I rolled over, groggily eyeing the table where the clock stood perched and rubbed my eyes - 9:45 am. In Vegas that was still an incredibly early hour, but my stomach was pleading for something solid to balance out the considerable amount of liquid it was, at that moment, housing.
I stumbled out of bed, only then realizing I had a pounding headache. I looked over to the bed next to mine where Dan was still passed out and to the mess of blankets and pillows on the floor in which I assumed Steve was currently engulfed.
"Dan, Steve. Do you guys want to go get some breakfast?" I asked them.
Dan shifted. He looked as though he was feeling a similar headache.
"I'm up," he managed to mutter.
"Steve, c'mon." I nudged the mass of blankets in the general vicinity that Steve's corporeal self should have been lying. It crumbled to the floor beneath my touch.
"Where is he?" I asked Dan.
"Bathroom?" he suggested.
We both began searching. Empty beer and rum bottles lined the walls, the victims of a night of general debauchery, but there was no sign of Steve. I try calling his phone, but it goes straight to voicemail.
Dan and I look at each other, concerned. Steve rarely wakes up before noon without significant coercion. We tried to think back to last night for clues, but that just added to our already significant headaches. We sat down, deciding it was best if we retraced our steps, starting at the beginning of Las Vegas.
I thought back to when we got to Las Vegas. Cue the wavy flashback signifying lines.
We arrived early on Sunday, and after dropping Alana off at the airport, we checked into the Circus Circus Hotel, taking three consecutive 20 minute showers, washing away a weeks worth of dirt, sweat and general grime.
At this point, the appeal of not moving was overwhelming, so we melted into the bed and watched football well into the evening. Dan's friend Mary paid us a visit around eight, coaxing us from bed with beer. We brought ourselves to put on pants (as any good host ought to do) and set out onto the Vegas Strip.
Beers in hand, we wandered in and out of several casinos - Treasure Island, Caesars, the Bellagio - before stopping to watch the fountain show outside the Bellagio. We stood amongst throngs of predominately Asian and elderly tourists watching as water was propelled into the air and lights flashed in sync with Luck Be a Lady Tonight . It was Old Faithful with a soundtrack, sans the acrid sulfuric stench, though to the best of my recollection Yellowstone didn't employ hundreds of hispanic men, women and teenagers to persistently pester you with cards advertising "hot, naked girls who want to meet you."
I shook my head, coming back to reality.
The remainder of the night is a blur of alcohol and casinos - New York New York, the Luxor, The Venetians. That's the thing about Vegas - it is the pinnacle of imitation, possibly surpassed only by Dubai. It's filled with enough replicas of famous things and places - the New York skyline, pyramids and Venetian canals - so as to appease the tiniest sliver of culture in visitors who in reality just want to get piss drunk and throw money at flashing lights and pretty girls.
I can only assume that on my moral high horse, I performed that rant to whomever would listen last night, but this is the point of the night when everything becomes a little bit hazy. A bit of detective work on the part of Dan found a receipt in his pocket from a CVS, where we presumably bought more of the booze (since you can get alcohol nearly anywhere in Vegas), apparently eager to continue enjoying the legality of drinking in the streets. We made our way back to the CVS, where a cashier luckily remembered us, saying we had a relatively incoherent conversation the night before, the gist of which being that we were going to go win big at Caesar's.
We thanked him and made our way over to Caesar's, knowing that if we were going to try and go big in Vegas it would be on the roulette table. We spoke to a few dealers before chancing upon the one who had the unfortunate duty of dealing with us the previous night. Apparently we raked in a solid $40 in winnings (now there's a tank of gas) but acted as if is were $40 thousand. He also remembered that there were two girls with us while we were playing who were, luckily enough, still passed out over by the poker tables.
We wandered over to the two sleeping girls and were immediately greeted with the trifecta of clues that prove a woman spent the night in Vegas - generously applied, now heavily smeared make-up and tussled hair, revealing shirts that proffered their breasts for all to see and dresses just short enough that they revealed the entirety of their backsides. It was a sad sight, not helped by the fact that these two were certainly not on the fast track to win any beauty pageants.
We stirred them from their drunken slumber - rousing the beast, as it were. We cautiously took a step back as they awoke, afraid they might bite. We asked them if they remembered anything from the previous night.
"Well, you two and your friend were over there gambling when we met you," said Snaggletooth.
"Yeah, yous two were rude and didn't pay any attention to us," began Bare Butt, "but your friend was a little nicer. After yous won some money, yous said you was going to get us some drinks and you never came back."
"But you did say you were going to go to Tacos El Gordo, some Mexican place. We were supposta go withchu."
Neither Snaggletooth or Bare Butt looked happy with us. We told them we would go get them some drinks to make it up to them, walked away and then left the casino, deciding to go to Tacos El Gordo to see if we could find anything out there.
We arrived and asked one of the workers if he remembered us or our friend, Steve. He looked up from churning out what seemed to be 400 tacos a minute, gave us a confused look and said, "No hablo ingles."
Alas, this man was speaking in tongues to us.
I used my limited grasp of the Spanish language to hold a mangled conversation with the man, the conclusion of which was either that he did not remember us or that I may have insulted his wife and children somehow.
We had hit a wall. We bought some tacos, momentarily forgetting our predicament in a wave of deliciousness, but once that final bite was bitten, it became all too clear that we had lost Steve.
As we walked back to our hotel room, we thought of the good times we had with Steve- the drinks in Seattle, the laughs in Vancouver, the sunshine in Cali and the beautiful vistas in all of the national parks. This was no way for it to end.
We got back to the room, went in and settled onto the beds dejectedly. Just then, I felt my pocket vibrate. I instinctively flipped open my phone, reading my new text message.
From: Steve McFadden
Hey guys, just landed safely. Thanks for waking up early to drive me to the airport. Enjoy the rest of your trip - see you in a few weeks.
Nov 15 2:03 pm.
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