Las Vegas : Beer and Loafing

It was somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to kick in...

The doctor and his attorney

No wait, that's some other weird and dreadful flashback. No big red sharks, no trunk full of narcotics, no lizard people. Just me on an aeroplane out of San Francisco. Two days, one night... and a lifetime to live it down.

Tried to score a cot at the one and only hostel in Vegas but with the "Las Vegoose" music festival on, all beds were booked. So I rented a dive in the seedy northern part of town, chugged a sixpack and headed for The Strip.

It was everything I expected and less. That familiar smell of desperation: 3 parts bad cologne, 8 parts stale alcohol, 5 parts acrid cigarette smoke. It's the comingled smell of hopeful anticipation, reckless abandon and morbid fear.

I was having none of that. All I knew is that there were free drinks to be had. So what if a little idle change passed through the slots in the meantime? I needed somewhere classic... old school... Brat Pack. I positioned myself at the one cent machines at the "Stardust", and began the draw on my unlimited line of bourbon. "Yes. Why not? I'll have another one. Thank you for asking."

Stardust Memories

There's two problems with free alcohol:
Number one, it's usually the bottom shelf stuff, stretched thin with ethanol.
Number two, it works remarkably well.

In no time and primed with a minor windfall on the slots, I found myself prowling the green baize tables upstairs, looking for some real action. Cutting a sharp figure in my leopard-skin lapelled dinner jacket, I sidled over to some of the local gliterrati playing blackjack and, cooly extracting a Winny Blue from my silver cigarette box, got in on the deal. I had no idea about strategy. Or even the basic rules. I drew a jack and a seven. The dealer drew two tens. "SNAP!" I howled, slapping my left hand down over his cards and scooping the huge pile of winnings with my right.

It's not a pleasant experience to be frogmarched through a crowded Las Vegas casino on a busy Saturday night then ejected onto the footpath. But at least I still had the shirt on my back.

Leaving Las Vegas

Another crumpled ejectee drew up next to me on the curb. "Listen buddy," he said, "if you're going to enjoy Vegas, you gotta at least get something for your money. Follow me -- we're going to 'Cheaters'."

Normally I would be wary of vagrants in a town of grifters and con artists of every stripe, but this guy had an honest face and a wicked grin on his face. And Cheaters sounded like just my kind of gambling den.

Damn homonyms. The place was actually spelled 'Cheetahs'. A cursory glance revealed that all the ladies contained therein had already lost the shirts off their backs. And each had a mission to claim yours. Tequila shots were free. There wasn't a damn slot machine in the joint and no-one seemed to care.

Now, I'm not quite sure what happened next. In fact, the next 14 hours are a bit of a blur. I awake with a jolt as if from a coma. It's 2pm. My flight leaves at 4pm. I'm in a big U-shaped vinyl booth in an empty club, still smouldering from a thousand dying cigarettes. It's dark ins here. There's no one around. It's quiet. Too quiet. Coulda heard a pin drop. A silk stocking is tied in a half-windsor around my neck. My leopard-skin lapelled dinner jacket is intact but the shirt off my back is missing.

I stumble into the glaring desert sunlight.
Gad, it's hot!
Must... find... shade...
I stare up at a big slumbering neon sign.

It still says 'Cheetahs'.
How? Where? What? Why? Why?? WHY???

Two hours. And two long, sweltering, blistering, festering miles on foot in the blinding desert heat to my dive. I don't have enough cash for taxi fare. But I've got enough for a pack of cigarettes.
This is gonna hurt.

Comments

[Lambert]

Toronto-rah!
Well lads, it may just be that the Toronto material was too lewd and racy even for the legions of depraved and lascivious perverts who are known to loiter around this blog during the wee hours.

[mallen]

Yeah, Bird has a point. Why are you hiding the Toronto segment? We've heard all the rumours but before we rush to judgement its only fair that you be allowed a few words in your defence.(We know for a fact that the Bogota civic authorities met with representatives of the RCMP in Guadalahara just before your arrival in their townstead...Coincidence or what!)

[bird]

Excellent. let's have more entries. What about toronto -- as tedious as that, eh? Now you know why I left.