Miller's Midnight Runners

Sometimes nights like this happen, no scheduled plans or real desire to embark any particular methods of insanity, yet in the undercurrent hidden amongst the dark streams of decadent Vegas arises a magnetic energy that begins sending out telepathic orders to drop whatever I am doing at the moment and head toward the epicenter of one more escapade involving the recreational attributes of substance abuse alongside the sleepless, head to work the next morning still out of your mind while fighting through the bewilderment challenge, a contest that becomes ever more painfully difficult to win. Probably about 12:30am have already hooked up with a couple from Montreal, one of them Canadian, the other from the UK, one of the local female booze hounds who has a bottomless taste for anything mentally immobilizing, and some 50 year crusty from Colorado named Diamond Dave. Why grab a drink at one of the local pubs after midnight, especially when I have to be at work in a little more than 8 hrs, what is the hurt, have a few, then head home to get a bit of rest. Fast forward to 2:30am, all these people are piling into my van with pints full of beer, the UK bloke follows behind like a good chase car does, putting distance between myself and the neighborhood authorities. By 3:30am now, I got Diamond Dave super high on some mega chronic weed, so he has taken up residence in my bathroom, laying down on the floor using one of my bath towels for a pillow, so after a bit longer someone finally informs me of his condition. Time to grab some blankets to help comfort his hallucinatory state; he is done for the duration of this adventure, off dreaming on the back of his eyelids watching some personal animated mind movie that randomly selects image content from the vast libraries of the mind, it makes no sense, yet the pictures keep on coming.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang has dived into the unopen bottle of Tequila, liberally pouring drinks into shot glasses. I gave up attempting to direct this party long ago, not much else to do but break out all the arsenal of fiesta materials, mixed them all together then observe the results. Damn place smells like a ashtray, small butts, ashes, and smoke, clouds of weed in the air, as well as fresh carved rails of some chemical combo consisting of coke, MDMA, valium, and xanax, what has possessed me to formulate such a brain cell killing combination, probably just a bit of daring, experimentation, and a healthy curosity to see if these fools would actually ingest such a caustic fusion. It's 5:30am, dance music is vibrating the walls of the place, luckily the neighbors are out of town, still find it hard to believe no one can hear this afterhours club raging toward the streets of the Las Vegas Strip. Diamond Dave has arisen from the dead, he is going through a collection of my travel photos, amused, intrigued, and channeling their worldly energy into his own state of existence. The woman from Montreal has been talking constantly for the past 3 hours, the guy from Montreal is attempting to get his girl and the local booze hound friend of mine together; he keeps asking me if I mind, as he grabs one of my video cameras while giving the ol thumbs up, pointing the lens in their direction. Sure, why not, always up for a good show is my feeling, if they are willing, I am, willing to watch, possibly even participate, but for now, the idea is more fantasy than anything else.

These people are nothing more than club casualities now; it is already 7am, work is in a few hours, damn it, I need some form of sleep, my age has taken all the will out of me to grind it out for a little while longer, furthermore, this crowd is nothing new, a bit novel, the stories of the couple from Montreal who have been traveling around the states for almost a year kept me going for a bit, as well as Diamond Dave's antics, yet, enough, time to pack it in and with no goodbyes head into my room, lock the door, and set the alarm. In the echoes of my mind, the music is still playing, the voices laughing without faces, the snorts, the puffs, and the swigs of alcohol consuming every last of bit of party material left in the house. Slowly all this carnage, all this white noise, all this useless liveliness erodes into an opaque tunnel of zen, where no thoughts, dreams, or contact with the dead exist, a blank time warp shattered by the sound of a phone alarm, time to get up in the clothes I fell asleep in, cutting it close so no time for a shower, walk out of my room, nothing but silence, some invisible entity has forcefully ejected all those cretins from my nightmares, I can only hope that work today shall be a bit forgiving and offer me a slight repreive from the events of last night/this morning. Luckily, after a bit of equipment setup, the gods allow me two hours to sleep in my van and afterwards while reassembling a small supply of sanity; finish the afternoon half rationale, yet quite enough for the job, just have to keep breathing, hold the mind together, and then exhale when the shift is over, back in the automobile to grab a bite to eat for the first time in the last 24 hours.