What Happens Here...Not Much

  We were back in Las Vegas, our first getaway in awhile and a chance to rendezvous with my brother and his wife.  Maybe because it was Vegas in winter and Vegas during the weekdays and Vegas downtown (vs. the Strip) but it was all a bit subdued from what we remembered, the smaller crowds seeming to display less energy and enthusiasm than usual, although it did perk up, vampire-like at night.  It's not that the usual things weren't there but it certainly didn't seem to be there in the way that my wife and I remembered.  "That's been gone a year now," one security person told me when I asked about the discount-ticket stand that used to sell unsold tickets to many of the popular shows so associated with Vegas, the Cirque du Soleils (every version you could think of), the concerts, the magic, the comedians, the ostentatious show costumes, and yes, every state of dress or undress one could or would want (one male street performer had nothing on but a tiny sock covering his privates, and with the cold wind that was blowing, that sock looked ready to fall off).  And surprisingly among all of this I noticed four separate people who appeared blind, and yet walking confidently with their "sticks" swaying through the crowds.  It was far more courageous than me, that attitude of making one's way through small hallways blocked with laundry carts, and dodging people distracted with noisy, brightly lit machines (and probably alcohol), and me wondering just what such a world would be like in such a setting; how would you gamble (or would you), or "watch" a dazzling and extravagant show, or avoid getting your money nicked?  It was my insecurities on display, my lack of understanding and my stereotypes now showing, those oscillating canes with red tips speaking a universal language that appeared to say more than I could.  Make way, those canes said, I'm coming through; and I have far more guts than many of you.   And for the rest of us clearing a path and getting out of their way (and yet ignoring them) we had to passively acknowledge that few of us would have their courage, and most certainly not in casino-riden Las Vegas.  But then why shouldn't they be here?  Perhaps through their bold display came a message that the rest of us should get out, that we should break free and take a chance in life.  Embrace the world, they seemed to say.  And why not?*

     But the this was Las Vegas after all, it's excesses still in full view.  One burger joint boldly advertised the name Heart Attack in neon, and right next to it (also in neon) Over 350 Lbs. Eat Free.  Both men and ladies paraded around with so little on that one wondered where they put the dollars people were giving to them because they wanted to have their picture taken with a near-naked person, a reason to cautiously laugh as guiltily as being photographed with a captive dolphin in a seaside resort.  Look at me, ha, ha.  Our President was rubbing off on the proletariat.  Plates at the buffets were still huge, food was still wasted, yet even the two homeless men with "I'm hungry" signs who thanked me when I brought them some hot food quickly and casually placed those meals behind them and returned to holding out their buckets for change,  indicating to me that the change they wanted might be metal and not internal.  But who was I to judge?  It was the intention, perhaps a spark of hope in their lives that at least not everyone was walking by as if they were invisible.  Chuck a few coins in a bucket, good boy, pat, pat, now get along, make way, thank you.

    Other homeless further down the gauntlet had signs that were more honest, their torn cardboard ssections saying "My Beer Fund" or (my favorite for brazenness) "Come on, you cheap bastards."  It was to be expected, all this money so close and flying around everywhere like a plague of locusts and yet so out of reach; what few homeless were allowed on the walkway areas were lucky, the majority of the homeless still carefully policed out on the more distant streets.  Penny slot machines now had minimum bets of 40 or 50 or 75 cents; but the majority of the one-cent machines were 88 cents as if psychologically gauging just how much you would stay on a "penny" machine, even as the higher-winning $1 machines nearby still somehow seemed prohibitively expensive despite being just 12 cents more.  Payouts seemed few, the bells and whistles a bit louder but the long bonus rounds of the  machines appearing to generate a measly $5 or so; but nobody seemed to care.  It was Las Vegas or at least the "Vegas" so embedded in everyone's mind, a tiny cluster of bright lights and tall buildings that casts a luring shadow of temptation while hiding the sprawling city that now appears as large as nearby Los Angeles when viewed from your descending plane.  This was the image people from distant lands and states remembered when they heard the word Nevada, taking over the image of desert beauty and red rocks and dammed-up valleys and recreational marijuana.

    And yet here was our divided country on full display, one part trying to escape reality while the other continued to hide what was happening in the background.  Best you don't know, just take what we offer and go, no questions ...it's magic, an illusion.  The economy is great, really, just spend, spend, spend.  The debt?  What debt?  Look, it's gone for now (not really).  $30 trillion in 10 years?**  Bah, those are just numbers.  One of the McDonald's was now kiosks-only ordering, its kitchen and workers walled off and blocked from view as if your food appearing was itself somewhat of a magic trick.  Yet despite it all, the resilience of the ordinary workers --the ones making the beds or waiting the tables or dealing the cards and perhaps making just enough to get by-- showed the strength and determination to stand above the fray.  Smiles came easily, tips greatly and sincerely appreciated, their thank-yous still genuine.  This was not only survival for them, but a lifestyle.  For some such as our cab driver, it was home, born and raised here he told us.  He had gotten away for a few years, naming Minnesota and New York as a few of the states he had moved to, but he missed his home.  This Vegas, complete with the glitter and the glare, was a generator of his life blood, a drive that welcomed him as both nourishment and as poison.  A Siren's song blaring effortlessly down the Strip and here Downtown.

    Step outside and the projection was one of the perfect day, the sky blue and the flowers blooming despite the chill; at night the scenery became unreal and Skywalker-like, the moon and Mars just overhead and the stars glittering as if on cue.  This world wasn't meant to be real; it was an illusion and one meant to be viewed as such.  And maybe that was what I was missing.  People here certainly had the ups and downs of everyday life; but this was an adult-Disneyland of sorts, a chance to act as if you were rich and could spend away, a chance to break with your diet and just go wild, a chance to drink as if you had no restrictions (the cocktail waitresses still make the rounds with free drinks as you gamble), a chance to return to a semi-smoke filled room (while smoking has diminished, it is still allowed which keeps the ventilation systems working at full speed), a chance to laugh and be dazzled at high-priced shows, a chance to forget your troubles and to just get away for a bit.  It wasn't a vacation in that sense of the word, at least not for my wife and I, but it was a rendezvous.  We had met my brother and his wife, we watched a show, we threw $$$ into the machines (despite it all, we did break even so what more could one ask) and we ate a bit more than usual.  And my wife dreamt of our dogs, her first time since their passing.  Perhaps for these few days it wasn't so bad to be swept into the illusion. And somehow, despite our reservations, it had done its magic...


 *The common term for such aid devices is a "white cane" and the one major difference is that a white cane primarily indicates that the user is either partially or completely blind, whereas a white cane with red stripes indicates that the user is both visually impaired and deaf.  The "sticks" will vary in length depending on the need, either as a cane for support (rare) or as a aid for checking the area ahead, the longer length (vs. some which are shorter) indicating the degree of vision impairment.  As I later found out, there was a convention for the visually impaired taking place in Las Vegas.

**With President Trump's newly proposed budget of nearly $5 trillion, one which cuts Health and Human Services yet another 10% despite the rising health crisis hitting so many here (his new budget does allocate more to the opioid situation but shifts that responsibility to a new department), the Congressional Budget Office projected that in 10 years time the U.S. will be $30 trillion in debt.  As a quick reminder, a trillion represents one million multiplied a million times.