A Life... Back on Track

By Yolanda Romero
Staff Writer

In the drug world, the crime consists of a transaction between a buyer and a seller, but addicts and pushers are not the only ones affected in this world of illegal activity. There are innocent people who pay very high prices, but not with money... with their ways of life.

People think drug dealers are born out of the rough streets of the inner city. A broken home and broken dreams add to the dismal future of crime and uncertainty.

But for one former dealer from here in Highbridge, life was handed to him almost on a silver platter. He grew up in a middle class family and went to a private school, graduating with honors and scholarships. He willfully gave it all up by immersing himself in the illegal activities of the drug world.

That dealer wished to remain anonymous as he shared his story.

“Mr. Big” sold drugs on the streets of Highbridge in the 1970s and 80s. He shared his experiences openly—at least as candidly as he can be while at the same time trying to protect his family.

He was given everything growing up; great parents both worked, with the best education going to private school receiving the best honors as athletic and full scholarships. It was all there but didn’t want it, he was tried of school, and he wanted something else.

The younger of two boys, Mr. Big and his family moved to Highbridge in 1970 and lived on Anderson Avenue. (His brother also had good grades in high school and he also turn to drug dealing), The question is, how does anyone that has their future almost handed to them, decide to sell drugs. There is no real answer, but Mr. Big took the chance. “It took years to realize that it was the wrong choice.”

It started out in junior in high school selling marijuana and the money was just coming in fast. “It was easy money,” but his brother was very angry at his decision to sell drugs, but if you cannot practice what you preach, you cannot say anything. But never thinking about the consequence, “It was only pocket money.” He says. He had a job at the same time he was dealing “smoke”—mostly as a cover so his parents wouldn’t find out what he was doing. With the 1980’s he started selling crack.

Everything in his life started to escalate. The cars, the women the man on the block and the power of having money. Mr. Big thought he had it good, but at no time did he give any thought to who he was hurting. He never even thought that the drugs he was distributing was to the friends he grew up with.

Mr. Big was the supplier of crack from Anderson to Summit avenues for almost 15 years, although he was never caught. He states, “Maybe I never was arrested because I was never greedy. If I had to help someone in need with drugs or with money it wasn’t a problem.” Sadly, he asked, “Was it luck? Not really. Someone else was doing my dirty work for me, and thinking back now, some one went to jail because of me.”

According to Mr. Big, one drug hot spot was 963 Anderson Avenue. “People came from all over to buy marijuana. And the shootings, it was like the Wild, Wild West.”

Mr. Big thought there was better out there for him. “I didn’t want to be like that, I wanted the money, but I wanted the respect.”

Keeping in mind he had a legal job and while trying to raise a family Mr. Big saw things changing in New York. Crack was becoming cheaper to get and to sell. He finally decided to go down south where the money flowed even easier. However, something happened — the fear of going to jail. He had never felt a feeling like he felt when he was told, that drug agents were watching him.

“All I was thinking about was, ‘what am I going to do?’”

He knew it was time to get out. The idea of losing his freedom and not seeing his family again hurt badly. “There was no choice in the matter,” Mr. Big said. He left the business. Leaving the chance to make over $20,000 a month behind.

Mr. Big is now a father of two pre-teens. In quiet reflection, he tenses up at the thought of his children ever finding out about his past. “It wasn’t the right road to take, but it happened. I thought I had it all but I didn’t, I lived on the edge most of the times.”

Today, young boys and girls sometimes view drug dealers as role models. The temptations of having cars, jewelry, and pocket filled with money and the power they think that comes with it. Selling drugs is not all guts and glory; there is no real good side to it. Just remember the bullets that fly so freely in disputes between competing drug dealers is a part of it and no one wants to be a dead king.

He still lives in the Bronx but not in Highbridge, never forgetting his old friends on Anderson. He visits, but does not like speaking about the past, “it is a part of history that I never want to remember.”