Las Vegas

The town is fit only for undesirables. They are everywhere: strolling aimlessly down a sidewalk before reaching its corner and turning around, repeating God-knows how many times. Even less scrupulous varmint lean against empty and cracked windows. Some are in doorways and some just seem to lay down wherever they happen to find themselves.

The driver has never seen any place like it. The hitchhiker mimics the excited twitching of the unenviable residents before it becomes evident that he is one of their kind. Each is compiled from the same refuse, left over after all the good in humanity had been lovingly fashioned. The driver thinks that even the smell of disreputability has intensified in the car since they turned onto the main drag. This street is desperate, but the side-streets are even worse.

The driver spots silhouettes, like disembodied shadows, down every alley. So much like the rodents they resemble, they scurry at any threat of light or human touch. Some may well be women, but they would be so beyond repair that it wouldn’t make a difference if they happened to be a wife or mother.

The driver thinks of how he once understood the pitfall of Las Vegas to be its enticement for one to stretch well beyond his means. Looking around, he understands that that couldn’t possibly be. Las Vegas is a hole where those who didn’t have any means to begin with come to fester, find company, and….then what? The hitchhiker has motioned for him to stop.

“Nah, not this one. The one up there, with all the crazy lights.” He may as well try to pinpoint a particular species of fish by saying it has gills. The entire strip is lit up like a Christatmas tree in an electric chair. Each hotel/casino has its own disorientating dazzle of lights. The hitchhiker has not noticed his gaffe, and merely points to a jumble of electric green palms and flashing letters. The car rolls up in front of a hotel’s name, “El Dorado”, emblazoned in a cursive of gold and emerald lights.

“Here we are. City of gold.” The hitchhiker has the subdued hysteria of a one-toothed prospector from the old gold rush days. The driver can’t tell if the hitchhiker has allowed himself to be carried away in his own excitement, or if he is genuinely deluded about ‘striking it rich’.