Build God, and Then We'll Talk.

It's these substandard motels on the corner of 4th and Fremont Street that I hate staying at the most. Appealing only because they are just that un-appealing any practiced catholic would cross themselves upon entering. The rooms have a hint of asbestos and maybe just a dash of formaldehyde, and the habit of decomposing right before your very eyes, along with the people inside. So why am I lying here, on this hard, lumpy mattress whilst they pump oxygen in my room to keep me awake? Oh these Las Vegas cheats, forcing me to give in to the endless casinos and hookers looking for business.

I drag myself out of my bed and decide to go on a walk. I look at the time, seeing it’s only 10pm. Pulling on my shoes, I leave the cheap motel and step out into the city built on a desert. As I’m walking down The Strip I glance up at the many casinos and strip clubs, betting rooms and a few sun-bedding parlours so the visitors and get that oh-so-orange tan that supposedly looks remotely real.

After about 20 minutes of walking, I look across the street. Oh look, the Little White Chapel. What a wonderful caricature of intimacy. I don’t see why people would want a wedding at a place where there are drunk couples waiting to tie the knot, only to wake up forgetting they even got married the night before and file a divorce the next day. A place where the person performing the cheap ceremonies marries a new couple every ten minutes. Can you feel the love radiating off this chapel? Because I sure can’t.

A cool breeze blows all around me, surrounding me in the fresh cold air of the desert night. I cross the street and head into the chapel seeking warmth. Oh look, another couple getting joined in holy matrimony. Tonight tenants range from: a lawyer and a virgin, rising with a rosary tucked inside her lingerie. She's getting a job at the firm come Monday. The ‘virgin’ doesn’t see the other ring fall out of his pocket; he’s already married. The lawyer’s Mrs. will stay with the cheating attorney and, moonlighting aside, she really needs his money. I suppose the lawyer only saw her day job, and never saw her working the corner or being taken to motels. He knows all about the new wife, having met her doing her rounds at the hotel. A quick fuck. That’s all she expected. But she’s too drugged up to know what’s going on right now. She won’t remember this in the morning. What a wonderful caricature of intimacy.

And not to mention the constable, and his proposition for that "virgin". Yes, the one the lawyer met with on "strictly business", as he said to the Mrs. I actually feel for the woman the lawyer’s cheating on, although I know all about her life by night. Yes, I’ve paid her the money. She’s done the deed. She probably has no idea that her husband’s starting up a second marriage as she prowls the streets for clientele. Only hours before, after he had left, she was fixing her face in a compact ready for her rounds. She’s just as bad as that scummy lawyer. A while later, I saw her again, down the hall from my room in the motel. She spilled her purse as she left a room. She stuffed everything apart from her small black book. Holding her ‘purse’ of a different kind, she flicks to a page nearing the back, filling it in with the pay and client.

I walk back onto the street, disgusted with the lawyer for taking advantage of the drugged up hooker. Virgin my ass. I came to Vegas thinking it would be a good trip. But now I see the truth. There are no raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses. It's sleeping with the roaches and taking best guesses at the shade of the sheets and before all the stains, and a few more of your least favourite things.