Leaving in our car, it took us 7 hours to arrive in Henderson which lies in a valley. Having not traveled extensively in the Southwest I was taken by the harsh yet menacingly beautiful scarps of land, the desolation, the mountainous maw of it all, quite breathtaking, quite severe in places. The flatness of the terrain combined with the mountains and the barrenness lend it an air of harshness and toughness, real pioneer country. For stretches we saw nothing except one or two homes or a small ranch and passed through a park of Joshua Trees which I am sure have a biblical backstory, for one could crucify a human being on its thorns. It was an apt tree for the clime and one could almost hear Jehovah telling Abraham to go out from here. In commentaries it is the first instance in which a god tells his people to leave from whence they lived. Translated, Hebrew means “dusty ones.” I stray.
The land has its beauty and I appreciated its flintiness and steeliness.
I will ramble with impressions and associations from here on in, for we spent a week closing on our house, which involves mind-numbing rules and regulations because of the new Patriot Act; the lending whores are now admittedly anally-oriented, for one must give evidence, regardless of one’s credit standing, of the legitimacy of monies in one’s accounts — decidedly McCarthyesque; playing at a local casino and joyously losing my money; eating at really superior local restaurants, to wit, Hank’s was a remarkable steakhouse restaurant within the Green Valley Ranch Resort that serves terrific steaks (would you like it medium plus?) and splendid salads; this particular casino has a wonderful breakfast place that served its own cured bacon in long strips and went so far as to have on its menu kosher salami and eggs, a specialized New York taste that is cholesterol ridden but must be sampled at least once in a person’s life. Las Vegas equals food. Imagine a cuisine and it is there to be had.
As I just said, food is paramount and of a high order. Vegas is a city geared to pleasure as well as sin. It promises satiety and it achieves that. As you drive the avenues and streets, one sees store after store in repetition of the same products, to wit, nail stores and ice cream stores and coffee bistros; it is almost like traveling with Anthony Bourdain through one of his hedonistic trips through Singapore or Hong Kong. It is overbuilt and they are adding to that. Sadly, there is a visual glut as signs bombard the senses. The Sunset Station casino/hotel takes up a city block (reminiscent of the hotel in The Shining ) and its interior is vast, although beginning to reveal a seediness to it. The food within its bowels is not good, alas, but what it gives is service compounded upon service; it is all a service economy in Vegas. If you want your sheets coated with aphrodisiac, just ask. At night, although we had no time to go to the Strip, this one casino’s neon sign, perhaps a 100 to 150 feet high, stood out like some Easter island monument. One can feel immobilized by its neon stare. I’ve been on the Strip and nightime is almost daytime. In New York City the streets hold the darkness and the neon flashes above; in Vegas the streets glow, at least in my imagination. Las Vegas is New York City in its appetites, its gluttony, its capacity to fulfill needs and arouse one’s senses, except the Southwest is much cleaner. One may argue that littering in Vegas may make you feel offended, deeply so.
Our middle class community is gated with no parking on the streets which are a pleasure to walk and ride through. It has a gated pool, small and intimate, just to our liking. What sold Jane on it, for she came out to look at the home without me, was what is called The District, an area within this amalgam of different priced planned communities. What I will describe now is hard to put in words but gave me a real sense of joy as I walked the shaded streets — pine, maple and the manicured lawns all paid for by HOA fees, a western phenomenon. The District is a block or two long capped on one end by the Green Valley Ranch Resort, a casino with premium restaurants and handsomely appointed within. The streets flowing from the casino in this Greenwich Village-like setting are cobbled and the street trees festively adorned with white bulbs, making night-time alive. Upscale stores are across the way from one another, and benches and trees are placed about to gather, for at night they run all kinds of events for young and old — it is a kind of daily Mardi Gras. Quite striking, quite delightful to my eyes, I felt I was mixing with sharp people who dressed sharply –flashily outlandish– but with flair and aplomb. The stores stay open very late to accommodate the strollers and Vegas is 24/7 in any case.
As you near the end of The District, it is capped with a carousel for young children and a park that shows films for kids of all ages under the stars and far out one can see the Strip all lit up and I saw a sign that announced that Hyatt will be putting up a new hotel nearby. I could live at my home, walk 3 miles or so and be in an adult fairy land. It is not a geriatric Disneyland; it has all types, all shapes, all kinds of wealth, but generally classy which I like. In short, I was quite taken with the concept, for it is a concept in terms of how people should conclave and gather in pleasurable ways. At first curious about the apartments (?) above the stores I soon realized they were lofts; one can only imagine the prices. So here you have a Southwest concept of what I experienced in New York. One leaves one’s apartment or loft and is pushed right into the merry delight and rush of what only an urban world can do for one’s psyche — in Nevada all this is sweetened by warming temperatures, alfresco dining and strolling. I am a pig in shit.
We found our way around Henderson with a GPS, a woman’s voice telling us to make a right or left, or ARRIVING AT YOUR DESTINATION. We called her Trixie and often overruled her “wisdom” when our eyeballs told us differently and when our human common sense said no, that is wrong, fuck you, Trixie. Yes, we could have done it with maps but the GPS is fun and helpful but like Windows not completely well thought out. Jane comes from a generation one or two decades after mine so she has a facility for some of this technology and I do not feel threatened as a man to have her navigate, a ridiculous position to take in any case. So we more than managed until we felt our way about the streets and imprinted this data into our noggins. How shall I say it? I can play stoopball, boxball, marbles, curveball, and “Chinese.” I am retro. And you? I played in the streets and you play within doors. I’ll live with what I know as long as I am not judged, he says defensively. I actually, for the first time, perhaps in a decade or two, saw two teenagers playing “catch.” How rare! All this in the District.
In the week we had, Jane and I closed on the house and I signed over 60 documents or so to finish that (Dickens would have had a field day skewering the system); got a painter for the house, a carpet salesman for all 1920 feet, a handyman who had a lumbering, obtuse way to him (he worries me), encountering all kinds of service people that were either recommended to us or we picked out of thin air which is not comforting. Given my darkened sense of humanity, I had to work on being more trustful which I was while holding my nose expecting mistreatment or blunders. People come from all over– Mark, the carpet man, came from Brooklyn and had recovered from a cancerous lymphoma, grateful to have survived and enjoying each day; he was very competent at what he did and we spoke the argot of “Brooklynese” and the thinking process that involves. Debbie, the blinds person, came from Virginia and took a while to take in my rapid pace, odd sense of humor; Mark enjoyed the joke about Helen Keller who fell into a terrifying hole in her backyard, and while so frightened beyond reason she screamed her hands off — this is the pitter patter I offer. Some Midwest folk are put off by my perverted Talmudic skill of asking questions at a rapid pace as if this was a sign of rudeness or indifference to their more casual ways of thinking, as if fast is bad, or quick is threatening. Fuck them, I tell myself. Questions good. Midwest not good, thump thump.
Doubtless I will generate more associations down the line, but Vegas looks like a reasonably good fit — a rich cosmopolitan variety here, ethnic variety as well, young and old, decrepit and vigorous, there is life on Mars unlike here in Green Valley where bed check is called every 4 hours. Las Vegas has a major university, art galleries, often in the hotels themselves (The Bellagio, for one), theater and cinema, bookstores and bagels and the Times as well as the tawdriness of having cocktail waitresses from ages 20 to 40 in the casinos, wearing the same black sheath dresses with cleavage to show their puppies, all demanded, of course, by their bosses, for this is a city to tease and cocktease — even the whores are tarted up so they appear attractive — for a moment, sleazy ten seconds later.
I will not touch upon the siren call of the different slot machines and how I succumbed. Unlike Odysseus, no one tied me to the mast. To be continued. We move in about 24 June. And that little horror will take about 6 months to adjust to.
Adieu!
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