It's these substandard motels on the (lalalalala) corner of 4th and Fremont Street.
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 (lalalala) eyes.
-Panic! At The Disco, Build God, Then We'll Talk
The limo ride from The Strip was pretty uneventful. It had to be, there wasn't a wet bar in the car and the only radio stations that the passengers could tune in were playing Ranchero music with DJ commentary in Spanish. No one in the car spoke anything but English, with the exception of Thomas, who could order drinks and produce mild insults in German. The occupants of the gigantic cab were on a mission, to take in The Fremont Street Experience. "Old Vegas", as it's called. They wanted to see the street featured in virtually every old movie about the city.
The car pulled up to the curb across from the entrance to the Fremont Experience, and one by one, the five of them shuffled out. They were an odd number, Lee and Jean; Ben and Beth; and Thomas, the fifth wheel. That didn't matter, they were here to see one of the most celebrated slices of Americana.
Casually referred to as "Glitter Gulch", Fremont was where the Vegas legend was born. All the bright lights, the smoking cowboy, this was it!
"Vegas Baby!" Ben exclaimed, mimicking every cult movie about the town from Swingers to The Hangover. He then pulled Beth in towards his rough and unshaven face for a huge kiss. She swung her arms around her husband and accepted the affection from the happy drunk. After all, she was pretty drunk too.
Thomas looked away from the two of them, as if this was a private moment and he was determined to afford them whatever privacy might be available on the busy street corner. He turned his gaze to Lee and Jean, only to see they too were embracing one another.
"Alright, screw you guys, I need some booze!" Thomas admitted, and started across the street towards the ocular orgy that awaited. His friends, sensing Thomas' alienation, soon followed and caught up. The five of them stopped to take in the scene before them.
They were standing at one end of an almost eighteen-hundred foot long tribute to American excess. What was once a busy street, lined with casinos, shops, and bars; had now been smoothed over to more or less resemble a mall of vices.
The casino fronts were just as they'd always been, lit-up bright and inviting. There were performance artists everywhere. Next to the entrance was a modest stage, where a rough Lady Gaga impersonator was in the middle of one of Gaga's more forgettable numbers. Just like a mall, there were little kiosks selling anything from buttons to cigars. There were also some that were full-service bars. Right here, on the "street", someone could drink and smoke to their hearts content without so much as incurring a disapproving eye from a passerby.
The five walked past the first bar. It featured two plastic looking models gyrating away in black lingerie atop the bar. "Only thing faker than a bartender is a stripper," Thomas let out. "I can't imagine what happens when you cross the two."
"I hear you there," Lee kicked in.
"I know you two are just saying that because I'm standing here," Jean chimed in.
The two men paused and looked at each other.
"Oh Jean, if only you knew," Thomas said. "The only thing that's ever happened when we've gone to strip clubs has been us leaving, less a hundred dollars, smelling of shame and strawberry body-spray."
The five of them burst into laughter.
"God, I love this guy," Jean confessed to her mate. "I'm glad he came up here to see us," she said of Thomas, who had made the long drive from Phoenix to be with them for the evening.
Thomas smirked, and looked up. This circus of vice was capped by an electric sky. This artificial heaven is home to the worlds largest television screen and it runs as a long arched canopy the entire length of The Experience. At that moment, there were just advertisements running up and down its length.
"Ben, when did you say they do the shows?" Thomas asked.
"Every hour, on the hour," Ben replied.
Thomas looked down at his watch. They had fifteen minutes.
"Drinks?" he asked his companions.
No one said a word, they didn't have to. They continued their stroll down Fremont in search of liquid refreshment. Around them was a sea of oddities. On either side of the path there were performers of all sorts. A man sat with his little dog, it was dressed up like a leprechaun and doing tricks of all sorts. There were celebrity impersonators everywhere. There were quite of "celebrities" one would expect to find in a place like this: Micheal Jackson, KISS, and the obligatory Fat Elvis.
There was one celebrity who stood out, a very weak Dale Earnhardt Sr. The man looked more like Bernie Lomax from Weekend at Bernie's than he did NASCAR's dearly departed "Intimidator". He might have only been five and half feet tall, had a round face, and an overbearing fake mustache that was far to bushy to belong to the Man in Black. Had he been more aware of his looks, perhaps the man would have chosen to get a pair of bib overalls, a red turtleneck, and posed as the namesake from The Super Mario Bros. Perhaps he was aware of this distinction, but chose Dale Sr. because it was a celebrity the native population of Glitter Gulch could relate to better.
Thomas was becoming aware that there was a sort of equivalent duopoly in the patrons of Fremont Street. There was a segment that seemed to be right at home here. They ranged from the elderly, riding HoverRound Chairs; right down to twenty somethings in T-shirts and flip flops. They were the people that weren't too interested in the bright lights and glamor of the place, but were the ones gambling and drinking at the bars with one another.
Everyone else just seemed like they were visiting. They dressed better, were buying up every trinket they could lay their hands on, and actually paying the performance artists for their time. These people were pointing at everything that caught their eyes, screaming to their friends to look at whatever oddity it was they had just spied.
The five friends found a nearby street bar, and to their surprise, found it offered Foster's Lager in the gigantic "oil cans". They all ordered one, laughing at their fortune.
"Lee, I think I've got this place figured out," Thomas quietly offered to his friend. "There's two things going on here."
"Oh yeah?" Lee turned to his friend. "What's that?"
"There's two types of people down here. White Trash, and the people that have come to laugh at it."
The two men laughed.
"So what are we?" Lee asked.
"Chinese dinner. A little of Column A, a little of Column B. Both!"
This time the entire group laughed, but were soon interrupted when all the exterior lights on the casinos and shops went dead.
"Here we go!" Ben shouted.
The five friends looked up at the canopy in anticipation of the show that was about to begin.
Electric lightning graced the the LED sky. Then the most unmistakable intro in classic rock: Boom, Boom, Clap! Boom, Boom, Clap!
The lightening was gone, replaced with a Union Jack background, and the elegant logo of the rock band Queen. "We Will Rock You" hailed the beginning of ten minutes which could bring about be the demise for all but the most immortal of epileptics. Amazing visualizations that moved to the beat, performance videos of the band, it was simply one of the most mind-boggling sights any of the friends had seen. It was like heaven had opened up it's floors and let Freddie Mercury make one last performance to the world, and God himself was working the stage lights!
Everyone in the place was looking up and taking in the show. Glitter Gulch natives, White Trash Zoo-goers, even the performance artists themselves were looking up and taking in the amazing sights. But, like all good things, it soon had to end. The casino lights came back on, and the sky went back to displaying advertisements for cheap Vegas stripshows.
Life returned to it's balance on Fremont Street. America's simpler segment went back to pursing it's vices in its Utopian boulevard of broken dreams, and the outsiders went back to being amazed by it. The performance artists and celebrity impersonators went back to trying to finagle money out of the impressible. A little slice of Americana, preserved and encouraged to continue in it's raw traditions, and hermetically sealed up by a hundred million dollar electric sky. Vegas Baby!
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