September 03, 2003
the bachelor party
The tray tables had to go up. Bonwag counted the bets on the napkin, and picked up the cards from the tray and folded it into the back of the seat. i was up 85 hash marks.
"You are starting to get the hang of this. you will be fine." he said confidently as the cabin began to change pressure, and the airplane began to sink into the clouds.
A little luck would have helped, too.
The blackjack practice was over, and i looked out the window into the desert.
Somewhere between 33,000" and the runway the clouds dilluted into the darkness and I saw the grid outside of the window. It was electric geometry. There on the black desert floor was a reminder that this world is bigger than i understand it to be. Below us was the illuminated, shimmering city, tiled out into the darkness. It burned with more kilowatts of power than odds against me at the tables. It felt like we were falling into 1,000 christmas mornings for the greedy, decadent, and the envious.
The limo unloaded us in front of the MGM grand. We walked into the milky white lobby with a marble floor smooth enough and big enough to host the Stanley Cup. The bachelor party took up 3 rooms on the 6th floor. there were 4 to a room with maybe an extra who had to sleep (if they so chose to sleep) on the floor. we walked in, set our bags down. Shinny had planned the party for bonwag, and had all the hotel keys. he delt them out like 5 card stud and then headed for the casino without looking back, and we all followed. There are a lot of everything in vegas. especially mirrors. and as we past them in the hallways and the elevators, i looked at us and we looked like a modern day western movie where the outlaws go walking into town shoulder to shoulder to raise some hell. only holstered on our hips weren't 6 shooters, but saline eye drops and cell phones. and instead of bullets, our ammunition was red black and green casino chips.
trying to talk about the next 50 hours of my life is like trying to talk about a big tornado. It is beautiful, horrifying, and when it is all over, someone always looses a lot.
As we walked out of the elveator into the casino, everything seemed to explode into a combustable cloud of neon, and green felt. People scattered, bells rattled, silicon bounced, and money moved, but time stood still.
15 hours later it was still dark. i had no proof, but thought the sun had forgotten to rise and fall for the first time in history. my veins were pulsing with oxygen and gin and second hand nicotene. I was on bus headed downtown, and out the window the city's electric ventricles pumped neon through its metal and concrete organs. Bonwag was down 200. McMahn was up 900. and some time later it was vica versa, and then back again.
meals no longer were defined as breakfast lunch and dinner, but simply as "the next time i eat". by monday our circadian rythmes were shattered, and time, space and logic fell onto the sidewalk along side the business cards for the call girls, dancers, and hookers.
i felt like i was wathcing those nature films in jr. high were they do a time lapse on lightning storms, flowers blooming, and the sun rising and falling. it all twitches and writhes and explodes in a matter of seconds right before your eyes.
i watched the sun set across the vegas strip and cast it's long shadows on the menegrie of architecture, lights, water, and persuasion. and like the impression i was left with in 7th grade, I understood that i will die. and until that happens this world is twitching, and writhing, and exploding. and it all will happen in a matter of seconds, right before my eyes, and i am here to see it.
So there under the palm trees in the mohave heat, beside the shotgun wedding dresses and rhinestoned jumpsuits and lost hotel keys and prime buffets with crab legs and macoroni and cheese, we split our aces, we let it ride, and we doubled down. we held on 17 and found infinitley more ways to hit everything but 21. and there among the faux finished people and buildings, the manicured lawns and hands, i realized i don't need any of it. i didn't any of it to be happy. i didn't need any of it to live. i didn't need any of it to die. but what i do need is to understand that it is happening whether i look at it or not, and that until i die, i am alive.
and so we laughed and we sang. we talked and we drank. and i understood what good friends are. new and old. and understood what it means to be here; to watch this world twitch and writhe and explode with them.
-and now, as the summer ends, i look back and hope that bonwag was right; That i am starting to get the hang of all of this. and maybe, with a little luck, i will be fine.
no worries, compadre. you will be fine. thx for the memories.
Posted by: bonwag on September 9, 2003 01:49 PMA little off-topic but just wanted to say I liked the layout of the site
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