feel it. “How about The New York Times, Sammy? They buried you a year ago but they finally had to list you under ‘Hit Shows,’ right? Beautiful.” I smiled and nodded, wishing I could feel something more than an empty satisfaction at having done what I’d said I’d do, wishing I could feel the kind of exhilaration I knew should be the payoff for making a show run for a year. “What a night, Sammy! Those names on the stage, I never saw anything like it. What a closing!” A waiter walked by with a bucket of champagne, the orchestra played “Mr. Wonderful” again and everybody turned to me, applauding, as they had when I’d walked in. I smiled back at them, seeing them all celebrating, happy for me, and I kept moving around the room trying to feel some of the excitement, too. They stopped me at every table to tell me I’d made it but the words wouldn’t fill me up, they kept running out, leaving me hollow. The higher the hilarity rose the more impossible it seemed for me to reach it. I kept moving, playing host, trying to soak it up and feel it as everybody else could, trying to open myself to it, hoping that if I heard it over and over again it would numb the doubt, and the joy of the evening would flow into me too, and I’d be able to taste what they were all telling me was mine….

  Jane and Burt were getting up from my table to dance. I spoke quietly. “Let’s go to El Morocco.”

  “Now? In the middle of your own party?”

  “Just for a little while, then we’ll come back. Will you take me?”

  I told our chauffeur, “El Morocco,” and I sat back in the seat. Here we go, daddy. It’s either the frosting on the cake or a pie in the face.

  We were approaching the blue and white awning I’d passed so many times, and the doorman, dressed like a guy from the French Foreign Legion, symbolizing the gaiety inside. Burt, Jane, and I did a wordless grasping of hands. The doorman opened our car door, we stepped out and went through the revolving door.

  Two headwaiters stood at the entrance to what seemed to be the main room. Burt smiled pleasantly. “Good evening, Joe, Angelo. We’re three tonight.”

  They didn’t look at me but at Burt, and there was a wordless, momentary pause, a vacant look in the eyes of the two men, a look conveying the hurt of betrayal.

  “This way, please.”

  Time and sophistication had refined the moment. At another time, another place, it might have been “I’m sorry, do you have a reservation?” At still another time and place it might have been “Colored people can’t come in here.” Or it could have been more brutal.

  It was a hollow voice saying, “This way please” offering no welcoming warmth—but at least the words were right. At least they hadn’t embarrassed me, and I was walking to a table at El Morocco.

  The motion with which the room was alive seemed to veer and change course and accelerate into a more frenetic kind of action; heads were spinning as if they were tops and my entrance had just pulled the strings. I walked behind Burt, looking straight ahead, but seeing the nudging and leaning
, the blinking and staring, the simple surprise at the presence of someone with my color skin who wasn’t wearing a turban. Then smiles began breaking out here and there like beacons across a dark field and I got little four-finger waves, and a “Hi, Sammy” murmured discreetly as I passed a table of six. I looked to see if I knew the man who’d said it but they were all strangers. I kept walking, experiencing an awareness of myself that I’d never felt before an audience of five thousand people. As the maître d’ led us past the dance floor, the people swayed back and forth, keeping the franchise of being there, maneuvering for better looks at the drama of the moment.

  The maître d’ stopped at a table against the wall, drew it out, and the three of us slid behind it. He bowed slightly and left. It was no moment for “stage waits” and the three of us plunged feet-first into conversation. “Did you enjoy the crossing?”

  Jane tossed her head back. “Oh, rather. I do prefer the Italian ships though, the English are so stuffy, don’t you think?”

  “Quite.”

  “How is your dear Aunt Agatha?”

  “Haven’t seen her of late. Dead, y’know.”

  “Really?”

  “Rather!”

  A table captain took our drink order. Waiters were going out of their way to walk past our table for a look at me. The guys in the band hadn’t broken into Mr. Wonderful but they were welcoming me secret-service style, playing all the other songs from the show. People at other tables smiled, and although the three of us were still playing “Oh dear, Morocco again? Such a bore,” the tension began softening under my awareness of the incredible fact that I was actually sitting at a table in the place I’d read about for years as the most sophisticated club in the country.

  When the waiter had served our drinks I leaned closer to Jane and Burt and spoke quietly, “Hey, this is okay, isn’t it? I mean they’re not even doing the slow service bit. Let’s be fair. I’ll admit they didn’t toss flowers at old Sam but it’s a lot better than the last time, right?”

  Burt smiled. “Yes. It’s fine,” but the muscle in his cheek was working itself back and forth.