12-years-old, long, clean brown hair, and pouting lips rouged scarlet. she’s pushing a baby carriage down the boulevard and the baby isn’t hers. a sister, by the looks of it. her dad is trailing in her pubescent wake, head swivelling as he checks out the action on the strip.
there are people everywhere, on the sidewalks and pavement, of course, but also on the wide overpasses and escalators, too. they jam the mouthy entrances to the casinos and hotels. they are dressed for summer in shorts and flip-flops, stylized t-shirts with ‘Outlaw’ emblazoned across their chests, and tattoos exposed everywhere. a girl with bolt studs puncturing the nape of her neck scratches, eases fabric away from sun-reddened skin. a crusty exudate gathers. there’s a cream for that at the all-night drugstore on the corner.
there is little noise on the strip except for blaring music. the wind blows discarded flyers and cards that advertise ‘Live Girls Delivered to your Door’. for a moment i consider dead girls, then i ignore that thought and surge through the crowd. on Fremont Street, i tip a fresh-faced girl in black go-go boots $10 and ask her to use it for her college education. she laughs–the purest sweetest sound i’ve heard in this desert city–before it’s snatched away by heavy feedback from the speakers above the bar. she straightens up and gyrates, chastely. on the pavement, two girls, obviously mentally challenged, strip off their shirts to reveal black electrical tape X’s across sloping nipples, and sell their photographic images to gawkers.
above, the corrupt signs, the lights firing continuously. they aren’t stars; they’re the nervous system of America.