Booker T: From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle (9 page)

My sister Gayle once had a small-time pimp named Gene. He was a real rags-to-riches brother. Starting with nothing, he set up his business with about four or five girls. Soon he was tricked out with the flashy jewelry and the Cadillac. For quite a while, Gene was a man about town, really making it. The dude was an impressive success. Then out of nowhere, he just kind of disappeared without a trace.

Well, a couple of years later, we were driving around and came up to a red light and there was this guy looking horrible, dressed in rags, propped up on cardboard boxes against the wall. “Hey, man, can I have some money for food?” he said. “I’m cold and starving. Please help me.” It was a pathetic sight.

It took me a second to recognize this guy with his overgrown beard and those glazed-over eyes, but the shape of his face and the sound of his voice were clear. It was Gene. This man who had seemed to have it all figured out was curling up for the night in a little shanty made of boxes and garbage.

When I later asked Butch what had happened, he told me Gene had committed the cardinal sin of getting high on his own supply. While making additional money selling drugs, Gene had taken them himself. In the end, the drugs had taken him. Having made a bad choice, he now had to live or die by panhandling on the street. Witnessing the rise and fall of Gene scared me straight out of pursuing the hustling game.

Life was turbulent with Carolyn at the Seashore and with Billie and Butch. I accomplished very little during my second year in eighth grade and the following year in ninth grade. Any ambition for the future became laughable, and my optimism was growing thin. I needed a change of venue, both physically and mentally.

My sister Bonita had graduated from Jesse H. Jones High School the previous spring and had quickly gotten to work. She had a great job at a mortgage brokerage in Dallas and had recently moved into an apartment with her new boyfriend.

I decided to say good-bye to Carolyn for a while and move in with my aunt Vallia Huff, who lived near our old house in South Park. Living with the Huffs seemed like the perfect alternative at the time. Vallia wasn’t really my aunt but was the sister of my old stepfather, Robert Hill (yes, the television thief).

Vallia was married to a great guy named Isaac Huff. She was also my boy Fran’s mother, which made the whole arrangement extremely comfortable. I had always thought of the Huffs as my own family. It almost felt like I was coming home.

To me, the Huffs had the perfect life. They got along like a real family should, had a great house and a nice car, and most importantly made me a part of it all. They took me in, fed me, and supported my new academic goals.

Although the Huffs lived in South Park in the Jesse H. Jones school district, where Lash and Bonita had gone, I wanted to go to another school. Jack Yates Senior High School, located in the neighboring suburbs of Third Ward, had the best reputation for basketball, football, and my main interest—the band. I decided to get all the necessary registration papers and did what any enterprising and creative sixteen-year-old in my position would do: I lied about my address.

Those were the days when you could manipulate the system without much difficulty. Unfortunately for me, after getting into Yates and making a beeline for the sign-up sheet for the band to settle back into the role of drum major, I was hit with some devastating news. Unlike my previous walk-on experience, the method of operations at Yates was much different. Apparently, a prospective drum major had to earn the role, like a varsity spot on the football team. I was informed that process could take around two years.

Damn. Two years?
I thought. Patience had never been one of my virtues. I was not interested in waiting around, so I gave up that idea. As I had during my junior high years, I aimlessly wandered the halls of Jack Yates and picked and chose which classes, if any, to attend.

At the Huffs’ house, too, I had one foot out the door. At first I had been completely invested, thinking,
Man, I’ve never had a family life like this.
But the fact that we weren’t true family sometimes bothered me. I could not completely accept the Huffs in my heart. At night in bed, I stared at the ceiling feeling depressed and alone.
This isn’t my father. This isn’t my family or my lifestyle.
The Huffs were this bonded, regular family, void of the drama of my sisters’ comings and goings. These people had meals together and spoke about each other’s days and things of that nature. It was alien to me.

I had thought these kinds of interpersonal dynamics only occurred in television shows like
The Brady Bunch
or something. But this was commonplace in the Huff household, and it left me feeling at odds and uncomfortable. The black cloud that had formed when Bonita and I had been left alone in that vacant house still stormed inside me. Nothing in the Huffs’ home was really mine, and I developed an abiding feeling that it would all go away at any moment. I prayed everything would just remain as it was, but the fear of abandonment was always there.

Meanwhile, the world of street hustling echoed in my thoughts and at times was a huge distraction. The Huffs were oblivious to the things I had seen and been a part of, and that was probably for the best.

Products of our different environments, Fran and I were at opposite ends of the spectrum. While he was studying and preparing for college, I was dreaming of making fast money. Hearing about my escapades was the last thing Fran needed while he geared up for his next chemistry class or English exam.

Although I was torn between two worlds, I did my best to stay on the straight and narrow. I mean, sure, I had thoughts of pimping out girls and making wads of dough, but I didn’t form an actual plan for doing it. Instead, in 1981 when I was sixteen, I got into the huge scene of choreographed street dancing known as pop locking. I’d been a longtime fan of the TV show
Soul Train
with Don Cornelius, and I could not get enough of the cool, synchronized moves they were doing. The music had such a rhythmic flow that there was no resisting the urge to get up and dance.

Years before, in the midseventies, I had seen a group called The Lockers. They were amazing and totally grabbed my imagination. The seven of them had matching costumes, and their rapid-fire and fluid jumps, twists, splits, kicks, and hat flips became a huge sensation. Two of them would go on to even bigger fame. Fred Berry became the memorable character of Rerun on ABC’s
What’s Happening!!
and Toni Basil went on to sing “Mickey,” the number-one pop hit in 1982.

Inspired, I was more than ready to assemble my own group. Along with three others, I formed The Remote Controls and performed not only in Battle Out contests on the streets with other kids but also at our high school talent shows. I choreographed all the routines to songs by artists like Kraftwerk, Soul Sonic Force, and Herbie Hancock. We even wore matching silver vinyl and rubber outfits. (They were actually those jogging suits designed to induce heavy sweating for weight loss.) For the talent shows, we cut the house lights and put on a strobe for maximum effect. We blew the kids in the auditorium away.

The time I had spent as junior high drum major contributed to the success I enjoyed with The Remote Controls. That role had taught me rhythm, style, and grace in performance, which translated perfectly into some of the many exciting moves in my pop locking repertoire.

Now that I had a new outlet of expression, my disappointment over no longer being a drum major was gone. I was feeling confident like never before and enjoying girls’ attention. One in particular had my attention too.

Angela was a cute, light-skinned black girl who was an eighth grader at Hartman Junior High, where we’d taken notice of each other the previous year. It hadn’t taken long for us to begin passing notes in the halls and start hanging out on occasion, although we never dated each other exclusively.

As my first year at Yates was ending, Hartman was having its last dance before summer vacation and I was definitely going. Sure, I didn’t even go there anymore, but everyone crashed dances at all the area schools back then. I remember being at the dance and making the rounds seeing what was up with acquaintances, including Angela of course. The funny thing is that while I was keeping my eyes on her, others at the dance were doing the same and took notice of me.

“Hey, motherfucker, what are you doing here?”

The words came from behind me, but I recognized Riley Smith’s voice. Before I even had time to turn, Riley, Ernest, and a couple of other dudes surrounded me. I hadn’t seen them since our eighth grade suspension two years before, but I knew things were picking up where they had left off. Suddenly I was in a hard shoving match with Riley, spilling through the crowd to the doors leading outside. Since it was a warm spring night, the dance had an outdoor section too. Just as we found ourselves out near the gate to the parking lot, things escalated.

I threw a punch and cracked Riley square in the jaw, but that didn’t stop the others from swarming and overpowering me with fists and kicks. They even threw me over the gate onto the pavement of the parking lot. I landed hard on my ass and elbows.

As I was trying to stand up and gain my composure, the campus security guard ran up and tried to separate all of us. We all hightailed it out of there in different directions. After making it a few blocks away, I looked down at myself. My shirt was all torn up, my tie was muddied, and my elbows were skinned.

“Those motherfuckers,” I mumbled as I walked home.

I’ll get those assholes.
The thought was recurring.

In the end, though, I never saw the Smiths again.

Angela and I entered an on and off relationship. By the time she was about fifteen and I was seventeen, we’d been sexually active together for a while. Back then, at our houses, privacy was always desired but never guaranteed.

One day after school, the Huffs were out and the two of us were alone. We decided to run to Vallia’s nice, big, king-size bed. We went to town in it.

On our fourth or fifth session, wouldn’t you know it? The door swung open, and there was Aunt Vallia, shocked as hell to see us there. She turned and stormed out, not saying a word. She didn’t need to.

Angela jumped up, grabbed her clothes, and ran into the bathroom.

I rolled over, put my clothes on, and went to do some damage control with Vallia.

To my surprise, she did not say much. “Don’t ever let me catch you doing that shit in my bed again, okay?”

It was a reasonable request. I agreed, and then we had a laugh about it. Aunt Vallia was one cool lady.

Unfortunately, that was when and where all existing fun with Angela ended permanently.

A few weeks later, Angela’s grandmother called and asked me to come to her house. Anxiety filled my stomach.
This can’t be good,
I thought.
I hope this isn’t what I think it is.
I walked upstairs to ask Fran for a ride.

As I rode the few miles to Angela’s house, Fran sat in the driver’s seat, prodding me a little over the situation and trying to joke around. I was in no mood. I stared out the passenger window, watching the trees go by and the pale sunlight flickering through the branches behind. It was a drive I had ridden a hundred times before, but this was far different. My mind raced as we turned onto Belford and crossed over the railroad tracks.

When we finally pulled up, I felt like a death row inmate about to walk a long corridor toward the electric chair.

Fran shook my hand, leaving me with some words of encouragement. “Hey, man, better you than me.” He laughed.

I flashed him a wide-eyed look of death. “Real fuckin’ funny.” I slammed the door and marched up the front walk.

The door opened. “Booker, she’s pregnant.” Angela’s grandmother lowered the axe. Standing about five foot three inches tall, the heavyset woman glared at me, the whites of her eyes contrasting with her dark skin.

“Huh?” Although it was exactly the news I had been afraid of, it was baffling.

Angela was not even there. I knew she had already been given the business, and now it was my turn.

“So,” she said, “what do you intend to do? You need to consider doing the right thing and marrying Angela. You’ve got to bring this child into the world the right way.”

Whoa.
This lady was going straight for the jugular.
Marriage? Baby? Not a chance. Not me, not now.
I scrambled for answers and excuses. “But I don’t have a job,” I muttered.

“Get one.”

Damn. I was sweating. There was no way I was marrying Angela. In fact, I was not even convinced the baby was mine. We had both been seeing other people. I felt like I was being cornered into something that was not my responsibility. Besides that, I was not ready for it. I still had many years of independence and partying to experience before fatherhood.

With the issues I had rolling around in my head over the early deaths of my own parents and my unstable life with my siblings, the concept of parenthood was way too much for me.

“I have to go,” I said and literally ran out of there.

Afterward, I stopped speaking to Angela and never called her. If she tried to reach me, I simply didn’t take the calls. I just hoped she would get the picture and go away. I wanted as much distance from her as possible.

When it came time for school to start back up, I decided not to go. Over the course of my next year, if I actually did show up, it was just to hang out and get into trouble. I faced the fact that Booker T. Huffman was not cut out for academics, so why continue to waste time?

I made the choice to quit and felt a freedom I never had before. Gone was the nagging sense that I always had to be a part of that system. I felt like a thousand-pound weight had suddenly been lifted from my shoulders, and it was amazing.

That was it for my scholastic career. Even though I was the only one in my family who did not finish school, it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I felt like a man, doing my own thing with no one to answer to. I was the master of my own destiny. The possibilities seemed endless.