Raggy, the Sole Survivor

By Arnold Wilson

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Arnold Wilson, a.k.a. Raggy the Sole Survivor. As you read this autobiography of my life, you understand why for years theres always been a yearning within me, a desire to express my deepest thoughts and memories to young people everywhere so they wont experience my mistakes and what Ive been through. The true life story of a normal block kid turned drug dealer, only to survive some of Americas many drug-ridden cities and blocksthe story about my youth on through adulthood. I want you to know this is an original bookall fact and not fiction. On June 18, 1973, in Brooklyn, New York, a child was born named Arnold Wilson to two happily married parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493178711

Arnold Wilson

Arnold Wilson, a professional biologist, has spent his working life in teaching and lecturing. Photography has been his lifelong interest and, over the years, he has contributed to most of the current photographic magazines and has written five books. His work has been exhibited both in the UK and abroad. He was an early overall winner of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and in September 2000, Arnold was judged overall winner of the BBC Countryfile Photographer of the Year competition with a close-up photograph of a bumblebee in free flight. Having taken early retirement, Arnold Wilson now spends some of his leisure time photographing people and places, but his overriding interest is still nature photography.

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CHAPTER 1

Lilly Smith and Arnold Wilson, my parent’s brothers and sisters, and I lived in a three-bedroom apartment in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. My parent’s marriage was short-lived. They soon fell out of love, and they divorced. I was about three or four years old. That was the beginning of my old earth’s struggle as a single parent. And she was a strong black woman then and now. I love you, Mom. You’ll always have the key to my heart. After my parents separated, my mother moved us to another apartment at 823 Saratoga Ave., still in Brownville.

Growing up in the ’Ville as a teenager in the early ’80s was rough. My friends and I played hard and had it hard as well. It was Brownsville, a place where not many people make it out successful or alive. Still I was young—that made me unaware of the trials and tribulations I was soon to endure.

Mom was indeed strong but unfortunately not strong enough to hold the family down. She worked hard cleaning toilet bowls at minimum wage while suffering with mental illness. She suffered a few nervous breakdowns while trying to cope with her disorder and raising four children. I sometimes wonder why life was so rough for us from the very beginning. But I think there’s a reason for whatever a person goes through and that everyone’s life has a meaning, which is the very same reason I always tried to keep hope alive.

Number 823 Saratoga was a four-family apartment building; we lived on the ground floor to the back. Mom missed many days of work because of her struggle with her mental disease—schizophrenia.

CHAPTER 2

That of course made her late paying the rent. Did I not mention we had a mean landlord? Mr. Raymond was his name. As Mom got worse, Raymond went from mean to just plain evil. One night in the winter of ’89, he turned off our heat and hot water. It hurt me to my heart seeing Mom whimpering in the dark because her hands and feet were cold because there was no heat or hot water, but me being relentless, I figured out of a way to restore electricity. I remembered seeing light coming from the basement. So what I did was got two heavy-duty extension cords and cut the ends off both of them, and with electrical tape, I put two inns with the teeth to it. Then the cord had two of the same inns to it. I plugged one to an outlet in the basement and the other to an outlet in my kitchen. The result—I powered up the whole apartment.

By the time the heat and water went off, all the tenants had moved out. We were the only family left. My brother and sisters were all old enough to go on their own. One by one they moved out. First Racheal and Alana, then Silvester. My mother and I were the only two people left in the whole building. We were living in an abandoned building. By that time, crack hit New York City hard. It was like an epidemic. I used to see the fiends smoking it in the hallway. At fifteen, I did not know what crack was. But by me keeping my ears to the streets, I would hear