I went to Cheetahs in Las Vegas last night for the first time in over a year. It’s not my favorite place there, Crazy Horse Too is, but the club saturates you with astonishing looking women (see www.lapdanceguide.com for reviews of Vegas clubs). Too bad they are so predatory. After my divorce I moved to Vegas for a few years and became a regular at Cheetahs as well as the CHT. Having been absent so long, I endured a particular kind of experience that can only occur after frequenting a bar for an extended period and then disappearing completely for an equally extended period. The incident can teach more about the relativity of space and time, or at least duration, than can all the books on Albert Einstein.
Many more years ago, I first learned about this cosmic phenomenon while an undergraduate attending the University of Minnesota. I had come out to the northern Midwest from back east because I couldn’t afford college and they had given me a football scholarship. Being such a screw up, I dropped out after two years, but stuck around anyway because the farmers’ daughters loved sex and the bars had cheap beer. My favorite place was called, The Mixers, and it was just at the edge of the campus and quite near the local Minneapolis version of the Bowery. In other words, it had cheap beer and the kind of urban decay that the middle class college kids found “exciting.” I became a regular at the Mixers, and, on any given night, I could equally wind up out on the sidewalk at closing time deranged and pissing drunk, or, slipping out with a big boobed, blond hotty for some nighttime recreation. In short, it was always well worth the visit.
After consciously avoiding making anything worthwhile of myself until I was 24, and after thinking about doing something with my life for at least two and a half years prior to that, I woke up one day and left town. It wasn’t until several years later, after landing a job in Los Angeles, that I decided to return for a visit. On the date I arrived I went to the Mixers at about 7:00 PM, when I knew it wouldn’t be crowded with horny college kids, but when the regulars were there. Sure enough, my old friends were firmly ensconced at the exact same table, drinking the exact same drinks, as they did when I, too, was part of the group. As I approached them, one recognized me and said, “Hey, Seeker, how’s it going?” “Haven’t seen you lately.” Then another dove into the alcohol addled conversation. “Yea. Must have been about a month or two.” Then, the entire table shook their heads in agreement as if this second guy had said something incredibly profound. After that cosmic high point of observation, every one took their turns guessing at how long I had been gone. One said, “no, it must be about 3 weeks.” Another-- “the deuce you say, it has to be at least a few months!” Another—“get lost, man, the Seeker hasn’t been around since Larry Sullivan had his motorcycle accident. It’s got to be at least 6 weeks.” After the furor of virtual time travel, or time “guessing,” more likely, by the regulars, I said, “Hey guys, I’ve actually been gone for three friggin years!” “Whoah!” went the chorus. After that, I just sat down and got drunk. It wasn’t until a day later that I realized I had been privy to a special kind of experience that illuminated the very mystery of time itself.
Last night the same thing happened at Cheetahs. After a year’s absence, the dancers could be divided into three groups. The first were ones who I had never met before. It was refreshing to talk to them. The second were ones that had just started working there about the same year when I had decided to leave Vegas. Most of the women remembered me. The ones that did came up and said, “Hey, you’ve been out of town,” etc. etc., and then each one guessed how long it had been just like my Minnesota Mixers compadres. I picked up on some juicy gossip like why one dancer, Kennedy, wasn’t there any more—“She became a total coke head,” said her onetime friend, “and she was so messed up that she got fired.” Or, “Hey, they’re watching us very closely now because they are afraid the place will be busted. So, more women are doing things outside the club in order to make money.” I was pleased to remind these happy women that I had been gone for a year. That seemed to impress them and, consequently, we had some fun.
The third group, actually just two dancers, were ones that had been working there from the first day I had visited the club. They were already burnt out years ago. One of them, a women who had had a bad boob job about six years before that, and who now had two saggy bags that she had to carry around with her, speculated through her coke haze, “How long has it been? At least about three or four weeks.”
Now every one knows that certain, special drugs can destroy our commonly perceived order of time. They teach us, albeit in a treacherous way, that cosmic duration is completely relative. For an easier exposure to this phenomenal insight into the structure of the universe, simply hang out as a regular among drunks or dope heads at your local strip club and then disappear for a year or two. Unlike fleeing from your wife or children, it won’t matter to the dancers one little bit, and, as I have been saying, they will experience your absence in a way best explained by Mr. Einstein.
