EYEHEARTZOMBIES

I showered before I went to bed, mostly to wash all of the dust and smoke smell off of me, but also just because I was too excited to go to bed. By the time I turned the water off and the steam had left the small bathroom, I was thinking longingly of the bed. I lay down and went to sleep in an instant, not waking until ten the next morning.

By the time I shaved, dressed, and re-packed the car, I had missed check-out. So I paid for another day, but left anyway. I needed to make it to Vegas today and didn’t want to put it off any longer than I had to. Like going to the dentist, it’d just be worse if I waited for it to get better.

The highway to Vegas is an empty one. Miles and miles of desert and scrubland, disappearing into the distance in mountains and foothills, pink and purple. Several times on the road construction slowed everything down to a crawl and the four lane that zipped us along at sixty miles an hour suddenly dropped to two lanes where we limped along at thirty, sometimes twenty.

The heat of the day wormed its way into my car during one of the construction blockades and it just wouldn’t leave. My back and sides were coated with sweat and I had all of the windows rolled down. Flies got into the car and buzzed around until I almost felt I couldn’t take it any longer.

I pulled off on a side exit that dead-ended by disappearing into the sand. I stopped and got out, walked around the car a few times. I sat down in the open door and waited for traffic to die down. I could see the road from where I was and it all just crawled by. I sat there for an hour, but the traffic never really changed, just the color of car that was in front of my exit. Finally I decided to get back in the car and back on the road and just wait it out. So I did.

It took me a total of six hours to reach Vegas from the little Pueblo village I had stayed in the night before. I drove into Vegas around seven o’clock at night. The day had become overcast around four or five in the afternoon and so it was already dark. The lights were on and the city was blazing with neon. Signs flashed, waved, seemed to hum and dance with light. I half expected to hear bells and whistles and rattlers when I was driving through the city with the windows down. Instead I heard people talking and laughing, crying over their losses and yelling over their wins. The city was more alive than any city I’ve ever seen.

The city seemed to have no dark corners, no nooks or crannies where light didn’t reach. The whole of the world in Las Vegas was illuminated and shining, seemingly from inside. My tired old eyes were used to the dim corners and alleys of New York. The incandescent glow of Broadway was there, yes, but it was nothing compared to the neon spectacle here in Vegas. I spent another two hours just driving around, looking at the casinos and hotels, the cars and the women. Oh God, the women.

Finally I checked in at the Flamingo. Sonny didn’t greet me. I didn’t meet him until the next day. Some peon of his, a guido nicknamed Mooch met me at the front door. He was a hulking brute of man. Easily three feet wide and only about five and a half feet tall. He had no neck; his head just seemed to grow out of his shoulders. His lips were full and heavy and how low-slung brow seemed to hide his eyes behind two hairy caterpillars of eyebrows. When he talked, his voice sounded like it had been ripped to shreds and neatly laid back together again, all scratchy and quiet, yet forceful and commanding. The Mooch was one that you never really felt comfortable around, but one you loved to have guarding your back.

The Mooch led me through the hotel and casino, showing me the slot machines - “Loose ones go in the front, tight ones go in the back. Keeps the customers working their way in, then they get lost.” - the card tables, the roulette wheel, the keno board. He walked me through the building, pointing out the doors that were hidden in the middle of a wall, the only thing gray in a mass of bright colors and flashing lights. The bar and restaurant in the back, where you’d be tempted by all of the bright lights and promises of money on your way to eat, or on your way out. The maze of hallways that led to the bathrooms and the elevators leading up to the guest’s rooms.

We rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, which was set aside as rooms for employees. If someone got sick or had to work double shifts, there was always a bed waiting for them. I would have a permanent room on this floor, along with a few other employees that they wanted to be close to hand. I was shown to my room, number 566, and the Mooch gave me his card, with his in-house pager number on it. He told me to call him when I was settled in. I called and had a bellhop bring up my bags and I started getting used to living in a hotel.