American Nightmare

by john duncan, summer, 1998

 

Roadtrip Chapter 2: Up and down the strip

 

               Finishing off a rye and coke.  A sunny, but chilly Cortez morning.  7:31 a.m.  Dee Snyder screaming ‘We’re Not Gonna’ Take It.’  Then a DJ fumbling over an announcement, finally dismissing it with, “...oh, that’s weird anyway.”  Sticky resin on the dash.

           The time is passed chasing lizards around the site until Richard groans his first signs of awakening.

           “Let’s go boyo!  There’s no room for hangovers on this sojourn!”

           We pull out for an aesthetic drive down highway 666, immortalized by Mickey and Mallory’s killing spree a few years ago.  Mesa Verde is left in the distance.  We had taken a tour of the cliff dwellings the day before.  It was educational, in the selective sense.  For somethingso integral to the culture of primitive and modern Native Americans, why keep the idea of the use of plant drugs and medicines so ‘hush hush’?  My questions were dismissed with an evil eye, similar to the ones of the customs officer days before.

           Enough of opinion and pretence.  We were faced with a choice – drive the long windy road to the Grand Canyon, risking being locked out, the National Park gates closing; or, about face and high-tail it for Vegas straight up.  We raged across Rt. 66, screaming at cows and throwing crackers out the window (“...some for the mother Earth!”).  Option two in full effect.  Swerved around a prairie dog that was too far out on the road.  Didn’t even flinch...

           As we peaked a final crest on 93, overlooking Las Vegas, the lights blinded my eyes, even more than the ominous sci-fi auras of the Hoover Dam. We got out at Key Largo Casino, my legs wobbly and possibly sinking into the pavement.

           “Uh-oh.”

           “I guess I’ll be doing the talking,” reverberated Richard.

           “Wha?”

 

           ......“Style!”  It was a classy joint for twenty-five bucks a night.  Free shuttle bus, maids, goldfish ponds, fridge; the works.

           The Wild Turkey was empty now, the C&C coming in at a close second.  More LSD made the picture.

           “You might as well give it a try Rich.  It’s no big deal,” I understated.  And into the City of Sleeplessness we went.

           We got the 101 on Las Vegas, waltzing, sometimes tangonig (occasionally wishing we could just be wallflowering) into every casino along the strip.  We stood in a lot of lines for restaurants.  We hadn’t eaten since breakfast.  We couldn’t stay to eat.  Something compelled us to follow the song ‘Keep on Walking.’  One of the most interesting things was a revolving door five times bigger than any I’ve ever seen, but the general synopsis was a lot of fucking bells and too many damn lights.

           “We really ought to eat.”

           “What we ought, is not what we do.”

           But we found the strength to stay in line long enough to make reservations at the Barbary Coast.  Three a.m. and we still had to wait for a table.  The hostess handed me a rectangular object.

           “It will vibrate when your table is ready.”

           Of course.

           We wandered off through the Barbary, soon becoming enthralled in the workings of a blackjack table.

           And then  there was somehting alive in my pants.  I yanked the ‘reservation’ out of my trousers and threw it at Richard.

           “Rich, it’s doin’ somethin’ man!”

          

           “Could I get you gentlemen something to dri–”

           “NO!”

           The waiter looks at us, askance, “A cocktail?  A beer?  Anything to dri–”

           “No, no, no.  It’s good,” we shake our heads.  “But we’ll have some water,” one of us mumbles.

           At some point we ordered our food, and the wait was the most intense period of the raodtrip, if not our whole....summer.  Even the slightest clink of an ice cube against glass fired a cringe and series of paranoid glances about the restaurant, which was actually quite the posh locus.  I was a hair away from jumping up and running away, stricken with the fear.

           The waiter returned and placed a bowl of pretzel-like objects on the table.  They looked like worms.  Richard’s eyes widened even more as he pointed to the unordered delicacy before us.

           “This isn’t chicken fried rice,” and I reach for a handful of the fried noodles.  Richard throws his hands over his face and hides under the table.  It seemed a normal reaction to the whole situation.

           When the rice did come, more problems ensued.  There we were with these giant silver urns on our table (“...I guess the rice is in there?”), and not a clue as to how to go about eating the meal.  At least there was no potential murder victim this time.

           Richard flagged down the waiter.  “Um, sorry to bother you.  We’re having a little trouble here – How do you do this?”

           And the waiter, very cautiously, gave us several methods of eating the rice.

           “Look!” I piped in, “What would you do in a situation like this?”

           After a few bites it was obvious we weren’t so hungry to begin with.

           “Could we get the cheque?  And we’ll also need a couple doggie bags.”

           “Sure.  No doggie bags.  We just have a box.”

           “How big is it?!” we ask in anxious distress.  And the waiter walks away from our obfuscation, his own sufficing.

           “I hope we can carry it back to the hotel,” Richard whimpered.

           The evening subsided with us swimming down Flamingo Rd, stopping only once to ask what ‘package liquor’ is, and cowering at every loud noise, of which there were many in this horrible place.

           “But I’m really diggin’ the way we’re walking,” I said.

           “Yeahhhhh.”

           One night down, a few more to go.