DARK CLOUDS OVER NEVADA

October 15, 2006, 6:35pm: The Wolf Man and I were returning from Las Vegas.

We were on the I-15 South, wondering if we had missed the exchange to the 138 Hwy that would take us into Palmdale and Lancaster all the way to the 14 Freeway headed for Los Angeles. We were told before the trip that the remainder of the I-15 would be a morass of snarling traffic, and we would be stuck in it unless we took the alternate route.

Right at the moment when we saw the sign for the 138, traffic started to slow down. We imagined that we would only be stuck for a little bit, then we could resume our full-steam blast back home.

Just minutes before we reached that point, I noticed that there seemed to be smoke clouds in the distance. It looked beautiful against the high desert sky, still blue even though nightfall was arriving.

We were listening to Miles Davis' fusion-era soundtrack from a movie about the life of Jack Johnson, one of the first black heavyweight boxers in America. Wolf was driving, even though it was my name on the car rental agreement. I'd been up all night, partying with the band and rolling off of two pills of Ecstasy cut with heroin.

Suddenly, as we started to slow our pace, we both saw the smoke at a closer vantage. It seemed like a dark cloud descending upon Apple Valley. It was a sharp contrast to the perfect weather we encountered on the drive home. We rolled up our windows and made it into the far right lane, unsure of what was next.

"It's like a black hole," I remarked, as I packed a bowl in my pipe and passed it to Wolf.

"No thanks," Wolf said, refusing the bowl, trying to keep his clarity. He'd been high most of the weekend but he'd gotten four solid hours of sleep before we checked out of the hotel with the rest of our friends. That's why he was the one driving.

I lit the pipe and smoked. "This has been something of a cursed weekend, don't you think?"

I was going on about the superstitious earmarks of our two-day sojourn to Sin City. There was the fact that Friday the 13th had predicated the whole trip and also the fact that our hotel booked us rooms on the 14th floor (There are no 13th floor in American structures-- it's bad luck).

All the little controversies and incidents that accompanied not only us but all of our friends who were coming into Las Vegas to do one of two things: Attend a bachelor party for our friend Down Low, and watch a show that my band was playing at some remote strip-mall bar stop way way off the Vegas Strip.

As for me, I was going to do both, and then some.


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October 14th, 2006, 8:25am: KD Long (so named because rumor has it that he possesses an enormous schlong) showed up at my door and proceeded to pack his bag in the trunk of the 2002 Toyota Corolla I'd rented from a cheapie used car company.

What was so queer about the rental company was their insistence that I take the car for the rest of the month, at a discounted price. This was the kind of place where losers with no credit cards (like me) could put a $300 down payment on a rental and collect it upon return.

We got on the 134 Freeway to Pasadena, where Wolf was slumbering in his apartment, waiting for us to pick him up so he could sleep off the coke bender he'd been on the night before.

Halfway to Wolf's place, a cop car got onto the freeway and stayed behind us. It looked as if they were going to pull me over.

"I wasn't speeding or anything," I said. I do drive fast, but not at that particular moment. "What are they pulling me over for?"

"Are your tags expired?" KD asked me.

"Dude, it's a rental. It has to be. If not, it ain't my problem." I pulled out the rental agreement as the cops turned on their lights and siren.

The cop eventually approached me and informed me that my registration sticker was expired.

I laughed. "Me and my friend here were just talking about that, officer. This car is a rental." I handed him my license, the rental agreement, and my proof of insurance.

The cop ran the plate and info as KD nervously asked me what I had on me.

"Weed, some coke, a bottle of Sysco, and some Vicodins," I replied. "The bottle and the Vikes belong to Wolfie."

"Dude, we're soooo lucky we weren't blazing up any bowls when he pulled us over," KD replied. He was scared about the coke, even though the officer had no reason to think we were doing anything of a criminal sort.

"OK, the car checks out," the cop said as he gave me my papers back. "I won't give you a ticket-- even if I did it would go against the company, not you. Your rental agreement only covers violations caused by driver error."

"Sir, are we going to get pulled over all the way to Nevada?" I asked. "We're going to Las Vegas, and we're on a tight schedule. I'd hate to keep getting pulled over every 15 minutes."

"If you get pulled over, they'll let you go... so long as there's no other reason to pull you over." The cop's facial expression was immobile, robotic.

"Can't you give me, like, some sort of temporary tag so that I can avoid any future delays?"

"I'm sorry, sir, we don't have anything like that. Have a nice day."

As we drove off, my heart stopped racing. The cocaine blast I'd shot up my nose ten minutes prior caused my heart to beat recklessly, and the stress of getting pulled over compounded it to a speed-metal double-bass-drum tempo.

I was a bit perplexed: I'd had the rental for almost three weeks. I only needed it for a weekend, but the rental guys kept pushing me to drive it more. I had never checked the back plate, I just assumed it had tags. Why would a rental company give me a car with no visible tags? Did they know it was missing a registration sticker? If not, when did it fall off? Or did someone take it off when I had it parked somewhere?

"I guess we're going to have to drive carefully for the rest of the trip," KD said.

"I guess," I said, getting ready to exit the freeway and pick up Wolfie.


*/*


October 14th, 2006, 12:52pm: Upon arriving at the Palace Station in Las Vegas, the three of us went straight to the casino to meet Down Low and the rest of the bachelor party attendees.

It was a small group: Myself, Wolf, KD, Low, his brother A-Team and the one and only BJ Fornicati, so named because he was a shameless opportunist of the highest order: the kind of guy you shouldn't leave your girlfriend alone with for more than ten minutes; the kind of guy who never refused a hit of any drug, a swig of any drink, or the advances of any woman with any degree or lack of common mores.

The plan was to be improvised based upon a simple outline: We would gamble, get high in the hotel suite, drink like fish, dine on buffet food, cruise the Strip, watch my band play at the Cooler Lounge, and possibly either hire a stripper or hit up a strip club.

All of us convened to the room where Low, A-Team and BJ had stayed the night before. As I entered the elevator, I saw A-Team press button 14.

"14th floor? Uh oh," I said.

No one got the reference.

In the room, A-Team, Low and BJ regaled us with stories of inclement weather on the drive to Las Vegas; crazy blackjack dealers and even crazier craps table residents; bad buffet food and late-night shenanigans in the downstairs bar.

We smoked grass, sniffed some "gaggers" (drug slang for coke lines cut so fat that they make the user gag as the excess powder drips down their throat on the first snort), and laughed our asses off. Then, Low and Wolf entered the room (they were outside having a cigarette) and informed us that they had just been sweated by a security guard in the hallway outside the room.

"He said, 'I smell marijuana' and I said "Yeah, so do I' and he said 'I smell it on YOU' and told us that if they find out we are smoking weed in our room we'll be asked to leave," Low said.

This was enough to cause KD and BJ to sort-of freak out. Wolf was slightly unnerved by the ordeal, and A-Team was concerned mostly because the room was in his name and he was waiting to check into the additional suite he reserved at 3pm. Low seemed a bit unnerved as well, probably because KD and BJ's paranoia rubbed off on him.

I didn't give a shit. I barely give a shit about anything these days, but I certainly can't care about some 63 year-old rent-a-cop giving us flak about weed. It was stupid of us to not put a towel under the door at the beginning, yes, but I've been to Vegas many times and each time I visited I was threatened by a hotel person who wanted to have me and my friends kicked out for being too rowdy.

"We're not in any trouble. It's a way of life, OK? It comes with the territory. If you come to Vegas with illegal narcotics and act surprised when someone gives you grief, then you should just leave the toys at home... or better yet, stay home altogether..."

My reasuring words did nothing to calm them down. So as they started taking paraphernalia back down to the cars and trying to air out the room, I took the opportunity to duck out and travel to the South side of the Strip, where the guys in my band were staying at The Jockey Club near Caesar's Palace.

In a way, it was smart move to split my time between the two camps. If one group was doing something I wasn't cool with, I could leave and contact them later while I was with the other group.

After asking if anyone wanted to ride with me over to the Strip (no one did) I got in my car and sped over to the Strip as fast as I could, which wasn't very fast because of the normal Las vegas Strip traffic.