Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (18 page)

“Any word from Will, yet?”

“Yeah, but you ain’t gonna do no celebratin’ over that news, neither. We’re set to play the Flamingo in Vegas. Will signed ‘cause they upped us to $750-plus pickin’ up our fare out. We can’t afford to turn down that kinda money, Poppa.”

I turned around. “Dad I’ll play the Governor’s mansion in Alabama if it’ll help us get off the ground a little faster!
Anything
to change the way we’ve gotta live. I’ve gotta get away from it! I’ve
got
to!”

He was looking at my hand, at the necktie I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in my fist, crumpling it into a wrinkled mess. He shook his head slowly, sadly. “Sammy … you ain’t gonna get away from it ‘til you die.”

Buddy said, “I talked to Frank last night. He wants you to call him.” I looked up from my coffee. He nodded. “Certainly. I told him.” He pointed to the phone booth. “Eldorado 5-3100.”

Frank didn’t even say hello. His opening line was, “Tonight, you are coming to the club. I’m making the reservation and you’re walking in there alone.”

“Look, Frank, I’d rather not. I appreciate …”

“That’s
it!
We don’t discuss it. Just be there.” His voice softened. “When something is wrong it’s not going to get right unless you fix it. I know it’s lousy, Charley, but you’ve got to do it.”

I walked slowly toward the Copa. Sure, Frank had made the reservation, but what if they forgot to tell the doorman I was coming? And even if it goes smoothly, if I get in and get a table—at best, forcing my way in where I’m not wanted is even more degrading than being turned away. They’re wrong not to want me but
they’ll sure as hell have a right to hate me for pushing my way in. I walked past the entrance intending to just keep going, but I could never face Frank if I backed away. His decline had grown worse and he needed the Copa far more than they needed him, but despite that he was fighting for me.

I walked up the three front steps. The doorman stood on the sidewalk, watching. I pulled open the door and walked in. I was braced to be facing people but I found myself alone in a vestibule. I paused, then pushed open the next door.

There was a hatcheck room in front of me and I wished I had a hat to give them so I could have a minute to look around and get my bearings. I saw people standing around a bar to the right of me. I couldn’t see anything but a mirror on the left so I took a guess and turned right. A captain smiled too brightly. “Good evening,
sir
. A drink at the bar?”

“No, thank you. I have a reservation for the show.”

“The show is downstairs.” He smiled indulgently.

There were two groups of people ahead of me downstairs. The headwaiter asked for their names, checked them off on a list, and sent them to their tables. I stepped forward but before I could give my name he snapped his fingers and a captain appeared, telling me, “Right this way, sir.” Obviously they’d had no trouble recognizing me.

I felt as if I were a bundle of dirty laundry being taken through the dining room. He left me at a table and as I began to get my bearings I realized I was so far back that I could better see what was happening in the kitchen than on the stage. A captain was standing over me. “Your order, sir.”

“I’ll have a coke—acola, please.”

The stares, like countless jabs against my skin, were coming from every direction. I lit a cigarette, and took a long drag, breathing the smoke out gently, holding the cigarette delicately at the tips of my fingers, trying to do all the suave Cary Grant moves I’d just seen in “Mr. Lucky.” Two guys were coming across the room straight toward me. I put the cigarette into the ashtray. A hand moved forward. “Sam? We’re friends of Frank. He said you wouldn’t mind if we sat at your table….”

As we talked it was clear they were close friends who’d seen the show more than once. Frank had wanted me to walk in by myself, leaning on nobody, but he had sent them to sit with me so I wouldn’t feel like I was alone on an island.

The waiter brought my coke and I reached for it but he beat me to it, pouring it elaborately, his patronizing smile informing me that he understood I wasn’t accustomed to being served.

There were cards on all the tables with Frank’s picture on them, and brochures with pictures of the stars who played there every year. They were all wearing the Copa Bonnet, a hat made of fruit. The brochure described it as “the laurel wreath of achievement in nightclub circles, awarded only to entertainers who had reached the peak.” I looked at the pictures of the stars who were wearing it, smiling like they had the whole world in their pockets. I wondered what you had to accomplish before you could get that kind of acceptance. One of Frank’s friends laughed. “Pretty ridiculous looking hat they got ‘em wearing, huh?”

I smiled. “Yeah.” I could see how a hat made out of grapes and oranges could look silly, but to me it seemed like a crown.

When I asked the waiter for my check he said, “Mr. Sinatra has taken care of it.” We went up to Frank’s dressing room. He took me aside and put his arm around my shoulder. “You did something good, Charley.”

The subway lurched from side to side and I swayed with it as though all the muscles and nerves in my body had been stretched until they’d snapped and were hanging limp like broken rubber bands. For the first time I could remember, I loved that ride uptown and I nestled into the restful, anonymous cheapness of it, and where it was taking me. Usually I saw just the seamy side of Harlem and resented being glued to the poverty and second-bestness of everything, but now I yearned for the peace it offered, the release from watching every move I made and from being watched. I knew I was thinking wrong, that it was everything I hated and I tried to bring myself out of it. “I’ve been to the Copa.” I kept repeating it until I heard it screaming in my ear, roaring back at me in time with the wheels. “I’ve been to the Copa … been to the Copa … been to the Copa …” But all I felt was like I’d bought a brand new Cadillac convertible—for a hundred thousand dollars.

At breakfast I lit a cigarette with a match from the Copacabana. My father spotted them instantly. “Hey! How’d you get them? Were you inside?” I nodded. “Damn!” He laughed, giddily. “What’s it like? Anything like we figured?”

“It’s unbelievable! You go downstairs and a guy in a black coat is
waiting with the reservations list. He turns you over to a guy in a red coat who takes you to your table. Then a guy in a blue coat takes your order and a waiter in a white jacket brings it to you. And when you’re finished along comes a maroon jacket who takes away the dishes….” He was hanging on every word.

Later, I went into the front room and looked out the window, staring downtown, toward Lindy’s and the Copa—two in one week—understanding for the first time what lay ahead, and that it was worse than an insult or a fight, it was a pressure chamber, and the further I moved out into the world, the thinner the air would become. Buddy and Marty were just the start, I’d make other friends, and every time they’d breeze into a restaurant for a sandwich I’d be holding my breath, waiting.

I stood at the window for a long time, watching people moving but going nowhere—people who’d never tasted anything but the leftovers, seeing Harlem again as it is, a corner of New York like all the Harlems are just used-up corners of the country, the carpet under which every city sweeps its problems. I looked at the people who stay “uptown” under that carpet where prejudice does not seek them out. Obviously, they could accept the peace and be content just to hear Jack Eigen describe the Copa, but I was glad I’d seen it for myself.

I went downstairs to the candy store and called Marty. He said, “Hello, X-3. Whattya say we case X-4’s rehearsal this afternoon?”

I went downtown.

In Vegas, for twenty minutes, twice a night, our skin had no color. Then, the second we stepped off the stage, we were colored again.

I went on every night, turning myself inside out for the audience. They were paying more attention and giving us more respect than ever before, and after every performance I was so exhilarated by our acceptance onstage that I really expected one of the owners to come rushing back saying, “You were great. To hell with the rules. Come on in and have a drink with us.” But it never happened. The other acts could move around the hotel, go out and gamble or sit in the lounge and have a drink, but we had to leave through the kitchen, with the garbage, like thieves in the night. I was dying to grab a look into the casino, just to see what it was like, but I was
damned if I’d let anyone see me like a kid with his nose against the candy store window. I wanted to believe “If they don’t want me then I don’t want them either,” but I couldn’t help imagining what it must be like to be wanted, to be able to walk into any casino in town. I kept seeing the warmth in the faces of the people we’d played to that night. How could they like me onstage—and then this?

My father spent his time around the Westside bars and casino but I went to my room trying to ignore the taunting glow of light coming from the Strip, bigger and brighter than ever, until finally the irresistible blaze of it drew me to the window and I gazed across at it knowing it was only three in the morning, which is like noon in Las Vegas, feeling as wide awake as the rest of the town which was rocking with excitement. I pictured myself in the midst of it all, the music, the gaiety, the money piled high on tables, the women in beautiful dresses and diamonds, gambling away fortunes and laughing.

It took a physical effort to tear myself away from the window. I forced it all out of my mind and kept telling myself: Someday …, listening to records and reading until I was tired enough to fall asleep, always wondering when “someday” would be.

Mr. Silber said, “Well, this is it. Ciro’s.” None of us said a word. “Janis Paige will be headlining and I can get you the opening spot. Herman Hover caught the act at Slapsie Maxie’s and he likes it. He won’t meet your price of $550—the most he’ll go for is $500—naturally I told him we’d take it.”

Will said, “He’ll meet our price or we don’t play it.”

“Massey, you can’t be serious?”

“I am. We’re not starving. No point taking a cut just to work a place.”

“A
place!?
This is
Ciro’s
, for God’s sake.”

“Then they can afford to pay $550.”

“Well, if fifty lousy dollars means that much to you then take it out of my cut. I’ll gladly …”

“It’s not the money. It’s the idea of the thing. If you cut your price in this business then what’ve you got? If we was hungry it’d be something else.”

I couldn’t believe it. To throw away an opportunity like this over fifty dollars. But he was like a rock, and to make it worse, my father agreed with him. “I’ll quit show business before I’ll go in there for $500. Herman Hover was a dancer for Earl Carroll when I was and he knows we can outdance him every minute of the day.”

I was panicking. “What the hell has
that
got to do with it? He’s not a dancer any more. He owns the best club out here and we need to play it.”

Late the next afternoon Mr. Silber called Will. “It’s all set. He’ll go for the $550.”

When we signed the contracts we learned that Mr. Hover, well aware of the importance of his club to an act like ours, knew he could get plenty of others to come in at his price, or less. Finally Mr. Silber had said, “Okay, Herman. Don’t tell them and I’ll pay the other $50.” Mr. Hover said, “All right, you win! If you believe in them that much I’ll go for the $550.” He sighed. “What else do you want me to do for them?” “Nothing,” Mr. Silber smiled, “they’ll do the rest.”

We had a month to get ready. We found a tailor who’d make us three suits for only a hundred dollars down. We picked out a beautiful plaid and ordered dinner jackets with black satin lapels and black pants.

I went over the act piece by piece. Our construction was sound. My father and Will would go on, then I’d come out and do the opening with them, we’d do individual dances and then I’d swing into the impressions. I’d open with Frank Sinatra. I could really hook the audience with that one because I could do funny physical bits as well as the voice, so I’d have twice as much going for me. Then I’d do Nat Cole, Frankie Laine, Mel Tormé, The Ink Spots, Al Hibbler, Vaughn Monroe, and close with Louis Armstrong. He was the only one to end on because it was the strongest impression and it would be hard to follow with another singer. Then I’d switch
to movie stars. I’d been using a big cigar as a prop for Edward G. Robinson and it always got a laugh. I wanted a bigger one for a bigger laugh. I found a private cigar maker in downtown L.A. and paid him five dollars to roll me a fourteen-inch cigar.

I’d noticed in Vegas that half of the first impression was wasted because the audience wasn’t ready for it. I went through the newspapers looking for a current event on which I might be able to hang a topical joke to use as a bridge between the wild dancing and the impressions so the audience would be settled down and prepared for the quieter stuff.

On the afternoon of the opening we went to the club for rehearsal with the band. The sign out front said “JANIS PAIGE,” then, underneath in smaller letters, “The Will Mastin Trio.”

The stage manager said, “I’ll show you where you’ll be dressing.” We followed him upstairs. “We’ve only got space for one real dressing room so naturally it goes to the star. The other acts always change up here.” We were in the attic where they stored the signs and extra tables. One corner of it was fixed up with a light, a mirror and a clothes tree. The three of us burst out laughing. We wouldn’t have cared if it had been a phone booth but it was funny—a part of the glamour of Ciro’s the public didn’t see.

“By the way,” he said, “under no conditions can you take more than two bows. Even if the audience calls you back. It’s in Miss Paige’s contract.”

Dick Stabile, the band leader, also introduced the acts. He told us, “Nobody pays any attention to opening acts here but I’ll gag it up a little and get their attention for you.”

It was Academy Awards night so there was going to be only one show, at midnight. I had dinner early, then went back to the hotel and took a nap and a long hot bath until finally it was time to go back to the club.