I get lost again walking through the hotel/casino I’m staying at. Never trust Mexican food from a place that sells margaritas by the yard. Never trust old ladies that look like old catchers mitts and carry their cigarettes in sequined coin purses. A man lies passed out on his shoes in the bus shelter by the Bellagio. Past the flash and glitz of “Disneyland” lies north Las Vegas. The crooked past of the city is exposed. The further north I walk on the Strip, the faces look rough and mean. Missing teeth, chiseled age lines, hollow eyes and ruined dreams manifested in each countenance. It costs $30 to go to the top of the Stratosphere. That’s Daddy’s crap money. I turn south and head back down the Strip after I realize I may get robbed and stabbed. I snap pictures of things and a crack head emerges from the darkness behind a palm tree and quips, ‘Take all the pictures you want, baby, they don’t cost nuthin’.’ A man lies passed out behind the bus shelter across the street from Frontier. I quell the urge to wake him up and tell him it would be more comfortable if he were sleeping on his shoes. Drunk fat girls drinking margaritas by the yard howl and ogle as men walk by. A punk in a Slayer shirt sings South of Heaven loudly in the middle of the street. I get propositioned by another black prostitute over the walkway between the MGM Grand and Tropicana. I hit the craps table thinking I’m White Chocolate. I lose $40 before the waitress brings me my first drink. On the walkway to the Luxor, a fat girl’s ass hangs out of her mini-skirt. I’m leaving tomorrow only $39 down. The last thought that enters my head before I drift off to sleep: I AM White Chocolate.

This town is a corporate dumpster. Drag queens on the corner ask me for spare change and menthol cigarettes. Children asleep in their strollers as parents walk them back to the hotel after blowing this month’s mortgage payment on roulette. Mexicans peddle sex on the street corners that killed our best gangster poet. Ugly people pretend to be beautiful. Beautiful people pretend to be ugly. Underage frat boys watch the Bellagio fountains with a twelve pack of Corona. The well-manicured casino landscaping smells like vomit. A black prostitute propositions me. I say ‘No thanks’ and she calls me a racist. A man in a wheelchair races his friends on the Excalibur walkway and crashes into the glass doors at full rolling speed. I lose $39 at the craps table. Tomorrow I will get an In-N-Out Burger for lunch.