Common described his 6’8″ Dad (pictured above) as a “Chicago playground legend,” who’s bad behavior and drug habit only allowed him to play pro’ for one year with the Denver Rockets and the Pittsburgh Pipers. At the same time, his parents’ “falling apart” as well:
He was getting high, keeping drugs right out in the open on the nightstand. One time my mother locked him out of our apartment, and he shot out all the windows. When he was sober, he was a loving man, but when he was high, he was somebody else…
His last chance came with a tryout for the Seattle SuperSonics. They knew about my dad’s past troubles, and they were concerned. They wanted to know he was a family man. Problem was, my folks were separated, heading toward divorce. So, early one morning, my father packed everything he owned into the backseat of a rented Dodge Charger and drove to Eighty-eight and Dorchester in Chicago’s South Side, where my mother and I lived.
Here is where my parents’ stories diverge. “He took us out the house at gunpoint, handcuffed me to the front seat, put you in the back, and started driving across the country to Seattle,” my mother says.
“You and your mother got in the front seat with me,” my father recalls, “and we started out on Interstate 90 heading west.”
What could she do? When we stopped for gas, she says he handcuffed her to the steering wheel. When she needed to use the restroom, she says he stood outside the door. The situation must have looked hopeless to her.
