Part IV: Columbian Bo
Raymond Walker speaks today in a contemplative, sometimes saddened, yet always forgiving voice as he describes his younger self and the decisions he made that led him to prison. Maybe his sense of peace comes from the fact that, at 52, he is standing at a mountaintop, taking in the panorama of a life on the mend. Looking back, he can see that as difficult as it was to be sent away to live with his grandmother, he never seemed to be a boy destined for incarceration. No, he had a lot of things going for him: a safe and loving home, a decent school, athletic talents, noticeable good looks, a grandfather who owned a gas station where he could earn a little money, an aunt and an uncle, as well as a grandmother who nurtured not only to his body, but also to his soul.
“My grandmother instilled into me biblical principles that she wanted me live by. Though maybe I didn’t grasp them the way she wanted, I did go to Sunday School and church every weekend of my childhood.”
Much later in his life this biblical background would turn out be the first stepping stone on a path toward a positive and respectable name; however, in the meantime, Raymond was much more interested in being whoever he needed to be to get what he wanted. At Foshay Junior High School that had meant becoming a dealer of cards. At Crenshaw High School, it meant becoming dealer of drugs. So Raymond Walker, a chameleon who knew how to change his colors for the occasion, changed his name again.
In retrospect, the unfortunate thing about the seemingly harmless name of Steamboat was that, for young Raymond, it became the gateway identity into his criminal life.
“I became used to having money in my pocket in junior high school. And though I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong with the gambling, still I was becoming part of the criminal element.”
“My new name became Bo—for two reasons: Crenshaw High School was big into sports. I was part of a clique of athletes, and we had an organization called The O’s. Whatever nickname you got, it had to end with an “O”—Elmo, Crazo, Arco, etc.
Though Raymond could have used his football moniker, Elbow, to fit in with this group, he must have thought an updated name was more appropriate—one that reflected the fact that he also sold marijuana on campus.
“Back then, the weed I was selling was Columbian Gold. We called it Bo. So I became Bo, too.”
Bo, the high school student, was a smart at math—at least smart enough to understanding that if you wanted to smoke weed, you could sell enough of it to hang with your friends while you made enough money to smoke with them for free.
Bo, who was never busted in high school, graduated and moved easily to college. With him he took his diploma, his formidable athletic skills, his popularity and his thriving drug business.
Raymond Walker went to college to live up to the dreams and plans that many friends and family members had for him—dreams that centered on football. Most people who were aware of his athletic skills believed that Raymond’s next nickname would be something like “DB” (for defensive back), hopefully for the Oakland Raiders. And Raymond, as was always the case, felt obliged to be what they wanted. So with his green eyes set on playing in the NFL, he received a scholarship to Cal State Northridge.
It is quite possible that Raymond had come to believe that his place in pro football was his irrevocable birthright, that no matter what he did, nothing could derail him. Such confidence might explain why he came to believe that a football regimen combined with college classes could easily co-exist with the selling of illegal drugs.
One can only imagine how different his life could have turned out had he seen the potential disaster in this combination. Of course, maybe Raymond couldn’t perceive such danger because all his life, through personal charm, tactical intelligence or quite possibly through nothing more than dumb luck, Raymond had never been busted. Maybe this perfect record buoyed up a sense of invincibility that allowed him to rise higher and higher toward his fall—and fall he did.
Raymond can vividly remember when everything came unglued. During his last year at Northridge, two particular events coincided to break his apparent immunity from life’s unforgiving consequences and to reacquaint him with his old demons of guilt and shame.
“My brother was murdered; I remember it like it was yesterday. He was a scholar, not a street person. And he was killed by street people. The day it happened I got a premonition that told me to go find him. But instead of following that feeling and checking on my brother, I chose to go with a friend to a fraternity toga party out in the San Fernando Valley. After the party, I was still thinking about my premonition. So I drove all the way back into LA, went straight to my stepmother’s house and asked where Tracy was. I remember it like it was yesterday. She said, They found him dead. From that moment on I felt great guilt over my brother’s death.”
Raymond had managed for so long to successfully tiptoe the top of the fence between his two disparate worlds—status quo athletes on the one side and illegal street people on the other. But the stabbing of his brother by the criminal element seemed to make Raymond lose his sure-footedness.
“My brother’s murder took some of the fire and drive out of me, ” he recalls.
Compounding the tragedy of his brother’s death, Raymond had recently begun ether-basing cocaine with another NFL prospect. So it’s not surprising that before long everything began to unravel.
“The combination of my ether-based cocaine use, my brother’s murder, and my connection to the criminal element overran all my training and all my desires to achieve what I’d always thought I’d achieve.”
His fall from invincibility could not have come at a worse time for Raymond’s football career. Based on his past performances, he had earned a shot at a pro career. To that end he moved temporarily to Vallejo, California. There, along with other NFL hopefuls, Raymond was supposed to physically and emotionally prepare himself to participate in the Oakland Raiders training camp. The door to a pro career was finally before him. But he could not have been in worse shape—either physically or emotionally. Raymond had driven north with high hopes, but hopes alone would not be enough.
“As soon as I arrived, I started feeling guilty, started feeling sorry for myself, started using more, started selling more; started being in the streets. Before that, I’d never really been a street person, but now I was an outright hustler. I was supposed to be getting ready for the Raiders to look at me, but when it came time for the camp, I hadn’t worked out even one day.”
The Oakland coaches took one look at their new defensive prospect from Northridge and just shook their heads. “They told me to leave, to go work out and maybe try again next year.”
Sometimes failure is a catapult to change. Sometimes failure wakes us and pushes us toward some sort of recommitment to hard work . . . and sometimes it doesn’t. Instead of using this rejection by the Raiders to drop the drugs and hit the gym, Raymond came up with what he thought was a better idea, one that would provide him with a steady income, a way to avoid his feelings of guilt and shame, and of course, a new name.
