Maybe You Never Cry Again (6 page)

No, sir. I couldn't get enough of Rhonda.

 

By this time, Big Nigger had joined the navy and A.V. was off in college, and Billy Staples had become my main man. I loved Billy, and sometimes it hurt me to see the mess he was making of his life. He had a child with this girl from high school, and he said he wanted to be a good father. But he didn't want to marry the girl,
and he started going over less and less. He said he was too busy—he was studying to be a carpenter—and I didn't know what to say about that. I had pretty strong opinions on the subject of fatherhood, but he wasn't asking for them.

In the fall, I signed up for a couple of classes at Kennedy King Community College, over on Olive and Harvey. My mother had urged me to try to get into social services. She felt I had the personality for it. But I wasn't so sure. It seemed so glum. Just talking about it weighed me down. I thought a comedian would for sure bring a lot more joy into people's lives than any damn social worker, but I felt I owed it to her—and to myself—to give this college thing a try.

One evening, though, heading back from class on the El, I looked around and saw all these tired, miserable faces, and I decided to lighten things up. I picked out the most tired-looking guy and I said, “My friend, women are going to be the death of you.” He looked up at me, confused. Other people were listening. “You look like you're gettin'
too much.
”

He laughed—what man's not gonna laugh when you're tellin' the world he's gettin' more than his share of booty?—and other people laughed right along with him. I told a few more jokes but kept it clean on account of the children on the train, and pretty soon I had them roaring.

As we came up on my stop, an old lady shuffled over, slow as my grandma, and handed me a five-dollar bill. I just took it. Not even thinking, really. “Thank you, ma'am,” I said, and I waved and left the train.

“Five dollars?” Rhonda said later, cuddling on the couch. “For telling jokes?”

“Go figure,” I said.

Next time I got on the El, I did it again. I brightened up all those sorrowful faces. And the time after that, I gave them more. Pretty soon, it was like they were waiting for me on the train. “There he is! That's the funny guy I told you about!”

And suddenly I'm thinking, “Man, this comedy stuff is
sweet.
” But other times someone'd be handing me a crumpled dollar bill—“Here, boy”—and I felt like a panhandler.

It wasn't a good feeling. I wanted to be legitimized.

I began to think,
This nigger needs a stage.

 

“I don't know about this community college stuff anymore,” I told Rhonda one night.

“Give it time, Bern.”

“I think I'm more of a funny person,” I said. “Billy Staples says I'm a born comedian.”

“You
are
funny, Bern. But you're also smart. Real smart. Working and school and everything. I got myself a smart smart man here.”

“Why you repeatin' everything four times?” I said. “Sound like Grandpa Thurman.”

She laughed. She knew I was just messing with her. We'd cuddle up harder. Life was good. I had a fine woman, and she had a man with a job, a car, and academic aspirations. Didn't get any better than that, right?

 

We were watching TV one night when Cosby came on. I told her about the time I walked into my house, five years old, and saw my mother sitting in front of the tube, crying. Told her how Cosby had made my mama laugh to bust a gut. Told her what I'd said: “That's what I want to be, Mama. A comedian. Make you laugh like that, maybe you never cry again.”

Rhonda thought it was a nice story, and she smiled at me. But it was one of those worried smiles. Maybe she was hoping I wouldn't do anything crazy, like quitting college or something. I didn't say anything, but the only part of college I enjoyed was the trip there and back, when I got to do my standup on the El.

 

When Rhonda graduated from high school, she was up near the top of her class. I went to the graduation with her family. I was grinning so hard my jaw ached.

There was a party after, but Rhonda didn't want to go. She said she'd rather be alone with me. So I took her to a nice place for dinner, just the two of us. We had a good table in the corner, and I felt very romantic. I was thinking I might be the luckiest sumbitch in the world.

I felt so lucky that the next week I quit school.

“You did what?” Rhonda asked me.

“It's not my thing, girl. After a full day at the scrap yard, that classroom is the last place I want to be.”

She didn't crank. But I could see she was a little worried. And I got a feeling something had changed.

One Friday, not long after, I walked into her house, feeling good. I was fresh-showered and smellin' fine. “Let's party,” I said. “Billy knows a guy who's having this thing at his house.”

Rhonda looked at me. “All you want to do is be the funny guy at the party,” she said. “Think you a comedian or something?”

“What's wrong with that?” I said. “I
am
a comedian.”

“There's more to life than parties and laughter,” she said.

“You don't have to tell me that, woman. I work hard every got-damn day.”

“Gotta think about the future, Bern,” she said.

But I wasn't thinking about the future. Not often, anyway. And not right then for sure. What I was thinking was that Rhonda was beginning to sound a lot like Geri:
Bernie not ambitious enough. Bernie not doing anything with his life. Bernie going to end up working a bullshit job till he dead.

I guess I must have had some of those fears myself, because it just set me off. And while I'm not a man who loses his temper easy, when I do—watch the hell out.

“You are a pain in my ass,” I told her.

She got up off the couch, her hands on her hips, steamed, and looked dead at me. “Don't you dare talk to me like that, Bernard Mac,” she said.

“I'll talk to you any damn way I please,” I said. And I stood up and pushed her down on the couch—pushed her
hard
—and stormed the fuck out of the house.

I went to Billy's friend's party. Had a few beers. Made everyone laugh. Billy put his arm around me, hugged me. “You are a funny sumbitch, Bernie Mac. You the funniest sumbitch I know. You ought to be out in Hollywood, brother.”

Felt good. I needed that.

 

The next day, when I got out of bed, I felt lousy about Rhonda. I'd never raised my hand to a woman in my life. That's not the way I'd been taught. And I loved Rhonda. Then I got to thinking about what she'd said, and I realized that maybe I
was
worried about the future. But not in the same way. Rhonda wanted me to stay focused; to concentrate on my job; to get promoted and build something and take it seriously. It's not as if she spelled it out for me, but I got the sense that she was
thinking
it. And me? To me, working a regular job was just temporary. She was right about there being more to life than parties, but she was wrong about the other thing: There wasn't more to life than making people laugh. That's what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a comedian. I wanted to make people laugh.

Like I said, it was a
calling.

I decided I needed to explain to Rhonda just how serious I was about my comedy, so I called her house. Her mother, Mary, answered. I said, “How you doin', ma'am. It's Bernard. Can I speak to Rhonda?”

“Rhonda's not here.”

“Where is she?”

“Went away this morning.”

“
Went away?
What do you mean, went away?”

“Went away, Bernard. I can't talk right now.” And she hung up.

So I went over to Rhonda's house, to find out what the hell was going on. “Where Rhonda at?” I said.

Mary didn't answer right away. Instead, she picked up the phone and dialed, and I could see her dialing long distance.

“Hello?” It was Rhonda's voice, small and far away.

“Bernard's here,” Mary said. “He wants to talk to you.” And she handed me the phone.

“Rhonda, where you at, girl?”

“Cleveland.”

“Cleveland! What you doin' in Cleveland?”

“I got a job here.”

“What do you mean, you got a job there?” I was getting pretty worked up.

“Good job, too.”

“Where you stayin', then?”

“With my aunt Sweet.”

Her aunt
Sweet
? What the hell kind of name was that? “What about us?” I said.

“It's over, Bernard.”

“
Over!
Don't say that, girl. I'm calling to apologize.”

“I'm sorry, Bernard.”

“No, Rhonda, listen to me. What I did was wrong. I had a couple of beers in me—I know that's no excuse. But you know me: two beers and I'm flying…” It was true. More than two beers, I'm giving you a lap dance. “Rhonda? You there?”

“I don't want to talk anymore, Bernard. It's over.”

“Rhonda, please listen to me. I'm really sorry, girl. I never should have pushed you. I never should have lost my temper.”

But she hung up on me. Just like that. Hung the hell up.

 

After that, I called her every day, sometimes three or four times a day, racking up the bills. She was working at a grocery store with Aunt Sweet, doing the cash register, and I even called her there.

“Don't call me here no more, Bernard. I'm going to lose my job.”

I was scared inside. I didn't want to lose Rhonda.

“Your job? I'm callin' because I don't want to lose
you,
woman!”

“I can't talk now. I got customers.”

I got off the phone and saw how my aunt Evelyn's giving me one of those looks that run in the McCullough family. “What'd you do to make that girl so mad?” she asked me.

“Nothing,” I said. “I don't know.”

But I did know. I'd been abusive toward her. And Rhonda had her self-respect: She wasn't going to take that from anyone, least of all a man who said he loved her.

I called again. Apologized again. But Rhonda held firm. For
six weeks
she held firm. Finally I told Aunt Evelyn I was going to drive to Cleveland. “Be cheaper than these phone bills, anyway—and probably more effective.”

“You stop moping around, boy,” she said. “You leave that girl alone. Let her live her life. If it's going to be, it's going to be. If not, not.”

I didn't think that was very good advice. “It's meant to be if I make it happen,” I said.

“Boy,” she said. “You bullheaded.”

I kept calling. Nothing. Rhonda was bullheaded, too. I got a bad feeling that there was more to this than Rhonda was letting on.

 

One night I got a call from her mother. “Bernard,” she said, “I need you to come over here.”

I went. “What's up?” I said.

“Rhonda's pregnant,” she said.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Who's the father?”

“Who do you think, fool? Askin' that—it's an insult to Rhonda.”

I couldn't believe it.

“Wow,” I said. “I don't know what to say.” And I really
didn't
know what to say. I was nineteen years old, a kid. I wish I could tell you my head was full of intelligent thoughts, but it wasn't. It was empty. I was a kid with a kid on the way.

“Don't you know nothin', boy? Why do you think Rhonda left?”

“I thought it was on account of the fight.”

“Well, of course it was. That was part of it. But that's not why she left. She left because she didn't know if you was ready to have a child. Rhonda didn't want to trap you into nothin'. She's not like that.”

My head was spinnin'. “I gotta talk to her,” I said. “Let me call her from here.”

“No,” her mama said. “She's coming home tomorrow.”

 

I drove down to the Greyhound terminal the next day, waited for Rhonda's bus. She got off the bus and I looked at her belly. Sure enough, she was already showing a little. She had seen me looking, and she started crying.

I went over and hugged her. “Why you cryin', girl?” I asked.

“Because I want something out of life, and you don't.”

“Why you sayin' that? I want
lots
out of life.”

“Well, it's not free,” she said. “Life don't come to you.”

“I know that. My mama used to tell me the same thing. Life don't change unless you make it change.”

“Then why the only thing you care about is sports and partyin' and your damn car?”

“I care about comedy,” I said. “I'm going to be a comedian.”

“How?”

“You
know
how. I make people laugh. I go to a party, everybody says, ‘Here comes Bernie! Life of the party.' I get on the El, people throw money at me.”

“That doesn't mean anything, Bernard,” she said. “I'm talking about real life.”

By the time we got to her place, she was crying again. She wouldn't even let me go inside.

 

I drove home, thinking about what Rhonda had said. She had a point, but then again, she didn't. I wasn't sure what she was complaining about. I had a job and got to work on time—mostly. And I worked
hard.
I figured she was still upset about the community college thing. Maybe she wanted me to be more than a scrap yard worker. Maybe she wanted me to have some real goals, and maybe the goals I had in mind didn't seem real enough to her.

My mama used to say, “Talk is cheap, Bean.” And she was right. Maybe I was talking too much about becoming a comedian. Maybe I needed to shut up about it and
act.
Of course, at the moment there were more pressing things on my mind—namely, the life growing inside Rhonda.