Homeless in Las Vegas: Stories from the Street

Chapter Eleven. Updates

In this book I describe encounters with some people, like Ricky, Ron, Jessi, Kevin, Manny, and Marco, whom I was able to see on several occasions and over several weeks. Additionally, I was able to catch up with three of these people (Ricky from chapter 1, Jessi from chapter 2, and Manny from chapter 10) several months after our last encounter. :: :: :: On April 17, 2006, I am exiting the Rescue Mission with a homeless friend when I see Ricky standing outside the gate. We greet each other and shake hands. It had been five months since I had last seen him or attempted to contact him and Ron at the Budget Motel. He said he and Ron had a falling-out several months ago. He stopped living with Ron in November. “He was a slob. I couldn’t stand always having to pick up after his lazy ass. I was getting so tired of him sitting around, not doing anything for himself. He would just work two days a week, and sit around the room.” When I ask Ricky if Ron still works at the bar on Fremont where we partied, Ricky says he doesn’t care. He hasn’t seen him in months. “Once he started complaining about the way I was chewing my gum,” he said, exasperated. “I told him, ‘Just keep playing your damn video game.’ I was so angry, I thought we were gonna fight, so I knew that was it. I packed up my things when he was gone the next day and I left.” I asked him about his security job on Fremont Street. He said he left that too, around the same time. He said he tried various jobs and moved in Updates : : e l e v e n : : Updates : 213 with a roommate who ended up being a drug user. He railed against roommates in Las Vegas. “You can’t find people who will just work a job and pay the rent. There’s always some other issue. Next thing you know, they’re drinking too much, or they’re doing drugs, and it’s like, ‘Oh no, I know he’s gonna stop going to work.’ The writing’s on the wall.” He said he had been staying at a hotel for a few days with a friend, a young Caucasian man who stood nearby but who didn’t introduce himself. They finally ran out of money, and Ricky was given a bed at the Mission for one week, which was what he was now waiting for. “I never come down here to this part of town,” he said. He said his girlfriend, whom I met briefly at the dt c when they were heading to the airport, had successfully delivered their child, a girl, back home in Ohio. His daughter was now four months old. His girlfriend had come back to Las Vegas to live with him, but his lack of money complicated things. While he was staying at the Rescue Mission, she was staying with his daughter at the Shade Tree. “We’re all gonna get a place,” he said. I remembered him using nearly the same phrase when he wanted to get housing with Ron. “I got a new job starting next week. It’s a division of Sony.” He says he’s not much into partying anymore, but he still likes to gamble once in a while. He talks for several minutes about how he’s still working hard to make it here, and says that he refuses to give up. He says this situation is temporary , maybe only for a few weeks. “The most important thing was for [my girlfriend] to get shelter, because otherwise she’s outside during the daytime trying to nurse a four-month-old.” He says he wants to eventually get enough money together to start a Laundromat. He says that most of the Laundromats in this city are rundown and filthy. He says a nice Laundromat, maybe with a pool table and some video games in it, would be something people would like and would be profitable. Ricky takes down my phone number and says we should all go get something to eat next week, at Main Street Station near the Fremont 214 : h o me l e s s i n l a s v e g a s Street Experience. The guards call all the men who...