Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (89 page)

And if I’d married a Negro woman, would they treat my children any better? With more kindness? No. My baby would have it tough no matter what, until
no
baby would have it tough no matter what.

I heard a knock at the door, May’s slippers on the foyer floor and the knob turning before I could call out to her not to open it. I grabbed for my gun and was out of bed as a room service table was wheeled past the half-open door and into the living room. I recognized
the waiter and relaxed. When he’d left May came in. “Good morning, Sharlie Brown. Breakfast is ready. Surprise.”

I nodded. “You almost gave that nice man a much
bigger
surprise.” I slowly took the gun out from behind my back. “Darling, you do
not
open doors.”

She spoke through her fingers. “Did I frighten you?”

“I wasn’t exactly planning to go out and shoot a bagel for breakfast.”

She pulled back the window curtains. “Look. It must have snowed all night.” I put my arm around her and we stood at the window admiring it. “Sammy, can we go walking in the snow?”

“Darling, may I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“That’s the
worst idea I ever heard!
A woman takes a singer who dances—a dancing singer—and wants to turn him into a ski instructor? First of all, have you any idea what happens when a small colored fella like me goes walking around in snowdrifts? Right away people point and yell, ‘Hey look, it’s a penguin, it’s a penguin.’ ”

When we’d finished breakfast I asked, “Don’t you need some clothes?”

She shook her head emphatically. “I brought plenty with me.”

“But most of your stuff is for warm weather. I think you should spend the day around the stores and get some dresses, maybe a pair of ski pants, that kind of jazz. I’ve got a meeting up here with the Morris guys and there are a few other things I have to do….”

“I’ll wait while you have your meeting. I don’t want to go shopping. I want to be with my husband.”

“Darling, togetherness is beautiful but we’re not two peas in a pod. Now, you haven’t been out of the hotel in over a week. There isn’t another woman in the world who spends ten days in New York City and hasn’t bought even a handkerchief.” I took five one-hundred dollar bills out of a drawer and gave them to her. “It’s pointless for you to wait around ‘til I’m free because out of the whole day I’ll have maybe ten minutes to spend with you, if I’m lucky. Why don’t you call Jane and look around the stores?”

While she talked to Jane I stood at the window watching the snowflakes swirling through the trees in Central Park, wishing I could take her out and we could run around like a couple of nitwits. I yearned to take her window shopping along Fifth Avenue and maybe go into some of the stores and buy things together. I wanted
to take her to the theater to see
Camelot
, or to a movie. But I didn’t dare. I knew that if we went to a movie theater the time would come, maybe not the first time, maybe not the first ten times, but eventually I’d hear somebody behind us saying, “Isn’t that the nigger who married the white woman?” And I wouldn’t be able to walk away from that. I’d have to save face in front of my wife. I’d have to confront him and he’d either back down or we’d start swinging at each other. I had no physical fear. Even if it became a mob I always have my gun. But the best I could hope for is to break even. And for what? So we could see a movie together? We’d had dozens of nice invitations I didn’t dare accept. Even the idea of taking her to Danny’s where it was as safe as any public place could be—still, the hotel and dressing room were safer. Nobody could insult her there or do icy stares from across the room.

When Jane arrived I got her aside. “I want to get May a mink coat. Who’s the best furrier in New York?”

“Maximilian.”

“Do you know anybody there?”

“Ask for Mr. Dix. Mr. David Dix.”

“Don’t mention a word of it but do me a favor and try to get her back here at five o’clock, okay? No later, no earlier.”

I was in the hotel lobby at five when she and Jane pulled up in the Rolls I’d rented for them. May had a cloth coat wrapped around her and she shivered, “Boy oh boy it’s cold. Hey, how come you’re down here?”

“I was just getting some cigarettes and waiting for you.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “You never go down to get your own cigarettes … heyyyyyy, is it just possible you missed me, Sammydavis?”

I gave it a Ned Sparks reading. “I missed you, I missed you. How’d you do around the stores?”

“Nothing.”

“You mean in the entire city of New York you couldn’t find a single dress to buy? Where did you look? In hardware stores?”

“No. We went to Bergdorf, Bendel, Elizabeth Arden, and we stopped at the store Jax has here.” She opened her handbag and gave me back the money.

“And there’s wasn’t a single dress?”

She shook her head, “Nope.” But I knew that if we were free and clear she would have found some dresses.

“All right, you’re out of your mind, but let’s go upstairs.”

I opened the door to the suite and let her in first. The living room had wall to wall mink in every color it comes in, each one deeper and more luxurious looking than the next. She turned to me and her mouth moved but no words happened. A gentleman was walking toward us from the other end of the room. “Darling, this is Mr. Dix.”

She shook hands with him, then excused herself, pulled me into the bedroom and whispered, “Sammy, we can’t afford it. You don’t have to buy me a coat. I love you anyway.”

“May, be gracious about it. When I want to buy you a present you have no right to take that pleasure away from me.” I took her by the arm, “Let’s not be rude and keep the man waiting.”

I had brought Finis Henderson in from Chicago as coordinator of a benefit for Martin Luther King at Carnegie Hall. Frank and Dean would be flying in from the Coast to do it with me. I had a drink with Finis in the Copa Lounge and he brought me up to date. “The tickets are completely sold out but our souvenir program is death.” He smiled wryly. “I know you wanted me to send you a list of who bought ads but I was hoping to get a few more so I could use up the minimum words Western Union allows.”

I scanned the list he handed me. “It’s a little damned embarrassing to have a benefit for Martin Luther King and to have almost no ads from colored people.”

He nodded. “They didn’t come through with a black-eyed pea.”

“I’ll call you and we’ll spend an afternoon uptown. We’ll go from door-to-door if we have to, but we’ll come back with ads.”

As I opened the door to the suite I saw Paul standing behind it. I nodded, appreciating his professionalism. “Okay, Punjab. Daddy Warbucks’ll take over.”

May was fast asleep. The lights were blazing and she was sitting on the bed, propped against the pillows, wearing lounging pajamas, her make-up freshly put on since I’d last seen her. In the living room there was a room service table, set for two, with ice and sandwiches and hot coffee. I draped a napkin over my arm and rolled the table to the bedroom. “Room Service!!”

She sat up and did two minutes of “I just dozed off for a second.” I pointed to the television set, “They went off the air at two-thirty. You dig watching patterns? I love having you wait up for me like this but it’s ridiculous. You’re going to be a mother and it’s important you get your sleep.” I flung her a few scowls but it was
pretty thrilling that someone cared enough about me to wait up that late just to say hello before we both went to sleep.

“How was the show?”

“Would you believe that you are married to a man who had the
audacity
to stand in front of Sir Laurence Olivier and do
Hamlet”

“You’re kidding.”

“He came in with Tony Quinn. I did Tony—the thing from
Viva Zapata
—and then I had the colossal effrontery to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a man in the audience that I dig so much that I’m about to make a complete and utter fool of myself by doing him.’ Well, it was fantastic. He applauded like crazy and he made a little speech and he was just charming.”

“I never saw you do
Hamlet.”

“I haven’t done it for maybe a year.”

“Oh, then if you did it before you weren’t worried it would bomb.”

“Darling, nothing happens on that stage by mistake. There was no question I could do it but the kick was doing it for
him.”

I told her about the problem we were having with the benefit. “But as heartbreaking as it is on one hand, it’s beautiful that a guy like Julie Podell turns out to be the biggest single contributor to Martin Luther King. He bought the highest-priced full page ad plus three boxes at $800 apiece. Whenever we have problems with the racial thing and we wonder if it’ll ever change we should remember this is the same man whose policy wouldn’t let me into his club.”

She whispered in disbelief, “He wouldn’t let you in?”

I’d drifted into a feeling that we’d always been married, that there’d been no other life before her, forgetting how much of the early years she didn’t know. How remote, how unbelievable they seemed even as I said it. “Ten years ago when Frank was playing the Copa I had a date with some friends to go over and see him. When we got there they wouldn’t let me in.”

“At the
Copa
? It’s incredible.”

“It’s not incredible. That was the custom in those days. That was Julie’s policy just like it was all over town. But somewhere along the line he reversed it. And I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him. He’s so set in his ways that he makes Will Mastin look fickle. So it’s pretty thrilling when a guy like this comes over to your side.”

“Sammy?”

“Yes?”

“Boy oh boy I’m going to hate going back to the coast without you.”

“You’re not going to hate it as much as I’m going to hate being in Camden and Pittsburgh and Windsor without you. But they’re short jumps and by the time I could look around and send for you it’ll be time for me to go on to the next one. We both understand it so that’s it.”

“But how about Florida? You’re going to be there for two weeks.”

“Darling … don’t be a noodge. Take my word for it. I really don’t think Florida’s the place for us.”

“But we haven’t had any trouble here. Okay, I know the South is different but after all, how different can it be?” A hurt kind of puzzlement was crossing her face. I knew that the statement: “Darling, it’s the South,” just didn’t mean enough to her. Sure, she’d heard about it in school, with the plantations and the slaves and then Lincoln freeing the slaves and everybody dancing around singing “Swanee River.” But she could have no real understanding of what the South meant in 1960 to a Negro who would not ride in the back of the bus. And I couldn’t bring myself to make the humiliating explanations and subject myself to pity from my wife.

I’d gotten up from the table and walked across the room. I turned and faced her. “Listen, I’ve got a great idea. How about if tomorrow afternoon we go to a movie? Just you and me together.”

Her face surged with excitement. “Seriously? Do you mean that?”

“Yes. Would you like to see
The Misfits
? It just opened.”

“Oh, boy. I’d like to see
anything
with my husband.”

She was rattling around the bedroom dropping things, humming, looking out the window so the sunlight would get past the shades and wake me. When she heard me sitting up she called room service. “Hello there, this is Mrs. Davis. My husband is awake. You can send our order up now.”

I showered. As I dried myself I looked out the window at the street and at the people. It was beautiful to sit in our suite and blow up pretty balloons but we had only to take the elevator downstairs and go through the revolving door to be plunged back into reality. I was afraid again. I pictured somebody sneering, insulting her. Sure, it had to happen someday, but not yet, not during her pregnancy.

I stirred my coffee slowly, planning how I’d break it to her. There
was no way to soften it. “Darling, I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make the movies this afternoon….” Surprise and disappointment flicked across her face. “I don’t know how I forgot but I’ve got to go uptown with Finis and drum up those ads. There’s a deadline and I’ve got to do it today or we blow it with the printer.”

“Oh. Well, it’s pretty cold out today, anyway. Hey, listen, I hope you have some luck up there.”

“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll have a movie projector and a screen sent up here and right after the second show we can see two, even three, pictures if we feel like it instead of just one.”

I called Finis, and kissed May good-bye. Paul was putting on his coat. I gave him a look. “ ‘And wherever little Mary went,’ right?”

“That’s it, daddy.”

I did a slow turn-around. “A former San Francisco policeman, a square with flat feet, gives me a
‘That’s it, daddy’
? You’re getting pretty hip for only a month in the business.” I smiled. “Stick around here, baby. I don’t exactly need you where I’m going.”

The broad smile of welcome from the owner of the large laundry, the delight that all his employees had seen me coming to visit with him, paled when he heard what I wanted. “I’m sorry, Sammy, I’m not in a position to make a contribution.”

“I don’t understand … don’t you approve of what Martin Luther King is doing?”

“Of course I approve.” He shrugged uncomfortably, “I suppose what it comes to is they have to fight their own battles down there. I’m up here and I’ve got my family to worry about. I’ve got my own problems.”

He owned a fleet of taxicabs. He shook his head, “I’ve got no money to send down South. Hell, let them send some up here.” He gave me a wise-guy grin. “Then I can tip the headwaiter at the Copa and get a good table.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what you know it means. Like last week I was fool enough to tell my wife, ‘Hey, let’s go down and see Sammy. That place must be okay if he’s there.’ Like, they waltzed us in and hustled us back to where we needed a telescope t’see you. Like, I looked to see who was up front and there was no chocolate there, daddy. None. So, when your Dr. King gets finished in the South tell
him our equality can use a little repair work, too. Maybe then I’ll have a few hundred to spare.”