Iron & Wine

Set My Soul on Fire (part 2)

Indeed, the two of us made our way along Las Vegas Boulevard with the windows rolled down and the sight of the Strip beheld in front of us. The whole entire sight before us made me close my eyes and picture the swirled clouds right over the crowns of the hotels and casinos all along the sides of the street, like something straight out of a dream. A dream filled with four card suits, poker chips, and a myriad of big golden neon. Even with the daylight still out in the open, I could see the spectacular crown of light at the top of the glossy black pyramid that was the Luxor Hotel.

Someday, when Chuck and I fully ascend to crown royalty, and we leave the rags behind us in the dust, we will stay at the Luxor.

All I could think about at the moment was the biggest, juiciest Reuben I could ever possibly think of with a series of curly fries and a milkshake in an actual glass. In fact, it was easy to let the whole feeling of the dream wander about and have the flickering neon lights of the Strip color our way inside. Suddenly, I really did feel like Elvis in one of his movies, complete with the gloss and sheen all around my head and shoulders. The sliver of gray upon my head made me think of the silver that lined the age of Vegas in the middle of the century, a feeling of days bygone reinstated and painted like a Polaroid picture for a lowly, scrappy studmuffin schlub such as myself.

I took it upon myself to leave fear and loathing themselves at the door and indulge for a bit as if it was my own wedding.
It was Viva Las Vegas, baby.

Then again, the place that Chuck and I had had dinner at was called Alice's Restaurant, nestled up right behind Planet Hollywood. A strange intersection of Elvis with Arlo Guthrie in the least likely of places no less, but one I was more than willing to undertake for myself. My hair spread over my shoulders and my eyes had the blueness of the ocean, and my parents hailed out of New York much like Arlo, after all.

Though neither of us had touched a drop of alcohol that evening, the whole experience felt like a starry-eyed dream to me, courtesy of the nascent heat of the Nevada desert before us, but especially when I kept on thinking about the fact that we headed straight into James' wedding without any sort of prior knowledge about Ashley. I had no idea even about her last name, just to give a bit of perspective.

Eric and Louie never even knew about it, either, even when we asked them about it on the way back to the hotel room. It seemed strange to me that James would keep the own woman whom he loved under such insistent lock and key: though I understood the level of privacy that went into something such as that, I felt a little bit cheated after it seemed obvious to me that he was madly in love with her.

At the same time, it made me chuckle that the two of them were marrying in Vegas, the city where any kind of marriage that took place went down in flames shortly afterward. I found it to be a risk of sorts, a risk compounded by the glitz and glamour of Sin City.

Indeed, I had this lurking suspicion within me when Chuck and I returned to our room for the night, and we turned in shortly before midnight. In fact, the separate beds made sense to me when I rolled over onto my back and I kept the blankets wrapped around my hips, right underneath my belly button all the while. It gave me the chance to lay there with my legs spread open and my mind under this strange veil of pensive thought.

I could walk down the Strip with my prince next to me and we could have our shirt collars popped open against the warmth of the desert, but I wondered about James and Ashley, about as to how much they had between the two of them.

And yet, I kept those thoughts firmly in the back of my mind as we made our way to the chapel, which just so happened to be across the 15 Freeway, right within walking distance of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign as well as a golf course, the Pinball Hall of Fame, on a street called Dean Martin Drive: the very second that I caught a glimpse of that street name, as well as Frank Sinatra Drive, I almost immediately thought of my father and the fact that he often referred to me as "meshuggah." And maybe I was meshuggah at that point, because I had strolled into that church next to Chuck donned in the same white shirt that I had worn the day before all while looking as though I had just emerged from the strip club right across the street, and perhaps Vegas Guitars about two and a half blocks away from there.