Las Vegas is Cardboard.


Published in Over the Transom #23, 2012
Copyright©Jerry D. McDonnell, 2011

by
Jerry D. McDonnell


She told us, “I don’t like San Francisco because the people aren’t friendly. I like Las Vegas because it’s fake.” She was an artist. Had her own studio. In the strip mall her husband owned.

Frank, Franky, we called him, left the Lake (Tahoe) and went to Vegas. A year later he came back for a visit. Decided to stay, but he had left his stuff in Vegas. I had two days off and hadn’t been back to Vegas since I skipped north a few years back. We left the Lake at midnight in the VW Bug. Across the flat Nevada desert our joint smoking altered minds created deep, dark canyons down, down through. Drove all night across the dark void imaging the nuclear testing grounds near to the east, smoking joints, laughing about mutant monsters jumping out of the dark until we scared ourselves. Fear eased off with the downtown lights of Tonopah. At first light the gaudy lights of downtown Las Vegas were having trouble competing with the sun.

Picked up some of Franky’s stuff from a very nice, bald, fat man who ran a rent a room near the strip. “He said he was one of the three stooges,” Franky said. “Curly. They screwed ‘em. Paid ‘em squat.”

Spent the afternoon in Joe Julian’s beer bar in the strip mall across from the Sahara, near the El Rancho. Murray was there. He used to work for the mob in Chicago. Introduced us to a hit man just sent down for a job. Hit man was drunk. Showed us his pistol with a silencer, a scoped rifle and a knife in the trunk of his—what else—black Cadillac with Illinois plates. Murray told him to shut up.

The sun gave way on the urban desert chasing off the too hot to handle shapely shopping ladies clad in downtown bikinis and high heels and we went to pick up the rest of Franky’s stuff packed in a couple of old cardboard Burgermeister beer cases tied shut with a piece of clothes line in a downtown Vegas bar. An hour after sundown downtown Vegas lit up like a Viet Nam napalm bombing attack. Convoy was there with his hooker, but that’s another story.  

“I worked Vegas years ago,’ I told them. “Served Jimmy Witherspoon drinks in the back hall of the Dune’s lounge bar when he was singing with Louis Bellson’s Band.”

“The Spoon, man!” Franky said. “Cool.”

Convoy looked like he didn’t believe me. I didn’t care, cause it happened.

“True, man. 1960. Dunes Hotel and Casino. I was a bar boy. Blacks weren’t allowed in the white casinos in 1960. In North Las Vegas, they had all black casinos.

Man, they had “RESERVED” stop signs on each empty table like tombstones. Translation: No Niggers. Exceptions: Pearl Baily was married to Louis Bellson. Sammy Davis, Jr. down the road at the Sands was another, he being who he was and with the Rat Pack and all. Saw ‘em all in there one night. In a corner table.”

Convoy nodded for me to continue my story; his overweight hooker sat beside him and asked for a drink.“ Give her a coke,” he signaled to the bartender.

“Between sets Spoon had to sit in the dim hallway of empty beer cases in back of the two bars separating the stage. He sat on those sturdy flip top from the center empty beer cases that held those 12 ounce long necked bottles of Budweiser, Millers, Schultz, Past Blue Ribbon, Coors. I slipped him drinks, Scotch, the good stuff. He always looked sad and said thank you. I was just a punk 21-year-old white boy. Man, he could sing the blues.”

“The hooker said, “I remember that. That was before Spoon became well known. ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business’ was on the billboard charts for 34 weeks. He played Carnegie Hall, went to Europe with Buck Clayton’s All Stars. Toured Japan with the Count. Newport Jazz Festival in . . . “

“You some kind of historian?” Convoy barked at her. “Get your ass back on the street. Bring me some money.” Convoy looked at me and smiled, “Give him a beer.”

We left for the Lake at midnight. Drove all night.

“That was no way to treat his hooker, man. That’s not right.” We drove through the dense darkness in a no moon desert silent night. “Astronauts say they can see the lights of Vegas from deep space,” I ventured to break the quiet and keep my eyes open.

Hours later with the first dim light of dawn Franky broke his stare from the darkness and stretched, “Yeah, Las Vegas is fake until you step out of the lights.”


_________________________

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