Las Fuckin' Vegas

By Pauly
New York City

I have been working on a new slogan for the Las Vegas Tourist Bureau...

Why lose your life savings in the stock market? Gamble it in Vegas instead.

Vegas exudes a dark side, but it also contains a high fun quotient. Seriously, when everything in the universe aligns, Vegas can be one of the most fantastic sensational and unbelievable places on Earth.

Where else can you get a cheap steak, crash a Mexican wedding, get cold decked in blackjack by a dealer named Dong, play video poker for three straight hours, drink pina coladas out of a plastic coconut, bum a cigarette from an 80-year old woman with an oxygen tank, speed away to the Rhino in a free limo, get your dick rubbed by a former Miss Teen USA, puke in the back of a cab, snort cheap coke cut with too much baby laxative in the bathroom at O'Sheas, and then hit a two-outer on the river to snap off Aces and win a poker tournament?

I can guarantee you're not doing that shit at your Uncle Mortys' lake house and unless you have a sheet of high blotter, you're definitely not doing that at Disney World.

I really love Las Vegas and I guess that's why I'm so hard on that town sometimes in my scribblings. And it's natural that my perspective turns a tad dour when some things jump right out at me. Like the construction. It used to be everywhere. Roads. 215. Casinos. Condos. City Center. Subdivisions. Strip Malls. The desert was being quickly paved over as Starbucks and fast food franchises oafishly popped up over night and cookie cutter homes sprung up like wild flowers peppering the Las Vegas valley.

When I lived at the Redneck Riviera a large percentage of the tenants were construction workers. All they did was work, drink, and fuck the skeevy street walkers on Tropicana or defile the roving crack whores in the adjacent building that catered to their feral sexual appetites. And when the party was over, the workers headed back to their sites and eagerly awaited their next paycheck.

Like little ants out of an Ayn Rand narrative, every single person had a role in the larger Las Vegas colony. Everyone. From hookers to electricians. Build casinos. Attract big dreamers with disposable incomes and then try to take every single cent on their bodies and in their bank accounts and whatever money they can borrow or steal. And when they go broke, another batch arrives every couple of hours and they lose every dollar they brought with them. Occasionally, some lucky soul will depart Sin City with a nice score and even juicer story about how they beat the house and won so much money that they can't wait to go back. They tell their friends. And thousands more arrive with more money and your Aunt Betty donks off her tax refund money at the Mr. Cashman slots and your Uncle Sal loses his disability check shooting dice. The suits get rich. Rich and greedy enough to want to build more casinos and employ more workers, who in turn blow their money back into the casinos they helped build, or their money gets flushed down a black hole of shoddy drugs, cheap booze, crank-addled harlots, and Dane Cook DVDs.

Ah, the underbelly of Las Vegas... that crazy fucked up deviant world where abnormal things happen to ordinary folks that's supposed to "stay in Vegas" and not follow you home.

Because your wife would slice your testicles off if she found out you scored a couple of hits of Ecstasy off your Ethiopian cab driver, then tag-teamed two collagen-riddled cougars that you picked up at Rumjungle, and then you sunk to the lowest depths of depravity at the tail end of a 53 hour bender when you gave a German guy a handjob in the middle of the Zumanity for two more hits of E.

There are so many indulgent activities that happen within the city limits of Las Vegas that I'd like to write off on my taxes. Unless you have a superstar accountant, you're going to have a tough time justifying several thousand dollars worth of cocaine or prostitutes as a legitimate business expense. Then there's Michalski, who actually got away writing off rub and tugs as legit "transportation cost" for Pokerati.

Drug dealing, loansharking, and prostitution are always risky but profitable adventures. The Big 3 are recession proof. The most adventurous entrepreneurs dabble in all three. Although the crooks on Wall Street get bailed out by Uncle Sam, unfortunately working girls, meth dealers, and pimps don't. Most of them end up a statistic... either tossed in the slammer or buried in a hole out on the edge of Death Valley. Sleeping with the scorpions. Oh the hypocrisy of it all. After all, most international cocaine conglomerates are better managed than the majority American banks.

I guess the "I've seen it all" moment occurred a few years ago. I was with Grubby and we could have been at the Excalibur or the Sahara. Some place on the Strip, but by no means high end. Anyway, there was one person that always sticks out when I think about the absurdity of Las Vegas...

She was a newlywed in her late teens who wore too much eye make up. She was pregnant and looked like she hid a bowling ball under her elegant and flowing white dress. In one hand she clutched a half-full bottle of Budweiser and in the other, a cigar dangled from her fingers. She stumbled through the casino and plopped down at a slot machine. Slumped in the gloom of impending motherhood, she puffed on the cigar and unleashed a hearty cloud of smoke into the air. I walked by she screamed, "Where the fuck can I's get coke? I just got fuckin' married and I want some cocaine! Do you have any co-ka-ka-cane?"

"Um... not on me, ma'am," I said.

"I have some bubble gum," offered up Grubby.

She declined the gum and took a swig off of her beer instead.


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