The Other Las Vegas

Fort Union is about forty miles from the town center of Las Vegas, and I had a nice ride in, at one time playing car pong with another vehicle and a car-sized tumbleweed. I lost, by the rules of the game, but thankfully saved my car, and myself.

I arrived in Las Vegas as the locals were filling the Saloon attached to the historic Plaza Hotel. I settled myself into my fabulous room that allowed for some of the best sprawling of my things in recent days, set up the trusty laptop (I was in such a good mood, elevated too with my immediate comfort at the hotel with its friendly staff and Bed and Breakfast feel, that I was determined to write my massive entry recording the drive), then in a fit of spontaneity decided to meet the locals.

Enjoy the fruits of my eavesdropping labors!

I walked into the saloon and regretted the decision. My body and clothes absorbed the smoke within seconds and I thought, well, it's in me, might as well stick around. I sat at the first open stool, next to two cowboys. Yes, I'm serious, the whole get-up on one of them, the other I assumed was a cowboy by association. They were speaking in Spanglish, so I ordered a brewski and looked at my photos for the day. The cowboys started talking about me. I know this because of what little English I know, and the Spanish I just learned this fall, allowed me to eavesdrop. I'm very good at eavesdropping.

Perhaps related is my deficit at starting conversations with strangers. I'm ok with holding them, it's the initiating  that needs work.

Once I put away my camera the cowboys shut up, as though they suspected that I understood they were discussing me and my camera! I continued to gulp at my beer with great thirst, devising and rejecting possible intrusions to the cowboys' shared privacy. Leland saved me by asking where I'm from.

We discussed the town, and it's inhabitants and visitors. The cowboy remained silent, drinking me in, so to speak (because when given the opportunity to say that a real cowboy is silently drinking you in, you take it!), and offered a suggestion or two as Leland began to list all the celebrities who live nearby or come through. I could tell this was not a novel topic for him, but I preferred the conversation be one-sided anyway. He talked until I finished my beer and promptly excused myself to go to dinner. The saloon had an awful menu and I wanted a salad. I read my book and enjoyed my salad, thinking about how I should go talk to Leland more. I also made a few notes about the conversations around me.

One table was occupied by two men who seemed to be on a first date or an interview, I couldn't tell which one. Next to them were another two older men also seemingly on a first date. I scribbled that either I was getting valuable insight into what men talk about in between football and baseball seasons, or Las Vegas has an underground homosexual population. After the second table got their bread, the one guy who did all the talking started sharing his immediate family's history, and how when his brother met his wife, she had gone to college but was ready to give that all up, thank goodness. He then went on to discuss the ethical issues surrounding spanking, and how people just don't discipline their kids like they used to. Then, because he had run out of friendly banter, he started narrating interesting commercials he had watched and enjoyed recently. When I tired of listening, as I'm sure you just did, I retired to the saloon again.

I found Leland but no empty stools near him, so I sat farther down the bar, and chatted with his sister the bartender. A thirty-something beedy-eyed guy with neat blonde dreads drew my attention with his enthusiastic hand gestures, and I secretly occupied the nursing of my boring beer with his discussion on psychedelic experiences, what it's like to watch people tripping for the first time, and with a curious lack of volume moderation, the acid that he makes himself. This last bit was met with such mocking and pitying disbelief by his listeners that, like a rejected male in a courtship ritual, he began to squawk his techniques and reviews received from close buddies. Now that was a fun one to listen to.

After a few minutes Leland came over and we resumed where he left off.

Easy Rider and Red Dawn were filmed in Las Vegas, NM. Who knew? Leland did. And, he added after tapping my elbow for emphasis, Patrick Swayze liked the area so much he bought a house just up the road. So did John Travolta. "It's a good community" his sister offered. Val Kilmer, the cowboy had told me, with a grimace, also owns a house in town. "We don't like him" Leland had explained: "he called us drunkards." At that he looked at his beer, and his sister laughed behind the bar, and he retorted "well, that's true, but it wasn't very nice of him. He comes in here and we all just leave him alone, let him sit in the corner." His sister explained, obviously remembering hurt feelings, "he called us all hicks, we don't bother him though anymore."

Now this saloon has the capacity for maybe fifty fit people standing shoulder to shoulder if you remove the four tables and fifteen chairs of the place. And check out this list, colored with reviews from behind the bar: Tom Cruise (too loud about his scientology- there's a temple up the road though), Faye Dunaway ("total bitch"), Demi Moore ("very nice lady, but different when she got drunk. Like a different person. I feel sorry for that kid she's seeing"), Sam Elliott ("the nicest man! So down to earth! He would say 'may I have another one, please?' and I would say 'Anything, just keep talking'"), Julia Roberts, Prince Charles, and they kept going.

After they couldn't think of another celebrity, Leland was a bit more drunk and his sister had covered all the points of interest in the town. So naturally we started talking about religion, but he got confused asserting that the town was very political. First he shared the statistic that there are 29 liquor stores in town for x people, so that without any shipments, the whole town could stay drunk for six weeks. Then he started listing all the types of churches in the vicinity, and that topic died. Then we discussed the natural progression over distance and the unnatural patterns of Spanish and the dialects (I forget the actual term) that exist between there and Mexico. Leland said that if a tourist from Mexico walked in the bar they would not be able to understand each other. He was tapping my elbow for emphasis more often, and I was hoping he had some stories that this last beer would entice him to share, but instead he started talking about his kids and how awful all the other towns are around Las Vegas, and I knew it was time for me to get back to my room. I finished my beer, we said our goodbyes, he gave me his card, and that was that.

Instead of writing anything, I fell asleep, happy to have made a single serving friend. In the morning it was on to Santa Fe, where I write now from my room at the S.F. International Hostel.