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

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