by Bernie Mac
Got-damn coward. Don’t nobody take responsibility for nothin’ nowadays.
I took the El home, thinking what was I gonna do. I had a nice place. Nice neighbors. I wasn’t going to lose my home. I wasn’t going to let my family find itself on the street again.
I went back to the damn classifieds. I called everyone I knew—and people I didn’t know. Cold callin’. “Hello, my name is Bernard McCullough, and I’m looking for a job.”
Click! Ain’t no job here, motherfucker.
Suddenly I’m back to being a househusband. I’m getting Je’Niece to school and shopping for a little food and cleaning the way my grandfather taught me to clean. Buffing and mopping and keeping the water off the baseboards, and wiping that glass till it squeaked.
Whenever I’d see my nice neighbors, I’d smile like I didn’t have a care in the world. I knew they were wondering what had happened to my job, and what was I doin’ home all the time, dusting the corners with my little dust mop, but I wasn’t going to look worried because I didn’t want them to worry.
I knew something was going to turn around. I just didn’t know when.
Long days, brother. Long, empty days.
I couldn’t wait until it was time for me to get Boops from school. I couldn’t wait for Rhonda to get home. I couldn’t wait for us to be sitting around the dinner table together, a family.
And there was one other thing I couldn’t wait for: late-night TV.
I was hooked on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. I ain’t lyin’. It got to a point where I was looking in the paper to see who was going to be on, and I’d be flipping between the two shows to catch the best acts.
Johnny Carson—that’s as good as it got. Man knew how to move. Had timing. Knew how to laugh at himself, too. If he told a joke that bombed, nobody found it funnier than Carson. He was very comfortable with himself. That’s not something you see often. Man was gifted.
Letterman had launched in 1982, and he came at you from a whole different place. He was a little arrogant, and he liked to think he was smarter than everyone else, but he didn’t lay it on thick or mean, so it worked. He was okay.
And of course there was that lineup of guests. There were the actors and assorted celebrities and whatnot, and they were fun to watch. But my real interest was in standup, and between Carson and Letterman you got a regular Who’s Who of hot comedy.
Sid Caesar might show up. Richard Pryor. Jack Benny. George Carlin. Rodney Dangerfield was hot; I could watch that man put himself down for hours. Jackie Gleason. What can I say about Jackie Gleason? He was one of my heroes. You had Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles, Redd Foxx. And you had a slew of younger guys: Andy Kaufman. Billy Crystal. Steve Martin. Robin Williams. Steven Wright. And don’t forget the women; God bless our funny women: Carol Burnett and Goldie Hawn and Madeline Kahn and Gilda Radner.
Too many people to name, and every last one of them contributing to my education. And it was an education. Hard work, I tell ya. Hell, in those days, we didn’t have a remote: You had to walk clear across the room to change the channel.
But seriously, I learned more about comedy in the space of a few months than I’d learned in ten years prior.
I began to see that there were basically four types of standup comics. The first type were the joke tellers. They’d just get up there and do bad jokes. You knew you weren’t going to be seeing much of them in the future, and that worried me a little. I thought maybe I had a little of the joke teller in me.
Next were the political comedians. Guys like Mort Sahl, who were on top of all the current events. You’d read something in the paper only that morning, and there it was that very night, a routine on national TV.
Then you had what I call the “anthropologists.” George Carlin was a good example. He was an observer. Watching people, studying them, dissecting them. Anthropologists can be very funny, but they’re usually shut-down types. They never talk about themselves; never reveal anything personal.
Finally, there was the type of comedian I responded to: the ones who used their own lives to create comedy. I didn’t know it then, but this was the kind of comedy that really reached me. It was comedy that came from pain. The comedy of Richard Pryor—when he got good again. Or Carol Burnett. She might be up there, stumbling like a drunk across the stage, but there was a depth to it that told you booze had made trouble in her life. What set these people apart for me was that they were true to themselves. Their comedy was honest comedy.
There was one other thing I noticed, and that was that each comic had his own style. There were similarities, sure, but comedy wasn’t about copying the other guy. Comedy was about finding out who you were, and figuring out what you wanted to say—and then doing it in your own special way.
Middle of watching TV one night, the phone rang—and it rang loud. Unusually loud. I looked at it and knew in my heart it was bad news. “Hello?”
“Bean, it’s Aunt Evelyn. I think your grandpa had a stroke. We’re running him over to Roseland.”
I got in my car and drove myself to the hospital. Aunt Evelyn was already there, along with some cousins, and I was just arriving when they called the McCullough family on the loudspeakers. We went over to the front desk and the nurse came out with a look on her face and already we knew; she didn’t have to say anything. Aunt Evelyn and some of the others started crying. I asked the nurse if I could see him.
Grandpa Thurman was laid out flat. They hadn’t even covered his face yet. Cheeks looked all hollow. I took my hand and set it on his forehead, which was still warm.
“Grandpa,” I said. “I want to thank you. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I especially want to thank you for being hard on me.” I meant it, too. He taught me things I probably wouldn’t have learned from a more loving man.
“Grandpa,” I said, because I wasn’t done talking, “I’m going to be a comedian. That’s right. You heard right. I’m going to be a comedian.”
I don’t know why that came out of me right then. Maybe because I’d had my fill of death and sorrow. But I knew I meant it.
My aunt and the others had worked their way into the room by now, and I guess they heard me, too.
“What you tellin’ your grandpa?”
“I told him I’m going to be a comedian,” I said.
“Here we go again,” one of my cousins said.
“You watch me,” I said. “I mean it this time.”
And I walked out.
“YOU KNOW WHAT SHE USED TO SAY TO ME, MY GRANDMA? SHE USED TO SAY, ‘BEAUTIFUL MORNIN’, AIN’T IT SON? I GET ANOTHER CRACK AT THIS MORNIN’, ANOTHER CHANCE TO IMPROVE MYSELF.’”
09
I’MA CUT YO’ ASS IN TWO
A couple of days later, I found out from the insurance company that my grandpa wasn’t really my grandpa after all. So I’m thinking, How many more unpleasant surprises has life got in store for me?
I asked my aunt Evelyn to give it to me straight. Turns out that my grandfather fell in love with my grandmother the moment he first laid eyes on her. Only she was seeing someone else at the time. And she got pregnant with the child that would become my mother. And this someone else wasn’t all that interested in marrying my grandmother. Which is when my grandpa stepped in. He was so crazy about her that he married her and was by her side when she gave birth to that baby—and the eight more that came after.
So, like I said, my grandfather wasn’t a bad man. He was hard on me, and he didn’t know how to love me. But he had a deep, abiding love for my grandma—and I respected him for what he’d done.
We had the funeral that weekend. It was real somber. All these people up there, remembering him, giving serious speeches. I looked at Rhonda, rolled my eyes. Went up front and started talking about my grandfather. But then he’s taking over. I became my grandpa. Had the man down: the snortin’ and shufflin’, the deep voice.
“I’ll knock your eyeball out, boy! Step on it. You think I’m lyin’? I ain’t lyin’! Man’s got to re
derfrine hisself to succeed in this crazy world.”
It wasn’t a question of disrespect. I was honoring his memory. I was bringing him to life again, even if only for a few minutes. And everyone got it. They were laughin’. I did him and my grandma at the table. I did the bit about the corn bread and about ass whuppings, and I did his voice rolling like thunder over the congregation.
“Lord have mercy on you sinners!”
To hear that laughter. Man, it’s like medicine. No, I’m lyin’—was like a drug.
Week later, I got home, woman called; she’d been at my grandpa’s funeral, caught my act. “My cousin Joe passed,” she said. “Could you come by and make us laugh?”
Say what?
I went. Got a few stories from her about her cousin Joe; kind of person he’d been in real life. Went out after the service and made them laugh.
When I was done, the woman came over and gave me $150. I ain’t lyin’.
Then it’s another funeral. And pretty soon the phone’s ringing off the hook and I’m doing private parties and birthdays and more funerals.
One day, I turned to Rhonda and said, “I’m ready.”
“What you ready for, Bernard?”
“You know what I’m talkin’ about, woman.”
“Spell it out for me.”
“Well, it’s like this. Comes a point where you have to stop waiting for life to change. You gotta change your own damn life. Life ain’t waiting on you. You change it or it just don’t get changed.”
“Now you sounding like Grandpa Thurman.”
I laughed. She was right.
“Rhonda,” I said, getting serious. “Listen to me. I’ve wanted to be a comedian all my life. I have to stop making excuses. No one’s stopping me except my own self. And if I fail, I fail, but at least I’ll know I tried.”
“It’s not going to pay the bills, Bernard.”
“I know that. I’m looking for a job. I haven’t stopped looking for a job.”
“I know,” she said. “But I’m worried. That worries me, too.”
“You’re always worried, baby. What I want to know is, are you okay with it?”
She nodded.
“Might be some late nights,” I said.
“I figured,” Rhonda said, and she looked at me hard. But she was smiling.
So I started hitting the comedy circuit. Taste of Chicago. Chez Coco. The Dayton Gang. Every one of those places had started their own Amateur Night, and they’d give you a few minutes onstage—one short set.
“I knew this girl, her mama told her, ‘If Jesus comes while you’re having sex, you’re going to hell.’ I said, ‘He ain’t coming, woman. I put a little sign on the door: DO NOT DISTURB. Nailed it there with a cross.’ Man, I got me some serious lovin’ that night! Bust a nut three times. And that last time—I thought I saw Jesus.”
When you nailed it, you knew you’d nailed it. When you didn’t, the audience let you know—and they let you know loud.
“Get off the fucking stage, nigger!”
I’d get home at all hours of the morning and crawl into bed next to my sleeping wife. She’d moan and cuddle up to me. “How’d it go, Bernard?” she’d ask me. And I’d tell her:
“I killed.”
“I bombed.”
“I learned something new today.”
Then I’d pretend I was back onstage and make Rhonda sit up in bed and listen to the whole routine: “Some guys, they marry their mamas. Yeah, you know who I’m talking about, girl—that guy there, sitting right next to you. They marry a woman tells them exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. She tells him what to wear, where to go, how to park, what to eat, how to hold the damn fork, and how much to tip the waiter. And he’ll crank and moan about it, sure, but the truth is—he could never do nothing for himself in the first place.”
Rhonda’d begin nodding off on me, and I’d say, “No, no, woman! Wait! I got this here other one.” And I’d plunge in: “My granddaddy is a tough, hardworking man, and he isn’t scared of much. But one thing he is for sure scared of is my grandma, Big Mama. She runs things over at our place. And when Big Mama’s mad at him, brother—stand back. She gets tight-lipped and closes her eyes real slow, and then she takes a deep breath and always says the same thing: ‘I’ma cut yo’ ass in two.’”
Rhonda’d shake her head. “If your grandma could hear you now, Bernard McCullough!”
“You know what she used to say to me, my grandma? She used to say, ‘Beautiful mornin’, ain’t it, son? I get another crack at it this mornin’; another chance to improve myself.’ And that’s what I’m getting, Rhonda. Every time I’m up onstage is another chance to improve myself.”
The next day, we lost our nice apartment. We liked these people, and they liked us, but they came by to say that they needed the place—the daughter was pregnant—and how soon could we move out?
The next crib was a big step down, but we managed.
I told Rhonda not to lose hope.
I told her my comedy was getting strong. “I’m going to own this town someday.”
She said she was happy for me, and went off to work. I watched her through the window. I saw she had that worried look on her face.
One night, at the Dayton Gang, I killed—I mean really killed.
I told about these old ladies from the Burning Bush Baptist Church, all the time talking about how got-damn blessed they was, and I told it in a sweet, pitiful, old-lady voice: “I’m blessed, sister. I might be blind in one eye. The arthritis might be killing me. I take heart pills and my blood pressure is sky-high, but I’m blessed. Oh yes, sister. My diabetes is acting up somethin’ fierce, and I got so much pain in my legs that I can’t walk no more, and I ain’t had a decent movement in years, but I’m blessed.”
It was a freezing-ass night, like thirty below. I remember this because I’m walking the few blocks home from the bus stop at three in the morning, whistling like I’m on a Caribbean cruise. I get home, still whistling. Check on my baby girl. Kids so sweet when they sleeping!
Walk into the bedroom and Rhonda wakes up. Says in her sleepy voice, “What you so happy about?”
“I’m a happy man, Rhonda. You’re a lucky girl. You married a naturally happy man.”
“It’s cold,” she said, pulling the covers close. “Can’t you put something up against that window?”
“Life is good,” I said, fussing with the window like she’d asked.
“Good?” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not all that long ago, we was on food stamps. Now we got heat and electricity and the bills are getting paid.”
“Turn that heat up,” she said. “I’m freezin’.”
“Well, here I am, baby. All the heat you need.”
“Bernard Mac,” she said. “I’m tired and I need my sleep and I got enough to worry about without worrying about you.”
What can you do? Sometimes they’re not in the mood.
“You worry too much, Rhonda,” I said. “You should try to be more like me.”
I meant it, too. I’m not a worrier. Worrying doesn’t change anything.
But every person’s different, and you can’t try to change them. Rhonda was a worrier, like I said. Nothing wrong with that. Not for me to judge, anyway. Plus I understood it: Rhonda wanted security. She wanted a nice house with tight windows and a backyard and maybe a fridge that didn’t roar and shudder all night long.
Those are good things to want, sure. But let’s be honest here: My wife was spoiled. She came from a family of girls that got everything handed to them. I ain’t lying. Ask her. Their mama served those girls hand and foot, and their father—he was about as hardworking as they come.
My house was different. You need a pair of pants, too bad. Grandma needs glasses, and she comes first.
“What you doing there, Bernard?” Rhonda said, copping attitude. She buried deeper under the blankets, trying to get away from me. “Your legs like ice!”
“You got to have faith,
woman,” I said, snuggling closer. “I’ll provide…Meanwhile, here’s a little something to warm you up.”
I was determined to make a good life for my family.
And in my heart I really believed I would.
One morning, early, the phone rang. It was a friend tipping me off about part-time work at Soldier Field, the stadium. I got the job.
I was there every Sunday before the game, and they had me moving beer kegs till the game ended. I was in charge of replacing the empty kegs with fresh ones, and I’d be running back and forth all day long, hoisting empty kegs and switching hoses and keeping the beer flowing. It was hard work, and I put a few inches on my upper body. People kept mistaking me for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Meanwhile, I was begging this friend at United Parcel to get me a job. I’d already put in my application, and I was calling him every day, sometimes twice a day. Finally, one morning, the phone rang. It was my friend at UPS. “Bernie,” he said. “Get your ass down here.”
I hustled over to their offices at Roosevelt and Jefferson and got suited up and spent a week training. Orientation, invoicing, rules of the road. At the end of the week, they said I’d done good, and that I started Monday. It was temporary. I was what they called part-time full-time. But things looked good.
I got home and Rhonda told me that the University of Chicago had just called about this other job, and I went to see them bright and early the next morning. It was a janitorial position, and it was on a trial basis, but they said I’d be hired permanent if I worked hard, and once I was permanent I’d get full benefits. This was the same deal they had at UPS, so I didn’t get benefits at either place. But I had nothing to moan about. A week earlier I’d been unemployed. Now I had two jobs.
I worked the university job on alternate nights, from 10:30 to 7:00 A.M., then I’d hurry over to UPS and start my day behind the wheel. It got to a point where I could finish the janitorial stuff within four hours, which gave me time to grab a bite in Greek Town and catch forty winks before heading off to UPS.
