The Vegas Addiction

I always thought that I’d hate it. The place glorifies the worst kind of rampant over-consumptive waste, and as an ecological disaster, it ruined a vast area of high desert. Everything about it is fake. Still, I cannot resist an opportunity to go there.

Nothing relaxes like walking down the street at half-past nine in the morning taking swigs from a Tecate tall-boy. That’s being free from the shackles of quotidian bullshit that govern everyday existence. If a man walks down the strip in a suit and tie, he’s just partying high-class today; he’s not on the way to some cubicle to fill out his TPS reports. He can wear whatever he wants because he likes the look of it or the feel of it. No self-righteous jackass who signs his paycheck gets to tell him what to put on in the morning. That kind of freedom hooks him like a drug, and as soon as the man heads toward McCarran Airport to leave Vegas, he’s already thinking about what he’ll have to do to come back.

A good sports season augments the potency of Vegas-crack as well as anything. Lunchtime during college basketball season plays witness to eager fans scouting the day’s games on the big boards in all of the sports books up and down the strip. Everyone knows that Memphis will beat SMU, but twenty-six and a half points? Really? Maybe Memphis will get up thirty, but then they’ll put in all their walk-ons and end up winning by only twenty-four; no way they’ll cover that spread. Throw a bet on SMU in a parlay and hope for the best. Later, with Memphis up twenty-five on the big screen, SMU misses an indifferent jump shot with twenty seconds left. Memphis gets the rebound. Even this most mundane of blowouts comes down to the wire in Vegas; a guy in the back by the bar yells, “Shoot that motherfucker!” Everyone’s heads turn toward the big screen and pulses quicken. But no one sees a shot. Memphis’s back-up point guard runs the clock out, either content with a twenty-five point win or under orders from his coach not to run up the score, and Memphis doesn’t cover its twenty-six and a half point spread. The parlay bet is still alive, and with it, the chance of an exponential payout. And who wouldn’t want to put down another while the predictions are hitting?

When the games end, a legion of cabs head from all points on the strip to the gentlemen’s clubs a few blocks west. In a place with a neon-colored skyline, people understand that it’s possible for men to enjoy the prurient aesthetics of female bodies without degrading the women to whom those bodies belong, and that there’s nothing wrong with the Dionysian throes of physical pleasure. Either that, or it’s party time all the time, and no one has time for judgmental crap. And Vegas is, among other things, the American stripper’s Mecca. The best dancers come from the farthest corners of the union to practice their trade there, and the resulting diversity of appearances never disappoints. Who wants to leave a place where beautiful strangers approach at every turn with rapt attention?

In the morning, when the previous night’s Dionysian frenzy demands a return to the clean, bright lines of Apollo, hit a fitness center for a run on the elliptical. An endorphin rush overlooking the harmonious blues of an immaculate casino pool can add the desired balance. Afterward, a stroll through the wide, tall, airy corridors of Mandalay near the Shark Reef is just the thing. Then, step outside there, at the far Southern end of the strip, with the mountains stark and sharp in the distance, and take a breath. Soon, none of this will be yours anymore. As the day begins, you’ll head North; people will emerge from their restful, rented abodes high above the casino floors and descend in elevator after elevator. Gradually, they’ll fill the ground floors. Whether in bars or restaurants, at blackjack tables or next to the lion habitat at the MGM, these people will simultaneously infuriate, amuse, and interest you. They will be absolutely, gloriously incomprehensible.

I will go back and see them, again and again.