Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (9 page)

I kept in touch with my father and Will by phone. They’d tried doing a double, but all their material was geared to three people, so
eventually they put a girl in the act. Then for a while they had a roller skater named Joe Smythe working with them. “We’re makin’ ends meet, Poppa. They ain’t what you’d call huggin’ and kissin’ but we’re gettin’ by killin’ time ‘til the day you come home. So do your job in the army and then get back as fast as you can.” I never bothered to tell them what my job in the army was exactly.

The guy in front of me finished with the wash basin and as I moved forward, a big Texan grabbed me by the T-shirt and yanked me back so hard that I stumbled clear across the room, hit the wall, and fell down.

“What’s
that
for?”

He drawled, “Where I come from niggers stand in the back of the line.”

I got up, gripped my bag of toilet articles and with all the strength I had, hit him in the mouth with it. The force and shock knocked him down. I stood over him, fists ready. But he sat on the floor making no attempt to get up. Blood was trickling out of his mouth. He wiped it away with his towel, then looked up at me. “But you’re still a nigger.”

Sergeant Williams was standing in the doorway. He motioned for me to follow him to his room and closed the door. “Sit down, Davis.” He offered me a cigarette and I took it. “That’s not the way to do it, son. You can’t beat people into liking you!”

What the hell was he talking about? Or maybe I knew. The moment I’d heard, “But you’re still a nigger,” I’d known that this was not the way to fight.

“Okay, you’ve punched your way across the camp. What’ve you proven? Have you stopped the insults? After you beat them up did they respect you any more?”

“Look, Sergeant, I’m not bucking for camp boxing team, but when a guy insults me what should I do, curtsy and tell him thanks?”

“You’ve got to fight a different way, a way that you can win something lasting. You can’t hope to change a man’s ideas except with another, better idea. You’ve got to fight with your brain, Sammy, not your fists.”

It seemed as though I passed the Texan a hundred times each day, and I was haunted by that mocking voice telling me, “But you’re still a nigger.” He never said another word to me, but his
eyes were saying it in the way they passed over me—as though I wasn’t there.

We finished Basic and took our physicals for overseas duty. I was rejected because of an athletic heart. The doctor explained, “A lot of people have them and live long, useful lives. If you get enough sleep and don’t overtax yourself, you’ll be fine.” I applied twice more and was turned down each time for the same reason.

I didn’t qualify for any of the army’s specialist schools where I might have bettered myself. My lack of education closed everything to me. They didn’t know what to do with me so somebody sent down an order, “Put him through Basic again,” probably hoping that by the time I came out I’d be somebody else’s problem. When I came out I was sent right back again, like a shirt that hadn’t been done right. Four times.

I was depressed and disgusted with myself. Outside a club or a theater I was totally unequipped for the world, just another uneducated laborer doing every lousy job in the camp.

I was on latrine duty and I passed Sergeant Williams’ room. The door was open and I saw him stretched out on his bed, reading. He must have had a hundred books in there. “Are these your books, Sergeant? I mean, do you own them all?”

“Yes. Would you like to read one?”

I shrugged. I wanted to but I’d never read a book in my life and I was afraid of picking something totally ridiculous and making a fool of myself.

Sergeant Williams closed his book and sat up. “You’ll get a lot more out of them than you do from those comic books you read.”

He chose a book and gave it to me. “Start with this one. You may not enjoy it right away but stick with it.”

It was
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde. I began reading it early that evening. After taps, I went into the latrine where the lights stayed on and sat on the floor reading until after midnight. When I got off duty the next day I bought a pocket dictionary at the PX and started the book from the beginning again, doing my reading in isolated places so people wouldn’t see me looking up words.

When I’d finished it I gave it back to Sergeant Williams and we discussed it. He handed me three more and told me in what order to read them and we had long discussions about each one as I finished
it. He took a book from his shelves,
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
. I looked at him. “You have to be kidding with that. Now you’re going too far. I mean, I never spent a day in school in my life.”

His voice had a slight edge to it. “I never said you should be ashamed of no schooling. But it’s not something to be proud of, either.”

He gave me Carl Sandburg’s books about Lincoln, books by Dickens, Poe, Mark Twain, and a history of the United States. I read
Cyrano de Bergerac
, entranced by the flair of the man; by the majesty of speeches I read aloud in a whisper, playing the role, dueling in dance steps around the latrine; imagining myself that homely, sensitive man, richly costumed in knee breeches, plumed hat, a handkerchief tucked into my sleeve, a sword in my hand. I feasted on the glory of the moment when, making good his threat, he drove the actor from the stage, and, as the audience shouted for their money back, tossed them his last bag of gold and admitted to Le Bret, “Foolish? Of course. But such a magnificent gesture.” And it was. Glorious! I put my hand in my pocket, and, clutching a fistful of silver I slipped out into the night, sword in hand, to drive the actor from the stage. Then, as fops and peasants alike shouted for their money back I bowed and hurled my handful of coins into the air. They landed, clanging against the side of the barracks. A light went on. A voice yelled, “Corporal of the guard.” I ran like hell.

The more education Sergeant Williams gave me, through his books and our discussions, the greater a hunger I developed for it. When I ran out of his books I found others at the Post Library and then reread the ones he had.

As I got offstage at the Service Club, a fellow standing in the wings came over to me. “That was one hell of a show you just did. Will you come out front and have a drink with me?” He offered his hand. “My name is George M. Cohan, Jr.”

We sat down together and he said, “You’ve heard about the big show every camp’s going to be doing for the inter-camp competition? Well, with all the stuff you know and with my dad’s special material, which I know backwards, I’ll bet we could get that assignment. You know as well as I do that all the guys who’ll be trying for it will just be using stuff out of the Special Services books. But with us writing our own, something fresh, we couldn’t miss. Whatya think?”

“Well, naturally, I’d love to do it.”

“Great. The General has the say. As long as I know you want to try for it with me, I’ll make an appointment to see him about it.”

He told me, a few days later, that the General would let us do an audition at the Officers’ Club. Using a few pros we found around camp and a few semi-pros, we put together a small scale version of what we had in mind. I did an impression of Frank Sinatra that night, with the bow tie and the corny business of him being so weak and skinny that he had to hold onto the microphone. The General sent for us as soon as we’d finished and told us to be in his office the next afternoon. He wanted to hear the rest of our ideas.

A WAC Captain, his adjutant, sat in on the meeting and as we described our show she found enough stumbling blocks to build a wall around the entire camp and she said she’d let us know in about a week.

Outside, George said, “Well, she’s the power as far as our show is concerned. We’ve got to butter her up, or she’ll kill it entirely.”

We dreamed up excuses to go to her office and always brought along bunches of flowers that we’d picked. George and I became as well known in Headquarters as the General. The Captain was getting to like us and it seemed as if she was swinging over to our side, so we doubled our efforts.

I stopped off to leave a bundle of new material we’d worked out. She said, “Tell me something about yourself, Davis. You were a professional performer?”

“Yes, Captain. Since I was three.”

“Where did you perform?”

As I spoke she leaned back in her chair, listening to every word I was saying, waving away the clerks who occasionally tried to speak to her. Her interest triggered a stream of show talk and “the old days” poured out of me, until I began to feel like an old vaudevillian.

She smiled, “When I heard your ideas in the General’s office they seemed so professional that frankly I doubted you’d be able to execute them. But now that I understand your background, and from what I know of George, I’m convinced you and he are more than up to the job. I’d like you two to work out a budget for scenery, props, and costumes and drop it off here as soon as you can.” She walked me to the door, shook hands with me and smiled. “I probably shouldn’t say this but you boys have quite an edge over the others. We should have the official word for you by Friday.”

Leaving, I felt like doing a Fred Astaire number, tap dancing across the tops of the long row of desks leading to the front door. I was a specialist. Show business had given me something to offer the army.

By Thursday afternoon when George and I left the Captain’s office after dropping off a two-pound box of candy, our final and most glorious effort, he, the Captain, and I were almost buddies, and as the door closed behind us George sighed, “All we can do now is wait and hope. Keep your fingers crossed.”

As I started toward my barracks, a couple of Headquarters clerks called out to me. One of them, a PFC with a heavy Southern drawl, smiled, “The Captain told us to take you to meet her over at Building 2134.”

I grinned, “Her wish is my command.” I walked with them, wondering why she hadn’t just told them to bring me back to the office. Maybe she wanted me to look at a warehouse of props and scenery they’d used in other shows. We’d gone about half a mile, to a semi-deserted part of the camp, to barracks that weren’t in use. I followed the PFC into 2134. One of the men closed the barracks door behind us. They shoved me into the latrine. Four others were in there, obviously waiting for us.

“Sorry, nigger, but your lady love won’t be here.”

“What is this?”

“This ain’t nothin’ but a little meeting some of us in the office thought we oughta have with you.” They took hold of my arms. The PFC spit in my face. I tried to reach up to wipe it away but I couldn’t move my arms. He saw me trying to reach for it. “Oh, I’m sorry. Here, I’ll wipe it for you.” He slapped me across the face, then backhanded me.

The seven of them crowded around me. The PFC was breathing heavily and a vein in his forehead was pulsing quickly. “We’ve been watching you makin’ eyes at the Captain for a week now, and we decided we oughta have a little talk with you.”

“Making eyes? Wait a minute …”

He hit me again. “Niggers don’t talk ‘less they’re spoken to.” He punched me in the stomach and I collapsed, hanging by the arms from the two guys who were holding me. “Now, like I was sayin’, we just get so sick to our stomachs seein’ you playin’ up to her, and bringin’ her flowers, and tryin’ to make time, that we thought you’d appreciate us explaining a few things. Not to say the Captain would give an ape-face like you the time of day, but we figured we should smarten you up some so you won’t keep makin’ such a fool of yourself.

“Now, what you gotta learn is that black is black and it don’t matter how white it looks or feels, it’s still black, and we’re gonna
show you a little experiment to prove it so’s you won’t think we’re trying to fool you none.”

One of the others was stirring a can of white paint. Two of them ripped my shirt open and tore it off my back. The PFC had a small paint brush, like an artist uses, which he dipped into the paint can. They held me in front of a mirror. He wrote, “I’m a nigger!” across my chest. Then he wrote something on my back. When he was finished with that he took a larger brush and began to cover my arms and hands with white paint. I watched the brush going back and forth over the hair on my arms until every strand was covered and plastered down.

“Now,” he said, “we’re gonna let this paint dry so we can finish our experiment proper. So while we’re waiting, you c’n give us a little dance.”

They let go of my arms. My legs felt like cardboard buckling under me. The door out of the latrine was completely blocked. Two of them were in front of it and the other five were surrounding me.

“Come on, Sambo, give us a little dance!”

I just stood there, dazed, looking at them. My mouth was bone dry. My throat was closed. I tried to talk but no words would come out. The PFC said, “Guess he don’t understand English.” They held me again while he picked up the brush and wrote on my forehead, grinning, taking great pleasure in his work, doing it slowly, carefully. When he finished they dragged me back to the mirror. He’d written “Coon” in white paint that was starting to drip into my eyebrows.

“Now listen,” he said, “you gotta understand me. When I tell you we wanta see you dance for us then you gotta believe we wanta see you dance. Now we’re trying to be gentlemen about this. We figured you don’t teach a hound nothin’ by whipping him, so we’re trying to be humane and psychological with you, but if we’re takin’ all this trouble on your education then you gotta show a little appreciation and keep us entertained durin’ all this time we’re givin’ up for you. So, come on, Sambo, you be a good little coon and give us a dance.”

They let go of my arms again. I couldn’t move a muscle. The PFC punched me in the stomach. “Dance, Sambo.” When I got my wind back I started moving my feet and tapping, staring incredulous and numbed.

“That’s better, Sambo. Keep it going. And a little faster….”

I danced faster, stumbling over my own legs.

“Faster, Sambo, faster….”

I moved as fast as I could. As I got near the PFC, he hit me in the stomach again. “Didn’t you hear me say faster, Sambo?” They made me keep dancing for at least half an hour, until I couldn’t raise my feet off the ground.