The bus pulled into the depot and a half-sheet of paper, like a flyer, fluttered in the air and landed on the seat in front of him.
BACKPACKER’S INN
YOUTH HOSTEL
10 BUCKS A NIGHT!
243 Climono Avenue
Las Vegas, Nevada
702-986-0745
He found a pay phone and called the number on the piece of paper. Fifteen minutes later, a small economy car came to pick him up. Lethe asked the college-aged kid how much he owed for the ride.
“It’s free.”
Before going into the youth hostel, Lethe wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. The driver pointed to the entrance of the Inn, which was one block up the street.
“Don’t wander too far,” he said.
Lethe had never seen a 7/11 like the one he saw in Las Vegas. The door was wide open like a saloon and cigarette smoke churned in thick, dirty clouds. The stench of nicotine was concentrated to a point of near suffocation. Elderly, poverty-stricken faces vanished in and out of yellow smoke; disembodied hands dropped coins into slots. The slots rang out in a tedious succession of beeps and chimes and red lights flashed under a haze of smoke. There was a man sitting in a chair smoking a Marlboro Red and talking to the lady behind the cash register. The lady asked Lethe what he was looking for.
“Pack of Camel Lights.”
Stepping out of the 7/11, Lethe lit his cigarette and scanned the surrounding streets. It was too hot to be out on the streets, the dazed heat was stifling. White sun-spots bleached storefronts and metal signposts glinted. Garbage blew into jagged fences, rapping lightly in the wind. He was expecting more out of Vegas, more glamour, more charm. The city sat right on top of the desert, but unlike the Boulevard it had nothing to disguise itself with, no high towers, no gondolas. The highest point was a bedraggled apartment complex that looked like a Robin Hood fort built in the middle of a parking lot. Palm trees flapped their noisy fronds above the cracked sidewalks, and idlers stumbled by.
An attractive staff member mounted herself on a tall swivel chair behind the front desk. She had dark freckles covering her ruddy face, and dark red lipstick. Her expression was slightly aloof, wide-eyed.
“How can I help you?” She said in a reedy, Australian accent.
“I’d like to rent a room.” Lethe became self-conscious. She was intoxicatingly beautiful but completely emotionless.
“How many people?”
“Just me.”
“One person. And what is your name?”
“Lethe Bashar.”
“How long will you be staying with us Mr. Bashar?” The way her accent transformed her words was erotically stimulating. “I’ll put you down for a week, then. Would you like to pay the entire amount?”
Her incredible distance had a sort of appeal. Everything between them was vague and ambiguous. He started to wonder about the person behind the distant stare. Maybe she was like a movie star, living in an ethereal dreamlike bubble.
“Mr. Bashar.” She said, calling him back to his senses. “Would you like to pay the entire amount?”
He gave her the money. She wrote down his name in a book of reservations, and opened a cabinet with keys inside. All the keys rattled simultaneously.
“Can I leave some money with you?” He said, regaining control over himself. “Do you have a safe back there?”
“We don’t have a safe. We have a locked drawer. I can give you an envelope.”
“Thank you.”
She handed him the envelope and waited as he wrote down his name and room number and then put the money inside.
She took the envelope and placed it in the locked drawer. Again, the keys jangled inside the cabinet. “Would you like me to show you to your room now?”
“Yes please.”
Lethe found himself imitating the Aussie in her aloof, unconscious manner. They passed the pool area with three middle-aged guests on the deck, sun-tanning. She pointed out an alcove within the poor area, and Lethe waved tentatively to the shirtless bartender. Two mischievous girls hung their legs over the edge of a third floor balcony, throwing glances down to the pool. A bright red and orange mural of Bob Marley smoking a joint was proudly displayed on the side of the wall.
Lethe’s room reminded him of the rooms in the halfway house in San Jose, except smaller. The Aussie brought him a towel and washcloth and left him to change his clothes.
“Could I get some sheets?” He called out but she was gone, which was probably typical of her. He pushed aside an ashtray on the sill and lifted up the shades. His room looked out at a vacant lot behind a pawn shop. Two figures were discussing something near a stack of empty crates and a dumpster.
After a couple minutes, a dank, sweaty smell emerged from the clothes on the floor. Giant backpacks were unzipped and overflowing with swathes of wet, moldy t-shirts. He kicked aside a couple pairs of shoes on the ground and went into the bathroom. The bathroom was uninviting; it breathed a torrid stench. He turned the rusty faucet of the shower until a dark liquid squirted into the yellow basin. Broken tiles on the floor gave the bathroom an appearance of a semi-excavation. A smudge of graffiti ran across the mirror above the sink as if the vandals were interrupted in their wrongdoing.
Lethe returned to the pool deck where he plopped down into a chair and took in the glittering sun-dazzled gem of a youth hostel. His head went back as the dry heat softly massaged his smiling face . . . “At last,” he thought. “I’m here. I’m here and I’m free. Nobody can find me. Nobody can tell me what to do.”
When he looked back on his twenty years, he recalled, mainly, one thing. It was the dominant theme of his life and perhaps what he was running from, why he came to Vegas in the first place. Lethe craved his personal freedom. And for so long, people, places, and things were taking his freedom away. His father, his mother, his studies, his schools, his girlfriends, his rehab centers, they all wanted to control Lethe’s life. And so, Lethe had good reason to be here in Vegas. The pressures of life caused him to be here!
A man named Tracy asked Lethe if he wanted to smoke a joint. Tracy had a skull that peered through his shaven head. To Lethe, he looked like a mechanic. Most of his lower teeth were decayed or missing, but that didn’t stop him from talking. They smoked the joint together and Tracy revealed that he was in charge of the “cleaning operation” at the Backpacker’s Inn. “This place is great,” he said. “You’ll never want to go home.”
Lethe tried to recall a concept of “home” as he sucked on the end of the slobbery joint.
“You cleaning rooms tomorrow?” Tracy asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it”
“You have to clean rooms if you didn’t pay.”
“No, I paid. I paid for the entire week.”
They were silent. The weed was crappy and gave Lethe a headache.
“I didn’t know people could stay here for free?”
“This aint a hotel man, it’s a youth hostel. Get real!”
After smoking the joint, Lethe returned to the pool deck. Across from him a man in his middle forties was sitting in a chair sipping a Bloody Mary. The man kept looking over at Lethe and smiling. Lethe lit a cigarette and pretended not to notice but then the man approached, asking for a light.
He sat down and introduced himself, “My name’s Louie.”
