A casual, candid, unfiltered chat with one of Pearland’s legends:
the ever-bold businessman and local bad boy,
Enrique Rickey Cruz.
Everyone loves a redemption story, right? Buckle up and let’s take a wild ride:
I was born in Brownsville, Texas, which is the tip of Texas. The very last town that borders Matamoros, Mexico. I consider myself from Matamoros. I mean, I’m proud to be an American, don’t get me wrong, but I’m of Mexican heritage. And all of my family is from Matamoros, Mexico.
I was the only one born here, and I’m proud of it. But again, I was born in a house in Brownsville, Texas. With a midwife for my mom. And I came here to Pearland.
I’ve been in Pearland all my life, since I was in kindergarten, four or five years old, until I graduated.
Pearland, being a small town at the time, I’m glad they brought us here because we’ve made some great friends here. It’s that the town was small enough and not big enough, or almost in the middle of the growth when we came in the mid-70s.
We’ve made a lot of friends, and we’ve seen this town grow. So that’s the good thing about having roots here.
Which high school did you attend? Did you go to college, or did you leave high school and go straight into business?
I was going to say, like most young people, but most young people don’t get in trouble. I did.
I got in trouble, you know, and experimented with a little bit of marijuana and drinking and all that kind of stuff in mid-high school. I quit school, I think in the ninth grade.
My father, being a working man, showed me really quickly that I wasn’t going to be sitting at home. So, he got me a job at a concrete plant. That happened for about a summer, and that’s when I decided to go back to school.
So, I went back to school the following year, and I was accepted — or, shall I say, helped — by a wonderful teacher named Ms. Carol Thomas. Who not only helped me but also helped many other troubled teens get back to school. She was really one of those teachers you see on TV, like the one in Stand and Deliver.
She helped me return to school, and I participated in a work program that helped me graduate. So I did it in ’88.
I ended up graduating. It was a little hard, like I said, with the love and care of Ms. Carol Thomas. Not only me, but a lot of other students, a lot of people here in this town. And there’s something embarrassing: I showed up to my graduation drunk.
And Ms. Thomas and I still talk about it today! We laugh about it, but she remembers it. Those are the silly type of things.
Sooo … were you noticeably drunk?
I was noticeably drunk, yeah.
Our graduation was on a Saturday, and I spent Friday night at the beach partying. And graduation was the next morning at noon or one o’clock on a Saturday. And we’re booking it from Galveston, man. We’re still drinking along the way! You know, we got a keg in the back, out of 1968.
I had a 1968 Impala at the time. Okay. And a bunch of our guys and girls, we piled up, I said, man, y’all got to get me, I got to graduate, man! (Laughing)
And we all piled up, threw the keg in the car. And we’re pumping the keg along the way from Galveston all the way to Pasadena.
And so, you know, they throw me out of the car, and I had my tassel and everything, or my … you know, whatever you put on. And then when I get there, man, the teacher’s like, “Oh, man.” Anyway, we laugh about it today, but it was something, you know, it did happen.
It’s a story to tell, it’s a story to tell. And I don’t recommend it. I did do it and, you know, it’s part of my history, it’s part of my story.
Speaking of your story, you have a book coming out soon.
It is. The book’s title is From the Big House to the Penthouse: Stories of Addiction and Recovery. I don’t claim success yet in recovery. I’m not saying I’m done, or that I’m cured, because I will never be cured, as far as the program is concerned. But I do have a history of getting it right for 14 years.
So 14 years so far, and counting, I have been staying clean. And I’ve been happy for the most part. One thing that I’m learning today is that a grateful recovering addict will not use when we practice gratitude and put God first. Something that I’ve learned with my faith. My faith is not strong enough yet, but I’m working on it. I’ve always been a hustler.
I’ve always enjoyed the game. I’ve always enjoyed the chase. I’ve enjoyed making money. Now, my dad has had his business since I was a young guy. When I was 16, I sold my first car. It was an old woody station wagon. I remember, I didn’t make much money. I might have even lost money! But I know I sold it, and I said, “Wow!” I didn’t make much money on it, but I got that feeling from the sale. It felt great, man. And I said, when I felt that, I wanted that feeling again!
I didn’t realize I was an addict at the time. Who’s going to know? Who’s going to grow up saying, You know what, I’m going to be a junkie? So, I remember that.
That feeling is called dopamine, I believe.
That’s what they say it is today. I’m learning, yes. You get that rush. That’s what it was. And here’s the thing, with that rush and that dopamine that I was feeling, from what I’m understanding today, and being a compulsive person, and being a highly addicted person to anything, I guess part of that would be, I’m understanding today, that part of that is part of my success, as they say.
And I feel strange saying that I’m successful. I still don’t consider myself successful, and it’s embarrassing sometimes when people say, Hey, you’re so successful. You know what I mean? I’m like, I don’t know how to react.
In my way, it’s strange because I do, I’m very egotistical. I love gold. I love the cars. I love the prestige. I like that. But when somebody says I’m successful, it embarrasses me. Go figure.
The point I want to make is that I knew early on I loved making money, and I did. From then on, I mean, I was just going after it, going after it.
At 23, I started running my dad’s auto repair shop. I graduated from high school. I started running it for him. I ran his business, but alcohol always got in the way.
I wasn’t doing a whole lot of drugs at the time, but I drank a lot, and that would have an effect. It would cause me to be irresponsible, wake up late, stay up all hours of the night drinking, and girls, and drinking, and cars, and all that, early 20s. It would affect my relationship with my dad because he was a really strong, ethical guy who was always on time. You know those old guys that are like, you know, be 10 minutes, 15 minutes before you’re supposed to be there. When you give your word, all that kind of stuff. But my drinking would not allow me to be responsible. So it always affected my relationship with my father.
I was running his business when he got divorced, and he got remarried. He got hooked up with this other lady, and that became a conflict because she wanted control, and I wanted control of the shop, his shop. So that’s in ’96, I went my own way and opened up my own shop next door, the old shop he had next door.
But anyway, from then on, it was Rick’s Automotive, actually, and then I changed it to Cruz’n Cars like two or three years later.
Embarrassing to say, but I think I’d been drinking, and I think I was smoking a joint, and I was like, you know what? Cruz just came to me. The next day, I renamed my shop. This March 15th will be 30 years.
I’ll share this, and I know I’m on different branches, but, you know, I share in my group, in my Narcotics Anonymous (NA) group, which I go to every Friday night. At one time, my choice of drug was crack. I started with cocaine, and loved it. I did cocaine since I was a young guy, but never really got addicted to it.
I partied with it and blah, blah, blah. I did cocaine recreationally. I mean, it would go two, three days sometimes. You know what I mean? Not in a row, but I would party two, three days, Friday night, you know, and then Saturday night, and go to sleep, and then whatever, late or whatever, but what really affected me was when I tried crack.
I smoked it with a girl, and I liked it, and then it ended. For about two, three months, I partied with her, and then I got hooked. The difference is that cocaine is pure. It’s a powder form. And crack is a solid rock. But they dilute it with something and smoke it in a pipe.
And when you smoke it, and it goes into your lungs, it affects you, boom, immediately. Immediately. I mean, cocaine does, too, through your nostrils. But when you smoke it, the effect is so much faster. And just the way it comes fast, it leaves fast.
And then you’re stuck chasing that. As opposed to taking something up the nose.
My downfall is on social media. I have my podcast. And I have opened up my anonymity in my NA group. Everybody knows I’m a recovering addict. Everybody knows what I went to jail for.
So did you end up calling your wife, your girlfriend’s name? Something like that?
Honestly, I set an extra cell phone in my car. I left it in there for a time, and it fell on the floor. The thing is that, like sitting in jail, it had nothing to do with the infidelity, but with the drug use. I’m glad I got caught. You know, I’m glad that it all went to head, Craig, because it kind of saved my life. You know, I’ve got my daughter, Chrissy, who works for me at the shop. She’s the manager. Well, I’ve institutionalized her at least twice, maybe three times. This is about three or four years ago.
And I remember at the time my sponsor still lived. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t know how to deal with her. And consulting with him, he says, you know what? This is what you’ve been practicing all along. Apply the program to her. Apply it to her … the program. And it’s true.
We say in our program, in Narcotics Anonymous, that recovery is not for those who need it. It’s for those who want it.
I remember the first rehab I went to, I got kicked out. And I was like, how can you kick me out? I mean, they’re like, you’re not ready. You’re not ready. These beds are for people who are ready. You’re not ready yet. Go back and use.
I was like, What do you mean, go back and use? You’re not done using. Go finish. My counselor told me that. I was like, What do you mean? They’re not there to force. Rehabs are not there to force you. They don’t keep you in. You can leave anytime you want. When you go to rehab, you’re not behind lock and key.
Everybody who goes to rehab, like Johnny Cash, Bobby Brown, any artist, any famous person, the Betty Ford Clinic, everything is voluntary. You don’t go there and get locked in, and you force rehab. No, you have to want to. And if you don’t run the program, they kick you out. They’re like, look, somebody else is dying to get in.
And so when I got kicked out, I was like, man, we’re paying a lot of money. And at the time, I had insurance through my wife’s work. She worked for Southeast Memorial. I said, You can’t kick me out. Shit, they can.
They told me, Rick, your shit’s getting packed. I was like, What do you mean? Am I getting kicked out? I was like, Hey, my insurance is paying, Jack. They packed it and had it right outside the door, and changed the code to get in.
Imagine me on Bissonet in Houston. I had to find a ride home. That really helped. When I went to jail, the judge told me it was because I failed the drug test. My attorney said, Cruz, you come in here one more time, man … Because they had given me eight years’ state time, but they went ahead and gave me probation. Well, I screwed that one up and tested positive. On a drug test.
When I had my shop, this girl named Angelica was studying to become an attorney. She had just graduated from high school. And I was older. She was the sister of a friend of mine. And I would help her with her car. And at the time, I didn’t only have my shop, I was pushing coke, too!
I was living a double life. So I would help her. She would bring her car, and I didn’t charge her for it. Just took care of her. She was a very sweet girl.
Now, when I went down and lost all my money, I became broke, and was sitting in jail with no hope for three or four months. Nobody came to see me. No judge, no nobody.
Then one day I got a call. “Someone’s here to see you.” I thought it was my parole officer. I put your clothes on, and go into the room, and it’s her. I was like, Hey, how are you here to visit me? You know, like a personal person. I thought it was a personal visit, but I didn’t realize I was in the justice room. Like an attorney, a judge, or an official was there to see me. But it was her. She had become an attorney.
I was like, wait a minute. How did you get in here? You’re in this official room. What are you doing? She goes, Hey, well, I graduated. I’m an attorney now. And she’s smiling. I gave her a hug and everything. And she says, so, listen, this is what we’ve got to do. And I’m going, wait a minute. I said, Hey, look, I need you to understand something. She goes, What’s that? I said, I’m broke. I said, I got no money.
All bullshit aside, man, I think I must have blown through about $200,000 worth of drugs that year. I lost, and I went into foreclosure on my house. I put my family on the street. I put my wife and my kids on the street! We lost our home. Christmas was terrible. I pawned my kids’ gifts from underneath the tree to a crack dealer. Talk about sad. I opened up gifts and gave them to the dope dealer. Gave him my son’s guitar and jewelry for my kids. I was addicted.
Thanksgiving, I stayed up smoking crack for about a week and a half. I had enough money to buy a turkey. I fell asleep, and the turkey burned. Instead of buying another turkey, you know what I did?
You bought more crack.
Yeah. Can you imagine that shit? I sat there in jail. When I finally went to jail, I’m like, I can’t believe I did this shit, man. That wasn’t me. I used to be Ricky fucking Cruz, man! I used to be respected in this town. I went, and this is what I’ve become. That’s what I became, man, a loser. Damn.
When I started to go to NA, I went in there, and my sponsor told me, Get honest, man. Get honest. When people go to jail, they talk jail stories. We talk about pushing bricks, doing this, doing that, and I had cars, women, coke, money, and all this. My story is real. My story is real. Just to clarify, the whole time that I sat behind bars was a year and a half. But I was safe from going to actual prison.
You said you’ve been clean for 14 years, and you started about ninth grade? So how long were you dirty, if they called it that?
I have been using it since I was in ninth grade. I was 41 when I got clean.
So, you don’t call yourself successful, but you’ve got two businesses in the Paraline area.
I have three businesses. The Ella location and this location, which has been open for about 6 months to 1 year. My third business is muscle cars. I buy and sell exotic cars.
Oh, wow, so how did you acquire that Cobra?
I did a deal with a friend of mine who’s an investor. I’ve also got a 1968 Big Block Camaro Specialty Edition, a ’69 Bronco, ’69 Bronco Specialty Edition, ’74 Stingray I buy, and I try not to fall in love with them. So when I buy, I end up usually keeping them. That’s the problem. I mean, it’s not a problem, but it’s a problem my wife has. And she doesn’t even have a problem. We joke about it. Having been in business in town for so long, I know a lot of people. A lot of people know me. They know that I’m in the muscle car business, and I buy them.
Craig, in my story and in NA, I sometimes seem ungrateful to my father. He passed away two weeks before my three-year anniversary of being clean. Sometimes I seem ungrateful because, in years past, I blamed him for many of the ways I am. I think back today, all these character defects that I have, being Hispanic, the machismo stuff about we’re men, Hispanic men. We’re like, hey, the more women you have, the better, man. My sponsor, Eugene Mason, helped me understand that. He saved my life. An old black man with white hair, almost 80 years old. I met him in rehab, and he helped me with the three years in recovery. He gave me more than anybody could have given me my whole life. And I’m here because of him. I loved him.
And the way the program works is that we have to get honest. And when Eugene got honest about me, about some personal stuff that he was ashamed of, I was able to open up with him with some shit I was ashamed of. Now that he’s the only one, he took that to his grave. And I say to myself, I feel so much better when I do that. But the point that I’m trying to say is that, yeah, getting clean at the time and meeting Eugene, and losing my father, and understanding the new recovering addict walking into the room, I see him with his ass hanging out, I’m going, yeah, you need to hear this shit. Check this out.
Because when they come in here, when we go into the room, we have this shame. Look, man, for the record or not, but a lot of addicts that are men, they’ll suck a dick to get a hit. Women will — can I speak honestly? — women will give pussy. The most honest woman, when she becomes addicted to crack or heroin, will go to any means to get that fucking hit. And I’m just saying, man, that out there, there are men who aren’t gay that will go to those lengths.
The addiction is so, so, so, so strong. Prostitutes out on the street, you think they just do it because they want to? No, man. Something’s pushing them to. I can honestly say I never sucked a fucking dick for a hit. I probably fucking thought about it when I was broke. Hey, you know, I ain’t shitting you. You know what I mean? I had fucking drug dealers one time tell me, Hey, you ain’t got no money, Cruz, go suck my dick. And I was like, fuck. You know what I mean? And again, would I repeat that to anybody else? No, I talk about that shit in the meetings because a lot of motherfuckers out here, we can’t tell this shit to normal people. They’re not going to understand. They’re going to say, Oh, you’re fucking gay. No, I’m not gay.
I’m just telling you the shit that I thought about while I was using. And I’ve given up. You know, look what I did to my family, Craig. I put them on the fucking street. Right? Sold every fucking car I had. At the time, I think I had six: three Porsches, three ’Vets.
I met this chick, and she was a call girl. She was a stripper. She came to my shop, and I worked on her fucking car. She was very attractive. She said, “Hey, come see me at work.” What’d I do? I went, and fucking saw her at work. Where does she work? The Gentleman’s Club. You know what I mean? Hey, let’s smoke some of this after work. Let’s do it. Boom. Yeah. That was the beginning of my fall, man.
You know? And I share that. I share that. I get honest in a meeting. You know what I mean? Why? Because that motherfucker that walked in, that I look at him, all sucked in, looks like, you know, bags under his eyes. You can tell he ain’t slept. They have to get it hard. They have to get it hard. You see that son of a bitch, and you go, man. Yeah, you poor bastard. Hey, listen. Whatever chain of bullshit you’ve done, listen to this. You ain’t the only one, man. There’s hope. So they have to get hit hard.
You mentioned you are training for a half-marathon. Do you believe your enthusiasm for running is connected to your addictive personality? Some individuals become dependent on exercise, seeking the adrenaline rush it provides. Do you use running to achieve a similar runner’s high?
(Taking time to ponder the question …) I think I’ve heard that before, an adrenaline rush. I think you just uncovered something for me, man. I’m trying to rebuild my faith and give it back to God. Craig, today I’m strong. As long as I stay clean and don’t resort to drinking or drugging, I’ll be all right. And I’m confident about that.
What services do you provide the community?
We provide full automotive repair services from bumper to bumper. We offer maintenance schedules. We offer air conditioning, fuel injection, and suspension work at the other shop. And here (the interview took place at 2121 N. Main St., Pearland), we offer lighter services, such as oil changes, flushes, and light brake and suspension work.
After everything we discussed, is there anything you would like to add?
Of course, my wife, Lisa Cruz, and I have five wonderful children. Two boys and three girls that I love very much. And my humble business that I use to give back to the community. Giving back to the community is what it’s all about. Some people may say it as a pitch, but I really mean it. We volunteer our time and donate to all kinds of organizations that are needed here in town. I can’t tell you exactly what it means right now, CAP, the Pearland Neighborhood Center, and Counseling Connections for Change, a mental health organization. I’m on the board. Keep Pearland Beautiful. I love Pearland, and I think Pearland loves me.
Interview by Craig L. Amos, Publisher
