24 HOURS IN LAS VEGAS

A Story by John Harrison

Las Vegas may well be the most amazing city on the face of this – or any other – planet. Where else will you find so many of the down-and-out begging on the streets not for a hamburger or a belt of booze but for a quarter to have another, potentially lucky, pull on the one armed bandits? Or a building that houses both a casino and a three-ring circus? Or vending machines that give out free illustrated guides to the best good-time girls in town (OK, well I do seem to recall similar papers on the streets of Kings Cross in Sydney when I visited there as a kid).

Built primarily on blood money by the infamous glamour gangster Ben ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, Las Vegas is, quite appropriately, an almost completely artificial city. There doesn’t seem to be any real suburbs, no surrounding towns. Like a mirage, it just appears, in all its gaudy splendour. One minute you’re in the desert; the next thing you know, you’re cruising down the Main Strip.

When travelling to Las Vegas, always make sure you drive in. Or better yet, arrive by Greyhound bus. But never fly in. And never, under any circumstances, arrive before the sun goes down. If you hit the town during the day, you’re only likely to want to turn around and go screaming straight back home.

Upon arrival, check into your motel. The Flamingo is a good choice, since it was the hotel Bugsy built (and was subsequently killed because of, thanks to the huge amount of mob funds he chewed up while developing it). There’s no better place to stay if you want to pretend to soak up the underworld atmosphere. Once you’ve checked into your room and examined the curtains thick enough to be styrofoam mattresses (everyone sleeps during the day here), change into something a bit more colorful and louder then usual, and prepare to become a member of that hip and oh-so-cool species known as the Las Vegas Tourist.

So where do you head first? The crap tables? No, the last thing you want to do in Las Vegas is gamble. Oh, it’s OK to drop some loose change down the slot machines – just make sure you only bring as much money as you can afford to lose. Of all the things Las Vegas has to offer, the least interesting is gambling.

Now that you’ve had the good sense to decide against flushing your money down the toilet, what else is there for you to do? Well, for one thing, Las Vegas is overflowing with some of the world’s most fascinating people. Las Vegas women, in particular, are a unique and wonderful breed. Most of them have come to Vegas for one reason: to chase their dreams. For many a young Mid-Western girl, Las Vegas is a mere stepping stone to that other great American trash city – Hollywood. For many others, it is a place to fall back on when they inevitably fail to conquer the hungry beast that is Tinseltown.

Take a look inside any casino – it isn’t hard to spot them. They’re everywhere: the dancers, the strippers, the cigarette girls, the waitresses, the prostitutes. All waiting for that gushing wind of luck to come and carry them across the desert into the welcoming, hungry arms of Sunset Boulevard. For most, it never comes, and with the inevitable onslaught of age, they either disappear back into the small town hell which they tried so desperately to escape from, or marry and settle down to live the life of a Las Vegas housewife. Some of the luckier ones simply become alcoholics and die.

Still, there is a lot more to Las Vegas than people watching. So slam down two scotch-on-the-rocks (believe me, you’ll need them), slip on your coolest pair of shades (who cares if it’s near midnight?) and step out into the most breathtakingly garish, grotesque and surreal man made sight you are ever likely to behold: The Main Strip. Two miles plus of psychotic neon, each sign trying to outdo the other in size and beautiful vulgarity.

Gaze in awe at all the massive marquees that announce the parade of has-beens and wanna-bes you can have the privilege of slapping down a hundred bucks to see (even though you probably wouldn’t sit through five minutes of them for free on television). The line-up of entertainers is usually rotated according to who checked out of the Betty Ford clinic that week, but there are certain performers you can count on seeing no matter what time of the year it is. Like Wayne Newton. In Vegas, no one is bigger than Wayne Newton – but don’t worry, for every Brylcreemed dud like Newton, you’ll have the chance to see a real legend, like Don Rickles or Jim Nabors.

As you make your way further down the Strip, drinking in the sweaty air that is uniquely Vegas, be sure to duck into every casino and take a handful of matchbooks from the bar or lavatory. Matchbooks are, of course, the crème de la crème of souvenirs. They’re like a visual roadmap of your journey and they make nifty gifts when you get home. And they’re free.

If you feel like all of this excitement is starting to get the better of you, a quick intake of sustenance might be in order. No problem. If Las Vegas was nothing else but a hot dog stand in the middle of the desert, it would be worth visiting for the food. There’s an endless array of eateries spread out along The Strip. The Holiday Inn Casino, looking like a Mark Twain riverboat as renovated by Liberace, seems like a good place for a snack. The ‘Ship on The Strip’ offers a complete meal for the ridiculous price of $3.99 (the less money you spend on food, the more you’ve got to gamble away).

Now that your sagging energy has picked up, you are ready to experience the single greatest thing Las Vegas has to offer: Circus Circus. Yes, some genius back in the 1960s actually had the insight to combine a casino with a circus. I wish it were me – the result is awe-inspiring. It’s a unique feeling to pull on a slot machine while simultaneously wondering if some luckless trapeze artist is going to miss her cue and land squarely on her head. If I were 14 again, this is the only circus I would ever consider running away and joining (I always wanted to be a circus hand, but the thought of the constant travelling put me off).

Circus Circus is so completely spellbinding that you quickly lose all track of time. Before you know it, it’s four o’clock in the morning. Common sense may suggest you retire. But you’re only here for 24 hours, and there’s still so much more to see. You might wish to visit the Liberace Museum, or make a pilgrimage to all the locations Elvis and his crew used while filming Viva Las Vegas in 1964. How about taking a snapshot of yourself standing outside of the video store that tragic washed-up child actress Dana (Diff’rent Strokes) Plato held up at gunpoint?

By now your eyes are beginning to ache, and neon flies buzz around inside your brain every time you try to close them for a moment’s rest. Just in time, you notice the sun about to push its way over the horizon. The dazzling parade of lights begin to dim, and like a city of vampires, the population of Vegas retreat to their concrete coffins to escape the encroaching, unforgiving daylight. You return to your room at the Flamingo and crash onto the bed exhausted but exhilarated, resting peacefully in the knowledge that your sleep won’t be disturbed by any hotel parties or misinformed maids.

And as you drive out of Vegas later that night, the man-made Land of Oz slowly fades into your rear view mirror, and you soon find yourself out alone in the dark, vast expanse of the Nevada desert. It’s gone, like a fabulously twisted dream that you wish you could remember more clearly than you can…..

Copyright John Harrison

Note: This piece is based upon recollections I had of Vegas during my first two visits there as a young teenager, in 1980 and 1981.