The Big House on the Prairie.

[Captain Canada]

Boy hopping in a time machine to start things off Well-written for sure

[Soapy]

Boy hopping in a time machine to start things off Well-written for sure

Thank you, getting used to writing in first person which I haven't done, chising or otherwise, since like sixth grade creative writing

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter One :: The Lawyer, Part Two

Booker Gurley Jr. came into the world kicking and screaming, more fiercely than any other babies that the veteran group of medical professionals at Memorial Herman Cypress Hospital had ever delivered. Rambunctious from the get go, Little Book gave fair warning to the world that he was about to impact.

About two years after Little Book was born, Cheryl’s father, Bossman Hussey, had offered Booker Sr. a management job at one of his real estate development sites. Booker Sr. had graduated from PVAMU with a degree in Business Administration but had struggled to find employment that Bossman Hussey considered to be a “real job”. He worked at a warehouse and would occasionally pick up shifts at the nearby grocery store on weekends and holidays when shifts were available, earning just enough to put food on the table but the bulk of their bills were paid for by Bossman Hussey while Cheryl, who had dropped out of college during her pregnancy, took care of Little Book at home. Well, she kept an eye on the nanny every now and then.

Booker Sr. would have doubled, perhaps tripled his salary, working for Bossman Hussey who paid his workers good and the managers of his site even better but he did have a reputation of working his workers hard. Booker Sr. might have been able to tolerate that as a 19-year old but now used to the comforts of easy living for the past three years, he just wasn’t going for it. Bossman Hussey started to realize that as Booker Sr. continued working at the warehouse while declining his continued offers to come work for him.

"You got until Christmas to find yourself a real job,” Bossman Hussey told him at Thanksgiving dinner when they retreated to the porch as Hussey smoked a cigar, "I don’t mind helping a young man such as yourself find his footing in this world that ain’t kind to us colored folks but I ain’t into the business of taking care of lazy niggers. Never have been, never will.”

“This lazy nigger ain’t working for you,” Booker Sr. thought to himself that night. The next Monday, when South Texas College of Law Houston’s admissions office re-opened from the Thanksgiving break, he applied. He didn’t have any real passion or interest in law, supported by the fact that he applied to about a half dozen other colleges that were in the area that day, from computer science to accounting to engineering. South Texas College was just the first one to write back.

That decision, which was made so callously without much foresight, would forever change the course of our family for generations to come. I felt like I was at that same crossroad that summer, trying to decide if the University of Texas was really for me. I had committed to the Longhorns football program as a high school sophomore as their offer was a validation of all of the hard work we had put in that year. Frankly speaking, I was always a talented player, appearing on several online publication’s list of top high school freshman in Texas after two years on varsity, debuting as an eight grader for Waller High School, but that summer heading into my sophomore year is when things really took off, hitting the summer camp circuit with Jeremiah and his father.

Growing up in a town like Prairie View, I had always dreamt of going to a big city for college, wanting to experience more of the taste of the city life. As kid, I loved our trips to Houston to visit some of our relatives that lived out there. Something about the skyscrapers — modest compared to cities like New York and Chicago but gigantic for a kid from Prairie View — and busy streets with restaurants and shopping areas lit something in me. The possibilities of what a day could entail seemed endless to me whenever we were in Houston.

I strongly considered the University of Houston, even after my initial commitment to the University of Texas, but as much as I loved the city, it didn’t feel far enough and by my junior year, once my dad had gifted me a car for earning my fifth star, I was in Houston practically every weekend night. The once towering skyscrapers and busy streets were now mundane to me, just an extension of my life at Prairie View that I had grown tired of.

That’s when the interest in Southern Methodist University really picked up. They were located in Dallas, far enough to breed unfamiliarity and wonder but not as far as the University of Miami or Georgia Tech, other schools that I took unofficial visits to and came away being able to envision myself living there. I had dreams on living on Biscayne, overlooking the ocean from my waterfront apartment or staying in one of the luxury high-rises in Buckhead or Dallas and of course, the prospect of being a Longhorn was appealing as well, knowing intimately what came with that. I was awaken from those dreams about halfway through my junior year following my mom’s routine check-up with her doctor. Her cancer, which had previously been in remission, had returned.

Next release: 5/28/2025

[Captain Canada]

Boy is really going for the slow burn effect. I rock with it

[Soapy]

Boy is really going for the slow burn effect. I rock with it

Definitely going to be a different vibe for sure.

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter One :: The Lawyer, Part Three

My father met my mother through my grandfather, another testament to the legacy and impact that Papa Book had on Prairie View. Whatever my father was or was not going to accomplish in his life, Evelyn Walker certainly changed the trajectory for the better. The only daughter of Mary Walker, Evelyn was just knee high when Mary was a client of Papa Book, a moniker that was coined in Booker Sr.’s later years.

While Papa Book was in law school, he kept various jobs from bartender to convenient store clerk, using the auxiliary income to help fund the lifestyle he still wanted to maintain and not be totally dependent on Bossman Hussey whose spats with his daughter, Cheryl, became more frequent, usually revolving around his daughter’s drinking, her choice of clothing which he felt was unbecoming of a mother and the fact that even when Little Book was old enough for daycare, she still refused to return to school. Papa Book feared that at some point, he would wane her off the tit and when that happened, he didn’t want to be caught with his dick in his hands and no money in his pockets.

The jobs also served a purpose as it made Papa Book well known throughout the city. He would bag your groceries on Tuesday, cut your grass on Thursday and on weekend nights, he was also often your bartender as well. He had a mouthpiece on him too with the ability to endear himself to anyone that crossed his path, usually by offering his services, even if he was unqualified for the task. At some point, he started telling people that he was going to law school which, for the uneducated portion of Prairie View and the surrounding rural towns, was just as good as a lawyer for them. So they came to Papa Book with their troubles, seeking his advice in legal matters despite the fact he had yet to even finish law school, let alone take the bar exam.

By the time Papa Book actually became a lawyer, recognized by the great state of Texas, he had a long and extensive client list of mostly low to middle class clients that were dealing with personal injury claims, workplace discrimination or petty suits between bickering neighbors. Since money was of no concern, still being bankrolled by Bossman Hussey who despite his numerous threats to his daughter continued to pay the mortgage and most of their outstanding bills, Papa Book was able to offer favorable rates to his clients and stumbled and bumped his way into being a pretty damn good lawyer by the end through trial and error.

When Mary Walker and her daughter Evelyn walked though those doors, Papa Book was a reputable lawyer so when she needed help with a grievance she had at her job, she came to him. Mary felt that the good paying jobs at the restaurant she worked at, which were being a hostess or waitress, only went to White or light skinned girls while all the darker skinned women worked in the kitchen for scraps. It was a pretty solid case with years of hiring practices to back it up but Papa Book always worked at a leisurely pace, often taking two to three lunch meetings to accomplish what most lawyers would conclude in a single phone call. Evelyn would sometimes be with her mother when she came to visit Papa Book for an update on the case, disappearing into Papa Book’s office while Evelyn waited outside in the lobby with the secretary and more often that not, Little Book was there too, probably serving an out of school suspension.

However unlikely Papa Book’s path to lawyer, and eventually town judge, was, Little Book becoming the town’s mayor was even more unlikely, not for a lack of charm and charisma. A poor student in nearly every subject, the only reason Little Book wasn’t held back twice in the fourth grade was due to the teacher’s not only feeling sorry for the boy but that he’d be too big of a disruption in the class for the young students. When this news reached Papa Book’s doorstep, Little Book was not only not held back, he was sent two grades up with Papa Book instructing the school principal to put him in a class where the other kids are big enough to whoop his ass if he gets out of line.

The only thing rivaling Little Book’s rambunctiousness was his athleticism, which shined on the football field where the inability to stand still and his constant energy was an additive, not a deterrent. The better he played, the better his grades got not because of any newfound discipline when it came to school work but because he needed to remain academically eligible and Evelyn or one of his other girlfriends would do his school work for him. The prospect of playing college football became a reality for Little Book and during his senior year, he committed to Texas A&M over offers from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Houston and Prairie View A&M, who he did strongly consider.

Little Book didn’t last long at Texas A&M, only making it through a semester without Evelyn and those other girls doing his schoolwork for him before becoming academically ineligible. It was common place back then for first-year players to redshirt which didn’t bode well for Little Book as he took that as a year off, not a year of development. He enjoyed everything that a town like College Station had to offer from the girls to the alcohol so much so that Texas A&M pulled his scholarship mid-way through his spring semester.

Prairie View A&M still wanted Little Book, who probably would have started for the Panthers, but he had a taste of life outside of Prairie View which now seemed to small and too quaint for his earthly desires. He enrolled at Texas Southern, another HBCU that heavily recruited him out of high school and still wanted someone the caliber of Little Book’s talent, which often went to the Texas and Texas A&M’s of the world.

Evelyn was in her second year at Texas Southern when Little Book showed up, knocking on her dorm door with his luggage still in the car that Texas A&M’s booster had forgotten to collect the key for. She turned him away on account that a year prior, Little Book had taken another girl to the prom, ending their relationship abruptly and the fact that she was now dating a Communicators major named Sean.

“In ten years,” Little Book, ever the charmer, told her, “Do you want to be the wife of some broke ass nigga working at a newspaper or on an NFL sideline, watching me play?"

Next release: 6/2/2025

[djp73]

intriguing back story here

[Soapy]

intriguing back story here

thank you, laying the foundation. I've found this format to be a lot better for that than the typical live action, narrative style

[Soapy]

The Big House on the Prairie
Chapter One :: The Lawyer, Part Four

It wasn’t easy being a Gurley in Prairie View, it was too easy and the fact that I wasn’t just a Gurley but a Book, Baby Book they would come to call me, meant that Prairie View was my oyster, just as it was for my father and my grandfather before him. In my early years, it was innocent enough; free candy at the grocery store, an extra biscuit or hush puppies on the house at the chicken spot when my mom would send me to pick up dinner when she was too tired to cook. By my teenage years, the friendly waves turned into leering glares from my peers and older women alike. I was a Gurley, I was Baby Book but I was also now a star athlete and with that came the temptations that are thrown at all star football players in the great state of Texas.

I would glare back, occasionally flirt but nothing more. Not out of some superior morality but frankly out of fear of my girlfriend at the time, Keiyana. I might have grown to be a six-foot-three and 185 pounds by my junior season but the girl that used to bully me when I was a little kid still struck fear into my heart and with good reason.

In the spring heading into my senior year, I had gone on a few unofficial visits to various colleges that I felt that should I decommit from the University of Texas, they would be near the top of the list. At the time of my commitment to Texas, I hadn’t visited that many schools and with my intentions to sign in the December early signing period in order to be able to play spring football as a true freshman to better my chances of seeing the field in my first year, time was running out for me to ultimately decide if I was sticking with Texas or going somewhere else. The plan was for me to visit a few schools during their spring practices, see if any of them moved me enough to strongly consider them and then in the summer, I’d take my official visits to those that stood out and decide before my senior season what I was going to do.

I shared those plans with Keiyana and she insisted that for at least some of those visits, I’d go by myself in order to get a feel for the place and not be influenced by family and friends, herself included. I somehow convinced my parents, particularly my mom, to allow me to visit Georgia and SMU by myself, two schools that had really began to turn up the heat in my recruitment. Georgia was the dominant program of the time, having won back-to-back national championships in the early 2020s and were known for their defenses which was regularly pumping out first round picks to the NFL. SMU had joined the ACC, a Power 4 conference at the time, and had strong booster base that made them very competitive in the NIL market and the allure of playing in a major city like Dallas was appealing to me.

I enjoyed my visit to SMU, so much so that they earned one of the official visits I went on that summer. Keiyana came with me on that visit, along with my parents and my two siblings, Marianne and Evan. They rolled out the red carpet for us, picking us up in a black Ford Expedition and put us up at the Ritz-Carlton, about ten minutes from the campus. A Methodist school, they even took the liberty of booking Keiyana her own room only to have the typical blonde co-eds as recruiting hostesses during the visit.

"Welcome back Trey,” one of them told me with a rehearsed smile, “I hope you enjoyed your last visit.”

She didn’t say anything but I could feel Keiyana and her boiling rage. To her credit, she masked it well enough for the rest of the day, putting on a polite smile as we went through the rigamarole that are official visits: meeting coaches, players, support staff and a tour of the campus from where I’d sleep, eat, train, pray and study.

When we got back to the hotel room, she threw a lamp at my head, shattering against the wall as I dodged out of the way. She accused me of cheating — as she was oft to do — and that I just wanted to run off to another city to "fuck a bunch of white girls” and that by my third semester, I’d have forgotten about her.

She locked herself in the room for the rest of the trip, refusing to come out and missed the rest of the visit as I made up some excuse for her absence that fell flat in my mother’s ears.

“That girl is going to drive you crazy so you can be at the nuthouse with her too,” she would tell me, stinging words that hurt me more than I ever showed. I would just ignore her words and kiss her on the forehead, the cancer treatments rendering her bald by that summer.

While my mother never graced an NFL sideline like my father had promised, one could argue she made the right decision leaving Sean for my father. With his academic struggles in check, likely not a coincidence with my mother’s reentry into his life, he would shine on the field for the Tigers, coming up just short of Michael Strahan’s single-season record for most sacks. He’d spent two years at Texas Southern, earning All-SWAC honors both years but he wanted more, he always did.

He began sending his film to the various FBS coaches that had recruited him out of high school and while other schools had offered him a scholarship, including Houston, Baylor and Arkansas, he accepted a preferred walk-on spot at Texas. My mother almost broke up with him on account of that, not because he was leaving her again but because he didn’t even bother to tell her until he began packing his bags for Austin.

“This is the Little Book show, baby,” he told her, “You got a front row seat, what’s the problem?”

The problem was she had graduated from Texas Southern and had a job offer back in Prairie View to be a health administrator at a hospital that had just opened. The opportunity would allow her to get in on the ground floor of a new hospital with plenty of room for growth and future promotions so she returned to Prairie View while my father began toiling away once more at a major college.

While he had secured a scholarship by the start of the season due to one of Texas’ high school recruits failing to meet the requirements of the mandated NCAA Clearinghouse, Little Book struggled to get on the field and was once again on the brink of expulsion as his grades began to falter. My mom came to visit him one weekend which lasted into the week on account of some prime begging from my father and a week turned into ten days and then two weeks.

"You might as well stay now,” he told her, "They probably gonna fire you, anyway.”

She would leave behind her good paying job and put her career on pause as she took a job as a waitress in downtown Austin, helping him with his school work and keeping his head on straight as she stayed with him in his dorm. The gamble, while foolhardy, paid off. He played sparingly that first year in Texas but improved his grades and began putting on the weight required to play in the trenches of the Big 12. By that following spring, he cracked the rotation at defensive end. By that summer, he was a co-starter. By season’s end, he was one of the top players for a Texas team that brought home a national championship for the first time in 35 years.

Next release: 6/10/2025

[Captain Canada]

Keiyana gotta chill throwing lamps off rip is crazy