Rico, Searching for Inner Peace After the Loss of His Brothers

‘Boring’ Being Outside All Day

“I’ve been in Reno for approximately six years and I would sum up my experience in Reno with patience, pain, and love,” Rico said, when we interviewed him on a recent fall day in the Biggest Little City. 

He was next to a shopping cart full of branches.

“I lost three brothers in six months and I've been f*** up my life,” Rico said, explaining his heartbroken journey. “I moved to Vegas and then moved back here and I'm just starting to get my life back on track.”

When asked how he’s been coping with the death of his brothers in such a short span of time, Rico said he’s been taking it one day at a time. Their deaths, however, have given Rico a fresh outlook on life.

“I remember, before my brothers had died, I was good,” Rico said. “But then after my brothers had died, I just took a different outlook on life. That's when I said, ‘Forget it, I'm just gonna be me all the way.’”

Currently Rico has been staying with some friends, but he understands what it’s like to have no place to sleep at night.

“[Being homeless] sucked because nobody wants to be outside all day,” Rico said. “It gets boring being outside all day, especially when you don't like to bother people.”

Roughly three years ago, Rico says he was sleeping every night in the stairwell at the Wonder Lodge.

Sleeping in a Motel Stairway

“[Being homeless] was rough because I was sleeping in the Wonder Lodge stairway every single night and I would give out my food stamps to everybody inside the Wonder Lodge,” Rico said. “I would give them my food because I like to see people eat and see people happy.”

Despite often giving away his food stamps to others in need, Rico says he always had trust that God was going to see him through.

“I knew that God was going to take care of me, no matter how foolish that may sound to some people,” Rico said. “I know that there's a Higher Power, or whichever name you prefer to put on it. I knew He was going to look out, so I didn't really trip. It worked, too, because I'm still alive and that was like three years ago.”

During his time without housing, Rico attests that there’s enough resources for the homeless. It’s the lack of jobs, or getting to available jobs when you are homeless, he says, that makes it difficult for people like him to get back on their feet. 

“Hell yeah, [there’s enough resources for the homeless],” Rico said. “There's a river where you can catch fish and crawdads. But you have to learn how to catch some of it, but yeah, there's definitely enough resources by far. Definitely no jobs, though.”

Hoping to Get Back to School

In the meantime, Rico says he hopes to soon enroll at TMCC and take classes like psychology, philosophy and languages like Hindu or American Sign Language. Those classes will prepare him, he says, to take on a position as a life coach, aside from his pursuits as an artist. 

“[With that education] I would like to become a life coach, aside from an artist,” Rico said. “I like to rap and I like to draw, because I aspire to be a musician. But then I want to be a life coach, for sure, because I got the answer for life.”

That answer to life, Rico says, is finding inner peace within ourselves.

“[The answer to life] is peace,” Rico said. “[People will find peace] once they realize that peace just comes from within and everything that we have ever been told is pretty much a lie. I just feel like us being animals, which we are and animals being animals, nothing in life is good or bad. Nothing in life is wrong or right.”

For Rico, people should do what makes them happy and brings them peace.

“Life is meant to just be lived in experience and whatever you decide to do and go through in your life, as long as you feel inside yourself that it's right within, it's not wrong,” Rico said. “Whether you're doing drugs or smoking tobacco or having sex right here in the middle of the street, it's only wrong if you inside yourself feel like it's wrong. But for us to be any type of creation and to think that we can societal-ize and put rules and regulations on things is f****d up.”

Rico is still working on getting to where he wants to be, but in the meantime he says the desire for inner peace is what keeps him positive that he’s headed in the right direction.

“I can't always take that advice because I'm stuck on trying to see people progress and do better and fulfill their life in a way that's going to be better for themselves,” Rico said. “But self-peace draws me back into a lot of those areas because I'm just like, ‘You’re gonna get it one day,’ you know?” 

Reporting and Photography by Scott King for Our Town Reno