The Ballad of a Boy with a Passion for Storytelling

December 22, 1998. It was a brisk Tuesday evening.

I was born in Beth Israel Hospital, located in the Weequahic section of the South Ward in Newark, New Jersey. I was the third child of Helen Jackson and the first and only child of Maliki Yawmi-Deen Raymond.

I was the youngest of three until 2007.

When I was a baby, things were peaceful for the most part. However, it was soon disrupted.

On the morning of March 1, 2000, my father, Maliki, watched me take my first steps. He was overjoyed to see his son growing up on him just a bit.

Little did Maliki know...

It would be the final time that he got to see him.

My father was a drug dealer. By that point in time, he was in the game too deep.

His best friend, Ron, who also happens to be my godfather, owned a restaurant once. It was called Bergen Street Deli.

Bergen Street Deli had a bit of traction. Both Ron and my father pooled their resources into this establishment.

Things were going well until the state came in and did an inspection. They found out that the restaurant's ventilation was outdated. Therefore, the business couldn’t run until all the units were replaced.

My father knew that this would cost him lots of money—money that he did not have. Somewhere along the line, my father found that there was one way he could make the money he needed.

Ron would always make this joke about my father becoming a “class-president turned drug dealer.”

However, that joke was true.

In high school, my father was a straight A student. He was an all-star quarterback, excelling in track and field.

He was the senior class president of Malcolm X Shabazz High School. He later attended Kean University in Union, New Jersey, where he excelled in his academics.

My father had all these wonderful things going for himself, but somehow…

He turned to the streets. As children, Ron and my father made a pact that the two would never sell drugs.

“I’ll get what I need and get out,” my father said. He started off selling weed and pills, along with a little bit of rocks here and there.

Though that didn’t cut it for him. It was only a matter of time before he wanted more.

So, he began selling heroin. Fish scale quality heroin. All a sudden, everything around him became fast.

The life of a hustler had my father enthused. The more money my father made, the more control that he lost of himself.

It would ultimately cost him his life.

After my father saw me take my first steps, he then made his way to New York. Some say that he was there to do a class report on police brutality, but in actuality—he went to go pick up supply.

His cousin lived in Harlem, and my dad went to him for supply. Once he received the supply, my father was making his way back to Newark.

There was a problem.

Police were watching him the entire time. My father heard sirens. He was riding dirty. There were lots of drugs inside of that car.

There was bottle of orange juice inside of the cup holder. My father may have been an outstanding athlete, but he was not cut for jail.

Now, this story goes two ways.

Way one: the police pulled my father over, removed him from the vehicle, interrogated him and forced him to consume the tainted juice.

Way two: he consumed the juice just before police approached his vehicle and they knew about the drugs anyway.

Either way, my father consumed the juice and was detained.

As he was in custody, my father was having convulsions. He also complained of stomach pains.

My father had taken so much of the heroin that it was eating away his digestive tract.

He had nothing in his stomach, which only accelerated the effects of the overdose. The police called an ambulance and shipped him to the hospital.

But, it was too late. Once my dad did arrive at the hospital, he had another seizure and went into shock.

Soon after, he passed away.

At my father’s funeral, the faculty of Kean University was generous enough to provide me with a full-ride scholarship. This would go a long way.

I attended George Washington Carver Elementary, which is also in Newark, New Jersey.

I was there from kindergarten in 2004 all the way up until I graduated the eighth grade in 2013. I dealt with a lot during those years.

I didn’t have a father in my life. I grew up feeling misguided and lost. I grew up in a single-parent household, where my mother did whatever she could to make ends meet. She worked long hours in the hair salon.

My siblings and I would only see her either before we went to school or before we went to sleep.

Most times, I had to go to my grandmother’s house after school until my mother came home from work. My mother had gotten her first apartment since my father died in the fall of 2005.

It was rough. We didn’t even have a refrigerator. My mother had to sit the food outside on the window sill so it could stay cold. I didn’t have a bed at that time either.

Throughout the years, we moved from project to project in the South Ward.

They weren't much different from each other. The only differences were the buildings themselves, the size of the rodents, and the smell of the piss inside of the hallways.

Elementary school wasn’t that great. I hated it. It was bad enough that I lived in a violent neighborhood plagued with addictions, murders, and economical disparities.

One time when I was seven, I saw a dead body taped off in the street. The kids were always picking on me in school. I’d get bullied every single day nonstop for nine years.

I would get called all sorts of derogatory names by the children, names that I do not want to repeat.

I got made fun of for the way that I talked, walked, looked, acted, you name it—I got clowned for it. I would get into fights almost every single day. I’ve sat in the principal’s office more times than I could count.

I was also diagnosed with Asperger’s at the age of six.

I felt like I could never fit in, no matter where I went. I had trouble making friends.

Girls laughed at me whenever I tried to talk to them. I began coming to grips with my depression around this time. I had to be in the fourth grade.

My family failed to understand what I was going through. At home, I was constantly being chastised for talking about my struggles.

I was mocked for it. They would constantly make suicide jokes and tell me that I didn’t “have any real problems.”

Over time, I began to resent my family because of the way they treated me and also each other.

Going to school didn’t make things better for me either. The bullying got even worse. It got to the point where I was ready to claim my own life.

This didn’t help. I started to act out more in school and at home. I needed attention. I never got it. I wanted someone to hear me out. No one cared.

The Child Study Team recommended that my mother take me to a therapist.

I would be on medication for three years, initially taking Risperdal. I did not like this at all.

The side effects of the medicine were the worst. It also made me a little chubby. I had fun poked at me for my weight.

Amid these troubles, I discovered that I had a passion for telling stories. I also had a passion for writing those stories.

Writing was always my favorite subject. I was usually the first one to volunteer to read in the class.

I volunteered so much that the teacher would tell me, “Khali! You always go first, give someone else a chance!”

I soon found that writing became an escape. I could never be bullied in my journal. I could never be chastised there. I remember I used to write these little comic books back in the day.

Once I turned twelve, my mother moved us out of the South Ward. She found this town home which wasn’t infested with rodents.

All the power sockets were working. We even had a laundry room and a balcony. The place was decked out.

But...

It was in University Heights, a neighborhood in the Central Ward. I was never familiar with this part of the city. I would be far removed from what I had come to know.

For the longest time, I felt ill because of this. Now that I am older, I see it much more clearly. My mother moved us out the South Ward for the better. University Heights was a much cleaner and safer neighborhood.

That summer of 2011, we moved into this townhouse. All wasn’t glitter and gold.

My mother’s old flames came back into her life to harass her, I still was getting pushed around in school and at home, not to mention that my mental instabilities worsened.

In the fall of 2012, I entered the eighth grade. Just over a month later, I was admitted into a mental hospital.

I was in Beth Israel for about a week. They called this “Crisis.” That had to be one of the most life-changing weeks ever.

I had many restless nights because some of the patients insisted on having mental breakdowns while everyone was trying to sleep.

Also, those doctors would medicate us into hell. Thankfully, I only took two medications. I was on Risperdal and Lexapro.

Other patients were so gone off opioids that they were literal zombies. I didn’t like taking the medicines. I always woke up feeling dizzy. It was horrible.

However, that same fall…

I began working on something which would change my life forever. It was my first published novel, The Ballad of Sidney Hill.

The inspiration that I got from this was a book I read in class for an assignment. It was Tangerine by Edward Bloor. I remember reading this book in the fifth grade at one point.

Once I read it again, I fell in love with it so much that it gave me inspiration to write my own book.

This project would take about two years to complete. I first wrote the book by hand.

Yes, I’m that old-fashioned.

The first draft ever was 288 pages. I was nuts to write that many pages by hand.

In the fall of 2013, I entered high school. This was when my life truly began to change. I attended East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey.

It’s located in the Ironbound of the East Ward, which is an ethnically diverse neighborhood.

Home to Brazilian and Portuguese residents, they’re extremely polite and friendly.

I was so used to meeting people who looked and acted just like me. Once I went there, all that changed.

I became so influenced by the culture of East Side that it completely changed me for the better.

On October 26, 2014, I managed to self-publish The Ballad of Sidney Hill at the age of fifteen. This was my true coming-of-age.

I had enough guts to do something that not too many people could. Once the news of me putting a book out broke the mold, people were in shock.

They couldn’t believe that it was me who did such a thing. Soon enough, I found that this was my niche. I didn’t have the resources to afford an editor or a designer.

However, I didn’t let that stop me. I had my guidance counselor help me edit the first five books that I put out.

Afterward, I manned the fort myself. This was met with challenges. People around me thought that I was making all this money.

In all honesty, I was just trying to get this off the ground. With that came torrents of doubt.

I had classmates telling me that I was a failure and that I would never make it as a writer. That my books would never sell. I even had family members telling me to give up.

I went through countless breakups, which split my heart in half. This all started to change though. In the summer of 2016, it was a couple of weeks before I started the twelfth grade.

I had my first book signing. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, found out that I published books. He offered to host me.

That day, I made over $200 in sales. It was the most money that I ever made off my books at the time.

It blew my mind.

Soon after, I started getting around the city. I became plugged in with many people and became a keynote speaker for many different conferences.

I would be getting paid anywhere from about $200-$400 just to speak for two to three hours. I made more in that amount of time than I ever did with the part-time jobs that I've worked over the years.

Yes, I kept on writing more books. My tenth book, right? I remember I wrote it to this girl that I had a crush on since the ninth grade, and to this day, I still admire her.

Once I sent her the book and got her response. It blew my mind. She responded in a heartwarming manner. In that moment, I knew I was in this book writing thing for real.

I attended Berkeley College, a business-based school in Newark. On May 10, 2019, I graduated with an Associate's Degree in Business Administration. I am looking to start my own publishing company.

Once I got to college, I met even more important individuals who would play a crucial role in my success.

I even began performing poetry around this time. Once I graduated from East Side, things were looking bright until…

September 27, 2017 came around.

That was the day I lost my Aunt Christina. She contracted cirrhosis of the liver because of alcoholism.

Tina meant a lot to me, she was an amazing person. That was like my second mother.

I was in the room when they took her off the machine. That was stuck in my head for months.

I couldn’t sleep. I was extremely depressed. I fell into despair. Once I turned nineteen, I was ready to attempt suicide for the second time, but I stayed strong through it all.

On February 13, 2018, I was assaulted. I was coming from the movie theater and these boys just ran up on me.

I defended myself in the fight, but let's be realistic—anything could have happened to me in that moment.

A couple of weeks later, I was inducted into the My Brother’s Keeper fellowship program. I also wrote an article for the Obama Foundation, which Obama himself had read. I graduated from the fellowship program in July, 2018.

That same month, I was on the Brave New Voices slam team for Newark. We went all the way to Houston for a poetry competition. We were the first Newark team in about ten years to make it to the semifinals.

A month later, I published my hundredth book. An extraordinary accomplishment, right?

It took many lonely nights and days to get to this point. I had to go through a lot. I had to lose myself a couple of times.

I had to power through adversity, suicidal thoughts, and self-pity. I had to sacrifice my social life.

I had to deal with snakes. I had to have my heart broken often by girls that I really had loved. Overall, it strengthened me. It made me wiser. It made me push farther.

I got accepted into Kean University, where I will be going this coming fall to pursue writing. I will be living there on campus, too! My rise to prominence begins here.