Chapter One: Nana and Mom ONE NANA AND MOM I was born on June 7, 1975, in Hampton, Virginia. My mom, Ann Iverson, was fifteen. My biological father was in Hartford, Connecticut. And from the beginning, my family didn''t have much. I grew up on "The Peninsula," with the Chesapeake Bay on one side and the James River running along the other. Hampton and Newport News are like sister cities there. I lived in both at different times. Really, I can say I grew up in both places.

I was a Newport News dude, but I also grew up in Hampton. But before I get to that, the story really begins in 1971 in Hartford. That''s where my mother had been raised. By then, just twelve years old, she had three younger siblings: Jessie, Steve, and Greg. Her mother--my maternal grandmother--was thirty, raising the four of them by herself. She didn''t want more kids, so she got her tubes tied. When she got home from the procedure, she wasn''t feeling well, and after a while couldn''t even stand straight. My twelve-year-old mom was on the phone with a sheet over her head to keep out the background noise--small house and lots of kids running around--when my Aunt Jessie interrupted her to say their mom didn''t look right.

They called an ambulance to come get her. My mom wanted to go to the hospital, but the last words her mother said to her were "No, you watch Jessie and Stevie and Greggy for me." Her mother never came home. It was an infection from the surgery. My mom could tell you to the penny how much the hospital gave as compensation: $3,818.18. "Don''t forget the eighteen cents," she would say. My mom and her siblings were now motherless, but they were blessed to have a saint of a grandmother (my great-grandmother), whose name was Ethel Mitchell--"Nana" to all of us.

Nana agreed to raise those four grandkids. Story goes that Nana''s husband had enough with raising kids. So Nana was on her own. After a couple of years, Nana started thinking about a change. My teenage mom was playing basketball then. (She said she had her coach telling her to "slow down and pass the ball." Sounds familiar.) She was also finding trouble--thirty-eight fights, she counted.

After the last one, Nana was done. The family had moved to Connecticut years before, but she was originally from Virginia and still had family there. Once she saw a future raising those four grandchildren, and looked out her window at a Hartford neighborhood she didn''t really like anyway, she decided to move back home. And maybe it had something to do with me too. See, 1974 came, and Nana had already been taking care of my mom and the others for a little while. My mom was fifteen by then. She had been dating Allen Broughton for a couple years. Broughton was a star basketball player, just one year older than my mom.

(He was only 5''5", but they said he played bigger than his size. Also sounds familiar.) All I know is that by the time the family moved to Virginia, my mom was pregnant. They made it to Virginia in time to enroll her into high school--at Bethel, where I''d end up winning a few games. That January, she ran the point, five months pregnant with me. Of course, I don''t remember that! So as I said, I was born June 7 of that year, 1975. When I was born, my mom says she knew after taking just one look at me--she saw my long arms and immediately said I''d be a basketball player. She just knew.

And whatever anyone can say about my mom, she believed in me that day, and every day after that. I only made it where I made it because of her. Because of her belief in me. Not long after I was born, I got the name everyone called me. You may know me by "AI" or "the Answer," but all that came later. Everyone in the family was trying to come up with a nickname for my baby self--"What are we going to call Allen?"--because in my family your name wasn''t necessarily what you got called. For instance, my mom was "Juicy," and her sister was "Lil Bit." That''s just how it was.

So story goes that two uncles up in Connecticut were arguing over what my nickname would be. One uncle was called Bubba and the other was Chuck. Well, they got to arguing that I should get one of their nicknames as my own, and my mom said, "You know what, you both can be right. Bubbachuck." And so that''s what it was from that day forward. Everybody called me Bubbachuck, sometimes just "Bubba," or mostly just "Chuck." You watch my games from when I was a kid, even the announcers called me that. And to this day, among my family, my friends, and when I go home, it''s "Bubbachuck.

" My first memories are from living with Nana on Jordan Drive in Hampton, in the Aberdeen section of town. She had a little one-story house with vinyl siding, set back from a creek. I don''t remember it all of course, those early years. But I do remember it being crowded. It''s hard to say how many of us there were. It had two bedrooms. We made room for ten or twelve people depending on the time. There was Nana; there was my mom; her little sister, Jessie; her two brothers, Stevie and Greg; and then me, of course.

Others came and went. We didn''t have a lot of money either. Now, that ain''t no excuse for anything. It''s just how it was. Mom was still a kid then. Looking back, I can see that. So I was raised by the whole family. Those first couple years after I was born, my mom kept playing basketball.

She was the point guard her junior and senior years in high school. Then she graduated from Bethel High--something I never got a chance to do after they threw me in jail. My mom was still a kid, so it was Nana who managed the house. She was the parent to all of us--obviously to my mom and her siblings, but also to me. She was just the backbone of the family, but it was hard trying to be the person that wants to and has to do everything, but you just don''t have the finances, you don''t have everything to be able to do it. The best way she could, she did. Everybody in the family respected her and looked up to her. She had strict rules, as a churchgoing, God-fearing woman.

So we weren''t playing music in the house. We had to keep it clean. People had to be home at a certain time. And everyone came to her to sort their shit out. Because she just had the ability to break things down and make sure everything was handled the way it was supposed to be. In her life, she had three kids. My grandmother, you know about, how she passed after going to the hospital. But for Nana, all three of her kids died before she did.

So my mom, and Aunt Jessie and Uncles Steve and Greg, they were like her kids. And then there was me. I was the youngest, so Nana spent a lot of time looking after me, making sure I got dressed, got fed. She really took care of everyone, but me being the youngest, we had a special bond. I was her baby. Back then she drove a big old burgundy car from the 1970s. I wish I could remember what it was. But I do remember that it had a big door handle that came in from the side far enough that when I was real little, I could sit on it kind of sideways.

Kick my feet up on the seat. I don''t know why, but that was just the way I liked to sit. Nana would be like, "Get off that door before you fall off this car." I would for a second, but then seconds later I used to get back on it. Well, one day I was in the car with her and my cousin, sitting like that. We were on the interstate. There was traffic, so we were hardly moving. Sure enough, the damn door popped open.

Out I fell right onto the highway. My cousin grabbed me up quick and got me in the car. Thank God for the traffic jam. I started crying like a baby. Nana was so worried I might have done something really bad. But my cousin was like, "Aw, he just crying ''cause he scared." I never sat on the door handle like that again. Nana watched me close.

And we just got along so well. It''s hard to explain, but we had the kind of relationship that when I was away from her, I would just look forward to being with her again. You know when you first get with a girl? All you want to do is see her all day? That''s how it was. Like when I was on the bus coming home. Just looking forward to seeing her. To spend time with her, sit up under her. When we were together, she would take me wherever she had to go, in that burgundy car--to the store, to see family, everywhere. Family time for me wasn''t like it is today.

When my kids were smaller, I would take them to Great Wolf Lodge or something and when we were in the car to go home, they''d ask, When are we coming back? That''s the way I like it, I guess. I want them to have what I never had--a stable family life, presents under the tree, you know, nice shit. But it wasn''t like that for me. Now, that didn''t mean I wasn''t having fun and being loved. It was just that I followed my family''s schedule if I was with them. So when I spent time with Nana, it was going wherever she was going, to the store, to church, wherever. (The funny thing is Nana was out having fun. I just didn''t know it.

I found out years later that she drove that car of hers from Hampton to Atlantic City a lot of those weekends of my childhood. She''d drive up there, play whatever games she played, and be back before I noticed. That''s a six-hour drive!) In those days, I had a lot of energy. When you''re a kid, all you want is to be outside. I mean, there wasn''t anything to do inside. Again, it wasn''t like it is today, where kids have videogames and all that, big-screen TVs, and any damn show they want. For me it wasn''t like that. The one thing I would do inside is draw.

If it was raining outside, or I was stuck in the classroom. I would draw all kinds of shit. What I would see or learn, I would re-create it. Teachers and adults would look at my artwork, and t.