Booker T: From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle (8 page)

The next day at school, my bizarre balancing act continued as I sat at my desk with the previous night’s drama playing in my head. While the kid next to me was probably thinking about what was for lunch or what Archie Bunker had said on last night’s episode of
All in the Family,
I was hyped up from being robbed at gunpoint by a lunatic.

Since a stable home life was not in reach, I looked for escape from the stress anywhere and any way I could find it. As much as school didn’t interest me, ironically Hartman Junior High provided one of my favorite all-time opportunities: I became drum major with the marching band. The drum major was the equivalent of the leadership role of the quarterback on the football team. It was one of the best times I had during those years.

Within a few weeks, I became adept at my position in the band and gained popularity around the halls. There is no doubt I would not have gone to school at all in those days if it weren’t for the band and, of course, Ms. Hughes’s ass.

My education outside of school continued to thrive. I still visited Billie all the time to see what was up. At her place in some fleabag motel room, I learned even more. Since there was really nothing for me to do there, she had me babysit some of her pimp boyfriends’ kids and things like that while she went out.

Billie was on the streets pulling tricks on dudes, and there I was with the cockroaches being hustled too. The only benefit was the twenty-four-hour marathons of X-rated movies flickering on the television. I had seen debauchery like this in adult magazines at a bookstore once before, when I had been called out by the front counter guy. Now I sat in that motel room warping my brain with garbage for hours.

Those weren’t the only lessons I learned at Billie’s. One time she asked me to pick up some weed for her and her boyfriend Butch. It wasn’t as if I had a choice, and I figured I could get a nice pinch out of the bag for myself along the way.

In an attempt to show off a little for Butch, I said, “Okay, but I want to drive your car to get it.”

She shrugged. “Sure, if you think you can handle it.”

Hell, yeah, I could handle it.

Butch gave me some cash, I grabbed the keys, and I was out of there for another Booker T adventure.

Wow, this is fuckin’ cool,
I thought as I raced to the closest hot spot in the area, ran in, and took care of business. Since I knew all the people in the area through Billie, I grabbed the sack without a hitch and made my way back. I was humming along to The Commodores’ “Too Hot Ta Trot” on the radio, having a good old time when I saw the cop.

The bag of weed hidden in my pants stunk up the car like a dead skunk. The flashing red and blue lights bounced off all the mirrors and made the interior of the car pop like a silent disco.
Now what?
I sat there sweating.

The cop approached. “Get out of the car, son, and hand it over.”

Huh?
I got out and acted as dumb as ever, the street code kicking in.

“Give it to me. I’ve been undercover and saw you come out of that drug house after you parked here for five minutes.”

I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.

“I’m telling you this just one more time, or I’m hauling your ass in. Give me the bag.”

Man, I couldn’t believe what was happening. The code of lies wasn’t working, so I reached into my pants and gave him the sack of weed.

The dude asked me all kinds of questions about the dealers and other cats setting up shop. “We’ve been running a sting on these places for weeks,” he said. “Now give us a name.”

No way. It was one thing to give myself up, but to rat out the people of the streets? It was not happening.

Acquaintances milled about, watching the drama unfold.

I was glad to provide the evening’s entertainment. “Man, I don’t know any of those guys in there. You walk up and put the money in the slot, and then you get your package and leave. You don’t know their names or even see their faces.”

Stone-faced, the cop stared right through me.

I explained as best I could in a nervous fourteen-year-old, lying-my-ass-off, stuttering voice.

He shook his head and took my name and information. Instead of cuffing and stuffing me, he said, “You’re free to go.”

How’s that?
I couldn’t believe it. Not wanting to wait for him to change his mind, I turned toward my car to get the hell out of there.

“Oh, you can have this back too.” Behind me, the officer held out the bag of weed.

I almost fell over. “For real?”

“Oh yeah, go ahead. You’re free.”

I know my face must have lit up in utter confusion. I took the bag, slowly turned, and walked away.

“Oh, but of course you know if you leave with that bag, I’ll have to arrest you right here and now for possession of marijuana, right?”

I stopped. “Well, then I’ll just dump it out and everything’s cool, right?”

“No, because if you do that, I’ll have to write you up for littering.” He smirked. “I guess you’ll have to figure out another way to get rid of that bag, won’t you?”

Huh?
He couldn’t have wanted me to smoke joint after joint until it was all gone. “What do you want me to do with it then? Eat it?” I joked.

He wasn’t laughing.

Shit.
This cop wanted me to consume an entire ounce of dry marijuana. My mind raced.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I weighed my options and considered taking the arrest. I stared at the bag, feeling queasy and completely embarrassed. I had never heard of anything like this.

Finally, I decided there was no way around it. It was time for a take-out vegetarian dinner.

I pinched inside that bag of dry seeds and stems and pulled a couple of clusters out. I looked at that cop one more time to see if he was messing around with me. Maybe I could still talk my way out of it.

The look etched on his face said,
Not a chance, kid. Get eating.

Like a horse with a feedbag around its neck, I slowly took this dirty weed and gagged it all down. I was eating my own new cereal, Booker T’s Desert-Dry Sticks and Rocks—
now with extra seeds!
It was completely horrendous and humiliating, but even with the cop and everyone else looking on and laughing, you best believe I swallowed the contents of that whole bag.

Then I walked to my car. The cop never checked if I had a driver’s license, which of course I didn’t. I drove away free, spitting my guts out and cursing that cop at the top of my lungs.

During the ride of shame back to Billie’s, I worried she and Butch would be mad that I had lost their weed due to my unexpected little meal.

To my surprise and relief, they got a kick out of the whole deal. “Boy, go get yourself some ice cream.” They chuckled. “You could probably use some dessert about now, right?” More laughter.

What a riot.

They let me off the hook, got themselves a bag from another place, and even let me smoke some to soothe my troubles. All things considered, aside from a sore throat, no real harm had been done.

Most importantly, I was free to see another day and had maintained the integrity of the code by not giving up any names. That cop may have won the battle, but I had helped win the war.

After that, I got to know Butch pretty well, and as I had with so many males who’d drifted in and out of my life, I looked to him as a role model. He was like a big brother to me. When Billie would take off to the waterfront to take care of business, as she did best, Butch would take me out on excursions. That’s when my real classes were in session.

Butch pulled up in his pristine white Cadillac, radio blasting the melodies of Willie Hutch, whose soulful sound of the streets tapped into the pulse of the black community. Butch’s favorite nightly routine was to go straight to the waterfront strip to check each of his traps, or the spots where his girls prowled for sex and scored him wads of cash. They were any number of places, not unlike the scenes I heard about at Carolyn’s waterfront bar: street corners, sleazebag motels, dilapidated clubs, drug houses, and stoops of abandoned buildings—the kinds of spots where junkies or homeless people would also be looking for handouts or pity.

The hardened and pathetic looks on people’s faces, the sound of the seagulls flying overhead, and Butch’s condescending commentary all came together like a crooked symphony.

“Look at these fuckin’ bums. They make me sick,” Butch said. “Don’t let that shit happen to you. Stay away from those hard drugs. They’ll string your ass out.”

Butch, like a fox hunter or a crab fisherman, would check what he had caught in each trap over the last couple of hours. That’s when things got really interesting. It was insanely shocking to witness the harsh reality of what happened to these women if they didn’t meet their quotas.

With my hands almost covering my eyes, I watched from the car as he swaggered to them one at a time to have a little chat. If the money was short, there was always trouble. I saw girls smacked sideways, jacked up against brick walls, or beaten to the ground. Butch did not care if it was forty degrees, hailing, or raining. Those girls had to stand out there from dusk till dawn to bring in what was expected.

They never talked back but promised to do better next time. As we would pull away and speed off, I’d see the tears and mascara run down their cheeks.

Butch cursed up a storm. “Dumb bitches better pull it together, or I’ll do it for them.”

Butch commanded respect, and the threats of what he would do if they didn’t pick up the pace were enough to scare the hell out of me. I could only imagine the horror they felt when they saw that white Cadillac and didn’t have their dues for the evening.

As perverse as it might sound, I have to admit the shock and awe of what I witnessed made my adrenaline rush.
Whoa, is this what I want to do?
I thought.
Yeah, I think I do.

I never saw Butch encounter Billie on the strip. I’m sure he avoided that on purpose. Thank God. There’s no denying I used to see my sister come home many a night busted up with a bruised cheek or a bloody lip. I never really knew if Butch was responsible, but Billie didn’t say a word and I definitely would not ask.

The whole scenario—the waterfront, the rides with Butch, and my sister—was an elaborate learning experience. That’s just it: Butch was teaching me. He saw me as a little disciple to be groomed. He always kept me strapped with a little cash of my own so I could feel the part and have a taste to bring me back for more. I think he saw me as himself when he was a kid and liked the idea of having a loyal pupil of the pimp lifestyle to follow in his platform-shoed footsteps.

Back then pimping was a full-time job. Image—character, poise, fashion—was everything. A consistent no-bullshit attitude determined the success of a wheeler and dealer, and Butch was all in. Butch’s style was right out of the old blaxploitation movies from the seventies.

Like a method actor, he constantly played the role, his mannerisms deliberate. And man, you should have seen that walk of his. A tried and true pimp limp is as calculated and rhythmic as anything you’ve ever seen: a slow glide with the left leg followed by a swift kick and thrust with the right. From head to toe and with every action, Butch was a pimping legend and master of the game.

We would go to the barber, and I would sit in the chair next to him listening to his philosophies while he got all groomed for the day. He had his long hair ironed straight with just a little flare of some curls at the end and his long nails meticulously manicured and painted with a high gloss. Meanwhile, I sat there with my chin resting on my hands, watching everything he did.

From my privileged place under Butch’s wing, I heard the other pimps in the barbershop exchanging random stories about their girls and talking about the pros and cons of the game. One bragged about having a white chick in his stable. He said of all his girls, she made most of the bread. All these black dudes got a big kick out of the fact that he was selling a white girl’s body for his profit. In their eyes, she was white gold.

I felt like Sinbad traveling the Seven Seas listening to salty pirates spinning tales of their conquering voyages. After being trapped in my little tiny comfort zones of Sunnyside and South Park for years under my mom’s protective watch, I was experiencing the real world through these pimps’ stories. This was far beyond what I had been exposed to while around my sisters. Now I was seeing it from the view of the men in charge of Carolyn’s and Billie Jean’s worlds.

Watching Butch’s showmanship influenced the way I acted at school. Even though I was still barely attending, when I did go I always thought of myself as being like Butch and his pimpin’ friends. Thanks to the cash he threw my way, I had the sweetest clothes—the hottest cowboy boots money could buy, designer bell-bottoms with the sharpest creases down the fronts, and entire dresser drawers of short-sleeved IZOD Lacoste shirts with the little crocodile on them. I even had a meticulously sprayed and maintained Jheri curl, which was the highest level of cool at the time. Compared to the other kids in their ratty jeans and untied sneakers, I felt like a man among children.

The other students were like, “Wow, what’s he into? Booker’s gotta be loaded.”

I had flash and balls and sauntered around like I owned the place. It was all a big game to me. I thought,
If I can fake my way through life, why the hell not?

That’s when I considered pursuing Butch’s offer to take on his career path. The only part I didn’t like and couldn’t see myself getting down with was beating the women. I still had nightmares over some of what I had seen. And sometimes I overheard Carolyn talking about some girl found dead in an alleyway or Billie mentioning a girl who never came home again. It was a lot to come to terms with.

As much as I may have fantasized about the grandiose ideas of running the streets like Butch, not once did I take him up on his offer. No matter how hard the dark side was pulling me, deep down I really wanted to do the right thing.

Sure, I saw riches and respect. It was a way of life that had lured in many a lost soul, but I also knew it did not always work out for guys as it had for Butch.