Las Vegas

Las Vegas

I recently got back from 5 days in Las Vegas.

This time, like every other time, I went to Las Vegas alone. Like every other time, I never got laid and I never got rich, but I didn’t go broke either.

I went for the fights. As always, I went to the Pinball Hall of Fame, too. I sat in the sportsbook and drank Tecate tallboys and placed some bets on the horse races and lost.

I went to the dispensary on Cincinnati Avenue and bought some edibles and cannabis for smoking. I explained to the girl at the dispensary I haven’t done much with marijuana in a very long time. I said I wanted to try edibles but understood you could fuck yourself up real good/bad if you didn’t know what you were doing. She suggested some peanut butter cups of a fairly small dose.

On the walk back to the hotel, I ate some. When I got to my room, I pulled a chair up to my window overlooking north Las Vegas Boulevard. I sat and stared out the window at the North Strip in all its obnoxious, nighttime glory.

I sat at that window and got completely stoned, watching the flashing helicopters in their north to south pattern – one following another – circling the Las Vegas Strip. I sat at the window in utter silence for a few hours, wondering how much more of a dose to take. Concerned, a little, that I didn’t know what I was doing and, if I fucked up, I might be the one on the phone with the police, panicked that I was dying. They say too heavy a dose can cause the heart rate to raise uncontrollably. It can cause nausea. Hallucinations. Delusions. Anxiety. Maybe a mega-dose puts so much weight of an otherwise concealed – otherwise tethered and chained – existential dread on your chest that it metaphorically feels like you’re dying. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard stories. I knew that messing with the stuff wasn’t necessarily all fun and games.

I sat at the widow for a few hours, staring vacantly between the floating helicopters and Las Vegas Boulevard. I wondered if, in that altered state of mind, any revelations about life or the universe would present themselves.

Well, they didn’t. All I felt was a peace and tranquility that I hadn’t felt for a long time, maybe ever.

For once in many years, I felt peace of mind and was able to enjoy it in its full glory, without worry or concern about where I needed to be. Without concern about where someone else was and what they’d want to do or what they’d want me to do in a few hours or tomorrow. There was no worry or concern about their mood. There was no worry or concern about their judgement of me sitting silently at that window for hours, completely stoned and mesmerized by the lazy, flashing helicopters.

People ask about my trips to Las Vegas. One of the first things they usually want to know is who I went with. I admit to those people I go to Las Vegas alone. Because they ask, I tell the people I work with I go alone. I tell people at the bar. I tell family and friends. I told a guy at the gym. I sense most of them feel pity for me for going to Las Vegas alone. Some even say it’s weird and something they could never do themselves.

But, what they don’t understand, is that nobody I know would have wanted to sit at the window in silence watching the helicopters lazily circle the Las Vegas night sky. None of them would have let me enjoy it the way I allowed myself to.