Reinventing Mike Lake

by R. W. Jones

  I tried to write, but wrote just a few sentences. I was stuck in some universe I could never hope to comprehend. When it was finally time for me to go, I was both in a full sweat, but thankful it was at least time to move. I left early, a specialty of mine, to guarantee I would get there in time. After leaving the car with the valet I still had 45 minutes before I had to meet Jen.

  That was great. That left me plenty of time to go to the bathroom four more times, and wipe my hands on my pants thirty times to ensure that my handshake didn’t bathe hers. With about 15 minutes to go I found Burger Bar, as if I had forgotten to get there. Not wanting to seem over anxious, I walked around the shops and timed my entrance to be right at the front door of the Burger Bar at exactly 11, casually as I possibly could.

  I didn’t see her right away, and my mind went right to thinking she probably stood me up. I envisioned her hot friends calling her up and telling her they were going to do something better than have her hang out with some loser she had met at her bar. Near the end of that ridiculous idea, she walked out.

  In all my thoughts leading up to that minute, I had envisioned her going on our date with her tight pants and corset. Instead she had on a pair of jeans and a blue sleeveless shirt, cut low.

  “Hi there,” she said, and came in for a hug. I was only previously worried about my hand sweating during a handshake. Now I had to hope my 14 layers of deodorant did their job, as I was unprepared for such a physical gesture this early in our date.

  “Hey, what do you have in store for me tonight?” I hoped this sounded platonic, but if you think about it you can make a sexual innuendo about just about anything.

  “If you like rides, I thought maybe we could go to the Stratosphere and try out some of their rides. I have been here eight months and I have never done them yet,” she said with the smile I had thought about many times over the last few days.

  I gulped once, stronger than I anticipated, and said, “Yeah, that sounds fun.”

  I hadn’t been to the Stratosphere yet, but any tourist can see from looking up at the needle shaped structure that the rides hang precariously off the side of the building. From the ground the rides look like they are 10,000 miles in the air. That’s just another desert mirage, it’s really only closer to 1,000 feet. Hearing that information from Jen didn’t do much to calm my stomach. Yet another reason I was glad I hadn’t eaten much today.

  We decided to take a cab over to the Stratosphere. I had hoped to use this time for getting to know her better, but unfortunately we had a very talkative cab driver. I think Sal thought we were longtime girlfriend and boyfriend because he kept bringing up all the chapels around town where we could get married.

  “Hell, we could do a drive-thru and you won’t have to get out of the car,” he added with a New York accent. He’d be our witness. How nice of him. I had heard taxi drivers try to get you to strip clubs because they get paid by these establishments by bringing in customers. I had never heard of one getting paid for getting people to get married. The economy had been down, so who knows?

  The Stratosphere wasn’t as sparkly as some of the other casinos, but it had plenty of customers that night. Jen told me that they have a loyal customer base because it’s the closest casino to a lot of the surrounding neighborhoods. Also, many tourists like it for the reason we were there: the views of the Strip and the rides on the top of the needle.

  I was nervous to be going on these rides, but I was also nervous because I was about to go on these rides with someone I had just met. Should I scream? Should I wear a poker face? What will she do? Will she grab onto me if she gets scared?

  We walked through the casino and stopped at the ticket booth. I paid 50 bucks for the two of us for a ride up the elevator to the top and unlimited access to the rides.

  We entered the elevator with about 15 other folks. One of them asked the elevator operator “how’s it going?” He replied, “up and down.” Ah, elevator humor.

  When we reached the top I was awestruck by the view. The huge circular windows showed the best view in the city of the entire Las Vegas Strip

  “What brought you out to Vegas? Are you from here?” was all I could come up with for my opening line. Smooth.

  “I don’t know what exactly brought me out here,” she said. I can relate, I thought.

  “What do you mean? Just traveling?”

  “It’s complicated, but at the same time it’s not. Three years ago I had a pretty tough break-up that got kind of nasty when we finally broke up for good. At the time I felt like my life was shattered – he was my high school sweetheart – but after thinking long and hard about what he put me through I realized it was for the better,” she added a nervous laughter at the end.

  “I’m traveling too; I just came from Florida,” forgetting I had told her that a few nights ago. Again, smooth.

  “Oh yeah, you started telling me about that at the bar. The Keys, right?”

  “Yup, that’s right, sorry I forgot I told you this. I was in Key West.”

  “Lucky dog! I’ve always wanted to go there.”

  With that, we had walked outside and found ourselves standing in front of our first ride of the night, X-Scream. X-Scream didn’t look all that intimidating. That is, if it had been on the ground. At 900 feet in the air and the fact it thrust you 50 feet away from the building into the open air changed my feelings. I made a joke about the “X” in X-Scream being reserved for the cuss word you yell before screaming on the ride. Not my best work, but it received a polite chuckle in response.

  The ride was a half teeter-totter, half roller coaster contraption. Jen and I, and about 15 other passengers, hopped on. Luckily we were sitting in the back so I wouldn’t get a direct look at the ground. This also improved my chances of not crying like a baby in front of my date.

  We got in and the ride operator made sure we were secure. I checked three more times just to confirm. The actual ride doesn’t move much. You are on a short track, but your cart shoots over the edge, then straight down. It was certainly the most my heart rate had raised in a few months, which probably wasn’t a bad thing. The ride was great, but what I was left pondering was if Jen’s hand and sizable nails digging into my thigh were a result of her trying to make contact with me, or just holding on for dear life.

  Without having a chance to catch our breath we walked over to the other side of the Stratosphere observation deck and jumped on Insanity. While I hadn’t seen it in action, it was pretty clear what it was going to do. When the ride started a mechanical arm reached farther and farther out until there was only air between our shoes and the Las Vegas land. Then, we spun. Once again I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything, though on this ride I briefly considered I could faint from fear. Luckily each rider was in their own separate compartment on this ride so I was free to close my eyes and imagine myself in a fetal position until we were back on solid ground. The first few steps off the ride were shaky, at best, but it was a much shorter fall if I tripped here than if I would have fallen off Insanity.

  I already knew we were heading for another ride, Big Shot. Big Shot operated on the needle of the Stratosphere. Of all the rides I thought this one seemed the sanest. You sit in a circle with the other passengers, facing the open air.

  I was wrong. I was in mid-sentence when the Big Shot took off for the top of the needle. I spent most of the remaining part of the night trying to get my breath and hoping my stomach would remove itself from my throat. After shooting up a couple of hundred feet at a couple of hundred miles an hour we stopped. I didn’t remember much from high school anymore, but I remembered what Newton taught me. What goes up must come down. My brief hope that we would be allowed off the ride at the top lasted just that long – briefly. We shot back down at another couple hundred miles of hour. Again, I was thankful that nobody could see you on this ride, so you were left with your own fears, and tears, should they come.

  When we returned safely to the ground I suggested to Jen maybe we can get a drink before
she suggested seconds on any of the previous rides.

  “Yeah, we can get hammered and then go do the rides all over again!” she said, striking fear in me.

  “Um…yeah…we…”

  “I’m just kidding!” she said, adding a punch to my arm for emphasis.

  “Whew.”

  27

  We considered getting drinks at the Top of the World bar, but the music was so loud we changed our minds. I thought of this as a good thing – that she wanted to move locations – because we had hardly had a chance to talk yet. We went back downstairs, and after making a round and seeing the other three or four bars were just as loud and busy, we decided on a quieter looking restaurant. It wasn’t exactly the hippest place in Vegas, but at least we wouldn’t have to scream at each other.

  When we sat down in our booth there was a moment of quiet that I was afraid would remain. Maybe I had been lucky we hadn’t had a chance to talk because maybe we would have just sat there and stared at each other until we found our chance to retreat. I spoke first.

  “How’d you like those rides? You said it was the first time you’d been on those?”

  “Yup, first time. I loved it. I hadn’t been on a roller coaster since I was a little girl.”

  “Me too, well, since I was a little boy, not a little girl.”, I had been on a few roller coasters as an adult, but that was more to make a joke then purposely lying about something so trivial. Leaving me no chance to continue my odd approach at conversation, she took over.

  “So, you mentioned last night you aren’t married? Have you ever been?”

  The question was innocent and to be expected, but caught me off guard. Perhaps if I hadn’t been caught off guard I would have continued with my lying, but instead I answered honestly, in full detail.

  “I was married for just over nine years, but my wife died about a year and a half ago from cancer.” I wanted to look deep into my bottle of beer, but looked up.

  “Awww, I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine,” she said. It was the first time I had seen Jen have anything other than a smile, or hint of a smile, on her face.

  “Thank you.” Before she could say anything else, I asked her if she had been married before.

  “No, I was in a serious relationship, but it turned bad really quickly,” she said, adding that nervous laughter again. “I had lived in Kansas City my entire life, and for many years was perfectly content with the idea of growing old there with Sam, my ex. After we broke up, I got in the car and just started driving.”

  “That sounds familiar,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No, please, I’m sorry for interrupting.”

  She spent a few months in and around San Diego driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping for a week or two at a time at many of the different beach towns. When she was ready to move on from there she headed north, all the way to Seattle. In Seattle she got an apartment and enjoyed walking around downtown, ducking in and out of bars and restaurants whenever it began to rain. She liked Seattle, so she decided to stay almost half a year. She laughed when she told me how clichéd her job was while she was there. She worked at a coffee shop. I laughed and said, “When in Rome.”

  She eventually tired of the rain, and the winter had been colder than she had expected, so she traveled to a place where rain and cold weather are rarely an issue – Las Vegas. She told me that despite being a homebody for most of her life she had always enjoyed meeting people and she knew she would get a chance to do that in Vegas. She hadn’t expected on getting the job as a bartender at Burger Bar, as her only experience with making drinks came at the café in Seattle. I bit my tongue, as I could think of two very good reasons she got the job – her personality and her looks were both worthy of a job in Las Vegas. For some reason I didn’t think her background making lattes in Seattle had factored too much in the hiring process. She’d been working there eight months now, the transition from coffee to alcohol being easier than she anticipated.

  I asked her if she had always worked in the service industry, but she said no. In Kansas City, she had been of all things, an accountant. I had to bite my tongue yet again to not tell her she had to be far and away the hottest accountant in history. She told me as a child she grew up with a love of numbers and enjoyed math so much she asked her teachers for extra work. She didn’t want to seem like a teacher’s pet to her friends, so she would sneak back in after they had been dismissed for the day. She began doing her parents’ bills when she was just 12 years old, finding ways to save her family – parents and a younger brother – a lot of money. She went to school in Manhattan, Kansas, about four hours from her home, the farthest away she had ever been from home.

  “I’m so sorry, I’ve talked so much! You must think I’m a blabber mouth,” she said. I hadn’t thought that at all.

  “That’s perfectly fine,” I said.

  “Listen, I hope you don’t think that I don’t want to hear about you, but I am exhausted from being on my feet all day. I won’t keep you in suspense and make you wonder if I want to go out with you again. I want to do this again. Soon.”

  I was sad the night was ending, but it was already very late, or very early, depending on how you look at it. Also, I wasn’t sure I was ready to divulge as much information as she had to me. I was going to need some time to digest the last few hours. I was already looking forward to our next date and opening up to her like she had done for me.

  Jen took a taxi from the Stratosphere, telling me her place was actually closer there than if we went back and got my car. Just as our date ended and before hopping in the cab, she came in for the hug. This time I was ready for it.

  I offered to pay her taxi, but she said, "You don’t have to do that, but with the tip you gave me the other night you sort of are.” I watched her get in the taxi and flash that smile I was beginning to like so much, one last time before she faded away into the Vegas night.

  28

  I spent the next couple of days writing in the room, reinvigorated, and hanging out with Bahama. Bahama hadn’t been on a ride for a while, so I decided to drive her around town. For the first time in my life, and hers too, we went into a dog bakery. If you were blindfolded and placed into the middle of this dog bakery you wouldn’t have thought twice before eating a piece of dessert if offered to you. The Canine Cannoli, Boxer Biscotti, and Beagle Beignets all looked like their human edible counterparts.

  While I was told they looked like the real thing, I was also told they didn’t taste like the real thing. Good to know. Though there was nothing in there that would be considered unsafe for a human to consume. Bahama didn’t care who or what it was intended for, as she scarfed down one of almost everything. After taking a couple more for the road, we headed to a nearby dog park one of the cashiers at the dog bakery had recommended.

  When we got to the park, there were a handful of other dogs. I was slightly hesitant, because most of them were bigger than Bahama, but at the end I figured she’d be fine. When we first got there she stayed mostly by my side, occasionally going off to meet another dog or two, only to come back.

  The owner of one of the bigger dogs, a man in his 50’s, brought out a brightly colored Frisbee that caught the attention of Bahama. Almost seeking approval from me, Bahama looked up at me as to ask, “Can I play?” I nodded, and she was off.

  There were a few benches off to the side of the gated dog park, and I parked myself on one. After sitting for a few minutes, occasionally petting a wandering dog, my phone rang. It was Jen. I answered.

  “Hey Mike, how are you?” she asked, her smile radiating through the phone.

  “I’m good, and you?”

  “I’m good, listen, it turns out that I have a couple of days off unexpectedly because they are training a new girl and I haven’t been there long enough to do that. I was hoping we can hang out tonight if you aren’t busy? I won’t bail on you like I did a few nights ago.”

  “Oh, no worries about that at all. That
sounds great. Where should I pick you up?”

  “I can come to you. I want to meet Bahama, too!”

  I gave her the address to my apartment, the same address I had forgotten a few nights ago when considering a cab when leaving Burger Bar, with the plan of meeting her in a couple of hours. Just as I was pondering the thought of having a girl in my apartment for the first time in what seemed like forever, I heard a loud cry. When I looked up, Bahama was in the middle of a tumble that lasted about ten yards. When she came to a stop she was holding her right front paw off the ground.

  “What happened?!” I asked the man who was throwing the Frisbee without trying to sound too panicked.

  “My dog Bruce there somehow got under your dog and when he jumped up for the Frisbee he lifted yours into the air! I’m so sorry; Bruce would never do anything to intentionally hurt anything.”

  I looked at Bruce, a big burly looking retriever. He had obvious concern for his new friend Bahama, as he was looking between her and his master.

  “It’s okay, these things happen. You know a good vet around here?”

  “Yes, Bruce’s vet is up on Sahara, not far from here, I could go with you and make sure you get in right away to see the doc.”

  “No that’s all right…well, could you call and tell them we’re on our way?”

  “Sure thing; I’m so sorry, if you need my information let me know. Here’s my number.”

  I scooped up Bahama, who hadn’t moved much, other than a few steps only to end up with her right paw off the ground.

  She didn’t seem in pain as I sat her in the back of our car, though I tried to get her to lie down, pressing her backside down lightly to keep pressure off her paw. She wanted nothing to do with that, instead taking her position between the two front seats, only this time holding one leg off the console.

  The veterinarian was only a mile away, and was easy enough to find. When we walked in, a 20-something year old nurse acted like she was expecting us, and brought us straight into an examination room. “Awww, Mr. Tubbs said you’d be coming. Let’s take a look at the paw.”