Maybe You Never Cry Again

by Bernie Mac

  Finally, end of the day, in darkness already, I made my last delivery and pulled the truck over by a phone booth under the El. I jumped out and called the office.

  “It’s Bernard,” I said.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m quitting.”

  “What?” My boss could hardly hear me. The wind was whistling so hard I thought it was going to pick that phone booth right up, and me with it.

  “I quit!” I shouted. “I’m done.”

  “Where the hell you at, Bernard? Where’s my truck?”

  I told him to come get his truck—I didn’t have the energy to drive back to the office—and I hung up. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.

  I made sure the truck was locked up good and got on the El and went home. I didn’t say anything to Rhonda. I had something to eat and watched a little TV, and Rhonda went back into the kitchen to make pies for Thanksgiving night. We were going to celebrate with her family.

  I went to bed in a good mood. Rhonda enjoyed it. But she knew something was up. “What’s going on, Bernard?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know what you mean. Didn’t you just have a good time?”

  “I had a fine time. But I know something’s going on.”

  “Can’t a man be in a good mood? There a law against that? Can’t a man love his wife a little?”

  “Bernard McCullough,” she said. “You crazy.”

  The next day we got into our little Ford Escort and drove to her family’s house for Thanksgiving. I was the life of the party. I was horsing around with all the in-laws and clowning with that litter of kids.

  Rhonda wouldn’t stop looking at me. We’d been together more than a dozen years now, and I could never put anything past that woman. Still can’t.

  “Bernard,” she said. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “Nothin’, woman. You the one that’s crazy.”

  We got home. Put Boops to bed. Went to our room. The apartment was cold and the windows were all frosty, and I had eaten too much. But I felt good.

  “Rhonda,” I said. “I have something to tell you.”

  “I knew it!” she said.

  “You want to hear it or not?” I said.

  And she smiled at me. “Yeah,” she said.

  “I quit my job.”

  She lost the smile. “What?”

  “You heard me, woman. I quit my job.”

  “Bernie Mac—”

  “I’m not a Wonder Bread man, Rhonda. I’m not a fry cook. I’m not a janitor. This time my mind’s made up. It’s not open to discussion. We’re not negotiating here. I’m a comedian. And like I told you before, if I can’t be a comedian, I’m gonna die.”

  For the longest time Rhonda didn’t say a word. Then I saw the tears in her eyes. She was crying, but she was smiling, too. She came close and hugged me.

  “Do I have your blessing, Rhonda?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “You have my blessing. I’m with you all the way.”

  We held on to each other.

  And that was it. I was done with regular jobs.

  Bernie Mac was a comedian.

  “GOT-DAMN RIGHT, MUH’FUCKA. I GOT A LEVEL OF CRAZY IN ME YOU AIN’T BEGUN TO SEE.”

  16

  NO–HOLDS–BARRED CRAZY

  A few weeks later, at a club in Atlanta, I met this fellow Kevin Sumner. He was a short, stocky guy, smart as a whip, and he was working for Russell Simmons, over at Def Jam Records, home of hip-hop. Sumner told me he wanted to do an urban version of Saturday Night Live, and that he wanted to put it on film. He’d been talking to some of the guys—Bill Bellamy, Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence—and he wanted to know if I was interested.

  I had heard something about this plan of his, and of course I was interested. “Where are the auditions?” I asked.

  And he said, “You don’t have to audition, Bern. You’re in.”

  A few weeks later I flew to New York for the Def Comedy Jam. They told me I could do anything I wanted, go as crazy as I wanted, because that’s what they wanted: no-holds-barred crazy.

  So I gave it to them:

  “White people say ‘cocksucker.’ Can’t nobody say ‘cocksucker’ like white people. Be driving down the street, ‘COCKSUUUCKERRRRR!’ Black folks, their cuss word be motherfucka. Motherfucka. Motherfucka. You hear a black conversation, you’ll hear twenty-one motherfuckas and only two regular words. But you know what they’re talking about: “‘When I see that motherfucka, he better have my motherfucking money, or I’ma bust him upside his motherfucking head, motherfucka. Shit don’t make no motherfucking sense. Better talk to that motherfucka ’fore I fucking kill that motherfucka. There that motherfucker right motherfuckin’ now!’”

  I thought it was a little over the top, but they loved it.

  When Def Jam aired, it killed. We were hot. Kevin Sumner called and told me they were going to do another one. Was I in?

  “Got-damn right, muh’fucka. I got a level of crazy in me you ain’t begun to see.”

  The thing about Def Jam is that it was pure black. Black for black. It put me in mind of some of the old-timers I’d seen at the Regal, in Chicago, when I was just a kid. People like Pigmeat Markham and Moms Mabley. They went all the way back to TOBA, when comedy was segregated. In a strange way, Def Jam was history repeating itself—making segregated comedy all over again.

  What’s that? You never heard of TOBA? Well, sit your ass down, I’m gonna give you a short history lesson.

  Back in the early 1900s they had this thing called the Theater Owners Booking Association. It was actually started by an Italian guy from Tennessee. He ran a string of dumpy theaters in and around Memphis, and he saw how blacks didn’t have many places to go. So he called a few other theater guys—white guys—and told them he was going to start booking black acts for black audiences.

  Next thing you know, these white-owned theaters are booking Bessie Smith, Count Basie, Sammy Davis Jr., and all the rest of them. It was by blacks, for blacks. (With the white owners in the middle, of course, making most of the money.) And it was a big success.

  Of course, nothing lasts. By the late 1930s vaudeville had pretty much died out, and for a time there black comedy went all to hell. You heard some on the radio, saw some on the screen: You had your Stepin Fetchit, mumbly and shifty-eyed: “I’m so lazy that even when I walk in my sleep I hitchhike.” And Butterfly McQueen: “Gee, Miss Scarlett, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies.” And Mantan Moreland, the chauffeur in the Charlie Chan detective series: “Feets, don’t fail me now!”

  But then black businessmen got smart: They started opening clubs of their own, all the way from Alabama to Detroit, some of them no more than roadside shacks. By blacks, for blacks. And things went along like that for a good long while, nobody crossing the color line, until Dick Gregory came along in the early 1960s and shook things the hell up.

  That Dick Gregory. Kids today, they don’t know nothing about the man. Most of them don’t even know who he is. But to me, hell—he’s some kind of hero. I have great respect for the truth; I have respect for anyone who’s not afraid to tell it like it is. And Dick Gregory was fearless.

  He gets up onstage and spells it out: “This is the only country in the world where a man can grow up in the ghetto, go to the worst schools, be forced to ride on the back of the bus, then get paid five thousand dollars a week to tell about it.”

  That’s comedy: Hit you with the truth and make you laugh.

  I have a favorite story about Dick Gregory, going back to those early days, when he first began playing mixed audiences. Don’t take a genius to figure out that the man got heckled. But with hecklers, see, you gotta be careful. Put them down too hard and the crowd turns on you.

  One night, see, some sumbitch crossed the line. And you know, Gregory’d been expecting it. Still, when it comes, it’s got power. “Nigger,” the sumbitch called him. Just one word: “Nigger.” Said it loud; loud enough for everyone to hea
r.

  Well, the way they tell it, the audience just got-damn froze. And Gregory said nothing for a good half minute. Let the silence hang there; everyone looking at him, wondering how the hell he was gonna handle it. Finally, he takes a deep breath and smiles a little and says: “You know, my contract reads that every time I hear that word, I get fifty dollars. And since I’m only making ten dollars a night, I’d like everyone in the room to please stand up and yell nigger.”

  Man brought the got-damn house down. Shut that heckler right up. And—like they say—he got on with the show.

  There was another guy making waves at around the same time: Richard Pryor. He was playing to mixed audiences, too, and when he first started out, he sounded like Bill Cosby. He was funny, sure, but his comedy had no teeth. It was safe and easy; went down smooth, too smooth.

  Still, I liked Pryor. He was from Peoria, practically a neighbor. His family owned a string of whorehouses, and they say his grandma was the head ho. But the family put values into that boy: made him go to church every Sunday. Some people, that would fuck them up good. But not Pryor. He made it funny.

  Still, for a while there, it was easy funny—white-bread funny. Man lost his way. And he knew it, too. One day at the Aladdin in Las Vegas, he stopped dead in the middle of his act, looked out at the audience, and said, “What the fuck am I doing here?” Then he turned and walked off the got-damn stage.

  After that, Pryor didn’t hold anything back. Man got teeth. He was up there scaring white people. Talking about racism and oppression and niggers never catching a break. He was the voice of the little man, the lost little man who had nothing and was going nowhere fast. And still he made it funny. Angry motherfucker was doing the best comedy of his life.

  Not that Dick Gregory wasn’t angry. He was angry about plenty of the same shit. But he didn’t let his anger show. For him, the stage was a pulpit. He thought comedy could change the world.

  So, as I was saying, they were planning Def Jam 2, and I was in; Sumner knew where to find me. Meanwhile, I was getting around. I was on the road every week. I was all over the place. I opened for Dionne Warwick and Natalie Cole. For Gladys Knight and the Pips. For the Temptations.

  Then I got another call from Damon Wayans. He was making a movie called Mo’ Money, and he had a part for me. I flew out to L.A. to find that I’d been cast as a doorman. That was my part: doorman. Bernie opens the door, Bernie closes the door. Man, that Bernie got style! Timing’s just right. Call him One-Take Bernie. He can open and close that door like nobody’s business!

  Okay, I’m funnin’ with you here—but it was the truth. That was my big Hollywood debut. I did it, and I didn’t crank and moan.

  In fact, I gave it my all. And I made good use of my time while I was out there. I tried out for other roles. I’d find myself at one audition after another, cooling my heels in the waiting room with a bunch of black guys that were beginning to look awfully familiar.

  “What you here for?”

  “Role of Jack. You?”

  “Jack.”

  Only one role today. And I’m thinking, If Jack has to open any doors, I got this motherfucker nailed.

  I looked up. Three black women were just arriving—also up for the role of Jack. And ten to one the looker in the middle was gonna get it.

  I went up for a lot of parts in a lot of different movies, and I didn’t get a single one. But that’s all right. Like my mama used to say, Failure is just life’s way of preparing you for success. Losing ain’t so bad. It conditions you for winning.

  Fact is, I wasn’t much good at auditions. Some people know how to audition, some know how to perform. I was a performer. I didn’t like going in there cold, getting the script an hour before I had to meet with the casting people. You walk in—boom! It’s so unnatural. Everything so forced. Me, I like to take my time and read the script and sit with that character awhile, get to know that character. That way, when it’s showtime, step back, brother—that character’s alive.

  Following year, Mo’ Money comes out; got-damn doorman with more character than he can handle. People see me in it, say, “You ain’t so hot. I could do that.” I’m thinking, Yeah, but it’s not you opening and closing that door! It’s me. And I worked got-damn hard to get there. But all I say is, “You know what? I bet you’re right. Bet you could open and close that door good as me.”

  People just can’t handle it. Especially the ones you’ve known for a while. They see you up there on the screen and it’s so foreign to them. They’re thinking, “I knew Bernie Mac when he was frying fish. He can’t be no actor.” Denzel Washington will go up there and do a love scene, and the women will swoon. Bernie Mac does the exact same scene, maybe even a little hotter, and they don’t buy it. “Uh-uh. That man used to deliver refrigerators; he the Wonder Bread man. That man’s no actor. He’s the guy from Dock’s. He don’t fool me.”

  Of course, maybe Denzel’s friends say the same things about him. When you know a person one way, from a life they had, it’s hard to change the way you see them. And that’s the truth, brother.

  Then it was time for Def Jam again. Some of the same guys, some new faces. The crowd’s big, and it’s hot. And I was on after this next cat.

  Well, this poor bastard goes out there, and the brother bombs. He bombs big. They boo him the fuck off the stage. And I felt bad for him. I ain’t lyin’. I felt bad because I could relate. Years earlier, as you may recall, I’d been booed off a stage in front of my entire family. And it hurt, brother. Pain like that runs deep. But you gotta come back from it. You don’t come back, nobody cares. They leave you there by the side of the got-damn road.

  They were still booing. Brother was long gone, went running off with his tail between his legs, and the crowd was waiting on the next clown—which would be me.

  So I came through the curtain and grabbed hold of that microphone and looked down at all those angry-ass faces, and I barked: “I AIN’T SCARED OF YOU!”

  Brought the got-damn house down. I was on…

  “I love sex,” I’m sayin’. “And I’m blessed. If I take this thing out, whole room goes dark.”

  Just ran with it. Did my thing and got my laughs and went home.

  Nobody gonna run me off no stage, motherfucker. Ever.

  I got a call three weeks later. “We’re doing it again.”

  “Say what?”

  “Def Jam. We’re going for Number Three.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll pass.”

  “You crazy? Def is hot!”

  They were mad at me. They didn’t understand that I was done with it. I did two shows, got my little exposure, and moved on. It was time to move on, plus I had my reasons for moving on—though I didn’t think it was my place to spell them out.

  But I’ll spell them out now: I didn’t think that second round of Def Jam was all that good. It was too raw, and there’s nothing wrong with raw—if it’s raw in the right way. Good raw takes you places. Good raw can open your eyes.

  But when you’re out there talking about “dick” and “pussy,” and there’s no more to it than that—well, brother, you’re in trouble. That may be funny to someone in the audience, but it ain’t funny to me.

  They told me Russell wasn’t going to like it, my not signing up for Def Jam 3. They told me they’d been good to me; that they’d put me up there; that they gave me heat. And I’m thinking that it’s the same old shit. People think they own you. We put you up there, motherfucker, and we’re going to bring your ass down if we want to.

  No matter. I was going to try to do my own thing, my own way. And I wasn’t worried about the future. I’d made up my mind: I was a comedian. All of this was gravy. I’d been a janitor and a bus driver and I’d built houses from the ground up and I’d chased rats and shoveled scrap iron and fried fish and delivered bread, and I’d done it all honestly. I wasn’t about to get dishonest with my comedy. I wasn’t going to do comedy I didn’t believe in. Comedy was it for me, brother. Nothing as important a
s comedy.

  You gotta stay strong inside. Stay centered. Be true to yourself.

  “I OWED HER SO MUCH. EVERYTHING THAT WAS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE WAS HAPPENING ON ACCOUNT OF HER, ON ACCOUNT OF HER FAITH IN ME.

  BIG THINGS IN STORE FOR THAT BOY. BEANIE GONNA SURPRISE EVERYONE.

  I HAD NEVER THANKED HER PROPERLY. I HAD NEVER SHOWN HER THE LOVE AND APPRECIATION SHE DESERVED.”

  17

  I MISS MAMA

  One night, back in Chicago, I was at All Jokes Aside, and I was hot. I did some bits about Los Angeles and show business; about executives with Christian Science smiles; about auditioning for the part of Jack with forty other Jack wannabes. The audience ate it up. Everybody loves Hollywood stories. By the end of the set, they were on their feet, begging for more. And I’ll tell you, that feeling—that’s something an entertainer can never get too much of.

  I did another minute or two, then said my Good night and God bless and took a bow and got off the stage. I took a look outside. It was raining cows and bulls. I went over and asked the bartender for a six-pack of beer, then ran out and got in my car and headed home.

  I was feeling good. I was feeling powerful. The rain was beating like thunder against my car. I thought maybe it was God himself out there, applauding.

  I opened a bottle of beer. I know you’re not supposed to drink and drive, but I needed it. And it felt good going down.

  Just then a church song came on the radio. An old song I hadn’t heard since I was a little boy. And I started thinking about my mother. I missed her. God, how I missed her! I wanted her in my life. I wanted her to see what I was up to. I wanted her to meet Rhonda and to know my daughter, Boops.