3:AM Magazine

By Joseph Cameron.

Here there be neon lit nosferatu that shall suck through quarter slots, broken glass shattered in diamond sparkles against the hot concrete sidewalk around the bus stop, where you shall stand in the slightly cooler shade of the pawnshop store’s awning to escape the fulgent beams of the angry, angry August sun, but then that one Native American fellow with the face of scarlet pitted pockmarks will hit you up for bus/beer money, did you consent to the machines’ rule, because in Las Vegas you can win a million dollars or a new Pontiac, and in Las Vegas you can copulate with a tall, very blonde and very Russian nineteen year old girl for $400 at that one casino near Freemont Street, and in Las Vegas you can try to be like those guys in that one movie and play poker for a living and sometimes snort cocaine off the back table of a Denny’s because the waitress can’t see you through the brown haze of smoke, and in Las Vegas it is illegal for you to feed a homeless person at a public park, and in Las Vegas you can bump into that actress or that singer or that comedian or that debutant or that politician or that athlete at Starbucks or at Barnes and Noble, and someday you might leave Las Vegas if the machines let you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe Cameron is a boy who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. He writes on his thesis for his MFA degree at UNLV, and he volunteers some time at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission for the homeless. You can write him at citoyenjoseph@gmail.com

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, October 7th, 2007.