Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic Page #5

---

it's Pamela there

and here's Richard

with this other woman.

There was a prompt card,

and it had plastic flowers on.

I shoved it

in the middle of the cake,

to blur out Pam and Richard.

A lot of people were surprised

that Richard married Deborah,

because it did come out of,

sort of come out of nowhere.

There were many women

in Richard's life.

I recognised and he told me this,

that they wouldn't be around

that long.

This is about the time

I'd been married,

and it was really exciting

because I really am trying,

I really am trying.

I'm telling you I'm f***ing trying,

OK?

But it's hard to wake up and see the

same person all the f***ing time.

Richard had, I done forgotten now.

Eight, nine, 12 wives. I don't know.

But I know that all of them was what

they was to him when they was.

Was once was.

Richard had a pimp's mentality.

He pretends like he's controllable.

He's like a spider.

That's to lure you in till you get

caught in the web.

Richard had a compulsion

to be married,

because he didn't want to be alone.

But once he would marry,

the magic would be off.

It would be gone because he won. If

he wanted you, you had that power.

And usually that would

just about last until he got you.

And then it would be time to go

after another woman.

And that was the game with Richard.

Then the whole

fun of the game was,

"How do I get this b*tch

out of my house?"

I was the best man at a wedding

with Jennifer in Hana, Maui.

And the next morning after

the wedding, I was in my room,

and about seven in the morning,

there is a knock on the door.

I go and open the door,

and there's Richard Pryor.

I said, "Richard, what are you doing

here at seven in the morning?"

And he says, "I want a divorce."

No, I'd like to die like my father

died.

Right, my father died f***ing.

He did. My father was 57 when

he died, right. The woman was 18.

My father came and went

at the same time.

Would you like to introduce our next

guest? Yes, who? Your grandmother.

Oh, man, don't do that.

I'm told that you run

a pool hall. Yes, I do.

Did Richard spend much

time in the pool hall?

Yes, he used to come down there

and shoot pool after school.

They used to cuss in the pool

room before she took over.

Now the language is, "Why you..."

I keep them in their place.

See, I'm an old lady

and I stay in old ladies place

and I respect them young men,

and they must respect me, isn't that right?

That's exactly right.

APPLAUSE:

I remember meeting Marie Carter.

She's a grandmother

that you see in books.

She had the long white hair

and she was dressed very smart.

I bow to her. And this old b*tch

hit me in my chest so hard.

Boom!

And I felt the breath leave out

and before I let her hit me again,

I rushed and started choking.

And he started laughing at me.

She'd laugh like it was

the funniest sh*t she had seen.

And Richard stood to the left and he

said, "That's my grandmother, man."

I was born Richard Franklin Lennox

Thomas Pryor III.

I got names from pimps

and gangsters.

Grew up seeing my mother

go into rooms with men

and my aunties go into rooms

with men.

I remember tricks used to come

through our neighbourhood.

That's where I first met

white people.

They come down through our

neighbourhood to help the economy.

Man, but I met nice white men.

"Hello, little boy, is your mother

home? I'd like a blowj*b."

When he told us about it, we

laughed. "Get the f*** out of here.

"Your mother sucked dick?"

We didn't really grasp it.

And when you realise it really

happened. It wasn't jokes.

It makes us, if you didn't have that

experience go, "What is that like?"

And how do you maintain love?

His uncle and his daddy were pimps.

I'm talking about not no play pimps,

real pimps.

Them guys would pimp a Barbie doll.

"B*tch, go out and get the money."

The grandmother was the madam

in chief of the whole operation.

Basically, keep the girls in line.

Keep the johns in line.

That's when I realised who she was.

In terms of this is the whole house,

she runs everything.

You know, she lived in the south

side in Peoria

and she could sleep with

the door unlocked.

People knew you're not coming

up in this house.

You know if you do come up in the house,

you know what's going to happen.

The grandmother was

the matriarch of the family,

upon whom everybody else's

survival depended.

She was Richard's nurturer,

the punisher, the disciplinarian.

Everything rolled into one.

My grandmother would wake my ass up,

you know.

"Get your ass, put your hand up.

Don't you run from me.

"Don't you run... from... me."

You were 15 years old when your first

child was born? Yeah. Yeah.

How could you... It was fun.

And then after she was born?

I didn't know my father was

making love to her too.

And I was standing in the dining

room crying.

My mother said,

"What's wrong with the boy, Bucky?"

My father said,

"Ain't nothing wrong with him.

"He got some girl pregnant."

I think, when you grow

up around a bordello, you see

people at their very core, in a way.

There's no facade,

there's no masks on.

I don't know what it was

that made me that way,

that could laugh at anything.

Nothing was too sad, some humour

could not be found in it.

His sensitivity made him

so brilliant as a comedian.

But some things were so painful

that he wanted to be somewhere else.

I think if you are a sensitive

type that it...

that you self-medicate.

It's easier to self-medicate.

I snorted cocaine for about 15

years. I must have snorted up Peru.

He'd do a line and drink some

Courvoisier. That's lunch.

Go back to work.

Watching Dad doing drugs, you know,

doing some lines or smoking...

those were things

that you didn't really question.

Listen, I was doing so much,

I embarrassed cocaine dealers.

They would say,

"Richard, man, God damn.

"Well, how much do you want?"

"Kilo.

"Just for the weekend."

A lot of people came to the house

to play cards, hang out.

For the drugs, of course,

because he bought coke by the key.

Low-lifes, drug dealers,

card people, hookers.

I don't like cocaine, I love it.

And that's why

I have to stay away from it.

I enjoyed it for a long time.

Maybe you want to change

your whole life

and you swear tomorrow

I'll never do this again.

Success doesn't change you.

It only magnifies

who you've been all your life.

And success magnified

the kid from Peoria with Richard.

But now he had endless money,

endless fame.

When he would betray himself,

which he did with some frequency,

he thought that that betrayal

belonged to everyone else.

If he was in a particularly

good mood

and he was being nice to everybody,

he could charm

anyone on the set and then he would

go home that night and stew

and say, "What kind of Tom am I?

I'm everybody's black pal."

And the next day, he would be mean.

Richard was about

13 different personalities.

Nine of them you could deal with.

But them other four could be

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes