Maybe You Never Cry Again (12 page)

“I will.”

“Promise me you'll call.”

“Promise.”

But he didn't call. I was all the time trying to track that boy down, and always with less and less success.

 

One night I got a call from the Cotton Club. They had a regular there, Bob McDonald—very funny guy. When they first discovered him, he was a mess—had a drug problem. So they got him cleaned up and fixed his teeth and put him in a tuxedo. And when he was on, he was very, very good.

But this one night he didn't show. And they knew about me, of course. But they didn't really think of me as the main attraction. They thought I was a good opener, a warm-up act. And the reason they thought this is because they'd never given me a chance.

So they called and asked if I had a suit. I told them sure, I had a suit. I had two suits, motherfucker. They said they needed me
that weekend. “Two nights, three shows each night—and we'll give you five hundred dollars.”

I was thrilled, but you know Bernie—he keeps it inside. “Okay,” I said, real calm, real smooth. “I'll be there.”

I was flying when I got off the phone, but you wouldn't know it from looking at me. I was also thinking that I didn't have a suit, but I had some dark slacks and a white shirt and I could borrow a coat that almost matched.

Friday night, I hustled down to the club. The place was packed. A jazz band was playing. Time came, I got up onstage and did my thing.

“What is it about black people on TV? You know what I'm talking about? Must be a conspiracy or something. Maybe them white people who run the shows are giving them too much direction.” Then I'd do my white voice, impersonating a TV executive—though of course I'd never met a TV executive: “Okay, here's the thing, Mr. Jones. We want you to come out and dance. And really shake it, like you people do. Then I want you to fight with your girlfriend, but
loud.
You know—loud and scary; your regular voice.”

People eatin' it up, roaring. Then I'd go back to my regular voice and say, “You know what that's called? That's called
bringing out the nigga in you.
My grandma used to say that all the time: ‘Don't bring out the nigga!'”

I'm not a guy who overprepares. I get up there and talk about people I know or people I've met, or I see someone in the front row wearing a red dress or something and I run with it. It's more instinctual with me. I don't sit home and polish the material.
Talking shit,
I call it. And as long as they're laughing, I know I'm on the right track.

And that night I was on the right track all the way. The jokes. The impressions. Singing along with the band. Audience loved me. Ate it right up. Heard 'em in the front row: “That Bernie Mac, he
funny.
”

I could hardly get to sleep that night. Adrenaline, I guess. And the whole next day I was still wired.

I went back that night, Saturday, to honor the rest of my commitment. And I had all new material. You didn't want to be doing the same tired-ass routine, even if most of these people hadn't heard it. You want to keep fresh and on your toes. And that's what I did; I kept it fresh and killed all over again.

“I was a sex champion at one time, but those days are over, motherfucker. I'm
old
now. Old and tired. Best I can do now is three minutes. It's all I got. It's all I
want.
”

I walked off the stage, savoring the laughter and applause, and made my way back to the manager's office.

“You're getting hot, Mac,” he said. “Hot hot hot.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He pulled out his big-ass checkbook and wrote me a check and handed it over with a big-ass smile. I looked at the check. I wasn't smiling no big-ass smile.

“A hundred and seventy-five dollars? You said five hundred.”

“Five hundred? I'm sorry, Bernie. You must've misunderstood. It was a hundred and seventy-five.”

I took the check and left. Didn't make no big deal about it, neither. Just walked out, thinking about what my grandmother had told me long ago: “Life is a heavyweight fight, Bernie. Protect yourself at all times.” How right she was. I'd given the man an opportunity to fuck me, and he'd fucked me. I had no one to blame but myself.

Next day, I looked in the Yellow Pages and called the Crystal Ball Agency. I told them I needed representation. I seemed to be able to take care of other comics, but it looked like I didn't know how to take care of myself.

I sent them a demo tape. They called back two weeks later and said I was out of style. “What do you mean I'm out of style?” I said.
“I can do any style you want. I'm just getting good.”

“Well, I'm sorry,” the lady said. “You're not good enough.”

 

I took my next paycheck from Dock's and went to a record store and bought three hundred dollars' worth of records. Cosby and Pryor and George Carlin and Bob Newhart and Pigmeat Markham. Everything they had. And I went home and sat there listening to them over and over, until Rhonda and Boops was sick of hearin' the jokes. They didn't understand. I was trying to figure out what made comedy work. I wanted to be a comedian worse than ever. “I can't believe you spent three hundred dollars on records,” Rhonda said. “That's a lot of money. What if you get sick—”

“So what if I get sick!?” I snapped. “What if I lose my job!? What if I get hit by a car on my way to the store!? Got-damn it, woman—comedy is what I want to do with my life. Can't live with all these
what-ifs.
What if the got-damn sun don't come up tomorrow?”

Hey, what can I say? I wasn't always a saint.

 

One night I did a private party, and there was a guy there that said he knew Arsenio Hall. He said Arsenio was coming out to do a show at one of the hotels, and maybe he could get me a crack at the stage. Guy got tickets for my whole family. Rhonda, her parents, some of my friends.

Big night comes. We had our own table. Arsenio came on before dinner and killed, and then we had dinner and it was comin' on my turn. Rhonda was a little nervous. She kept asking if I was ready, and I told her I was always ready. You know me: I don't believe in overpreparing. I had my shit
down.

Well, I got up there. Must've been a thousand people in the audience. I ain't lying. Every last one of them was looking at me. I'd never experienced anything like it before.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “My name is Reverend Doo Doo, and I preach a lot of shit.”

Well, they went crazy. They were booing so hard I couldn't even get a
good
joke out. It was like being in a fight: I could still hear the echo of the opening bell, but I was already flat on my back.

People were throwing bread rolls at me. I ain't lyin'. One woman threw her drink—and the glass with it. I tried to say something else, but they drowned me out with their angry hollering.

I didn't know what to do. I looked over at my family and saw how they was dyin' inside. Jesus.

Now the audience was getting ugly. They were screaming:
You suck! Get off the motherfuckin' stage, motherfucker. Get your ugly ass out of here.

So I got off. And that's when I got my standing ovation: Motherfuckers were so happy to be rid of me they stood up and cheered.

My family was devastated. On our way out, my mother-in-law said, “There's always another day, Bernard. We'll get another day.” But I didn't believe it. I'd never been so humiliated in my life.

I remembered what my mama'd said, about failure being life's way of preparing you for success. And for the first time in my life, I questioned her wisdom. What if she'd been wrong? What if failure was just preparing me for more failure?

I was scared. I can't deny it. For the first time in my life, I was scared to death.

 

Right after that terrible humiliation onstage, well—worse came. Hell, I don't even know how to tell this story. Just thinking on it rips my heart out. But I'll try.

Like I said, I'd been calling Billy all the time, and I could never get him on the phone. And the once or twice I managed to get through, he wasn't sounding like himself. I called Big Nigger. “Something's going on with Billy,” I said. “Billy's not himself, he sounds scared, and it's really beginning to worry me.”

I called Billy umpteen times more and still couldn't get him on the phone. So I left a message to meet me at Rhonda's house later. When I got to Rhonda's parents' house, he wasn't there. So I called him again, and nothing. I tried again the next day and the day after that, and still nothing.

Sunday, I'm watching the football game, still trying Billy, and I had to be at Dock's at 4:30. And just before I left for work, I got through—to Shawna.

“Big Mac, how you doin'?” It was her usual game. I told her I didn't have time to talk, and to please put Billy on. He came to the phone. “Hello,” he said. He sounded groggy.

“Where you been, man? Don't you get my messages? What you doing? Sleeping?”

“It's the only way I find peace, Beanie.”

“What the fuck is going on, Billy?” I said. I was steamed. And I guess being worried only made it worse. “I need to talk to you. Tomorrow's Monday, and there's
Monday Night Football.
Bears are playing Miami. Game comes on at eight. Rhonda's going to make some chili. You're going to be here, and you're going to give it to me straight. And if you're not here, I'm gonna come and get you.”

I went to work that night and went back again Monday morning to open the store. It was snowing pretty heavy, and while I was watching it come down I called Billy to make sure we were still on. I got through to him. He sounded a little better. He said he'd be there; wasn't going to miss Rhonda's chili for nothing. That was my old Billy.

By the time Rhonda came to pick me up at work, there was a foot of snow on the ground. Morris called to say he wasn't going to make it: too much snow. Then A.V. called and said the same thing. I called Billy. I said I had the beer on ice and more chips than we could eat, and that the chili smelled good—perfect for this cold night. He said not to worry; he was on his way.

But he didn't come. And then the phone rang and it was Billy, with Shawna screaming and hollering at him in the background. “Come and get me!” he said. “Come and get me right the fuck now. I'm sick of this shit!” The phone clicked off. I went to get my boots and the phone rang again. I thought it was Billy, but it was Morris. I told him about Billy's call, and that I was going to drive over and get him. “You stay inside the house with your family,” he said. “There's two feet of snow on the ground. You won't make it in that car.”

I looked outside. It was for sure a blizzard. Snow was up to near the windows. So I called Billy and Shawna answered. “Big bad Bean,” she said, laughing and sounding crazy. “What's up?”

“Let me speak to Billy,” I said.

“You comin' to get your boy?”

“Let me speak to him, Shawna.”

She started singing that Michael Jackson song—“You bad, you bad”—and Billy got on the phone.

“You comin' to get me?” he asked.

“I can't even get the car out,” I said. “But I see the buses are still running. They the only ones on the road.”

I could hear Shawna singing away in the background at the top of her voice. Something wasn't right with that girl. Billy turned and screamed at her to shut up.

“Billy?” I said. “Billy, come on. I got chips and popcorn and beer and chili and Miami is killing the Bears. They're kicking ass. They broke their streak.”

“Okay,” he said. “I'm coming.”

I sat down to watch the game and wait, and the phone kept ringing. It was Morris or A.V. or Big Nigger, everyone following the game from their home, not together at my place, like we'd planned—all on account of the damn snow. And everyone was excited and worked up. “Look at these motherfuckers!” “They gettin' their asses whupped!”

An hour went by. Still no sign of Billy. I went to call him again when the phone rang, and I thought for sure it was him. “Billy?”

“Hi, Bean.” It was Shawna. She was slurring a little, sounding strange.

“Where's Billy?” I said. “He on his way?”

“Your main man? Your main man Billy went for a walk.”

“What do you mean a
walk
? In this weather? He was supposed to get on the bus and come over here.”

“Bean, you know I love Billy, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“No matter what happens, you'll still love me right?”

“Shawna, what's going on over there? You're not making any sense. Put Billy on.”

She hung up on me. I was really worried now. I went out in the blowing snow to see if maybe I could dig the car out, but Rhonda was rapping on the window that I was wanted on the phone. I went back inside and picked up the phone. It was Shawna again, and she was crying.

“You'll love me no matter what, right, Bean?”

“What the hell's going on, Shawna? Put Billy on.”

But she hung up on me again. I called A.V. Told him something was wrong and I was going over. He said I'd need a tank to get through that snow, and for me to forget it. “We'll go over first thing in the morning,” he said. “Take care of this once and for all.”

I called over to Shawna's again, but the answering machine was on. And when I tried again after the game, it was still on. So Rhonda and I looked in on Boops and went to bed.

At ten the next morning my phone rang. It was this woman from work who knew Billy and me was tight. Everybody liked Billy down at Dock's. “What's up?” I said.

“You heard about Billy?” she asked me.

“What about him?”

“Billy's brother Eric just called here, looking for you.”