The bright lights hurt my eyes. The Strip is not what I imagined, the hazy neon glow of gambling boogaloo that inundates the mind in uncomfortable, shimmering stimuli. My temples throbbed like ballroom dancers and my stomach grizzled with hunger. Abita whimpered by my side, looking up at me, a tear rolling down her cheek. I know girl, I know, I told her through osmosis as I petted her matted fur. You don’t like the strangers. Don’t worry, though, they’re not judging you. They’re judging me.
I never thought that in a town like Las Vegas, with all the hustlers, strippers, lowlifes, and alcoholics, the anonymous faces of nondescript strangers would look down on a man with his dog, riding her sidesaddle around town like a princess. Having they seen saddle sores before? This is the last time we ride in the cities. Abita will be disappointed, but even I have my pride. That dog will just have to get used to a bare back for a while. Just like last night.
We were in Vegas looking for a friend of Megan’s. I got her email only a day ago, a couple of days late, as usual. She must have been hitting the weed again, smoking marijuana cigarettes and stunting her memory. Three weeks is way too long to wander in a desert with a dog. There are only so many motels that allow dogs to shower with their owners. Dog hair is not that bad for shower drains. Who are these people to tell me I can’t have my dog watch me as I wash myself?
Megan’s message was short and sweet, just like she was. It contained the kind of cryptic nonsense that delusional acid freaks and enviro-journalists instill in their writing, the doomsday plot devices and scatterbrained messages of a world gone wrong:
Karl,
Look for Sunshine in the Palms. Beware of broomsticks. Napoleon knocked me up. When the last leaf falls, make like Garvey. Back to Asia! Heat of the mom, init!
Meg-an
Poor child should lay off the hash. It’ll fry her brain and turn her into a whore.
Abita and I wandered the Strip for about two hours, our heads held low as we averted our eyes from the passersby. The billboards and signs all resembled warning signs and ominous portents of bad things to come. In our sleep deprived, oversexed, and hunger addled minds, those blinking lights, drunk cowboys, block lettering, wild fountains, and giant guitars mutated and shifted to form messages from our Beyong, beckoning us in invisible directions to heed our next move. The Cowboy winked, drank his whiskey, pointed to Abita, and said “This dog will win!” while the Hard Rock Guitar bent its neck over, nudging the dog, its strings snaking out of their tight, twangy grip and slithering through her fur, six long cables caressing the dogs mane, pulling her chin up and pulling her tail, like a dog show judge prying the particulars of the sporting dogs to determine the blue ribbon winner. Without warning, the guitar became erect again, plucking its strings in a dischordant melody, the notes materializing in the air, floating high into the air, expanding, and shaping themselves into a simple sentence, “We’ve been waiting for you.”
It was at this time I knew we needed to find some food.
Las Vegas is the land of the buffet, the most American of appetizing styles, devoted not to the increased efficiency of space and effort, but the quick and cheap mass production of gullet crushing glop. We were surrounded by troughs devoted to abiding the delirious pangs wracking our minds. But my allergy to gambling prohibited any entrance to the buffet tables, stuck as they were in the casino and gambling halls. Whenever I ventured near the halls of avarice, the games of chance nearing my soul, I started coughing up money. I learned of this allergy during our last trip to Vegas, Kate in tow, as after a night of unbridled greed and triple cherry flavored daydreams, by the next morning broke, my head was stuck inside an ATM machine, trying in agonizing desperation to inhale the sweet stench of greenbacked gold.
Thus we continued our walk amidst the lights and noise, our dementia satiated only by the only Crab Rangoon cart in all of Vegas, its lovely patron serving us deep fried bundles of aquatic joy. After consuming fifty of these apiece, we wandered off again, in search of Sunshine in the Palms.
Unbeknownst to my companion and me, we had consumed way over the normal limit allowed to man and beast alike of those delicious crab and cheese filled fried wontons, and a blackout ensued as we stumbled throughout the Strip, both of us drunk on cheese and crustacean.
I came to with my head in the lap of a stripper.
“Hello Karl. Do you remember me?”
I peered into the young woman’s eyes. That intensity, the ferocity and desire for do-goodery. I knew them very well. But those eyes belonged to a man! Not a tight bodied dancer like the one I was staring at.
“I think I do. But it can’t be. Where am I?”
“Why, silly, you’re at Harry Palms Whack Shack. I’m Sunshine. But you can call me…”
I know the name. Please don’t say it.
“Shriss. Shriss Babler. I’m glad we meet again.”
My eternal nemesis. And here I am ogling his tits. Or her tits. At this point I couldn’t remember, as I fainted directly into Shriss’ lap.
“Oh baby, there you go. Careful, though. A face full of Sunshine is just going to get you burned.”
So we meet again, Shriss, I think as I lose consciousness for the third time today. Hell must have sent you back…
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