Don't Let The Lipstick Fool You:. Lisa Leslie
my shoe behind me. As I tried to keep pace and avoid getting trampled in the massive traffic jam of people, I could see the headline already: U.S. OLYMPIAN INJURED IN OPENING CEREMONY STAMPEDE.
But finally, I was able to squeeze my foot into the wayward shoe and continue my stroll around the stadium with the other athletes. I felt awkward and goofy, but relieved and slightly exhilarated. Only I could lose my shoe on live television, with the whole world watching. I laughed out loud at myself for the slipup but also at the irony. My image as a graceful athlete seemed to be still intact. But I was quickly reminded of the less-than-graceful uphill climb that led me to this moment. This made me smile even wider.
Chapter 1
Mothertrucker!
“You were born to play basketball.”
People tell me that all the time, but I can tell you for a fact that Lisa Deshaun Leslie was not born with a basketball in her hands or with any desire to play the game. In fact, my road to roundball was more of an obstacle course than an expressway. Whatever basketball genes I did get probably came from my father. I am told that he was a good athlete who played in local leagues in Southern California and some semiprofessional basketball in Alaska. I am told that my legs are built like his, knock-kneed and bowlegged. I am six foot five. They tell me he was six foot four. I do not know. I never knew him.
I do know that my father was always a man on the go. “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” should have been his theme song, especially the part that goes, “Wherever he laid his hat was his home.” His legal name was Walter Lee Leslie, and he was married and had four kids before he moved from Maryland to California. That was when he took an alias, met my mom, and started a whole new family. Mom had no clue. He married her using the name Bernard Leslie and left her when she was four months pregnant with me.
Did he leave because of me? I am not sure, and I did not want Mom to think I was unhappy, so I never asked. We rarely talked about my dad, though I did meet him briefly once, when I was twelve years old. Other than that visit, the man was like a ghost to me. When he died in 1984 of cancer, I cannot say that I felt much of a loss. It is true what people say: you can never miss what you never had.
So there was no dad there to greet me when I was born on July 7, 1972, at Gardena Memorial Hospital. Technically, I was born in Gardena, but that is not where I am from. I am also not from Hawthorne or Inglewood or most of the other places you might have heard about. My hometown is Compton, California. In the beginning, it was just my mom, Christine, and my sister Dionne. I was very close to my mom from day one. Dionne was five years older than me. People referred to her as the “dark one” because of her flawless chocolate skin. They described me as “the one with the pretty eyes.” Even though Mom tried not to pick favorites, I sometimes heard her tell my aunts, “You know Lisa. She is my shadow, my little helper.” I longed to please her.
When I was six years old, we lived in a three-bedroom house on North Castlegate Street, off of Atlantic and Rosecrans boulevards. Mom, Dionne, and I each had our own rooms. Mom’s bedroom had a fireplace, which she liked to use on rainy days. Her room also had a sliding back door, which led to a large patio and a decent-sized backyard. Mom had poured cement and put up a tetherball pole out back because she knew that I loved to play.
There was a large tree in our front yard. I do not know what type of tree it was, but it was constantly shedding leaves, and it had a really large root that stuck up out of the ground. Mom and I would always trim that tree or mow the lawn. I remember thinking that those were the types of things a dad would do. Mom always told me that it did not matter if we had a man around or not. We could do anything we wanted. And if we did not know how, we could learn.
The earliest job I remember Mom having was at the post office. She drove a mail truck and did a lot of walking in her job delivering mail in the Wilshire-Beverly Hills district of Los Angeles. Every morning I would hear her get up at 5:00 AM. When I heard her moving about, I would get out of bed to make sure her shoes were by her door so that she would not have to search for them. Her work clothes were neatly ironed and ready to wear. Depending on the California weather, Mom would wear pants or shorts to work. She would get dressed and put on her socks and shoes, and then I would walk her to the door. Every morning I would watch her leave for work, and every morning, when she had gone, I would sit at the door and cry. Dionne would say, “You’re just crazy! Something is wrong with you. Crying every day, every time Mom leaves.”
Once Mom was out of sight, I would get our family photo album and take it into her room. I’d lie on her bed and look at the pictures until I fell asleep. Dionne would get up and get dressed. Then she would wake me up around seven-thirty and tell me that she was leaving for school. Once my sister was gone, I would turn on the television and let it blare in the background while I got dressed. The Hogan’s Heroes theme song was my cue to check the back door, lock the sliding door in Mom’s room, make sure all the lights were off, close the back door in the kitchen, lock the gate, and, like all the other latchkey kids in the neighborhood, make sure I put my key down my shirt. I was six years old and in kindergarten.
After locking up, I would cross the street, ring the doorbell at Miss Pearl’s house (God rest her soul), and tell her I was walking to school, which was just a few blocks down from her house. She would come outside and watch me to make sure I made it safely down the street. I would go to school from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Dionne got out of school around the same time as me, and we would walk home together. We did that every day for a year. That was our routine.
I looked up to Dionne. She was my big sister, and I wanted her to like me. But Dionne was almost a teenager and did not want her overly sensitive kid sister following her around, asking her questions, or cramping her style. The thing was, it was so important to me to win Dionne’s approval, and in trying to impress her or seem cool and fun, I usually just copied whatever she was doing. This only annoyed her more.
In general, if I did anything to irritate Dionne, there was a physical price to pay. She would punch me, kick me, slap me, push me down, and yell at me. This was not playful wrestling. This felt like some sort of combat, and Dionne could be as secretive and creative about it as any CIA operative. But I was never afraid of my sister. I was just confused.
There was the time she reached into the cupboard, with her back to me, and said, “Here! You want some?” then turned to blow salt in my eyes. Another time she smashed a jelly sandwich right in my face.
Dionne could be so mean, and yet I still loved and idolized her. I used to love it when she would put my hair in two pretty French braids, with a part down the middle. Dionne was an excellent braider, and the style looked cute on me. Sometimes the hairstyle would turn out great, and I would be really thankful to her. Then, other times, she would purposely part my hair crooked or way off center so that the hairstyle looked crazy.
When she would rough me up, I would run and hide in the bathroom. She would chase me and then use a butter knife to try to unlock the door. When that did not work, she would go outside, peek in the bathroom window, and scream, “I SEE YOU IN THERE!” She loved to scare me to death.
I would stay locked in the bathroom until Mom came home around five o’clock. When I would hear her car pull up, I would open the bathroom door and see Dionne standing there. But she no longer seemed threatening. Now she was pleading and negotiating with me. “Okay, Lisa! If you don’t tell Mom, I’ll give you some candy.” Like a sucker, I would keep quiet, get the candy, and relive the whole ordeal the next day. Mom never had a clue.
The thing is, I was such a timid child. Very timid. I was afraid of lots of things, but by the time I was eight, Dionne’s act had gotten old. I was tired of her beating up on me, so one day, when she had pushed me too far, I reached back and socked her in the stomach as hard as I could. She made a “wuh whew” sound and bent over to catch her breath. I ran off to my usual hiding place, locked the door behind me, and tried to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. I was so scared, but I was so happy, too. I had hit Dionne! I had hurt her. That was the last day that I remember running away from my big sister or getting abused by her. I had finally fought back. I thought our troubles would be over, our battles ended, but that turned out to be the furthest thing from the truth.