Another Perspective

The Bottle & the Damage Done
Part V: Hit da Lightz

We now return to our story about the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas SilverAnniversary Tour(tm), an overland saga starring two lunatics and a fire-applered 1968 Buick LeSabre convertible.

The red land-yacht forged onward through the endless desert. Austin didn'ttouch the brake pedal until we neared the gateway to Death Valley, where westopped for gas in the town of Beatty. After fueling up, Austin lurchedonto Main Street in the wrong direction. To correct, he executed a stuntdriver quality high-speed U-turn, complete with a squealing fishtail toswing the back end around. This maneuver seemed to disturb the dismalsolitude of downtown Beatty, and did not go unnoticed by the sheriff. Hewas sitting in his patrol car at the end of town, just waiting for someonepassing through to fuck up. He promptly pulled out behind us and flashedhis good ol' blue 'n reds. We were no strangers to the law. Years ofencounters with Johnny had seasoned our nerves, so there was none of thatidiotic stammering everyone goes through on their first speeding ticket.This cop sauntered up and introduced himself as Deputy Maggard. Just alousy deputy? No problem. The guy had a soccer score I.Q.:

Deputy Maggard: Y'all have any idea whut I pulled you over for?

Austin: God, I wouldn't know where to start. [snickers]

DM: How 'bout that U-turn you just pulled back there?

Me: Aww, you didn't like that?

DM: Personally, I couldn't care less, but I have a job to do. I alsoclocked you doin' 45 in a 35 mph zone as you left town.

Austin: No shit?

Me: Yeah, and he wasn't wearing his seatbelt until you pulled him over.

DM: I saw that. That was real cute too.

Austin: You're not seriously going to write me a ticket, are you?

DM: You're sure talkin' yourself into one.

Austin: Whoops. Sorry 'bout that.

He took Austin's license; his lips moved as he read it. As he went to hiscar to run a background check, it dawned on me that we had a powder keg oftrouble in the trunk. There was the shaving kit full of weed, mushrooms andpills. The tumbler of margarita between my legs couldn't have helpedeither. With Nevada's zero tolerance drug laws, we were probably looking atlife sentences. Such a double standard in this state: you're allowed togamble your life away, drink Old Crow around the clock and rent an orgy;but you'll go straight to prison if they find a mere hemp seed in yourbirdfeeder.

We kept our shades on to hide our telltale Chinese eyes. Maggard came backand began asking us questions:

DM: Where you boys headed?

Me: Guess.

DM: Vegas.

Austin: Boy, you're good.

He was getting a little nosy. He knew we were up to no good; no doubt aboutit. He was trying to get us nervous, hoping we would let ourselves getcaught in a lie and hand him probable cause. He leaned down closer toAustin's face. They looked at each other through identical mirrored aviatorshades, their reflections bouncing to infinity.

DM: What will you boys be doin' in Vegas?

Me: Gambling, drinking and whoring.

No harm in that. The three of us broke out into laughter, putting thetension to rest. He let us go with a ticket for expired tags. Onward werolled, for what seemed like eternity. Shortly after the desert sun wentdown, our spirits were brightened by a ray of light beaming heavenward onthe horizon. It was the beacon at the Luxor pyramid. Vegas, at last. Theone place on earth where our unsavory behavior would go unnoticed. As weblew into town, Metallica's "Hit the Lights" tore our ghetto blaster a newasshole. Hetfield's rapid-fire power chords resonated in our amped-upbrains. Hammett's screaming solos tapped my spine like it was a fretboard.We were in a full headbanging frenzy as James' teenage voice screamed outour favorite line. "No life 'til leather, We're gonna kick some asstonite!" It's a shame what happened to Metallica; those boys used to rock.They've gone downhill ever since Cliff met his maker, God bless him.

We were in full form for our debut on the Vegas Strip. Our dreams oftrolling for broads in the Buick love machine were about to come tofruition. But the fanfare came to a grinding halt as we oozed into thetraffic cluster-fuck on Las Vegas Boulevard. 10:00 p.m. Saturday night inthe middle of August is not the ideal time to arrive. All the suburbantrash, along with the ugliest G-thangs from LA, were cruising en masse.This is not the Vegas that Bugsy Segal envisioned. This looked more likethe Vegas in Ice Cube's "You Know How We Do It" video. Lowered SuzukiSidekicks with Ground FX bounced in place for the adoring fans on thesidewalk. An Impala-load of Vatos Locos rolled up and heckled us for ourlack of hydraulics. "Hey esse, you bitches ain't got switches!" The thunderof a hundred subwoofers drowned out our metalfest as we inched down theStrip. I'd estimate we were getting about .36 miles per gallon. To compoundthings, the Buick becomes quite disgruntled in the slightest traffic. She'sa highway star (see Bottle & Damage pt. IV); none too happy about idling inplace for 45 minutes. She was dangerously close to boiling over, and shelet us know it by sputtering violently. It had been a long day, and it wastime to put the horses in the corral. We had no choice but to turn on theheater full-blast to ventilate the mighty 442. That was painful, folks.

Sitting in 107-degree desert heat with the wrath of an overheatingbig-block engine blasting on our feet. Thank God she was a convertible.We barely made it to our oasis, the dysfunctional Frontier Hotel. Theluggage gnomes ferreted away our bags as we power-walked to the nearestbar. We plowed through our drinks with gusto, erasing the long desertjourney and bumper-to-bumper crash landing. Once we were properly juicedup, we took to the streets for some prime-time debauchery. The pedestriantraffic on the strip was even more horrendous than the cruising scene; itflowed like sewage. Scads of filthy ghouls stumbled and slithered their wayalong the Boulevard. Each casino door and side street was a tributarypouring depraved scum into the Strip.

The crowd was so thick that we had to take turns blocking for each other.With one arm I protected my Gin and Tonic like a pigskin, while with theother arm, I orchestrated blocks like Steve Young on the scramble. It wasan efficient method for plowing through the crowd, but it didn't make usmany friends. One poor stiff-arm recipient had some badly slurred remarksfor us: "Washwhereryergoin' azzhole!" Austin gave him a subtle warningflash of his knife handle.

"Don't make me cut off that mullet and feed it to you," he barked.But Randy had better plans. "Oh yeah? I'll get my cutlass, spillyergutzinone slash. Whoosh!"

Whatever. We made our way down the strip, hitting every bar heavily. Wetoasted our arrival in Vegas, where we felt at home immediately. We wereable to drink without being interrupted by irritable bartenders or peskybouncers. No one told us to keep our voices down or clean up our language.And when we broke the occasional glass, the waitress would apologize thatthe glasses weren't sturdier. Most importantly, no bastard ever tried totell us we'd had enough to drink. When you have a headful of Cylert, thereis no such thing as "too much to drink." These were precisely the reasonswe went there to celebrate Austin's 21st birthday.

But as loose as we were, we couldn't have prepared for the lunacy boost wegot from the Le Bistro Lounge at the Riviera Hotel. The story shifts intothird gear at this point, as we run headlong into The Classic(tm), Vegasstyle.

But we'll delve into that next time, folks.

to be continued...

Michael Atkinson, a senior majoring in Journalism, is a featured columnistfor the Oregon Commentator.