LAS VEGAS – The flatness of the desert landscape can catch you off guard if you are not expecting it. And how could you? America described as “For purple mountain majesties” eludes this region of flat terrain, this platitude of stuccoed dirt travails.
Howard Hughes’ name is seen in various deserted locales. The street sign to a crumbling hotel/golf course that the city bus, engine on its last stretch, pauses nearby before continuing its route. The patrons sit on board, wearily at the end of a work week, waiting for the engine to kick back to life. The driver knowingly pulls one more time and a quiet rumble jolts the vehicle for one more drive.
The airplane roars overhead, sinking into the tarmac that is the life force which supplies Las Vegas with its loyal patrons. This is not the time for them, in the lit and unassuming morning. No, their time is when the first glow of twilight has introduced itself to daylight. You have done your job well, warmed these pavements, but it is my turn now to take these unassuming for a spin.
In the daytime, all the roaches and maggots fester on the sidewalk. In the nighttime, the neon light distracts from the underbelly. Then, the soft lighting on the replica of the Sistine Chapel is almost good enough. If you have never been to Europe, each mall on the strip, dedicated to a country, would be enough. The employees that work on the strip have adapted a kind of friendly demeanor that does not seem forced, gained from years of service.
At the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, crowds gather to get their snap commemorating their visit to Sin City. A small placard denotes the exact Las Vegas red blinking from the neon lights. Some Europeans stand waiting for the double-decker express bus shuttling people along the strip. A man in a black shirt and black pants asks where they are from.
“Germany.”
“Wonderful,” he replies familiarly.
“Have you been?” they ask.
“No, but I want to go there some day. When I retire, I think my son and I are going to go on a year-long trip through Europe.”
The man goes on to tell the tourists that he came to the strip in the ’60s, when he was still a child. It was a different place then, less populated, less expensive. The story is the same everywhere, it seems, but he has no displeasure in the telling of this story. It is stated as a matter-of-fact.
“Started working in the strip, and have never left since,” he says.
The next morning, he honks as he drives by the intersection. It almost makes Las Vegas feel like a small town.
Las Vegas Book Recommendations:
At the Dam
, by Joan Didion, 1970
This short story captures the time and place of Nevada in the form of a short essay of Ms. Didion’s visit to nearby Hoover Dam.
The Godfather: Part II, by Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, 1973
The screenplay tells the second part of a trilogy in the saga of an Italian American immigrant family steeped in illicit affairs. Set in Reno, it gives a sense of the brashness and grandiose of the early period of Las Vegas history.
postcardsfromanne.com 