Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (60 page)

What would it be like if I just disappeared, ran away from them all … a runaway melon? At least I don’t have to sit here and listen to it.

As I closed the door behind me their conversation continued, unbroken. They hadn’t even noticed I’d left.

I wandered over to the Stage Delicatessen, pushed a door marked “Pull” and sat down at a table.

Jack E. Leonard came over. “Hello, Sammy. I didn’t recognize you all by yourself.” I smiled, not enjoying the joke, and asked him to join me. He became serious. “Your old man’s okay now, isn’t he?”

“He’s fine, Jack. Thanks for the flowers you sent him.”

He nodded, then shrugged slightly. “Things work out. What the hell, let’s be honest, it’s time you were doing a single.”

“Well, it’s not exactly a single. Will’s staying with the act.”

He looked up. “You mean, just you and him?” I nodded. “But it’s still the ‘Will Mastin Trio’?” he asked knowingly. I nodded. “I see.” He gazed into his coffee cup. “Well, that’s a very interesting Trio, Sammy: you, your uncle, and your talent.” He shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Like they say: the
Saturday Evening Post
comes out on Wednesday and they’re doing okay.”

I’d been so tired, so glad to see everybody leave, but now I wished I’d told one of the chicks to stick around. I tried to think of which one I should have kept but I couldn’t remember any of their faces. They’d all evaporated into air like the laughs, leaving nothing behind.

I looked through a drawer in the kitchen and found the slip of paper that kid Betsy had given me, and propped it against the phone. Why couldn’t I call her and have her come up, just for company, or take her for a walk—the city’s beautiful at this hour.

Her voice sounded sleepy and I’d have hung up but I didn’t want to frighten her. “Betsy, this is Sammy.”

“Sammy who?”

“Sammy Davis, Jr.” I could all but see her: sitting up, smiling….

I opened the door and she walked past me into the apartment.

“Hey, I told you I’d meet you downstairs. What if I’d had some chick up here?”

She smiled. “Then you wouldn’t have called me, would you?” I took a windbreaker from the closet. “Sammy, it’s much too cold for walking.” She opened her coat. She was wearing nothing but a bra and pants.

“You’re out of your mind. Now stop being silly and cover yourself up.” She’d dropped the coat to the floor. I picked it up and put
it around her shoulders. “Thank you very much, I appreciate the gesture, but you’re not the type for this kind of jazz.” She stood helpless and vulnerable, the coat hanging from her shoulders, gazing at me blankly. “Now, listen, Bets, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, you’re a gorgeous kid and I dig looking at you, I like it better than golf—it’s taking every ounce of strength I’ve got to stay away from you—but you don’t have to impress me that you’re a swinger. Now, be nice. You’re young, you’ve got a lot of living ahead of you …”

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 Sam?” 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
!”