Unsuccessful Thug

by Mike Epps

  Still, for all the shit that we get as a race, if I could be reborn any color, I’d still want to be black. Maybe I feel that way because I don’t know anything else. What I know is what it is to be black, so that’s what I am and what I’ll always be. And I’ve learned to own it, to own who I am and where I’m from. But being black sure has cost me a lot.

  That’s why I stick with the same guys who brought me. I’ve been with T.C. for twenty-five years; I’ve been with Niles for twenty years. People have been trying to get rid of Niles forever. Some people say it’s the reason my career ain’t where it should be, because I didn’t have representation from one of the big companies all along. But fuck that. I need people I can trust. I need people who can translate me to the Hollywood people and who can translate them to me. Niles speaks both languages.

  Anyway, the awards shows, how they pick and choose who is the best, who Hollywood says is the best, is when I really see it stark. Leaning on that wall, looking around, I know I’m supposed to behave right. Don’t drink too much. Don’t say too much. But even when I behave right, it’s still not like I get credit.

  I have to take a step back and say to myself, “You know what? People think you don’t need shit. People think you don’t need nothing. Because your spirit is rich. Your look is rich. Your confidence is rich.”

  I can’t be what Hollywood wants. I can’t be what the Naptown streets wanted. But I can be what I want. And so maybe I have to start acting more like I feel, show who I really am. That’s why I wrote this book. And that’s why I’m glad I’m taking the kind of roles I’m taking now, like playing Richard Pryor.

  17

  Being Richard Pryor

  The good news is that if you keep true to yourself and you can stay alive long enough, some amazing things can happen. Here’s one: I’m going to be Richard Pryor in a biopic directed by Lee Daniels and produced by Oprah Winfrey. (She’s also playing Richard’s grandmother.)

  When I was named the actor to play Richard Pryor, I think some people were surprised. And I know a lot of people were super fucking mad. That’s because every black actor in Hollywood was waging a full-scale capture-the-flag campaign for that part.

  I don’t really have to audition anymore, but for the right role, I’ll do it. And God knows this was the right role, so I auditioned for the Richard Pryor job. Hell, Lee Daniels made Oprah audition! I got to the building and came across Oprah in the waiting room reading the sides.

  Oprah. Winfrey.

  I thought I had the role the first time I read for the part, but they kept bringing me in again and again. And right when I’m sure I have it, I show up to what I think is the final round and I see Nick Cannon and Marlon Wayans going in the building.

  But I knew it was the part I was always meant to play. I’ve been compared to Richard Pryor as long as I can remember. Maybe it’s just because we both were skinny black men who liked cocaine and white women, but I like to think it’s something more.

  I met Richard years ago when his wife, Jennifer, reached out and said she wanted me to visit the house. Pulling into the driveway, I got chills. Something came over me: You’re at the master’s house. You’re here. I prayed before I went in there. I came in and saw him in that wheelchair. I didn’t know whether to cry or be happy. I’m grateful I was able to spend time with him before he died.

  Once when we were sitting there, a maid walking through the room let out a huge fart.

  “Her ass sounds like it’s been tampered with,” I said.

  Richard, mostly paralyzed by that point, opened his mouth wide and let out a kind of braying noise.

  Jennifer jumped up. “He laughed!” she shouted. “I haven’t heard that sound in years!”

  That was probably the most meaningful laugh I ever got. And there was something absurd about it: Here he is, arguably the best comedian of all time, and what brings him back from the edge of death to laugh again?

  A fart joke.

  I think I understand Richard Pryor so well because we both dealt with self-hatred and we both got saved by comedy. Comedy has saved my life again and again, and it still does, every day.

  Also, we both had a hard time staying away from drugs. I’ve been struggling with cocaine since I was fourteen. It just was a habit that I had over the years that never really went away. I spent decades as what you might call a functioning drug addict. I’ve been able to keep it under control, but it’s always discombobulated me. Wherever I was, I would get it. The whole time, from Indianapolis to Atlanta, New York to California. I think what drove me to doing drugs, especially when I moved to New York, was trying to forget who I’d been before. And I always thought cocaine opened up a third eye for me, a genius eye that I didn’t have, that I couldn’t tap into otherwise. Now, though, I can look back and see how much cocaine took from me, how it fed my self-loathing and kept me trapped. It’s only now that I’m really getting out from under its power.

  I tried to go to rehab once. In 2005, my wife, Mechelle, told me I had to. She set it all up. I was supposed to check into this place in Santa Monica, get off coke for good, get right. I didn’t want to go. But she said she needed it, and I didn’t want to lose her.

  In the car on the way to Santa Monica, I’m thinking, I can do this. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I need this. I pull up in front of the place, turn off the motor. My suitcases are in the back. I’m about to get out of the car and check in. But first I sit in the driver’s seat and look out the windshield. In front of the place there are guys and ladies standing around, smoking and talking. They’re wearing jeans and sneakers. They look tired.

  I sat there for a while watching them. It wasn’t like they looked so fucked-up. I just didn’t feel like I was there yet. “You out there, but you not out there,” I said to myself.

  I took a minute to see if I changed my mind. I didn’t. I started the car back up, looked at myself in the rearview mirror, and said: “You know what you’re doing.”

  And I rolled off.

  Mechelle was mad as hell when I came home. Because I didn’t go and because it was something she thought I needed help with. But I went off it myself and stayed off it for a while . . . until I binged. Then I went off it myself again for two years . . . until I had a bad week.

  I always knew how to get it and how to hide it, but now? I haven’t been high in about two years now. Again I just stopped. I like to think I’m done, but I also know I have to be on my guard, because my pattern has always been that I’ll binge for four days and then I won’t do it for two years.

  I don’t know how it is I can put it down for that long, and I don’t know why in the hell I relapse—the right atmosphere, the wrong people, something.

  I never could get ahead of all the bad choices that I made. And when you can’t get ahead of the bad choices you make, you continue to make bad choices, because you’re in debt in your soul. Even though you try to understand the power of forgiveness, you still feel in debt.

  Like, I think back about Yolanda and her parents, the Sharps, and I wish I could pay them back for all the shit that I did. I was so mean and so bad and just fucked-up, man. I hated myself then. So, if you’re reading this, Boo and Karen: I’m so sorry that I was that way. I’ll never forgive myself for treating you and your daughter like that. I hope the things I’ve done since then have showed you that I’m not all bad.

  That’s the thing no one tells you when you make it out of the streets, make something of yourself: You don’t get a clean slate. You still feel like you’re in the hole. Some shit you did, you can’t come back from. You hurt people so badly. That’s what happened to me. I think that I felt so horrible and guilty about some of the decisions that I made, I was angry.

  I’m haunted by who I used to be. The crime, the people I hurt, all that kind of shit. I’ve told you a lot of the worst stuff here, but of course I’m taking a boatload of shit to my grave with me. There ain’t a soul on earth who doesn’t. Nobody knows everything about you, nor you about anyone else. You don�
��t know what the fuck somebody did or what they been through. You know what I mean? People say that’s why I give away all my money, because I feel so guilty about how back in the day I was such a nasty motherfucker. Maybe that’s true . . .

  Thank God for my friends and my family who stuck with me.

  You know, the first time I knew I might be funny was when I was a kid making my little brother laugh. Chaney was my first friend and my first real fan. I have a lot of brothers and sisters, but he was the one person who I wanted to impress, who always had my back. He made me think I was special and gave me confidence. I’ve been getting that support from him since I was a kid. It’s hard to make your brother laugh just sitting around the house: This is someone who knows all your tricks, all your bullshit. But I’d get him to laugh, and when he did, it was like the sun coming out.

  I think back on kids Chaney and I grew up with who never got out, never figured out what they had to give the world. Even if they did find their talent, a lot of them couldn’t figure out how to sell themselves to the world, to get out from under the curse of being born black and poor. And it’s hard to have a great product with no advertisement. Some of the most famous people in the world aren’t even talented—they’re just great promoters. I thank God every day that I was able to find out what I was good at and to figure out how to sell it to other people enough to make a life for myself.

  Every day I think about how it could have gone instead.

  I had a friend back in the day, Calvin Richardson—we called him Cal-Cal. He was actually funnier than me, shiiit. He could stand on a corner for hours telling stories, and everyone would be doubled over, laughing so hard. My whole neighborhood used to brag on him. People would say to me, “Motherfucker, you ain’t the real deal. Cal-Cal’s the real motherfucker.”

  But he stayed in the hood.

  Once I got famous, I went back to Indianapolis to do a show at a giant fucking theater. It seats, like, two thousand people. And I thought, I’m going to give my old friend his big break, so I put Cal-Cal’s ass on my show.

  Cal-Cal got up there and started telling his jokes. I’m sorry to say that from the start I didn’t think it was going right. Hood funny is different from being in entertainment. “Yo mama” jokes may kill with your brothers, but unless it has more to it, that shit doesn’t always work onstage. You have to win people over, lead them to the punch line. It takes a lot of practice and experience. I’ve had thousands of hours of stage time and I’m still learning all the time. I bet Cal-Cal could have been great with more experience, but that night he bombed.

  One of the worst things about finding what my talent is has been the remorse about all the people I knew coming up who didn’t make it out and didn’t live up to their potential. It’s so lonely to be the only one. You end up sabotaging yourself sometimes, because you’re all alone. You’re not joined by a crew that believes what you believe and has seen the things you’ve seen. So many of those people are dead, or stuck.

  It’s just you.

  When I got to New York, I’d had a presence about me but I needed so much work to get really good. I walked away from the person I used to be a long time ago. Sometimes I imagine that guy I was, sitting there on the porch, waiting on me to come back. Well, I’m not coming back. I left your ass in Indiana for a reason. I had better places to be.

  Today, I realize that I only made it in show business because I didn’t know I was going to make it. It’s counter-intuitive but it’s true: If I knew I was going to make it, I wouldn’t have made it. They say the old-time stars were born, not made, and I think that’s still true. You have it in you from the start, but you still have to cultivate it. You have to become more and more yourself.

  I hate the things I did before I found comedy. What a waste . . . but I also use it as a badge of honor. Because not a lot of people I know now have seen what I’ve seen and done what I’ve done. A person would have to go live it to understand it. And most of the people who lived it are dead. All that street stuff helped make me who I am, because I had to get away from it. I was out there searching, trying to find out who I was. When I found comedy, my life turned around.

  This is true for everyone: Your talent can save your life—if you can find it. That’s the key. Everybody has a talent, but the key is you’ve got to be able to find it. I’ve seen so many people fail because they couldn’t find their talent. Some people go through a whole lifetime without ever finding their purpose. Other people find their purpose and then they don’t use it. Maybe they’re too arrogant; maybe they’re too scared. But for whatever reason, they know what they have inside them and they don’t let it out, and I think that’s almost worse than never finding it.

  I do still get the fear, though. Your talent can make you shy. It can make you very vulnerable to know you have this thing that you care about, that’s the very core of your being, and to know you have a destiny to show it. It’s hard to live with. That’s the thing about being a talent and an entertainer: It can be a burden as much as a gift. It’s hard to live with the fact that people depend on you to make them happy; even if you were blessed with that talent and know you could make them laugh, you don’t always want responsibility for that shit. People say, “You’re a comedian. Say something funny.” I hate that. I want to tell them, “You say something funny, motherfucker.”

  “Tears of a clown” is real. Your job is to make people laugh, so people expect to see you happy. I get that from people: “You’re a comic. You have money now. You don’t have a right to be down, to be sad. You don’t have a right to be anything but happy.” They don’t care that I’m a person who’s suffered and suffers still.

  I been acting out a long time. When I was bad, I was bad, but you know, I spaced it out. I didn’t do a whole bunch of petty bullshit things. I’d be good and good and good and then I’d do something dangerous.

  The good news is that one sin isn’t bigger than the other. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. To be able to live with yourself through forgiveness is a strength in its own right. It’s something that you have to go to work out just like a muscle at the gym, and you have to learn how to forgive. Some people ace it; some people don’t know how to do it, period. Some people know how to train to learn how to do it; some people take their time and learn how to do it, however they deal with it. That’s my way, actually: I try to remember that it’s only so many minutes in a day, so many hours in a day, and I need to make it through the day, listen to the good voices in my head and not the evil ones.

  I know I’ve had a death wish. Whether it was street shit, getting high on drugs, having sex unprotected—I can see that what I wanted was to accidentally die. That’s some fucked-up shit.

  Maybe I wanted to die, too, because I’m not afraid of death. I believe in the afterlife. I believe heaven is the spirit. I think the spirit lives in things and lives in people. You ever meet a person for the first time that you thought you already knew? People love people and don’t know why they love them, have no idea what it is about this person that they like, but I really think that could be something from a past life, you know what I mean? It’s nothing to be weird about. It’s good. It’s beautiful. It gives you hope. It’ll make you say, “Damn. I shouldn’t be in fear of the next life.”

  In another life, your spirit could have been somebody from anywhere, somebody that you never knew, or perhaps one of your ancestors or somebody that was related to you. Any race, any religion. You never know who you were in the past or who you’ll be in your next life.

  The skin really is just the shell for the real, and it’s like once you understand that, that it’s just a shell, you can see that people who really love you love you because of your spirit. I think that a charismatic and entertaining spirit lives in me and that all the trials I’ve been through have just made me better able to express that spirit.

  This is what Richard Pryor knew: Comedy comes from pain, and the more pain you’ve fought through, the funnier you can be. The only way you get that i
s to be in it. And not look at it from the outside. I decided I had to learn to love pain because it made me funny. The more I went without, the funnier I would be. To this day, I think I still hold myself back sometimes or that I’m too hard on myself, because I want the raw and the gritty.

  To be truly funny, you have to sacrifice everything: relationships, your mental health, often your physical health, too. It’s a very self-destructive sport. And a lot of people take from people with talent. And they don’t just take money—they drain you. People who make a living from your talent, they’re not always considerate of you being a normal person. It’s like you’re Superman, but you’re not. You go through what everybody else goes through—and you’re expected to smile. You find yourself plastering a smile on your face, trying to please people, and you’re struggling on the inside.

  One thing about having talent is once you discover you have it and you share it with the world, you can be very lonely. I’ve been in a room with ten thousand people and felt totally alone. I can see that they’re laughing, but what am I getting out of it? There’s the money, of course, and there’s the instant gratification of seeing them laugh . . .

  . . . but I think I’ve come to understand that the real thing is that performing lets me lose myself. When I’m onstage hearing people laughing, in that moment of performing, nothing can faze me. If I’m onstage while the world is ending, I won’t see fires, I won’t see buildings fall. I’m in my craft. Offstage, I’ll be just as scared as all you motherfuckers. But while I’m there in the spotlight, nothing else exists. Comedy has given me almost everything good in my life, but the best thing is probably that: the moment when I can forget it all.

  For that moment onstage, it all melts away.

  Epilogue: Hollywood to Naptown

  Not long ago, I was invited to perform at Folsom Prison, the California state prison where Johnny Cash famously sang for the inmates.