I spend my first night in Las Vegas worrying about the U-Haul truck where all my worldly possessions are safely secured by a cheap padlock I took off an old mailbox. I only get to sleep after taking a few sleeping pills. The next day starts off with waiting to hear from my sister about whether I’m unloading the truck. The wait is long enough that I need to call U-Haul, pay $40, and extend the truck rental by a day. Shortly after she texts to tell me I can unload.
I’ve never driven anything bigger than a minivan, so this U-Haul truck is a challenge. My Kuya M drove the day before from Los Angeles; I only drove it a few hundred feet after putting gas in it. I drove in circles a few times trying to avoid backing the truck up, and I ended up doing a rather poor job of parking it in a too small space in front of a convenience store. But my Kuya M didn’t stay, so I’m going to have to drive this beast a few blocks to the new house and then a mile or so to the drop off location.
I climb up into it and slowly pull away from the curb. I think I know where I’m going, but these Las Vegas housing developments aren't laid out in a proper grid. Streets don’t quite connect in a predictable way and any given street likely ends in a cul-de-sac. I eventually make it out of the section of the development where my cousin lives and out to a street that connects to the rest of the city. Three more turns and I’m in the part of this development where the new house is. It’s a stranded branch that ends in a cul-de-sac; it doesn’t connect with the rest of the development.
My sister and the realtor let me into the garage and leave me to unload alone. It’s made plain to me that I can only unload things into the garage. Why I cannot just unload and start unpacking is not explained. It’s just me doing this, but I have the whole day to do it. I just take my time and eventually everything’s in the garage. Now I need to gas the truck up and drop it off. That’ll be a load off my mind.
I drive out of this stranded branch of houses to the 7-11 around the corner. I drive carefully and cautiously. I don’t push it. At the pumps I notice a number of kids just hanging around. They’re not standing in front of the door; they’re literally hanging out in and around the gas pumps. I try not to imagine one of them randomly running in front of me as I’m driving this unwieldy beast out of the 7-11 while I’m putting gas in the truck. That done, I’m driving slowly around those random kids giving them as much space as I can. I still don’t know why they’re there. Las Vegas probably doesn’t give them convenient alternatives to just hanging out at the 7-11 gas pumps.
Now I’m driving the proper streets of the city. There’s not much to say about them. They’re just freeways pretending to be streets. The lights are timed to maximize the throughput of cars. The drivers take advantage of that by racing from light to light hoping not to hit the next red. Buses have to live with the sad fact that more likely than not they’ll end up stuck at the next red light. In the middle of all that there are the few pedestrians who risk their lives crossing the street hoping that the driver racing to the next light won’t turn, and if they are turning that they’ll deign to stop or at least turn wide enough to avoid killing them. Soon enough that will be me walking these streets.
But I’m driving this unwieldy beast now through these streets. It’s only about a mile, but it feels like a lot longer. I planned a route with only one left turn, but I’m still dreading that one left turn. Luckily this mad town has protected left turns at most major and some minor intersections. I make my dreaded left and drop the truck off. I leave it to you to imagine my long walk back to my cousin's house. It involves me getting high, going to Target, buying an oversized pillow, and walking said oversized pillow across the dangerous(to pedestrians)streets of Las Vegas.
My next day starts again with waiting for my sister to get in touch about whether or not we can move in. Eventually I get tired of waiting and decide to go to the nearest library. It’s a couple of miles away, the right distance to walk and take the bus back from, but a few blocks into my walk the bus arrives, so I try to hop on. I downloaded the RTC app the night before and loaded it up with money, but the RTC app needs a data connection to work. I find that out when I’m scrambling to get it to show the QR code. Then I try to hook up to the bus wifi, but when it comes up it won’t scan. Soon enough the driver waves me onboard. The bus starts moving and a voice announces that everyone has to pay a fare and there are no courtesy rides. I give it another go before I hop off the bus, but it fails to scan again. I never had these problems with my TAP card.
The library is fine. It’s bigger than the average LAPL branch, but there are far fewer Clark County Libraries. It looks to have a standard collection with nothing too surprising. I can place holds and pick them up here, but I’d have to get a library card first. The site says that you can apply online, so I do, but my rejection, for mere digital access, is heartbreaking. I guess I’ll have to apply in person once I get my driver’s license updated. The odd thing is they also require proof of residence. LAPL was satisfied with just a driver’s license, but Vegas libraries are stricter. I imagine they don’t want the poors or undocumented to get their dirty hands on their precious ones and zeroes, much less physical books. I hang out for a little while before I head back.
Still having heard nothing from my sister, I make a plan to check out a chess event at a different library. It's seven miles away and I’m definitely not walking, so this time I pay cash for a 24-hour pass because I may want to take a side trip. It’s supposed to be a forty minute trip, but we get stuck for forty minutes near the strip. It’s construction or it’s the upcoming F1 event, but it’s just poor planning. A mere warning about possible delays does nothing to make up for the collective loss of time and money to riders. To add to the insult, these fares are unconscionably high for the size and crawling speed of the system. Base fare is two bucks with no transfers. You can buy a base fare with a two hour transfer window, but I'm certain a healthy fraction of the time a rider will blow past that two hour window and end up needing to pay two more bucks to complete their trip. The day pass seems like a better value, but it might just be a necessary value for such a slow bus system. At least I didn't have anything planned, so I started the trip with half an hour to spare.
I arrive at the library just ten minutes or so after the start of the event. There's a little trouble finding the front gallery library, but I just systematically walk around until I find it on the other side of the building where the parking lot is. The sight that greets me is both familiar and comforting. I’m surprised by how much I appreciate seeing a bunch of dudes playing slow games of chess. They do have clocks, but no one’s playing blitz. Some dude invites me to play so I sit down. I destroy the guy after he blunders late in an opening I'm only halfway familiar with. We play again and a small tactic in the middle game is enough to force a concession. I take a smoke break and return to watch a couple of other players in the middle of three minute games. When one of them heads off, I want to play some three minute, but he begs off so we play a couple of slow games. I lose the first one in the opening and the second one is a long grind that I eventually win. All in all it was a fun way to waste the day waiting for my sister to text me about moving in and unpacking.
On the bus back to my cousins I finally get the text from my sister and I rush to the new house with the lockbox code. I spend the rest of the day and the next few days unpacking, setting up my room, waiting for deliveries, and lamenting the fact that my desktop PC did not survive the move from Los Angeles.
In between all that I'm looking up the local spots for drinks. There are several options and they’re all 24/7 joints. I do lunch and beers at the nearest one, Magoo’s. It’s like going back in time. There’s the smell of stale cigarettes and dried beer that I remember from twenty years ago when you used to be able to smoke in bars in Los Angeles. There are a couple of people inside when I sit down at a spot at the bar without a gambling machine. I order a beer and a breakfast burrito. Then I order a set of fried mushrooms when I see a handwritten sign saying they’ve got it available this week. Drinks are marginally cheaper here; I think it’s due to an unintended gambler’s subsidy. The food is remarkably better than my expectations for a random bar in Los Angeles. I imagine that’s also a local quirk. There’s a lot of money spent in Las Vegas for good ingredients and competent cooking; it’s not surprising that it trickles down. I settle up and head back to continue unpacking.
By the end of the week, I've got my things unpacked and I've earned a reward. At around five I head out to have a few rounds. I first stop at Rounders, a sports bar. It’s just down the street. They’ve got Guinness on tap; it’s not Boddingtons but it’ll do for me one of these mornings when I can't get back to sleep and feel the urge to drink a beer at 4am. Then I head back to Magoo’s. It’s about the same: a few more people at the bar and still not a soul in the non-smoking section. I might have to do a round there just to make the space make sense to me in my mind.
My last stop is Sean Patrick’s. It’s a pub, but it’s more of a sports bar much like Rounders. As I’m walking up I do notice a small patio set up. It reminds me of my trip to Vegas earlier this year. I wasted quite a lot of time walking the Strip looking for a spot where I could have a beer and smoke a cigarette alfresco like I would at any number of places in Los Angeles, but I eventually had to settle for a smoke and a beer indoors at Planet Hollywood. I was ready for disappointment when I asked the bartender if I might drink my Coors Light and smoke a cigarette on that small patio, but surprisingly what I could not find anywhere on the Vegas Strip I found right here blocks from my new home. He did give me a “look” like I’m some kind of weirdo who wants to smoke outside in the heat while everybody else smokes inside at the bar in the chill of air conditioning; I don't explain that this is just what I've grown accustomed to. It’s what I'm most comfortable doing; it avoids smoking around non-smokers and infringing on their enjoyment of a smoke-free environment.
Outside I settle in and finish writing this. The sun is setting on Flamingo Road and the heat of the day is just beginning to break. This feels like a perfect way to end my first week here in las vegas.
