"Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas"

CHAPTER ONE:

Sequins, Silicon and Strangulation (or; 'Death of a Showgirl')

Rain was falling in icy cold sheets, relentless - unforgiving, it was drowning the city. 

No, it was baptising the city... an invalid baptism, for no sins were being washed away. 

No souls redeemed for it. The dwellers remained fixated upon their vices and their greed. Their insatiable need to achieve matched only by the vulgarity of the city they had built.

A city of neon, gambling , and broken dreams. Where winners came to lose, and dreamers came to have their dreams extinguished like the crackling spark of a damp squib. Where emotional band-aids were taped across gaping maws of loneliness, regret and self loathing - where the heart broken went to forget and the rich and reclusive went to feel alive.

A city that had grown in a barren desert, cultivated from a seed - an idea to make profit of the vices of men and women.

Las Vegas.

On this - this awful night, the city was a hazy blob, surrounded by near complete darkness, with a strobing neon heart that pulsed without fatigue, corruption the lifeblood of this urban sprawl -  like the thoughts of pumping throbbing, seamy temptation sidetracking the curious mind of purest innocence. The facades of its hotels, casinos and various other landmarks were all wrapped in these God awful illuminations, that burned the irises with sparkling, technicolor enthusiasm.They advertised slot machines, night clubs, strip clubs, and shows of every kind. From multi-platinum selling recording artists, to stage-bound circuses, to lion-tamers, to magicians and illusionists with thick.

The high class establishments spared no expense, advertising grand acts - Celine Dion... Cher... Tom Jones... Garth Brooks - on acres wide billboards lined with perpetually burning bulbs.The more modest (in other words "run-down") venues plastered their modest front walls and bulletin boards with posters of what they could afford... which was mainly "the next best thing"... impersonators... so - called tribute acts... cover bands... as well as a the old and fogotten of Vegas; the forgotten, dusty comedians, the ageing beauties of burlesque splendour; the young, the hapless - those that had a desire to prove something... what they had to prove was usually their worth in a ruthless city built on profiting off the next best thing; a city that had relegated them to the shit-heap because of their age, their sexuality or their intelligence - some wanted to be a somebody, some wanted to remind people that they still were a somebody. Either way, these roster fillers had become a dime a dozen, and whether they were fading stars or rising talents few could compared to the "real deals". The poor man's and working woman's answer to getting close to the stars. 

The few genuine entertainers left in Vegas now - original or not - found themselves outnumbered. The "old Vegas" values had corrupted somewhere, permitting wannabes moulded by the modern world and its unhealthy fascination with celebrity to rise to the level of that same perverse model of self-importance. It had created, in the worst cases, pretender ABBA's and Elvises - both in the guise of deluded imitators and those celebrities who had been suckled on their idols example in the infancy of their careers. Who were demanding the privileges granted to the genuine articles. Who used dirty tactics to get bookings over veterans of the entertainment circuit. Who generally did not live up to the positive aspects of the original templates, their idols - whom they tried so desperately to emulate. Many a good man and woman had dropped by the way side, or taken "retirement", disillusioned and frightened of this new beast that Vegas had become.

A solitary figure traversed the streets on this night. A 3/4 length black over-coat that gathered drops of rain like glistening rhinestones, stylised 1970's aviators glinted under the street lights, embroidered roses on the black shirt visible beneath the overcoat, a soaring steely-quiff coupled with wiry mutton-chops and the striking resemblance to a ghost of yesterday were the features that defined almost caricatured shadow of a pedestrian - one of the countless of originals sacrificed long ago to Las Vegas' neon god of entertainment. This enigmatic, dark figure rounded the end of a lonely street, his hands jammed in pockets and bent against the torrential down fall. He passed closed shop fronts, boarded up hotels, derelict peep - show theatres. He paused only once - seeming to hesitate before entering the cover of a ageing casino's canopy. Resting the urge to keep walking, he stopped taking in the view before him.

At one time the lights on the front of this place were the prettiest in the city. Or at least to me, anyway. A young boy with dreams of being a man he was not born to be, a man there was one to many of already... he thought, turning down the collar of his drenched over-coat. 

Now the building's façade was nothing more that chipping plaster, faded paint work, dry rot and the yellowing stains of one too many.

He sighed. Reached out a hand - moving forward like a long estranged lover, he placed his hand on the cold, shell-pink painted brick work.

Memories...

The walls, either side of the main door, were dominated by old fashioned notice boards - enclosed in glass paneled cabinets to keep their posters and advertisements from the elements. He removed his hand, taking a step back. A familiar sound... a musical riff... was wafting on the breeze. Carrying from inside the building, out through the miniscule gap between the double doors of the main entrance.

They never did shut properly.

He glanced at the billboard. A poster carried the image of a black haired man in a white, rhinestone encrusted jumpsuit - his craggy, rough chiseled features betraying what otherwise would have been a decent likeness. 

"JOHNNY RIVERS: A Tribute to The King" was emblazoned across the top of the poster. The man, captured in a dynamic pose - was at the centre of the advertisement. Around him were pictures of attractive, perhaps incongrously busty show girls with customary tail feathers, a hairy guitarist pasionately playing a Stratocaster, and splashes of colour that resembed fireworks.

"The closest you'll ever see..." - yeah right... how close can you possibly be when you're 15 years older than the ageless memory you're supposed to be?

He glanced at the door. Would he? It couldn't hurt to take a peak. It had been at least... what? Twenty five years since he'd stepped inside the place? Surely anyone who might remember him had long since retired - he'd heard the place had changed hands at least dozens of times since then, with varying degrees of success. The current proprietor being responsible for its current, decrepit state. A deluded fool, he had heard, so obsessed with the kitsch stylings of a romanticised, sixties Vegas that he had allowed the casino to fall into ruin rather than disturb its 'living history'... ah-huh. Sounds about right.

Oh, what the Hell, anything's better than walking in the rain.

He grabbed hold of the tarnished, gold plated, bar - handles cutting across the middle of the main doors, and pushed, light flooding out onto the grime covered sidewalk as the ancient hinges ground open, and he disappeared inside.

The foyer was empty. Rubbery potted plants stood to either side of the laminate, curved reception desk, that was manned by a dozing old woman with pink horn-rimmed glasses and a blue-rinsed perm. Behind the desk stood the post-boxes to the hotel rooms, though there was more empty and full of cobwebs than used, and a luggage trolley, with its 'gold' paint flaking, stood abandoned in one corner with a single lonely carpet bag sitting on it. The candelabra hung from a rusted chain, its dusty faux crytsals cast a wan light about the room - which seemed a mercy, as the fading carpet, peeling wall-paper and chipped paint was happily hidden in the poor light.

He took a step forward, nearer to the edge of the circle of dappled light beneath the candelabra, and took off his aviators to wipe the rain-drops from the tinted rims. The rocking melody - dulled by the distance from the showroom - had changed from the sedate melody of a love song, to a funkier tune about a girl from Louisiana. 

"Johnny Burroughs... the prodigal legend returns, we've missed you..." A breathy voice announced, and made him start. "What, don't recognise me?"

A pink and white sparkly blur stood in front of him, a blur that shimmered as it moved towards him. He blinked, but his eyes didn't adjust - his vision wasn't what it used to be. Johnny caught the smell of vanilla and exotic flowers... he couldn't remember the name of the perfume, but the the memories it brought were visceral and real and they hit him like a freight train.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but my eyes -"

"Ma'am? Ma'am? Do I look that old to you, Johnny Burroughs?"

He raised his glasses, pushing them on his nose - he blinked again, and his vision cleared. He smiled, a smile he hadn't smiled in years - like a fish-hook had caught the left side of his upper lip and pulled it into a cheeky, lob-sided grin.

"Not at all, Darlene, not at all."

Darlene Montana, once the queen of the Vegas strip Marilyn Monroe's, stood before him in a pink sequinned track-suit and a vast white fur coat that made her look as though she were half polar bear. The pearls and immaculate hair seemed to clash awkwardly with the glistening tracksuit but Darlene, though she was no longer the twenty-something year old socialite nymphet that had graced many Vegas events on the arm of countless men in her youth, she was still stunning. 

Darlene couldn't be more than forty and, looking at her now, Johnny became increasingly aware of his own body - and how the years had turned him into a grey haired, bloated has been rather than the toned and tanned Elvis-resembling Adonis he'd once been. He'd once made women swoon, now he was lucky if they even looked at him with pity.