Booker T: From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle by Booker T Huffman, Andrew William Wright
Authors: Booker T Huffman, Andrew William Wright
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of there the next morning, knowing Robert Hill would never, ever come around and mess with the Huffmans again.
Back at the house, life was getting more insane. Things were heating up Texas summer style, and we were completely out of water. Bonita and I thought about it a while and made a plan. We looked around the house and gathered fifteen water bottles to fill at the local gas station.
But there was an issue. The gas station was only a quarter of a mile down the road, but we had too many bottles to carry.
We’re fucked,
I thought. Or were we?
Over the last year or so, our family had come and gone and left us behind, taking everything in the house with them as they went. Interestingly, though, one item remained: my mom’s old Chevy Malibu. I guess my siblings thought it was junk, but I didn’t. I saw it as the last real piece of my mother still standing and ready to help us on our way.
The Malibu had definitely seen better days. Even though it ran, it could not go in reverse. That little detail did not make a bit of difference to me. Bonita and I ran out and loaded the backseat with the bottles, and I cranked up the engine, which backfired so loudly people must have thought there was a shooting. Down the street we went on a wing and a prayer.
The whole way there, I kept thinking,
What am I doing? I’m not old enough to drive, and here I am risking life and limb for the both of us—just to get water!
That rickety old car made good to the station, though, and we bailed out and commenced filling our containers. I felt totally demoralized and wondered what people thought of these two kids jumping out of a car and filling up one bottle after another. In the end, what they might have thought didn’t matter. The important thing was that we now had something to drink and wash ourselves with.
When we had filled every container, we were ready to go. Since the car couldn’t go in reverse, I asked Bonita to get in and steer while I pushed the car backward. She maneuvered a K-turn. Then, out of breath, I jumped in and started it up. We blasted off with that backfire and puttered all the way back to our lifeless hovel.
We made it home unscathed with our cache of gas station tap water. You would’ve thought we’d just scored a full-scale dinner with trimmings and all the soda we could drink.
Even with a success like that to keep us going, our hope faded again. Something had to give. So many mortgage bills had gone unanswered, and the bank had sent dozens of foreclosure and eviction warnings. Finally, after seeing all this, Carolyn stepped in and brought us to her place until she could decide with the family what to do with us.
It was at this point that I realized just how serious everything was. For the first time in my young life, depression started to settle in. I was spinning with confusion. Bonita stayed fairly calm and collected, though like me she probably wanted to break down.
I thought about how my sisters had battled with Aunt T. over our custody, claiming they wanted to keep the family together. If the past year had been any indication of what they meant by keeping us together, I would have rather run away and hopped on a train car or something. At least the hobos probably would have shared their rotten, oily sardines with me.
When my family finally did sit down and figure out what to do with us, their idea was even worse than having us stay at Mom’s abandoned house.
I would go and live with my brother Danny, who had been gone since Mom’s passing, while Bonita would go off to Carolyn’s. I could not believe it. They were splitting up the two closest members of our family. I was sick to my stomach. My emotions were almost completely burned out, and I was barely holding on.
Even though I was brokenhearted to part with Bonita, I really did love the idea of living with Danny. I had always wanted to be just like him. He was the one of us who had gone off to college and gotten himself a nice job. He had a
Back at the house, life was getting more insane. Things were heating up Texas summer style, and we were completely out of water. Bonita and I thought about it a while and made a plan. We looked around the house and gathered fifteen water bottles to fill at the local gas station.
But there was an issue. The gas station was only a quarter of a mile down the road, but we had too many bottles to carry.
We’re fucked,
I thought. Or were we?
Over the last year or so, our family had come and gone and left us behind, taking everything in the house with them as they went. Interestingly, though, one item remained: my mom’s old Chevy Malibu. I guess my siblings thought it was junk, but I didn’t. I saw it as the last real piece of my mother still standing and ready to help us on our way.
The Malibu had definitely seen better days. Even though it ran, it could not go in reverse. That little detail did not make a bit of difference to me. Bonita and I ran out and loaded the backseat with the bottles, and I cranked up the engine, which backfired so loudly people must have thought there was a shooting. Down the street we went on a wing and a prayer.
The whole way there, I kept thinking,
What am I doing? I’m not old enough to drive, and here I am risking life and limb for the both of us—just to get water!
That rickety old car made good to the station, though, and we bailed out and commenced filling our containers. I felt totally demoralized and wondered what people thought of these two kids jumping out of a car and filling up one bottle after another. In the end, what they might have thought didn’t matter. The important thing was that we now had something to drink and wash ourselves with.
When we had filled every container, we were ready to go. Since the car couldn’t go in reverse, I asked Bonita to get in and steer while I pushed the car backward. She maneuvered a K-turn. Then, out of breath, I jumped in and started it up. We blasted off with that backfire and puttered all the way back to our lifeless hovel.
We made it home unscathed with our cache of gas station tap water. You would’ve thought we’d just scored a full-scale dinner with trimmings and all the soda we could drink.
Even with a success like that to keep us going, our hope faded again. Something had to give. So many mortgage bills had gone unanswered, and the bank had sent dozens of foreclosure and eviction warnings. Finally, after seeing all this, Carolyn stepped in and brought us to her place until she could decide with the family what to do with us.
It was at this point that I realized just how serious everything was. For the first time in my young life, depression started to settle in. I was spinning with confusion. Bonita stayed fairly calm and collected, though like me she probably wanted to break down.
I thought about how my sisters had battled with Aunt T. over our custody, claiming they wanted to keep the family together. If the past year had been any indication of what they meant by keeping us together, I would have rather run away and hopped on a train car or something. At least the hobos probably would have shared their rotten, oily sardines with me.
When my family finally did sit down and figure out what to do with us, their idea was even worse than having us stay at Mom’s abandoned house.
I would go and live with my brother Danny, who had been gone since Mom’s passing, while Bonita would go off to Carolyn’s. I could not believe it. They were splitting up the two closest members of our family. I was sick to my stomach. My emotions were almost completely burned out, and I was barely holding on.
Even though I was brokenhearted to part with Bonita, I really did love the idea of living with Danny. I had always wanted to be just like him. He was the one of us who had gone off to college and gotten himself a nice job. He had a
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