A Conversation with the Mann (51 page)

“Let me talk to Tammi,” I barked at him.

“I don't think—”

“What you think don't matter. Is she there?”

“It's not a—”

“Is she there!”

“Yes, she's he—”

“Put her on the phone!”

“Why? Why, Jackie? What are you going to tell her, huh? What the hell can you possibly say to her now?” With his voice, Lamont
rode me calm. I swear, over the phone line, I could hear his thumb slipping across his fingers.

Weakly, I came back with “The truth.”

“The truth, a pack of lies; does it matter? Does it change anything? You're married. You married a chambermaid spur of the
moment after holding off Tammi for years. You can't soften that blow after it's already been thrown.”

No. No, I couldn't. And would the truth have been any kinder— I had to marry Doary because I was about to get sliced for having
an affair with Liliah?

“Just leave it alone,” Lamont told me. “If you ever cared about the girl, then just leave it alone.”

Right then it sunk very deep into me that I was losing Tammi. Tammi was lost to me. I don't know what we even were to each
other. Boyfriend and girlfriend, yes, but I don't know what we gave to each other as different as we were. Opposites attract.
But opposites also fight and bicker and can't see eye to eye, can't so much as agree on whether it's pardy cloudy or mostly
sunny. So, I don't know what it is that we brought to each other, but what Tammi took from me now that I was losing her was
immense: a sense of purpose and a reason for being. She took with her the all that was decent in my life and left a space
in me—a torn-out, wanting, needing, hurting hole, a self-inflicted wound—that would never conform itself to any other thing.

I asked of Lamont: “Would … Tell her that … Would you tell her—”

“No.”

I
NEVER TRIED TO CALL
L
ILIAH
. I was afraid. Not that she would be upset. I was terrified that she, in her disinterested way, wouldn't care that I was
married. She would want to see me, I wouldn't be able to refuse her, and then my hunger would be paid for with a hillside
castration. Rather than tempt that fate, I let myself just suddenly be out of her life.

In reality, she most likely never even noticed I was gone.

And then there was Doary. Doary, who probably had it worse than Tammi or Liliah. Doary was stuck with me. We made a go of
things for a while, eight months or so, but there was no way it would stick. I think from the night we married, Doary knew
I didn't love her. For whatever reason, she cared enough about me she was willing to take a gamble I'd learn to love her.
What she got was me on the road every week so that every week I could avoid her—Doary, in my mind, having come to represent
that which separated me from Tammi. I was never abusive to her, unless you count cold stares and distant silence. And I would
never ask her for a divorce. No, not nice-guy Jackie Mann. I just drove her to beg one from me.

I gave her money.

She took less than I offered.

What I think she wanted, what she hoped to get out of the whole pantomime, she wanted a baby. Something to call her own.
Some sign of love in an otherwise loveless and perfunctory affair. She didn't get that, and as far as I know, she never remarried.

Jack the Lady-killer, they should call me. Three with one blow.

There was this one time I'd gone out to dinner with Sid. We were eating pasta. The waiter came 'round, asked if I'd like
Parmesan cheese or ground pepper.

I asked for the pepper.

The waiter, not hearing me, put the cheese on my food.

I didn't say anything about it, just let him put on the cheese and go.

Sid gave a laugh. “What was that? Why didn't you say something? You didn't get what you wanted, you got what you didn't ask
for.”

Yeah.

P
hilly, Kansas City, Chicago was good for two weeks. Up to Milwaukee, over to Kansas City, Kansas, this time …

We were in Sid's office. We were going over my schedule.

St. Louis, Seattle, San Diego—

“Jesus, Sid.”

“What? You don't want … ? San Diego's going to be good. It's this resort kind of—”

“It's not San Diego. It's all of it.”

For a second Sid didn't say anything, not quite digging my problem. By way of trying to figure it out, like groping in the
dark, he offered: “You're headlining almost every club. And for top dollar. You've got room, meals … travel.”

“Yeah, I know. I've got all that, headlining every club, meals at every club … I'm still working clubs.”

Sid sort of laughed a little, probably hoping it would lighten the mood. “Best clubs in the country.”

“Clubs, Sid. Smoked-up dinner rooms trying to buy laughs between the salad and the steak.”

“And most times getting nearly a thousand a stand for it.” Sid was defensive with that. He caught himself, brought back the
laugh, and added a smile. “You're all week at the Copa. Wasn't that long ago there was a kid who would've done anything for
a grand at a joint like that.”

“And it was too long ago I was opening for The Summit in Vegas. I'm
back
to clubs, Sid. I'm not going forward, I'm moving back.”

The smile dropped from Sid. This time it stayed off. “What do you want, Jackie?”

“If you've got to ask me what I want after all this time, that's not a good—”

“Jackie, what do you want?”

“Sullivan. You know I want Sullivan.”

“And you don't think I'm working on that? In the meantime you're not hurting yourself any getting to be a better and better
act. When you're ready—”

“I've opened for Frank, for Sammy, for Dino, Tony, Mel, Buddy G. … How much more ready do I have to be?” Again, it was my
voice, but it was Chet Rosen doing the talking.

“I'm doing everything I can. It's not easy like you think.”

“You got Fran on. You got her on a good long time ago”

“She's different. You can't compare yourself to Fran.”

“Why? Because she's white, and I'm Negro?”

That threw Sid, truth or not, me bringing up race with him. Easing on: “It doesn't make things any simpler. And you sure didn't
make fans at CBS, what happened with Fran's show.”

Fran's show? Very nasty words nearly came hacking out of my mouth. Words about drunk Sid being on a bender when he should
have been clean and dry and fighting my fights for me. But they were words that would hurt; and hurt Sid … ? Even in a hot
moment they were words I could not bring myself to say. I bit them hard, gulped them whole. Instead, redirecting: “So it's
all on me? It's my fault?”

“No, Jackie, it's my fault. Same as always. Whatever I land, it's never big enough. Whatever I get isn't good enough. I'm
as tired of hearing it as you are of …” Sid held up right there. He'd been rushing toward the edge of a cliff but managed
to make a hard, clean stop.

Outside the office, in the surrounding city, the people, the traffic, the noise of it all, was mostly beaten down by the sound
of the labored, angry breathing that came from the two of us.

Sid looked down at his hands. They clutched at his desk. He stared at them … stared at them … then looked up full of disbelief
that he could have reached such a pitch with me, that the two of us could ever come to angry words with each other.

He said haltingly, trying to find his verbal footing: “I guess I need to try harder.”

A feeling came and passed inside me very quickly, remaining just long enough for me to recognize: disappointment. For a very
real moment I wanted Sid to toss my words in my face and then I wanted him to throw the bundle of us out the door.

I wanted Sullivan, and I knew that Sid wasn't the man to get it for me. But the same as with Doary, I couldn't be the one
to put him out of my life. The best I could do was try and get him to do the split for me. That weak maneuver I was well practiced
in. But with Sid, my pushing didn't take. He was too much of a friend, and I was too much of a coward to do anything else
but say, “So, you think San Diego's going to be good?”

T
HE
B
RONX OF
D
ETENTION
. House. House was a funny thing to call it. A jail is what it was. A lockup for people awaiting trial. Not a homey thing
about the joint, but … The Bronx House of Detention. The building was about as old as me, but it wore every year that had
passed since its construction. The paint was faded where it wasn't chipped away altogether. Cracks raced each other along
the plaster walls. The furniture in the waiting area was wood and cheap, and the chairs creaked in recognition of each and
every shift of body weight. The tiles were broken, water leaked, there was a general mustiness from the lack of open windows
and the warehoused men who sweat and stank together. The house lacked care. Of course it did. Four hundred ninety-six men
locked up for one reason or another. Who cared about them? Maybe the few people who sat with me, marking time waiting for
a husband or father or brother or lover to get cut loose for a few weeks before they went on trial, or a few months until
they got pinched again and tossed back behind bars.

A lock got thrown on a heavy steel door and it squealed away from its frame. Li'l Mo, Morris, stepped through. He was getting
out of jail.

“Goddamn it!” He wasn't happy about it. He took one look at me and got as hotheaded as a man could. “Goddamn it!”

“Mo—”

“You did this,” he accused.

“Morris—”

“You did this to me!”

“Posted your bail? Yeah, I did that.”

“Who asked you to?”

“What do you mean, who as—”

“I sure as hell didn't tell you to come down and get your nose in my business.”

“Nobody … I read about the protest, or march, or whatever, in
The Times
, saw your name, saw how you got arrested. I'm getting you out of jail,” I said strongly, trying to show him with my tone
the good works I was doing that he seemed otherwise blind to.

“I don't want out of jail.” Morris was back at the steel door, slapping at it with the flat of his hand. “Hey,” he yelled
to whoever was on the other side. “Hey!”

“Stop it.”

“Open up!” Hand fisted, pounding now. “Open the door and let me back in!”

“Morris!” I went to him, grabbed him, pulled him from the door. He turned; our eyes got into a mum duel. The look he had melted
mine, made me flinch. My eyes went to his coat I was clutching, torn at the shoulder. Torn on the sleeve. The shirt underneath
torn, too. Below that were scrapes and cuts that hadn't been treated but allowed to dry and crust naturally.

I asked: “They do that to you in there?” my head nodding at “them,” whoever was beyond the steel door.

“No.” Mo's voice was quiet, tired of fighting for a minute. “Happened when I got arrested. And this.” Mo lifted his shirt.
Welts and bruises. A field of them. So bad, they were visible even against his black skin.

What do you say to that? I didn't know. I didn't say anything.

Mo lowered his shirt. The curtain coming down on the horror show.

“I didn't mean anything by getting you out. Read you got arrested. I read, and I figured … I thought—”

“You thought writing a check for my bail would make you down with the struggle.”

“I thought you'd rather be outside than inside, so I came here to spring you.”

“The point is to be inside. The point of our protest was to get arrested and stay in jail to be a reminder to the people of
the inequity of the treatment of the so-called Negro by the white power structure.”

“I'm not a reporter, so quit the lecturing. I'm tiying to talk to you, and you're making speeches.”