Fortune (ate)

    Las Vegas, a land of excess and all that is America...or not.  The wild abuse of electricity and water in this desert setting is made all the more apparent when you drive to here as we did.  Other than a few small smatterings of towns --some tiny like Mesquite and some a bit larger like St. George-- this is a land of seemingly endless miles of dust and sand.  If you weren't in your comfortable and dependable car, one that could make the long journey without question along the baking highway that snakes its way down, you would have to wonder if you would survive if you broke down and had to trek mile after mile searching for help.  Minus your car, would you find water, or food, or shade if something happened?  But no matter, you take all that for granted, your car parking as comfortably after the drive (4 hours from Los Angeles, 6 hours from Salt Lake City) as if you've just gone to the grocery store, your flight landing and leaving as easily as the hundreds of others every single day, and your check in to your hotel as mundane as the hundreds of thousands of others that have checked in before you.  The lights are blaring, the water flowing, the music louder than you're used to and the shock to your senses is somehow easier than you expected.  This is, after all, what you came to experience in Vegas.

    So here we were, my wife and I ready for this bit of mindless nothing, some tossing away of our piggy bank savings (those coins that you're taught to save from your change, be it quarters or euros or pounds, that parental savvy that constantly reminded you to put a little away each day and it would add up); it was a bit of almost-free money to escape our minor woes, the trip becoming a relief valve of sorts to celebrate our making it through and surviving life so far...our love for each other, our health in making it through "the crud," our moms and our aging animals.  We were very lucky but feeling a tiny bit weary and were now ready for just a couple of days of inexpensive buffets, scantily clad waitresses and performers bringing us complimentary drinks, and the thrill of playing a machine for free (okay, the actual cost was that of winning and putting it all back, money "donated" as surely as having it fall out of your pocket in a rain storm...but in the end, you want to believe that it was "free").  But we were heading to Vegas and it was the experience of it all, an image created as surely as that of Disneyland only this was sort of the adult version.  Two days, that was our usual limit here before tiring of the artificial and it was what we were expecting.  Two days to escape, to hope to win a fortune but not really, to come home strangely satisfied that we had played and played and basically come back with nothing...ahh, only Vegas.  We were ready.

The new digital replacement of the Big Pull
 at the Golden Nugget in downtown Vegas

    Making this journey once again however, we felt that there were a few differences.  For one, the few years that had passed since our last visit found us feeling a bit alone, many of the relatives that used to rendezvous here with us --mom's and aunts and such-- having either passed on or having become unable to physically make or enjoy the trip anymore.  So our view of what we used to see here, blinking lights and mindless noise everywhere was now a bit different.  Overall, money was still dropping in machines (very few actual "coin" machines still exist, almost everything now printed out on script and the screens digitized) but there seemed a sense of despair among the players.  We watched one elderly veteran, hands shaking, plut $100 in the digital "big pull" (this machine, complete with an exaggerated manual slot pull handle, was once the signature draw at the Golden Nugget, even at $3 a pull -- the cost for the digital replacement was now $5 to try your luck, even if the machine probably still carries some of the worst odds in the entire casino); within three minutes, his $100 was gone.  He seemed unfazed, not as in loaded-with-money unfazed, but as if invisible unfazed, the solo and alone player not turning his head, not looking for a crowd, just blankly staring ahead as if the money and the machine didn't matter.  And who knew where his thoughts were or what was going on in his head.  Perhaps he had lost his wife or his friends or had received an unwelcome medical diagnosis or maybe just thought of the war and his age, wondering what was it all about, the lives around him having fallen and vanished as easily and as quickly as his $100.  And who were we to judge?  Perhaps he was thinking none of that, only that he would win, which is what we were hoping for in watching him.  But that image seemed to reflect that feeling that something overall seemed to have shifted.

     Move the viewing glass back a bit and you can almost encapsulate the mood of the country here.  The machines had been reprogrammed to cost more (the average "penny" machine is now 50-75 cents per play, although if you search you can still find the 20- and 30-cent machines, the actual penny play machines long gone, a few cast away into the back corners of some of the older hotels, themselves now becoming obsolete, the Las Vegas Club which occupied an entire corner now shuttered; we were staying downtown where construction continues but on the Strip, the pace of obsolescence is even quicker), the payouts were smaller and the Hollywood-like bonuses that dazzled you with their flashing graphics nearly every minute (if you played enough or were lucky enough) now almost an after thought, their own appearances reduced.  But it seemed that everyone accepted it; that's just how it was.  Certainly there were crowds of new and old players, people here to just have fun and to drink and to play and maybe relive a bit of that misogynistic fantasy of sexy bodies and spring-break youth and cigars being lit with burning bills of money  All was still right here in this projected world, wasn't it?  Party like there's no tomorrow.  The homeless had been carefully screened away, the police with their bicycles and bright yellow vests --hard to miss, really-- were also nearly invisible, as blended into the background as carefully as the thousands of security cameras watching guests and employees alike (actual mall security personnel wear dark tan uniforms as if to blend in even further).  At one point, my wife and I slinked through a crowded casino pathway like ants, catching glimpses of people fully inebriated with anxiety or expectation or alcohol, but all still carefully not bumping into one another or making eye contact, a varied encapsulated collection of the human form in every imaginable shape and size, all clustered and moving and appearing to know where to go.  Nary a thought in our head that a bomb or a crazed shooter would dare enter such a place, even if the doors and streets and alleys appeared unguarded.  A security nightmare.  Why were we even thinking that way? 

A billboard advertisement...a bygone or returning era?

    More invisible still were the workers, the receptionists and cleaners and retail clerks and waitresses (we didn't see many waiters, perhaps in keeping with that Vegas rat pack image); the waitress that served us the other night worked several jobs and lived quite a ways out as she described it, meaning a long commute in addition to her long hours.  Out on the street as natural daylight gave way to gaudy lighting, street artists of all sorts arrived to play their sax or perform makeshift drumming on plastic buckets.  Others pushed their wares, some of that just being their exposed bodies; with many of the traditional strip clubs that used to line this area now closed, men and women come out with little more than strings attached, the ladies fully revealed with the exception of a tiny bit of paint placed on strategic areas...picture, mister?  (don't worry ladies, one male had little more than a tiny, tiny sock covering his privates while another wore only a diaper...what???).  One such female model, a tall, thin and pretty young lady looked more than a bit uncomfortable standing out there, as if slightly scared that her dad might accidentally discover her and angrily drag her off.  But again, who was I to judge?  Perhaps as embarrassing as this was, this was better than what else she might have faced, a way out for her without actually putting herself in danger?  Or perhaps she was quite comfortable standing out there, the only uncomfortable one being me, the onlooker, wondering why women in their twenties, thirties and forties would brave the wind and cold in the hopes that at least one of the gawkers would pony up $5 to saddle up to this outdoor strip club and walk away with a photo.  Outside, the city did indeed stretch far beyond the glitzy enclaves smothered within these few blocks, the arms of concrete reaching out like an oil spill in all directions, ignoring the heat and the sand and the water restrictions (so far, efforts to tap into the water tables in the northern end of the state have failed due to many of the restrictions embedded in the Grand Staircase national monument located there, a monument status that President Trump has ordered reviewed and possibly rescinded).  And out there, making a living was pretty tough, clothes or no clothes.  Just down the block was the Mob Museum; perhaps that being the true descriptor, celebrating the successes of the vice and crime that "made" this city.  In the distance to the side of the museum, almost as if lighting it like a beacon, stood the towering gold glass windows of the Trump Hotel (ironically, no gambling allowed there).

    The next evening with the weekend approaching, the mood seemed to liven.  A different crowd was arriving, escapees of a different sort, weekend warriors ready to pay the higher room prices and put up with more crowded conditions.  The laughter at the betting tables was increasing, the restaurant reservations were filling up.  The $2 billion "I Do" capital (one of the newer campaigns of the city is to become the go-to wedding capital of the world) was now readying itself as stretch limos and tuxedo-wearing drivers stepped out of their cars.  Happy hours were indeed growing happier.  Perhaps I had gotten this all wrong, even if this city of resilience didn't make an appearance on the recent sustainability index from Arcadis Design.  Said the report from National Geographic: Today’s cities are finding it hard to be both livable and economically strong...Zurich was rated as the top city, cited for its livability, environmental policy, climate initiative, public transit, and strength as a financial center.  Despite its overall winning score, though, Zurich wasn’t necessarily the top place for people—its citizens are challenged by work-life balance and cost of living...Arcadis used 32 indicators and a cross section of the world’s urban areas, so not all capitals or large cities are necessarily represented.  A city is scored on each of the three sustainability factors; its overall score is the average of those...Of the three factors, the social aspect ranks lowest for 34 cities.  Sixteen of them are in North America.

Cleanup and repair work in the early morning.

    Perhaps I was seeing desperation but desperation of all sorts...to win money, to escape, to get married, to have fun, to make a living.  Maybe there was even a desperation to continue making it as a city.  Whether naked young ladies or people dropping $2.50 bets into penny machines, long lines at buffets or outside bartenders spinning bottles like juggling pins, it appeared that the show must go on.  It was a shock to our senses and now we were feeling a sigh of relief in leaving.  It had done its job for while we were there we had woken up each morning with little thought of what to do, our desperate getaway a successful one.  Our piggy bank money was gone, but little else other than the cost of our hotel.  Now there was only our 6-hour drive home.  Our friend texted us as we departed...major accident on the freeway on our drive home, two large semi-trucks and a camper-trailer.  We were about three hours away but she wanted us to know since the freeway was now closed to through traffic.  We looked it up on our phones...the state's transport site said it estimated the cleanup at 4 hours.  Nearing the small city where the crash had occurred, the traffic slowly ground to a halt, the line of cars and trucks stretching to the horizon.   By the time we got near the actual scene an hour later, the wreckage was being moved to one side of the lanes, the crumpled cabs of the large freight trucks now little more than scrap for a junkyard, the camper-trailer already gone.  As we drove by, the traffic accelerating back to the 80-mph (128.75 km/h) speed limit, my wife could only think of how fortunate we were, not only in being able to go on such a quick getaway, but to not have been part of that wreckage.  We never discovered how it happened, whether the drivers gambled and lost, or if their vehicles had just given out.  No matter our minor troubles or financial residue after our trip, my wife reminded me that it always better to have seen an accident than to have been in one.  At that point, I gazed out the window, the desert having slowly given way to greener pastures, rolling hills that were showing life, the clouds of moisture now hovering as if welcoming us back to life, to what was real.  We were heading home, not desperate but just happy.  Our animals and plants and house were waiting patiently...as were our moms and our bills and the usual.  But something had changed...now, we were ready to face it all anew.  We weren't a crumpled mess of metal; we were fortunate to be full of life.

Scene from our car window, just miles past the horrendous accident.