CHAPTER ONE: THE END

MITCHELL

April 14, 2010

“I wish I could fuck every girl in the world…” Natalie sings along to this song on the radio, filling in the censored swear words. She dances along to the music, her breasts bouncing around under her tiny tank top. I laugh and nod at her, “Me, too.”

She punches me in the arm. “Well, too bad, you can’t.” I turn the music down and pull in to the employee lot of Caesar’s. Natalie gives me a peck on the cheek and gets out of the car, her skimpy waitress uniform slung over her forearm.

I park in the corner spot in the back so that I can get high before my shift. The white powder takes on a certain glow in the tungsten lighting of the parking garage. With the speed and finesse I have acquired dealing cards and cutting decks, I quickly chop up a line of coke with my credit card and squeeze my rolled-up bill until the last of it has sparkled up into my brain. I hide the evidence in the glove compartment, get out of my ’65 Monte Carlo, and head to work.

I was promoted to Caesar’s Palace from Terrible’s, the off-Strip shithole, four years ago. Caesar’s is the best place to work in terms of pay and labor laws, and we get all kinds of crazy motherfuckers in this joint. Young film execs, frat boys, rich old fogeys and their bored, bedazzled twenty-something escorts, poker pros, soccer dads. I’ve seen them all. I run the craps table from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. With the exception of a brief cigarette break, it’s a grueling shift, but most nights I enjoy it.

I’m 28 and I have lived in Vegas for six years. I dropped out of community college and moved here with a girlfriend, who is probably passed out in her dealer’s bed somewhere in the desert, or maybe she moved back to the Valley to live with her parents. We dated for six years. We were supposed to be married by now.

I used to be a good kid. I got good grades in high school. That girl took me for a ride, and it wasn’t long after we moved here that things got ugly. It ended as quickly and furiously as it started. I’ve been accumulating bad habits ever since. First I started smoking, then drinking heavily. Then I got into pot, then acid, then uppers, then coke. I started stealing to pay for these things. I slept with lots of other women after Emma. Everything I quit somehow led to starting something worse. When I decided to stop smoking weed, I smoked cigarettes more heavily. My lungs are littered with holes, all filled in with ash.

I know that all this means I’m going to die soon. But we are all going to die soon. It’s been real good for business.

Some smart-ass in Washington teamed up with a bunch of NASA guys and came on the news to break it to us: the end is nigh. 2012 is real, and there is nothing we can do about it. The meteor is headed straight for us, real mean, like it’s God’s great vendetta against his hopeless, spoiled children, and it’s gonna wipe us out like we never even happened.

This caused mass hysteria a year ago when they announced it, but most people have stopped freaking out by now. We’ve got three years left before it hits, so until then, people have chosen to either continue life as usual, complete with grocery shopping and IKEA and Starbucks and 9 to 5. Or they did what I did before I knew about the end of the world: gave up all morality and moved to Vegas.

Like I said, business is booming. The hotels are filled to the brim nightly with guests ready to throw it all away on booze and girls. Caesar’s charges absurd amounts because the patrons will pay. The 401k is worthless now, might as well enjoy watching it burn.

Not only do I get great tips, but I reap the other benefits to working here that take place behind closed doors and underground. I’m talking about the cocktail waitresses, the strippers, the cheating wives. My charm could outlive me, or maybe my reputation in bed. It’s so easy to pick up girls in Vegas that I’ve given myself challenges: how far can I go? How degrading can my dialogues with these women be? The truth is I really don’t have to say anything, they are more likely to go for me if I don’t. I haven’t heard a man ask a woman if he can buy her a drink in this place in months. Its no longer necessary. There are no risks when there is nothing to lose.

Introduction

Hello. This is a blog for an assembly of short stories, essays, and selections from two novels I'm currently working on: The Vultures and The Dry Spell (synopses coming soon). I'm seeking feedback and thoughts from readers and friends. Also I'm allowing myself to believe that maybe if I release some of my writing to the public in a blog format before I manage to get it published, I will be encouraged to improve it and to write even more. I hope you enjoy what you read.