Angel Finally Found His Wings is an intimate and candid memoir about a child surviving life on the streets as a prostitute. Twelve-year-old "Angel" shares a room at the YMCA in New York City with thirty-four-year-old Charlie, the pimp who is blackmailing him.
Angel's mom is battling schizophrenia while Charlie, the neighborhood Boy Scout leader, grooms him away from his impoverished family, threatening to return his mother to a mental institution if Angel doesn't turn tricks on 42nd Street, the sex trade epicenter.
Taking place between 1972 and 1977 on the war-torn, crime-infested streets of New York, Angel, whose real name is Ron, maintains his normal-kid status to his family, classmates, and football buddies in Brooklyn while surviving life-threatening situations hustling.
Told in the dual consciousness of Ron as both a growing teenage boy and our first-person narrator looking back at his life, Angel Finally Found His Wings is emotionally wrenching and disarmingly direct.
We live life on the razor's edge with Angel who, unlike most street kids, is honest and kind with his clients while rooting for Ron to escape Charlie's control, protect his mother, and recapture his life. Ron Hunter was chosen to take part in the 2010 Oprah episode "200 Men" that dealt with male childhood sexual abuse. This story unpacks the label "victim" while reframing a boy's struggle with his sexual identity and deconstructing the harrowing and gritty story behind extreme trauma.
Angel Finally Found His Wings is a story of resiliency and finding self-love; it's a journey of faith paving the way for perseverance. Ron always follows his heart and, in doing so, claims ownership over his past and redefines himself on terms self-created.
Ron Hunter is a lover of life, a survivor of sexual abuse, and a person of profound faith in the miraculous. He is a former US Army sergeant and a career flight attendant.