I Didn't Ask to Be Born

by Bill Cosby

  “Peeee-nut!”

  This particular day, the day Peanut Armhouse’s mother called him to come home, it was the electrician’s tape. I was the pitcher. And Emcee had just been to bat and hit a single. Actually, it wasn’t a single. Pedro was playing third base and the ball bounced off his hand, so it was Pedro’s error that put Emcee on first base. We called him Pee-dro because to us “pe” was pronounced “pee.” His father was really not happy with this and kept correcting people. I think he even went around to people’s houses and said:

  My son’s first name is pronounced Pay-dro.

  But even though his father wanted it “Paydro,” Pedro did answer to “Pee-dro.” Anyway, Emcee had just been at bat. He dropped the bat and ran to first.

  Now, in softball, you cannot steal. You had to stand on the base. Or you could move your foot off the base a little, but you couldn’t steal. You could take off running only after the ball was released from the pitcher’s hand. And that’s because, I guess, the bases were very close together.

  So Emcee was on first. I had the ball, ready for the next batter. And Peanut’s mother was still standing in the sandy dirt area.

  “Peee-nut! Dinner is ready!”

  Like I said before, mothers cooked. You could smell dinners—I mean, all of these aromas mixed together were just something wonderful—but the smell was never enough to make you so hungry that you wanted to go home and leave the “game.” The “game” was that powerful.

  Now, Peanut grabs the bat. We had only one bat. Everybody had to bat with the same bat, and it had broken, but not in half or anything. It had a nail driven through it to keep the two pieces together, so you had to be careful where you held it because if you held it around the back of the nail, you could really put a hole in your hand and draw blood.

  Peanut’s mother is standing there with that apron on. And Peanut has the bat. But that’s okay; I have the ball. And there’s no way I’m throwing it to Peanut.

  Because my mother knows Peanut’s mother.

  And Peanut’s mother calls out:

  “Put the bat down, Peanut.”

  “But, Momma,” Peanut yells back, “I haven’t had a bat yet! I just want to bat and I will be right there!”

  “I don’t care how many bats you have coming. Dinner is ready!”

  “But, Momma—”

  “Peanut! I am not cooking for my health!”

  “Please, Momma!”

  “What did I just say?”

  “But, Momma—”

  “Come off that field now!”

  But instead of running off the field, Peanut raises the bat and calls out to me:

  “Come on, man, throw the ball! Throw me the ball!”

  After he said that, I heard the rising sound of his mother’s voice:

  “Peee-nut! I am not fooling with you!”

  Pit Bull McCoy is the catcher. And Pit Bull looks at me with fear on his face.

  Because Pit Bull’s mother knows Peanut’s mother.

  “Peee-nut!”

  Peanut then sort of morphs into a boy who is lost. I think this is the first time I ever saw—I had heard about it, but I had actually never seen with my eyes—somebody who had gone crazy. Completely crazy. I had never witnessed a boy who had lost his mind. But Peanut had lost his mind. Everybody could see it.

  Peanut waves his hand at me:

  “Come on, man! Throw me the ball!”

  And when I don’t throw him the ball, Peanut walks toward me with the bat in his hand.

  Now every kid on that field is focused on Peanut; every kid has the same expression. Our jaws just dropped. There’s no frown on anybody’s forehead. It’s just a look of stunned boys, eight, nine years old, looking at a morphed boy. I mean, we’re all seeing the same thing: a morphed boy.

  I set the ball down on the ground.

  Because my mother knows Peanut’s mother.

  I’m not about to have Peanut’s mother come to my mother and say:

  I told Peanut to come off the field. And your son threw the ball to him.

  So Peanut walks out. I had put the ball down in front of me on the mound, and I just stand there looking at him. We are all looking at him. Nobody talked. Just looked. Peanut walks out nervously, morphing even more. No foam around the mouth or anything, just an insane determination to destroy himself.

  Peanut bends down, picks up the ball, then walks back to home plate. And Peanut’s mother yells:

  “Peee-nut! Put the bat down!”

  But it was too late. Peanut had morphed too far to hear his mother.

  Somehow we all knew that this was not a good experience. I don’t remember feeling anything—I think I was numb—but I do remember watching a performance of something no one had ever seen. I think our dopamine level was off the scale. This was not a fight, fight, fight kind of dopamine. This was a stunned spike in dopamine. We were all stunned. Unbelievably stunned. We had all become statues.

  So Peanut goes back to home plate. He tosses the ball into the air, takes a big swing, and hits the ball. It wasn’t even a good hit. As a matter of fact, it was rather pitiful.

  The ball rolls toward Skeets. Skeets doesn’t move. The ball rolls past Skeets. Skeets could have picked it up and thrown to first and Peanut would have been out. But he didn’t.

  Because Skeets’ mother knew Peanut’s mother.

  You see, none of us wanted to be an accomplice or even an accessory to the fact. An accessory to the morphamization of Peanut Armhouse. Some of us could have said, “Come on, man, go on home.” Like you tell a drunk. But we didn’t.

  We were statues. Still no movement of blood. And here’s this ball rolling at the rate of about four miles an hour. I use that because a lot of walkers will know that speed. Or, let’s say, the speed of a golfer’s fifty-foot putt.

  Peanut drops the bat. Then, with clenched fists, begins to announce as Byron Saam would at a Philadelphia Phillies game:

  “Peee-nut Armhouse has just hit a blazing, scorching ground ball past Skeets Washington.”

  Peanut starts running, announcing his every move.

  “Peanut is headed to first.”

  And the ball is still rolling. It goes into where the monkey bars are and it’s bouncing like a pinball in a pinball machine. There’s Israel Johnson, who is playing center field. He’s standing there at the monkey bars where the ball is bouncing around. Suddenly, the ball bounces up. Israel jumps like a scared cat so the ball doesn’t touch him. He jumped like I haven’t seen anybody jump before. He did not want to become an accessory.

  Because Israel Johnson’s mother knows Peanut’s mother.

  Meanwhile, Peanut is still announcing.

  “Peanut steps on first base!”

  Emcee is standing on first base watching Peanut run past him. Nobody says a thing.

  “Peanut rounds first!”

  Emcee stays on first, so obviously Peanut is out. But Peanut keeps on announcing.

  “Peanut is now rounding second… Peanut tags second… Peanut is now in the groove and running at a nice pace… Peanut is rounding third, he tags third… Peanut is on his way home for an inside-the-box home run!”

  Peanut jumps into the air and lands, ladies and gentlemen, with both feet on home plate. Stomps on home plate! Thrusts his arms in the air.

  “A home run for Peanut Armhouse, greatest hitter in the world!”

  And then Peanut runs toward where his mother was standing.

  But Peanut’s mother is not where she was. She is gone. We were still statues as we watched Peanut disappear into his house.

  And we never saw

  Peanut

  Glanville

  Roosevelt

  Armhouse

  again.

  There were inquiries. A social worker came around looking for Peanut. A census taker asked questions. I don’t really think he was a census taker, just an investigator pretending to be a census taker. The FBI would stop by once in a while. People complied, they talked, but I don’t remember
anybody ever saying that there was ever, in fact, anyone by the name of Peanut Armhouse. His sister Tomasina, cute with dimples, never spoke of her brother.

  It was exactly a year later and I believe the time was exactly the same. We were “Around Back” playing softball. It was the fifth inning, and we were leading 55 to 48. I was pitching. Bobby Stevenson was on second. Freddy was in center field. Emcee was at bat again. Seafus McNeely had replaced Pedro at third base. Because Pedro was always making errors—like when he let Emcee reach first base the day Peanut Armhouse morphed—we moved him to right field, where nobody ever hits anything. Plus, it was Seafus’ ball and he wanted to play third base or else he would take his ball and go home.

  Seafus’ ball was brand-new, and even though we had scored fifty-five runs, it was still hard and still had a cover on it. And that ball went fast. So when Emcee hit the ball, it took off. A line drive right at Seafus. And it was a sight to behold: Seafus clapped his hands—his gloved hand and the other hand—like a person trying to catch a ball in midair. But the clap was too late. So first you heard a clap and then you heard thwop! Which was the sound of the ball striking Seafus dead center on his forehead. You see, Seafus’ timing was awful because he really can’t play. And, as I said, the only reason he’s playing is because it’s his ball.

  Since Seafus was not a well-liked person, this was, for all of us, one of the great moments that, even as old men, we remember. That Seafus McNeely got hit by a line drive. It wasn’t really a scorching line drive, maybe two miles an hour faster than a pop fly. Clap! Then… thwop! The sound of the ball, his own ball, hitting him square in the middle of his forehead. So karma was there even back in those days.

  When Seafus was hit in the forehead, he immediately fell on top of the ball. I ran to him, turned him over, grabbed the ball, then faked throwing to second in order to make Emcee stop at first.

  We left Seafus on the ground, out cold. Which was a better position for Seafus. That way the left fielder could see what was going on. There was no obstruction. (If you ever meet a grown man around seventy-three years old as of this writing, look carefully at his forehead. You can still see the imprint of the stitches.)

  All of a sudden, the most magnificent thing I had ever witnessed in my nine years occurred. A black butterfly appeared over home plate—just fluttering it’s beautiful wings calmly to stay in the same position about five feet high. Hubert McClinton, the catcher, saw it from a crouched position. And then we heard it. It wasn’t loud, but we all heard it. It hovered there for a moment over home plate, spread its wings like Ferko, then said:

  Come on man! Throw me the ball!

  As I sat there talking with Emcee, I think it may have been the first actual disclosure that there ever was a Peanut Armhouse.

  “Come on man! Throw me the ball!” And as I heard myself say that to Emcee and his wife, I was searching way back, struggling to remember. “Come on man…”

  Emcee turned to his wife: “You see, dear, I told you I wasn’t making all that up.”

  She looked at him and I felt that she did believe him, and he smiled the biggest smile in the world.

  They got up to leave. I stood and hugged him. “Emcee,” I asked, “what’s your real name?”

  He smiled, a smaller smile, and said, “Just Emcee.”

  And then I hugged his wife, stepped back and asked, “Then what is your name?”

  She said, “Mrs. Emcee,” and she winked.

  THE MISSING PAGES

  I was raised a Christian and I was baptized and I believe. I sincerely believe. Why do I believe? Because any man or woman has to be a fool to say they don’t believe. If you say you don’t believe, something bad is going to happen, I believe. So I believe it’s safer to say I believe than to not believe. And I believe you can have an out if you say, I believe. Not just say it, but really believe.

  But if you say you believe, do they look at you on Judgment Day and ask: Do you really believe? Or do they say your belief doesn’t count because you said so at the last minute because you got scared. You could say, No, I wasn’t scared. I said it out of fear. It says in the Bible: Fear the Lord your God.

  I do fear God. And I fear going to Hell or Purgatory. I have this picture of Hell, where there’s a lot of laughing going on but nobody’s having fun. And I know Purgatory when I see it. I’ve been on the Los Angeles Freeway when there’s been a traffic jam for five hours and the temperature was a hundred and there were thunderstorms at ten-minute intervals.

  Hell or Purgatory? What else you got? Turn over another card. Which is exactly why it’s better to believe. So I do believe. And I have faith. But even though I realize that faith and fact are not always related, I need some help when it comes to Genesis.

  For example, I own eight Bibles, all written in English. They were published at different times. One of them in 705. Another one was printed in 1709. And there’s one that came over on the Santa Maria. They’re all very old, but none are autographed.

  One thing these Bibles have in common is the fact that I’m convinced there are missing pages. I don’t know if the writers left things out or the editor cut things out or the publisher decided there wasn’t enough space. I don’t know. I just know that dealing with newspapers or magazines that interviewed me, when they left things out and I asked why, they said they didn’t have enough space. When they don’t tell the whole story, their excuse is they didn’t have space. Even though it was their own newspaper, they chose not to clear up things because they didn’t have the space. But what they really mean is: We don’t care what you said. One time, when I demanded to know the reason something was left out of an interview, the writer implicated the editor and the editor blamed the publisher and the publisher offered up an indictment of the owner, who said it was all the accountant’s fault because the accountant said, We don’t have enough paper.

  So when writers and editors and publishers and owners and accountants are involved, there’s always something left out of the story. I call this “missing stuff.” And I’m telling you, there is missing stuff in the Bible. Missing pages. And I don’t know where these missing pages happen to be—maybe they’re buried in Utah somewhere—but there are definitely missing pages. And I don’t blame God for the jumping around in the story of his beginning; I blame the writers and editors. You see, every time you put God’s word into human hands, it becomes messed up. Which is where the phrase “God only knows” comes from. After you read the Bible, it’s very clear that God only knows the whole story.

  I tried to find out who wrote Genesis, but nobody seems to know for sure. Obviously it has been a long time, so it’s very difficult to figure out who did the interviews and who wrote things down and who edited it all. Whoever it was wrote very fast and left things out. Some of the paragraphs they wrote sound like a postcard from your kid at camp.

  There are biblical scholars who believe the book of Genesis was written by several different writers, with Moses acting as an editor for not only Genesis but also other books of the Bible, including Deuteronomy. But it would’ve been difficult for Moses to write Deuteronomy because of chapter 34, verse 5:

  And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said.

  I don’t think Moses wrote that.

  And in the next verse it says:

  God buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.

  Exactly! The writers left out where Moses was buried. Or maybe the editor cut it out. Somewhere in Moab? That covers a lot of area. Of course, God knows where Moses is buried (here we go again, God only knows), and he must’ve told the writers, but they didn’t put it in the Bible. Was anyone doing fact checking? Where was the publisher at the time?

  So the one thing we know about Genesis is that we don’t know for certain who wrote it. But we do know the writer and the editor and the publisher and the accountant are all hooked up in this somewhere.

  Genesis starts out great. The writers tell
us that God created the Heavens and the Earth. And he created the animals and the plants and everything that exists today. And I’m happy about all that because it makes sense to me and I believe. It’s very precise and the writers didn’t leave anything out. The writers even tell us how long it took—six days—and that God rested on the seventh day.

  Rested? God rested? Hello? Writers? God rested? What are you saying here, writers? God never rested because he never got tired. You’re talking about God resting when every pastor speaking of God preaches that God never rests.

  So after God made the Heavens and the Earth, the writers tell us that God said:

  Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

  I’m not going to question anything, but I’m just going to ask a question. Who was God talking to? Are the writers giving God invisible friends? The writers left that out. Then, a few lines later, the writers say that God said:

  So God created man in his own image.

  So which was it? “Our image” or “his own image”? A good editor would’ve caught that. (If you wrote a letter to the editor in those times, you probably would’ve gotten the same response you’d get today: We stand behind our reporting.)

  So God created man, and the first thing God said to Adam was:

  Don’t eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden.

  (I’m not sure, but I think this is the first and only time God used the word “don’t.”)

  Leaving the fruit alone was no problem for Adam. From the moment he met God, Adam just did whatever God said. Adam was good. Adam was wonderful. A wonderful human being. He didn’t argue; he just did it. There are no long conversations between God and Adam. No debates. God says do; Adam does. So when God said don’t eat the fruit, Adam had no intention of eating the fruit. Besides, there must’ve been other fruit in the garden. So what did Adam eat? Not a word about that.