Unsuccessful Thug

by Mike Epps

For me it was a truly humbling day. That day, I met a twenty-three-year-old kid who reminded me a little bit of me.

  “How long you been here?” I said.

  “Since I was nineteen,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “do your time and learn your lesson, and when you get out, you can make something of yourself. How much time do you have?”

  “Two hundred years,” he said.

  “Two hundred years?” I said. “Wow. That means your parole officer hasn’t even been born yet. He’s still swimming around in some white man’s nuts.”

  My childhood was so fucking crazy for so long; I’m much calmer now. I’m still just trying to survive, you know. What I’ve realized is that the two ends of the shoestring lacing my life together are pain and comedy. Every minute of every day, those are the two things I’m dealing with, and every part of my life, they’ve both been with me. And every minute, I’ve felt like I was living in some kind of movie, some kind of dream.

  These days, it’s like every day is a dream I don’t want to wake up from. I’m spoiled. I stay at nice hotels and eat good food and wear new clothes. In this new world I’m in, people carry your bags, floors are made of polished marble, ceilings are high, trees grow indoors, the lighting is soft and flattering. There is faint, soothing jazz and the sheets are soft. There’s a buffer between you and the world. If you’re looking for the opposite of where I grew up, here it is. I like it. It still doesn’t feel real, though.

  It’s taken me so long to appreciate nice things, and now I finally do, and really, if I’m not around it, I’m a brat. I heard myself complaining about a hotel the other day and I was, like, Oh shit, I finally got used to it. I’ve had so much remorse about making it and being famous because I know what I’ve been through and what I did, and all the people who didn’t make it.

  If this is the dream that I’m dreaming, my past feels like a nightmare. It feels like someone else. I really didn’t ever want to be that guy. I didn’t really want to be a criminal. But crime was the only route I could see. Me doing crime was economics, pure and simple. That wasn’t me being a criminal; that was me trying not to die. Once, I didn’t want to do nothing but pay my bills and have food in the house and have a car and a girlfriend and live happy.

  The toughness was just something I used to get by. My imagination led me to the streets. Crime was just a morsel of who I was, and now show business is just a morsel of who I am. My life is not about the fact that I made it in show business; my life is about survival. But I’ve always felt sort of on the outside. I felt like I didn’t quite fit in back on the streets and now I feel like I don’t totally fit in fame, either.

  Back in Naptown I was too nice, too sensitive. In Hollywood, I’m too rough around the edges. But every day I’m grateful for what I have. A lot of my friends who survived have had to fight so hard to get good lives. My guy Jeff is still alive—he’s been shot eighteen times (but he says fourteen of those were all at once)—and he somehow survived. We sit around now and feel so lucky to be alive.

  My guy T.C. is kind of my soul brother. I think God sent him to me. This little Mike Tyson–looking motherfucker, he’s still my friend to this day. Ever since I met him in New York twenty years ago, he’s kind of been like a voice of reason. But he’s never wanted attention. I barely even talk about him, because he’s that type of guy. He’s, like, “You don’t have to tell nobody about me. My work speaks for itself.”

  And my mom. I honestly think my mom has kept me alive just because of who she is and how she raised me. The thing of it is that when I see all these guys that I was around that died, I’m, like, Man, I’m a lucky dude. I think the way my mom raised me really protected me. I was so scared the whole time I was in the streets.

  These days I’m trying to do the right thing. And I’m trying to understand why I’ve done what I’ve done in my life. I think often about how I was raised knowing God but I’ve ventured off from the true path plenty of times over the years, but I still believe in God and believe that this life is just the appetizer of your real life, you know what I mean?

  Over and over, I’ve tried to turn my life over to God. But it’s always been more like Hold on one second, God. I’ll get to you, I promise. Let me just make some money first. You feel me?

  I’m so grateful my mom is still around. But I know even after she dies, my mom will be with me. I tell people all the time, people that have lost their parents, “You only lost the shell of them. You didn’t lose them, because they are you, and you are them.”

  You are your fucking mother and your father. Throughout the day, I can feel my mother in me. Sometimes I’ll be doing something and I’ll think, Wow, that was some my mama shit I just did right there.

  My brother John likes to say that we kids are half-sweet and half-tough. He says we all got the sweet and funny and nice because of our mom, and we’re all rough because of our dads. He says it explains how all through our childhood we could go from being your friend to whipping your ass.

  The law of the streets is to never forgive and never forget. But as an adult I’ve forgiven people who did me wrong or who I used to be angry at. Even though I was so mad at Reggie when I was young, I understood him when I got older. I mean, he had it rough, too. He took a chance and married a woman who had five kids, and it must have hit him later like What the fuck am I doing? But it was too late for him to change us, and there we were, going bad, getting in gangs. He wanted to save himself and save one of his kids. I understand him better now that I’m an adult. None of us hold a grudge. I’ve talked about it with my brothers. We were so fucked-up about it at the time, but I think in the long run having to fend for ourselves from a young age made us better men.

  Now that I’m famous, I can reach back in my past and see it in a positive way. I can look back and remember a moment, even a terrible moment, and see it as something that got me here. My past could have made me weak, but it made me the opposite. My present is my past. Now that I’m in this world, in Hollywood, I meet people with similar problems to what I had, or with less problems than I had, or with more problems than I had. And I can see my problems for what they are: mine. That’s what I’m responsible for, and I hold on to that.

  My mom has suffered so much in her life. And yet, she is where I get my sense of humor, too. She is so great at being sarcastic. She asks me for some money sometimes, and here’s how she asks: “I bet you won’t give me $500.”

  “How am I going to win that bet?” I say, laughing. “I have to give it to you.”

  That is one thing I’m grateful for: being able to help people, give them a roof over their heads, bail them out when they get stuck.

  I own twelve buildings in Indianapolis. One of them is the oldest house in the neighborhood. It was built in 1869 and I almost completely restored it. I support more than twenty-five people a month, mostly family members. And I have my own charity foundation. I go around the country and talk to at-risk kids. I meet so many kids that are like me, that are lost and are just trying to find their way. And I tell kids all the time: If you find your talent, it’ll save your life. ’Cause that’s what it did for me.

  So that’s my life now. I help people. Me. The kid in the Toughskins and Garanimals that never had enough food in the fridge. That got Fs and suspensions. Ain’t that crazy?

  Here’s some more irony for you: My old part of Indianapolis was so bad, so rough. But now? Now Mapleton is a goddamn designated historic district. That’s right, that shitty neighborhood is now a place people actually want to be. Gentrified as hell. And that means the property I own has more than sentimental value. It’s actually worth something now. An investment.

  If I hadn’t helped all the people that I helped, I would never have to work another day in my life. I give away a lot of my money. I’ve given away so many millions of dollars helping people, giving people stuff, doing stuff for people. And I think I got that from my mom. My mom would give you the shirt off her back. She’s a giving person. I love helping.
I love giving people stuff, watching people smile, you know?

  I love seeing people’s faces light up when you give them something. I think about when I was a kid. I think if someone gave me something, some money or some candy or fucking anything for nothing, how good it would have felt.

  Man, I tell you, if I didn’t help other people, I could have retired years ago. But I feel like it helps me get over guilt I have for how bad I was back in the day. And it makes me feel a little less bad about surviving when so many of my friends died. A part of me doing good things for people and stuff is I wish I could pay for everything I feel bad about.

  And when someone calls me up from the old days, what am I gonna say? No?

  I got a call that my friend Fatso died. My guy Fatso and I used to be so tight. And what do I hear on the phone from his mom? They can’t afford to bury him. He’s going in a pauper’s grave.

  “The state’s gonna put him in a plastic container, Mike,” she said. She was crying. “You know that’s what they do with people who don’t have insurance or nothing.”

  “Nah,” I said. “Stop crying, now. We gonna give him a good burial. Fatso’s not going out like that in no plastic box.”

  I sent her money to bury him right.

  I’ve paid for so many funerals. I can’t even count how many. Once I got to show business I always got calls that all my friends died and they’d ask if I could help with costs. Once I left Indianapolis, every time I looked up, somebody was calling me, telling me my friends were getting killed and no one could afford a casket.

  I hate going to funerals, though. It’s just too much. When I go home, I want it to be to see my mom, not to spend a whole day at Crown Hill Cemetery thinking about how there are almost none of us left from the old days.

  Some of the deaths hit even harder than others.

  The worst, I think, were Gary and Otis, from the barbershop, who dared me to go to the comedy competition and started me off in entertainment.

  Gary Bates had been a street dude back in the old days and I heard he’d gone back to being a stickup guy. Might have stuck up the wrong person. Someone shot Gary in the head twice and burnt him up in the trunk of a car . . .

  Otis Brown had ended up being like a Martin Luther King Jr. in the neighborhood. His shop was in a bad part of town, Thirtieth and Clifton. He was always collecting toys for kids in need and he’d employ anyone who needed a job. You’d go and there’d be ten guys in that shop sweeping hair. Tough, street guys, too, just out of prison. It felt like the county jail in there. He was hiring all these guys from prison to cut hair, because they couldn’t find other jobs. But it felt like prison in that shop. The atmosphere was hard.

  After hours, some of those guys Otis had hired would play crap games and gamble down in the basement. Well, one night some young guys were down there gambling. Otis went down there and one of the kids snatched his money. Otis grabbed the guy’s arm, and the guy pulled out a gun and shot Otis in the chest.

  I was in Hollywood when I heard. Oh, God, not Otis, too, I thought. Otis, who only wanted to help people. Otis, who worked two jobs until he could afford his own shop. Otis, who always gave back. Without Otis and Gary, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. I think of them every time I’m back in Naptown. I wish I could go to the barbershop and sit and talk with them again.

  And I wish they could see where I am now.

  Going home isn’t easy. Sometimes it feels like I never left. You feel me? It’s crazy, because by me living in Hollywood and being an entertainer, no matter what I’ve accomplished and what I’ve gained financially or anything monetary, when I come back home it feels like I never left. I start to fall back into it, what it felt like to be there. It takes about two days and then someone says, “You better get your ass out of here.”

  Why is it that sometimes I can feel like a big deal in Hollywood but still like a broke kid in Naptown? Your hometown don’t treat you like it’s your hometown. You can’t even sell these sons of bitches a T-shirt. I always knew from the Bible that no man is honored in his own hometown. Watching The Ten Commandments, I said to myself, Damn, Jesus sure wasn’t the man at home. At home, that’s who tortured him. People he knew, who he grew up with.

  In 2010, the Indiana Black Expo gave me its Entertainer of the Year Award, and I was given the key to the city, presented by the mayor himself. Back when I was a kid, I was on the news as an example of what was wrong with the city. Me, who used to rob and cheat and steal. Me, who used to be hungry and depressed. Me, who played Russian roulette. Me, whose friends died or went to jail one after the other.

  Now I got to go back in glory.

  There I was, standing on the stage, all dressed up, getting a standing ovation from a convention hall full of people. Mayor Greg Ballard said of me, “There are many people who leave this city and never look back, but there are a few extraordinary individuals who never forget their roots.”

  In my acceptance speech, I thanked God and my family for giving me another shot at life. I thanked my father for paying my lawyers to keep me from going to prison for a million years. That got a big laugh.

  “I was once one of these young kids out here,” I said. “I finally got it together.” I told the crowd if anyone wanted to use me to help motivate their kids, to show that it was possible to do something with their lives, then I was happy to serve.

  Then, at the lunch reception, I saw this guy who had been a corrections officer at the Marion County Jail, where I’d served time. I was standing there, talking to a bunch of politicians, and he came over. He was a mean son of a bitch, but now here we were both reputable members of society, so I said hello. I could look past him being an asshole to me when I was inside. He could see how I made something of myself. It felt good. There we were, both in suits, both doing right for the kids.

  I greeted him with a smile.

  “Hey, Mike,” he whispered to me as he shook my hand. “It’s in the hole.”

  That motherfucker. He took me right back to that time in jail when they serve the food through a slot in the steel door: “It’s in the hole!”

  This motherfucker, trying to put me in my place. At a time like this. God forbid I go one day without being reminded where I came from. That mean motherfucker, I thought. He can kiss my ass.

  I wanted to punch him out. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But I didn’t. You know, we were there for the kids, and I didn’t let it bother me, because no one else in that room knew what that meant. I saw the mayor and those other politicians standing by us thinking, In the hole? What’s in the hole? What hole?

  And I looked at him and I thought, You’re the one in the hole, you bitter son of a bitch.

  I just smiled at him. And I said good-bye. And I took my key to the city back to my other life, the one that still feels like a beautiful dream.

  Photos Section

  Me with my brother Chaney at our dad’s house, when I was nine and he was eight.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Our father, Tommie Epps, circa 1985.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Yolanda took this during my street hustling days, circa 1991.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  One of my mug shots from the early 1990s.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me and my daughters Bria and Makayla.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with my daughter Makayla, when she was about five or six.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Playing the piano backstage in a comedy club in the early 2000s.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Doing stand-up in Detroit, at Joe Cole’s House of Comedy, 2008.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with Richard Pryor, 2010.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with my dad and one of the newest members of the pack, Jalan, 2012.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Surrounded by cash in Nap
a, where everyone posts their name on the wall, 2012.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Live onstage in Nashville, 2015.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with Rickey Smiley, 2015.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with Mike Tyson, on the set of Next Day Air, 2009.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with my daughter Bria, backstage, circa 2015.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me with my beautiful mother, Mary Reed, the day I got an honorary high school degree, 2016.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  Me in New York City with Tupac’s mom, Afeni Shakur, 2017.

  Image courtesy of the author.

  About the Author

  MIKE EPPS has appeared in the cult hits Next Friday, Friday After Next, and All About the Benjamins. Other features include The Hangover franchise, Faster, Hancock, Lottery Ticket, Next Day Air, Roll Bounce, The Fighting Temptations, the Resident Evil franchise, Bait, How High, Dr. Dolittle 2, Talk to Me, and Guess Who. He has also starred as the title character in the ABC series Uncle Buck and appeared on the Starz series Survivor’s Remorse. As a touring comedian, he’s played clubs, theaters, and arenas worldwide. Born and raised in Indianapolis, he now lives in Hollywood.

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  Copyright

  This is a work of nonfiction. The events and experiences detailed herein are all true and have been faithfully rendered as remembered by the author, to the best of his abilities. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

  UNSUCCESSFUL THUG. Copyright © 2018 by Mike Epps. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.