___
___
___
___
___
Drying
myself off again on my sleeve, I stuck the keys in the ignition and started the
jeep up.
____
It had
apparently been raining during the previous renter’s travel, since the
windshield wipers were turned on. The waving of them seemed to be giving me a
farewell, or so I surmised, and I stared at their repetition for a lengthy
period of time.
____
The rhythm
made my eyes glass over for a bit, and I literally had to shake my head to get
into a space where I realized they should be turned off and that I should be
hitting the road.
_______
Hitting
the road seemed to be the problem. Navigating the zig-zag through the garage,
again following arrows that seemed to direct me in circles, was another episode
in frustration, having no frame of reference to when to the arrows would end
and the road would begin.
______
And
then, like all airports, the random thoroughfares that is the airport
road-lines felt like another, different in only having the sky above me,
frustration until finally reaching the exit and spitting forth onto a wide-deep
road, basically in the middle of a nowhere that is somewhere to some people at
least, fidgeting my hands with the included GPS system to point me in the right
direction of a place that no one went to, let alone a digital machine that
wanted to point me, always, in the direction of Caesar’s Palace.
______
By my
vague estimate, The Zone was some 80 miles to the northeast of Las Vegas.
Moving as quickly as I could across the legendary strip, which seemed to be
squeezed like a lemon and stripped of the rind of any use, each second of
movement coupled with multiple minutes of inertia waiting for disrespectful
pedestrians holding large plastic booze cups and waving cheaply-printed advertisements
for hookers in backwards baseball caps and T-shirts printed with overtly
suggestive slogans.
______
My GPS,
or “Gloria” as she liked to call herself, gave a running commentary, directing
me as to what to do, in a tone that I found more than unsettling. While I was
at this stand-still crawl across the strip, she spoke of upcoming necessary
turns far in advance of when they were to be made.
______
Of
course she could not be possibly aware of the two girls, initially laughing
while crossing the street, who had to stop, mid-way, to vomit up their mid-day
drunken stupor, somehow precisely in line with the forward hoping tires that
would later rush through the mess.
______
I
couldn’t care less about the health of these women. In fact, I hoped that they
died.
______
As long
as it happened on the other side of the street.
______
Once I
crossed the strip, almost being stuck right in the middle of it due to some
similar situation happening on the other crossway which caused a minor backup
of vehicles with no place to go, I was able to ensue with a seamless movement
forward, guided by “Gloria” who, truth be told, had absolutely no frame of
reference to where she was leading me, and almost sounded, in her digitalized
voice, almost knowingly aware of her lack of true authority.
______
I
wondered what she sounded like when she knew where she was going.
______
Eventually,
I was on a main highway, moving east, which I was supposed to be on until I
reached a point where there was an exit that was then supposedly closed. I was
then supposed to turn off, and make full use of my all-terrain vehicle status,
ignoring the rigid signs used to draw off passing tourists and drive around
over the landscape for a mile or two until I found an actual road, abandoned,
and take a right once upon it.
______
Having
passed multiple cop cars on my way to the spot, I was worried about my luck in
not coming across a similar agent at exactly the moment I was about to break
the law. I had no documents that could prove my ability to dismiss the signs
that would be in front of me, but thought, for a moment, I might be able to
bribe anyone who stopped me with the $100 I had won at the airport.
______
Of
course this was a movie-induced fantasy, one that would never really work in
the real world, but I was in Nevada, so did concepts like “real world” really
hold the sway it did back east? Wasn’t Nevada, and the West in general, prided
on its very notions of fantasy? of possibility outside of the realm of the
actually possible?
______
And,
furthermore, after decades of absurd elections on the political front, each one
jockeying to be the “real America” all of which still continued the tradition
of focusing solely on their own brethren, that which financially birthed them
in the first place, well, I could only assume that “real”, in most regards as
far as the general vocabulary was concerned, equaled “amnesiac”.
______
So, to a
degree, I had that in my favor.
______
But it
was not to be an issue, and as I drove off the main road through the desert in
the direction of the hidden side road, I was relieved to always look in the
rear view mirror to only see a series of dry cliffs and not a single other
traveler for miles in each direction.
______
Driving
about a mile in this fashion, I realized that I had made a monstrous
mistake: I had not properly stocked up
on anything that I would need as far as food or water.
______
I was
going to have to return to the city, greatly wasting my time, if I did not want
to subsist on trail mix and my own urine for the next week or so.
______
Frustrated
and feeling more than stupid, I turned the jeep around and headed back to Las
Vegas.
______
On the
way back to civilization, I thought I would simply stay the night there, in
order to re-group and rest up for a fresh start the following morning.
______
I did
not want to begin this experience in a flustered mood, and felt that a fine
relaxing dinner and proper night’s sleep in a real bed would be the appropriate
way to instill mood of setting myself back to zero, to properly prepare for an
immediate future of lack and surprise.
______
I
decided, as well, to do my vitals shopping the following morning, feeling fresh
and not harried.
______
Plus,
anything I would buy would potentially have a limited shelf-life, so I could
use all the freshness I could get.
______
I had no
idea where I would stay, obviously not one of the high-end casino hotels. But I
still did, in my gut, wish to be on the strip itself in order to have access to
some finer dining options.
______
I drove
to three different hotels (The Luxor, The MGM Grand, The Excalibur) before
finally finding a room within my price range that had an available room at New
York, New York.
______
I
figured that staying at the West’s version of the pinnacle of the East somehow
was appropriate, even though I was aghast at the trumped up caricature of the
city I loved being rendered in such deadening, awful cheapness.
______
But,
again, I was on a budget.
______
First
settling into my room, a rank spot, to be sure, but complete with everything
one would need for the night: a bed, a
phone, a radio, a television, a desk (and chair) with standardized stationary,
a mirror, a bathroom (with toilet, sink and bathtub/shower combo, towels
aplenty), a window, working lights and a Gideon’s Bible.
______
Especially,
I supposed, in Las Vegas would one be in want of the last item.
______
Feeling
still vague-headed from my erroneous actions and feeling in need of a nap, I laid
down on the bed, feeling my hands along the rough bedspread and closed my eyes
wondering how much of a sperm cemetery I was then laying upon.
______
I had
seen specials on basic cable television that entered hotel rooms with specialty
instruments to gage how much body horror was left to waste in a typical hotel
room. It somehow both disturbed and comforted me.
______
And on
that particular occasion, in the New York, New York “Uptown Suite” I was
comforted and quickly fell asleep without a dream that I could recall, which,
upon waking, comforted me even more.
______
Then
awake, I laid there still, staring up at the ceiling to count the stains. It
was clear to me that this hotel was attempting to recreate the New York of the
long since passed, replete with the proper down-and-dirty details of a roach
motel.
______
That it
was meant to recreate the 1940s seemed absent from the minds of other guests
who, more than once by my count, were heard to utter “this is why I don’t go to
New York! It’s filthy!”
______
A quick
look at the snappy hotel guide that was out on the desk in front of a mirror
gave me little options as far as meals were concerned. And, yet, a quick look
in the mirror in front of me meant I was either going to order room service (to
save face, so to speak) or to scrub up and head out.
______
Being
that I was soon to subsist solely on dried foods and warm water for much of the
next few weeks, I opted to take a bath, the more relaxing option to standing in
the same place, and work a lather onto me in order to be presentable, ideally
finding a spot at Bouchon.
______
I hadn’t
realized, at first, that my nap had lasted 5 hours.
______
Extended
out in the tub, I was left in the warmth and almost fell asleep again. I took
the small bar of cheap soap and began rubbing it along my skin, quickly finding
it drying me out even though I was literally submerged in water.
______
I
splashed the dead-skin stew that was what I was in up across my face, and
immediately realized I would be doing a different scrub in the sink after
drying off.
______
It was
an idiot’s move, I admit. But, it was obvious to me that the face was what
needed the most work to begin with.
______
I toyed
with the idea of placing my fingers in my vagina, but immediately felt tired at
the thought. Instead, I simply waved the water up into its general direction,
flushing it out in a semi-clean fashion.
______
I did
the same with my anus.
______
I knew
this was as clean as my body would get for some weeks, and probably should have
taken more care in bringing my flesh to a degree zero, but figuring I would
encounter few people in the coming weeks, and knowing my body’s stink well
enough to be comfortable with it myself, erred on the side of hunger, got up,
dried myself off, re-washed my face using a hotel-supplied facial wash I had
not noticed before, and then applied copious amounts of skin moisturizer to all
portions of my body that involved skin.
______
Looking
back in the mirror, I looked fresh, or as fresh as I was going to get.
______
Fresh
enough, at least, to go out on the long walk to The Venetian to try my luck at
Bouchon.
______
I could
have waited, along with the other tourists, in the long taxi line in front of
the hotel’s entrance, but figuring how long the line was and, once inside a
cab, how long the travel down the strip would be, I decided to hoof it alone.
______
Dusk had
just fallen, and the lights all around became even more brilliant than the
desert sun. Staying on the Last Vegas strip was like living in an electrical
grid, blipping bleeps of electricity instead of air, furious feelings of
aliveness coupled with the substantial letdown of that aliveness being invented
purely by man.
______
I
imagined a city solely subsisting on electricity, like a near-dead patient on
life-support.
______
This
thought, then, made me hungry for an experience in the middle of nowhere, with
nothing to live off of but the dry land, which was basically dead to begin with
(and, as I had been told multiple times before arriving here, The Zone was a
place of death like no other).
______
But
first, I would settle down for an overpriced meal of bone marrow and a simple
salad, perhaps a mousse as dessert.
______
Being a
single searching for a table at prime dinnertime hours, I was easily slotted in
at the bar, which I did not mind in the least. I was planning on having
multiple glasses of wine anyway, and was happy to have easy access to the
bartender to begin with.
______
Quietly
looking at the menu while asking for tap, I was saddened to see that my
favorite salad was not on the table (or bar, rather) as an option. I mentioned
to my server about this, and wondered aloud to her, in an extraordinary, for
me, passive register, about wishing I could get the famed (in my memory of the
Yountville Bouchon, at least) salade frissee, the one with the lardons to die
for and the perfectly poached egg.
______
My
server looked upward at the expansive ceilings of the restaurant and then back
down and over towards the kitchen and then back to me.
______
“I’ll
see what I can do.”
______
I
thanked her for her efforts and, putting the menu down on my plate, took a sip
of tap water and ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio from the bartender in front of
me who came by immediately after my server had left to take my drink order,
which I had chosen for taste and being the 2nd lowest price-point on
the wine menu.
______
My
server had returned before – during rather – the bartender could finish pouring
the on-the-full-side glass.
______
“I have
good news for you! The chef said he would be able to accommodate your request!”
______
I was
elated.
______
“The
price, on the other hand, is going to be $25 due to the special request.”
______
I was
less elated, but still grateful.
______
“Thank
you, that will be fine,” I said, reaching for the glass of wine freshly set in
front of me.
______
“I’d
like to follow that with the escargot, followed by the marrow, with a side of
frites. I’ll decide on a dessert after, if at all.”
______
“Absolutely!”
the cheerful woman responded.
______
After my
server took my menu from me, with a grace and near-glamor I would not have
expected, I sat back against the back of the bar chair that had me risen far
above the other diners on the main floor.
______
Instead
of observing the room from my bird-like stance, I closed my eyes and listened
to the bustle around me, imagining in my head what those I was hearing were
actually doing.
______
I do
this, from time to time, as an exercise in imagination, coupled with a later
comparison to how well I was able to survey a room without looking.
______
My
grandmother had gone blind at a very young age, and had taught me in the few
moments of my shared youth together, how to pick up audible signals that could
be reproduced in a headspace image.
______
For
instance, after a full family dinner, while we lay in bed together as a typical
grandmother/granddaughter tradition, with me smelling and smiling at her choice
of perfume and lacy nightgown, she would describe her rendition of the events
of the dinner that I, mostly because of my youth, and even more probably
because of my take things for granted, simply observed without much thought:
______
“Your
mother was picking at her green beans all night, only eating a few, if any. She
would take a bite of one after saying something about your father that made him
take a larger sip of his wine. She would chew it quietly, and stay quiet, for
some time after, staring at her plate, rotating each bean with her fork. Your father
would stare at her and take three bites of beef, cutting each nibble with an
ever more serious slice, ripping off a bit of his roll and then looking out the
window for a bit before changing the subject.
______
“Your
aunt was nervous, moving her head from side to side more than necessary, and
would take gulps of water which made her throat throttle with a shaky sound.
______
“Your
brother would take his mashed potatoes, stirring them with his finger, and then
spread a mashed moustache across his face and smile at you, giggling only after
you smiled.”
______
I was
always amazed at how accurate she was in describing the events that she never
had the opportunity to truly observe herself.
______
The
woman was notoriously spot-on with each and every description of shared events.
______
I
remember asking her what she saw when she was alone:
______
“When I
am alone, I don’t see anything but my own thoughts. They usually take the form
of colors, swirling around from ear to ear. If I’m thinking about something I
had heard, spoken by someone I either know or not, it’s more like black and
white blotches that move around, like what you might see when reading a
newspaper. But when I’m imagining something that I’m just imagining, like a
grassy hill set up against the sea, I see blazing color – something that
probably doesn’t even exist in your world – but I’m more than grateful for it.
______
“I’m
probably better off for it. If I actually saw what you saw, day in and day out,
I’d probably be disappointed, too aware of what I was imagining was just that, imaginary, and want to close my eyes to
be able to go back to my reality, not caring that it wasn’t what is because
what is isn’t really real anyway.”
______
Part of
me, as I recall, wished I could have had the strength to take a sharp object to
my eyeballs so that I could experience my grandmother’s world, a world that was
owned by her.
______
It
seemed extremely satisfying to me, and still does to a degree.
______
Of
course, the logistics of being blind are far less enthusiasm inducing: one still has to get around places; one still
has to learn braille, which has somehow gone quite out of fashion; one still
has to pay bills, based on a life of standard sight.
______
In any
case, I always greatly respected my grandmother’s ability to see the world, in
her own way, without ever seeing the world at all.
It
greatly influenced my interest in cartography, in a roundabout way.
____________
Others
might have thought the opposite, that it would have drawn me towards a world of
art making, of imagination, of creative representation.
______
And
those others might be right: it is
always my belief that all representational artifacts are based in an artistic
medium, even the more scientific and exacting of genres, so to speak.
______
No one
who makes a map is creating an exact representation of real life, but rather an
impression, one that is always open to debate, much like any human activity.
______
For
instance, when I looked at the menu at Bouchon, I was seeing words like
“roasted”, “bone marrow”, & “garlic”. These were not exactly what they
described, but mere descriptions themselves. I could certainly not eat these
descriptions, but they allowed for a personal imagination of those items,
coupled with personal experience, and successfully relate their purpose.
______
Likewise,
someone walking over a map of Europe would never say they had been to Europe.
______
All they
could say was that they had imagined Europe, and felt it easy to get around.
______
My
server brought my salade frisee with a non-pompous flourish, settling the bowl
in front of me with a similar grace that she had elicited while taking my menu.
______
I
thanked her, and she nodded knowingly (knowing exactly what I did not know) and
picking up my fork, sticking it gently into the flesh of the poached egg
resting comfortably on top of the greens.
______
It broke
with an almost absurd precision, the runny yolk falling evenly amongst the
leaves, to a point where mixing them would feel like a molestation, a veritable
rape of what was granted me.
______
Even
eating it, after the first bite, felt deliciously dirty.
______
I
imagined up my memory of my miscarriage, a somewhat obvious metaphor of eggs
bleeding out onto its bedding. Obvious, but inevitable.
______
I
thought that by closing my eyes while eating it dish would allow me to see in
my mind’s eye the colors that my grandmother once spoke of.
______
Doing
so, I was not disappointed.
______
I only
opened them when trying to locate my Pinto Grigio, which, after a few tries, I
was able to located its position enough to keep my eyes closed, thus keeping the
colors coming.
______
All of
this amounted to a frenzied joy, one that I had hoped for in the experience,
that blotted out the black and white images of others eating their French Onion
Soup and Steak Frites, those dishes that I was certain most diners in the dish
were devouring, due, no doubt, to their standard American approval.
______
But, of
course, I could have been being hard on the other patrons. My own imagining of
the temporary residents of the hotel were of a higher rung of the culinary
class, the lower denizens sticking with the all-you-can-eat buffets for their
chow.
______
Even
still, with my eyes closed I could hear a number of spoons cracking cheese and
the sounds of slurping quickly following, naturally followed by “this is the
best thing I’ve ever tasted!”
______
I
savored each bite, each perfectly done lardon, each crisp and subtle crouton,
taking a small drink of wine after every third bite.
______
With my
eyes closed, I must have appeared quite the oddball to those around me.
______
The
bartender came up, at one point, saying to me with what I assumed was a smile:
______
“You
look like you’re really enjoying that frisee!”
______
“It’s
the yolk I enjoy most,” I said, finally opening my eyes to greet his with a
calm definitiveness.
______
“I’m
glad, I’m glad,” the bartender said, with a genuine tone of appreciation.
______
As if on
cue, a busser came to take away my empty bowl while my server arrived with a
specialized dish fit for snails, garlic butter frothing all around them like a
Hadean sea.
______
“Your
second course,” my server said with a smile, and an surprising lack of asking
about the salade.
______
I had supposed
she had seen my reaction from afar and didn’t think it necessary. Rather than
feel it a slight, I appreciated it.
______
Even if
she wasn’t paying any attention, she was in my mind’s eye and simply being
efficient.
______
“Enjoy,”
my server said, leaving with a quick turn that caused her blonde ponytail to
fly upwards into the air.
______
I took
the small fork that had been placed next to my dish and stabbed one of the
butter-hemorrhaging snails, turning it around in the puddle as if it weren’t
already full of the stuff.
______
After
the first bite, eyes open then closed, it was as if the whole room had been
flooded with garlic-butter, everyone drowning in ecstasy.
______
I
immediately ordered another glass of wine.
______
Snapping
into each snail’s flesh felt like I was bursting a blister of bliss in my
mouth. I realized immediately that I would not be so well fed in some time,
which suddenly depressed me to the point of reaching for my wine in a way that
might have made me appear an alcoholic.
______
I am not
normally what some might call a “foodie”, though I do have the ability to
appreciate a well cooked meal. I think of eating, like breathing, as simply
something one has to do to stay alive. I usually appreciate the smaller joys: a cup of finely brewed tea, a perfectly
simple cucumber sandwich without the crusts, a roast chicken breast with a side
of pilaf. Not normally the kinds of things that people spend hundreds of
dollars on.
______
But,
like anyone, there are days where I like to spoil myself, spending more than I
do on electricity to fuel an electrical current of culinary enjoyment that
normally does not flow through this body.
______
Of
course, I felt, if I had such a meal all the time, I would no longer be so
enthused, being entirely inured to the excitement that others might feel.
______
Such
happiness doesn’t have a place to grow unless it grows from a standard desert
place, one that acts as a complete counter to the fireworks that one is always
looking for.
______
I was
surprised at how quickly I had finished the snails, breaking off small bits of
bread to soak up what was left of the garlic butter, finishing them off with a
final hearty gulp of wine.
______
The
bartender had already poured another glass, “on the house”, when the busboy had
cleared away the plate and my server had arrived, smiling with a plate full of
bones.
______
She laid
down strange looking utensils that I was to use for scraping out the marrow. I
had used one of these marrow spoons before, but was always taken aback by the
sheer surgical look of them – like I would be performing a transplant rather
than simply eating the marrow itself.
______
One
could, of course, make the case that I was performing a transplant of the
marrow, from the bone to my belly, but that would be stretching the matter a
bit.
______
I
thanked my server and the bartender both and was left alone to finish off my
meal, saving the best for last.
______
Picking
up the marrow spoon, I held it up against the light to admire its efficiency.
It’s edge, perfectly created for scooping, glistened as if demanding something
to scoop.
______
Placing
it towards the edge of the bone and scooping, I found the marrow to be
perfectly collected, with barely a need to scrape.
______
Plopping
the spoonful of marrow down on a slice toast, spreading it around with the back
of the spoon, it melted into the nooks and crannies of the bread like a fine
beefy butter.
______
I
repeated this process through five separate bones, five slices of toast,
creating in my mouth an almost Shakespearean drama. The first bite stood as an
introduction; the second, a more improved version of the first, made me stop
chewing letting the pleasure evolve on my tongue; the third bite froze me still,
nearly in a sexual climax that I was forced to whet with multiple sips of my
wine; by the fourth bite, I had gotten into a place of contentment, lacking in
surprise but happy with what I held in my mouth.
______
By the
fifth bite, I had nothing but sadness left on my tongue, lacking in anything
else to spur its previous tonic.
______
For a
moment, I understood the need of Hollywood to make sequels, even knowing that a
repeat of the same experience would not equal that initial experience and
therefore be a double-loss.
______
Even
with my eyes closed, I could sense that others were watching me in my state of
excitement. I was suddenly overcome with a sense of dread, of near-madness
almost, that I had been overcome by this beef marrow, that I had deranged
myself to such a degree that I would have to excuse myself immediately and
finish myself off in the bathroom.
______
When I
opened my eyes to try to compose myself, I was greeted by a fresh glass of
wine, poured by the smiling bartender.
______
“You
look like you could use it,” he said. “Again, on the house.”
______
I
couldn’t tell if this was the bartender’s way of hitting on me, considering the
attention he was paying, and the price of that attention, but finalized on his
actions being a caricature of pity, instead.
______
I
thanked him, anyway.
______
Surprisingly,
the busboy took his time to retrieve my empty plate, still full of bones, now
empty.
______
During
the wait, I rang my fingers along the bulb of the wineglass, treating it like a
sexual object, a heavy scrotum full of fluid that would continue to impregnate
me long after my fingers left their cupping.
______
I
realized, at that moment, how I was fully sexualized by surprise by the beefy
marrow on my tongue; the need, positively unusual, to masturbate based on a
food item; feeling almost like a john by ordering off a menu something that
would give me such a feeling and still feel left wanting, needing, desperate to
get back to New York, New York to lay on the bed and be done with it all
instead of paying the bill.
______
At that
moment of near hysteria, my server arrived asking about dessert. I said that
there would be no way anything could top the marrow, and that I would be fine
with simply receiving the check.
______
She
asked if I would like an espresso, at least.
______
“No,
thank you,” I said. “The check alone, please.”
______
I
somehow found a way to collect myself with my eyes open, watching other diners
devour their mousse and crème brulees, their tongues all wagging at one another
at the taste of them, as if their partner didn’t have buds of their own.
______
The bill
arrived full of complicated names, which took me a minute to remember what they
referenced in person. The prices attached to each seemed slightly heightened
from what the menu advertised, but remembering that the salade was a special
order, figured that that made the difference adequate.
______
I
wondered how the tip would be split between my server, the busboy and the
bartender. I wanted to be able to split it amongst them evenly, even knowing
that my server would take issue with such a distinction.
______
But
knowing that the bartender had comp’d 2 drinks during the evening, which had
nothing to do with my server, I gave a full 25% ($30) with a sharp notation
that $10 should be directed directly towards the bartender.
______
I left
before my server returned, assuming that she would take my request to heart.
______
I wanted
to tell the bartender what I had done, by way of thanks, but figured my server
would do the right thing, and he would later find out, without me having to
make a production of it, just in case she kept the extra for her own.
______
My
server seemed perfectly ethical to me. But I was in Vegas, so one could never
really know.
______
I went
back to New York, New York, both full and empty, typical of all the citizens of
the place.
______
Undressing
and slipping into some comfortable nightclothes, I turned the television on and
laid down on top of the bed, but not beneath the covers, and, grabbing the
remote, attempted to find a program that would hold my interest.
______
My
finger had gotten tired far before I finally had stumbled onto a program that
was explaining to me, in frankly condescending tones, how my life would be
better formed with a full acceptance of the lord Jesus Christ as the foundation
of my life.
______
Being
the avowed atheist I am, I listened to the preacher as if I were watching one
of the porn-channels that you would have to pay for.
______
I heard
the man scream about how important it was to instill the values of Christ in
your children, and how the public school system were inherently against those
teachings and were, in fact, supporting the devil’s work day in and day out,
how the very nature of sex education was creating new homosexuals every day.
____
I, of
course, couldn’t begin to agree with the charges brought forth by this man.
But, nevertheless, I was spellbound.
____
Such a
spew of opinions, supposedly rooted in fictional facts, made me quick to a
stance of attention I wouldn’t normally even attend to.
____
These
people, I know, I accept, do exist and yet I am unable to do anything about it.
____
It’s a
free country, after all.
____
I, at
that moment, was wondering why The Zone was located significantly outside of
Las Vegas: such an explosion might best
be done here, instead of where there was no loci to locate to begin with.
____
I
thought, given being my last night in a real world, precise, I would make the
most of it and order a bottle of wine to finalize my sleep at last.
____
Glancing
over the room service menu, I was slightly shocked by the prices of what I
determined to be sub-par, at best, bottles.
____
Nevertheless,
I chose a simple California grown white, as far as I could tell similar to what
I had been drinking at dinner, and waited for it’s arrival.
____
The call
to room-service went well: the voice on
the other line informed me that I should expect the bottle’s arrival within ten
minutes.
____
When
asked if I would like it to be charged to the room, my response probably
sounded indignant:
____
“Why
wouldn’t I?”
____
I went back to the bed and focused my attentions back to the preacher screaming at me
through the screen.
____
Was I a
glutton of punishment, a self-admitted sinner who was desperate for salvation?
Or merely the typical liberal elite who watches such nonsense the way the
self-admiring Christians would gawk at a car wreck on a Kansas highway,
listening to right-wing talk radio, assuming that the dead were merely meant
for it.
____
Before I
could even finish my thought, there was a knock at the door, which opened to a
smiling server carrying in the bottle I had ordered which was held in a silver
wine-cooler along with a glass, which he held upside down by the stem.
____
“Wow,
that was fast!” I said, welcoming him into the room with an open arm movement.
____
He came
in, moving directly to the table by the window where he sat the bottle down,
pulled out a coaster, set the glass upright on top of it, finally pulling out a
corkscrew and unceremoniously opening the bottle, pouring a small taste for my
approval.
____
“Yes,
that’ll do fine,” I lied somewhat. The flavor of the wine was nothing like what
I had had at Bouchon, and I would not normally pay so much for a sub-par bottle
as I was being forced to do here.
____
But,
apparently, in New York, New York, them’s the breaks.
____
He
smiled and began pouring a full glass and placing the bottle back in the
wine-cooler.
____
I
suddenly wondered why I had used the phrase “wine-cooler” in my head, instead
of what I (and most of the world) would call “wine chiller”. Was I stuck in my
head in a world of Bartles & James, I wondered?
____
The
server was looking at me with a look of confused expectation, until I suddenly
was brought back to the room and thanked him graciously. He left me a small
leather sleeve which held a receipt that I was required to sign and leave what
I considered an appropriate tip.
____
Considering
that it was merely a bottle he brought to my room, and assuming that he would
not be coming back to pour the remains of the bottle into my empty glass, I
felt that a 20% tip was excessive, and yet he did have to make the more
significant travel to reach my room, but still, that was part of his job, so I
downgraded my usual tipping policy down to 10%, and then, thinking how he was,
like most servers, dependent on tips for the livelihood, rose it up to 15%,
which, upon signing my name, felt was the fare point, and probably what he was
expecting.
____
The
server collected the leather folio and thanked me, briskly moving back to the
door, telling me to call if I required anything further.
____
I told
him I didn’t think that would be necessary, but thanked him again for his
attention and swiftness.
____
One of
the things that I enjoy greatly about staying in a hotel is the fact that it is
unnecessary to lock the door after closing it. Back at home, on the East, I
often wake up realizing that I had not locked the door to my apartment, which worries
me that someone will enter in my sleep, suffocate me with a pillow, or worse,
just shoot me in my bed, and steal what it is that he would want.
____
After a
few mornings like this, I forced myself into the habit of checking to make sure
the door was locked immediately after I arrived home, including the chain lock
somewhat above the door lock itself.
____
Of
course, the chain lock made me worry that in any emergency, medical or
otherwise, the chain lock wouldn’t allow for any paramedic or firefighter entry,
which would all but guarantee my demise.
____
Weighing
which of these ends would be worse, I chose to discontinue the use of the chain
lock, being that I live in a fairly safe neighborhood, with few – if any –
instances of armed house robbery.
____
I sat
down at the table, facing the television, and started in on the wine with a all
but certain goal of finishing the bottle within the hour.
____
More and
more, the aggression I felt towards the preacher on the TV made this
surprisingly easy. I was only a few bible quotes in by the time I finished the
first glass, lickity-split.
____
While
reaching across the table for the bottle, I was overcome by my own disgust at
the general sag and sway of my arm, what was once youthful tight flesh now the
flabby sacks of middle age.
____
I kept
my arm outward, grabbing the neck of the bottle, and lowered my head to view
the under-side of my arm, an arm that when viewed from that angle appeared less
than weak, an example of a body gone southwest.
____
I poured
another glass, but instead of drinking it quickly, I put my head down on the
table to try to gauge my current state of intoxication: nowhere near passing out, or room-spinning,
but noticeably inebriated, to the point I would be embarrassed to be in public
for fear of a spectacle.
____
As the
preacher on the television went on and on in a heightened drone about sinners,
I looked forward to a few weeks in the middle of nowhere, being able to simply
do my work without distraction. I yearned for an open desert night’s sky, alone
with The Zone, whatever surprises it might potentially hold for me.
____
This was
part of the reason for me wanting to do this project in the first place: to find a place where I would be surprised.
Living in an East-Coast college community, I found little to ever be surprised
by, day in and day out, with small fractures of routine coming at a solemn
pace.
____
And when
they did occur, they were of the tepid banal quality that hardly counts as a
surprise: the electricity was out, due to
a severe ice storm; the supermarket was out of bananas.
____
A
student wanted to begin an affair with his professor.
____
I
worried briefly that I would be ill-prepared for the start of my journey
tomorrow, that I would awake with a hangover that would potentially make me
resort to staying another day in Vegas to recover – which wasn’t really an
option at the time, both due to time and funding, not to mention self respect.
I dug through my toiletries bag to find a bottle of ibuprofen and pouring a
small pile into the palm of my hand, swallowed them, in groupings of three,
downed with a glass – hotel provided – of water, bathroom tap.
____
Feeling
more confident about the prospects of the morning – along it with merely being
8 PM by then, and still light out – I was able to return to the table and start
in on the second glass with confidence.
____
I was
feeling brash at that point, to the point where I decided to change the channel
on the television to something lighter in subject, and did so, finally deciding
on a program on one of the major networks that was showing a weekly program of
has-been celebrities who were forced, by economic necessity no doubt, to run
through a gamut of frat-house style hazings in order to be allowed into “The
Has-Been Hall of Fame”.
____
The current
state of FCC censorship had been lifted to the extreme degree that it allowed
for any program after 8 PM to allow for frank nudity, sexual humiliation,
copious drug and alcohol abuse while still somehow bleeping out profanity above
the level of “bitch”.
____
But even
so, networks appeared to hire lazy bleepers, usually cutting off only the last
whisper of the word.
____
“Fuck”
would simply become “Fuc” which anyone with an ear would be able to pick up on
with little to no trouble.
____
But
never being a fan of censorship in any form, I was happy to have programming
that was free, countering the opposing voices in this semi-democracy that
railed against it, to the point where those programs nearly outnumbered what
they railed against.
____
I should
mention that normally, in the comforts of my own home, I was never such a lush.
A bottle of wine would often last two weeks in my normal routine – I was
imbibing to such a degree that night as a “fond-farewell” so to speak of even
having the option to do so to any degree.
____
Still, I
found myself rather enjoying the excess, and found myself grateful that it was
a rare occurrence, if also skeptical of its general use and subsequent climax
the following morning when my state of mind should have been top drawer, to
quote a favorite movie of mine (Auntie
Mame, 1958).
____
Finishing
my second glass, right at the moment that Tori Spelling is forced to beer-bong
what appears to be an entire keg, all the while coughing, throwing up and
saying “fuc” an awful lot, I poured a third and decided to write a letter to my
subletter, not feeling exactly sure what purpose it would hold.
____
Margaret
would have no ability to respond, and might possibly look at the gesture of one
of mistrust, which was not the case, not at all.
____
Still, I
took out the small stack of stationary – gaudy pieces of paper with a rather
unpleasant header – that was kept in the desk, along with the pen inscribed
with the name of the hotel, and set forth with a simple message of “hope things
are going well” merely meant to be a gesture of kindness, not malice.
____
Dear Margaret,
____
I’m writing to you from the last
point of contact with civilization that I will have for a number of weeks – if
you can call Las Vegas “civilization” – and just wanted to wish you all the
best with your time spent in your new home.
____
I realize that I won’t be able to
be reached, but I hope that you find your new neighbors to be perfectly willing
stewards of the building, able to answer any, if not all, of your questions
that you may find yourself asking.
____
I hope that you are doing well
settling in.
____
All my best,
____
Marion
____
Once I
had signed the note, reaching for an envelope, I realized I had no stamp to
send it with, not that in the morning I would have even wanted to send it, so I
acted pro-actively and tore the note up and threw it in the trash, which took a
number of minutes to find, being hidden under the desk.
____
I
decided then to commit myself to finishing the bottle, well before 9 PM struck,
hoping to put myself to bed with enough time to get a full night’s sleep and
still be able to wake up in the morning feeling fresh and able to spend the
necessary time at the supermarket to stock up on what I would be subsisting on
for the following weeks.
____
And so I
got down to business, watching trash, drinking trash, and ready to throw myself
into the death dumpster that was my bed.
____
By the
time I poured my last glass, significantly fuller than those that preceded it
so as not to require yet another pour, Jude Law on the television was being
forced to eat goat testicles while blindfolded.
____
I
thought straight for a minute about this:
surely he would have signed a contract with the production company that
explained each and every thing he would be forced to do, that none of what I
had been watching could possibly be a surprise to the contestants, and so their
reactions to these hazings, looks of shock and refusal, must be what makes them
actors in the general sense.
____
Then,
again, the fact that they were on a show that nullified their career into the
camp of “has-beens” pretty much does away with any notion of self-respect to
begin with, so it was entirely possible that they simply signed their name
under the vague contract of YOU’LL DO WHATEVER WE TELL YOU TO.
____
While
desperation leads to desperate acts, I still imagine Hollywood to be a
self-serving environment, every potential flare-up in a paparazzi’s bulb merely
a pointed action on the part of the flash.
____
If the
program had been of starving homeless men and women living on the streets of
Chicago, I would think it would have significantly less entertainment appeal,
and would broach on total abuse.
____
Others,
I supposed, quite possibly staying in this hotel themselves, might view such a
collective as receiving a reprieve of their situation, charity, so to speak,
especially if the program were shot in LA during the winter months.
____
Needless
to say, I was happy I was watching a desperate millionaire and not a homeless
man from Chicago blindfolded and eating goat testicles.
____
At some
point, clearly halfway through the final glass of wine, I lowered my head to
stare directly into the bulb that kept what was left contained:
____
The
reflection of my eye could be seen against the hazy yellow of the wine, making
me look slightly out of whack, which I surely was, and what looked back at me
was not the picture of what I had in my head. It was that of a middle aged
woman who was using wine to combat feelings of both loss and a sorrowful demand
that such a thing was guaranteed, expected, by my own previous actions – as a
reward that is not warranted, but still, from historical nonsense, somehow
implied.
____
The
image in front of me was that of the younger grad student, spending hours and
hours during the week to rise to the top of her class and then come crashing
down on the weekend, drinking until 2 AM and sleeping until after noon.
____
I had
thought I had become an adult, but staring at that reflection I saw my true
self, deluded into thinking that it was that of a 23 year old with a steel
stomach.
____
I
quickly rose, grabbing the glass with a full throttle, and moved quickly into
the bathroom, where I splashed to remains of the wine into the sink, dropped
the glass, shattering it on the tile floor, and fell directly in the direction
of the open toilet, where I finally vomited up with had yet to be full digested
of my dinner, but mostly the wine.
____
The
splay was impossible to look at. My legs stretched out behind me, sliced with a
rugged precision by the broken glass on the floor. I choked up two or three dry
heaves before a second burst of fluid came flying out, like the fan of a
peacock’s tail.
____
I kept
my head down in the bowl, crying, as if even more loss of bodily fluids was
appropriate, for a good ten minutes before I felt comfortable enough to rise up
and get a drink of water, from the sink, which tasted even more rank and
inappropriate than the flavors I was trying to dissuade.
____
I
imagined that my previously taken ibuprofen was gone the way of the sewer and
so took another, smaller, handful of pills, washed down, again, with the tap,
closing my eyes and holding my throat as if to keep them down. I stood there in
the bathroom like this until I could collect myself enough to go back into the
main room where I collapsed on the bed, still dressed, lights and television
still on, and slept until something like seven in the morning.
____
When I
woke, I thought I probably felt better if I had not thrown up, but none the
better for it, at best.
____
____
____
____
____
