9am. Loitering Delinquent Area.
Off to Payard, the great pastry/creperie/coffee place in Caesar’s. There is a not-insignificant line, which I deal with by giving Luna $20, grabbing the Texan, and walking over to the book to collect a bunch of pens, racing forms, copies of the morning line, and possibly a drink. We study the baseball futures for a bit, put down some just-for-fun money – him on the Sox/Yankees under, me on Mayweather/Mosely – and return in time for food. We sit across from Payard at Rao’s “outdoor” area, which is (I assume) a replica of the actual outdoor area at the actual Rao’s, right down to the actual stone tables. I thought they were faux-stone tables. You ever try to pick up something that’s a LOT heavier than you expected? Ever have that be the case on the second try, too? Those are some serious tables. Took two of us to shift them.
We pulled our tables together and passed out the study guides. C2C delighted me by being distressed that the Caesar’s form did not have the same layout or information as the Arlington one. That’s a student of the game, kids.
Crepes dispatched, we went to the book to bet. I had a handful of wagers, among them bondgirl and the Heartless CFO. The latter is riding a three-year streak, and the former is manfully staying on the horse that throwed her two years ago. And by “throwed her” I mean “was shot on the track after the race.” (For those of you looking to hedge, “Will Not Finish” does not meet the lawful standard for Thoroughbred wagering.)
We put our money down, used our book-window drink tickets, and milled around for a few minutes until I remembered how much I hate that. Then we broke into three groups: “Let’s Go Try On Jimmy Choos”, “Let’s Go To In-N-Out Burger”, and “Let’s Go To Casa Fuente”.
As to option one, Jimmy doesn’t make shoes in my size. But AD, Arbiter, Luna, Patti the Mayor, have fun. Don’t buy anything, Luna. In fact, I’ll hold your wallet. And purse. Turn your pockets out, please. Just gonna pat you down. Cool. Have a good time at Jimmy Choo.
As to option two: I have not yet grasped the allegiance to In-N-Out Burger. Many people I know, many of whose judgement in matters gastronomic I trust, get a little chubby – entendre intended – at the merest mention of In-N-Out Burger. I have eaten there a couple times. Enough to give it a fair shake.
Here’re my feelings thus far on your major fast-food burgers:
1) Five Guys
2) Five Guys
3) Five Guys
4) Burger King
5) In-N-Out Burger
6) Wendy’s
Also receiving votes: Checkers, Steak & Shake, Mickey’s Gyros
DQ: The Billy Goat Tavern, Kopp’s Frozen Custard
DNP: McDonald’s, White Castle
Nonburger fast-food sandwich choices outranking all but Five Guys: Chick-Fil-A, Jimmy Johns
(”Fast-food” is defined here as “Food ordered at a counter or via drive-thru that must be unwrapped by the consumer”.)
But no hangover-cure burger snob I. 21, Mongoose, C2C, Texan, Vacation Wife, enjoy your animal-stylings.
So I was left with option three: Intrude on Drags and Big Man’s Date Time at Casa Fuente. I figured I’d drunk enough things with tobacco in them for one year, so I had a pear-based saketini. (It seemed nutritous.) It went nicely with the Ashton Cabinett the cigar sommeliers recommended.
We spent a while watching Drags unleash his ruthless moves on Alicia – she never had a chance, really – and then met back up with the triers-on of expensive shoes. Herded them out of Anthropologie,and went after some food at Serendipity 3. Luna had wanted to try something called a “frozen hot chocolate”, so we commandeered a bunch of tables in the Caesar’s courtyard and settled in for a snack. The In-N-Out crowd returned.
In the same two-minute period, Luna spotted a horrendous tattoo and a passerby that inspired a new variant on “Hooker or Daughter?” called “Hooker, Dude, or Both?” and spent the next half-hour scurrying about the courtyard like an unleashed chihuahua, tailing along behind bad ink, rushing back to yip out a detailed report, and then bounding away to sniff out another.
A little small talk, a little smartphone time. Eyewitnesses suggest that multiple hangovers peaked around this point. I have seen this point in the trip before; a fleet of naps is steaming this way. Might as well lie back and enjoy it. Maybe I can go bet by myself or something. Find a sportsbook. Go hunt up a Mr. Rucky. Whatever. I can feel it. The team has lost focus.
And then I looked to my left, at 21.
And I said, “You bored?”
And she started to say something I suspect was going to be a standard lie, the Polite No, and then shrugged and said, “Yeah, a little.”
Oh, baby.
And I said, “Me too. You want to go find some trouble?”
Now, we’ve been at this point in these trips before. And the response is almost always, “Nah, we’re going shopping.” Or, “Nah, I’m still full.” Or, “Nah, we’re just gonna hang by the pool til dinner.” Or just “Nah, I’m good.”
But hopes springs eternal. So I asked.
“Yeah!”
Oh, honey.
We got up and walked over to the slurpee-machine-margarita place, hoping for Mother Pucker Tooters or Cherrybombs. No dice. Mango and Pina Colada and Blueberry and Cherry and Lemonade and Cola and Margarita and Orange Dream, but no shots and no cherries. Bassoons only. And bassoons take too long.
Said I, “Let’s run across (the street) to Bill’s (Gamblin’ Hall) and see if there’s a shot special.” (Fully expecting, “Nah, it’s too far.”)
“Okay!”
Finally.
We hustled over the Vegas Boulevard overpass, past a guy selling sunglasses and three guys selling water.
21 says – and I don’t know if she knew the fuse she was lighting or not, and I think I don’t I want to know – “The Mongoose says these trips have gotten tamer.”
Yes, they have. Had. You and me are gonna start fixing that, right fucking now.
We bounced down the escalator and into Bill’s.
No shot deals.
But.
“$2 Tecate & Tecate Lite Bottles”
Idea.
I laid a ten on the bar and asked for four. Of course, with limes. (I didn’t know Tecate, not Corona, invented the beer-with-citrus. The things you learn when you befriend cheap cerveza on Facebook.)
Handed two Tecates to 21, and took my two. Said, “Take a swallow out of the right one.”
Looking quizzical, she did.
Said, “Now a swallow from the left one.”
Now looking outright confused, she did.
Said I, “That’s your head start,” and lifted my own Tecate.
Remember what I said about organic nicknames?
When the bottle went up and the Tecate went down and the eyes screamed “You motherfucker!” at me, then, right then, 21 became The Kid. And I suspect she will be The Kid when she has grandchildren.
We both started laughing somewhere in the the second beer, causing choking, foamy chins, and a dozen cellphone cameras to click in our vicinity. Knocked them down anyway.
In about 1996, our eleven-year-old German Pointer was on his last legs. To quote the great Tony Kornheiser, he wasn’t on life’s back nine, he was teeing it up on eighteen. He’d had a stroke the previous fall, and had already come through cancer. Figured five more months, tops.
And then the neighbors got a puppy. Middy.
We introduced them, as they’d be sharing a fence, however briefly. And the Old Man was reborn. He chased the puppy. He chased a ball. He trotted all over the yard with Middie. He ran.
And he lived five more good years.
If you have an old dog, get a puppy.
I might have swooned a little. I’m blaming the Tecate. Especially the chin-foam. Kid’s a gamer. I like that.
(In the interest of fairness – and possibly future legal defense – The Kid has written up a record of the inaugural Tecate Race here. On which writeup two thoughts:
1) This should be required reading for any of you who have lost the True Spirit of Vegas, and,
2) I’m not sure anyone’s ever said such nice things about me after a three-day drunk. Try not to hold it against her.)
Back to the team on the verge of quitting. No. Oh, no no no. Not today. Not anymore.
“ATTENTION! ATTENTION! Get your shit up, Old People. Me and The Kid have just invented Tecate Races. Who’s in? We’ll explain it on the way. Now. Bring $4 and your livers. Let’s go. Now.”
People made their excuses. Luna had decided this was to be a hat-themed trip, and went off to buy a cigar-smoking hat. AD had law to legalize, or whatever a lawyer does with law on Saturday in Las Vegas. But the Mongoose allowed that he wanted a mint julep, and apparently the Paris wasn’t yet Tweeting them straight to your iPhone. Patti the Mayor and Big Man elected to come with us, after a teeny bit of cajoling on my part.
‘Goose and I took the first race. He tried to beg off, since he wanted a julep, but I was able to convince him that two Tecates make an excellent amuse-bouche for a glass of bourbon and minty sugar. Everybody won.
Big Man’s another gamer, as is the ‘Goose, but Patti the Mayor demurred. No, no. No beer for her system. Had enough to drink already. Too tired. Long day. Got to stay awake. Yadda yadda yadda.
Patti the Mayor is the Mark Texiera of drinking. Big Tex is the Yankees’ first baseman, and – veteran fantasy players are smiling already – he, without fail. starts every season so poorly and slowly that you assume this year With Be Different. Even though he starts every year hitting .182 with no homers, every year people are convinced this is the year he is done. And then he has a three-bomb game in mid-May and hits .410 the rest of the season. Patti the Mayor drinks like that. Slow starts. “No, just a Miller Lite…no, I have to get up early…fine, one more Miller Lite, but just one…we need some food….do they have wine?….ooo, margaritas…I can’t do SHOTS…fine, just one…woohoo vodka!”
The trick is to just get the ball rolling. And The Kid – and this time I am SURE it was on purpose – says, “Oh, come on, you’re not that old.”
Step into my parlor.
And Patti the Mayor, all snarky, says, “Yeah I am. When were you born?”
And The Kid tells her.
This is like watching seventh-grade gym class footage of Kobe or LeBron.
And Patti starts to dismissively say “I could be your mother. Get bent” except that the sentence came out “I could be your m-m-m-m-m-m-ohhhh-god I COULD” and the Mayor grabbed a Tecate and counted down from three with the Big Man. Got to prove she ain’t old, y’see. Good god but she got played.
And now I have five drunk friends in a low-rent casino, four Tecates (and a pear saketini and a free beer from the Sportsbook and some nicotine) in my bloodstream, and a huge crush on someone younger than my cassette tape of “Born In The USA” in my heart. Ah, Vegas.
We finished the Tecate Time Trials and wobbled to Paris for ‘Goose’s julep. More porncards. More drinks. Somewhere on the overpass the brakes failed and the wheels came off. Everybody hang on. The Derby’s in forty minutes. We got to hurry to Caesars. Put the glass in your purse and let’s go. Brace for impact.
We joined, oh, geez, a bunch of people for the Derby, and tried, amid much hilarity, to explain Tecate Races. We sounded like a bunch of Joe Pesci impersonators. “Okay okay okay, right, okay listen. You take the Tecate, right, and it’s TWO DOLLARS, okay, and you DRINK THE FUCKING BEERS. Okay, listen. Okay, you DRINK THE FUCKING BEERS, but you COMPETE. You COMPETE to see, okay, who who can drink them fastest. With no foam. Except on The Kid’s chin, right? Hahaha. Okay, listen. Bill’s. Gambling. Hall. TWO DOLLAR Tecate. It’s great, okay? Let’s go. Oh, wait, horses. Shit. DID WE BET? Oh, this morning. Yes. Whew. Okay.”
In the hopes of surfing the whole team up on a wave of liquor, Texan and Patti the Mayor and I ran over to the Seashell bar for more drinks. A few Miller Lites, a few Tecates (NOT $2 at Caesars, oh no.) and a Red Bull and vodka for C2C.
Aaaaaaaaand they’re off.
I have been to playoff games at the United Center in the Jordan era, two NFC title games at Soldier Field, and a Blue’s Clues third birthday party. And there is NOTHING like the noise at Caesars for the Derby. Everybody is on vacation, everybody is drunk, and everybody has money on the outcome. Hard to set up a sporting event better.
Some of us won some money. Me, C2C, The Kid, and the Heartless CFO for sure. Rosey might’ve. It was a little drunk there. I disremember.
Then it got worse. By which I mean, “better”. Those of us who had won started buying drinks. Kid got Bay Breezes, the bartender’s “specialty”. Hydrogeologist got double Jacks. Patti the Mayor got more Miller Lites. (A lot more.) I got…actually, I don’t recall. Besides $87 in win tickets. I love the Derby. Anyhow, from the postrace celebrations I remember cashing in the tickets. I remember The Kid updating her Facebook (”The Kid is drinking bag sic breezes.”) just before she had to sit on the floor to steady her camera long enough to take a picture. I remember taking pictures through a haze of smoke, Old-Vegas style. I remember bumming cigarettes, which means I was very drunk indeed. I remember walking back to the Flamingo in wealthy drunken triumph, though some sort of music festival in the alley between O’Shea’s and the Flamingo.
And then we got in the elevator. Me, the Mongoose, The Kid, Patti the Mayor, and Luna. And Patti the Mayor slumped against the wall, and in doing so pressed all the elevator buttons.
You know how long it takes to get to 28, going floor by floor? Drunk? It was hilarious and terrifying. None of us were in any condition to be moving at all, much less up and down, herky-jerky. The photos of this look like we’re midflight in a rococo elevator being operated by the Blue Angels.
Up at the room, Luna climbed straight into bed. Probably a sensible strategy for her. But I knew if I went to bed, I was done. So with two hours to get ready for High Roller Night, and too drunk to put on dress shoes, dramatic action was called for. Me, Big Man, The Kid, the Mongoose, and Patti the Mayor went to the pool.
We started with the grotto. Well, technically we started with getting lost and winding up at the adults-only Party Pool, which we declined to go into on moral gorunds because we are all against toplessness and beer pong. Hahaha. No, seriously, it cost $15 and we didn’t have any cash. Also we assumed it was the gay pool, due to the preponderance of fit guys in tiny pink shorts. Didn’t know then it was the hockey team peacocking.
So once we found the regular pool, we started with the grotto. The waterfall looked refreshing. So we jumped in; some of us voluntarily, some of us with a little help.
In retrospect, we probably should have asked ourselves why there weren’t more people in the pool. Figured it out, though, when we crashed through the thin film of ice and into the water. Hello sobriety. Goodbye icebath. Hello hot tub. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
A few minutes in the hot tub, fondly recalled even now as an oasis of calm and bikinis in a day of great havoc; one more plunge in the pool – just thinking about the temperature is enough to drop the ol’ BAC a couple percentage points – and upstairs we went. Back downstairs went I, immediately. Those of us who would be up all night were in no mood for strong drink. We wanted coffee.
Retrieval of the coffees left me something like twelve minutes to dress for dinner. Shave righty, brush lefty. Deodorant shower, dress clothes, new jacket. I looked like at least eighty bucks and felt like ten or fifteen more as we piled back into the elevator and rode down to our waiting brace of limousines. Well handled, ‘Goose. Four cabs vs two limos is no contest at all.
High Roller Night 2010 was ably arranged as always by Luna, and held this year at the only restaurant in Las Vegas that would accomodate a party of seventeen without pulling the Chicken-Or-Fish-And-Decide-In-Advance wedding banquet move, Red Square. How many phone calls, threats, and bribes that one took, I have no idea. On the way in, the Texan peeled off to bet on the fight, and I slid into rumjungle for a quick Special Dark for all my missing Vegas homies.
I would like to describe dinner at Red Square in more detail, but, to quote AD and Luna:
AD: (tasting fruity “Siberian Frost” martini) Oh, this is suspiciously not vodka-tasting.
Luna: (tasting water glass of vodka on the rocks) Oh, boy. So is this. Try it.
Old Russian Proverb: “If you want a detailed restaurant review, go somewhere the specialty of the house isn’t vodka drinks that are suspiciously not vodka-tasting.” I recall the pretzel bread was good, andI believe there were fish nachos.
After dinner – and after the Texan cashed in his fight ticket win, well done sir – some of us went in search of a non-Fuente place to smoke cigars, and some of us went in search of “peanut butter milkshakes”. (Neither a euphemism nor a fiction.)
We found a bar featuring the World’s Worst Duelling Piano Act. But we could smoke and drink, so we made do. We killed drinks and cigars while the band killed music and joy. Mandalay Bay shoulda let the parrots sing. I think it was “Enter Sandman” that finally drove us back to the Flamingo, where we sat under the stars and drank and smoked and solved problems until 345am. We talked across the table and across years. I came up with a new tattoo. Patti talked to Patti of the past. AD and I talked about time. Kid listened to us old jadeds yammer and tried not to yawn. Nicest night I’ve spent in a long time. A little group therapy.
Which, as I think about it, would be an excellent name for a bar.