Recovering from an Attack without Insurance
Jimmy Penrod says it was an attack by a woman in a local motel room and a severe injury to an eye which got his previous life, which included a job as a printer, derailed.
“I didn't have no insurance,” he told us. "It took a long time. They build the eyeball up with nitrogen and put the … retina back into where it's supposed to be. But I kinda got half (of an) eye side out right now….”
He says he has two ex-wives and one 28 year-old son, but that he doesn’t try to bother them with his ordeals.
“I don't tell them nothing. Nothing. I call them up or I go down there and take the bus down there to Carson city…. You know, we have wings and shoot pool … and then I come back here …”
Jimmy was relaxing on a bench by the Truckee river in downtown Reno when we met him. Besides beer, Jimmy says he might also like to gamble too much. After he receives paychecks he says he goes to the Cal Neva. “You know, sometimes it hits, sometimes it don't…. I've lost everything, but the most I hit, I hit $6,000 one night. Had a royal playing, a dollar machine. I played it back over the days and lost it all…”Photo by Jordan Blevins with reporting by Prince Nesta.
From Motels to the Streets
Jimmy says he used to be able to afford a motel room on his own but not right now, even though he’s working again. He tries to stay in motels with friends. He says being outside at night feels dangerous.
“You know you're walking around here at night. Somebody wants to … like molest you. Take your shit,” he said. “You gotta be tough. You gotta be awake. … You know a bunch of bad things happen here. Someone wants to take my money, take whatever is in my pocket. And I'm like it ain't happening. That's why I carry a knife now. You know, I'm an ex felon so I can't have a gun…”
“I wish I did not drink alcohol because your mind works better when you're sober,” he said. “You always do a good thing. I mean I've always had a job. I've never been unemployed, you know? But there's been a couple of times I did not want to go to work because of drinking. Like today.” Photo by Jordan Blevins with reporting by Prince Nesta.
A Prior Hellish Prison Experience
His crime dates back to 1979 in Texas and he recounts in minute detail his capture, which sounds like it could have been in a movie.
“I wanted to come home to Nevada,” he remembers vividly. “I was out in Texas, had no money. I walked in this restaurant and wanted to take their money and take a bus to Nevada. Well, they didn't have any money. It's Christmas Eve. So I was in a stolen truck. I pulled a truck out of a gas station and police started chasing me and … the truck started running out of gas, so I jumped out of the truck. I started running and then I heard these bullets. I was going through the apartments. I could hear the bullets hitting the walls in front of me. So I dropped. At that time, the police didn't even know what they were chasing. But it came across the radio and he says, hey, you ain't that hijacker are you? I said ‘yeah’. And I did eight years time in a Texas prison picking cotton. Texas is not a good place to do time. They make you pick cotton out there, you're tired… and like your, your fingers are bleeding. Oh my God, man….”
“Of course everyday is another day when you wake up in the morning,” he said when we asked him if he had any regrets concerning his turbulent life. Photo by Jordan Blevins with reporting by Prince Nesta.