Shaq Uncut: My Story Read Free Page B

get that gum?” I didn’t want to tell him I stole it, so I told him a nice lady gave it to me. My grandfather said, “How many times do we have to tell you not to talk to strangers?” So Andre and I got a whupping for that, too.
    When I was about eight Istarted going to the Boys and Girls Club and we played basketball for hours and hours. On the weekends my dad started teaching me the fundamentals. Philip Harrison was avery good city ballplayer, or so all the people in Newark tell me. They say Sarge and my natural father were the two best in the area growing up. My uncle, Mike Parris, once told me Philip Harrison was a cross between Robert Parishand George Gervin.
    Philip taught me how to box out and shoot with my elbow tucked in the right way. One of the first books he ever gave me was a story of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s life. I read the whole thing, and one part of the book was about how Kareem lost all his money investing in soybeans. I told myself, “When I get rich, that’s not happening to me.”
    Looking back, at that age I wasn’t verygood at basketball. I was clumsy. I hadn’t really grown into my body yet, so I fumbled around with the ball at first. Of course everyone expected me to be excellent because I was so big. Good luck explaining to people it doesn’t work that way.
    Newark was a tough city. You didn’t have to look for trouble; it found you the second you got up out of bed in the morning. I think my parents knew weneeded to get out of there. The problem was we didn’t have any money. My dad was working so hard, but it was never enough to feed and clothe us and pay the rent. He used to drive U-Haul trucks to and from New Jersey and New York for extra cash, and he was just tired all the time.
    Then, in 1982, when I was ten years old, my dad came home one day and said, “We’re moving.” He packed me, my mother,my sisters, Ayesha and Lateefah, and my little brother, Jamal, into his Toyota Corolla, and we drove to Fort Stewart in Hinesville, Georgia. I cried all the way there. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave my friends.
    And yet, that move was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I was in trouble all the time in Newark. I was hanging out with the wrong kids.
    If it wasn’tfor us moving around so much, then I wouldn’t be the people person I am today. I really believe that. I had to learn how to make new friends, adjust to new places. What if I had to grow up my whole life in the projects of Newark, New Jersey? I would have never seen any white people, Jewish people, Spanish people. Because mydad moved so much, it forced me to learn to live with all kinds of kids.

    Hinesville, Georgia, was nothing like Newark. We’re living on the army base there and it was very, very Southern. We walked to school from the base, and one day I met this kid named Ronnie Philpot. He’s a little guy, and he’s very dark skinned, darker than me, so we start ranking on each other about how black we are. He’s my first friend in Georgia and I’m going to be his bodyguard. His motherhad died and kids started messing with him. They’d say stuff like, “Hey Ronnie, the parent-teacher conference is tonight, too bad your mom can’t be there.”
    I heard that and I was going off the wall. It was just so cruel. This kid is teasing Ronnie about his mom and I shove him and say, “After school. The basketball courts. You and me. I’m going to mess you up.” The kid knows he’s got to showup because news of the fight is all over the school. Plus, I knew where he lived. He had to go home past the courts unless he went the long way around. So I’m waiting, and he shows up, and the first thing I do is smack him in the head.
    My mentality was always to strike first. So I punch the kid in the face and then it’s on, and I just start beating him. He can’t do anything. All the kids arethere watching, so now I’m The Man. I’m the bully in the school and everyone knows it.
    My father