Just Beneath - Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

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Just Beneath

Las Vegas


By necessity, I drove my Southwestern Adventure Tours through Las Vegas every two or three weeks one summer, though I can hardly call myself a veteran of what my friend and fellow trek leader, Josh, called "Satanic Disneyland." The frequent visits contrasted jarringly from the wilderness lifestyle of the desert.

My already non-existent enthusiasm for exploration into the noxious humors of counterfeit fantasy was dampening further each time I passed over the hills from Boulder City. I alternated between habitual zombie-like lounging by the ultra-chlorinated pool and sitting in my air-conditioned hotel room in my boxers. The luxuries of respite and solitude were not oft found on my camping tours and I took full advantage while my tourists explored the copulating nightlife.

I often said the real heat lurks under the glint of shiny desert glass - under the deep roots of the transplanted palm tress. Beyond the eight-wide cruising lanes - underneath the empty, soulless energy parade.

After five trips into and out of southern Nevada, though, I had yet to stumble upon the heat of my own fear and loathing. When fellow guide Josh's tour crossed mine, we occasionally tried to re-create scenes from Hunter S. Thompson's famous book of excess, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream - but it only succeeded in boring us. Pulsating lights, clinking coins, labyrinthine casino floors, swirling carpet designs and wall-sized mirrors simply don't bode well with a thick beer buzz. Maybe it's that look in people's eyes. The provoked numbness is enough to drive anyone with the slightest sensitivity or inclination towards claustrophobia mad.

My shuffling around aimlessly on the strip seemed to grab the attention of some passersby, including the eightieth khaki-clad fratboy-on-the-town to ask me if I could sell him "nuggets." Do I really stand out that much? The rest strolled on their merry way with cameras, gleaming white tube socks and sunburned-pink faces. I stopped to chat with some of the street winos (washed up on the desert shores of town, as tan and rugged as I). One man turned to me abruptly, lurching a bit as if the urge to say something had sprung upon him in a moment of clarity. His ragged, tanned face held a toothless smile so genuine, it stopped me in mid-step.

"I hope you find what you're was looking for, mate," he said with eerie clarity and a gust of alcohol-stained breath.

"You too, man," I replied while he mumbled to himself. I wondered what exactly was that.

The next night Josh had just dumped his tourists and was ready to go. He rallied hard to convince me that it was time to get out to some genuine places, to dust off those Vegas cobwebs. He took me to "The Double Down - The Happiest Place on Earth", a dive bar near the outskirts of town. Dark murals adorn the cinder block walls and a permanent dank of smoke fills the air, even at four in the afternoon. At the Double Down they sell puke insurance for $20.00. They only play hardcore and punk on the jukebox and midget porn on 25-year-old television sets.

When we got back to the motel, I felt a rush of excitement from the brush with the bizarre and savored a rejuvenation of the adventure spirit flowing through my road-weary blood. Suddenly, a stroke of genius was granted to me by the cosmos. I grabbed a piece of cardboard from the front office.

"What do you need that for?" asked Josh.

"You'll see," I answered. "I've got a great idea."

After careful consideration and consultation of the specifics, I wrote on the board with a thick black marker, "WHAT ARE YOU QUESTIONING?" Josh and two of his curious passengers joined me that night to answer the question: How does one break free from induced hypnosis in this city-sized sheep pen?

Off into the madness of the night, the four of us went - Josh, Cindy, Fiona and I - dressed to impress. I bounded out of the motel parking lot, ready to take on whatever confronted us. The penned-up energy was boiling inside me from too many chaste Vegas days.

To augment our evening, we decided to create fake names and identities and try to act the roles. I was Purple - burly-bearded, wild-haired and dressed like a cactus, scrounged from my backpack, and holding my cardboard sign up like a shield. Cindy became Zoë, bedecked in a tight leopard-skin dress and dark eyeliner, long curly brown hair draping down her back. Fiona was in a flowing turquoise blue skirt and a black low-cut shirt. She called herself Ophelia. And Josh (his untamed hair bleached blond) nailed the essence of it all by wearing a T-shirt with an alien face on it under which was written, "We're out there." He became Starman.

To pay homage to the King for good luck, we threw a few quarters into the Elvis Slots. The King supervised us dropping coins into his belly in the main hall of the MGM Grand. Alas, no one won. In fact, Elvis ate a few of our quarters without spinning his wheels. Bad omen. Out of order already. But luck truly was on our side. We took it as a sign that we were for a higher purpose than stooping to gamble, even for novelty's sake.

People were looking at us with fierce misunderstanding. We enjoyed smiling back at them. "Who is this crazy guy with the sign? Take a look at those friends of his! Where do those people come from? L.A.?"

Confusion abounded. We could hear their comments and snickers of unease as they strode past us in the pedestrian bridges spanning the crosswalkless efficiency of the Strip.

"What are y'all tryin' to say? You sellin' somethin'? Can I take my photo with y'all? Here, Maude, grab the camera, I gotta get this."

Many people just laughed, while others turned away in embarrassment. Another vagabond drunk, wearily blurted out, "I hear ya' man. What are we questioning?"

Our experiment wasn't producing good results with this crowd. Perhaps, we decided, a change of venue would help. We grabbed a taxi and told the driver to take us uptown, to the old part of town and the promenade. Charlie, our driver, introduced himself and launched right into stories about the old days - times when the Mafia ran the city.

"It was probably a bit safer then," I offered.

"Hell yeah, it was. You don't know who's runnin' this town anymore. They ain't got any faces."

What were once Mafia casinos are now corporate-run "destination resorts" - private police forces, dark dungeons for transgressors, high-tech spy equipment, subliminal worldwide marketing forces. Who's to say who's in charge?

In Charlie's mind, Mafia banter leads to Joe Pesci stories.

"I once had a guy in the cab sittin' there where you're sittin'. Started sayin' to him. 'Hey, you look exactly like...' but he wouldn't let me finish. 'I'm not HIM!' An' when he got outta my cab I tol' him, '$14.00'. He handed me a fifty and started walkin' away. I yelled out to him to get his change, and he tol' me in a loud voice... and there were all these people standin' there on the sidewalk. 'What change? What change? Did anyone hear this man say somethin' about change?' He winked at me and walked away."

Charlie dropped us off near the downtown promenade and bid us farewell. He never saw my sign. As we walked through the crowded pedestrian mall, under the light canopy that straddles between the buildings over the street, I displayed my sign casually to a few choice people. Zoë hinted that it was time to drink, so we made our way over to the Mermaid's Bar and Casino. Approaching the gaping entrance, I held my sign directly in front of a woman dressed in the whole Tropicana-girl outfit (complete with a rainbow of feathers in her headpiece) who was handing out drink special flyers. She stared at me. I stared back, smiled and breached the plastic-palmed threshold.

The blaring sirens and strobing lights inside were almost enough to ruin the fun, but when the bartender brought us our $1.00 drafts, we cheered up. Ah, cheap beer. We sat at the bar, laughing and talking for about five minutes when the Tropicana girl from the door tapped me on the shoulder.

"You're HIM, aren't you?!"

What is she talking about, I wondered. "Hmm. Maybe," I said, curious as to where this was going. I took another sip on my beer.

"You were here a few weeks ago." She pleaded a faint English accent, trying to contain her exuberant belief that I was a magic traveling shaman or something and not drawing attention to us.

"Maybe, yeah." (Not really a lie.)

"Oh! They told me you'd come back! They described you perfectly! You ARE him! The guy who does the readings?" Her eyes were ablaze with excitement and her heart was beating fast, drawing out little beads of sweat on her dark, painted face.

"Could be," I said, trying to remain as evasive as possible without laughing.

"Oh! Please give me a reading later. I have my break in a little while. Please, please stick around until then!" And then she rushed off, back to her post at the front door.

"You cannot do that, man," said Josh. All three of my friends had been listening to that exchange with their mouths gaping open in amazement.

Within the next half-hour, four more waitresses nervously, reverently approached and petitioned me to give them a reading. What kind of readings were these women hoping for? All I knew was that they were all very exotic looking and something like this could easily go to a young man's head. So much attention - a slice of celebrity.

In the few minutes between taps on the shoulder, the four of us consulted. No, it would be a bad idea. Bad karma, to be sure. I didn't know the first thing about real palm reading. But, I convinced myself - I am a good bullshitter.

All of a sudden, the first woman came back and I couldn't refuse. She took me by the hand and led me to another table off on its own. I looked back at my friends, smiled and raised my shoulders in the "who knows" gesture.

"You know, the whole Vegas vibe is kind of interfering with my soul reading process," I started off, hoping she wouldn't press the issue. "This town is the kind of place where people walk in and check their spirit at the city gates. I'm not sure about how 'in-tune' I can get for you. Plus, it's all these infernal sirens." I was trying to prepare her for the inevitable disappointment.

"Oh, no, I understand completely. Just tell me what you can. Do you see good things around me?"

I closed my eyes in forged concentration.

"Hmmm. Yeah. You have a lot of good energy."

Her excitement rose immediately.

"Tell me! Tell me! What is it?"

"Well, first let me know something specific you'd like me to tell you about," I asked her.

"Okay. Well, there's this guy."

I'm not sure, in retrospect, what I was thinking, giving this woman her fortune for nearly a half an hour. To be honest, much of it is a blur. I had too much adrenaline running rampant in my veins. I'm amazed that I didn't crack. Finally, though, she'd had enough and her boss was yelling at her to get back to her job. She ran away from the table and I strutted back to my friends at the bar.

"You didn't really?" asked Zoë. "Did you?"

"I think you just became my personal hero," Starman said laughing. "Oh, and by the way, just so you know - do with this what you want. While you were gone, I overhead one of the other waitresses say she's got a 16-month-old son. Thought you might be able to use that little tidbit for your next fortune-telling session."

Alas, it was time to change scenes. I didn't think I could keep up the charade. I did take a second to do one last thing in Mermaid's. As I walked towards the exit, I saw the mama waitress, tiptoed up behind her, put my hand gently on her shoulder and whispered, "Say hi to your son for me," and walked out. I heard a scream of disbelief behind me, but I didn't turn around.

As we left sight of the bar, the four of us were howling with laughter. All this fun because of a pen and a piece of cardboard! What was going to happen next? Hadn't we answered our spurring questions?

The three of them wanted to get something to eat, so they jumped into some fast food joint while I decided to stay out on the street alone and see what would happen. I was approached by a group of very drunken vacationers who were hoping to get a picture taken with some crazy Vegas vagrant. That was me, naturally.

"Hey dude, (hiccup) what are you doin' out here, anyway?"

A big man with broad shoulders in the early stages of middle-aged beer gut asked me. He was leaning in very close to me. I was cross-legged on the ground and he couldn't remember how to bend over properly.

"Let me have my photo taken with ya. You don't mind do you? HEY JACK! Snap a picture of me and my pal here!"

"You know," I told him in jest, "you guys are taking your pictures with me, but you don't even have a sip of drink left for me." I pointed to the empty super-sized plastic football full of ice in the guy's hand.

"Stay....right....there." In five minutes he was back with what must have been a $15.00 margarita, in a clear plastic football. "Be cool, man."

I started to feel on top of the world when my euphoric enjoyment snapped to attention by the police. They rode up on bikes and without looking me in the eye, told me roughly that panhandling was illegal in Clark County. I quietly hung my head and informed them that I was not panhandling.

"Yeah, sure buddy," said the one with muscles bulging under his sky-blue embroidered golf shirt.

"No really, read the sign."

"'What are you questioning?' What's that supposed to mean?"

"Look around! Don't you see it? You work here, you've got to know what I'm talking about."

Slowly but surely some bizarre ideas sank into his head. The mysterious message formed itself inside all the officers' heads, and their surly frowns began evaporating. We stood there in silence for a full minute while the four of them looked around and nodded their heads. Eventually, one of them spoke and didn't stop talking for nearly twenty minutes, expelling the perils of supervising the mind-numbing tourist flow. By the end of the conversation, they were jovially patting me on the back and telling me to have a good night and to "be careful out here."

"What was that all about?" asked Starman, who was lingering out of earshot fearing guilt by association.

"Ah, nothin'. They were cool," I answered with a smile.

Just then, a young black man walked up to me with a very stern and serious look on his face. He told his buddy he'd be on in a minute, but needed to make a short stop.

"I gotta a question for ya, bro. Why aren't dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?"

"Well, maybe God didn't actually create the world in seven days, but rather each 'day' represented a couple millions years, or stages in the evolutionary process," I answered without missing a beat for another fifteen minutes of philosophical and theological banter. I was ready to discuss just about anything. Once that guy had his fill, he simply said, "Huh," and walked away. Was this the true answer - free thinking in a city that glorified constant closure?

Tired, we thought we better find our ending. Rambling slowly back to the motel, we didn't say much, our evening being beyond explanation. Our final act of defiance, however, came then. Along many of the broad avenues criss-crossing the desert city, garage-published call girl pamphlets were freely and prolifically displayed in newspaper honor boxes. Nearly-naked women sprawled out on anonymous couches with faces blurred out and phone numbers screamed out names like "Chastity" and "Bambi" to people with such names as "Biff" and "Jimmy." We opened the scratched-up doors and slid the cardboard sign just underneath the front glass.

"Perfect," we said in unison. Perfect."

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