Now Sly Tells his Side of the Story, Sort of

After many phone calls and apologies, though none from Sly himself, I found myself back at the Hilton on Wednesday night, scheduled to meet Sly at eleven. JR answered the door and then disappeared into Sly’s bedroom, leaving me with Stephanie (Sly’s secretary girlfriend) and Cynthia Robinson, the trumpet player in the band. Stephanie and Cynthia reminded each other of the highlights of the shaving cream fight while I watched the local news. After half an hour I knocked on Sly’s door and shouted to JR that I would like to get the show on the road. JR introduced me to Sly and they both retreated into the bathroom.

Sly emerged after another half hour, having added a black leather jerkin to his ensemble. He looked strikingly more alert. He strutted over to me and assumed the offensive immediately. He had failed to appear the other day because of “valid negligence,” he said. I said that valid negligence was a contradiction in terms. Sly bristled, drew himself up, and stared at me. “What are you, dense?” he said.

Suddenly he switched to a conciliatory mood, offering me a snort from a tin of something labelled “Ozona Sniffing Powder.” It was a tease; the powder happened to look exactly like cocaine. “Don’t worry, it’s legal,” he said mockingly. “I ain’t about to hip you to anything.” The Ozona was a snuff that smelled faintly of wintergreen. “I give you the first one free. Then I make you pay for the next,” said Sly.

I sat down on a stool at the foot of the bed, turned on my tape recorder, and began to ask questions. “Wait a moment,” said Sly. “Wait just a moment. We want our own copy, to check for accuracy.” Richie set up a professional-looking multi-dialed stereo cassette recorder on the bed. Sly tested it at length, yawned, sighed and then began the interview by asking me whether I would like to look at the instruction booklet for his camper. No? Ok, he would interview me; he would; just wait and see.

One thing was clear. Sly didn’t want me to interview him. He was wearing a mask of studied indolence. His eyes were half-shut, hooded with apathy. His lips were curled back, revealing a smile of total ambiguity.

Having been a disk jockey, Sly can speak like Demosthenes if he cares to, but he frequently prefers to mumble — (“Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin” is a very accurate transcription of Sly’s elocution at moments when he doesn’t want to be understood). “What was that?” I would say. Sly would lean back on the pillows and quote from one of his new songs. “‘I can’t say it more than once/’cause I’m thinkin’ twice as fast/Yodal ayee, yodal ayee hoo!’ Hey, what’s happening?”

I asked whether Kapralik had been right when he said that Sly was really two people. “He’s probably either right or wrong,” said Sly. “They’re so close together, that’s all right.” Sly hadn’t had a chance to read what Kapralik had said. He had been too busy writing songs in his head. He was writing a song in his head right now, but if I wanted to hear it we’d have to forget about the interview.

“Kapralik said that Sylvester is fantastic, he’s responsible, he gets everywhere on time, he’s a beautiful cat,” I said, trying to bring Sly back to the question.

“Did he say that?” said Sly.

“But Sly on the other hand, is not responsible, he’s a fuck up. . . .”

“Did he say that? I’ll tell you what is true. David Kapralik tries his best. And I don’t think he has any malice in his heart. Whatever he said, he didn’t know what he was talking about, I don’t think. ‘Cause I am who I am when I am it.”

What about the body guards Sly was rumored to have had until recently? What about his German shepherd, named Gun, who is allegedly trained to kill? What was it that Sly had to be protected from?

“I don’t know anything about all this,” Sly drawled. “My dog’s really nice, man. He’d like you. I didn’t train my dog to do anything wrong to people. He likes girls, like I do.”

“The rumor goes,” I said, “that you were going around with three or four body guards . . .”

“Naaahh.”

“. . . and that you beat up some people in the lobby of a New York motel a while back.”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Sly volunteered. After meandering off on a minor tangent, he told me. “There were no guards there — I don’t think. And I didn’t beat anybody up. I just tried to keep from getting beat up. Some guys jumped on Cynthia, and one guy held her down with his knee. There were about six guys jumped on my brother. My dad said, ‘Hey, you always take care of your brother.’ So I didn’t understand anything other than goin’ down there and talkin’ it over. But they didn’t want to talk. So I got afraid. And fear breeds bravery.”

“What was the bravery?” I asked.

“The bravery was the result of the fear,” said Sly. “I just kinda ran through the lobby.” He gave a deep, rumbling laugh, chorused by JR. “You’da been proud. I was right. I had a peace sign on and a flower and everything.”