Booker T: From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle (19 page)

One thing we agreed about early on was to keep separate and not let the fact that we were brothers be a reason to team up. We even kept our brotherhood from the public so that when we were billed to wrestle each other, which we often were, the people thought we were just two random wrestlers going at it. Our matches usually stole the show due to our years of chemistry and the fact that we had both swiped every cool move we could from WWF shows on TV.

Being adversaries was fun, and it was just like wrestling around when we were kids, but one time our kayfabe rivalry was responsible for one of the most entertaining reactions we ever got. It happened one night in Galveston at the Moody Civic Center when Carolyn, Gayle, Billie Jean, and even Bonita showed up to see what their brothers had been up to. Brandon was even there to see his dad and uncle in action.

Back then, Lash had this great heel gimmick as Super Collider the Atom Smasher and had a tag team partner, a former NFL player for the Houston Oilers named Avon Riley. That night Lash and I wrestled each other. After having been down and out for a few minutes, I was mounting a comeback and getting the upper hand. Just as I was really starting to pour it on with punches, chops, and kicks, Riley ran up the aisle, slid in the ring, and began beating me down. Lash jumped in, and they both convincingly put the boots to me. It was a classic two-on-one confrontation. The crowd was booing and throwing all kinds of things into the ring. That’s when Gayle jumped in.

Wait. Gayle? Yes, indeed.

My sister Gayle did not realize everything she was watching was just a show, and after losing her mind, she ran down into the ring to intervene. She went ballistic, thinking Lash and some stranger were pummeling her little brother. You had to see it.

Security stepped in and was about to haul her off, but we pulled them aside and told them the situation. In all honesty, it made the whole thing that much more believable. The fans ate it all up. As you can imagine, we laughed about that in the locker room for weeks.

During this time, I knew a breakthrough was on the horizon. Sure, I was still making only a hundred bucks a night, but I could feel the potential energy surging all around. I had never thought professional wrestling would be my ticket to an extraordinary life. At best, in the beginning I had seen it as an amusing side project, but slowly and surely the relatively minor doses of local fame and our small payoff envelopes convinced me to invest myself for as long as it would take.

Well, as I had promised myself earlier, the time was finally at hand to buy a new car. The T-Bird was finished, so I went down to PC Motors and found a black and gold 1986 Chevrolet Camaro IROC Z. That Z had the image I was trying to project in my career. It was all muscle and sounded intimidating roaring down the road with the windows down and the stereo volume up to full blast.

My cruising, however, came to an abrupt stop days later. I was driving home from the gym when a woman made a left turn through a red light and T-boned me directly on my driver’s side just behind the door. I could not believe it. My new Z was pulverized.

While we waited for the cops, I learned that the lady had just been fired from her job and had been crying her eyes out when she’d run the red. I tried to comfort her and took a better look at the damage. It became instantly apparent how badly hurt I would have been if she had hit me just about a foot closer to the front. The frame would have completely caved in on me.

In the end, it all worked for the best. I used the insurance payoff to restore the Z with rims, fresh blue paint, and a custom stereo system. No matter where I went for years after, everyone knew Booker T was coming.

There would be yet another memorable incident with the Camaro. This gorgeous Hispanic girl named Delia LeBaron came into American Mini Storage one day. I found out she was an exotic dancer from this joint called Rick’s, and we just hit it off and started seeing each other over the course of a few months.

Her place was only five minutes away from my mine, which allowed us to spend a lot of time together. She even had a young son named Tyler, who was around six or seven and got along famously with Brandon when I brought him over. It was not long before we took things to the next level and I moved into her apartment.

I reveled in my relationship with Delia for far more reasons than the fact that she was a sexy, uninhibited girl. Among black guys back then, there was a well-known code that said you should have a devoted stripper girlfriend to fall back on for financial support if times got tough. Well, I had mine! Sure, it boosted my ego. Hell, yeah, it was a self-indulgent philosophy. But man, I felt like I had everything under control.

Then it all came crashing down around me. At about two in the morning on a Saturday, I was sound asleep, resting up for the long drive to a WWA show in Dallas. All of a sudden, I was startled awake.

“Booker, wake up!” Delia had just come back from work and was frantically shaking my shoulders.

Still groggy and now a little annoyed, I looked at her. “What’s going on?”

She seemed wired and a little out of it. I wondered if she was on some kind of drug. “Delia, if you don’t stop this bullshit so I can go back to bed, I’m gettin’ the fuck out of here and going someplace I can.”

She didn’t like that.

I started packing up my gear while she pleaded with me to stay, but it was too late. My mind was made up.

She continued stammering nonsense as I walked out the door.

After walking down the stairs to the ground floor, I tossed my bags into the Z and hopped in. No sooner had I reached to start the ignition than I heard an unmistakable sound.

Gunfire.

I looked up, and there was Delia out on the second-floor balcony shooting off rounds at me with a .45. I panicked, ducked, and somehow managed to start the car and peel out of there. My adrenaline was rushing, and my hands were shaking out of control. It was like an out-of-body experience to be that close to death—even closer than I’d come to that bus stop stabbing.

I pulled over to a gas station to process what had just happened and to make sure I hadn’t been hit. After realizing I was okay, I got out of the Camaro to find that the hood and passenger door were full of bullet holes.
Jesus Christ,
I thought,
that was too close.

After calling the cops, I waited, trying to catch my breath and count my blessings.

To my surprise, when the police showed up, they put me in cuffs and were about to arrest me. Apparently Delia had also called them, claiming I was the one with the gun and this was all my fault.

Fortunately, after I explained the truth to them and pointed out the holes in the Z, they arrested Delia and put her in jail. I declined to press charges, and they let her out the next day.

Another couple of days later, while trying to put her and the incident out of my mind and far from my life, I found out Delia had shot herself in the chest and died. I could not wrap my mind around any of it. At one point I had really cared for Delia, and the tragedy haunted me for a long time.

It was only after Delia’s suicide that I discovered her connection to Texan cult leader Ervil LeBaron, who was responsible for instigating twenty-five murders through his religious followers, quite similar to what Charles Manson had done in Los Angeles in 1969. In 1980 LeBaron was sentenced to life in prison, where another inmate murdered him in 1981. LeBaron had over thirteen wives and more than fifty children. As it happened, Delia was one of his daughters.

With that traumatic experience behind me, I focused on my wrestling career. After only a couple of months’ worth of WWA shows, the money ran out and Putski was broke. He had spent way too much trying to bring in top-name talent, given family members undeserved jobs, and overextended the show production.

As a result, the company imploded. All the investors saw their pockets empty before their very eyes and were not happy. All our promised big shows vanished. We went from playing hot Texas venues packed with live-wire crowds to performing in the ghetto in these rat-filled warehouse dumps facilitated on shoestring budgets. I went from my usual hundred dollars a night to twenty-five. It was a morale killer for all the boys.

At one of our last WWA shows before the whole nightmare finally folded for good, Putski thought he could pit Lash and me against each other in real life. When he was with me, he called me the better of the two. Then he whispered in Lash’s ear, “Booker’s trying to fuck you over and leave you high, dry, and alone.”

Just after that, Lash and I spoke and realized what Putski was trying to do. “Fuck this, Bro,” I said. “That little punk is trying to ruin our relationship. I’m out of here.”

I didn’t need to be manipulated by a twerp like Putski. Having been in the business for a while now, I had met many other promoters. I had options. I grabbed my stuff, kicked the door open, and stormed out of the WWA. I never looked back.

After my departure, Lash eventually left the WWA for good as well. Soon we met up with this cool cat named Tugboat Taylor, who was promoting a little shoestring organization called Texas All Pro Wrestling and wanted to give us an opportunity. I was interested, but after working for him a couple of times, I realized Tugboat had nothing and could pay nothing. The only reason we stayed on was for the chance to be active in the ring until we found something better.

We didn’t care that we were wrestling in bingo halls, bowling alleys, and at car washes. It was fun. I just wanted to put my boots on, become G.I. Bro, and do my thing. It didn’t matter if we drew only fifty people to the show at the Unicorn Ballroom on a Saturday night as long as it provided that all-important escape from the doldrums of the previous week at American Mini Storage.

For one particular event, though, Tugboat initiated a new method of ticket sales. He thought it might motivate the performers and possibly bring in more money for everyone across the board if we were responsible to sell our own tickets for a percentage of the take. I was given fifteen tickets to sell. With all of my friends in the area, I sold those tickets the first day.
Cool,
I thought,
that was easy money.

My opponent that night in the main event was a guy named “Killer” Tim Brooks. He was a fellow Texan and was a twenty-year veteran who had wrestled in every major promotion. He had a huge reputation and was a notorious savage in the ring who pulled no punches, worked stiff as a board, and legitimately took every liberty he could against opponents. He was regarded as a loose cannon.

I kept my usual composure, but inside I was a mess and wondered how to go about handling him. Just a few minutes before we were set to go out, I stood there in my G.I. Bro fatigues with the American flag in hand.

When Brooks approached, he was very personable. Like a true pro, he went over some fine points and certain spots for the match. Aside from those, he just wanted to wing it. Brooks was an old-school type who liked to spontaneously call the matches while in the ring. I was excited to see that kind of style firsthand and learn from it. And man, did I ever learn.

When it was time to hit the ring, Brooks walked through the curtain first with all the charm and disposition of an escaped mental patient. He growled at the fans as he made his way to the ring, even charging them, drool flying from his giant beard in every direction.

As “Soul Army” blasted over the loud speakers, the small but raucous crowd screamed for me like an audience twice their size. I paraded to the ring with my flag flying high.

As soon as I walked through the ropes, Brooks kicked my ass. I mean, he was really kicking my ass! He was laying in with the stiffest kicks and punches I had ever felt outside of a real fight—and harder than most of those. I had no idea what to do. Brooks was not doing any of what we had discussed backstage just a few minutes prior. To put it mildly, I was shocked and more than a little worried.

Shit,
I thought,
now I know why they call him Killer.

Then without warning, he dumped me out of the ring onto my face. Maybe it was a bad idea to let him call the match on the fly. Probably. No,
definitely.

As I tried to compose myself, Brooks pulled a two-by-four out from underneath the ring and started smashing me flat across the back with Babe Ruth swings.

I was at a complete loss. All I kept thinking was,
What do I do? Do I start fighting back? Is somebody from the back going to do something?

Then finally after throwing me back in the ring, Brooks whispered, “Okay, kid, fight back. Get the comeback, and take it home for the win.”

He started bumping for me all over the ring, putting on a professional performance like I had never seen before. In an instant, I rolled him up and got the pin. The place went berserk.

I stood in the corner for a few seconds, catching my breath and wondering what had just happened. The two of us had told a classic, old-fashioned story of good versus evil, with the hero prevailing in the end. It was perfect, however unpredictable it had been. There’s no doubt it looked believable to the fans, because it was far closer to a murder scene than they realized, with “Killer” Tim Brooks leading the show.

After Brooks finished selling his injury, he got up and stormed toward the back and through the curtain. As I watched, I was still a little worried about what to expect.

I quickly rolled out of the ring and went straight to the dressing room, thinking,
Did I do something in the ring to piss him off?

Much to my surprise, Brooks walked right up to me with a big smile and a handshake. “Kid, you’re gonna be all right. You didn’t panic, and I was testing you. You kept your composure and still went with the rest of the match as planned.” He gave me a pat on the back and said to everyone in the room, “That’s how you do it, boys.”

I was speechless and so excited I had passed his test. Well, I
had
wanted a learning experience.

At the end of the night when it was time for our payoffs, things got really interesting. As agreed, “Killer” Tim got his fee of five hundred dollars. He shook my hand once more and went his way. I held out my hand and waited for Tugboat Taylor to dish out what I expected to be anywhere from seventy to a hundred dollars. He started counting my cash in one-dollar bills—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He stopped.