Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (31 page)

“That didn’t happen in the accident.” She opened the night table drawer and handed me a gold medal the size of a silver dollar. It had St. Christopher on one side and the Star of David on the other. “You were holding this when you went into the operating room. We
had to pry your hand open to make you let go of it. You were holding it so tight that it cut into your flesh. It’s going to leave a scar.”

I’d never seen it before, but I had a vague recollection of Tony and Janet walking alongside me as I was being wheeled down a hall, and of Janet pressing something into my hand and telling me, “Hold tight and pray and everything will be all right.”

I gave it back to the nurse and lifted one end of the bandage and looked at the cut. It was a clear outline of the Star of David.

My father came in carrying a magazine. He seemed upset as he handed it to me. It was
Confidential
and the headline on the cover was: “WHAT MAKES AVA GARDNER RUN FOR SAMMY DAVIS JR?” The cover was a picture of us together. I turned to the story. The same picture was captioned: “Ava and Sammy cheek-to-cheeking it in her 16th floor suite at New York’s Drake Hotel.”

“Poppa—just between us—I mean, is there anything to that?”

“Dad, are you losing your mind?” I skimmed through it. “Some girls go for gold but it’s bronze that ‘sends’ sultry Ava Gardner … Said Sammy after his first meeting with Ava, ‘We just dig each other, that’s all…’ Ava sat glassy-eyed through a gay tour of Harlem with Sammy. Said a bartender, ‘Another round and she would have been plastered.’ ” They’d based the whole thing on the night she’d come up to the Apollo and on the
Our World
story her studio had written. They’d capitalized on its title “Sammy Sends Me,” but they left out “as a performer,” and slanted all her quotes like “exciting, thrilling, masculine” about my performance onstage to make them sound like she meant in bed. Then they wrote in some smirks and left the rest to the reader’s imagination. And they’d done it so well that if you didn’t look carefully it sounded like Ava and I were having the swingingest affair of all time.

My father was watching me, still not sure. If he’ll believe it even after I told him then I don’t have a chance. Everybody’ll believe it. I called the nurse. “When you went through the telegrams and letters was there anything from Frank Sinatra?” She shook her head. “It’s very important. Are you sure?”

“Positive.” She motioned toward a pile of mailbags. “I still haven’t been through those.”

“It wouldn’t be a letter. He’d send a telegram or flowers. Or he’d call.”

“Definitely not. I’d certainly remember if there’d been anything from Frank Sinatra.”

I fell back against the pillow. Here’s a man who’s been nothing but good to me. For him to have to see this, even if he knows it’s not true—it’s inexcusable to have put her in a position so that this could happen to her.

I called the publicity man at her studio, but he argued, “Sammy, Ava’s ignoring it. If you sue you’ll only bring more attention to it.”

“But I’ve got to clear her. I’m at least going to demand a retraction.”

“Please, be smart, forget it. Let it die by itself. Nobody reads retractions.”

“But we can make them print the original picture. Don’t you remember when it was taken? You were standing in it ‘til they cropped you out.”

“I remember. Why do you think I was standing there? I also remember the ‘gay tour of Harlem’ was a quick drink in a bar near the theater. But the best thing is to forget it. By the time they can print your retraction it’ll be months from now and it’ll be forgotten. You’ll only revive it.”

“Well, will you at least get word to Ava how sorry I am.”

“Sammy, forget it and ride it out. She knows it’s not your fault.”

Will had come in while I was talking. He was reading the story and shaking his head. “How’d a thing like this happen, Sammy?”

“Please, Massey, I’m too tired to think about it any more.”

“You’ve got to be more careful in the future.” He tossed it onto a chair. “Well, probably not too many people read this junk anyway.”

Only the world! I stared at the ceiling hoping to draw a blank. If they hated it when Eddie Cantor just put his arm around me, they’ll throw rocks at me for this.

I tried to get involved in what my father and Will were saying. They were reading the damned Vegas telegram for the thousandth time and Will was nodding his head, “… proves what I always believed. If you know your business and you give the people what they want, then the day is going to come when they’ll just have to push you into the big money.”

My father sighed in agreement. “We had our schoolin’ for more’n twenty years. It’s no more’n right it’s paying off.”

Can they really believe that? Don’t they know that without me
they’d never have made it? Can’t they see that
I
made them, that
I’m
responsible for everything they’ve got? Or don’t they want to see it?

Will was smiling nostalgically. “I’m glad for the big money, Sam, but I still wouldn’t trade away the old days we had. That was real show business! Why when we played for Minsky …”

Can’t they see that the only good thing about their “old days” is that they’re gone? Why can’t they forget them? Why do they love to talk about when they were failures? Dad, put down the damned bottle! Why does he need that? Does it lift him out of always being the second man? Will was always the boss, now I’m the star. Is that why he needs it? I looked away. I didn’t want to judge him or Will or anybody. I just wanted to figure out how we could stay in the business. Why couldn’t they talk about today and tomorrow instead of yesterday?

My father was standing in front of me, glass in hand, laughing. “You’re mighty quiet, Poppa. Hey, remember when we was stranded in Lansing? Remember that do-gooder who put us out of work all through Michigan? Guess she never figured that little kid she run off the stage would be makin’ twenty-five thousand a week.”

“But for how long, Dad?”

“I believe it said four weeks. That right, Will? Tell y’the truth, Poppa, I thought I had this business learned backwards, but I’m damned if I ever hoped I’d live to see the day when they’d pay that to
anybody.”

“It’s simple, Dad. They’re buying the Will Mastin Trio featuring the World’s Only One-Eyed Dancer.”

“Sammy, don’t say things like that …”

“Face it, Dad, it’s true. I’m a curiosity. But have you and Massey wondered how I’m gonna do impressions and get laughs with only one eye?”

“Well, I …”

“All right, forget that. Even if I stink, the publicity and the shock value oughta carry us for one time around. But once everybody’s had their look, how do we stay in the business? What’ll we do for an encore?”

Will stood up. “Sammy, you’ve got it all wrong!”

“Have I, Will? Then maybe you’d better explain it to me.”

He walked toward the bed slowly, giving himself time to think. “Well, you’re making it out like a freak show, but it’s only—well,
with the publicity and all, we turned into a name the people heard about. Add that to the fact that we’ve always been a top act …”

“Massey, do you believe we’re seventeen thousand dollars a week better today than we were last week?”

“Well, you can’t look at it like that. It’s not exactly we’re a better act …” He was reaching desperately for an answer he couldn’t possibly find.

“Massey, we’ve got a bitch of a gimmick if we play it right. If we can get twenty-five thousand for one lousy eye, then next year when they’re tired of that I’ll just hack off something else. The Will Mastin Trio oughta be worth at least forty thousand featuring the only one-eyed, one-legged dancer in the world….”

“Poppa, for God’s sake—please!”

I had the same careening, out-of-control feeling I’d had in the accident. I saw the horror in my father’s eyes but I could no more stop the words than I’d been able to stop the car. “There’s no limit to it. Just think of the billing each year. Instead of ‘Bigger and Better’ it could be ‘There’s less of him than ever before, folks!’ ”

My father was crying and Will had turned away from me. Why had I wanted to hurt them like that?

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Poppa?”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry, Massey.”

“Maybe you’d better get some sleep, Poppa. Just get your rest and we’ll be right here lookin’ after you.”

They were half-smiling, confused, giving me every ounce of what they had, but I was still “Poppa” and “Mose Gastin.” I was dying to talk to them about what was ahead of us. I needed them to give me some concrete answers, a little logic, a plan—something. But they couldn’t give answers to problems they didn’t see. They were so used to thinking only of getting booked, getting our price, and doing our show, that it hadn’t occurred to them to wonder: what do you have to do on a stage to begin to justify twenty-five thousand dollars a week? And what happens if you can’t do it? I couldn’t get through to them. I could reach an audience of a thousand strangers, reach them on any level and make myself understood, but I couldn’t reach my own two fathers. I couldn’t turn to them for help any more. I fell back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling, never so alone.

“Poppa? You sleepin’?”

I heard him and Will tiptoeing up to the bed. I turned around. “Hi.”

“How y’feelin’, Poppa?”

“Fine. How ‘bout you guys?”

They smiled and nodded. My father said, “Look, maybe Will and me been lookin’ at this thing all wrong. I mean we been talkin’ and all we wants in this world is to see you okay. Sure we likes the money and spendin’ it and all that, but … well, we don’t want it if it’s comin’ outa your heart, Poppa. I guess we was so damned glad you was alive and gettin’ better, and then that wire come in and, well, we just never stopped t’think maybe you don’t wanta go back and … what I’m gettin’ at is, you don’t have to lay there thinkin’ you gotta get up and start workin’ again ‘cause Will and me’s waitin’ to go on. We’ve been thinkin’ maybe we oughta quit the business while we’re on top. It would be damned good show business. You know what I mean? Hell, we don’t have to break our necks t’perform no more. Why, with the connections and the experience we got maybe there’s some other end of it we’d like better. The one sure thing is we’ll always make out at whatever we does and we’ll always take care of you like we always done.” Will was nodding and my father was trying to smile. “Whattya think of that idea, Poppa?”

“It’s beautiful, Dad, Massey. But it’s not for us. Look, I’m the one who was wrong yesterday, not you guys. Don’t worry. We’re going back. Maybe they’ll think they’re coming to a freak show, maybe it’ll be curiosity, but they’ll be there, I’ll have a crack at them. Maybe I won’t be able to do it, maybe they’ll laugh at me, but at least I’m going to try. I’m not about to just let go like Okay, I lose, here’s where I get off, and thanks for the ride.’

“I’m going to sing and I’m going to do impressions and I’m going to dance. And I’ll do them all better than I ever did. I’ve got one good eye and I’ve got my legs, and this isn’t going to stop us.”

Eddie Cantor sat by the side of my bed doing jokes and talking show business with me for an hour. He smiled. “I see you’re still wearing your mezuzah.”

“Mr. Cantor, the only time I didn’t have it on was the night of the accident. I’d taken it off to shower and I was twenty miles away before I realized I didn’t have it. My friend searched the room and found it on the floor behind the dresser. It must’ve slipped off …” As he listened, I suspected that for one moment a question crossed his mind as it had my own, but when I finished he went on to another subject, like myself, refusing to dwell on it.

Eventually it was time for him to leave. “Mr. Cantor, the whole hospital knows you’re here, and if you don’t stop by the wards, there’s gonna be an uprising and a mass hanging of nurses and doctors. I hate to impose on you but if you have time, the other patients would get a tremendous kick out of seeing you.”

“That’s not an imposition, it’s a privilege.” He stood up and as we shook hands his face became serious, almost paternal in its expression. “Sammy, you’ve got a tough fight ahead of you. But you’ve also got a great strength. Never forget what an enormous gift God gave you when He gave you your talent. Treat it as you would anything that is rare and precious. If you protect it and use it well it will carry you wherever you want to go.”

I stared out the window thinking about what he’d said. It
was
a gift … the best I could ever hope for.

There was a knock on the door. A rugged, athletic looking man in a khaki suit and a button-down collar introduced himself as the rabbi from a nearby congregation.

“Oh, now wait a minute. You’ve gotta be kidding. A football player, yes, but not a rabbi.” I suddenly realized I was doing bits with a minister. “I’m sorry. Please come in.”

He smiled and pulled up a chair. The image of a rabbi with a long beard and a silk coat and the big hat which I’d retained from my days as a child around Harlem was in total conflict with this man. He’d come by on his rounds to comfort patients, as other clergymen had, and after a while I said, “Rabbi, we’ve been talking for an hour about shows, politics, people, everything, right? Now, can we talk a little business? I’m not Jewish, but can you give me some answers anyway?”

“I’d like to try.”

“Well, before you came in I was lying here thinking I’ve been given something. Talent. And the way it’s worked out, my talent has been a fantastic edge in life. Now on top of that, I had an accident last week and by all rights I should have been killed, but instead, I came out of it with everything except one eye. I’m up to my ears in flowers and beautiful prayers from thousands of people I never met or heard of, it’s like I’ve got the whole world pulling for me. I’m getting offered more money than I ever saw in my life …”

He was smiling. “What’s your problem?”

“I don’t know … maybe I should just take it all and run like a thief, but I figure there’s a reason for everything, and things just
don’t add up. On one hand God gave me talent. Why? Why me instead of some other guy? Very few Negroes have been given the chance to see what I’ve seen and to go where I’ve gone. Why was I given this free ticket to a good life? Now on the other hand, He puts me in this accident and when I heard that crash I figured it’s over for me. Then I wake up and I’m not exactly better than ever but I’m here and I’m in pretty good shape, so I start thinking, why did He put me into the accident and then save me?”