August 2009 - Las Vegas, Nevada
According to Hollywood, Las Vegas is a passageway into manhood for the young American male. It’s a key component to college films, roadtrip films, “exiting adolescence” films or some combination of the three. So after watching too many movies, my fellow males and I assembled our most destructive party roster to make the pilgrimage to the sunset strip of swindling, sex, and shame.
Our crew is as follows:
Gerome Peterson: prankster, law student, wise ass
Derrick Yogurt: Undisputed class clown, huggable, hyper caffeinated, no filter
The Gremlin Twins: Short, loud, Napoleon complex(s), Can’t decipher the two
Tommy Clownboy: Red afro, valedictorian, Norm MacDonald attributes, smug bastard
Myself: Tall, gangly, overly-cautious, mediocre beer drinker
The trip had been going pretty standard; killing time at pools by day, killing white Russians by night as the slots gobbled down our nickels. It felt as if the slot machines were laughing in our face. Their hokey flashing lights and disco sounds blurred together in a circus of robot noise. We’d get toasty at the bar, lose $20-100 at the roulette table, and go to Denny’s for grand slams in the foggy a.m. The first three days went this way, replicating each other down to the last PBR tallboy. We were content, but unsatisfied. Nick Papageorgio won four cars in Vegas, why couldn’t we?
The last day came and one thing became clear; it was time to break the lackluster cycle of no hookers and no blow with hookers and blow, or at least something untamed. This is what happens in Vegas movies, and by God one of us would be fear and loathing by the end of the night. Suggestions came in from the crew. Peterson was voting for a strip club. The Gremlin Twins were backing this idea as well. Yogurt is always down for whatever, and Clownboy and I had never been to a strip club, so we were game.
We finish our final white Russian at “Wild Bill’s Casino”, making our way to the strip to be hassled by promoters of various entities involving bare breasts and cover charges. Peterson bargains with a few. The group is apprehensive of getting scammed, and we waste nearly two hours bargaining with the strip club promoters. Before we know it, it’s already 2 a.m., and we must choose the least seedy driver fast.
Peterson makes the call to ride with boob-promoter Jimmy Bone, a 5’3’’ stocky man dressed in sunglasses and a spotless black suit with Bruce Wayne shoulder pads. He looks like a blend between P. Diddy and Muggsy Bogues. Bone has a wide, strong body with a tiny head. Aviators cover 1/3 of his face while two giant cold sores protrude from his upper lip. He has a Kanye West swagger, but as we would soon find out, lacked the walk to back up the talk.
“Ya’ll muthaf***ers ready to party!? This gonna be the sh**,” yells Jimmy Bone. A snot ball dripped from his nose as he exhaled. He didn’t notice.
“You kidding me? You went with this crackhead?”, Clownboy questioning Peterson’s decision. “Dude, he said he’d give us a free ride and give us cash toward the cover charge,” replies Peterson.
Peterson was the craftiest man on our team. He once manipulated two of our friends into smoking each other’s pubes, spiking their hand-rolled cigarette on April Fools Day of 09’. The victims still don’t know he was the mastermind, allowing Peterson to escape revenge-free. He was smart and shameless and had gotten us out of jams before. Peterson would catch Bone before he put anything up his sleeve. Putting our trust in Peterson would prove to be the best (or worst) decision of the trip, depending on how you looked at it.
It was all part of a night’s work for Jimmy Bone, skeezing the Vegas strip for drunk twenty something’s looking to take their night to the next level. He has succeeded, for now.
Bone thought of himself as a hustler, and he was indeed a lousy one. He was sketchy, but exciting. He rambled his pimp stories at loud volumes with little disregard for eavesdropping patrons in the Vegas strip.
“Man. Ya’ll don’t even want to know how many chicks I been with. You rollin’ with the right dude.”
His stories were entertaining but exaggerated. At the time I believed they were at least partially true, as he had the cold sores to prove it. Bone was a guy good in small doses. He was stoked at the commission he’d receive from the strip club by bringing in six dudes. We were piled in a black SUV, barely fitting inside. Bone piled in after us, landing on my right leg and cracking open a pocket-sized whiskey bottle in celebratory fashion.
“Pay day today! I’m making bank”, boasted Bone. “For every one a ya’ll muthaf***ers I get in that door, the club gives me $25. I be killing this. Ladies be wantin’ my sh** tonight!”
Bone is drunk on the job and out of his element, leaking all the details of his operation. He explains his career hustling the streets for strip clubs who pay him on each person he gets through the door. Spit fires off his lips as he rants a bunch of slurred syllables. All I could make out was “know what I’m saying?”
The SUV’s driver, referred to simply as “Menard”, was an older, pudgy man who had been driving in silence until confidential info started spewing from Jimmy Bone’s mouth.
“Man, shut the fu** up!”, says Menard, trying to protect the formula of their operation as if they were unveiling the Da Vinca code.
We finally arrive at the club two miles off the Vegas strip in the red light district. Bone unfolds a handful of money, putting $180 cash into our grubby little mits. This would cover the $30 cover charge Bone had been talking about. “Get some!”, yells Bone as he watches the six of us enter the club. Stoked on the thought of commission, he takes another pull of whiskey as the doors close behind us.
Peterson hangs onto our $180 in cash as we wait in a long line just inside the doors of the club. An oversized bouncer, roughly resembling ex-NBA center Alonzo Mourning, takes cash at the entrance. Rainbow strobe lights stroke the dark ceilings. Old school Chili Peppers bump from the surround sound. The place is classy, but doesn’t make the clientele look any less creepy. We probably look creepy too.
It’s now after 4 a.m. The line is not budging due to a capacity club. The club closes at 5 a.m. Our group has grown tired, no longer enthralled by the thoughts of G-strings and sticky chairs. The buzz is wearing off, and going home to pass out begins to sound more appealing to Peterson, Clownboy, Yogurt, the twins and myself. Suddenly, Clownboy says smugly, “why don’t we just take this money and go home?” It’s hard to tell when Clownboy is kidding. But this time his tone is obvious, as if we should have done this all along. “That’s brilliant. There’s better things to spend this money on,” adds Yogurt. “What about Bone and Menard?” I caution.
I peek outside the front door of the club, Jimmy Bone and Menard are gone. They are figuring we are safe inside the club, face deep in boobage. Clownboy’s plan starts to come together. The club would be closed within an hour regardless. It didn’t make sense to stay.
“The coast is clear. Let’s get the hell out of here.” We scurry out of the club off the radar of the bouncers. The lethargic attitude of our crew was no more, high on the thrill that we were about to hustle a hustler.
It’s 4:30 a.m. We walk down the barren Vegas street among the creatures of the night. A she-male hooker waves from across the street, blowing me a kiss. A Jeff Bridges-looking dude sits propped up against a convenience store, passed out in his own puke. More shady characters approach us, attempting to lure us into their clubs of sin. Our group of six tall white boys stands out like a smelly thumb. “Guys, we need to get off this street. Bone is going to come looking for us,” I say.
The Gremlin twins propose we duck into a 24-hour adult bookstore. Killing time, we browse the shelves of the skunky shop. “Santa’s Ho Ho Ho’s” and “Good Assternoon” top the best sellers shelf. Hiding inside the dildo-coated walls for about 20 minutes, our team proceeds its journey home. Hiking a Vegas side-street at 5 a.m., I begin to feel uneasy. We are being followed.
“Dat’s dem!” We hear a shrilling scream from across the street. Jimmy Bone’s SUV comes to a screeching halt from the other side of the road. Bone jumps out of the SUV pointing and running at us, nearly being smashed by an oncoming car. The strip club had called Bone and informed him that we never entered.
“Ya’ll muthafuckas best gimme my money,” screams Bone. “That’s hundred eighty muhf***in’ dollars”. Bone is off his hinges, shrieking in fits of rage. “Gimme da money!”.
“No,” says Clownboy sternly. Fearing a stabbing, a few of us urge Peterson to hand over the cash. Peterson and Clownboy stand firm, convinced that Bone had ripped us off by charging us for a cab ride only to drop us at a strip-club 30 minutes before closing time. The Gremlin Twins walk off in apprehension, leaving Peterson, Clownboy, Yogurt and myself to tend to the situation.
“This is bullshit! Ya’ll can’t play me like dis.”
Bone is screaming at the top of his lungs, causing a huge scene. A crowd begins to take notice. The minutes pass like hours as the four of us watch the circus unfolding before our eyes.
“Ya’ll stop actin’ a fool and hand it over.” Bone is nearly in tears. Driver Menard says nothing, clearly embarrassed. The standoff continues.
“I’m gonna call the Police!”, Bone says as whips out his cell phone.
“Go ahead, call the Police,” dares Clownboy. “Who are the cops going to side with? A cracked out pimp hustler…or us?” The apprehension is killing me. Every threat proposed by Bone is shot down by Clownboy’s shear strength of will. I’m shaking in my shoes, while Clownboy emits a shit-eating grin right in Bone’s sweaty face.
Bone knows he’s been had. His side of the story would look like a scam to the cops, and Peterson would make sure of it. Still, Bone continues the threats with cell phone in hand, but fails to call the Police. We get the feeling he had been down to the station before. And then the most astonishing thing happened.
“Ahhhhhhh!” shrieks Jimmy Bone as he smashes his cell phone onto the sidewalk with kryptonite force. The phone shatters in three pieces. The battery flies out to the middle of the road. Menard urges Bone to “calm the fu** down.” Now feeling physically threatened, Yogurt and I are demanding Peterson hands over the cash. Clownboy and Peterson look at each other. They nod. It’s time to fold our hand.
Peterson hands over the money. Bone grabs the cash in desperation and relief. Menard grabs Bone by the arm and walks him to the SUV where they drive off. Disappointed in the outcome, the four of us continue our walk back to the strip. A car pulls up behind us. It’s the cops.
“Excuse me gentlemen. Could you step over here please,” says one of the officers. We let Peterson do the talking. While he has no criminal record whatsoever, he has the most experience talking to the police after a few bar scuffles back home. “Yes. Not a problem officer,” replies Peterson. The four of us approach the cop car.
“We received some phone calls regarding loud shouting back by the convenience store. Seems there might be a problem,” says the officer. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Certainly. This drunk guy tried to get us to come with him to a club. I think he was trying to scam us”, says Peterson assertively. The officer looks confused.
“I see. Is that all that happened?”
“No. When we got to the club, it was about to close. He demanded we go in and pay the cover. When we wouldn’t go into the club the guy freaked out and started screaming at us. I think he was on drugs,” says Peterson.
Tension ensues. The officer pauses, thinks to himself, then responds.
“I see. You need to be careful with some of these characters. They try to scam tourists all the time. There’s no doubt this guy was trying to rip you off,” says the officer. “Be sure to watch out for this kind of thing..”
“Yes sir,” says Peterson and Clownboy simultaneously.
“What did this guy look like and which way did this guy go?” asks the officer. Peterson gives a description while pointing in the direction of the club. The officer nodded. “Thank you gentlemen. You’ve been great help. We’ll track him down. Have a good night.”
The four of us head for home. Yogurt hugs Peterson out of adrenaline and relief. Then something tremendous happened. Peterson stopped, grinned, and reached into his pocket, pulling out $40 in cash which he had kept separate from the rest of Bone’s stash. Jimmy Bone was in such a fit of rage he didn’t bother to count the money. We took that $40 straight to the roulette wheel and put it on red. And red it was. And we went straight to Denny’s.
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