Free Booker T: From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle by Booker T Huffman, Andrew William Wright

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