His own Bed-Stuy Story: Eric Watts

Eric Watts speaks softly with kind eyes, but his poetry tells the true story of a little boy whose life in Bedford-Stuyvesant was anything but kind. He drinks red wine, listens to jazz and calls that happiness. Right beside him on his bedroom floor are stacks of black and white marble notebooks, 25 or so, one dated back to 1992. He reads aloud:

A lonely boy,

a lonely girl,

a lonely clam without a pearl.

A lonely sister,

a lonely brother.

What is a son without a mother?

If there is a family to fill a home,

you would be happy and never alone.

"It's good to go back and see what kind of person you were," Watts said of the poems he wrote as a teenager.

Watts started "BedStuy Stories" in 2007, a collection of self-published books inspired by his life story. His three works, one book of poetry and two children's books, have become an outlet to mentor others who have gone through tough times in the community as he did.

His father was incarcerated for murder at the age of 19, when Watts was only five years old. Six years later, his mother was hit with mental illness. He witnessed drugs and gangs outside his window, and alcoholism, abuse and neglect inside. He filled his journals with heartache over the years. Watts spent his young adult life rebelling against his environment instead of taking part.

"I did not want to be like them," Watts said.

By age 15, Watts lived in a group home in the projects. Eventually, he left home as a runaway, but continued to do well in school. He graduated from New York City of Technology and started "BedStuy Stories."

Today, Watts is 33 and a father of two daughters, with a home of his own in Bedford Stuyvesant. He attributes his success to teachers, such as Edwin Robinson, his 6th grade English teacher at the PS 287.

"It was education that saved me," Watts said.

Robinson, who continues to teach English, described Watts as quiet and serious, never complaining and never bored.  He was the student who asked for extra assignments and spent his lunchtime with teachers. Watts would occasionally burst out in the song "Let's Get it Together" in class, and Robinson would just let him sing.

"When you get a student like [Watts], you look at him sideways," Robinson said. "Who are you? What am I going to do with you?"

Watts had the sensitivity and sensibility to take a different direction than his environment dictated, Robinson said. It's not surprising he would be writing books, he said.

"I would mark up the paper – it was Bloody Sunday all over," Robinson said. "He would bring it back, near perfect work at that age. As if he was giving you a present."

BedStuy Stories has pushed Watts to become a mentor himself. He says he wrote the books to make money, but he visits classrooms when invited, serving as a role model to kids just like him in the very schools that mentored him. He looks to his faith and the story of Noah to say that God has a plan for him, and that he is pointed in the direction God determined, which is to help other kids.

"When I present my books and my stories to people, it just hits them in their heart," Watts said. "When I talk to a lot of the teenagers and let them know where I came from, I tell them that you have to make a choice."

Watts has faith that his story happened for a reason, but that doesn't always make it easy for him. Now that he is a grown man, he struggles with the decision to help his parents when they weren't there for him.

"In my hardest times, I get on my knees and I pray, and I always feel a sense of comfort and love there."

Watts' aunt Linda, who had her own struggle with drug abuse and homelessness, said she and her nephew have been close for the past 16 years – ever since he helped her through detox.

"I call him 'millionaire,' " Linda Watts said. "It ain't about the money. It's about going to places that people don't want to go, to talk to people who don't have no hope."

Linda Watts gasped when she remembered reading Watts' first published book "Cellar Door." She said she saw the trauma he went through by reading his poems.

"He never told me a lot happened to him due to our drug addiction, until I read his book," she said. "My daughter and Eric basically raised themselves."

Watts recently returned to his childhood home at 1625 Park Place for the first time in 25 years, and said it felt much smaller now. He pointed to the window where he once dropped eggs accidentally onto a neighbor's head, and the corner where he lit the couch on fire and then hid underneath because he said he would rather burn than be punished.

In a few months, Watts' father will be out of prison. Watts has kept a relationship with his father throughout the 28 years of his incarceration. He speaks with his mother who visits on the weekends two or three times a day despite her mental illness. He said they have apologized for being absent. But it's not enough.

"When you step on somebody's toe, you say I'm sorry," he said. "When you're not there, you can't say I'm sorry. You just have to show me that you're sorry. Live a better life. My dad's going to be coming out. He has to live a better life. That's going to make me believe he's really remorseful."

Watts's calm nature is attributed to the wisdom his faith and teachers have given to him, he said. His aunt, however, said Watts can be too passive, letting things go too easily.

"But if you want to see him get mad," she said, "mess with them two little girls. Then you'll see another side to Eric."

Watts continues to journal in his marble notebooks, sometimes sitting outside the homes of his childhood that inspire his work. He doesn't tell his daughters his story, because they don't need to know, he said. But for those kids who know too well what he is going through, he shares it all.

Robinson said Watts learned to overcome obstacles in life by playing with words.

"Eric can fly now," Robinson said. "He can do anything he wants because he found something that works."