It’s probably the gambling. That’s a meeting ground there. And the transience. “Where’re you from?” is always a good opening. People like to talk about their hometowns whether they’re tourists or new residents, and most of the Vegas population is one or the other (and if they’re natives, they’ll be sure to let you know about it). So it’s not the celebrated western hospitality–which is probably overrated anyway–that accounts for the obliging openness of most of the strangers you meet in Las Vegas. It’s the shared experience–the transience and the gambling.
She was a short, heavy woman, her white cutoffs and sleeveless blouse displaying her fat thighs and flabby upper arms. Her brown hair, streaked with gray, was pulled back into a stubby ponytail, held in place by a knot of rubber bands, and she wore thick rimless glasses. Although she spoke with a midwestern twang, she reminded me of women I had known from Uptown, tough women raised in the coal-mining regions of the southern Appalachians.
I mentioned that it might be risky for someone with a compulsive personality to be living in Vegas.
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We had finally reached the grill. We had been near the end of the line, and because we had waited so long, or perhaps because they had, run out of hamburgers, they gave us our hot dogs for free. “Now isn’t that nice,” said Alice. “I should’ve asked for two.”
“No, Jesse’s old enough for school now, and besides, Paul’ll have nothing to do with him. He’s a little biracial boy, you see, and when Harmon goes, it’ll just be Jesse and me. There won’t be any other husbands after Paul.”
As we drove down Sahara I made a few unsuccessful attempts at conversation, learning only that he was from Cicero. My suspicions confirmed, I opened the Gray Line brochure to plan my day in Laughlin, while he drifted off into a light sleep, interrupting my study with an occasional snort.
“Almost every year for the last 35. I’ve seen the Strip built up from almost nothing, and stayed at practically every hotel along the way. The Flamingo, El Rancho Vega, Riviera, the Thunderbird. Usually for nothing.”
