I Ain't Scared of You

by Bernie Mac

  We shootin’ basketball, done missed the whole rim. But your form was perfect!

  A brother boxing, he’s shuffling, bobbing—and ain’t hit shit. But he’s sweet! His shorts match his shoes. His hair’s combed. He looks like he’s goin’ to a barbecue.

  The people out here catchin’ on fire doing dumb shit. I wouldn’t throw no water on ’em. I’d let three-quarters of their bodies get burnt up.

  Bungee jumping. Why you want to jump off a cliff and almost hit the ground? You’re a 16th of an inch from the ground, and you’re like, “Whooo! I almost bust my head wide open! Whooo!”

  This guy was out on his boat one day. The people were telling him there were twenty-foot waves out there. They told him don’t go out to sea. But he’s going yachtin’.

  Man, that boat flipped over like it wasn’t nothing. He in the ocean screaming. Ain’t no need in hollering now. The Coast Guard goin’ out there. If I was them, I’d take my time.

  People in Miami having hurricane parties, celebrating possible death. “We might get swept out! Yay!”

  I like simple things. I like swimming in shallow water. I like to swim where I can stand up in case I get tired.

  Something’s I just ain’t doin’. You ain’t shootin’ me out no cannon. Something might go wrong. Or that shit like playing with wild animals on TV, like Johnny Carson used to do? I ain’t doin’ that shit.

  I was watching a TV program not too long ago, and a woman was interviewing a bear trainer. Now, the bear was sitting up there next to the woman, with a muzzle on his mouth. I guess the woman thought the bear wasn’t gon’ do nothin’. So the reporter playin’ with the bear and shit.

  Man, Yogi tore her ass up. He clawed the fuck out her ass, man. She come sitting next to him like he stuffed. The bear said to himself, “Oh, she don’t think I’m real.” He looked at her twice, like, “I’m givin’ you a chance to break off and run.” She stood her ass right there. He tore her up.

  I don’t play with animals. The TV people on my show were like, “Bernie, we’re gonna have a mongoose on the show and—”

  Uh-unh. Nope. We ain’t havin’ shit like that.

  They had a Leave It To Beaver marathon on one day, and I was watching. They had this episode where there was a gopher in the backyard. Ward gon’ set a trap. Man, that gopher ain’t nothin’ but a big-ass rat! I ain’t messin’ with that. He can eat what he wanna eat back there.

  Growing up, I had a dog named Bullet. But he just wasn’t right.

  He used to stay out late and come in when he wanted to. He got one dog pregnant down the street, but he wouldn’t take care of his kids. I’d leave the door open. Rhonda’d be worried about him.

  Then he got sick on me. He caught diabetes. He lost a lot of weight. But he kept on drinkin’. Hard-headed, man. He sellin’ drugs. We had to put him to sleep.

  It might have been the food. He wasn’t eatin’ no Gainsburger. He ate what we ate: ham hocks, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, chicken. He got high-blood pressure. His hair started fallin’ off him. He had an ulcer.

  And when he got the dog pregnant down the street, we was all surprised ’cause he was gay. All he used to mess with was male dogs. He’d be sniffin’ ’em, tryin’ to hum. We used to have to throw hot water on them to break them up.

  We tried to mate him with another full-blooded German shepherd, but he fought her all night. But he finally got him some. I think he was high, though.

  My grandfather gave him away. He was from the South. He ain’t believe in keeping those dogs.

  * * *

  Bullet would tear something off. He wasn’t no chump. He could jump off the roof. He’d jump off, and the kids would go running. A few minutes later, they’d come ringing the doorbell: “Bullet loose.” The roof was 20 feet high. He jump off. He’d come back, ring the bell, act like nothin’ happening.

  I didn’t have a favorite comedian coming up, but I had admiration for so many. I had a love for comedy, for what comedy brought and what it did for people. It didn’t matter to me. Funny was funny. Black, white, male, female.

  Carol Burnett was funny to me. Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor. I thought Red Skelton was great when he got into character. Jackie Gleason was hilarious to me. What he did was naturally funny. He never rehearsed. They say he was drunk half the damn time. You can’t give nobody that.

  And Moms Mabley, who I really was a fan of—influenced me. I took a page out of each and every one of their notebooks. Stu Gilliam. I liked Jack Benny. His facial expressions and his body language. His timing was impeccable. He ain’t say nothing, but he was funny as heck.

  Harpo Marx made you laugh without saying a word. You come out and the audience laughin’, and it just be his body language.

  Flip Wilson was a great comedian. Bill Cosby was a conservative comedian to me. He dealt in the era when everybody was red, white, blue, and apple pie. He did his part. He represented in a positive way. Richard Pryor was funny. He made you laugh at yourself. He made you feel like it was a part of you. He didn’t come at you as a celebrity.

  Redd Foxx came in when everything was politically correct. Redd Foxx been doing it. Look at Lucille Ball. Tim Conway.

  The Three Stooges was funny. I’d have killed Moe, though. I’d have taken him out in his sleep. Slapping you with a hammer upside the head, cutting Curly’s neck with a saw. He took something hot out the oven and when Curly was bending over, put it on his back. Moe would been dead messing with me. He was slapping people for no reason. He’d slap Larry and hair would be flyin’ everywhere.

  Curly’d be looking at him like, I’m sick of this muh’fucka!

  He’d just tell Curly, “Scram!” Moe was abusive. Moe had problems, man. Moe ain’t love nobody. He was cheap with money. He’d be counting out his money: “One hundred . . . two hundred . . . three hundred . . .” Then he’d give you a quarter.

  He was cheap with bread. He was supposed to share, but he would just give Larry the butt of the bread. Yeah, Moe woulda been dead messing with me.

  I watched the high school cats get drafted. I’m waitin’ for the first grammar school cat. He’s gon’ be 9'4", 467 lbs., and he’ll stutter. They gon’ draft him anyway: “You can’t stop him from making a livelihood.” You offering a cat $21 million, and he ain’t passed his SAT test, what he gon’ do?

  The guy the Bulls got, Eddy Curry, he’s playin’ in his hometown. Now, that’s pressure. He’s 18. By the time he gets 21, he’s gon’ be sick of everybody.

  Family gon’ bother him.

  AUNTIE CURRY: Baby, give your auntie 20 tickets. You know she never been to a ball game in her life. You know she old, on a respirator. She said, “The last thing I want to do is see him play.”

  All his boys from kindergarten gon’ sweat him like hell. His daddy done quit. He told his foreman, “Fuck you!”

  FOREMAN: You comin’ in today?

  MR. CURRY: Kiss my ass!

  Chaka Kahn and Bernie on the Midnight Mac Show.

  He ain’t go to work that day. When they drafted his son, he was like, “Aw, shit!”

  You see the family on the side at the draft; they jumpin’ more than the dude getting drafted. All of ’em quittin’ they jobs. Baby cousin quittin’ his job. Cousin on his daddy side, he quittin’. He works at the grocery store, talkin’ about, “Fuck you! I quit! I ain’t baggin’ shit!”

  Then, if Eddy Curry break his leg, they gon’ kill him.

  “Nigga got the nerve to break his leg!”

  Or “Ain’t but 21 and his back done gave out! 21! He’s 6'7", 290 pounds—and hurt! Boy, I tell you.”

  Watch! He’s gon’ be sick of it. Relatives are gon’ call his house—and he can’t act like he ain’t home. They gon’ come over unannounced.

  * * *

  You see how the family be jumping, hollering? They ain’t even all blood relatives. You see the lady you call “mama” ’cause you go over her house and kick it with her son. She jumpin’. She like, “Are you ready?”

&
nbsp; “For what?”

  “Ready to be drafted. You gon’ go 1 or 2. They lookin’ for big men now. You know what? I saw me this big car . . .”

  The NBA goes through a transition. The guards take over for a couple of years. Then power forwards. Now, Shaq O’Neal has brought a new dimension to the center position. He kills people. He killed Mutumbo in the playoffs. Elbows all in Mutumbo’s throat. You see in the newspaper pictures, everytime Shaq went up, Mutumbo had a different face.

  I think it’s gon’ take about five years before you see anything from these new players, but the whole league is young. Karl Mal-one is the only one of the old cats. He looks like he on some kinda respirator ’cause he keeps going and going and going.

  And I tell you, outta all the fights you have seen, don’t nobody mess with Malone. Don’t nobody mess with that mountain-climbin’ nigga. Malone gotta be 38, and he built like a building. And still be running, getting up and down the court like it ain’t nothin’. They call time-out, Malone be sittin’ on the sidelines like he’s Marvin Hagler, ain’t even breathin’ heavy.

  Remember Marvin? He was in such great shape, you never saw him breathing hard. He would be sittin’ in his corner and his people would be talkin’ to him, and it’d look like he was dead. It was like he wasn’t breathing at all. Then the bell would ring, he’d get up and go clobber the shit out ya.

  You can’t have sex with nobody like that. I know when Karl Malone comes home and ask for sex, it’s a problem.

  KARL: Wanna have sex?

  KARL’S WIFE: Aw, shit. Damn. Well, I was supposed to go over to my mother’s.

  You can’t do nothin’ with Malone.

  Even Charles Oakley don’t pick with Malone. And Oakley likes to fight. I remember the fight between Oakley and Xavier McDaniel, the X-Man. They was all in the stands humbuggin’. It was like they were fightin’ over a broad. Now Oakley be beatin’ up guys like Tyrone Hill.

  Of course, Tyrone Hill looks like he been beat up already. He’s not the most attractive man. If you saw Tyrone Hill in the grocery store, you gon’ be like, Somebody fucked him up! “You all right, man?”

  I ain’t no Billy Dee Williams, but Tyrone Hill, he ain’t a handsome man.

  AWARDS PRESENTER: And for the Ugliest Cat of the Year, the nominees are . . . Sam Cassell . . . Tyrone Hill . . . and Jimmy Walker. And the winner is . . . It’s a tie!

  They are tore off, man. Like cats used to say back in the day, “They ruint.”

  It’s hard to find somebody who will stick with you, somebody you can have a foundation with. Rhonda been with me for a real long time . . .

  I’m looking at her right now. Yeah, she been with me a long time. Uh-huh, she been with me a long time . . . a real looooong time . . .

  Her middle name is Dinosaur, Cave Woman. She knocked me across the head with a bone, that’s how long we been going together. She stuck by me when I ain’t have no bank account. I had to go to the currency exchange to cash my checks. They take $6 out. My check wasn’t nothin’ but $66. I’d cash it, then we used to go Sizzler. You couldn’t tell me nothing. A family outing!

  They’d be waiting on me—her and my daughter—to take ’em to Red Lobster. That was before Red Lobster became a diner.

  Now? I can’t even drive past Sizzler or Red Lobster. It’s, “I know you ain’t goin’ up in there!”

  They want some five-star stuff now. See, I still had that lil’ po’ man mentality at first. “Let’s go to Red Lobster.”

  Rhonda would blow a gasket: “We goin’ over there where the

  salad is $48!”

  Expensive, boy. Glass of water $25. You leave, the bill be $600. And you can’t tell my wife nothin’. She be sittin’ there, stomach full, lookin’ around, suckin’ on her teeth: “Aw, this is beautiful, mmhmm. Thank you, baby.”

  Then I got insurance. Aw, man, you shoulda heard Rhonda: “You mean if you die, I get $2 million? Aw, we doin’ good!”

  We used to get up: “I hope you don’t die today.” No medical insurance. No car insurance. I’d go to drive, Rhonda would tell me, “Be careful! You know we ain’t got no insurance.”

  I’d be like, “I’m taking the side streets!”

  See, there were rules to driving when you ain’t have car insurance. On Fridays, you didn’t drive from twelve to six. You had to let the traffic die down. Too many cars out.

  Seven o’clock, it would slow down. You could go out after seven. But you had to be back in by eleven. ’Cause after that, people leavin’ bars and drivin’ drunk.

  If somebody had hit us, they coulda took everything. They coulda took our stereo!

  We had a nice stereo, the most expensive thing in the house. The couch wasn’t worth nothin’. The loose spring in the cushion would stab you. We had books holdin’ it up for legs.

  We had that television with the black line going up and down on the screen. I used to have my daughter holding the antenna for three hours. “Just stand there!”

  Her cousins would come over, and she would be glad. “You spendin’ the night? Good! You can hold the antenna.”

  The kids would be like, “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Next thing you know, we got my nephew holdin’ the antenna. His arm would get tired, we’d give him a Blow-Pop. He just standin’ there, holdin’ the antenna and suckin’ on a Blow-Pop.

  When we started moving up in the world, we got life insurance. Blue Cross/Blue Shield! Before that, we couldn’t afford no medication. Anything wrong, we took aspirin.

  “He got a fever.”

  “Give him some aspirin.”

  “He got chills.”

  “Give him some aspirin.”

  “He stepped on a nail.”

  “Crush up some aspirin and give it to him.”

  “He got a sore throat.”

  “Dissolve four aspirin in some water and gargle with it.”

  Rhonda said, “What if one of us would’ve died? We’d have been tore off.”

  But with insurance? Oh, man, people glad to see you go now.

  “You mean to tell me, if you die I get $2 million? Keep on drinking. You got hypertension? Eat some more, eat some moooore.”

  We out eating one night, and my wife gon’ say, “Yeah, we gon’ be well taken care of if something happen to Bernie. Well taken care of.”

  I looked up from my food, like, What the fuck is this? You plannin’ somethin’?

  “Yeah, we gon’ be well taken care of. Not that we want anything to happen—but if it did, we gon’ be okay.”

  I had to keep my eye on her.

  * * *

  I got a guy who does wardrobe design for me, been dealing with him for years. One day recently, he brought my clothes by from the cleaners. He said my bill was $143. So I gave him an extra $100, then he left.

  Right after he left, I’m lookin’ at the bill, and I see where he done mixed his clothes in with my clothes. So I’m paying for his clothes and mine to be cleaned! And he ain’t said nothin’. Done walked on out.

  I found out later that it was a mistake that he didn’t know about. But at the time, I was gon’ get him for tryin’ to 86 me, man.

  You gotta set an example with people. I was thinkin’, He’ll go out and tell people. They’ll think I’m a lollipop.

  He’s workin’ on my TV show. I was plannin’ to fire him before I found out it was an accident. I want people to be afraid of tryin’ to do stuff to cheat me. I want ’em to be like, “Don’t mess with Bernie. He’ll fire you.”

  It wasn’t gon’ be over $243, either. Hell, naw. I was gon’ make the deed small as hell. “Man, he took 75 cents and Bernie fired him!” “He took a beer out of Bernie’s refrigerator and Bernie went off!” “Bernie had two watermelons in the refrigerator, and he cut one. Bernie fired that muh’fucka!” “He had on one of Bernie’s belts and Bernie fired him. He was head of production! Yessir, Bernie don’t be messin’ around! He’ll fire you for nothin’.”

  I’ll just walk in, look at
somebody: “You fired.”

  See, that’s power. You know it’s power when you fire somebody, and they ask for their job back. “Come on, Bernie, man. Bernie, can I talk to you?”

  You fire him at eight o’clock in the morning and he still around at four o’clock in the evenin’. Oh, that’s power.

  I’m like, “You’re fired! Security!”

  He’ll be waitin’ for you out by your car. “Bernie? Bernie, can I talk to you?”

  You get home, you’re wife holdin’ the phone, talkin’ about, “Baby, phone call.”

  It’s that cat: “Bernie? Bernie, can I talk to you?”

  The white man done had that power for years. The black man, we coming along now!

  See, black folks don’t believe you’re fired till you take the time card out the slot.

  FOREMAN: You’re fired.

  BLACK EMPLOYEE: Yeah, right.

  But take the time card out the slot?

  BLACK EMPLOYEE: Aw, come on, man!

  He be bringin’ up old personal shit.

  BLACK EMPLOYEE: We go fishin’ together!

  Brothers don’t come to grips with nothing like that, especially if you fired him at the end of the shift. He gon’ come in in the morning like ain’t nothing wrong.

  FOREMAN: Don’t punch in, man.

  EMPLOYEE: What?

  FOREMAN: Don’t punch in. You’re fired.

  BLACK EMPLOYEE: Man, you bullshittin’! You gon’ fire me ’cause I took my lunch early?

  FOREMAN: I told you, you’re supposed to take your lunch at three. You start at 11, you took your lunch at 12!

  So I was gon’ fire the guy. But first, I was gon’ stop payment on the check I had written him for my cleaner bill.

  That would’ve embarrassed the shit outta his ass ’cause he banks downtown where all the white folks at. You know you messed up when you go to cash a check, and they pull you to the side.

  BANK CUSTOMER: Uh, what’s the problem, man?

  BANK MANAGER: You have no funds.