On the John presents…

Revenge of the Grown Ups: Zany Breaking and Entrances and Entertaining Chaos at the Bizarro Disneyland

Completed on June 18, 2007

Increasingly, I’ve become one of the least pleasant people in the world to accompany for a day of airline travel. Not that I ever liked it to begin with. It always seemed so unnatural and cocky, making a person behave like a 4^th grader who woke up one morning to find himself gifted with legitimate Dumbledorian magic ability and, like, twelve dollars. We arrive at the airport feeling Important and Powerful, only to have that feeling of superiority spat upon and slapped around and stumped out by The Airport, one of the few across-the-board authoritarian establishments with whom, now more than ever, no one wishes to provoke.

For the majority of airline travelers, one basic mindset prevails beyond all others: “I’m going to do whatever they ask, not alter my facial expression by more than two degrees in either direction, and I’m gonna get on that plane and shut the fuck up and land.”

But then, once that’s all settled: “But there are some people who just shouldn’t have to put up with this shit, and gosh darn it, one of those people is me.”

That quiet acceptance part is nothing new, (I distinctly remember my parents reminding my brother and me when we were getting ready to fly to Disney World with our grandparents that it was very important that we “answer all of Their questions seriously and immediately, and by all means, NO BOMB JOKES!), but our seething self-proclamations of being among the “innocent” along with The Airport’s general levels of Big Brotherishness have both seen dramatic and understandable spikes since 9/11.

And of course, because of 9/11, the whole “no jokes” rule has been ratcheted up to create nearly unbearable levels of tension for everyone involved.

For example, if you are in a plane that is Preparing For Takeoff, it is absolutely vital that you not move, and that you behave as if all you are doing is kicking up the kickstand and strapping on your bike helmet. Children, not knowing any better, excitedly lean over each other in excited messes in order to see out the window, watching as the plane suddenly leans upward and then takes off, and then within five seconds the ground is really far away, and do you see that guy right there? He looks like…like an ant or something. And now we are in the sky, soaring, high above the clouds…

Fools. If only they knew better, they’d be thinking what we’re all thinking: “Well, is this it? Is this the plane that’s going down? Crash? Engine explosion? Terrorists? Aliens? Have a taken my final steps on Earth? And if I have, did I leave the stove on? And did I make sure that—yes! Yes you can look out the window if you just calm down! Calm down! And control your arms. Look what you did to your brother’s eye.”

All of us sitting there, all of us thinking thoughts of doom, and yet there we are, sitting dutifully with our hands in our laps and our chairs in the upright position as we strap ourselves down with seatbelts that would be scoffed at in the back middle seat of a car much less an airplane, and as the plane begins its ascent we look at the official airline publication with a deep focus and attention not worthy of the official airline publication.

And so, as we took off in a startling silence, I considered—considered—suddenly yelling out “OH MY GOD!”…you know, just to break the ice. My guess is that it would have been pretty similar to the time when my brother dropped a loud “AHHH!” during a Venus Williams-Martina Hingis match in 1998, just as Venus was at the top of her serve, except that this would be on a post 9/11 airplane that was Preparing For Takeoff. 

Putting up with these sorts of maddening levels of pompous superiority, frightening superiority, and nerve-stiffening tension makes me go a wee bit mad, and it was under these circumstances in which I, a young man who is roundly said to be polite, thoughtful, and highly concerned with the feelings of others, answered my parents’ reasonable statement early Friday morning in an O’Hare outdoor parking lot (“Take a look around and remember where the car is parked…”) with an unnecessarily sarcastic response (“It’s near the sky.”)

We were on our way to Las Vegas for my cousin’s wedding. It would be my second career visit to Vegas and the first for my brother Mike. This was significant because the two of us were teaming up for a Vegas weekend at the start of what could easily end up being two very long careers in Sin City. 

And why not? No matter who you are, it’s just about impossible to not enjoy yourself to silly and often maddening degrees in this town. Certainly there is a type that finds Las Vegas to be entirely undesirable—too loud, too sexual, too disreputable, too bright, too unsavory, too unhealthy, too expensive, too immoral, too unethical, too slutty—but for much of our human population there seems to be an overwhelming and innate desire to spend time in an environment that sets as few rules as possible while seeming to be designed specifically to cater to our most primal fantasies. And to take our money. That one too. 

Having scooted through our flight with relative ease, it was now out of our seats, down the aisles, through the accordion walkway tube thing and right into the terminal at McCarran International Airport, which was, naturally, filled with slot machines, stacked up three rows deep as soon as you stepped out of the tube. As we waited at baggage claim, the Vegas Mood was already present, and growing; this is the instinct that makes so many Vegas patrons behave like 22-year-old college seniors who have been smoking bud, doing blow, watching porn, and playing Halo since 9 A.M. yesterday morning. Anybody who digs this city in the least shows up with the confidence of a person who is not simply prepared but is—yes yes—fully expecting to have a weekend worthy of their own feature film, one that will surely be bubbling with twisted adventures featuring hookers, strippers, some kind of crazed, early morning chase from The Authorities, booze, drugs, drunk and often disrobed college girls, and maybe some waffles or something… 

…and certainly this all seemed very likely as we waited at baggage claim, as every girl in the airport appeared to be only a few touches away from being in full club mode. A bit more work on the hair perhaps, a club dress, strappier shoes—that would probably do it. But even now the cleavage was in abundance. I felt very fortunate to be wearing sunglasses at the time, as there was no way that I would have managed to not get caught eyeing up some breasts if my eyes were bare. Indeed, it seemed like a great sign of things to come, that our Vegas adventure was not simply on the way, but that it would prove to be among the Greatest Vegas Weekend Stories Ever Told.

Sadly though, while we envision classic Vegas sequences from Go and Entourage and the Hunter Thompson book, we end up instead with only outtakes and deleted scenes. There is of course a trip to the strip club, but because we are trying to negotiate between our normal instincts and our Vegas instincts, we end up with exchanges like this one:

Me: What’s your name?

Stripper, in the midst of giving me a lap dance: Devina.

Me: Bevima?

Stripper: Devina.

Me: Oh cool. (thinking) D-e-v-i-m-a?

Stripper: What?

Me: D-e-v-i-m-a?

Stripper: N, not m.

Me: Isn’t that what I said?

Stripper: I thought you said ‘m.’

Me: Did I?

Stripper: You know, you can just call me ‘D.’ 

Of course, things aren’t always this not-slick. Quite often there are smoother, more story-worthy exchanges, strip club and otherwise. But the clownish bone-head moves that do not exist in those movies and shows tend to reveal themselves in real life, and our Great Late Night Chase ends up being nothing more than an unnecessary romp through a construction site on the way from the strip club back to our hotel, my brother and I convincing each other that since our hotel is “straight ahead that way,” that we should ignore the roads and just embark upon the “straight shot,” and construction sites be damned. This resulted in us undertaking some serious stunt work, the two of us climbing one fifteen foot fence in order to pull ourselves up between two steel beams as we attempted to gain access to the second floor of a parking garage, which in turn led to us reaching the other side of the garage and then having to hop over the rail, balance on a small electrical box on the side of the garage, and then tippy-toe down to the top of the other fence that was three feet to our right, bear hugging another steal column and sliding down until our toes reached the top of the fence. We then jumped down, shook off, and continued on our journey, heading over some railroad tracks and through several busy intersections, including Interstate 15.

Later, when we took some time to re-evaluate our plan, we decided that things could have been handled differently. Indeed, the next day, we would be asked repeatedly why we did not just take a cab; my dad, picking up the whole “chase” aspect of it all, asked us who we were running from, and I thought for a bit and then responded “common sense." 

So yes, Las Vegas has the tendency to make most people behave like unhinged robots engaged in serious drug binges, but it also fosters a surprising sense of camaraderie among its younger constituents. A fleeting camaraderie, certainly, but a camaraderie nonetheless. Part of it is due to the fact that everyone between the ages of 18 and 49 is focused in on the same two or three goals, but most of it comes from the shared feeling of underdogedness that every Vegas patron feels. After all, we are not stupid. We have seen Casino. We know that Las Vegas is designed specifically to get our money, and that it is quite adept at accomplishing that goal. But we also know that over the course of the weekend a few people will win, and we are reasonably confident that we will most definitely be among those people.

That is, of course, the instinct that drives Vegas and makes it so profitable for those in line to profit: the universal feeling of every visitor that somebody has to win, and that that somebody is, in all likelihood, me. In fact, it is safe to say that one of the most costly mistakes a person can make in Vegas is to win, because once you win you start to feel as if you are good at gambling. For most people, that is when the largest problems begin. 

And when the Good-At-Gambling instinct mixes with the Let’s-All-Be-Friends-In-The-Name-Of-Our-Common-Goals instinct? Well, that’s when you end up with the mutant, frighteningly surging mood of a high stakes craps table. Upon first look, one gets the feeling that if only parents were as supportive and understanding of each other, umpires, and their own children at Little League games as were the other gamblers towards the shooter, the world would be a better place. But the more you hang around the more you realize that the craps table attitude is the equivalent of a group of sweet old grandmothers forming a lynch mob to go after the mean boy who hurt their grandson’s feelings. This is, after all, a group of gamblers gambling on the success or failure of another gambler, and with each successful toss the group swells with crazed enthusiasm. And when the win streak stops, and it always does, the choruses of “nice round” and “good shooting” are enough to make even the most encouraging of 1^st grade teachers feel shamed. 

Because there can be no negativity. Few gamblers make public concessions that they may have lost money that they ever cared about. Everyone is out to prove that money ain’t a thang, like some kind of twisted pain tolerance contest in which millions of people plunge their hands into the fire just to prove that “it doesn’t really hurt all that much.” And of course there is the ever-reassuring feeling of seeing somebody else lose, as if there were a set number of people who could lose money in Vegas, and if we can just figure out a way to weed them all out we will surely sit back and collect for the remainder of the weekend.

******

If it is a camaraderie and connection that is rooted in greed, power, and a desire to avoid rocking the boat all in the name of self-preservation, then at least it is indeed a camaraderie as opposed to the mistrust, suspicion, and disrespect that is found so often when large groups of strangers gather in one self-contained environment. In elevators, people were quick to interact with each other rather than standing quietly in their corners, often inquiring about others’ days and wishing them a wonderful rest of one, and it was this friendliness that caused my brother and I to make fast friends with the large group of college guys staying a few doors down from us. I was coming out of the shower, getting dressed for our night-before-the-wedding-dinner, when I heard my brother out in the hallway with about five or six other guys. Dried and dressed, I walked out to several enthusiastic Is this your brother?’s, and when that was confirmed…

“Yo you guys…this is Jack! This is Mike’s brother Jack! Somebody get Jack a beer! I don’t care if it’s the last one. It’s Jack’s. Get Jack a beer!”

When we finally did head out, we knocked on their door to wish them a good evening. Had we met at a random bar, polite yet guarded nods would have been our only interaction. Knocking on their door to wish them a good evening? Forget about it. But in Vegas, it was fist pounds and hand shakes and Have Fun’s all the way around. 

We were meeting my parents at the elevator, along with my aunt and uncle and their two daughters, ages 13 and 10. Now these two girls, they are incredible in every way. They are adorable without being sickening, well-mannered without being robotic, intelligent and warm and ambitious without being boring or stale. We were meeting the rest of the wedding party at the Cheesecake Factory in the Venetian, and the walk from Treasure Island to the V was just brutal. About 104 degrees, with wind that felt like a blow drier. But the Venetian was cool and breezy, and soon we were enjoying a walk and talk with family we loved but did not often see. And yet…

After my first trip to Vegas in March of 2005, I wrote: “Vegas is, somehow, a city made specifically for everyone.” This is not entirely true. In fact, there is one group of people for whom it is specifically not made. It is not made for children. And never was I more aware of that then while making the walk through the Venetian with my little cousins. Perhaps I could have managed keeping their eyes from darting over to the occasional Playboy store front, but if that was all there was to it, we would not have had a problem. No, the problem was that every other girl we saw was a Playboy store front on her own, a true wannabe Bunny, with no regard for age, looks, or body type. And certainly no regard for my two little cousins. 

This is what my brother meant when he called Vegas “The Adult Disneyland,” that most unholy of vacation spots that blows kisses to the kids while kicking around the parents, displaying a smirk that is misread by children as an honest and caring smile.

Not to say that both the Land and the World of Disney don’t show kids a wonderful week. Mike and I certainly enjoyed our time down in Orlando, and it seemed as if our grandparents did too. But I’d imagine that much of their enjoyment stemmed from being with their grandsons and not from being at Disney World, because as I remember it, Disney World is for adults the equivalent of taking the kids out to a lousy kids movie that has nothing to offer anyone over the age of nine, except that this is not a two-hour, eight dollar movie but rather a week-long overpriced vacation. 

And that’s how we get the Bizarro Disneyland, this place called Las Vegas, a closed society that begins with the basic assumption that children simply do not exist. Las Vegas is the bartender that greets the patron’s mumbled, trailing off, under-the-breathed “My kids really pissed me off today” with a slap on the table and a shout for all to hear: “Yeah! Fuck your kids! Goddamn bloodsuckers. Here, have another double.” 

So I was a little bit guarded as I strolled through the wide walkways of the Venetian with my two little cousins, but soon my thoughts were onto dinner and the coming together of friends of family, not to mention the coming together of one family and another. That was the coolest part of the whole thing, as far as I was concerned. I actually had a ten-minute conversation with my cousin’s soon-to-be-wife before fully realizing that I was talking to someone who my kids would regard as family. Weird.

Dinner was nice, but it was also shvitz-central, and by the time we left the restaurant and headed back to the hotel, Mike and I were both set upon changing into khaki shorts. We were meeting our cousins and their friends along with the bride and her friends at a bar back in the Venetian, and we had been assured that shorts would be fine, what with the heat and all. But shortly after arriving at the bar, (a trip in that included questioning looks from the bouncers) the two of us became uncomfortable, as we did indeed want to look our best. Mike and I had been in agreement from our first steps into the hotel that if we went the entire weekend without getting at least a BJ, that somehow we had failed at proper Vegasing. So after one drink we hustled back to the hotel to change into pants, and then scurried back over to the bar to rejoin the others.

I was working on pure adrenaline. It was fast approaching midnight, heading into Saturday, which meant that I had been awake for some 36 hours and change. This kind of marathon awake-parade was routine during my high school and college days; now it’s scarce. Still, it’s always a kick to splice two seemingly unrelated days together; by the end of it, you begin to feel like Marty McFly at the end of Part III: just a regular guy on a different timeline than everyone else around. 

We did it right. After putting in a sufficient amount of time at the bar, the fellers split off from the ladies, hopped into two cabs, and hightailed it over to Seamless, a strip joint that looked like the Earth-to-moon waiting terminal from 2001. Everything curved. Red chairs dipped inward. The bar swooped around in a half-circle with glass-ridges on the sides. The bathrooms were located between multiple, interlocking, circular walkways, with men to one side and—I am only assuming, as I did not see any go in—women to the other.

Our group put in for a handle of Jack Daniels, which came with four or five tall and narrow pitchers of Coke along with a bowl of cotton candy. Well, I thought, that’s a new one. And then, after a toast, along trotted the girls.

Though it may be hard to believe, this was in fact only the second strip club venture of my career. The first was in Duluth, Minnesota, where the “girl” checking IDs was in her early 70’s and looked like she should be playing bridge with my grandmother at the country club. Needless to say, it was a frightening experience, and certainly not the kind of “first time” that a healthy, young, American male would relish. No such problems here fortunately, but in a way, I found Seamless’ first line of defense to be just as unnerving.

That’s because Seamless’ guarding gate was a typical Las Vegas take-no-crap man crew. Tons of guys show up to Vegas every week, guys who are positive that they are Da Shit, guys who want to be Vince Vaughn in Swingers but are usually closer to Vince Vaughn in Made, the kind of guys who froth over The Ladiez and are intent on Making The Scene. These guys were off-putting and annoying in high school and college, but Vegas pushes them into new levels of Vaughniness. They will walk over anyone…except for the take-no-crap Man Crew, which wears suits and slicked hair and has muscles and headsets and tough guy faces, but along with all that, they embody one characteristic that sets them apart from every other guy in town: they seem to not care one lick about tits, ass, pussy, hair, legs, eyes, heels, dresses, skirts, lips, necks, or nails. They are impervious to sex, and that gives them an edge, because it means that they are not distracted or tied to the Ultimate Goal that nearly every other guy their age is focused on. And we know it. Not that I would be undertaking any strip-club chicanery that might induce the rage of the Man Crew…it’s simply that their mere presence adds a certain level of uneasiness to the proceedings, the same way that going to a museum with my parents was never quite as much fun as it could have been, what with my folks quickly enforcing a “hands behind your backs” policy, a sort of guilty-until-proven-innocent type deal that made museums less about appreciating great works of art and more about not wrecking stuff.

The other oddity of the strip club is the negotiation process. Now, to be sure, I am all for the proper handling of business transactions. It’s an important process not to be taken lightly. But I am used to set prices and clearly marked signs. Not so in the strip club, where the product is handed to you, followed by a coy request for the appropriate funds. It is the equivalent of walking into a burger joint and having the cook immediately hand you a burger. It all seems so mature:

“Here, have some burger.”

“Ooh,” you might say, “that’s a good burger.”

“Yeah it is. It is a good burger. Here, have some fries with that burger.”

“Ooh yeah…” you might say. “Those are some good fries.”

“Yeah. You like those fries, don’t you?”

“Yeah I do. Those are really good fries.”

“I thought you might like those fries. They go well with the burger. Here, have some more burger.”

“Ooh yeah, I think I will have some more burger.”

Then, when there’s no more food…

“Now how bout some money?" 

…which is, of course, exactly what was going to happen anyways. I mean, you came into the joint wanting a burger and fries, and you were prepared to pay for them, and that’s what happened. But for a little while there it seemed as if you might be getting a free taste, and then before you realized it you’d finished the entire meal. And of course there is always the question of what is or is not included with the burger. Does that twenty dollars include ketchup? And if so, how much ketchup? It’s all a mystery, and all the while the short-order cook is trying to keep everything as informal as possible in the name of unfettered eating…but that never really works, and you end up with two teenagers speaking to each other in super-confident manners but with different slang.

Still, things were good. Even after my awkward getting-to-know-you name game with Devina, things were good. And as I munched on my cotton candy and sipped on my whiskey and watched Devina saunter over to my brother’s lap, and then to my cousin’s, and then back to my brother’s, I smiled, because even though we weren’t getting the Vegas civilian BJ’s that we’d been so intent on lassoing, at least we had boobs in our respective faces. Boobs and cotton candy. That was good. And in an unforeseen development that threatened to surpass the excitement provided by both the boobs and the cotton candy was the fact that I was beginning to feel like a certified gold-standard member of the Take-No-Crap Man Crew. After all, here was this great looking, sexy, naked girl gyrating on top of me, and I was maintaining an air of classy confidence. No matter what she did, I managed to remain cool and detached. I’d always stayed away from strip clubs, feeling that they were pointless—all that build-up and no release. Now I felt the opposite, as if the release came from my control of the build-up.

Sadly though, all of that went straight out the window when our dear friend Devina whispered ever-so-softly into my ear: “You guys are pretty cool. You should stay for after-hours.” And with that, the uncertainty was back: Uh oh. What did that mean? Does she want us to stay for after-hours? Or is she just saying it? Indeed, she seemed sincere, but maybe that was a common practice. Were fellers like us often invited back for after-hours? And what exactly would be going down at after-hours? And how sincere could she be with money involved? Yes, the money seemed to taint the sweetness of the whole experience, but then one could argue that money is involved in a high percentage of sexual encounters. What is the difference between buying a girl a couple of drinks in hopes that she will go home with you and paying a professional for a lap dance? In its way, an exchange with a stripper or hooker may be the most honest sex of all. 

But honesty or no, our goal was unfinanced Vegas sex, and so there was only so much gratification we could take from Devina and co. We finished off our cotton candy and set out on our way…

…and it was at this point that we decided that it would be in our best interest to avoid both cabs and streets and simply follow the lights. This led us into the aforementioned construction site, and into the path of a polite young gentleman who looked like the comic relief in a cop movie—young and husky, with a niche intelligence and a lack of street smarts. He had a nice face. “Sorry guys, there’s no way through.”

“You sure?” my brother asked, as if that alone would spark his brain and remind him that there was in fact a way through.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Sorry.”

“Alrighty,” my brother said, and off we went. But no sooner were we out of sight from the construction worker did my brother hop a chain-link fence and head for the parking garage that was, as far as I could tell, closed off by another chain-link fence. It was no dream. And before I had a chance to evaluate any possible Kafkaesque elements to our evening, I found myself scaling the fence, following my brother up the links and through the garage before heading back down the other way, cutting my hand on the fence in the process, my brain still a bit hazy, what with the whiskey and cotton candy and boobs and 36 hours of awakeness and all. 

When we finally did reach the hotel, we met a pair of girls in the elevator who were being accompanied by a dude. For some reason, my instinct told me that this dude was not competition for our unfinanced Vegas BJ, and when we all got off on the same floor and they told us their room number, it seemed as if we’d struck gold. I figured we’d go back to the room and change—our clothes being quite dusty from the jump down the fence—and then head over to their room.

“You wanna head over?” I asked Mike.

“No,” Mike said, kind of trailing off. Perhaps he hadn’t really heard me? But no, it seemed as if he had, and instead he went into the bathroom. It was 2:44 in the morning, early by most Vegas standards but way late if you’d last woken up at 11 on Thursday morning, and so, with seemingly nothing more to do, I snuggled into the big hotel bed, my head resting upon a pillow for the first time in many hours…

****** 

When I awoke, I checked my phone:

4 NEW MESSAGES

7 MISSED CALLS

They were all from my brother. The first call had come in at 3:51 AM, the last one at 3:59. Curious. I looked to my left. There was Mike, passed out on top of the blanket. I scratched my beard and listened to my messages. Message one, from 3:51 AM:

“J, it’s Mike. I’m locked in our building’s stairwell. I went to those girls’ room, and then I went to McDonalds and came back, and I don’t know what happened but I’m in the stairwell now and it’s locked. Come get me.”

Message two, from 3:53:

“Bro, it’s me. Dude, you gotta get me out of here. This is brutal. I’m gonna try to find another exit. Please call me.” 

Message three, from 3:57:

“Bro, there’s like 20 floors above and below us. There’s no way out. You gotta come get me. I’m dying in here!” 

Message four, from 3:59:

“Seriously man. Seriously.”

I got out of bed and took a shower, then turned on my computer to check my email. Mike woke up about an hour later.

“How’d you end up getting out?”

“I walked all the way down and went out some side door. Then I walked all the way around to the front and came in that way.”

“How was it at the girls’ room?”

“It was whatever. They were cool. That guy was her brother.”

Ha! I knew it. “And so...?”

“Nope. Nothing. They were slammed when I got there. It wasn’t happening. So then I took a walk, and I had no idea where I was, and I found a McDonalds but they were closed, and I found some side door somehow and figured it would be a quicker way in than walking all the way to the front of the building, so I went all the way up to our floor but the other door was locked.”

“So no head?”

He looked sadly to his feet. “No head.”

It was sad news. But we did not spend much time moping because it was now Wedding Day, and that was very exciting. We decided to head down to the pool, figuring there were sure to be ladies down there, girls eager to party with a couple of dashing chaps such as ourselves. No such luck. Oh yes, the pool was indeed loaded with hotties, but none seemed all that interested in talking. Same for the guys. No, it seemed that the girls in attendance were interested in only three things: looking hot, getting drunk, and looking uninterested in most males.

Point number one was easy. Casual estimates of the girls at the pool places 85% of them in the hot to very-hot range. As for the other 15%, well, they were very much interested in point number one as well, because point number one is not being hot, but simply in taking an interest in looking hot. 

Point number two was also easy. A bit too easy, actually, because along with the regular collection of brews and shots, there was also a nifty margarita that came in a green chalice that was about the size of the lower half of my leg. One particular girl would have had a better shot at accomplishing point number one had she not been quite so interested in point number two, and as Mike and I were arriving she was being scraped off of the pool deck by her friends and handed over to the pool employees so that her friends could continue on with their drinking and hot-looking.

As for point number three, most girls are already pros at this even without the aid of the Vegas vibe. With it, they are ignoring machines. The high majority of girls at the pool appeared entirely disinterested in all men around them, except of course for the ones with rippling muscles and zero facial hair, for whom exceptions were made. Sadly, my strengths with the fairer sex have always lay in my cunning wit, dashing charm, and sweet-faced smile, and with the Vegas pool girls taking a 100% surface-level approach towards their potential bed-mates, I was, like Theodore Donald Kerabatsos before me, out of my element. 

But the evening was sure to bare fruit, as it was wedding night, and that meant a lot of well-primped women desperate for male attention. Except that it didn’t, because for some reason all of the desperate women were at another wedding some place else. Instead, ours was filled with warm smiles and lovely conversationalists, the types I was hoping would be down at the pool. After my cousin and his soon-to-be-wife said “yes,”—and yes, they said “yes,” and not “I do”…for what reason I do not know—it was off to the wedding reception where I reconnected with many of the fellers and ladies with whom we’d spent the previous evening. I was also greeted with a sly, knowing look from my parents, who asked me how the walk home went, as my brother had told my uncle and my uncle had told my parents.

“Take a look yourself,” I told them, holding up my hand so they could see the fence-wound. My mother shook her head, and then smiled. “I’m assuming that Eddie told you?” I asked.

“Yes yes,” she responded.

“Did he tell you everything?”

“The strippers, the construction site.” She laughed. “Sounds like quite an event-filled evening.” 

A champion, my mother. Over to my little cousins, who were sitting with Mike at their table (we’d been split up), and indeed they were having a wonderful time telling Mike all about their night with my parents, as my parents had taken them for the evening so that Eddie and Sharon could enjoy Bizarro Disneyland. The two girls were, in many ways, the stars of the evening, having taken on the job of flower girls. All night they were showered with compliments from family and friends who told them how pretty they looked in their dresses, and when looking at them it was impossible to remain even the least bit cynical about Vegas’ siren song of seduction over the masses. Perhaps there was even a shade of jealousy as well. After all, who did these two little girls think they were, laughing and smiling and having a glorious time of it in Sin City while my brother and I had blown our Vegas Adventure on an ill-conceived romp through a construction site? Maybe my entire approach to the weekend had been misguided.

And so I forgot entirely about The Goal of the Weekend and simply got on with it, joining two of my cousins’ good friends, both of whom were in attendance with their respective wives, with one of the two couples along with their two young children. One child was an infant, resting in a stroller. The other was a four-year-old boy, rather pooped from his day, laying fast asleep on top of two chairs that were pushed together for his benefit. The kidded couple was giving advice to the other one, namely what to do when friends and loved ones ask the inevitable “When are you going to have kids?” question. Their go-to answer, which they gleefully told us with a giggle: “It’s pretty tough to get pregnant when all you’re having is anal sex.”

There is humor in that, to be sure, but I also got the feeling that it concealed a certain misplaced sadness as the kidded couple longed for their carefree days as a kid-less couple, presumably because they were relatively new in the parent game and not yet accustomed to the idea that they were in Las Vegas and thus did not need to be concerned with their children’s well-being.

******

Off we went back to the hotel in order to change for a night out at the club with the youthful portion of the wedding party, but just as we were headed out the door…

“Dude, you can’t go out like that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you can go like that, if you want,” Mike said, “but they won’t let us in.”

I was wearing a nice (not ripped, not baggy) pair of blue jeans, along with a white button down shirt, my Bears hat, and my blue Pumas. Mike was wearing a nicer (not ripped, not baggy, not purchased for twenty dollars at T.J. Maxx) pair of jeans, along with a button down shirt, tucked in, with a sport jacket on top, no hat, no beard, a clean haircut, and a pair of white sneakers, entirely clean, apart from the marked design on them done by his friend and fashion designer E-Train.

“What exactly will they object to?” I asked.

“Well, first off, you gotta lose the hat. That’s a no-brainer number one. The hat’s gotta go. And the shoes are a problem too. You can’t roll into a club rocking Pumas.”

“What about your shoes?”

“My shoes are borderline, but they’re balanced out by my coat and my head. No hat, neat hair. Plus my shoes might be legit because they’re hip-hop. They’re styling.” He then anticipated my next comment. “And yes, your shoes are styling too, but you’ve never really had a style that grooves with the rest of society.”

I smiled. He was right about that. “So you can wear shoes with marker on them, but I can’t wear my fly-ass Bears-colored Pumas.”

“That is correct.”

“Would it help if I wore my Supercool headband?” I asked, pulling a headband out of my pocket with the word SUPERCOOL written on it in black Sharpie.

“That would not help. Here,” Mike said, reaching into the closet and grabbing a pair of loafers, “throw these on. Tuck in the shirt. The jeans look good. And bro, I love you, but lose the hat. Your hair looks good. Trust it.”

I took off my hat and placed it carefully on the nightstand, puffing it out so that it would maintain its shape. I matted down my hair, adjusting it as best I could, tucked in my shirt, and set out into the night…

…but as we did, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed in a society that required a good American feller such as myself to remove his baseball cap in order to look classy. This struck me as downright un-American, not to mention rather dumb, considering our well-negotiated and roundly agreed upon deal with women. When it comes to superficial sex, women are judged by looks while men are judged by money. Now we’re self-subjecting ourselves to external standards of looks as well, which knocks this whole deal off-balance. Are we to be held to unrealistic standards of wealth and beauty? This is no good. 

It was no use complaining. When we arrived at the club, the place was packed full of guys who were dressed well, and it was clear to me that our union had been permanently crippled by female influences. We looked up and down the line. Our cousins were nowhere to be found. Mike told the bouncer that we were on the guest list, and the bouncer informed him that the guest list was now closed, meaning only our cousin and his now-wife would be allowed in. We called our cousin. He would be arriving soon. Probably. We called our other cousin. His girlfriend answered, and told us that he was at the blackjack table. We waited. No one came.

“Do you think they’re coming?”

“Not sure,” Mike said. “But if I just got married, I’d probably be kicking it solo with my wife.”

I nodded. “True, true. Can’t fault that.”

“Certainly not.”

“So?”

“I’m kind of hungry,” Mike said. “McDonalds?”

“Sounds good.”

We got into Mickey D’s—Mike was happy to find it open this time around—and we ordered quickly. It was not crowded, but there were three tables filled including one with three hot babes.

Only upon closer inspection they were not hot babes, but rather not-that-good-looking girls who were trying their bestest to achieve point number one. Mike and I sat down with our burgers, and I looked around the joint, finding that the three girls at the table had taken off their non-feet-shaped shoes, presumably to rest their sore feet-shaped feet. 

The girl behind the counter looked at the three girls as they began walking away barefoot, holding their shoes in their hands. “Uh, you probably don’t want to do that, unless you want to catch all kinds of funky diseases and stuff.”

The girls looked at each other, and then at the girl behind the counter, and then down at their feet, and then down at their shoes. “Whatever,” one of them said, and they wandered out of the restaurant, barefoot, potentially-diseased, and happy.

****** 

It got late. No word from the cousins. No luck on the unfinanced sex front. A fabulous weekend by most standards—a success on a whole, with memories to spare—and yet as I walked back into our hotel through the casino, McDonalds on my breath and no girl on my arm, I could not shake a feeling of slight disappointment.

But no! That is selfish. Our cousin was married, for crying out loud! My brother and I have six first cousins, and of the eight of us, he was the first to wed. This is life! This is love and joy and family! This is—

“Hey,” I said to Mike as my eyes found a young woman sitting by herself at the bar, “what is that?”

“That girl?”

“Yeah man. That girl. What is that?”

“That’s a girl sitting at a bar playing video poker.”

I raised an eyebrow in thought. “Correction. That’s a girl sitting by herself at a bar playing video poker.” And then, just to be sure: “That is what that is, right?”

“Yeah man. That is what that is.”

“Why is she sitting by herself?" 

Mike smiled. “I don’t know, bro.”

“Well we should probably go talk to her, right?”

“Yeah, probably.”

We walked over and sat down two stools away. I ordered a Corona. Mike had a Vodka Gimlet with water. I looked over at the girl. She was sexy-cute, a light-skinned black girl with short brown hair, classy red lips, a summer top and tight blue jeans. She was wearing girl shoes, but they had no heels. She was nursing what looked like a Vodka Cranberry while playing video poker at a very methodical pace. She looked bored. And yet I got the feeling that her boredom was out of character, that she was at the back end of an unusually lousy day and was flying solo in an effort to rekindle her normal buoyant spirit. 

I leaned towards her. “You winning?”

“Doing alright.”

“Just alright?”

She thought for a moment. And then, nodding and not upset: “Yeah. Just alright.”

“Alright’s not so bad.”

She smiled. “You’re right. You can do a lot worse than alright.” She finished her hand and looked at us. “From here?”

“Nope. Chicago. You from here?”

“Nope. Jersey.”

I took a sip of my Corona, wiping a piece of lime off of my lips with the side of my arm, like a kid cringing from bad cough medicine. And then, getting my game face back on: “So, what do you do when you’re not playing video poker?” 

She smiled again, a long smile that seemed to take her by surprise, as if I’d pulled it out of a top hat. “I sell paper goods.”

“That’s cool.”

“Is it?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

She laughed. “It’s alright.”

“Alright, huh?”

We shared what seemed to be a Connection Smile. I looked over at Mike, who was already looking at me as if to say “Hey man…keep it up.” I turned back to her.

“I’m Jack by the way,” I said, extending my hand. “This is Mike.”

“Louann,” she said, extending hers.

“L-o-u-a-n-n?”

“You got it.” She laughed again. “Did you guys go out tonight?”

“We were supposed to meet our cousin and his new wife out at some club,” Mike said, “but plans fell apart and nothing much happened.”

“So then, what’s up for the rest of the evening?”

“Not much,” I said. “Probably just going to go back to the room and hang out.”

I turned back to Mike for confirmation, and he nodded and eyebrowed, a nod that suggested that we were indeed going to return to the room, and an eyebrow that suggested that I should go for it and close the deal. Now was the time! Finally, after long last, the Vegas Thing was going to yield the encounter we’d been hoping for, even if it would only be for one of us. And yet I could tell in Mike’s eyes that even just one of us scoring would feel like a victory. And then, just as I was about to turn back to her and see what she was going to be doing later…

“So, are you looking for some company?”

Awww nuts.

“No,” I said, and then I thought for a moment to make sure that I did indeed understand what she meant by ‘company,’ and then, having decided that I did: “Not tonight.”

And so it goes. Vegas baby. Vegas.

****** 

The trip was over. Mom was on her way to Los Angeles to visit some other family out there, and Mike was heading back to school, leaving Dad and I to fly back to O’Hare. All throughout McCarran, girls were heading to their terminals in a collective stupor of exhaustion and dishevelment. They looked as if they’d worn themselves out all weekend on credit, with all of the abuse welling up until Sunday morning when it suddenly took hold in one lump sum. The sweat pants were out. There was no makeup. Their eyes looked heavy, as if their eyelids were being propped up by twigs. Their hair was neat yet hurried, pushed together in scrunchies or clips. Even the few who still seemed to have it all together were giving their feet a break, wearing flip-flops or slippers. They even appeared to be more into point number three than usual as they dragged their carry-ons to their flights and spoke on their cell phones with something of a detached fervor.

The male camaraderie was gone as well. As we waited in line to check in to our flight, a group of college-aged guys got in line behind us. One of them was wearing an old, faded t-shirt that read 1985 NBA ALL-STAR GAME, INDIANAPOLIS.

I looked at him. “Yo man, that’s a great shirt.”

He looked annoyed. “What?”

“That’s a great shirt.”

“Yeah…” And that was it. No fist pounds or sly nods or exchanges of familiarity. Just a single word, saying nothing, and trailing off…

Dad and I checked in to our flight, and then went looking for food. We found a roadside diner-type place called Ruby’s, and ordered two cheeseburgers and fries. We sat and ate. Then it was back onto the plane, quietly, thoughtfully, and this time my chaos instinct was entirely absent. The flight was subdued; clearly everyone aboard had put themselves through a weekend that required a certain amount of recovery time. 

Back in Chicago, the weather was June cool. No rain, no wind, no heat. We waited for our bags at the baggage claim area, and Dad picked up his cell phone and connected with Mom, who was already having a lovely time of it in L.A. Our bags arrived. Dad wheeled his behind him while I threw my duffle bag over my shoulder. We were tired, and oddly relieved to be back in the company of real humans. We felt like Brad and Janet leaving the castle at the end of Rocky Horror. We hardly spoke as we walked to the car, still glowing slightly from what was indeed a great trip. We lugged our bags out the doors and back into the open air as we searched for our car. To our delight, we found it immediately.

“See,” I said confidently as Dad popped the trunk, “right near the sky.”

Copyright 2007, jm silverstein