One Man’s Mountain –11.0- Four Queens Hotel Casino, Third and Fremont, Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
“You got to know when to hold ‘em/Know when to fold ‘em/ Know when to walk away/ And know when to run….”
Las Vegas can be a lot of fun if you play your cards right.
That’s what Alan Drybear tells me before I and Princess Moon leave Darwin for a shopping trip to the big city. He should know, his mom lives there and he grew up on the Shoshone reservation not far away.
“The first and only rule,” he tells me in his very quiet and dry voice, “No gambling.”
“Las Vegas” in Spanish means many meadows, and was originally founded by Europeans as a watering place on the wagon trail from Santa Fe to South California. Now it is mostly a place of loud noises (Ruidos Fuertes) or many light bulbs (Muchas Bombillas) or an even better description might be “Mucha Electricidad Desperdiciada” (much wasted electricity).
Las Vegas is a scene brought to life by the generator turbines sucking electric power from the waters tumbling out of Lake Mead through the Hoover Dam. There seems to be an endless supply. So let’s see how many lights we can hook up…..
Of course nothing is endless.
Like, for instance, the money to pay for running all those excessive light bulbs. The city of Las Vegas relies on only one source for that money: dollars (euros, pesos, yen, rubles, marks, pounds, florins, pulas, ngultrums, francs, dinars, bitcoins….) flowing out of the pockets of travelers coming here from all over the world to play games of chance, take in an occasional show, and eat good food at cheap (and expensive) restaurants.
Given the world-wide Covid pandemic the city is now suffering a serious drought of tourist money (which does not, as it turns out, grow on trees or fall from the sky like rain). The city is very uncrowded right now. Las Vegas is a little desperate. A deluxe room at the Four Queens (downtown) costs only $30 a night. (King sized bed, semi-hot shower, everything smelling strongly of disinfectant) I’m told you can stay in relative luxury out on the strip for less that $50. Las Vegas is hurting. You can shoot a gun in the lobby of the Golden Nugget and only wake up maybe two or three chain smoking slot-machine devotees. You can forget about hitting anyone with your bullets. That’s it. (Someone don’t forget to turn all those lights out when you all leave.)
Princess Moon and I come to the city to buy used appliances.
I am her go to guy (and former sex slave) when it comes to driving the truck and lifting heavy objects. She has a broken left arm which has seriously impacted her ability to sleep and laugh at my odd sense of humor. She’s feeling tender, vulnerable, self-absorbed, and porcupine-like (slow moving with many sharp edges). I am my usual stupid gregarious bull-in-a-China-shop self. Together we are a painful combination. We should probably rent separate rooms. There is, afterall, plenty of space now in Las Vegas.
The shopping actually goes pretty well. We score a used washer and dryer, French-door refrigerator, water heater and red enamel micro-wave. I grunt them all into the back of a cargo trailer we are towing behind my truck. We have dinner (chicken in a crème sauce over hand carved squash and zucchini noodles) with some lovely old friends of mine who have lived in the city for 19 years. They are very happy here. They are glad to see me. Even the Princess manages to pretend for a couple of hours that she likes me. It’s all, as they say, going swimmingly.
On our last day in town I get up very early to wander through the 24-hour lights. There is the world’s largest television screen over my head (one block wide, many blocks long, with it’s own tour of the solar system screening dramatically in the sky, watch out here comes the asteroid belt…) but the streets are empty. Construction workers are replacing the facade on a closed casino. I guess there is some kind of hope in that. The obnoxious scent of cigarette smoke (you just don’t smell it that much anymore…) comes from a tuxedoed pit-boss taking a break in front of the Golden Gate. Bright red neon bulbs blare at the front of the Heart Attack Grill (Over 350 LBS Eats for Free). And
Oscar’s in silver and white lights (Beef, Booze and Broads).The famous classic retro red, yellow and gold “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign hangs at the corner of seventh street. There is none of the usual debauchery to be seen anywhere. Because there is no one to debauch. The night sky is hazy with lingering smoke from California wild-fires. The sunrise and another 96 degree October afternoon is on its way shortly from the east.
It is sort of peaceful in downtown Las Vegas at 4:35 am. It is almost devoid of all traffic and people. A couple of lonely security guards are nodding off in their chairs. It almost makes you want to be there when, eventually, they turn out the lights.
That, I think, will be something to see.
