Louie stood off to the side, relentlessly watching the blackjack table.  Occasionally he moved from the table to pace a four-foot square of wine-dark carpet.

There was distrust in his eyes, a wavering cynicism toward Lethe’s childish antics.  He faulted himself for giving Lethe so much power.  

A faux-Renaissance ceiling rose over the cauldron of gamblers.  The atmosphere was wild, antic, seething with glitz and excess.  Oxygen poured in through the ceiling, making everyone high.  Designer suits collided with fake blonds, Asians in khaki pants sauntered, retired couples with obvious tans huddled around Roulette tables, trendy youths in hip-hop clothing promenaded, bankers made bets, businessmen chatted with girls in bathing suits.  Everyone looks displeased and happy at the same time.  In glass-covered rooms, high-rollers played with sums that could feed a small African nation. 

At the reckless carnival, the throbbing masses indulged themselves.  Without shame, they drank, they smoked, they gambled.  They didn’t care. 

Credit cards came out like switchblades.

“Anything is possible, anything is possible,” the room cried. 

Anxious, over-stimulated zombies shouldered their way between tables and ATMs, maneuvering plastic cups and cigarettes.  They seemed thrilled to be in this sea of skin, tumbled and pushed along by the currents of desire.  Shrill noises reverberated in the barracks of video poker, sound effects mingled with drunken shouts; accusations merged with congratulations in a cacophony of brain-numbing bliss. 

The spectacular waterfall running thirty-feet across and twenty feet high crashed into a bottom pool with a constant rush of water going down.  Lethe stopped to admire the cascades.  Flying acrobats glittered on the surface with every color of the rainbow.  The projection was happening over and over every twenty minutes. 

And the room replied, “Anything is possible, anything is possible.” 

Lethe haunted Louie like a bad childhood memory.  From the waterfall, the kid escaped, running into the massive octagonal gambling arena, a labyrinth of tables, machines, private rooms, and betting areas. 

Once you entered the casino, it was almost impossible to find your way out—a door, that is—which could reliably link you to the outside world.

And Lethe reveled in this hurly-burly.  As a child splashes in water for the first time, he played in it with unbridled enthusiasm.  He didn’t care about the haze of smoke.  Or the wicked, hungry looks of gamblers.  Or the tentacles of arms and legs reaching out for him.  He liked the intensity; the epic unconsciousness of it all.  The comatose oblivion, seeking pleasure to no end.

Louie ran after Lethe.  Suddenly, there were pangs of weakness and shame buried in his stomach like a terrible ulcer.  He felt the sharp edge of his conscience.  He browbeat himself for chasing after a teenager.  For being roped into this mess. 

But he was absorbed in his game just like the gamblers were absorbed in theirs—comics being the only distraction from his urges.

Comics could only provide a minor form of entertainment.  Louie wanted more.  Always more.

Comics were mere pictures—mere words.

But life was merciless, savage.

Agitated and depressed, he swung back to the teeming casino.  An electrical pulse—totally imaginary—became visible at one end of the room and moved towards him, running over the hordes of gamblers with its jagged red line.

“Anything is possible, anything is possible,” the room throbbed.

“Nothing is possible,” Louie shouted back.

Frantic gamblers pressed against him.  They lurked around the machines.  They hunched over the tables.  None of it was real.  Only the cocktail waitresses seemed real.  Gorgeous blondes and brunettes swimming through tunnels of smoke with pert, professional smiles.  Their nyloned-legs made inroads and offered free drinks with casual grace and charisma.  And sometimes they were greeted by tables of old, offensive men or young, offensive men.  Or very happy Asians.

A vertigo of insecurity began to muddle with Louie.  He watched Lethe jump at a card table like a baby tiger testing his strength.  In seconds, Lethe came scurrying back to ask for money.

“I want to leave,” Louie demanded weakly.

“No, no, not now, not now,” Lethe said.  “We just got here.”

After Louie handed over the money, Lethe dissolved back into the crowd.  His face appeared only minutes later at table a couple steps away called, “Let it Ride!”

Louie had never gotten vertigo before.  Tonight was his first time.  A crescendo of chiming bells, running waitresses, seething gamblers built up a pressure in his mind until he dropped from a great height and spun downward for what seemed like eternity.

A chorus of dejection ran through his head as he was falling.  It sang with the voices of children from his childhood, children who had bullied him.

“Stung along, strung along,” the voices sing-songed.  “You’re being . . .

STRUNG ALONG–” 

The harrowing scene in the taxi cab returned.

“I don’t want to go back to the Inn.”

“But you got what you wanted?  I took you to my brother’s apartment.  Now let’s go home.”

“I want to go gambling.  Take me gambling Louie.  Take me gambling.”

“I don’t understand.  What more do you need?  I gave you the drugs, now let’s go—”

“You didn’t give me anything.  I want to go gambling!  Take me gambling Louie.”

He seemed like a smart kid–

but not really.   I watched the way he gnashed his teeth while he was cracking himself up so hard.  As a rule, he laughed at his own jokes, which could be downright annoying or just plain adorable.  Laughter ran out of his belly like an open stream.  

The kid was hopelessly stuck on himself.  You got the impression that Lethe Bashar thought himself a minor god in the pantheon of the Greeks.  Okay I’ll admit I fed his adolescent ego once in awhile.  With low self-esteem myself, I have a tendency to flatter.  Take for example the Euro kids who walked around the Inn like sleek models in their underwear.  I made them feel like they owned the world, like I’m just here to adore them.  Well, Lethe Bashar was definitely not one of them.  

He was a bit topsy-turvey in mind and body.  Big, unstable head; small, waifish body.  He sort of stumbled through the legs of chairs whenever he had to rush off somewhere.  You looked into his eyes and saw curlicues and ampersands.  Literally, the kid was on another planet half of the time, dreaming under the stars.  But he was also lovable and endearing once you got to know him, the way excitable children can be.  With all that energy, you just have to admire them.  They take off on their willful flights and you just sit back and watch them fall from grace or bump into an unexpected  wall.  You almost want to praise these innocent, yet stupid creatures. 

You know he reminded me of a character in a comic book.

Yes, I read comic books. 

I’m not un-educated.  Like some people in my family.

The character’s name is Yorick and he hangs upside down in his Brooklyn apartment at the beginning of the story.  He’s wearing a straight-jacket; he’s an escape artist. 

I’ve been reading comic books ever since I can remember.  My father, a Russian immigrant, used to find them under my bed and give me a thrashing for hoarding them.  Father had a bison’s neck and thick, stubby immigrant fingers.  Those fingers wrapped themselves around my neck more than a couple times, threatening to kill me.  Rick, my older brother, was always outside, mixing with the local hoods.  That’s how he developed his street smarts and I didn’t.  He grew fearsome and I grew day-dreamy, sentimental, and prone to fantasy.  Rick got in fist fights and lost himself in gangs.  I hid behind illustrated covers and lost myself in the adventures of Tintin.

As I said, Lethe was like this Yorick character.  Yorick is the last man on earth; the name of the comic is Y:  The Last Man.  The world is ending, some plague ravaging the planet, and Yorick’s on a desperate mission to find his girlfriend who lives Down Under. 

But the protagonist is a little slow.  It takes him awhile to catch onto all the apocalyptic stuff happening around him.  And in the meantime, he has to grow up.  Like all of us, I suppose.

Lethe just showed up at the Backpacker’s Inn one day, looking confused.  He was stoned, I think.  Later Tracy, the janitor here, told me that he had invited Lethe to smoke a joint.

I called Lethe over to the bar to have a drink with me.  He said he liked Bloody Marys so I ordered him one.  Clearly he was looking for a companion.  His eyes gave him away, droopy and vacant.  When we mixed our spirits, we were like old friends, lost brothers, or something of that nature.  Lethe’s manic energy was contagious.  Giddiness ran through me for the first time in weeks. 

I understand adolescents better than most adults.  I give them time to explain themselves, which is all they really need.    

He could make me laugh.  I mean, really laugh. 

I could tell that Lethe imagined every moment of his life–every second–whether he was taking a shit or talking to his mother on the pay phone, like it was being recorded for Timeless Eternity.  His belief in himself as the center of the universe was very real, but completely dellusional.  He was charming, you know, and I think he should have been an actor.  He had a real cinematic flourish, like he’d been training under the giant eye of a camera for years and years.  Put simply, he wanted my attention no matter what, and I was glad to give it to him. 

Now this movie he imagined his life to be.  It was not one of those feel-good movies with syrupy music in the background, but more along the lines a wildly romantic self-made art project.  He made himself appear like he was in total control of this production of his.  But there was a self-consciousness too (quite obvious to me) which made him a little vulnerable.  I think this is what made me want to be his best friend. 

Most of my friends are young people.  That’s why I come to the Backpacker’s Inn, to meet young people.  We get a lot of wandering teens, a lot of wayfarers of the middle-class suburban variety, you know the ones with North Face backpacks and granola bars and scruffy clothing.  I’m fond of these aloof tribesmen.  I like to hear their stories and share some wine, Bloody Mary’s if they choose.  Las Vegas can get lonely if you don’t make friends.  And everyone’s a little screwed up here so it doesn’t matter.  We’ll accept you whoever you are.

I accepted Lethe even though I could tell he didn’t accept himself.  That manic energy was all a front–a supurb defense against the world.  He wanted you to think he was important.  Not just important.  With a princely charm, he insinuated he was marked for greatness, and one day he would be revered by his fellow man, even marveled upon.  Of course these things were all in his head.  He had done nothing to prove his greatness.  And yet, he hinted at these things like they were so many stars above him, twirled by the hands of angels. 

The poor wandering soul gave his life so much meaning you felt the weight of it listening to him.  More than once I wanted to shake him and say, “Lethe, this book you you’re writing, this project of yours . . . it doesn’t really matter.  Nobody knows who you are.  There are billions of people in this world!”

Not to mention, he hadn’t even written it yet.  He called it the Novel of Life, and the title, I believe, was intended to convey his epic vision. 

“I’m not into novels,” I said.  “I read comics and that’s about all.  But you can tell me your story; I’m open to hearing it.”

My father once found one of my comic books in his car.  He used to have 56 Mercury with orange and blue paint on the sides.  The car was my father’s prized possession, all he ever talked about night and day, and when he discovered I had brought my comic book into it, he gave me a thrashing.  Like most parents during that time, my father saw comics as dirty, unholy, something akin to pornography.  He was not a religious man, but comics were “work of the Devil”.  That day the old man squeezed my temples together so hard I thought I would never be able to see again.  Then he brought his knee up to my forehead.  I never left a comic lying around after that.

I didn’t have any problem befriending a lonesome kid who comes into the Inn.  Hell, I was a lonesome kid once.  I think I ran away from home too.  Too many beatings.

We sat by the poolside sipping our drinks and telling stories.  That’s what I love about Vegas.  You could be sunning out in the crapiest motel and the sun still shines the same, ruby-red.  Boy, do I love sipping on a salty drink by the pool.  

He tossed the comic I recommended to him aside.  “I’m a writer,” he intoned with an air of importance.  “That stuff will warp my brains.” 

He could be a snob, you know.

“Who told you that,” I said, “Your father?” 

“No, I told myself,” he replied curtly.  “I’m just not interested, okay? Keep your stupid comic books to yourself.”

Once I saw he wasn’t going to come up to my room to read comics, I decided to give him what he wanted.

Drugs. 

All rebellious teenagers love drugs. 

Agent 355 never would’ve given Yorick drugs so I felt a bit ashamed.  Forgive me father, for I have sinned . . .   

I didn’t have any drugs on me, but I told Lethe about the infamous bus stop where a lot of shady drug deals went down.  “You can find some drugs down there.  Here take my money.” 

Later I found out he went to Mammon’s on a lark.  Mammon is one of Vegas’ biggest drug lords.  Not somebody to butter up for a dime bag.  He’s been compared to Pablo Escobar, the Colombian cocaine trafficker.  What would cause Lethe to become so single-minded? 

I didn’t know what drove him, but I wanted to keep it going.  It broke my heart to encourage his bad habits  but it also exhilarated me.  I’m a forty-five year old man, okay.  My life is ho-hum.  I come to the Backpacker’s Inn for a little spice.  When I met Lethe, the ol’ blood started to boil again. 

I suppose I was living vicariously through him.  

Things started to get going.  He was out in the streets, looking for crack.  We were smoking together in my room.  We shared my pipe.  I didn’t need my comics anymore to have a good time.  He came to my room, willingly.  With a big, toothy grin on his face, gnashing his little pearls.  

We took hits from the pipe until the money was gone. 

Occasionally, he’d burst into a manic, drug-induced monologue.  I sat back, heavy-lidded, watching him perform in front of the mirror.  The Chinese lady was sleeping on the bottom bunk.  I don’t think she ever woke up during our midnight parties.  

Lethe was my pal, my Yorick.  So when he said he wanted coke, naturally I racked my brains to figure out how to get us some.  

I wanted to make Lethe happy, that’s all.  We were best friends, and just like best friends do what they can for each other, I led Lethe to what he wanted.

Louie’s older brother was a drug dealer, plain and simple.  He sold large quantities of crack-cocaine.  But Louie avoided his brother, not only because he was constantly in debt, but also because his older brother took great pleasure in tormenting him.  For example, Louie would stop by his brother’s apartment to drop off some money (he always owed his brother money) and his brother would humiliate him about being gay.

They arrived at a seedy apartment complex.  A stoop-shouldered woman with an hostile stare answered the door.  She looked like she had been living in a cave for most of her life.  She retreated back into the kitchen, where she was scrubbing potatoes in the sink. 

Lethe followed Louie into the apartment.  Louie’s older brother was enthroned on a torn-up couch with his hands inside his sweatpants.  A hairy gut protruded out from underneath his blue football jersey.  He had an ogre’s appearance, large-boned and angry.  On top of the coffee table were two or three crack pipes, a bent clothing hanger, a burnt spoon, and a couple ashtrays.  Beside a few stray porn magazines were freezer bags filled with crack rocks.

The garish and overweight woman in her late twenties was Rick’s mistress.   Her name was Mona.  She lived down the hall and came over every night to smoke his crack.  When Louie and Lethe walked in, these two were watching an adult film on Cinnemax.

Lethe sat Indian-style on the floor with a guru-like aura of self-composure.  He’d been through the streets of Vegas, hunting for crack.  He’d been in a crack house filled with the Living Dead.  In terms of strangeness, this apartment was no different.  In fact, the setting intrigued him, it provoked his curiosity, and he looked around the place, as if secretly taking notes for his Novel of Life.  A few impersonal household items over here.  A picture or two on the television set over there.  Nicotine stains on the walls.

Meanwhile, the hermit lady in the kitchen was scrubbing potatoes.  She kept to herself and didn’t bother anyone.  Lethe guessed this was part of her stoic personality.  She scrubbed the potatoes while Rick and Mona indulged themselves on the couch.  There was a golden retriever sleeping at her feet; it also looked life-weary and put upon.  Underneath the dog’s heavy maw, the floor tiles were curling from age and there were dead insects and debris.

         Mona reached into one of the zip-lock bags and filled the older man’s pipe.  Rick hardly moved; Mona was his slave.  She had chalk-white skin, red lipstick, and flabby breasts.  Every couple minutes she dug her fake fingernails into the bag of crack dust.  Her plump hands looked even paler when she pulled out the rocks.  On the tips of her fingernails were gold and purple flowers.

Rick inhaled, spreading his legs farther apart and pushing out his hairy, protruding gut.  The smoke poured out of his mouth, followed by a raspy, savage coughing fit.  Lethe was startled by the amount of smoke that came out of the man.  It seemed to have emptied from every nook and cranny of his inner cavity.  Then the room was awash in crack smoke.

Mona poked greedily into the freezer bag of rocks and filled the pipe for herself.  Lethe broke the silence, asking, “Who’s that in the picture?”

         “That’s my son,” Rick answered sharply.  “Why?”

         “I was just curious.”  Lethe said.

“Just curious, huh?  Nobody’s ever ‘just curious’.  Who are you?”  

“Lethe Bashar.  Does your son live with you?”

“No.  Why do you ask so many goddamn questions?”

Louie flushed red.  He didn’t like it when his brother got upset.

          “Sorry.  I was just wondering.”  Lethe glanced over to the stoop-shouldered woman by the sink.

          “My son used to be a football star in high school.  He was the top quarterback in the state.  Senior year he was recruited by Georgia Tech, UCLA and a couple others, oh I can’t remember–”

The room was silent again.

          “Then he fucked up.  His coach found out he was using drugs.  That was the end of his chances going to college for free.  Nobody wanted him after that.  He turned out to be a fuckup just like his Dad.”

Louie took a hit from his pipe in the corner of the room.  It didn’t seem like he was part of the conversation.

“Offer your friend some crack, you gay faggot.”  Rick yelled.

“I don’t smoke crack.”  Lethe said.  “Well, I tried it once with Louie but I didn’t like it.  That’s why I wanted him to get me some coke.”

 The cocaine that Lethe wanted was on the bottom of the freezer bag.  Rick told Mona to spoon some of it out for him.  Lethe put his forty dollars on the coffee table. 

After snorting a line on the dusty table-top, Lethe stood up and stretched his arms in vainglory.   Then he bent down, sweeping the floor with his palms.  Rick and Mona eyed  each other, as if to say, “Who is this kid?  What the heck is he doing here?”

In a moment’s time, Lethe felt a rush of heroic power surge from his chest into his temples.  All his ideas about the Novel of Life began to swirl around and multiply.  He shot a glance at Louie and felt his own youthful domination over the impish older man.  Even toward Rick, Lethe felt a strange, incommunicable bond, and to Mona, that crack-whore, and even toward the poor, stoop-shouldered lady in the kitchen.  Nothing could hold Lethe back from speaking his mind.

“Who’s that woman in the kitchen?”  

“That’s my wife.  Why?”

“Doesn’t she care that you have another woman in the house?”

“She doesn’t get to tell me what she thinks!  I pay the bills around here. She’ll do what I say!”

Louie ran to shield Lethe from the wrath of his older brother.  “Let’s go now,” he muttered.  Lethe stuffed the bag of coke into his pocket and they were gone.

        “There’s no more left,” Louie said.

        “What about the seran wrap?”

        “We finished it off?”

        “But how could we of?  I only got one hit.”

        ”This stuff goes fast.”

        The Chinese woman was still lying face down on her mattress. She hadn’t moved in three hours. Lethe and Louie were arguing in whispers. The room held the bitter stench of narcotics.

       ”There’s got to be more left,” Lethe said.

       “There’s nothing.  It’s all gone.”
      

When Lethe returned to the Backpacker’s Inn, Louie was sitting in the lounge area, talking to the bartender.  They were sharing a couple laughs.  Louie turned on the barstool with the top buttons of his Hawaiian shirt open, and his blond, suntanned chest showing.  His gut came out and jiggled when he laughed.  It appeared as if he was on intimate terms with the bartender.

          Upon seeing Lethe, Louie excused himself from the bar.  He popped up from the stool and waddled out to the pool deck, his drink spilling over the sides.  An aura of dazed amusement surrounded him, a private merriment.

          “So, did you get the stuff?”  Louie asked.

          “Yes, I got it,” Lethe sighed.

          “Don’t say anything here.  Let’s go to my room.”

          Louie’s room was on the third floor.  They took the stairs because the elevator wasn’t working.  Tracy was hovering around the broken elevator, assuming a pose of vigilance and responsibility.  “An elevator mechanic will be coming early tomorrow morning,” he said.  Louie brushed past, barely acknowledging the janitor’s presence.  Lethe smiled half-heartedly. 

They climbed three flights of stairs and Louie panted as he pressed his hands onto his thighs.  He appeared a bit drunk, climbing in zigzag. 

          The room smelled like burning sage or clove cigarettes.  The pungent aroma filtered through the darkness and humidity.  The makeshift blinds were closed.  Once Louie turned on the lights, Lethe could see that he was not the only person staying in this room.  A Chinese woman lay on the bottom bunk, robed in a decorative fabric with her face down into the mattress.  Apparently she was sleeping but she looked dead.

          “Don’t mind her.  We’re sharing a room.”

          Louie went to his suitcase in the corner of the room and removed a small glass pipe.

 A word or two about the pipe.  Depending on the reader’s background, “pipe” might evoke a number of colorful associations.  The pipe that Louie removed from his suitcase was not the antique tobacco pipe that your grandfather smokes out of.  Nor did it look like the psychedelic smoking utensil college kids use these days.  Rather this pipe was closer in relation to something you would find in a dirty alleyway, beside a trash can.  Essentially it was a piece of broken glass with sharp ridges and blackened on the ends.

          “Are we going to smoke right in front of her?”  Lethe asked.

          “She’s asleep–”

          “What if she wakes up?”

          “I smoke in here all the time; she’s never said anything before.”

          “You’re telling me this woman lets you smoke crack in her room?”

          “I don’t think she can speak any English–”

          Lethe groped inside his pockets for the stash that Mammon sold him.  He handed it to Louie who wore the blithe expression of a cherubic angel. 

“Who sold this to you?”

“A man.”

“What kind of man?”

“A man I met on the street.  Near the bus stop like you said.”

“I’ve never seen dope like this in my life.”

“Why?  What’s wrong with it?”

Louie paused and dipped his finger inside the seran wrap. 

“Nothing’s wrong with it.  It just looks too damn pure for you to have found it by the bus stop.”

“I told you everything I know–I got it by the bus stop.”

“Did he happen to mention the name ‘Mammon’?”

“No.  Why?”

“Mammon sells a lot of dope in this town.  My brother used to work for him.”

Louie rubbed the rocks between his fingers, greedily.  His bottom lip quivered as he dropped a couple morsels on top of the pipe.

 “I need you to hold the lighter for me.”  He said.  “Make sure the flame is directly on the rock.”

The glass filled with whorls of chalky smoke, giving off the ammoniac smell of the chemicals in the crack.  Louie’s face turned from peach, to orange, to crimson-flame. 

Then Louie held his face away from the pipe.  The color in his cheeks deepened in shades until he spewed the smoke from his nostrils.  His eyes lowered, receding into a remote darkness behind his lids. 

And then he revived and brightness came back into his eyes.   “Now it’s your turn,” he said.

Lethe poised his lips to the glass pipe.  At any other time Lethe would’ve been concerned about catching germs.  Undoubtedly the pipe held its own shady history and furthermore the thought that Louie had been putting the dirty thing between his lips sickened Lethe.  But for some unknown reason, Lethe didn’t care and that not-caring was part of the intoxication.  When Lethe used drugs, he was given to key to oblivion and freedom from himself.  For a split-second he thought of his Novel of Life and then the lighter kicked out its flame.

“Suck,” Louie said.

“Suck harder.”

Lethe could feel the cool column of smoke entering his lungs.  Here the reader will have to use her imagination if she has not smoked crack before.  Imagine a shock of bliss.  Your body feels as though it were above ground, or perhaps not even there at all. 

“Did you get it?” Louie asked.

“I think so.”

“How does it feel?”

Lethe looked around the room.  The Chinese lady was still sleeping.  “It feels like my brain is numb.”

“Good that’s how it’s supposed to feel.”

Lethe followed Sonny down a dark, narrow hallway.  They stretched their legs over the heap of limbs and the crack-heads moaned in anguish.

Lethe and Sonny stood before a door at the end of a hall.  The door had a window slot which was covered by a block of wood.  The most humongous black man Lethe had ever seen opened the door.  Sonny called him “Cyclops”.  Lethe knew a little about mythology from school, and recalled the story of the Cyclops who guarded the mouth of a cave in the Peloponnesian Islands.  Odysseus and his men were trapped inside the cave for two nights, and the only way they were able to escape was by driving a wooden stake into the eye of the monster.  Recalling the story, Lethe wondered how he would escape Mammon’s house.  The black man’s enormous body obstructed the doorway. 

The body guard had such thick rolls around his neck that it looked like he was carrying a python on his shoulders.  His colossal arms crossed in front of his chest.  And then he tentatively stepped to the side so Lethe and Sonny could enter.  A goat skin lay at the foot of the doorway like a sacrificial rug.  Lethe walked onto it and whiped the bottoms of his shoes.  The guard grimaced; Sonny stood next to the wall. 

With bated breath, Lethe walked toward the man at the back of the room.  Mammon sat at a mahogany admiral’s desk.  Partially covered in shadow, his pockmarked skin was the color of dirty, bespeckled water.  On top of his desk were model ships encrusted with diamonds.

As Lethe walked closer he could see this man was not pretty.  A long, leopard-spotted robe fell off his shoulders, revealing grisly chest hairs and the blurred ink of worn tattoos.  With a creepy grin Mammon invited Lethe to sit down.  The couch had unsightly tears in it and cigarette burns.  Now Lethe’s pulse jumped and his eyes were begging Sonny to intervene.  But Sonny couldn’t help Lethe anymore; he wasn’t in charge.  He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “I don’t even know you.”

          “Sonny say you got an offer.  ‘Dat true?” 

          “An offer?  Um, not really.” 

          “What you mean, ‘not really’?”

          Sonny slid toward the door.

          “You—stay here—” Mammon said.

          Cyclops laid his hand on Sonny’s shoulder.

          “Sonny says you got Two Grand.  ‘Dat true?  Or are you just coming in here to tell me stories?”

          Lethe looked down at his hands.  His heart was beating like a tom tom.  This is where the epic story of his life becomes the short record of his death.  Why’d he lie to Sonny in the first place? 

          Sonny shriveled up like a fried sweet potato under the gaze of Mammon.  Cyclops kept his hand on Sonny’s shoulder and applied constant pressure to the neck.

          “I’ve never done this before—”  Lethe said, hoping to gain some last minute sympathy.  “I just wanted Sonny to bring me to the . . .”

“To the what?”  Mammon snapped.

“To the . . .”

“Spit it out white boy!  To the what?”

“To the right one, to the right one,” Lethe uttered.

“Ho-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,” Mammon burst out.  “You found the right one alright.  I run this sleazy operation, along with twelve others.  You found the right one right here at Mammon’s House of Horrors.”  He opened his mouth wide enough for Lethe to see into the back of his throat.  It was a dark tunnel of sixteen gold teeth sparkling along the sides.

“Forgive me for intruding,” Lethe pleaded.

“You’re not intruding, G.  I welcome you into my humble crack house.  What’s your name?”

          “Lethe.  Lethe Bashar.”

          “Lethe Bashar . . . who the fuck do you think you are coming into a place like this?”

          “I lost my way.  I promise you won’t ever see me again.”

          “Get out!!”  Mammon screamed at Sonny.  Cyclops released him.  The door slammed shut.

          “Not everyone in this town gets to see my pretty face.  You happen to be one of the lucky ones . . .”  A spasm of mirth erupted from Mammon’s dry, phlegmy throat.

Lethe glanced at the model ships on the admiral’s desk.  He was too afraid to speak now. 

          “If you got any money put it on the table right now.”

          Lethe removed two twenty dollar bills from his breast pocket.

          Mammon turned to his body guard.  “Get some dope out of the front drawer.”

          “Take this dope back to wherever you came from and share it with all your friends.  But if you decide to come back, you better bring some bigger bills.  Got ‘dat?  I don’t have time for these charades.  I’m dealing crack to half of Vegas.”

          “Thank you, sir.  Thank you.  I appreciate your troubles.”

          With his pinky finger, Mammon picked some food out of the corner of his mouth and said, “Now leave.”

This was Lethe’s first crack house.  He had never been to a crack house before.  He was still a virgin to the degrading, soulless substratum of crack and its defenders.  It wasn’t the type of place he ever thought he would have the opportunity to know first-hand. 

The screen door slapped shut on his finger.  “Ouch!”   The made a sound like the crack of a whip, and the barbed wire pierced through his flesh.  As blood trickled down his fingertip, Lethe made a sour, disappointed face, and stuck his finger in his mouth. 

Then heard a voice, “Close the door.” 

The door was closed. 

“The other door.” 

He turned around.  The stale stench of narcotics assaulted his nostrils. The fog inside the room was nauseating.

There were three torn-up couches staggered against the walls and half a dozen people lying helplessly on the floor.  From a certain angle, it looked like they were kneeling in prayer.  From another angle, the bodies appeared to have endured endless electric shocks, and now their jaws stood open and their eyes stared fixedly into space.  The rest of the people in this room resembled dolls awkwardly propped up against the furniture.  The host of eyes in the main room looked everywhere at once, seeing nothing.  These people were only half-alive, and their looks gave Lethe an eerie, despondent chill up his spine.

First of all, who were they?  And, second of all, why did they congregate here to crumble up and die? 

Luckily, nobody recognized him.  Meaning, nobody recognized his presence in the room.  They were lifeless and void of human interaction, yet they held the resemblance of life.  He felt as if he had just stepped into Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.  But what sort of exhibit was this?  None of these people were famous.  None of them represented entertainment, sports, or public figures.  Their ashen faces blurred together and their clothing was rancid and smoky.  Despite all the loathing these waxworks evoked, Lethe grew more and more fascinated with them and their peculiar lot.  He once heard the phrase, “The cycle of poverty and addiction is the doom of every generation.”  Perhaps Madame Tussuad could create a room in her museum to represent that . . .

Out of nervousness, Lethe lit up a cigarette and one of the bodies on the floor twisted itself up his leg like a grasping, mangled vine.  He gave the open hand a cigarette.  After it got its light, the body melted back into the floor.

There were two children also in this room.  The children had more visible life, more restless energy.  Each of them about six years old, they played their video games and cussed each other out.  The mass of addicts swelled in the background but hardly disturbed their game.  Lethe tried to communicate with one of them, but he was far too absorbed in the Killing Fields of some digital warzone.  

In the back of the apartment was a kitchenette.  Two bare legs, goose-pimply and raw, hung from the countertop.  A black light emitted a purplish glow on the figures huddled next to the refrigerator.  As they took hits from a pipe, they moved in such perfect syncopation that the ground beneath them also seemed to be moving.  They sank lower and lower into pools of shadows.  Then convulsed coughing tore them apart and large plumes of smoke rose over their heads.

Lethe studied the crack heads more carefully.  They were in a trance just like the kids playing video games, and the elderly, unemployed lot at the 7/11, playing slots. 

In the main room, the wallpaper was peeling.  Through a hole, Lethe could see into a narrow bedroom.  A plastic mattress was pushed to the back.  A pile of broken junk lay scattered, DVDs, electronics, children’s toys.  Amid the heaps of squalor, a sunken face looked back at Lethe.  Lethe moved away from the chink in the wall, startled by the needy eyeball.  She was isolated in the narrow bedroom.  Icy blue rings circled her eyes, and her teeth were yellow.  Lethe couldn’t get the image out of his head.  Was she locked up in there? 

But a couple minutes later he realized the door wasn’t locked, and people were going in an out of the ransacked bedroom, people who barely said a word and who looked like zombies.  They also had rings around their eyes. 

          The screen door cracked its high, sharp whip, and Lethe jumped from the couch for a second time.  A bumbling clownish thug stumbled in.  He played the House Jester.  Relishing his own jeering, taunting role, the thug danced around in the center of the room, tapping his shoes on the floor, and moving his arms and legs up and down as if controlled by marionette strings.

Where Lethe should have appeared humble, he instead put a smirk on his face.  The Jester’s dance provoked him and he had the urge to dance along.  But then the Jester stopped and said:

“Give me your money.”

“I don’t have any money.  I’m waiting for a friend.”

The thug hopped around merrily again, slapping his leg.  “Ain’t no friends in this house.  This is the House of Mammon.  An’ you better have money . . . ”

Muffled laughter erupted from the heap of slumped addicts.  The thug continued to jig and taunt.  His immaculately white sneakers produced a scrappy sonata on the plastic tile.  He repeated his threat:

“You better have money.”

“I told you I’m waiting for a friend.  Sonny told me to wait here—”

The thug turned to his semi-conscious audience.  Belts of laughter emitted from the swarm of addicts.

          “You friend’s with Sonny?”  The Jester asked, lowering his tone.

“Yes, I am,” Lethe said.  “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Not so hard as this”.  The Jester whacked Lethe with his cellphone.  The lifeless crowd broke into belly laughter.

          Sonny appeared.  He saw what was going on and pulled Lethe out of the hurly-burly.

          “He’s with me,” he said.  “He’s with me.  Leave him alone.”

The Aussie turned on the high swivel chair, holding her green nails up to the light.  She seemed proud, triumphant, like a haughty cat.

She dropped her hands to her sides when Lethe came into the lobby.  Their eyes never met.  She looked down at the checkered floor and he looked at the walls.  The Aussie gave off the impression that she was impenetrable.  She didn’t move.  She just sat on the high swivel chair all day, preening.  Now she waited for the intruder to move out of her space. 

Lethe lingered in the lobby.  He turned his attention to the surfing posters.  He knew his mission but faltered before the doorway.  The bars across the windows and the dusty streets beyond filled him with slight fear.  He was only catching his breath anyways; that’s all.  He wanted the Aussie to know that he was not afraid.  He even wanted to say something gallant before he stepped outside.

Once he realized she wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to him, he pushed open the door.  The air was different outside.  A low, grayish sky fanned out behind the storefronts and concrete housing blocs, extending into the desert emptiness.  The golden lights of Oz flickered on and off in one corner of the city.  The Vegas Strip resembled a bright, distant Ferris wheel, revolving merrily in the air–isolated by a sea of darkness.  Buried in that darkness was the East and West sides, where Lethe was now roaming.  The festive, mirthful voices died out as he went farther from the Inn.

Lethe felt bare walking the streets at night.  A swirl of smoke rose from a factory and sputtered into the grainy horizon.  He paced forward and back into the mazy darkness.  The sidewalks sloped into a basin of tattoo parlors, porn shops, liquor stores and pawn shops.  There was some frenzied activity around the stores, swinging doors, jangling bells, and a line of bums leaned against a wall.  The bums talked in a language only they could understand.  Shady men went in and out of porn shops.  Loners picked up cases of beer and hard stuff from the liquor stores.  Loudmouthed, brassy bimbos hung their arms on older, coarse-faced men.  Lethe heard one of the bimbos shout, “Hey Ronnie let’s take him home with us, he’s cute!” 

Lethe felt his legs harden into wooden pegs.  He’d gotten muscle spasms before, but never this bad.  He was afraid that if he remained in one place for too long he would get mugged.  Bleary-eyed winos stalked the outskirts of the city.  They hung out in torn parking lots, near vandalized buildings, outside dilapidated houses.  Faces came out of the velvety darkness, asking for a couple quarters.  Then he turned a blind corner and caught the glare of a seedy nightclub in his eye.  He blinked twice, three times.  Prostitutes rocked back and forth on their heels.  They played with their costume jewelry and stuck out their fishnet thighs.

“Crackhead,” he thought he heard them say.

Louie was wrong.  Nobody was standing out at the bus stop.  No crack dealers waiting to make a buck.  No swaggering, gold-toothed pimps.  “But the busses have to be running,” Lethe thought.  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe I’m lost.”

The Backpacker’s Inn seemed like a distant memory now.  He wasn’t even sure if he could find his way back.  The streets in this part of Vegas deteriorated into rubble, with stretches of abandoned housing and more torn, vacant lots.  “Maybe I should turn around,” he thought. 

“Or maybe this is where you find crack.” 

Gnarled palm trees huddled on the narrow, broken streets.  On a corner, lights shone from inside an all-night Laundromat but the place was empty.  “I could go in there to sit down,” Lethe thought. 

Past the laundry, there was a concrete building built like a stack of giant Legos.  A sudden hush fell over the empty street causing his heart to race.  “I really should turn around,” he thought.  “There’s nobody here.” 

But then the impulse gripped him and he had to succeed.  He had to find crack no matter what.  Louie was waiting for him back at the Inn.  Louie trusted him with his cash.  “I’ve done this before,” Lethe said.  “Nothing to fear . . . nothing to fear.”

 A tall, lurking figure stepped out of the shadows.  “Well lookie here,” the voice said.  “It’s Richie Rich.”

The man was wearing a second hand suit and he had a salesman-like stride.  As he approached Lethe, he was grinning from ear to ear.  He also wore spectacles.  The two of them ducked their heads together in a manner of secrecy.  They were standing under a row of date palms, whispering.

“What’r you looking for?”  His silvery voice, like a bell.

“My name’s Lethe.  Lethe Bashar.  I need some crack.”

“Well, how’s that for introductions?  My name’s Sonny.” 

The date palms rustled above their heads.

“I’m goin’ to take care of you tonight, Mister Lethe.  First off you have to step into my office.  Just so nobody sees us.”  Sonny took three steps back.

“Where’s your office?” 

“Behind that fence over there.”

Lethe followed the black man behind the fence. 

“Now how much green you got tonight?”

“Two grand.”

“Don’t fuck with me, boy.”

“If you don’t believe me you can ask my Uncle.  He’s at the hotel where I’m staying.”

“Let me get this straight.  You have two grand on your person?”

“Not on me.  I only have forty bucks on me.” 

“And what if I slit your throat right here?”

“Then you’ll never get the two grand.” 

“Do you think you’re McGyver or somethin’?”

Lethe didn’t answer.

“Okay, I’m going to take you to Mammon’s house.  We’ll see what he says.”

“Who’s Mammon?” 

“My business partner.  He’s like a god in this town.  Come on, let’s go.  The cops are driving around at this hour.”

Since Lethe had departed on his journey from the Inn, he’d wandered out to the edge of the desert.  Sonny took him back to the Lower West Side, where Mammon’s house was located.  The black man skipped through the city like a leprechaun around a pot of gold.  He knew eve