Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (64 page)

“And, baby, I did it the
hard
way. I came back by way of Africa.”

Janet asked, “Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Sapphire, I thought I’d drop in on the
old
country.” It got a laugh. “Actually, what happened is: we’re in Sydney winding up the tour and I get a call from Frank. ‘Can you do me a little favor, Charley? I promised Jack Kennedy I’d be in New York for a benefit his family has every year for retarded children, but I’m hung up on location. Can you come back to the States by way of New York and stop off at The Plaza and appear for me?’ Naturally I say ‘Sure, Francis, tell the Senator I’ll be there’ and I hang up and tell our travel guy to re-route us. Now, the plane lands in Africa and I figure, ‘Hot damn, I’m home. I’ll go out and see the family.’ I start down the ramp and I see two rows of chieftains in their tribal clothes. I give ‘em my smile and wave ‘Hey, baby, here I
am.’
Well—them cats started mumbling and looking at me with such hate that I turned right around and got back into my
safety
belt! Hell, Mississippi is rough but them cats in the Congo—they’re
mad at
everybody
. They don’t
never
smile. They’re still mad at us from old Tarzan pictures.

“But the shake-up of my
life
was earlier. I was in my seat doing one of the great sleeps of all time when the stewardess announces, ‘We’re re-fueling in Karachi. You have thirty minutes before we take off.’ Michael Silva, my drummer, starts pulling on my sleeve ‘Come on, let’s see what’s happening.’ I tell him to cool it, there ain’t
nothing
going to be happening in Karachi or it wouldn’t still be in Karachi. But he won’t let up. ‘Come on, Sammy. How many times we gonna be here?’ Well, there’s no arguing with
that
, and he’s not
about
to let me sleep, so, scene two: he’s got the cameras slung all over him, we’re walking across the field to the terminal building and I see all the cats working around the field smiling and waving like ‘hey, baybee …’ but not just to
me
like they know who I am—they’re waving to
everybody
, there ain’t a frown to be seen. Then I notice there’s something strange about the air. I look at Michael and he’s sniffing too, like he can’t believe it. He looks at me. ‘That what I think it is?’ He shakes his head like a drunk. ‘It can’t be.’ I said ‘Well, it sure smells like it … nah, it’s impossible.’ Now we go into the building and the smell is un-be-lievable
!
It’s everywhere. I run over to the ticket counter and I ask the guy, ‘Hey, what’s that stuff?’ He gives me a smile like ‘That’s right, baby’ and points out the window behind him and so help me there’s a bunch of cats with rakes in their hands, burning an entire field of marijuana. But I mean
a whole field of it
going up in smoke. The stuff is legal there and it grows so fast that they have too much of it, so like every month they have to burn it up. The scene is not to be believed: the entire population standing around stoned, three feet off the ground, sniffing and grinning, whacked out of their skulls….”

The next afternoon Arthur came into the Playhouse and sat down at the end of the bar. I nodded hello, listening to one of the new sides I’d just made for Decca. When it was over he said, “I never thought you’d hold out on me like this.”

I slipped the next side onto the turntable. “Like what, baby?”

His grin broadened into a mysteriosa smile. “You know what I mean. Come on, you don’t have to do bits with
me
! It’s all over town.”

“What’s
all over town?”

“You and Kim Novak.”

He was staring at me, first realizing that I hadn’t known what he was talking about. He asked, “Didn’t you see the papers today?”

“Certainly I saw them, but they didn’t say nothing about me and no Kim Novak.”

He showed me one of the columns. “… Kim Novak’s new interest will make her studio bosses turn lavender …” I’d skimmed past it earlier, never imagining it meant me. I started to tell him that we’d hardly spoken twenty words to each other, but as I looked up and saw the admiration in his face I smiled, shrugged noncommittally and turned on the record machine.

When he left I got her home number and called her. “Kim, this is Sammy Davis, Jr.”

“Hi. How are you?”

“Well, frankly I’m feeling horrible over a rumor that’s going around.”

“I heard it.”

“I’m calling to say I’m sorry as hell and I hope you know I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Of course I know that.”

“We can handle it any way you think best. I realize the position you’re in with the studio.”

“The studio doesn’t own me!”

“Well, but they’ll probably feel—”

“Don’t worry about what they’ll feel. I don’t. Listen, I’m cooking some dinner. It’s not much, but would you like to join me?”

I called Arthur and told him to come back, and I was dressed in levi’s and a leather jacket when he got to the house. “Now, just so you won’t think I’m holding out on you, here’s the skam: I’m going to Kim’s house for dinner.” I caught his smile of satisfaction. “Obviously I can’t leave my car parked in her driveway, so I need you to drive me over, in your car, to play it safe.”

Half a block from her house I said, “I’ll get out here. Now, check your watch with mine. At exactly ten o’clock—to the second, I want you pulling up in front of her place. I’ll be running out of there on schedule and I don’t wanta have to stand around on the street and get picked off by no photographers or neighbors. And have the car door open for me.” I pulled up my collar, slipped out of the car and ran the last half block, ducking behind trees and slinking across her lawn. I rang the bell. Instantly the door opened. I slipped inside and she closed it.

She’d made spaghetti and meatballs and as we were eating I
thought: wouldn’t the papers give their eye teeth for an 8 × 10 glossy of me having dinner with Kim Novak.

She smiled conspiratorially. “About an hour after I spoke with you I got a call from the studio. They wanted to know if we’d ever met.”

“What’d you tell them?”

She seemed pleased with herself. “The truth. I said ‘Yes, I met him at a party. He’s such a delightful man.’ ”

I laughed. “Then what?”

“Then there was what the scripts call: a moment of stunned silence while the studio gathers itself together and, in a voice tensely casual, asks, ‘Is that the only time you’ve seen him?’ I told them we hadn’t met since then.” The amusement left her face. “Oh, how I loathe people interfering in my life. Do you know what I mean?”

I laughed. “Sort of.”

She smiled, sympatico. “Well … at least you don’t have an entire studio checking every move you make. I mean they must really believe they
own
me.”

“I guess it gets to be a drag sometimes but let’s be honest, it’s not
all
bad.”

She sighed. “You’re not much fun, are you?” Then, looking at me, dramatically, “I’m using you. You’re a wall of wet paint.”

“And all the signs say ‘Don’t touch.’ ”

She nodded, pleased.

I’d known it the moment she’d invited me to dinner. Through me she was rebelling against the people who made rules for her. And wasn’t I doing the same thing? We’d spent a few hours in each other’s company at a party, and when we’d said good night there’d been no slipping of private phone numbers, no thought of getting together again. I was impressed by the glamour of a movie star and she was impressed by my talent, but she hadn’t thought about me any more than I had thought about her—until it was forbidden. Then we became conspirators, drawn together by the single thing we had in common: defiance. I’d sensed it on the phone and in the way she’d been waiting behind the door, playing the scene like it was a B-movie, and I was aware that I, too, had been doing everything but wear a cloak and mustache.

At exactly three seconds before ten I opened the door and dashed to the street. Arthur had timed it on the button and was just pulling up; the car door swung open as I reached the curb and before he’d come to a full stop I was inside and we zoomed away. Even he was
caught up in the intrigue, playing it like he was driving a get-away car.

All I could see were the red lights at the tip of the wing and I had the feeling that it would be glorious to sit out there, my legs hanging over the edge of the wing, peacefully riding through space, the clean, fresh air bathing away all the problems.

“Look at this.” Arthur was pointing to an item in one of the papers we’d picked up at the airport in Detroit. “… Guess which sepia entertainer’s attentions are being whispered as The Kiss of Death to guess which blonde movie-star’s career? …” He showed me some others, shaking his head in amazement. “Imagine if you hadn’t been out of town for the last three months?”

I opened a scandal magazine and skimmed “The Real Story Between KIM and HIM,” a re-hash of all the rumors and gossip items. The real story
I
saw was the deep insult to me and to all Negro people. I wondered about the men who wrote these things, and the columnists. Didn’t it occur to them how it might feel to hear “A woman’s career can be ruined just by association with you”? Didn’t they understand that’s what they were saying? Didn’t they care? Worse—they didn’t think. They couldn’t feel anything that might
make
them think because their sensitivities were covered by a big, thick callus that it had taken three centuries of stupidity to develop.

I rested against the seat. The stewardess came by. “Would you like a pillow, Mr. Davis?” Her eyes flicked to the magazine, then back to my face, and she maintained her smile, making a businesslike attempt to camouflage the condemnation in her eyes.

As she moved down the aisle Arthur opened an envelope of clippings and leaned over to me, reading. “ ‘Advice to Sammy Davis, Jr. before it’s too late: Sammy, I consider myself your friend so I’m speaking up to beg you to show some sense. Don’t damage a promising career, and probably your own, too. Wouldn’t it be more fitting for a man of your prominence to be a credit to his people, instead of one whose life is scandal, scandal, scandal? Think it over, Sammy, you’re too smart for this.’ ”

I sat motionless in the seat, gazing blankly out the window. Arthur asked, “What are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“Well, I mean … are you going to keep seeing her?”

“Why the hell not?” I turned and looked at him. “Because ‘everybody says so’? Can you begin to know how sick I am of being watched and judged and criticized and told what to do? Do you realize that even the godamned stewardess on this plane has an opinion?
She’s
ready to cast her vote how I oughta live. Well, lotsa luck to ‘em all. Will Mastin ain’t gonna tell me how to live, my father ain’t gonna tell me, the damned Morris office ain’t gonna tell me, or the papers—nobody. You hear me?”

“I’m not telling you what to do.” He looked around frantically, afraid somebody was listening, and he spoke softly, pacifying. “I only meant maybe you’re letting yourself in for more trouble than it’s worth. She doesn’t mean anything to you and you don’t mean anything to her …”

“You can’t drop it, right, Arthur?”

“But do you really think it’s smart to keep it going?”

“No, but I’m going to.”

“But with the whole world saying the same thing …”

I looked away from him. “If I’d listened to what the whole world says I’d be in Harlem shining shoes.”

I rented a beach house at Malibu so we could meet secretly, and Arthur was driving me there for the sixth night in a row. As we got within a few miles of it I said, “Baby, it’s still light out so pull over and let me get in the back. I’d better stay flat on the floor and under a blanket ‘cause the way the rumors are flying, them cats on the papers may have movie cameras set up all along this road.”

The floor smelled lousy. There was a clump of dirt a few inches away from my head. From one second to the next the game ended and it was as though I was standing back, seeing myself huddled on the floor of a car, hiding, like an animal. For what? So I could say “I showed them.” What was I showing them? I wasn’t making my own rules, I was sneaking around theirs, doing everything I’d thought I’d always refused to do. They were saying “You’re not good enough to be seen with a white woman.” And I was hiding on the floor of a car, confirming their right to say it.

Arthur whispered, “We’re almost there.”

I couldn’t answer him.

“Hey, I said we’re almost there.” He looked in the rear-view
mirror and saw me sitting up in the back seat. He jammed on the brakes. “You crazy? It’s broad daylight.”

“Keep going. Don’t stop at the house.”

He glanced quickly up and down the street. “You spot somebody?”

“Just keep going.”

The car started moving again. “Okay, but I don’t get it.”

“Drive downtown—any place.” I rested against the back of the seat.

As we drove through the skid row of Los Angeles we stopped for a red light and a bum with a week’s growth of beard and filthy, torn clothes staggered up to the car. He looked at me and then asked Arthur, “Buddy, can y’give a guy a little help?”

I started to reach for some money but I stopped. Why should I? Underneath all that filth his skin is white: he’d been given a pass through the world and he’d blown it. I stared at the mass of wasted life holding out his hand and I had a weird, ridiculous picture of her arriving at a movie premiere, dressed to the teeth, escorted by this old rummy wearing the same clothes and no shave and everybody smiling and applauding as they walked in. He could be a pimp or a dope peddler but still he’d be okay. There’s nothing he could ever do to get himself as low as me.

“C’mon, buddy, be a pal,” he whined at Arthur, “whattya say, just a few cents?”

I took a hundred dollar bill out of my pocket, folded it and rolled down my window. “Here.” He turned, stared at me, hesitated, then took the money. “Thanks a lot, mac. Damn white of ya.” He stuffed it into his pocket without even looking at it and stumbled away. He probably thought it was a single. He’d put it on a bar and get change for a dollar. The stupid bastard would never know what he’d had in his pocket.