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  • And What Was It You Wanted?
  • Lori Jakiela (bio)

In Vegas, we get a room for $30 a night at Circus Circus. The hotel is one giant big top. Here there are real trapeze artists. There are mimes and clowns. The concierge is dressed like a circus barker. Being inside Circus Circus is like being trapped inside a Fellini film. It's like being stuck in a giant pinball machine.

When the writers Tess Gallagher and Raymond Carver got married in Nevada's Heart of Reno Chapel, Carver called it a "high tack affair." After the ceremony, Tess went on a three-day winning streak at roulette.

"It's perfect," I say to Danny as we stand in line to check in.

"What?" he says. The bells from the slot machines, the circus music, the crowds—everything except the mimes—drown everything out.

Upstairs in our room, the mattress sags. There are cigarette burns in one pillowcase. A Styrofoam take-out container is moldering under the bed.

"It's not the honeymoon suite," I say.

"Shut up and kiss me," Danny says, and runs at me full on, knocking me onto the bed that creaks and bows and threatens to snap under our weight. [End Page 23]

Later, we hire a cab driver to take us for a tour of wedding chapels. The cabbie, a middle-aged woman in a bedazzled tank top, says she'll look out for us. "A nice couple like you," she says. "I'll get you a big discount."

We drive down the Strip. Howie Mandel is playing the Tropicana. Sinbad is at the MGM. The cabbie seems nice at first. Then she starts talking.

"You picked the perfect place to get married. Vegas is the most romantic place on earth," she says. "Just look at that."

She points to a blond man and woman on the sidewalk. They are both very tan and dressed in matching white polo shirts. They're holding hands. They look like an ad for a timeshare.

"Now there's a nice couple," she says.

She says, "Not like all these white girls with the black men."

She says, "And those Mexicans. They're everywhere. They're taking over. Just look around."

She says, "We should shoot them all."

I feel sick. We get out of the cab at the next chapel and walk what seems miles back to the hotel. The heat is unbelievable, well over a hundred degrees. Danny's sweating, dry heat or not. I feel my tongue swelling. I feel dizzy.

"Fucking psychotic," Danny says about the cab driver.

"I think I might throw up," I say.

But it's more than the cabbie, more than the heat. The whole place seems off, wrong, an illusion. In the hotel lobby, a mime is stuck in his invisible box. A woman dressed in flammable Lycra is eating fire. Blindfolded trapeze artists swing overhead and throw themselves at each other. Trust is one thing. The huge net under the high wires is another. Families with children are everywhere. None of them look happy. Most of the children are crying.

I am having a child. I am getting married. All of this makes me want to weep, too.

Just off to our right, a couple and their young son are checking in. The son has his own suitcase, a Thomas the Train roller-board. He's whacking it back and forth against a marble pillar. His mother's saying, loud enough for me to hear it over the big-top noise, "Stop it, Tommy." [End Page 24]

Tommy, Thomas, the boy, the train.

"Tommy, I mean it," the mother is saying. Her voice is flat as cardboard. She's wearing sunglasses, celebrity-style frames, black plastic with rhinestone lion heads at the temples.

The husband is dragging another suitcase. This one's huge, big enough to store a body in. The check-in line's moving, an old movie reel, but the husband stops for a second because the bag's toppled over. He's struggling to right it. He doesn't see the girl at the desk who motions him down. He doesn't hear her say, "Next...

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