death valley as a spectral exit ramp
Bavin picked us up. An older gentleman, but not yet “distinguished”. Forty or more. Balding on top. Tan skin, an accent when he spoke that was very soft and hard to place because he nailed some words like a redneck. “County” was one of them. Obviously a word he’d heard spoken in a cowboy bar by a ranch hand and enjoyed unfurling from his tongue every time now because it brought him back there. Turned out he was Indian. Hindu. Lapsed Hindu, or Hindon’t, according to some.
Bavin was classed as a big time gambler. Triple Diamond level in the Player’s Club at Harrah’s.
They gave him limo’s from the airport to the casino. They gave him suites with a butler on hand. He could order down for a tooth pick and some camel toe and they’d bring it right up sir.
“I didn’t look like this. I was always dressed immaculate. Sport coat, nice shoes. I had to give back my $40,000 Jeep. I didn’t drive this,” he said, waving at his little Toyota with a rattle under the speaker grill on the dash. Bavin had lost everything not too long ago. He needed our lucky fifty bucks. He told a long story about a rather quick fall.
“I didn’t change tables. That was what did it. You gotta set a time limit and keep changing tables.” It was dark and we drove on into the desert and I could see more stars in the sky than I’d counted in a long time. There was nothing out here but us. He put in a cd and sang along with “Hotel California”.
I want to hear more on this crash and burn! And who the hell gambles regularly at Harrah’s? That place sucks.
Comment by Lyle_s — September 3, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Man, you could write a novel about that shit. You already have the first page!
Comment by Mitch — September 5, 2008 @ 8:53 pm