Reno, where dreamers dream. And dream. And dream

Daytime in Reno, and a look at the place in the light. It looks much cleaner, is teeming with a different blend of characters, although a few faces looked familiar, and was generally less intimidating.
Still, the place seems to be a place for dreamers and those with nothing left to lose. As Dylan said, “When you aint got nothing you got nothing to lose. You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.“
Case in point: Nancy. Nancy was loitering around the entrance to the McDonald’s that I went into last night, on 2nd Street. She was looking like she might have been a bit intoxicated last night, and when I walked past the McDonalds this morning, she was there, but dressed differently. I decided to speak to her. I stopped, leaned against the wall and just casually asked her if I had seen her there last night. She avowed that I had, but that she had gone to get her hair fixed. While telling me this, she spun around to show me where her hair had been damaged in the back by over-processing. The turning around caused her to list to one side and I reached out to catch her if she fell. She said that she was NOT drunk, but was on medication. She didn’t smell drunk, so I took her at her word. She looked at my cart and advised me that the bike police would probably stop me and ask me what I was doing. I asked her why, and she told me that they would say that I could possibly grab my air mattress off the cart, where it is strapped down, and hit someone over the head with it. I laughed, but she said that she saw a guy get hit over the head with a bottle and get knocked unconscious. I had no reason whatsoever to think she was lying.
I asked her if she was a “working girl” (colloquialism for hooker), and she told me that she used to be “legal” (Nevada allows prostitution under strict conditions, including frequent medical exams) but that she now had stopped, and was on disability. She related how she used to tell her clients to look out for the illegal girls, because “They carry weapons, want your wallet, and once they get your information, won’t leave you alone.”
Out of nowhere she volunteered that she was raised as a Catholic. However, she said, she didn’t remember being baptized. I told her that she would have been an infant and wouldn’t remember that far back anyway. She said that she remembered her father walking into her bedroom while she was in the bassinet (I must say that I thought she was going to tell me that he molested her) and asked her if she wanted to be baptized. She said that she probably replied “Goo goo gaga or something. “
Nancy worked at a bowling alley for a few years and is now disabled. She’s been claen and sober for three years now and was broke when I spoke to her. I had no cash to give her but she said it was okay, that I seemed interesting and that she wished me well on my trip. I took a photo of her and we parted. She walked away, looking for a few dollars to get breakfast, having spent the last of her money on her hair.
I walked up the street, clicking away, until I came to the Arch Wedding Chapel, a clean looking well lit hole in the wall where more dreams are fulfilled, in the cheesiest possible setting. I was going to ask the proprietor about his business, but when I walked in the only people in sight were a coupke who had just gotten married. The groom was a rotund older man in a wheelchair, wearing a white suit and a big hat. The bride a middle aged, very plain looking woman in a wedding dress and hat. They had just gotten hitched in the back of the “chapel”. I congratulated them, and asked if I might get them to pose for a picture. That was when the man spoke, in English filtered through a very thick French accent. “Speak more slowly please,” he said. I repeated myself, but he still did not understand. His new bride leaned over and told him, in perfect English (she was Amercian) what I wanted. He leaned back in his wheelchair, waved me off and said, “Oh, no no no.”
The proprietor came out and handed the couple some papers to sign, making it all official. While they signed, he and I talked about the marriage business for a moment. As we were talking I must admit I snapped a few surreptitious shots of the couple. I will not be deterred! The proprietor had little to say, so I left, and waited outside, where a limo was parked to take the new couple to their honeymoon destination, although the groom was so large and unhealthy that the honeymoon night might have to be spent in intensive care. I got the sense that the entire charade was for a green card for him and a few grand for her, but who knows? As the proprietor helped load the large groom into the limo while the bride stood by holding her new hubby’s cane, he looked over at me and gave me a smile and a wink, as if to say, “Oh boy, another pair of losers just made me richer.”
Or, maybe his smile was just another façade like so many others I had seen here, where dreams are just that. The pawnshops are plentiful, and stocked full of the things people once held dear, but not dear enough to stop them from trading them in for a few bucks and another chance to throw their hard earned cash at these sleazy bastards who make this city what it is: a Boulevard of broken dreams.
I want to be able to say something nice about Reno. So I will. The park that is built on both sides of the Truckee River is beautiful, clean and has a lot to offer the young people who use it. Other than that, I saw nothing much to make me want to come back here.