Maybe You Never Cry Again (17 page)

A few weeks later, at a club in Atlanta, I met this fellow Kevin Sumner. He was a short, stocky guy, smart as a whip, and he was working for Russell Simmons, over at Def Jam Records, home of hip-hop. Sumner told me he wanted to do an urban version of
Saturday Night Live,
and that he wanted to put it on film. He'd been talking to some of the guys—Bill Bellamy, Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence—and he wanted to know if I was interested.

I had heard something about this plan of his, and of course I was interested. “Where are the auditions?” I asked.

And he said, “You don't have to audition, Bern. You're in.”

 

A few weeks later I flew to New York for the Def Comedy Jam. They told me I could do anything I wanted, go as crazy as I wanted, because that's what
they
wanted: no-holds-barred crazy.

So I gave it to them:

“White people say ‘cocksucker.' Can't nobody say ‘cocksucker' like white people. Be driving down the street, ‘COCKSUUUCKERRRRR!' Black folks, their cuss word be
motherfucka. Mother
fucka. Mother
fucka.
You hear a black conversation, you'll hear twenty-one
motherfuckas
and only two regular words. But you know what they're talking about: “‘When I see
that
motherfucka, he better have my
mother
fucking money, or I'ma bust him upside his
mother
fucking head, mother
fucka.
Shit don't make no
mother
fucking sense. Better talk to that motherfucka 'fore I fucking kill that motherfucka. There that motherfucker right motherfuckin' now!'”

I thought it was a little over the top, but they loved it.

When Def Jam aired, it killed. We were hot. Kevin Sumner called and told me they were going to do another one. Was I in?

“Got-damn right, muh'fucka. I got a level of crazy in me you ain't begun to see.”

 

The thing about Def Jam is that it was pure black. Black for black. It put me in mind of some of the old-timers I'd seen at the
Regal, in Chicago, when I was just a kid. People like Pigmeat Markham and Moms Mabley. They went all the way back to TOBA, when comedy was segregated. In a strange way, Def Jam was history repeating itself—making segregated comedy all over again.

What's that? You never heard of TOBA? Well, sit your ass down, I'm gonna give you a short history lesson.

Back in the early 1900s they had this thing called the Theater Owners Booking Association. It was actually started by an Italian guy from Tennessee. He ran a string of dumpy theaters in and around Memphis, and he saw how blacks didn't have many places to go. So he called a few other theater guys—white guys—and told them he was going to start booking black acts for black audiences.

Next thing you know, these white-owned theaters are booking Bessie Smith, Count Basie, Sammy Davis Jr., and all the rest of them. It was by blacks, for blacks. (With the white owners in the middle, of course, making most of the money.) And it was a big success.

Of course, nothing lasts. By the late 1930s vaudeville had pretty much died out, and for a time there black comedy went all to hell. You heard some on the radio, saw some on the screen: You had your Stepin Fetchit, mumbly and shifty-eyed: “I'm so lazy that even when I walk in my sleep I hitchhike.” And Butterfly McQueen: “Gee, Miss Scarlett, I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies.” And Mantan Moreland, the chauffeur in the Charlie Chan detective series: “Feets, don't fail me now!”

But then black businessmen got smart: They started opening clubs of their own, all the way from Alabama to Detroit, some of them no more than roadside shacks. By blacks, for blacks. And things went along like that for a good long while, nobody crossing the color line, until Dick Gregory came along in the early 1960s and shook things the hell up.

 

That Dick Gregory. Kids today, they don't know nothing about the man. Most of them don't even know who he is. But to me, hell—he's some kind of hero. I have great respect for the truth; I have respect for anyone who's not afraid to tell it like it is. And Dick Gregory was fearless.

He gets up onstage and spells it out: “This is the only country in the world where a man can grow up in the ghetto, go to the worst schools, be forced to ride on the back of the bus, then get paid five thousand dollars a week to tell about it.”

That's comedy: Hit you with the truth and make you laugh.

I have a favorite story about Dick Gregory, going back to those early days, when he first began playing mixed audiences. Don't take a genius to figure out that the man got heckled. But with hecklers, see, you gotta be careful. Put them down too hard and the crowd turns on you.

One night, see, some sumbitch crossed the line. And you know, Gregory'd been expecting it. Still, when it comes, it's got power. “Nigger,” the sumbitch called him. Just one word: “Nigger.” Said it loud; loud enough for everyone to hear.

Well, the way they tell it, the audience just got-damn froze. And Gregory said nothing for a good half minute. Let the silence hang there; everyone looking at him, wondering how the hell he was gonna handle it. Finally, he takes a deep breath and smiles a little and says: “You know, my contract reads that every time I hear that word, I get fifty dollars. And since I'm only making ten dollars a night, I'd like everyone in the room to please stand up and yell
nigger.
”

Man brought the got-damn house down. Shut that heckler right up. And—like they say—he got on with the show.

 

There was another guy making waves at around the same time: Richard Pryor. He was playing to mixed audiences, too, and
when he first started out, he sounded like Bill Cosby. He was funny, sure, but his comedy had no teeth. It was safe and easy; went down smooth,
too
smooth.

Still, I liked Pryor. He was from Peoria, practically a neighbor. His family owned a string of whorehouses, and they say his grandma was the head ho. But the family put values into that boy: made him go to church every Sunday. Some people, that would fuck them up good. But not Pryor. He made it funny.

Still, for a while there, it was easy funny—
white-bread
funny. Man lost his way. And he knew it, too. One day at the Aladdin in Las Vegas, he stopped dead in the middle of his act, looked out at the audience, and said, “What the fuck am I doing here?” Then he turned and walked off the got-damn stage.

After that, Pryor didn't hold anything back. Man got
teeth.
He was up there scaring white people. Talking about racism and oppression and niggers never catching a break. He was the voice of the little man, the lost little man who had nothing and was going nowhere fast. And
still
he made it funny. Angry motherfucker was doing the best comedy of his life.

Not that Dick Gregory wasn't angry. He was angry about plenty of the same shit. But he didn't let his anger show. For him, the stage was a pulpit. He thought comedy could change the world.

 

So, as I was saying, they were planning Def Jam 2, and I was in; Sumner knew where to find me. Meanwhile, I was getting around. I was on the road every week. I was all over the place. I opened for Dionne Warwick and Natalie Cole. For Gladys Knight and the Pips. For the Temptations.

Then I got another call from Damon Wayans. He was making a movie called
Mo' Money,
and he had a part for me. I flew out to L.A. to find that I'd been cast as a doorman. That was my part: doorman. Bernie opens the door, Bernie closes the door. Man, that Bernie got style! Timing's just right. Call him One-Take Bernie. He
can open and close that door like nobody's business!

Okay, I'm funnin' with you here—but it was the truth. That was my big Hollywood debut. I did it, and I didn't crank and moan.

In fact, I gave it my all. And I made good use of my time while I was out there. I tried out for other roles. I'd find myself at one audition after another, cooling my heels in the waiting room with a bunch of black guys that were beginning to look awfully familiar.

“What you here for?”

“Role of Jack. You?”

“Jack.”

Only one role today. And I'm thinking,
If Jack has to open any doors, I got this motherfucker nailed.

I looked up. Three black women were just arriving—also up for the role of Jack. And ten to one the looker in the middle was gonna get it.

I went up for a lot of parts in a lot of different movies, and I didn't get a single one. But that's all right. Like my mama used to say,
Failure is just life's way of preparing you for success.
Losing ain't so bad. It conditions you for winning.

Fact is, I wasn't much good at auditions. Some people know how to audition, some know how to perform. I was a performer. I didn't like going in there cold, getting the script an hour before I had to meet with the casting people. You walk in—boom! It's so unnatural. Everything so forced. Me, I like to take my time and read the script and sit with that character awhile, get to
know
that character. That way, when it's showtime, step back, brother—that character's
alive.

Following year,
Mo' Money
comes out; got-damn doorman with more character than he can handle. People see me in it, say, “You ain't so hot. I could do that.” I'm thinking,
Yeah, but it's not you opening and closing that door! It's me. And I worked got-damn hard to get there.
But all I say is, “You know what? I bet you're right. Bet you could open and close that door good as me.”

People just can't handle it. Especially the ones you've known for a while. They see you up there on the screen and it's so
foreign
to them. They're thinking, “I knew Bernie Mac when he was frying fish. He can't be no actor.” Denzel Washington will go up there and do a love scene, and the women will swoon. Bernie Mac does the exact same scene, maybe even a little hotter, and they don't buy it. “Uh-uh. That man used to deliver refrigerators; he the Wonder Bread man. That man's no actor. He's the guy from Dock's. He don't fool me.”

Of course, maybe Denzel's friends say the same things about him. When you know a person one way, from a life they had, it's hard to change the way you see them. And that's the truth, brother.

 

Then it was time for Def Jam again. Some of the same guys, some new faces. The crowd's big, and it's hot. And I was on after this next cat.

Well, this poor bastard goes out there, and the brother bombs. He bombs big. They boo him the fuck off the stage. And I felt bad for him. I ain't lyin'. I felt bad because I could relate. Years earlier, as you may recall, I'd been booed off a stage in front of my entire family. And it hurt, brother. Pain like that runs deep. But you gotta come back from it. You don't come back, nobody cares. They leave you there by the side of the got-damn road.

They were still booing. Brother was long gone, went running off with his tail between his legs, and the crowd was waiting on the next clown—which would be me.

So I came through the curtain and grabbed hold of that microphone and looked down at all those angry-ass faces, and I barked: “I AIN'T SCARED OF YOU!”

Brought the got-damn house down. I was
on
…

“I love sex,” I'm sayin'. “And I'm blessed. If I take this thing out, whole room goes dark.”

Just ran with it. Did my thing and got my laughs and went home.

Nobody gonna run me off no stage, motherfucker.
Ever.

 

I got a call three weeks later. “We're doing it again.”

“Say what?”

“Def Jam. We're going for Number Three.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'll pass.”

“You crazy? Def is
hot
!”

They were mad at me. They didn't understand that I was done with it. I did two shows, got my little exposure, and moved on. It was time to move on, plus I had my reasons for moving on—though I didn't think it was my place to spell them out.

But I'll spell them out now: I didn't think that second round of Def Jam was all that good. It was too raw, and there's nothing wrong with raw—if it's raw in the right way. Good raw takes you places. Good raw can open your eyes.

But when you're out there talking about “dick” and “pussy,” and there's no more to it than that—well, brother, you're in trouble. That may be funny to someone in the audience, but it ain't funny to me.

They told me Russell wasn't going to like it, my not signing up for Def Jam 3. They told me they'd been good to me; that they'd put me up there; that they gave me
heat.
And I'm thinking that it's the same old shit. People think they own you.
We put you up there, motherfucker, and we're going to bring your ass down if we want to.

No matter. I was going to try to do my own thing, my own way. And I wasn't worried about the future. I'd made up my mind: I was a comedian. All of this was gravy. I'd been a janitor and a bus driver and I'd built houses from the ground up and I'd chased rats and shoveled scrap iron and fried fish and delivered bread, and I'd done it all honestly. I wasn't about to get dishonest with my comedy. I wasn't going to do comedy I didn't believe in. Comedy was
it
for me, brother. Nothing as important as comedy.

You gotta stay strong inside. Stay centered. Be true to yourself.

One night, back in Chicago, I was at All Jokes Aside, and I was hot. I did some bits about Los Angeles and show business; about executives with Christian Science smiles; about auditioning for the part of Jack with forty other Jack wannabes. The audience ate it up. Everybody loves Hollywood stories. By the end of the set, they were on their feet, begging for more. And I'll tell you, that feeling—that's something an entertainer can never get too much of.

I did another minute or two, then said my
Good night
and
God bless
and took a bow and got off the stage. I took a look outside. It was raining cows and bulls. I went over and asked the bartender for a six-pack of beer, then ran out and got in my car and headed home.

I was feeling good. I was feeling powerful. The rain was beating like thunder against my car. I thought maybe it was God himself out there, applauding.

I opened a bottle of beer. I know you're not supposed to drink and drive, but I needed it. And it felt good going down.

Just then a church song came on the radio. An old song I hadn't heard since I was a little boy. And I started thinking about my mother. I missed her. God, how I missed her! I wanted her in my life. I wanted her to see what I was up to. I wanted her to meet Rhonda and to know my daughter, Boops.

I owed her so much. Everything that was happening in my life was happening on account of her, on account of her faith in me.
Big things in store for that boy. Beanie gonna surprise everyone.
I had never thanked her properly. I had never shown her the love and appreciation she deserved.

A horrible feeling came over me. I felt knocked low. Emptied out.

Suddenly there was a loud sound in the car—a roar. And I realized it was
me.
I was sobbing. I had to pull over. I was going along on Lake Shore Drive and I turned off toward the empty beach and killed the engine and got out of the car in the pouring rain and stumbled to the water's edge.

I started hollering for my mother. I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe.

“Mama! Mama!”

And it wasn't even my own voice. It was little Beanie's voice coming out of me. I was calling to her like a little lost boy, with the rain beating against me and my eyes burning with tears.

I didn't get home till first light. To this day I don't even know how I found my way back. I pulled up near the corner, at 107th and King Drive, and I saw the curtains in my place, drawn back. It was Rhonda. She'd been waiting up all night. She met me at the door.

“Bernard!” she said, more upset than angry. “Where you been? I was so worried about you!”

But then she saw how I was soaked through, and how my eyes were swollen from the tears. “I miss my mother,” I said. “I miss Mama. Mama, Mama.”

Rhonda didn't say another word. She led me to the bedroom and took off my clothes and helped me into a hot shower and put me to bed. I lay there, drifting off, remembering how I hadn't cried at the funeral. Not real tears, anyway. I'd forced up a few because it was expected of me. But these tears were real. I was feeling that terrible loss for the first time in my life. It was beyond painful. It was the worst pain I had ever felt, a burning ache in my heart.

It was as if a part of me had been torn away.

 

For a few weeks I felt all hollowed out, like I had nothing left inside me. But I didn't feel like talking about it, and Rhonda didn't press, and slowly my strength began coming back.

“Rhonda,” I said one day. “I'm gonna put a show together.”

“What kind of show?”

“My own show. With music, dancing. The whole thing.”

“What about the comedy?”

“Don't worry,” I said. “That's what'll bring them in.”

In the days and weeks ahead I went from club to club, checking out the different bands. I couldn't seem to find any that really spoke to me. But one night, on my way to a club on the North Side, I heard some music that really got my attention. I went to see where it was coming from, and I walked over to the next block. And there was a street band there, with a big crowd watching, and they were doing some genuine
funk.
We're talking down-home street music, with a lot of brass.

When they took a break, I went over and introduced myself, and the guy in charge said his name was Bones. I told Bones I liked his style, and would he meet me at the Cotton Club the next day at six o'clock. Bones and his guys showed up, and they played for me, and they were even better than I'd hoped. So I arranged for them to come back the following Monday, because I wanted to see if these guys could funk in front of a live audience.

Well, they tore the place up.

The next thing I did was audition the dancers. I found a choreographer, and we narrowed it down to eight girls.
Bernie Mac and the Mac-A-Ronis.
We practiced for six weeks straight. Then I called my friend Chuck Gueno, over at the Regal, and told him to get ready for us.

We did two sold-out shows at the Regal, back-to-back, and signed on to do one a week for the next seven months. It was great. I'd come out, introduce the ten-piece band, and they'd plunge in. And then the girls would slink onto the stage and the crowd would get all lathered up. When it was my turn, I'd give them an hour and a half of nonstop comedy, and I gave them fresh stuff every week. I take my obligations to the audience very seriously. We had a lot of repeat business in that place, and I wasn't about to spit back stuff they'd already heard.

The following year, 1993, I took the show on the road. I called it the “Who Ya Wit Tour,” and we hit more than twenty towns. Every
place we went sold out. They had local talent opening for us. We were
it.
We were the Big Deal. And brother, we worked hard.

 

One night, recently back from the tour, I was sitting down to dinner with Rhonda and Je'Niece when the phone rang. It rang
loud.
I thought for sure it was going to be bad news, but I was wrong.

It was Milt Trenier calling. He owned a nightclub in Chicago. He wanted to know if I'd like to host a regular gig at his club. “I'm thinking of calling it
The Bernie Mac Comedy and Jazz Showcase,
” he said.

“Well,” I said. “I like the name.”

 

The Bernie Mac Comedy and Jazz Showcase
was exactly what it sounded like—a combination of smooth jazz and comedy, with me at the center. For the next four years that's where you'd find me Tuesday nights, at Milt Trenier's club. It was a classy place, the kind of place a ball player could take his wife and kids, and I kept the comedy clean. Clean and honest.

The rest of the week, and just about
every
day of the week, I was at other clubs or on the road. I'd go anywhere that would have me. If someone had called from Anchorage, Alaska, and asked me to fly up and do a show, I would've done it; I would've made it work.

 

One day, late, after a show, I got home and crawled into bed with Rhonda.

“Girl,” I said. “It's time.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to quit, woman. We're on our way.”

“Say what?”

“You heard me,” I said, and I smiled a big smile.

So she quit the state mental hospital and I got myself incorporated and started MacMan Enterprises, Inc., and we began to
enjoy a few of life's luxuries: good restaurants, nice clothes, the occasional weekend trip. Everything was beginning to fall into place, and that's the way I wanted it. I'm a guy that likes order, structure. I was getting up at eight sharp every morning, having a little breakfast, then going off to work out.

After that, I'd come home and think about my comedy routines. I'd hang with myself, talk to myself. Sometimes there'd be four of us on the couch there, yammering away; kind of like those conversations I used to have with the walls when I was a little kid.

“That shit ain't funny.”

“Get it right, Bean!”

“You have no idea how bad a bad woman can be!”

Rhonda would call out from the kitchen, “You talking to yourself again, Bernard?”

Damn right I was. Who else would I be talking to?

After I was done talking, I'd go to the office, see what was what, then have me a little lunch and wander over to the gun range.

I love guns. I've been around guns my whole life. You live in the 'hood, you're going to be around guns, whether or not you want to be. And while I didn't much care for guns as a kid, never really gave them a second thought, first thing I did after I got married was get me a gun. My very first gun was a Smith & Wesson snub-nose .38. A street gun. No permit. Needed it to protect my wife from that bad element.

Later, though, I went legit. When I started doing better, making money and such, I began investing in guns. Built up a veritable arsenal over the years. Learned how to break down my guns and clean them good and adjust the sights. I'm a regular James Bond, brother.

Before long, I took Rhonda to the gun club. That woman got good fast. Stand back! Don't be messing with Rhonda. She likes the pearl-handled .40 caliber. I like the .45. I have shotguns, too; over-unders, side-by-sides. I got rifles. I have a Winchester just like the Rifleman used to carry. You should see me at the range. That
thing's hanging there, by my right hand, low, and I go for it—
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
That Bernie Mac; he a regular cowboy.

Then I'd go home to my other job: raising my kid.

That Je'Niece Nicole McCullough! What a beautiful girl she was turnin' out to be, but brother—hard got-damn work. Let me tell you about Je'Niece. Here it is, 1993 already, and my little girl is suddenly fifteen years old. I loved that girl to death, believe me. But the feeling wasn't always mutual.

Here's the thing, see: It takes a lot of courage to be a good parent. I'd learned that from my mama. And I was determined to be the best got-damn parent on the planet. The downside to all that hard work, though, is that it makes you very unpopular: No kid's going to see anything,
ever,
from your point of view. But so what? My mama had taught me about that, too.
Life isn't a popularity contest, Bean.

Now I'm going to tell you the secret to being a good parent. It isn't about making your kid happy all the time. For one thing, that's impossible. For another, it isn't good for them; gives them a wrongheaded view of what life is all about. Life's got pain in it, and they better start learning to deal with it
now.

No, sir. Being a good parent is about raising a good kid, a good citizen. And that's what I was trying to do with Je'Niece. My responsibility was not to her happiness, but to her
character.
That's what it's about: character, integrity, discipline. And you gotta let them know that that's what it's about. So you talk to them. And I talked to Je'Niece all the got-damn time. Hell, if you ask her, she'll tell you I talked too damn much. But I wanted her to know that I was there. I wanted to keep the channels of communication open.

Of course, sometimes, from where she was standing, the communication was pretty one-sided. She'd want to know why she couldn't stay at the mall till ten, and I'd tell her, “Because I said so. Because that's the rule.”

Most parents don't get it. You shouldn't lecture your kid; he's not listening to you anyway. All you got to do is tell it like it is. You're in charge. Or
should
be. I know I was. And Je'Niece knew it, too. Bernie Mac is the boss. Bernie Mac is in control. This was my home and I was going to run it any damn way I saw fit, not the way some hormonal kid thought it should be run.

“When you grow up and get a place of your own,” I'd tell her, “you can run it your way, but this is my house, and we play by my rules.”

There were the usual issues: Homework. Tight clothes. Chores. Messy room. The whole nine yards.

And of course there was the One Big Issue: guys. I didn't want no five or six guys calling for her all the time. I didn't like that. I didn't want to think about my daughter so much as holding a guy's hand. It gave me the shivers. So, yeah—that was a big one.

We got through it, though. And sure, we had our moments—what parents don't? But if you love your children, you'll want the best for them, and the best is usually the toughest. A parent that lets his child do any old thing—stay out late, sass back, run off with friends he's never met—that's not a parent. It's easy, sure, but it doesn't do a damn thing for the child. It makes him think you don't care, and that's deadly: A child sees himself through the eyes of his parents. If he feels you don't care about him, he's not going to care about himself, either.

As a parent, you're in it for the long haul. You bring a child into this world, that's about as big a responsibility as there is. And you best not mess up. We got a generation here that's dropping the ball with their kids. That ain't right. Do the hard work when it counts. Show that kid who's in charge. Teach him some respect. Stop treating him like an equal—he ain't an equal. He's just getting started.

At the same time, work the other side—the good stuff. Make that child feel loved. Make him feel important. Make him see that
he matters. A child looks to you to see not only who he is, but what he might become. You've got to make that kid feel he can do anything he sets his mind to do. And that even if he can't, he should damn well try.

Like my mama said, you gotta reach for the stars.

At the end of the day, the most important thing a person has is his or her self-respect. And those foundations are laid in childhood. So you need to keep at it. It's not about perfection; it's about improvement. A child needs to feel worthy. A child that believes in himself has a good chance of making his way successfully in this hard world. A child that don't believe, well—you get the picture.