Maybe You Never Cry Again Read online

  My father’s kidneys killed him. Gave out. He was a big man—damn near about two-fifty by then—and they had to take him to the hospital and put him on dialysis. He kept complaining, “I ain’t sick! I feel fine!” But nobody would listen, and he got tired of telling them, so he just up and walked out.

  Hospital called his family to say he’d run off. But it was too late. They found him on the floor of his apartment, stone-cold dead.

  Saturday came along. Grandma called to ask if I was going to my father’s funeral. Said I should pay my respects. Rhonda agreed. “Bury him and the past with him.”

  So we went, Rhonda and I. To the A. R. Leaks Funeral Home, the hot place in our neighborhood. Black people take death seriously. It was like a designer funeral.

  I met his daughter from another woman, Gayla Harrison, nice-looking woman, a little older than me. She tells me she’s the one who found him. Went for the landlord to open the door for her and there he was on the floor, Daddy. Wiping away a tear now. And I’m thinking, He weren’t no daddy to me, woman. But I didn’t say anything. Bit my tongue.

  I tell you! Service hadn’t even started and already I’m hearing a lot of cryin’, with Gayla leading the chorus. “Oh, Daddy, Daddy! If there’s anyone for sure going to heaven, it’s you!”

  To listen to her, you’d think Bernard J. Harrison had been the best father in the world.

  I looked at Rhonda and shook my head. That woman’s crazy. I looked around at the mourners, waiting for things to get started. Strange bunch of people. Suddenly I see a man eyeballing me, coming toward me. He looked just like my father. Big fella, heavy-set, strong.

  He reached my side and held out his hand and introduced himself as my father’s brother, Pierce. He had a deep, sorrowful voice, just like my father. “I can’t manage my brother’s weight, son,” Pierce said. “Would you be good enough to help me?”

  Lazy bastard. I ended up under one end of the casket. Me, who didn’t want to be there in the first place. Now I’m really wondering why the hell I’d shown up.

  Midway through the service, the man who ran the funeral parlor came out and stopped things. Asked if he could talk to members of the direct family. He took us out back and said my father had no insurance, and that if we didn’t come up with five hundred dollars he’d nail the coffin shut right quick and tell County to come get the body.

  Suddenly, everyone was poor. Dirt poor. They were all looking at me like I was their best friend. My newfound uncle Pierce said to me in his deep voice, “Bernie, this is your father speaking.” Sounded like got-damn Darth Vader. Then I saw Rhonda looking at me, and she nodded yes, and I signed a waiver saying I’d make good on the five hundred dollars.

  We went back out and got on with the service, listening to all sorts of people go on about what a great man my father was. And all I’m thinking is, Who was that man? Where was that man? I didn’t know that man. He was no father to me. I didn’t have a father.

  “‘I WANT YOU TO HOLD YOUR HEAD UP,’

  ‘CAN’T HOLD MY HEAD UP,’ I SAID, NEAR TO CRYING.

  SHE SAID. SHE REACHED ACROSS THE TABLE AND TOOK MY LEFT HAND IN BOTH OF HER HANDS AND SHE SQUOZE IT. AND SHE SAID, ‘BERNARD MCCULLOUGH, YOU JUST HANG ON, BOY. I KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE IT.’”

  07

  YOU BLUE AGAIN, BERNARD

  One night, back in 1983, I’m sitting on the couch with Je’Niece and Rhonda, watching Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live. The brother started hot, and he was getting better every season.

  “He funny,” Je’Niece said.

  “He sure is,” Rhonda said.

  “He’s a comedian,” I said.

  Rhonda looked over at me but didn’t say anything. I was thinking about that long-ago day on my mother’s lap, age five, when I decided I wanted to be a comedian, save my mother from further sorrow. Only I still wasn’t a comedian. I was a janitor at General Motors. My part-time job had become my full-time life.

  Some nights, hell—it seemed like my head had just touched the pillow when the alarm clock was blaring in my ear. I’d get up in a daze, eat something, try to help Rhonda get Je’Niece ready for kindergarten, and hustle off to the El. I seldom joked with the passengers in those days; I was too tired to be funny.

  End of the day I’d come home and pick up my little girl at school. Bring her back to the house. Boops, we called her. Girl loved Betty Boop. Couldn’t get enough of Betty Boop.

  “Come here, Boops,” I’d say. “How’d you get to be five years old so fast?”

  “I don’t know, Daddy.”

  There were times I looked at her and felt it didn’t get much better than that. That little hand seeking out my big hand. Her tiny little fingers. That little gap-toothed smile. The way she cuddled up against me on the couch, rested her head against me to watch TV. I could never leave this girl. I could never abandon her. And to this day I can’t understand any man who won’t be a father to his child.

  I got to the factory on one of those perfect mornings and got called into the office before I’d even started work. They told me they were doing some reshuffling. My ass got reshuffled the hell out of there. Five years of work, and they gave me a check and showed me the door.

  “What in God’s name did you do, Bernard?” my grandfather asked me.

  “Nothing,” I said. “They was general cutbacks. Went by seniority. Lot of old-timers there from your day, so—guess what?—I’m out.”

  He shook his old head and snorted. “What you gonna do now?”

  “I’m going to be a comedian,” I said.

  My grandfather laughed so hard he choked. It took him a while to catch his breath. “I got news for you, boy,” he said. “You’re no Eddie Murphy.”

  Rhonda was working at a North Side hospital at the time, and trying to rack up the hours she needed to finish nursing school. I tried to ease her load by making myself useful around the house. I spent more time with Boops. I got her out of bed in the morning and fed her and combed her hair and got her dressed and off to school. While she was gone, I’d go back home and look through the classifieds, hoping for a break, and at lunch I’d go head over to school again and pick her up. We’d walk home, hand in hand, my little girl and me. I’d make her a sandwich, or maybe a little pizza, with a cup of hot vegetable soup on the side. And she always got a little cupcake for dessert.

  Then we’d sit down and do her homework. Or read about Cinderella for the hundredth time. Or watch a little TV. And it had to be what she wanted to watch. The girl was tough. Headstrong.

  “I don’t want you watching that show,” I’d say.

  “You’re mean,” she’d say. “You’re not my friend.”

  “Damn right I’m not your friend,” I’d snap back. “I don’t want to be your friend! You don’t need no tall friend!”

  Man, listen to me! I was beginning to sound like Grandpa Thurman, sayin’ everything four times. But hell, that’s the way it was. It didn’t matter if she didn’t like it. I was there to be a daddy, and part of being a daddy is being tough—even when it makes your kid unhappy. Hell, especially when it makes your kid unhappy.

  Parents today don’t get it. They don’t want to be parents. They want to be cool. They want to be hip. They don’t want to be the bad guy.

  But guess what? Being the bad guy is your job. Like my mama used to say, “This ain’t a popularity contest.” My mama knew better. She wasn’t there to make me like her; she was there to shape me; she was there to make me a good person.

  “You’re the meanest daddy in the whole wide world,” Boops would say.

  Raising kids—it’s like going to war, brother.

  “That’s right, little girl. I’m mean as a junkyard dog. Get used to it.”

  Nothing came up, workwise. So I went on unemployment. It was not a good feeling, but I didn’t crank and moan. Cranking and moaning ain’t my style. And when I got with friends, I knew they didn’t want to hear it, either.

  Speaking of friends, A.V. was still gone, off in
college, and it’d be a couple of years before Big Nigger got back from the navy. But Kevin Carter was around, and sometimes I’d go visit him down at Dock’s Fish Fry, where he’d been made a manager. He was always good for a laugh and a plate of fish.

  Other nights I might hook up with my man Billy. He was beginning to get small jobs as a carpenter, but he hated working. And every time he met a new woman with a little money, he’d let the jobs slip away.

  “You got too much pimp in you,” I told him, but I’d say it with a smile. “You a lazy nigger.”

  “You’re right,” he said. It didn’t bother him.

  “God bless the child that’s got his own,” I said. “That’s my motto.” And it was. I was taught to do things for myself. But not Billy. Billy must have been missing the hard-work gene. He was more interested in handouts or crazy get-rich-quick schemes that never went anywhere.

  Then I heard about a job—for me—from a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy. It was a moving company thing: heavy lifting. And the way it worked, see, is you’d set your alarm clock for five in the morning, and you’d call to see if they had anything. If they did, you had to get there on your own—and usually it was way the hell out in the suburbs. But I didn’t care. I was grateful for the work. I’d go and meet the crew and we’d move people in and out of their homes and break for lunch and collect our cash and go home. Wasn’t much to it.

  Sometimes there was no work, though, and tired as I was, I’d get up and go down to the lumberyard a few miles from our place. Guys would get there at the crack of dawn, congregate on the corner, wait for pickups to come by and load up with able-bodied men. You never knew what kind of job you’d get on any given day. Could be demolition, could be raking leaves. Or could be nothing at all. Lots of days, I’d be out there all morning—rain, shine, sleet, snow—then come home with nothing to show for it and begin combing through those classifieds all over again.

  A man not working, that’s tough. If you’re not careful, the misery can poison the people closest to you. I was careful. I kept my feelings and frustrations to myself. As best I could, anyway.

  “You blue again, Bernard,” Rhonda would say. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “Nothing to tell. I got no work. Can’t find any. End of story.”

  “It helps to talk.”

  “Not me,” I said. “Never helped me.” I wasn’t lying. I’ve never been one to lay it out there. I think people talk too much. People talk to hear themselves or maybe to try to figure things out, out loud. I like to figure things out before I open my mouth.

  But the stuff I was feeling inside, it was not a good feeling. Felt like comedy was over for me. I had a family. I had to figure out how to make ends meet. This was about survival.

  This went on for several months. Then one day, sitting in a coffee shop, circling the classifieds with my gnawed-off pencil, I ran into this guy I knew, Stan. We used to play ball at the South Central Community Center, over on 83rd and Ellis. Stan was working there now, and thought they might be looking for an athletic director.

  “Would you be interested?” he asked.

  “I sure would,” I said. “I really need a job.”

  I went over the next day and met with Stan and a few of his colleagues at the center, and in the afternoon I took a physical and had my references sent over. Stan called me a few days later. “You got the job,” he said.

  I was elated. They put me in charge of the athletic program. I did everything. Football, basketball, boxing, dance. I was in charge of them all. And I was enjoying the hell out of it.

  For a while there, we had a normal life. Rhonda was working and finishing school and I was working and Je’Niece was learning her alphabet and we felt we were on our way. We’d visit with friends or with Rhonda’s family, and we’d double-date with Billy or Morris or Kevin Carter or Big Nigger and his new wife.

  Sometimes we’d drop Je’Niece off with Rhonda’s mother and go out to one of the local clubs to watch a little standup. I’d drink my beer slow, because we didn’t have much money, and I could always feel the waitresses eyeballin’ me. Cheap bastard at Table 17. Lucky if I get a nickel tip.

  I could feel Rhonda eyeballin’ me, too. She knew why we were there. She knew I wanted with all my heart to be a comedian, and I think it worried her. Maybe she didn’t want me to take it too seriously. Didn’t want to see me fail and get my heart broken. Better I should have a regular job like regular people.

  But the job at the community center didn’t last. For some crazy reason, Stan began to cool on me. People liked me there. I made work fun. And maybe Stan thought I was after his job, because suddenly he was doing his best to make me as miserable as possible.

  From the moment I showed up at work till the moment I packed my gym bag and left for home, he was all over my ragged ass. Do this. Do that. How come the balls ain’t put away right? Why’d class go long again? You think we runnin’ a charity here?

  Motherfucker. I thought we were friends.

  “What’re you gonna do?” Rhonda asked me one night.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Not much I can do. I can’t tell him I’m not after his job, because for sure he won’t believe that.”

  Couple days later, sumbitch called me into his office. “Bad news, Bern,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “City’s cutting back. They’re cutting back on lots of programs. I can’t afford to have you here no more.”

  “Maybe we can make this work,” I said. “I like it here.”

  “I’d love to help you out, Bern. But you know how it is. It’s not my decision.”

  Smarmy bastard. Trying to look like he was all broke up inside.

  “Okay,” I said, keeping my cool. “If anything changes, I’m around.”

  At the end of the day, I packed my bag, said good-bye to all my friends, shook hands with Stan, and headed home. I was steaming inside, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Plus my mama always told me, “When you get mad, Bern—only person you’re hurting is yourself.”

  Got rough now. I was frustrated and unhappy, and some of that poison was seeping out. I knew it was my fault, but I was weak. And that made it hard on Rhonda. She’d just started a new job, at the state mental hospital, and she liked it better. But she wasn’t making anywhere near enough to support our little family.

  The landlord kept coming by. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he needed the rent money. We’d caught up some, but we were still two months overdue.

  “What’re we gonna do, Bernard?” Rhonda asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I called my old friend Big Nigger and we went partying. I had a couple of beers and lit the place up with my comedy. “You the life of the party, Bern,” Big Nigger told me.

  “You got that right,” I said. “I’m a regular comedian. I should be at the Regal. Or the Cotton Club.”

  “You should be, brother,” Big Nigger said, “and you will be.”

  Rhonda was mad at me the next morning. I was just about to put her in her place, I was just about to say, “Who do you think pays the bills around here, woman?” But I caught myself. I wasn’t paying the bills. Rhonda was paying the got-damn bills—those she could manage, anyway. The rest was going unpaid.

  This went on for almost four months and led to the day that was the most degrading day of my life. No money, no prospects, no unemployment coming. And the rent going into its third month overdue.

  I called Big Nigger, said, “It’s me. I need you to take me to Seventy-ninth and Halsted.”

  Big Nigger swung by and drove me to Human Resources. “I can’t believe I’m applying for aid,” I said. Hell, if I wasn’t near tears.

  “One day you’ll be laughing about this,” he said.

  But I didn’t feel much like laughing. I didn’t feel much like talking, either. And Big Nigger didn’t push. We was just two close friends, driving along, alone with their thoughts, each with his own problems—like ev
eryone else on the planet.

  Big Nigger pulled up in front of the building. I looked at the big brass letters by the entrance. “Department of Human Resources. What the hell does that mean? I’m a resource?”

  He looked over at me, asked, “You gonna be okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and I slunk out of the car and went inside.

  The guard up front pointed me in the right direction, and the sign said to take a number. I took a got-damn number: number 142. The place was packed. Couldn’t even find a seat. People propped up against the walls, sitting on the floor, millin’ in the aisles.

  I looked around. Humanity. Jesus. All these crushed souls. I got to thinking about my wife and child, and how I was failing them. Big Nigger said I’d be laughing about this someday, but right then I was wondering if I’d ever laugh again.

  Times like that—you feel yourself slipping into the abyss, and you know you can’t go there. So I took a deep breath and made myself strong. And I did the only thing I knew was worth doing: making people laugh. That’s right, I decided I’d entertain the 141 other people in line ahead of me.

  “The joys of being broke, motherfucker,” I began.

  Heads whipped around. What’s that? I started talking about jobs, and life in the inner city, and how you know your little girl ain’t gonna have much in the way of Christmas that year. But I made it funny. And people were laughing. Letting it out.

  Couple of security guards came over to see what all the fuss was about, and pretty soon they were laughing, too.

  “I was gonna sing a little song I know, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? But somethin’ tell me this is the wrong place to sing it.”

  Even the clerks were paying attention. Mood in that whole place changed fast, like magic. That’s comedy for you.

  I kept going: “My landlord comes by. Tries to be nice. He tells me, ‘Bernard, I like you. I’ve always liked you. But the rent’s way overdue, and I’ve got people lining up around the block for this apartment.’ ‘Lining up around the block, motherfucker!’ I tell the sumbitch, ‘Who wants to live in this crack house?’ And he says, ‘You livin’ here, ain’t you?’”