The Police Are Coming For You!

Ole Sleep had a rough week but now he's back and blogging again, thank the Lord.

So it's Thursday night and my two Friend/Assistants R and D and I are lounging in Whiskey Pete's 24-hour coffee shop waiting for some service. It's coming up on midnight and there seems to be only one server working the place, an old and mustachioed guy named Terry who doesn't seem particularly seasoned and is probably waiting tables to augment a social security check. Whiskey Pete's is one of the two low-rent casinos in the bordertown of Primm, Nevada. Whiskey Pete's is the one on the west side of the 15. Buffalo Bill's is on the other. Who here has seen the Kurt Russell/Jack Warden classic "Used Cars"? If you've seen that then you probably get the idea. Both seem to be vying for the title of Most Horribleist Casino in the World.

We've been doing an Incubus video way out in the middle of Dumont Dunes, a good hour and a half from Whiskey P's in Death Valley. Friday we will be broken in half by the environment, short-staffedness, and take after soul-grinding take of manufactured sandstorms. For now, though, things are fine and the absurdity of overnighting in a casinito keeps us in light spirits. R acknowledges his Asian gambling gene and disappears for ten or fifteen minutes at a time to donate his per diem to The Whiskey Pete's Fund For Underpriveleged Children.

A large hulking man in his mid-thirties is crashed out in the table next to us. He has been sleeping there for at least forty-five minutes. I know this because this is how long it takes us to get our food. The man is huge and simian. He reminds me of Mickey Roarke in "Sin City," without the bad Botox for an excuse. He is halfway through a steak; his knife is right next to his hand and his overstuffed, bulging wallet rests on the edge of the table where anyone could nab it. A trap, maybe? We think about waking the guy up so he can finish his discounted meal but worry about potential military flashbacks inducing reactive choke holds, eye stabs, and throat chops.

Eventually management arrives and tries to rouse and roust our slumbering friend. She pushes on his meaty shoulder a few times, intoning "Sir, sir, SIR" with increasing volume and intensity. As soon as she spins around to find security, a bespectacled and wily white-haired old man leaps out of a neighboring table and lands down right next to Roarke. "The police are coming for you!!!" he growls in the guy's ear. "You better get out of here. The cops are coming to get you!"

Then, amazingly, he retreats in a blur and reseats himself at his table, acting as if nothing has happened...while a sputtering, rubbernecking Roarke comes to life, looking around frantically. "They've called the cops already and they're coming to take you away!" the old man continues. At this point a young and distressed short-haired blonde girl materializes at Roarke's table. "Where have you been?" she cries. "It's one in the morning and I've been looking all over for you!" She looks like she's twenty years younger than he. She's kind of cute but her skin is bad and I wonder what kind of a painful life she's had already had up to this point.

Roarke is awake but not lucid exactly and after a couple of minutes he notices our entire table (and the rest of the restaurant) watching him. He stands at the edge of our booth, wobbling, and starts the long and involved process of introductions and handshaking. What is this drunk thing about shaking hands? So he shakes everyone's hand except for a production assistant who has joined us. "I have a broken finger," he says, holding up his splint as proof. "Don't be a pussy," says our friend The Bohemoth. The man looms, pushing up against our booth. Anything can happen here. It's kind of pleasurable to know this. Maybe he'll choke out one of us just yet.