so i guess i never finished my story about vegas.
so the wang club. was fucking awful. but an interesting experience, like walking away from a car crash alive.
i had scored weed off one of the strippers rather than give in to a lapdance because we were warned before hand, this was code for them to have sex with you in a private room. but i wanted to give him some kind of business. when we got back to the casino, i went to the bathroom and hollowed out a cigarette, then packed it in there. the girls wanted to have 3am prime rib so we headed to bill’s. cody wanted to smoke with me but she wanted us to do it under the prime rib sign so we could take pictures of it.
there was a lot of confusion organizing so many girls so we got split up into tables. as we walked to ours, this guy grabbed my arm.
‘sit with us,’ he said.
i look down to see three young hispanic guys staring at me. i dismiss them as drunk, horny guys and keep walking.
‘no wait! just a few minutes,’ he says, not letting go of my arm. so i say, ‘just a few minutes.’
i sit down and one guy tries to put his arm around me but i casually intercept and put it on the table, squeezing his hand.
‘listen, if i sit with you guys, i’m gonna drop knowledge on you.’
the guys laugh.
‘what kind of knowledge?’ they ask.
‘serious knowledge. i don’t know if you’re old enough for this. how old are you?’
’24,’ he says. ‘we’re all 24.’
‘naw, you’re babies,’ i said.
’24 is old!’ he says.
‘okay, let me see your id.’
he pulls out his wallet and show’s me his driver’s license and i see that he’s a few weeks younger than my brother. i will always talk to people born close to him in date, because it makes me wonder what he might have been like.
‘so what kind of knowledge do you have?’ he says, part curious, part unbelieving.
so i tell them about women and power, and some girls think they have fake power with men, but men know it and use it to manipulate them. but at the end of the day, if they want to have a good life, they’ll stay away from the women who don’t understand what power is, and find a someone who understands it. because a woman who has power holds life in her hands and could so easily be destructive with it, but knowing this makes her gentle.
i suddenly realize these guys are staring at me. i’m feeling self-conscious.
then the skinny one in the corner says, ‘thank you for that. you really gave us something here.’
i think he might be joking at first.
‘really?’ i say. ‘or are you guys messing with me.’
the guy across from me grabs my hand.
‘no, really. we’ve heard everything you said. i’ve been sitting here eating a salad with no dressing even though the dressing’s right here because i’ve been listening to everything you said.’
the guy next to me who hadn’t said a single word this whole time, suddenly says,
‘we even ordered you fries.’
he points to the fries next to me. the other guy laughs.
‘oh yeah, we did. before you got here. it’s like we anticipated you’d be here so we ordered you something.’
i must be looking at him like he’s crazy because he started laughing.
‘i’m serious! i don’t need fries. my meal comes with fries and these guys won’t eat them.”
i start laughing. this is unreal.
the skinny one pipes up.
‘I know who you are.’
my heart jumps. can he see me?
‘you do?’
the other guy nods. ‘definitely.’
‘who am i?’ i ask, trying to sound more like i’m challenging them rather than on edge for the answer.
‘we’re not gonna say. but we know.’
i think about it. always be gentle.
‘okay,’ i say, though my heart is still beating quickly.
my friend comes over and bends over me, whispering in my ear.
‘is everything okay?’
‘yeah,’ i say. to the guys… ‘i have to go.’
i shake each guy’s hand warmly as i leave, sitting in the booth directly behind them.
i do notice as i sit down, that a guy up the row is looking at me, smiling. i smile and nod at him, but my attention shifts because jessie is telling a story about how she once got caught with grape jelly in her shoes.
i wasn’t hungry anymore so i just drank water. the girls got upset with the waitress because she brought a salad with the wrong dressing. they were making a joke out of it, but the waitress seemed like such a hardworking, sweet girl so i told them how much it probably sucks to work the graveyard shift and be the only waitress, and who cares, it’s just dressing. they were still making fun of her when she came back, so i immediately intercepted her. i asked her if she was from indonesia.
she looked surprised. ‘yes! how did you know?’
‘i was in bali a few months ago. people there had such amazing, beautiful energies, just like yours.’
she smiled such a beautiful, kind smile.
‘thank you. thank you very much for that.’
she walked away, smiling.
a few minutes later, the guy down the row’s friend came back and they stand up to leave. he waits to get my attention, then waves bye to me. i smile and nod again. go back to our conversation.
about 5 minutes later, i see him walk back into the restaurant. i know instantly he’s coming to talk to me. he walks right up to our table, doesn’t even seem to notice the other girls. this surprises me because they’ve already yelled at the waitress so this is definitely a drunk shark tank. but he walks right up to me and says, ‘are you staying at this hotel?’
‘no,’ i say, noticing the girls gaping at him out of the corner of my eye. they’ve gone silent.
‘can i have your phone number? i would like to talk to you.’
i am suddenly fearful for him. he seemed like a nice, shockingly earnest guy who looked mildly shellshocked, but this was a pack of hungry drunk girls waiting for prime rib. these girls will eat him.
‘um…where do you live?’ i ask him. trying to gently get him out of this situation. it’s too bad because i’m usually always willing to talk to people who approach me.
‘colorado,’ he says.
‘oh…i live in los angeles,’ i say. trying to communicate that i’m not interested in anything long distance.
‘oh…uh, okay, ‘ he says. he seems to wake up and suddenly become aware of the room, aware of the boothful of girls gawking at him. he turns and walks swiftly out the door.
the giggling starts immediately and i tell them to be quiet, seriously, wait for him to get out of the room. i told them it’s a very hard thing, what he did and i don’t want to traumatize him by thinking we’re laughing at him.
‘what the hell was that,’ cody asked me.
i knew what it was.
‘i don’t know,’ i said.
‘he looked terrified, but he walked up to you like he knew you…’
‘yeah…that happens a lot with me.’
‘really?’
‘yeah. it’s kind of weird.’
‘well, that was weird,’ raleigh said.
the conversation awkwardly shifts back to whatever was happening before that blip in reality, when i feel a hand reach over and grab my hand. the guy whispers,
‘what was that all about?’
i jump out of my booth and switch to theirs.
‘that guy was watching me talk to you and i think i magnetized him by association. like i was giving you guys a message but somehow he got pulled in, too.’
‘wow, i think you rocked his world,’ he says.
i start laughing.
‘this is a first.’
so i start talking with them again and the conversation is deep. one guy wants to read me.
he says, ‘those girls you’re with. they don’t know who you really are. you hang out with them, you talk to them about shallow stuff
, but they don’t know you.’
‘that’s right,’ i say. ‘they’re my cover.’
‘in fact, this right here, this is the first real conversation you’ve had, probably all weekend.’
‘again, that’s true,’ i say.
he looks under the table at my shoes.
‘you probably like to wear like, jeans and t-shirts, things that are comfortable. and running shoes, and you probably walk around exploring a lot.’
‘when i’m being me, i like being comfortable,’ i say. ‘that’s pretty good.’
we smile at each other. he asks me how they can get in touch with me. i tell them that i usually just disappear. i don’t like people being able to find me. that i figure, if they find me again, then it was meant to be. but who i am now is not who i am in my other world, and for them to find me will put both worlds in the same room and by law of nature, it means one world may be negated and i don’t want that. they are meeting the secret me, and this is the best part. the other world is a cover, a way to get through day to day. it turns out one of them is a radio dj and he’s doing a report about his trip to vegas. i get anxious. i tell him he can’t talk about what i’d told them, but he said he was just going to talk about me, and call me barbary coast. and that when i hear him talking, that i should call him and let him know how to get in touch with me. he tells me when to listen.
i go back to my booth. when they leave, they say goodbye. the guy who had held my hand was staring at me with this intense look, i can’t describe it exactly…but like he was trying to memorize all my details so that he would always remember me.
and i…i looked at him and thought, this may very well be the last time i ever see him.
i guess we both took a picture. and even though i saw his id, i never looked at his name.
afterwards, as we’re leaving, the other girls go to the bathroom. i find our waitress and slip her a $20 bill, even though i’d only had water. one thing i learned when i was in bali was that many people from indonesia go out of the country to work because they support large families back home. whether or not this is true for this girl, i wanted to give her something because i appreciated her for who she was. she had beautiful energy and i felt grateful that she was in the world.
we headed home the next day. you could feel it…this was one of those trips everyone would remember forever, their own experience of it.
the following evening, i could have listened to the radio program to see what would unfold. but the strangest thing happened.
i fell asleep right after work and slept through until the morning.
maybe that’s just the way it happens.
reality resets.
