333 Miles (19 page)

Gary: “This isn’t Riyadh, dude. America
doesn’t have dudes-only towns.”

Mike: “Have you ever been to San Jose?
Anyway, we will have them for real if those crazy fundamentalist
rag-headed fucks have their way.”

Gary: “Whatever. I am married and I am still
pumped up to be here.”

Mike: “Seriously, though, think about it. If
there were no chicks, would we still be coming here? Basically, if
you really think about it, everything we do is because of bitches.
Think about where we usually go to dinner. Not where the best food
is or who has the best price. We go where we are most likely to see
the hottest chicks. I mean sure, N9NE has good steaks, but is that
really why we go there? How do we choose where we drink on weekends
in San Diego?”

At this point it was clear to everyone there
was no point participating in the conversation so they let him
elaborate.

Mike: “Like Alex said, why, even, do we work?
Okay, we need to eat, so you would still have some job, but if
there were no chicks would you really care if you made fifty grand
or five hundred? The only point of making five hundred is to
attract hotter chicks. Why do you need a great house with a view of
the ocean if you can’t have a chick over to see it and then play
your skin flute? All I would need is a one bedroom with a microwave
and enough money for PlayStation and beers.”

Alex: “So you agree the Smurfs are a
propaganda tool?”

Mike: “Will you let it go with the damned
Smurfs? No, this isn’t a political point. I am only noting that we
think men dominate society. But the truth is that all we are is
slaves to our swords. Basically everything we do is on some level
because we want to get laid, even if we don’t realize it. Really,
we are controlled by women.”

Gary: “So, when we played golf together last
weekend, was that so one of us could get laid?”

Mike: “Okay, so it isn’t literally
everything, but the point is the same. If there were no chicks, we
would not be driving into Vegas right now. We would be at one of
our places playing cards and drinking beers.”

Roger: “He kind of has a point. If there were
no girls, all I would do would be drink and gamble.”

Alex: “That’s pretty much all you do anyway,
Rodge.”

Roger: “Hmmm. Maybe. But I am still the only
one who had sex last night.”

Mike: “I don’t know why it is so hard for you
all to accept the truth and admit your dicks control you. The more
I think about it, the more I think we would be better off if there
were no hoes corrupting everything.”

Alex (sarcastically): “Mike is right. Maybe
we would be better off without our dicks.”

Gary: “This is a retarded conversation. We
are in Vegas, gentlemen. So try to get over your bitterness and
have some fun. Anyway, if there were no women, none of us would
exist in the first place, so of course we would not be here.”

Gary’s logic was indisputable, so the four
drove on in silence. The back side of the heart of the Vegas strip
was now passing by on the right, dousing the car in white light.
Between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio was a vast span of
relative darkness occupied only by several huge semi-lit cranes. A
large sign explained that this was the future site of Project City
Center. Alex knew from research at work that this was an MGM Mirage
endeavor funded largely by Dubai World. It was estimated to have a
cost of $8 billion, which was to be recouped in large part by
selling luxury condominiums. With several other luxury condo
buildings sprouting up all around the perimeter of the strip like
weeds, Alex wondered where the demand was going to come from.
Still, he appreciated the grandeur of the effort and was jealous
that the people behind the project were operating on such a larger
scale than he was.

Alex began maneuvering the car into the
right-hand lane of the freeway in order to exit onto West Flamingo
Road. From this exit, the Bellagio and Caesars Palace were
immediately available one minute to the right, and the Rio and
Palms were about two minutes to the left.

Although its location was awful, the rooms
were small and expensive, and the service average, for the last few
years Alex usually chose to stay at the Palms when in Vegas. When
questioned about this choice, Alex could point out that he loved
the restaurant there, had a good relationship with the VIP host,
liked Ghostbar, and had decent luck at the tables. While all this
was true, the fact was that the Palms tended to have the hottest
chicks around.

The BMW slowly lost speed as it climbed the
long off-ramp. It settled to a stop, first in line at the left-hand
turn lane waiting for the red light to change. A woman with ratty
clothes and a crumpled-up, stained face stood about five feet away
on the dirt area just above the curb. The wind had picked up and
Mike noticed the woman struggling to keep her cardboard sign
properly aligned. A thin layer of dust and dirt blew by her ankles
in the same direction traffic was moving on the freeway below. Her
sign read:

Hungry.

Anything Helps.

Good Luck and

God Bless!

The woman was trying to make eye contact with
Alex in the driver’s seat, but only Mike read the sign. “Bummer,”
he said with no emotion and to no one in particular.

To his right, Roger had reached over the
front seat and was shaking Gary’s shoulders with both hands, trying
to generate additional enthusiasm for the weekend. In front, Gary
was evading Roger’s annoying grasp while leaning forward to
organize his Bag O’ Tricks. He neatly stacked the remaining beers,
tobacco products, and the Slim Jims on top of the porn magazine,
whose cover was now significantly creased. This vexed Gary and he
tried unsuccessfully to iron it out with his hand. Meanwhile, Alex
was impatiently fidgeting with the wheel of the iPod, hoping to
play
Wanna B a
Baller
by Lil’ Troy as the last song
of the journey, but he scrolled too fast and ended up pushing play
on Jennifer Lopez’s
Jenny from the Block
instead. The light
changed before he had time to fix it, and the BMW sped off eagerly
toward the Palms.

Interlude Thirteen

Gary (28)

Gary was at a waterslide park. He didn’t know
why he was there, and really wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it.
Nevertheless, after walking up the hill to where the slides began
he remembered that waterslides could be pretty fun and began to
feel more positive about the situation. It was a bright, cloudless
day accentuated by the faint smell of blueberry muffins. He stood
on a cement waiting area. The entrance to one slide was to his
left, while another one was on the right, requiring an additional
climb of about twenty yards further up the hill.

Gary decided the one to the left would be
sufficient and he walked over to the entrance. Strangely, there was
no attendant at the top, so he just jumped in and began moving down
the slide feet first. There were a few turns and he tried to shift
his weight in an effort to make his body move up the sides of the
slide, but he wasn’t going fast enough to get the momentum
required.

Then, after just three turns, he entered a
straightaway and saw the pool at the end of the ride just ahead.
Though he was not going that fast, he hit the pool and was
immediately submerged. His body was caught in a current and he
flipped around head over heels a few times. Just as he was starting
to panic about not being able to breathe, his head popped above the
surface.

The fear subsided immediately and he looked
back up at the slide in disappointment. It was the shortest, least
fun waterslide he could remember having been on. Gary wondered if
this really was a lame waterslide or if he just had inaccurate
memories from childhood. He had not been to a waterslide park in
probably fifteen years and it was quite possible that he was much
smaller then and they just seemed a lot bigger and cooler.

He walked out of the warm water of the
shallow pool and onto a small grassy hill. In front of him were
some trees, similar to eucalyptus trees, but taller and thinner.
They created a nice shady patch and he thought about going to sit
in it for a while. Then, to his left he saw something quite unlike
anything he had ever seen before.

There was a sea, stretching all the way out
to the horizon. It reminded him of the sea off the coast of Dubai,
although he had never been there. A few miles out, jutting up from
the sea was the coolest looking waterslide he had ever seen. It was
not built on a hill, obviously, but instead was held up by massive
stilts coming out of the water. It was huge, perhaps a thousand
feet high. The only way to get to the starting point was to climb a
ladder at one end. Though the construction appeared very solid, it
looked dangerous even to make the ascent. The slide came down at a
sharp angle with several steep and twisting turns. Water rushed
down it at an unnaturally eager pace and spilled over the sides at
the sharper curves. At one point, about halfway down, there was a
twenty-five foot gap in the slide where the rider would be
airborne, required to jump the space before landing on the second
half of the slide. The gap was still about a hundred yards up above
the sea. If one did not have sufficient speed to make it across, it
would be a fatal plunge downward. All told, the slide appeared to
be almost two miles in length.

Gary was not sure if he wanted to try it.
Certainly it was dangerous, but it looked like the most fun ride he
had ever seen. Also, he wasn’t sure how to get out there. Maybe
there was a boat service? He walked closer to the sea and instead
noticed a one-lane land bridge with a paved road. He could drive. A
car was right next to him. It was a convertible sedan, kind of like
a three series BMW, but there was no brand name on it. It was dark
green. While he was still not sure if he would actually climb up
and ride the slide, he knew he wanted to check it out. He got in
the car and started driving on the land bridge toward the slide.
The sun sparkled off the sea.

There were a few sharp turns in the land
bridge. Some of them snuck up on him and he almost lost control of
the car and crashed into the sea. Gary realized he should probably
slow down, but he wanted to go faster to get to the slide. He
accelerated further, the car fishtailing around curves, the slide
getting closer. He was pulled toward it by an unknown force.

Then, his cell phone rang. He was curious who
could be calling. He stopped the car on the land bridge and
answered the phone. It was his boss at work, Jim, one of the
partners. Jim informed Gary that he had forgot to submit his STS
report last week. Usually, whenever anyone mentioned the STS
reports, there was an obligatory joking reference to
Office
Space
, but Jim was not joking. He was quite serious about the
problem with the STS report. Gary knew that if he wanted to avoid
big trouble at work he would have to go take care of the report
immediately. He was hit by a wave of sadness and literally felt
heavier than before. It was hard to move. He would not get to ride
the crazy-looking waterslide after all.

Gary arrived at the office almost
instantaneously. He had substituted the bathing suit he was wearing
for work clothes. Even though almost no time had passed to get to
the office, when he arrived it had completely burnt down. The fire
was already extinguished and there was no smell of smoke. All that
remained were blackened fragments of the support structures of the
building and piles of ash. Jim was there, explaining what had
happened.

Gary looked around the scene. The office
where he spent most of his days was gone. He felt nothing. He
wondered if his favorite tie burned up in his desk.

Two hours later, over coffee and egg-white
croissant sandwiches for breakfast, he told Blair about the dream.
It was not until he said it out loud that he realized how obvious
it all was. He took a sip of coffee.

Maybe if he didn’t have the mortgage
payments. Maybe if he wasn’t married. Maybe if he didn’t have a
little daughter. But he did. He thought back to the dream and
wondered if he would have made it up the ladder, and if he had, if
he would have survived the gap.

Chapter Twenty

Primping + Taxi Ride

9:22 p.m.

“
I see you wear braces . . .

I wear braces too.”

– Butt-head,
Beavis and Butt-head do
America

Alex self-parked the BMW in the garage in
order to save the valet fee. He popped the trunk and all four doors
opened simultaneously. Everyone stood up and stretched. All were
happy to be out of the car, though they remained bonded by a shared
sense of anticipation. Roger rolled his latest spitter, a
twenty-ounce Sprite bottle, under the blue Ford pickup truck parked
immediately to the right. The truck, with Nevada plates, had a
bumper sticker that read, “I Love Animals. They’re Delicious!”

Gary reached into the trunk and distributed
the four similar-looking black duffle bags inside to their
respective owners. He unzipped his briefly to insert the Bag O’
Tricks and the group moved toward the entrance of the hotel.

In the next sixty-seven minutes, much was
accomplished:

• Alex checked into a standard room with two
  queen beds
  

• They stopped in the sundries store and
  bought eight Heinekens, four Dasani waters, one pack of Big Red
  cinnamon gum, one pack of Orbitz mint gum, one pack of Marlboro
  Lights, one pack of Dunhill Milds, and two sticks of cherry
  flavored Chapstick
  

• Each showered
  

• Alex shaved his chest and armpits
  

• Roger sent five hundred dollars from his
  online sports book account to Alex’s PayPal account in exchange for
  five hundred-dollar bills
  

• Gary stepped out of the room into the
  hallway and had a six-minute phone conversation with Blair
  

• Roger ordered twenty-four hours’ worth of
  continuous porn on pay-per-view
  

• Each dressed
  

• Seven Heinekens were consumed
  

• Gary won $12 from Roger playing $1 hands of
  blackjack on the bed