My Soul Goes to Vegas

       When I close my eyes and my head hits the pillow, my soul travels out of my body drifting up into the salty sea air above my house in Vallejo, CA.  My soul then drifts south following highway 29. My soul arrives at the Oakland airport and quickly boards a flight to Vegas. Once in flight, my soul escapes the fuselage and drifts along in the wake of the plane. It looks down over the snowcapped Sierras that glisten in the light of the full moon. The plane descends into McCarran airport but my soul continues breezing above the strip toward downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. My thirsty soul wishes it could get two ice cold Budweisers for five bucks in front of the Bellagio but it doesn’t want to land on the strip. It would take forever to get a cab. 

My soul spends a lot of time walking around the Charleston arts district. It sees many homeless people and a lot of people who aren’t fairing well, despite the US government and it’s constitution. It sees drunks begging for change and getting it. It sees one black kid walking around with a roll of foil, a lighter, and the shaft of a pen. My soul can’t tell if he’s trying to sell foillies or if he’s openly freebasing cocaine on the street. My soul thinks this neighborhood is getting a little rough but continues its journey to the Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel. Once inside my soul can finally be at rest. Still thirsty for beer, it feels for its wallet but the wallet is not there.  

          Then my soul remembers what happened last night at the sports book. When all the free throws bounced the wrong way and the cynical Satanic basketball referees took control and enforced Satan’s wishes upon the outcomes of the college basketball games. Nothing left but a pocket full of drink tokens. My soul goes up to the bar next to the poker room and offers two tokens for a cold draft of Modelo and my soul is finally able to quench it’s parched and dusty throat with the golden libation. My soul reflects that the trip appears to have been a success. Beer in hand, my soul joins the carousel of souls meandering about the casino. It goes to the sports book and looks at the overnight board. My soul intently gazes at this board for a long time, but none of the numbers calls out to my soul.

Finally, my soul heads back around to the poker room where our Tulpa has been grinding perpetually for days on end. He is still up and he gives my soul two black chips. Yes!  What would we do without our Tulpa grinding away at poker? Eighty-four hours ago he started playing with three hundred dollars and now he has a couple of grand in chips and who knows how many hundreds are tucked underneath his stack. 

           You’ve got to love the poker action at the Golden Nugget.  

          “It’s like no place else.” says our Tulpa. He only takes a break on Saturday afternoon because that’s when the Veterans of Foreign Wars guys play. My soul does not want our Tulpa to get cut apart by these gentlemen who are aged beyond the care of money and whose only delight is in crushing the unsuspecting tourist who happens upon the table.  

           My soul goes to the cage and cashes in the two black chips. My soul remembers to go back and tip the bartender 2 bucks.  That’s when my soul begins to feel itself fade. It needs to go to the buffet so that it can transubstantiate some food matter into the stuff of spirit. As it rides the escalator up to the buffet my soul reflects that even when it is down at the casino, it is always up at the buffet.  After a substantial meal including real soul food, my soul pours its beer into a plastic cup and walks out onto Fremont St.  

           My soul goes out to many people that it sees out on Fremont St. and touches them. It goes between them and through them. My soul goes out to body performers and homeless people. Veterans. Tourists holding hands just trying to figure out what this place is about. The mentally deranged. The hopelessly drunk.  People holding signs that say: Fuck You! 

And that’s when I feel my soul start to expand. When it gets like this, there is little that can be done to remedy the situation. My soul gets larger and larger.  Its heels lift off the ground and it drifts upward toward the awning that covers the street.  And still, it expands and opens rising above the whole city until its face is superimposed over the whole scene and it sees the morning sunlight on the mountains to the east.