“Ten dollars. The bottle was designed by Versace.”
Ten dollars for a bottle of mineral water which poured out about six water glasses worth of overpriced liquid. G.B. stated that it tasted worse than tap. I couldn’t tell the difference. Red Square’s waitress/wine steward told us they didn’t drink tap water there. So, neither did we, until we found out the price.
Ten freaking dollars. Aloha Vegas.
***
E-mail ping pong commenced several months ago, concerning G.B.’s bachelor party. I kept up with the comings and going insofar as that I read the emails, then forgot what I read. It didn’t seem real. G.B. and N.F. were getting married. G.B. needed a bachelor party. Someone decided that it would be in Las Vegas. It sounded surreal, but I still bought a ticket on Independence Air and waited for the date.
Come Sept. 16, and I had to drive from Burtonsville to Dulles Airport (IAD) in roughly 2 hours. My mother asked me over and over if I’d taken off early (I had not). K.C., sitting to my left, called me on the appointed day, asked if I’d taken off early (I was overconfident in Google Maps time estimate). So, as I kept getting stuck in traffic, I realized that this wasn’t going to happen, my gut instinct screaming out that I wasn’t destined to go to Vegas. Of course, I arrive before K.C., meeting S.B. (the planner) in the departure gate.
The plane ride carried one amusing note. At one point, they’d distributed snack packs while I was sleeping. I awoke to the chaotic strains of unwrapped wrappers tinkling and crackling. Being awoken pissed me off, which I didn’t realize. K.C. later told me he’d never seen someone yell at a stewardess in the manner I did, asking for a snack pack, then glaring at her as she failed to get me one. He feared that I was going to go insane.
As we flew across these continental states, tiny globs of electric light scattered across the ground. That cities were visible as little more than pinhole dimes testified as to how high we were. We approached Vegas, and the sight stunned me. Granted, we’d come much lower, and the strip is filled with brilliance, but the spread of lights, like a thousand lit Christmas trees, consumed the tiny window.
Aloha Vegas.
***
Myself, K.C. and S.B. met B.F. at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. B.F., tired of waiting, unable to access the hotel room, checked his bags and proceeded to lose $120 in the casino. This theme of loss would trail throughout the weekend like cigarette smoke permeating the casino atmosphere. Since S.B. reserved the rooms in his name, his presence, and his alone, could grant access, his credit card a magical talisman exchanged for our own access cards.
The rooms embodied luxury. Soft, supple mattresses, yet firm enough to bless one’s back with comfort over the night. An expansive bathroom with a standalone tub, shower stall with glass door, and two sinks set in a marbled fixture. Giant mirrors everywhere. Even a recessed toilet with telephone so they can hear you, but can’t smell you. And the view, oh the view, of the Vegas Strip and the mountains in the background, clear as thought, precious as a newborn.
Soon after, we meet up with E.B. and G.B. The six of us decide food is a must. We wander the casino, searching for food. E.B.’s impulse led us to The Noodle Shop (read; The Wrong Answer), an Asian noodle restaurant of the type which is in vogue among the glitterati, We waited in line for half an hour, and yet another theme reared its perfect sculpted hair, taut clothing, and toned bodies.
Yes, the women. Even standing in line, exhausted and not sure of what we were doing, I could still notice the parade of beautiful women, even through the shimmer of extra oxygen pumping through the casino. All these women had bodies carved with the Greek gods as models, and the money they spent on their chests was money well spent. To paraphrase the cheesy pickup line, I hated to see them go, but loved to watch them leave. As soon as one left, two more would walk in. Vegas is little more than a female revelation.
The matron, and only non-asian employee in the restaurant, seats us after half an hour. We then proceed to wait another half hour for our order to be recorded. At one point, we flag a buswoman down, ask if we can give her the order, and she responds she will get someone more competent than her. Yeah.
The order arrives after another half hour, and our waitress distributes the food. However, when she gets to G.B., rather than a bowl of noodles, she proffers a plate of egg rolls, leading to this exchange:
G.B.: “Uh, that’s not what I ordered. Where’s my food?”
Waitress: *some unintelligible response about it not being ready*
G.B.: *shaking his head, frowning* “Oh, that’s not the right answer.”
The food wasn’t even that good. G.B., seething and uncomfortable, chose not to tip our server upon departure.
We make plans to head out to other casinos and sample blackjack. First on the list, New York New York. Single deck blackjack results in not a single win over four reshuffles. Multiple deck is not much better, and S.B. loses $20 to a dealer that does not know how to count money. End result: New York New York sucks sucks.
We walk down the strip to the infamous Bellagio. At this point, it is around 1:30 A.M., and the Strip continues pulsating with raw energy, vivaciousness, life. What the moon cannot illuminate, the artificial lights flood with thousand watt fury. Without having to strain my eyes, I can make out naked women on escort cards, scattered all across the streets. Only tiny stars hide their shame, if they have any left. Surely I do not after having been in Sin City for a few hours, as I continue to look, at the cards, at the people, at everything in sight. A buffet of sights for my law school-starved eyes.
The Bellagio in one thousand years, should it survive the millennium, will serve as a shining example of architecture. Opulence made tangible, then desiccated and distilled into its purest form, would not represent architecture quite so well as the Bellagio. I know not the terms, but I do recognize high ceilings, understated cream colors, marble pillars, everything that makes you feel poorer than you ever have, yet richer in soul for having experienced it. The $100 minimum bet blackjack tables didn’t hurt either.
They do have a Casino War table, with $10 minimum bets. This plays just like the youth card game. If your card is higher in rank than the dealer’s, you win. Lower in rank, you lose. If you tie, you either surrender your bet, or double it and go to the tiebreaker, three cards down, one card up. Win or tie here, you win the doubled bet. I chose to lose $60 in ten minutes here. Such a foolish game, and such a foolish player.
Hereafter, we need to go to sleep. We start trudging back to Mandalay Bay, all of us having incurred gambling losses. E.B. wanted to take a taxi back down the strip, but the maximum number of riders on a taxi is five, and we have six, necessitating hiring two taxis. We walk back, and E.B. is enraged. “I don’t see why we’ll spend twenty dollars on blackjack like its nothing, but we won’t spend twenty dollars for a taxi.” We were all pissed, and no one wanted to “lose” even more money.
Bed time was 5 A.M. Saturday would bring a great many more surprises.
Aloha Vegas.
***
Four hours of sleep. Four hours spent not gambling. Four hours spent not conscious in Vegas. Four hours lost, four hours too many. I wake up to the muted sounds of S.B. typing work onto his Blackberry keyboard. Nothing like dedication, except death perhaps. I stumble into the shower. The water hitting me is like a diamond stream covering me in a new, bolder skin. How the hell do they do it? Do they lace the water with drugs?
Myself, S.B. and B.F. wake up, and we go upstairs to awaken E.B., G.B. and K.C. To our surprise, K.C. awoke around 7 A.M. to start gambling. K.C. is more hardcore than a petrified eaten apple. While he proceeds to blow money on the poker tables, we go to the Bay Side Buffet (insert Saved by the Bell joke here, Hey Preppie). S.B. leads us to the V.I.P. line, which we didn’t quite belong in. They let us in, and we proceed to gorge for the next hour and a half. The most amusing aspect, when they brought out bowls of their fresh, sweet mixed berries, we converged like vultures on carrion, despite the fact that only B.F. is a vegetarian (we all like meat).
Thereafter, I retire to the room to use the toilet, and fall asleep for an hour. It would have been longer, but housekeeping kept knocking, damn their efficient hides. Still slushed in the head, I stumble out to the Mandalay Beach. Wave pool, sand, lounge chairs, even a slow floating loop. More beautiful women. Of course, there were also children and men, but I didn’t see them. I only saw women. Beautiful.
Back inside the casino, the oversaturated oxygen fools me into gambling. $40 on slots, $70 on blackjack, all in a combined thirty minutes. Damnation. If I am a gambler, it is only with the work that I put off to come to Vegas.
Somewhere during this period, J.F. arrives, having driven down from Colorado Friday night. Fourteen hour drive. With our party numbering in the sevens, we set out to commence G.B.’s bachelor party proper. After an ill-advised meal at the Border Grill (we were still full from the buffet), we head out to Sapphire, the city’s largest strip club. A converted gymnasium, it may very well be the largest strip club in the world.
The inside lobby contains several bronzings of naked women in various acrobatic poses. As with any other work of art, the need to touch the nipples is almost overwhelming. Were the large men in suits not watching us closely, I’m sure I would have violated the bronzings several times. Past them, there sits a very large wine case, much like beverage coolers in convenience stores. Very well stocked, and as we would later discover, high quality.
We exchange $30 for entrance into the club. As usual, the bouncer glances at my driver’s license longer than usual. It has to be fake, I can’t possibly be twenty-five. Inside, we find a giant room, larger than a school playground, stuffed with flesh, clothed and un-. Two circular stages equipped with poles sit astride the central elevated stage. The central stage sports a clear floor, acrylic? Glass? We cannot tell, but we do note that the seats beneath must be the most expensive in the house.
Sapphire is topless only, but that hardly discourages us. These women are not perfect, they dance for money, and most have had extensive surgery to achieve their current body state. However, in the dark, assaulted by pounding dance music, they are as perfect as we want them to be.
We do get fooled into buying a booth for $80. It turned out that in order to remain at a booth, we would have to purchase a bottle of wine from the house. The cheapest bottle cost $275. I dared not read the wine list, for fear that I would scream, and no one would hear me. Luckily, someone managed to get two tables next to the main speakers, so we would be deaf, but we had a place to sit.
After a couple of hours, the constant smoke and thumping music faded into the background. How could you notice it with all the naked women walking around as if this were a locker room for schoolgirls, dominatrices and whores?
K.C. gets a dual lap dance from two strippers. All of a sudden, he is following the two of them to the back room. He decided to spend an aggregate $520 to get a half hour with them, $200 for each stripper, $120 for the bartender. He returns smiling wider than the Grand Canyon.
Over the course of the night, E.B. has been refusing to receive lap dances, as he lost $600 at the roulette tables that day. Still, the environment wears away at his granite resolve, and he gives in. Somehow, this stripper places his hands on her breasts. We are amazed at his mad skills. This breaks the floodgates, and he receives several more dances, all the time doing things that the rest of us could not even hope to try without getting kicked out. This began the greatest twenty-four hours of E.B.’s life.
A couple more hours pass, and we decide to leave around 3 A.M. Right before we leave, I receive a lap dance from Miko, an Asian girl who was extraordinarily nice only until I told her I gave her my last $20. Might I say, I wanted to bring her lower body with me to Maryland, if I ever returned.
We roll out, the water alone having cost $7 a bottle. Since most of the after-hours events had cover charges and were starting to wind down, we return to Mandalay Bay. After a bit of wandering, we situate in front of the lingerie store, which is having a live lingerie show. Of course, the omnipresent cover charge is in effect, and the beautiful women entering also leave almost immediately, so we choose to sit outside and watch the people enter and leave.
One man walks by with an entourage. Nothing special in and of itself, but someone asked, “Is that A.C. Slater?” We discuss the myriad possibilities (really just yes or no), and he turns back to look at us. It was Mario Lopez. Leaving a lingerie show at 4 in the morning in Mandalay Bay. A.C. F****** Slater. If we could have made it past his bodyguards, we would have either said “Hey Preppie” or “Why did you cheat on Ali Landry you fool?” After a few more minutes, we call it another night.
Aloha Vegas.
***
Sunday, 9 A.M. Football starts in an hour. I wake up. Its time to watch football, I will not be kept from my football. I go down to the Sportsbook, for they have a sandwich shoppe, and the wall o’ sin. Forty feet high, covered in giant LCD screens, alternating television programming and updated odds. However, many of the choice seats have been taken, so I go over to the Coral Reef sushi bar, and sit at its projection screen plus four plasma televisions. Five games at once, and thankfully, Ravens/Titans not on, so I wouldn’t have to suffer to their loss. Everyone else wakes up to go to the buffet. I go meet them, and we stumble upon E.B., who has been playing slots all morning, resulting in his being up $1000. Wow.
They go eat, I watch football, and E.B. continues gambling. I get a call later, the decision has been made to hit another casino. We go find E.B., who now has a stack of $100 chips as tall as my hand from wrist to fingertip.
Aloha Vegas.
E.B.’s method is to bet on two of the three columns. Since it pays out two to one, if he wins, he gains 50% of his total bet. If he loses, he loses 100% of the bet. Statistically, the house will have an edge, since 0 and 00 don’t pay at all. However, for every loss, he wins five or six times. It doesn’t take long for me, G.B. and B.F. to put money down and start betting along with him.
Over the span of this, the pit boss is starting to notice him. She gives him a comp card, and they retroactively comp him for time spent gambling before he got the card. She asks if he wants to be a dealer, asks what he’ll do with the money. They are starting to track him like hawks.
E.B. is a bit nervous. At one point, I have my chips on the table in neat little stacks. He reaches over to place a bet, his hand shaking so hard he knocks my stack over. Later, it hits us that E.B. has been betting $1000 and more on each spin of the wheel. It merely looks insignificant due to the nature of chips. At one point, a sexy Eastern European woman walks over and places a $1200 bet on black. $1000 of it is in $100 bills, and looks damned impressive. She loses. Later, her boyfriend pulls out $1700 in $100 bills, bets on red, wins. It looks so damned impressive, then we realize that E.B. has been doing the same for the duration of his gambling.
Of course, all good things must come to an end. E.B. hits a losing streak, and G.B. and I stop. B.F., however, thinks that it can’t end like this. He proceeds to lose his $200 over seven or eight spins. It was a sad sight, but was the epilogue to E.B.’s ascension to V.I.P., and our ascension to entourage of V.I.P.
We break, I walk around, watch some football. We later find out that E.B. has been comped $900. At the comp desk, G.B. asks how much he has in comps, and the desk replies, “You have nine dollars.”
The front desk person tells E.B. to wait for his boss. He picks up the phone and says, “Yes, he’s back.” Juliette walks over. She greets E.B. by first name, then acknowledges the rest of us, and just ask quickly returns to E.B. Mentioning a slot tournament at the end of the month, she offers to book his room right now. He just wants to spend the money ASAP. So, we receive some menus, and G.B. is given the option of food of choice. Naturally, it is steak. We set off for Red Square, the vodka bar/restaurant.
While changing, I realize my clothes are all rumpled. I attempt to borrow a button-down shirt from G.B., and end up looking like I’m wearing an art smock in elementary school.
In Red Square, we get seated, and the waitress/wine steward tells us about the mineral water, without telling us about the price. Then, we order a round of Patrone tequila, then a $50+ bottle of wine. Appetizers, and the entrees. I ordered the filet mignon, seared to medium rare perfection, inside pink, tasting of raw meat, yet still carrying the gravy’s flavors, resting on a bed of potato puree (mashed potatoes), surrounded in a sea of gravy. G.B. and E.B. purchased the surf and turf, notable for the lobster tail and filet mignon.
I can still taste that immaculate filet mignon on my tongue.
Finally, S.B., K.C. and I had to leave for the airport. Our flight was at 11:20 P.M., scheduled to arrive at Dulles at 6:50 Monday morning. Upon arrival, I drove up to Baltimore for my 10 A.M. class, but had so much time that I was able to stop for a shower and shave, and get breakfast from Chick-Fil-A. The weekend had so spoiled my palate, I tasted the breakfast, and thought, “Well, this is swill.”
For the rest of the day, I had gibberish notes, hadn’t learned a thing, was still sick, but had had one of the best weekends of my life. Congrats go out to G.B. for the impending nuptials.
Aloha Vegas.
