The strip never sleeps. I remembered those words as I stood outside of Caesar’s Palace rubbing my eyes and trying to remember how long I’d been awake for. I thought it had been forty eight hours, but it could have been closer to seventy two. I looked down as trousers, green combats that were turned a light brown by the dust of the desert, and blinked hard, several times, as if this would bring me back to life. In my hand was a can of red bull. I was here, that much I knew. Tom had told me to meet here. He had the car keys he said. We were parked up outside of the city, kind of a walking distance. He was going to drive up with Andy and they were going to pick me up and we’d be gone. At least that’s what I;d hoped he’d said. We’d been living in the van for the summer and this was supposed to be the blow out. That was three days ago and now I’d been awake for at least two days and hadn’t seen my friend for two thirds of that. Still, he’d said. Meet here. Stay here. I’ve got the keys. We’ll sleep and then tomorrow we’ll drive back to California. It was all going to be fine. It was going to be Hunter Thompson, except without the cops, and without the lizards.
Flashbacks came thick and fast. For a few minutes I thought that I’d be able to distract myself by watching the sunset for a few minutes, or a least watching the sky as what I took for granted was the sun was going down behind the hotels. But the sun sets quickly in the desert. It takes about fifteen minutes at the most for it to go from a pink tint to complete black. This distraction didn’t last long. I didn’t remember exactly when Tom said he was going to be here. I looked at my empty can and felt in my pocket for some change. There was some. I didn’t remember winning anything for the whole weekend. It didn’t mean that I hadn’t, but I definitely didn’t remember it. Over the road from the palace I could see a stall of fruit machines and people over there whooping and shouting next to them. I wanted to win something finally so I made my way over, rubbing my eyes and telling myself that I’d be kicking myself if I didn’t try again, at least while I could remember it. I remember a massive guy with shades and shoulders that looked like they could crush you by themselves standing up as I sat down. And then I heard the sound of money falling.
“Miching Malacho! This means mischief!” A hand gripped my shoulder with a slow burning force that I hadn’t experienced before and I looked up. The noise of the money fell away completely and all I could think about was the power that was contained in that arm. The man looked at me and smiled, showing a gap in his middle teeth and the kind of dental surgery that one would usually only see on the owners of Vegas or on the people who were paid to make sure that they stayed the owners. Something told me that this guy was the latter.
“You know your Hamlet, Boy? Seems not. Means that you’re not up to much good right now.”
I stared at him blankly, I didn’t want to get into this. He proceeded to look over to the machine in the way that told me that as far as he was concerned, he put the money and then stood up. That I hadn’t touched the machine. As he stood there, I could feel at twitch in his shoulder and then a pulse that ran down his arm into mine, creasing the thug silk of his suit jacket like a ripple across an oak tree.
Suddenly my head started spinning. Three days, two days, this guy’s hand on my shoulder. There was no way of knowing, no way of arguing. I could feel the adrenaline and then the nausea rising up. I wasn’t planning on it. It just happened. If I ever saw this guy again that’s what I’d say. I didn’t mean to hurt his shoes. It just came out of me. Lucky for me it came out at the same time that Tom and Andy came out of the palace. I don’t really remember this but they told me later that the guy was so shocked that it had been easy for them to drive up and bundle me, along with $100 worth of coins into the van before the guy had even realised what had happened. The last thing I remember before passing out is the look of his Italian leather shoes and the ground getting closer.
That night we drove back to California. It took a while. I slept for most of the way, too tired for a change of clothes. When I woke up we were still driving and I had a fresh white shirt sitting next to me. Tom whistled from behind the wheel. “Curtesy of the procurer,” he said. “Take better care of it than the last clothes you touched.”
- Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Harper Perenniel: New York, 2005.
