Booker T: From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle
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Authors: Booker T Huffman,Andrew William Wright
Published 2012 by Medallion Press, Inc.
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is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.
If you purchase this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 2012 by Booker T. Huffman with Andrew William Wright
Cover design by Adam Mock
Art direction by James Tampa
Edited by Emily Steele
Cover photography by Cody Bess
www.codybess.com
Mug shot photo compliments of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro
Printed in the United States of America
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1605424-68-2
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
To my parents, Booker T Sr. and Rosa Huffman, may they forever rest in peace; my sister Carolyn Jones; and my wife, Sharmell, and our beautiful twin babies, Kendrick James and Kennedy Rose Huffman.
1 From the Streets to the System
Like most, I first encountered Booker T. Huffman on
World Championship Wrestling
(WCW) one night while randomly flipping through channels. It was mid-1996, and the professional wrestling industry had started to regain momentum after a relatively dormant period following the boom of the eighties. The product was experiencing a unique metamorphosis and had sharpened its image with a razor blade edge. Gone were the cartoonish and overly kid-friendly characters made famous in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), such as Tito Santana, Koko B. Ware, and The Bushwhackers.
Now there were gritty, seemingly dangerous performers like the beer-pounding “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Big Van Vader, and Sycho Sid Vicious, each who could and sometimes did leave an opponent legitimately injured in the ring. Even the heroic “say your prayers and take your vitamins” Hulk Hogan redefined himself as the black-clad, sinister Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Both WCW and WWF clashed every Monday night on cable TV and dominated the ratings with a newfound older audience of teens and twentysomethings. Professional wrestling was once again a hot commodity, and Booker T was right in the middle of the surge to the top.
Booker and his real-life brother Lash, known as Stevie Ray, performed as the tough-as-nails street-based tag team Harlem Heat. Wearing bright-red vinyl outfits with flames sewn up the sides, they were big and broad, loud, and in your face. While Booker and Lash portrayed menacing thugs who would send most people running for their lives, what stole the show was Booker’s in-ring finesse. Booker combined long, sweeping karate kicks with agility and speed you would expect to see in a graceful ballet at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center.
It was no surprise when Booker gradually separated from Lash and launched into a singles career, ensuring his rise to international stardom in both WCW and the WWF, now WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). He won virtually every championship the organizations offered, including six individual world championships.
However, the history of Booker’s meteoric rise in sports entertainment is a mere supplement to the story of his origins from the unforgiving streets of Houston. The following narrative documents Booker’s remarkable and turbulent life from early childhood until the beginning of a career in WCW in his early adulthood. It chronicles a young man’s tragic loss and struggle to survive, his troubled choices and their consequences, and the proverbial light at the end of the very dark tunnel his life became.
Booker T: From Prison to Promise
is a true story of calamity and redemption, and it is one you will never forget.
—Andrew William Wright
FROM THE STREETS TO THE SYSTEM
“Freeze! Hold it right there. Hands over your head.”
I stood petrified, only one thought crashing through my mind.
Now what?
A nightmare was unfolding before my very eyes. I couldn’t grasp that it was actually happening, but it was—and mere feet from my front door. I could not concentrate on anything other than those drawn guns.
Two officers threw me to the ground. A knee smashed into my back, and my wrists were slapped into cuffs. One policeman underhooked my arms and picked me up while reading me my rights.
Defiantly, I did what I had been taught since childhood: I played ignorant. “Hey, man, what’s goin’ on? What’s all this about?”
The one thing flashing through my brain was the advice of my sister Billie Jean, a streetwise hustler as cool as they came:
Junior, once you tell a lie, you’ve always got to stick to that first lie.
Even in the back of the cop car, I insisted, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
I was convinced no one could identify me. I was wrong. When they put me in a lineup at the station, I was instantly picked out.
Well, so much for ignorance. As it turned out, it wasn’t even a stranger who identified me but, of all people, my boy Zach’s girlfriend, who had decided to cash in on the five-thousand-dollar reward and rat us out.
I was doomed.
Even without Robin’s big mouth in the mix, it would have been just a matter of time before my boys and I were caught. After all, we had painted ourselves into a corner within the Houston metropolitan grid.
I was thrown into Harris County Jail with a bail of a hundred thousand dollars. I needed at least ten percent of that to get out. In other words, I was going nowhere and had no options.
Billie Jean visited me and acted like my counsel, giving me sisterly advice from her own brushes with the law. “I’m going to have my lawyer come and take care of you, Junior.”
I listened to every word because, for some reason, she had been literally untouchable.
“Keep your head up, baby,” she said before she left.
Even with Billie’s encouragement, I felt like a lost child, especially while I was being interrogated. Just as you’d see on television, I sat at a small desk and the detectives did that good cop, bad cop thing. One acted like my friend, offering me creature comforts: “Do you want a smoke and some coffee?” The other made threats: “You’re going to tell me what I need to know, or you’re going away for a very long time.”
I wasn’t buying it. With a cold expression, I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It wasn’t me.”
I almost got away with it. The consistency of my story and my refusal to cave made the prosecution’s case a little more difficult to develop. Since I refused to take a plea, they had the burden of proof in the event of a trial.
While I feigned innocence, I bided my time in Harris County. To be honest, I didn’t handle jail well at all. In fact, I had small anxiety attacks from the confinement.
I called Billie Jean, crying for her to get me out.
“Just calm down,” she said. “The lawyer’s working on things. Just make the best of your time.”
As the weeks became months, I slowly but surely grew accustomed to jail and the daily routines of meals, recreation, showers—and obsessing over freedom. Every night in my bunk, I would fold my arms behind my head, stare at the gray concrete ceiling, and replay my arrest.
It was April 9, 1987, a fairly normal, sunny noontime in Houston. I went out with my girl, Red, a beautiful black-Asian sweetheart, for a romantic meal. After she and I parted ways, I met Zach at MacGregor Park. We spent the rest of the day doing our thing, selling and smoking weed. As the cool dusk settled in, I decided to head to my own place and crash for the night.
When I pulled up and parked at Willow Creek Apartments, something felt a little strange. Except for the wind rustling in the trees, the complex was eerily quiet. It looked deserted. As I walked toward my unit, it seemed as if a nuclear bomb siren had gone off hours before and I had missed it and been left alone to face the impact.
I knew it was time to calmly get into the apartment. A couple of regular-looking guys passed, but I didn’t think much of it. As my little patio area came into view, I picked up the pace.
Something caught my attention. The giant maple tree that stood like a protective guard outside my front walk looked different in every way. I stopped and stared, and the sight chilled me.
From every imaginable angle, a swarm of cops materialized, looking like riot control for an unruly crowd of a hundred or more. The only things missing were helicopters buzzing overhead and SWAT team members rappelling down ropes. Every single cop was screaming. They engulfed me, pointing guns at my face, ready to blow my brains out.
When that million-mile-long arm of the law smashed me down to the ground, I knew this was it. I was taken straight to Harris County Jail for the beginning of a long and unforgettable journey.
I went through central booking, got my fingerprints taken, and stood for my mug shot.
It won’t be long till this joke ends,
I thought as the camera snapped, capturing my ridiculous smile.
After the formalities, I was unceremoniously thrown into the general jail population. I shrugged it off.
Jail? How bad can it
be?
I had always been able to adapt to my environment, and jail would be no exception.
The thirty-by-thirty-foot block had a television, small windows that let in very little sunlight, and several tables situated in the middle. My individual six-by-six-foot cell with its big iron door was one of about fifteen in the block. Everyone had a cell mate, or celly, and mine was a Spanish guy from Chicago named Peter, who was in for a murder beef. Peter was a cool cat, and we kicked it and got to know each other pretty well. We did a lot of push-ups together, which was inspiring to me because he was one big, muscular dude. I had a lot of respect for him.