A walk down the Strip

…the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence.
Walter Benjamin

We are chasing the blue dragon. Fifteen feet ahead of us there is a large disheveled woman wearing a blue nylon dress, the back of which is covered from her waist down with a brown stain. Her feet hit the ground hard with slow uneven steps. People laugh as they walk by then cry because the smell of her makes their eyes water. We are walking under the awnings of a construction site that will soon, maybe in a few years, be the City Center. For now we are trapped behind her and the smell lingers and we want to pass but there simply isn’t enough room to go around and we don’t want to touch her or even talk to her to say excuse me. So we walk slowly at her lopsided pace.

It is 10:30 pm and we are walking north on Las Vegas Blvd. We spent an hour or so in New York, New York, on the casino floor, up and down the escalators and past the Piano Bar where a raucous crowd sang in disjointed harmony to classic piano bar songs. Much of the casino, however, was being renovated blocking off the walk ways and pushing people closer together. Most were tourists enjoying a late dinner or a few drinks after the show had ended (whichever show they might have come from). Clearly this is not a late-night crowd, though; most will be in their rooms and asleep by midnight. With nothing really of interest to us, we left and walked out into the hot summer night. The weather seemed to cool a bit. A warm breeze blew into us and felt nice. We headed north, over the Brooklyn Bridge, with no particular destination in mind..  A man approached us and offered to sell us free passes to Diablo’s Cantina.

“No thanks, I am El Diablo,” said K.

“I have never been there before,” I said. “It’s new from the last time I was here.”

With a simple nod of our heads and shrug of our shoulders we decided to walk in the direction of  Diablo’s . We passed the man without buying the passes or even acknowledging him further.

“Too good for them, I guess,” he said in a low voice. I turned to look at him. An older man, maybe in his late forties, wearing a jacket two sizes too big for him. The sleeves draped over his thin wrists and his neck poked out from somewhere between the bulge of his pointy shoulders. He seemed to have a scruffy dirty face, but it was too dark to tell for sure. I looked and we kept walking in stride. He seemed to be offended.

At the corner of the street we could already hear the music from Diablo’s. the most memorable part of Diablo’s is the flaming neon sign that reads the bar’s name along a devilish woman figure holding a pitchfork. The mood of Diablo’s is best explained by loud music varying between the sounds of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and live bands that scream their electric guitars into the night. Diablo’s is located near the front entrance of Monte Carlo. Although there is a large bar and club inside most people are outside on a sort of double leveled patio, open sky on the top and archways on the bottom, where they talk, drink, and congregate. We decided, although tempted, not to go inside and continued north on the Strip. Directly ahead of us was the pathway in front of the City Center and ahead of us, although unbeknownst at the time, the blue dragon.

The smell is becoming unbearable. I cover my nose and try to turn my head but she lingers close. The blue dragon, now only ten feet ahead of us, moves slow and also seems to have no particular destination in mind. I imagine that she is some down on her luck prostitute. Or perhaps she is a drug addict, spinning in her own world of glam. It is not until a group of young girls walk by her and laugh in her face and point at her that the thought comes to me that she might actually be a human being. I lower my hand and in a moment of embarrassment look away from her and into the Blvd. I look to the east side of the strip which, at that point, is mostly just a few small souvenirs shops.  It occurs to me that there is nothing on that side of any real interest between Planet Hollywood and MGM. On the west side, the side we are walking on there is Casino after Casino after Casino and the soon to be luxurious City Center. On the west side the strip is growing and becoming. Across on the east side there is just an open space of rundown shops and filthy streets. I have a momentary epiphany that this is a metaphor for the future of our country, but am quickly returned to the present when the smell of the blue dragon re-enters my nostril.

“I can’t take this anymore,” says K.

At the first opening we see, we speed up and attempt to pass the woman. At the same time we try this, another group of people fill in the gap and we are forced back into our original space. The trail narrows and we resume the slow pace again.

“She should be on the other side,” I say to myself.

“What?” Says K.

“Nothing.”

She should be on the other side but she is not. She walks on this side at the street level. She is as much a part of Las Vegas as any of the Casinos and high rollers. I feel a connection to this woman and begin to pity her condition. She is not the face on the television that one sees when they see Las Vegas. On television or in the movies we only think of Las Vegas as the aerial scene of the strip, looking down on the massive architecture.  She is the truth of what this city is, though. As powerful as one may feel when looking down at the Bellagio, or Caesar’s, or the Wynn, we can only feel the truth of our existence when we walk at the feet of these great titans, and look up. We are not what we thought. We are not the limousine ride with the top open and champagne bottles overflowing. We are not the high rollers or the stars. We are not staying in the penthouse suites or villas.  When one walks down the street of Las Vegas Blvd he is humbled. When one walks with the blue dragon he is enamored no more; he is only himself whoever that may be.

I meditate on this thought of empowerment and realize how attractive this city is when one believes that he is more powerful than the established order. I vision commercial after commercial of blue dragon women and dirty Diablo promoters controlling the image of Las Vegas. My epiphany returns and I again see the future of our country not as a surreal fantasyland but as a land of equally amazing and disturbing imagery. I look up to the sky where the vision of Las Vegas still is beautiful and grand. I look to the woman walking ahead of me and stare at the brown stain on her dress.

The pathway opens. Ahead of is the great lake of the Bellagio. The spectacle of the Dancing Waters is about to begin. We hurry to find a place to watch as the blue dragon disappears into the crowd.