Writers Tricks of the Trade January-February 2015 | Page 32

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JAN-FEB 2015

THE BOSS ALWAYS SITS IN THE BACK (Cont’d)
By the time the limo arrived at the airport and the driver opened my door, I
was buzzed.
I handed the redcap ten bucks as he took my bags from the trunk.
Even stoned, I had the robotics down.
He asked to see my ticket and picture ID, and then he hit me with the standard
security questions, to which I gave the standard passenger responses.
“Yes, I packed my own bags,” “No, no one known or unknown to me gave me
anything to carry,” and “Yes, they’ve been in my possession since I packed them.”
Then I headed into Terminal C.
It made me recall a time before America worried about terrorists, when we
could show up twenty minutes before a flight and not have to show ID or pass
through metal detectors in order to board a plane.
I was good for more than twenty trips a year, but this particular one had me
thinking.
It had me thinking a lot.
As I took my first class seat aboard Continental’s flight 1679, it really began to
sink in that it had been twenty-one years since I was in Las Vegas.
Vegas.
Twenty-one years.
Right down to the month.
Throughout the nearly five hour flight I opened my laptop and did some work,
read a couple of magazines, drank three Bloody Marys and socialized with the
flight attendants...who used to be called stewardesses. I did anything to avoid
thinking about Vegas.
As the pilot brought the plane down low so we could see the Grand Canyon, it
all started to come back to me.
When we passed over Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam I knew it was less than
a half hour before I’d be hearing those high-pitched bells of the slot machines in
the airport.
My cousin and Godfather, Gerald, better known as Jerry, along with his wife
and mother, moved here about three years ago after almost 20 years in Palm
Springs, and I wanted to spend some time with them.
If there was anyone that I’d want to be with in Vegas...it would be with Jerry.
As the plane circled, I looked out the window and saw a skyline and landscape
that was dramatically different from the first time I was here on my own in late
August of 1975.
Back then...there was nothing. There were small patches of civilization here
and there, but it was desolate until you actually got within a mile of The Strip.
Now, there are miles of hotels, casinos, homes, highways, shopping centers,
golf courses and housing developments.
Cont’d…

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WRITERS TRICKS OF THE TRADE