Karl

a man takes a bus to Vegas, very well aware of what he's leaving behind

Karl

 

 

   As the bus pulled into the station, the seat beneath his thighs made him itch. All he wanted to do was get out and about on the streets, to be one of the many who were enjoying the strips of the manmade bounty of the rich. From his vantage, as he finally found an oasis from the long bus ride through the desert, there was over seven hundred dollars cash in the wallet in his back pocket that added to the itch in his shorts. He had a brand new credit card too, a result of careful planning and monitoring of his feeble credit after his long awaited divorce.

    Karl was about to celebrate his fifty fifth birthday by pickling his brain with alcohol, enmeshing his body with a pre-paid lover, and living it up to the hilt before he took the twenty two caliber snub nose he'd been hoarding in his safe deposit box for over a decade to end his pathetic life. Kansas was a very good place to live in, to grow up in, and to marry with all the hopes and dreams a young man could muster from the church pews he sat in for so long. Despite the gold watch his company had given him after thirty years of dedicated labor to earn a living, and dependence on that tax return check every April, he had a destiny. He had a dream of finishing his life in a burst of flame and fun in Sin-City, and ending himself to not only spite his so-called lovely ex-wife that took his home and favorite chair away from him, but to find out first hand for himself how the other half lived. He devoted himself to providing for the benefit of Brooke and Sandy, his two beautiful children that had grown up and left him with nothing to show for his life but their mother, his love for her growing more and more decrepit with every passing phase of the moon.

      Okay, the small pistol was only one of those things he happily pawned to help finance his personal final journey to where he'd always wanted to escape to. Watching the hookers on the take and the middle aged men, like himself, with vacant stares in their eyes as they exited the gaudy entrances of one den of gambling or another, he remembered all the dreary Sunday mornings he listened to Linda crone on in the church choir, clasping her hands together in her holier-than-thou joyfulness, sticking her b***s out beneath her padded bra and conservative dresses, embarrassing the hell out of Karl who happily couldn't carry a note in a bucket while he sat with his kids or his neighbors. She’d finally decided to go back to school, studying some self actuating course where it was decided that Karl's conservative attitude did not jibe with her new found love of life, and her beautiful self image after finally attaining enlightenment and purpose with her menopause. There were guns for sale in the many pawn shops that lined the strip, which he took mental note of as the bus pulled into his new Mecca, his final mark on his own personal history, Vegas.

      Suicide wasn't a very happy word to label his thoughts and his plans with as he stepped up on the bus and rode out of the town he lived his whole life in for the last time. Plans were merely that, plans. Experience taught him again and again that plans change in the course of carrying them out. He'd secretly owned that little pistol for a long time with one thing in mind, and when he finally had no other course to take, selling it to pay for the bus ticket and roll out of town without notice, and with plenty of cash to blow, was just another change to his plan. Nobody would notice his absence for a while. There would be no creditors seeking him out on his ex-wife's part, but they would look for him once the show was over and he'd had his fill of what he'd always wanted to do, spending a fortune on credit and disappearing in the sea of money, debauchery, and lost dreams at the krap tables and slot machines. For now he was just another old fart among the other senior citizens he sat with on the bus; they had little to loose but money as well.

    The bus driver pulled into a marked parking place and killed the engine. Wiping his face with a bandana, he stood and informed all his passengers that they were now in Las Vegas, Nevada, as if he had to, and that wherever their destination was from there, everyone would be changing buses and to check with the ticket agent inside for scheduling their next bus. He opened the large door of the bus and rushed out like he had to relieve his bladder, have a cigarette, or some combination of the two.

     The bus was painfully filled to the brim with little old ladies and old geezers whose joints seemed to squeak like rusty hinges as they slowly stood up and fumbled for their personal belongings in the process of 'de-bussing.' Luckily, Karl wasn't too far back from the front, and it didn't take too long before he was standing outside on the sidewalk, brightly lit among the darkness of the parking lot, finally free of the close quartered sardine can he'd shared hours and hours with all the snoring old men and nosy little women who insisted on knowing Karl's life story on the long, dreary journey through the desert. Traveling light, his small bag contained every thing he couldn't get along without in his new life in the hotels and casinos; two changes of underwear and a shaving kit. His real luggage was in his wallet, carefully concealed in his buttoned up back pocket.

      He walked through the bus terminal, avoiding making any contact with anyone, moving to the side of those small groups of people that coagulated as they waited for the suitcases to be unloaded, and headed straight for the front door. Finally, standing outside the bus station, he stood and gazed at the traffic on the street, waiting for a cab that eventually came. He’d chosen a hotel that was one of the less expensive, yet accommodating in the phone book, and the cab ride across town was much more pleasing to his eyes and his nasal passages than the damned bus.

      Leaving the cabbie with no tip whatsoever, he strode into the lobby of the casino, and his senses were attacked by the sounds and sights of a real, honest to God Vegas casino with the banks and banks of slot machines, bells and bells and bells, and a dichotomy of preoccupied patrons clutching coins and chips that focused on the whirling and flashing slot machines they were so captivated by, with high-ball glasses in their hands and smoldering cigarettes in their mouths. He sized up all the crisp employees and security guards that bent and doted over their counterpart customers, with clean cut haircuts and hairdos, starched company uniforms and suits, along with funky personal body odors that revealed very unsavory sexual dilemmas; some of which assaulted Karl's very sensitive nose.

       It was great! He had finally arrived, and the night was still young at two in the morning!

SR Urie

  There was nothing like a Saturday night on the strip. Bright lights shining up into the air, hordes of people crowded together among the tall buildings, flashy cars that cruised back and forth in the desert air, the grandeur of the money spent and carefully planned design of the place brought one's relative significance to the lowly sidewalks among so many other people who finally made it to the night so they could share the spirit of the Las Vegas streets beneath their feet on their own for a time. Expensive decadence drew him to the tall buildings and promise of elaborate chance once again. Except this time he was actually here.

Reviews

[John Braswell]

You have constructed this story much like a well-built house with every brick in place. The character is somebody the reader cares about, and some like me, can identify with.

There is however one huge problem. You left me hanging! Did he? (Joking)

Seriously, this would make a good, longer, short story

Good read