I Didn't Ask to Be Born

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  DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Here are my dedication and acknowledgments. Which are almost like a will, except you don’t give any money or property away.

  I dedicate this book to Dorothy Height, whom I’m sure was put in the E-ZPass lane to Heaven. And I mean the whole book. I mean the jacket. I mean the page numbers. The dog-ears. All of it. Everything. Even when it goes into paperback.

  To James Moody for his sax solo on “I’m in the Mood for Love,” which inspired Eddie Jefferson to write the lyrics for what became “Moody’s Mood for Love,” made popular by the singer King Pleasure and which went on to become the national anthem of puberty. Thank you for providing the background music (in my mind) for Bernadette.

  To Robert Culp. I don’t want to say you were a genius because that’s such a usual thing to say. Whatever it was that you had, Bob, you were on the positive side of gray matter. The way you directed and rewrote Hickey & Boggs and turned it into a respected piece. How you played the wonderful Hoby Gilman in a black-and-white Western. When we were doing I Spy there were times when people would hear us ad-lib names like Stanley and Fred C. Dobbs. Stanley from Laurel and Hardy and Fred C. Dobbs, the character Humphrey Bogart played in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And there was your occasional side-of-the-mouth Sheldon Leonard imitation, which sounded like W. C. Fields, Kelly Robinson, and Alexander Scott. I remember the things we talked about and laughed about and smiled about.

  I’ll see you later.

  To D. L. Wilder for the inspiration to write about Bernadette Johnson’s father.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  All of my performances and writings have been inspired by my experiences, which, I believe, give an honest and truthful picture of life. My observations are not bread crumbs. They do not dissolve. They are on record, on film, printed in books, and found on the Internet. I am happy to share them. For this I was born. And I’m glad I was. Although in my early years, I was pitiful.

  ME AND MARCIA: YOU BET YOUR LIFE

  Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to read is a perfect example of the perfect guest on a talk show. At the time of this interview, I believed strongly that I had found the format for the rest of my career. The ratings would prove me wrong, I’m sorry to say.

  However, after thousands of hours of interviews of human beings who have something unusual in their lives—don’t we all—this young lady, with her southern accent and completely natural delivery, represents the most perfect guest and the most enjoyable. Not narcissistic. Not arrogant. Just the most fantastic guest.

  And so I am proud to present to you my most perfect moment as a television talk show host. (I leave out the game show part because I think that’s what caused the cancellation.)

  Bill Cosby: Marcia Brody.

  Marcia Brody: Hello.

  Bill Cosby: How are you?

  Marcia Brody: I’m fine.

  Bill Cosby: Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

  Marcia Brody: That’s right.

  Bill Cosby: Born?

  Marcia Brody: No, I’m originally from North, South Carolina.

  Bill Cosby: That’s what I thought. Yeah, I don’t know too many people from Cheltenham that talk like that.

  Marcia Brody: Well, I lived over twenty-five years down south.

  Bill Cosby: What was the name of the place?

  Marcia Brody: North.

  Bill Cosby: Nowith?

  Marcia Brody: No. N-o-r-t-h. North. It’s in South Carolina. In South Carolina, it’s a little town called Due West. And North—

  Bill Cosby: Wait, wait, slow down. In what—North Carolina?

  Marcia Brody: No, South Carolina. In South Carolina, there’s a little town called Due West. And North is ninety miles southeast of Due West. That’s right. North is south of the capital, Columbia. You understand?

  Bill Cosby: I was doing fine until you came out here. Then you started talking and I got lost. And I’m not in a car and I didn’t care to go anywhere. Now you have me someplace I have no idea where I am. I’m in the town North south of Due West.

  Marcia Brody: No, no.

  Bill Cosby: Well, where am I?

  Marcia Brody: It’s North, comma, South Carolina.

  Bill Cosby: In North South Carolina.

  Marcia Brody: North, comma, South Carolina.

  Bill Cosby: Comma is the name?

  Marcia Brody: No, no! You put a comma in between North and South Carolina.

  Bill Cosby: I’m in the state of South Carolina…

  Marcia Brody: Right, right.

  Bill Cosby: But I’m in a city called North?

  Marcia Brody: It’s not a city; it’s a town.

  Bill Cosby: A town. Okay, let me ask you this. Where is the railroad?

  Marcia Brody: Oh, the railroad is right in the middle of the town.

  Bill Cosby: That’s right. Now, stop there. Now, where are the black people?

  Marcia Brody: I don’t know. I mean they’re all around, I guess. I don’t know.

  Bill Cosby: They’re not all around. They’re either on this side of the track or that side of the track. Are we Due North or southwest?

  Marcia Brody: You’re in North.

  Bill Cosby: I’m in North.

  Marcia Brody: Right, South Carolina.

  Bill Cosby: Here we go again.

  Marcia Brody: Anyway…

  Bill Cosby: No, there’s no anyway. I’m sitting in my car and I’m lost. I want to find my people. And you’re trying to give me directions. Now, okay, let’s put it this way. Where is the river?

  Marcia Brody: Which river?

  Bill Cosby: Is there an East River?

  Marcia Brody: I don’t know.

  Bill Cosby: Is there a West River?

  Marcia Brody: I don’t even know where the river is.

  Bill Cosby: Now I know how you wound up in Cheltenham.

  Marcia Brody: Anyway, I come from a family of seven children and five of us are living and we’re all grandparents. So we all like to know what’s happening with everybody else. So I put out a family paper three times a year.

  Bill Cosby: Do you have a sports column?

  Marcia Brody: No, but you’ll be the headlines on my next paper. Oh, my goodness! Yeah!

  Bill Cosby: Why don’t you just send them the video?

  Marcia Brody: What video? What kind of video?

  Bill Cosby: The video of this show. You make a video of it.

  Marcia Brody: I don’t have a video of it.

  Bill Cosby: No. You’re correct. We don’t have one yet.

  Marcia Brody: Yeah. What? Are you making one?

  Bill Cosby: Yeah. I’m going to make a video for you. And then you can—

  Marcia Brody: Oh. Well, I have three sisters in South Carolina and I have a brother in Mississippi.

  Bill Cosby: You got a pen?

  Marcia Brody: Three sisters in South Carolina. A brother in Mississippi.

  Bill Cosby: What part of South Carolina?

  Marcia Brody: One’s in Charleston. One’s in Beaufort. One’s in Bishopville. Then I have a brother in Mississippi.

  Bill Cosby: What part?

  Marcia Brody: Oxford. You want to send it�
�� you want to send it to all my nieces and nephews?

  Bill Cosby: No, no, it’s too many of them. I’m not sending to the grandchildren either. See, I’ll just make it up for the ones in Charleston, Beaufort, and Bishop.

  Marcia Brody: Bishopville.

  Bill Cosby: Okay.

  Marcia Brody: And don’t forget my brother in Mississippi.

  Bill Cosby: No, Oxford, I got that.

  Marcia Brody: Okay, then how about my son in New Jersey? He lives near Trenton.

  Bill Cosby: How did you get somebody in New Jersey?

  Marcia Brody: Oh, he’s the one that made me the grandmother.

  Bill Cosby: Ah! How do you like that?

  Marcia Brody: Oh, it’s nice. Really is nice.

  Bill Cosby: They drop the baby off?

  Marcia Brody: Where?

  And so there you have it. The perfect onetime conversation. And I say “onetime conversation” because I don’t know what other subjects she could discuss if we brought her back. And, in fact, nobody said—maybe because the show didn’t last that long—we’ve got to have her back on the show. Then she would come back and it would be a nightmare because she would not be as wonderful as before. What she did the first time created an unbeatable mark, whether you’re high-jumping or doing the limbo.

  But I do believe it is great that we did this one thing together.

  BERNADETTE

  Those of you who are from, like, zero up to about forty-five years old, I’m going to tell you a story that happened in the fifties. It’s about a girl named Bernadette Johnson. But I want you to know I’m not bragging.

  When old people start to talk about “their time,” there is a tendency for young people to doze. And young people always say:

  That was before my time.

  But I just want young people to know we’re not bragging about what we had to do in those days. You’re not bragging when you talk about having to walk five miles in eight-foot snowdrifts. There’s nobody on the face of the earth born who woke up knowing that he or she had to walk five miles in eight feet of snow, with no shoes, who said:

  Oh goody! I’ll have something to tell young people.

  No, you don’t do that. You say the same thing anybody else would say:

  Why me?

  And your parents say:

  Because I had you.

  Now, when I was a kid, there was no law protecting us from old people. Let me put it to you this way. There was no saying:

  Well, he’s having a bad day.

  There was no psychologist, no psychiatrist, that anybody paid attention to, because crazy people didn’t want to be crazy. See, crazy people get mad if you say they’re crazy. They didn’t want you to know they were crazy, so they were always trying to hide the fact that they were crazy. But everybody knew they were crazy.

  Now, when I reminisce about the forties, I repeat, I am not bragging. I’m just relating my experience growing up and looking back on it today. It would be the same if Charles Lindbergh sat here to talk about his flight across the Atlantic in a single-engine plane. He’s not bragging; he’s telling the truth. He would’ve loved to have had a twin-engine jet, with instruments, and radar, and all of that, so he could’ve gone to sleep.

  When I was thirteen, there was a girl, many girls, actually, and they always seemed to be armed with some kind of question I wasn’t ready for. One girl, she was just gorgeous. So I went up to her. Now, in those days you would go up to a girl and ask:

  Would you like to go out with me?

  You didn’t need to do much more than that. Just walk up and say:

  Would you like to go out with me?

  We were thirteen so she would just say yes or no. Even if she said yes, you weren’t going to do much, because girls were taught to make the male behave. If you tried anything, they’d say:

  Stop!

  It was like Olympic boxing.

  Stop!

  Yes, okay.

  And our job was to try to sneak up on her, so that she didn’t really think we were touching or anything. But she would still say:

  Stop!

  And you would stop.

  So I went up to this one girl and said, “Would you like to go out with me?”

  And she said, “Why do you want to go out with me?”

  I said the only thing I was armed with:

  “Because I love you.”

  And I did. I did love her. I really did. That’s why I told her I loved her.

  She asked me, “What is love?”

  Now, this is a thirteen-year-old girl, asking me “What is love?” I’m not prepared. I just thought I would use the highest form of a feeling for her and she would “go out with me.” What’s wrong with her? Asking me “What is love?”

  “It means that I love you,” I finally said.

  “But what is love?”

  “I just love you.”

  And I was getting mad at her. I don’t love her anymore. Never mind. You ask all these questions, man.

  When I turned fourteen, there was another girl. She was beautiful. One of the really great-looking ones, and like all the great-looking girls, she had an ugly friend. So you had to talk to the ugly friend first and get permission to talk to the great-looking one. Eventually I got past the ugly friend and was able to talk to the great-looking one, and the first thing I said to her was “I would like to go out with you.”

  She said—very nicely, I remember—she said, “I would like for this to be platonic.”

  I didn’t know what the word meant. All I knew was that she said it like it was something she wanted. So I said, “Okay, great.”

  I went home and asked my father, “What does the word ‘platonic’ mean?”

  My father said, “It means y’not gonna get any.”

  “Get any what?” I wanted to know.

  “Good,” my father said, “you won’t miss it.”

  When I turned fifteen, I figured out what I was missing. And so, at the age of fifteen, there’s a whole lot of lying going on. Boys lying about who got some. They used to call it “some” in those days.

  Did you get some?

  Yeah, I got some.

  Then you’d help your friend lie and he would help you lie.

  You see him get some?

  Yeah, I saw him when he got some.

  Fifteen years old. When you turned fifteen, you’d give twenty cents to Bobby Franklin, who was eighteen. Bobby Franklin would go to the drugstore and get you a condom, which you then put in your wallet and kept in your back pocket. After a while, it makes a ring, a round indentation in the leather. If somebody asked you:

  Have you ever had any?

  You don’t even answer. You just take out your wallet and show them the round dent in the leather.

  Ten years later, I think I was about twenty-five, I found my old wallet in my mother’s house, in my bedroom, in the dresser drawer. When I took out the condom and opened it up, the thing just escaped, like a bird. It was so happy to be open, to fly away. Nothing but dust. Rubber dust that just exploded.

  Yeah, I got some.

  Oh yes. We were talking about Bernadette Johnson. Bernadette Johnson was fine. When somebody said Bernadette Johnson? Nothing else to say. She was fine. This word defines everything any fifteen-year-old boy would want in a girl.

  Fine.

  When you’re fifteen, sixteen years old, you say the word in a very specific way. You would narrow your eyes—the eyelids, you would narrow them. Not closed, but just narrow. And as you said it, the word would affect the facial muscles so that you made a face that would cause some people to think you were in great pain. Which actually, in a way, is the truth. The eyes are narrowed, and the face really does look like it’s in pain—a quiet facial reaction to pain.

  Fine.

  Pain. Not a bad smell. Pain. And then it’s like your head is on an axis. Your head swivels, goes from side to side, moving only about a quarter of an inch, then coming back about a quarter of an inch in the other dir
ection. And you have the top teeth biting down, gently over the bottom lip, and you’re letting air come out. Sort of like listening to the most famous recording of “Body and Soul” by Coleman Hawkins—Coleman Hawkins on the tenor saxophone, blowing and hearing air before the note.

  Fine.

  So when you talked about Bernadette, you started with:

  She…

  That’s when the eyes narrow. And the e in “she” becomes three e’s.

  Sheee…

  And then the head goes up as if you were sending your face to Heaven.

  Sheee iiisss…

  And then your face drops about two inches down, and the whole head drops down too.

  Fine!

  Now, it’s not just a male thing, being afraid to speak up for fear of being rejected. But in those days, girls were taught that it was “unladylike” to approach a boy.

  You will not—I don’t care how much you care for him, or how crazy you are about him—ever go up to him and say something.

  So being a fifteen-year-old girl back then, because of the culture, you had to wait for somebody to come and ask. And sometimes it was:

  Oh my God! Look at what’s coming to ask me!

  In those days, even though females had to wait for males to come to them, I would imagine the females could tell you the way they “got him.” But as a male, it’s very difficult and frustrating to imagine that one would have to sit and wait.

  I think where it was blown for the male was prepuberty, because in prepuberty little girls wanted to be friends. And because of the animal-gland secretions, without the opening up of the puberty, males could only think of aggressive behavior in terms of a chase, but not to chase to capture—to actually chase away. The poor female was left confused, because boys were knocking them down, knocking their books out of their hands. There were even these strange tales of having their braids being dipped in the inkwell of the desk of the boy sitting behind them. And this was supposed to be funny.

  But the boys had this aggression, to chase, to tease the female, leaving the female confused and saying that these boys are mean, and asking, “Why?” And I believe that there are grown women of whatever age who have scars still. Little scars, or maybe good-sized ones, on their knees and elbows, from some stupid boys, age five or six or seven, flying through the air like they’d turned themselves into some kind of human heat-seeking missiles. And I’m sure that some of these grown women, to this day, worry when they sit in a theater, that some male behind them is going to dip their hair in an inkwell and leap up and jump on their head.