By Dana Jerman

My pal in Chicago, who rarely calls asks, “Are you happy?”

It’s his new way of checking in. Recently, he appreciated the question being asked of him by an equally earnest friend and has latched onto it.

When he asks what life is like here (after I go off about wanting my apartment complex pool to be open already, then joke about first-world problems), I tell him I’m over forty now, man, and I’ve changed a lot. Everything is different and it all took a bit of getting used to.

I think of more useful things to say about it when I’m off the phone. I send him thought bubble-sized text messages:

“There’s a bit more come-as-you-are attitude. That means you can dress however you want or have a million tattoos. You’re almost expected to have a wild angle. Anything goes.”

“Case in point: I just watched a guy cross the street in a scooter looking fancy like aging Elvis meets Karl Lagerfelds’ younger cousin.”

You also realize how bad Chicago is/was about (c)overt racism…

Here’s one thing that is really no different in either city: The longer the story, the bigger the talk, the more bullshit.

Absolutely always any excess boasting and rah-rah never equal real opportunity. Hot air can be both funny and a waste of time.

✶

“Two years in and you’re a good old boy.” An entrepreneur running a jerky shop remarks about LV and adds concerning Chicago: “You’ve gotta put the time in and have battle scars to prove it. That takes too long and hurts besides.”

By now you’ve heard the phrase “Vegas is small, but she is tall.”

Neighborhoods don’t quite hit the same here. The whole city is ensconced in a beautiful valley that’s thirty minute’s drive from end to end. If something is more than fifteen minutes away someone will say “that’s far.” They forget that it takes an hour to get just about anywhere via a stuffy and crowded bus.

People don’t really welcome you until they know you aren’t here to just get in, make some quick money then GTFO. After that two year mark, your integrity is fairly assured. Then the question evolves and people start asking:”So, you’re going to stay in Vegas for awhile, you think?”

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This is not to say that I should have known better and come here earlier. No, you have to be ready for this place, unless of course you were born here and have been immersed in it your whole life. I don’t envy those folks, though. Probably for a lot of them, Vegas isn’t really all that special anymore.

And I say you have to be ready, because Vegas seems to find a way of zeroing in on your vice. Finding your deepest weakness and exploiting it by offering you what you think you want (and therefore deepening your relationship to your vice) while painlessly extracting its own needs. 

However unlike other places, I feel I am encouraged to not chase things. Investing too heavily in an outcome one way or the other is bound to lead to disappointment no matter what you’re doing.

By chasing, I don’t mean hustling. Hustling is just a grind. Grinding is inevitable. Grinding is getting out of bed and getting your butt in the shower.

Chasing is grasping. You can’t hold tight to anything so ethereal in this neon chimera of a world. If you chase, you narrow your focus. Turn your head and watch something better slip right past.

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I say, “I wish I could have brought all my artist friends with me. Painters I know who would love the hi-test hot-pink high-rolling batshit atmosphere.”

One painter in particular comes to mind. After a few sessions he tested me, saying funds were tight and he couldn’t cover my rate. When I said that was fine for the day (because we had a rapport by that point and I liked his work, which he had given me a whole lot of), at the end of the session he went behind his easel and opened up a wooden case filled with messy piles of cash and a gun. I burst out laughing. He paid me double that day.

Even though it was a dick move, I kind of like the absurdity behind it. He would get along with the weirdo red state set out here.

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“I find myself thinking of money more than ever. It is everywhere, here.” I say. Maybe that, too, the changing associations with wealth, is a product of my age. But what I don’t say is “People lose their asses out here or make a fat fortune at the toss of a die and that alone I personally find more exhilarating than depressing.”

I tell him about how it has dawned on me, by way of navigating random meetings while observing pandemic protocol and Craigslist gigging, among the more obvious presence of casino culture, that there is a contingent of filthy rich oldsters (65+) who are by turns a bit lonely and conservative. Some crusty and stingy at their worst.

But I remain undeterred in my aims to separate them—where I can stand them—fairly, gently and firmly, from their cash.

My friend says, “You’d be providing them a great service by doing so.” And that is what it’s all about. My true calling to service looks a lot like cleaning and reorganizing and decluttering and staying healthy and hygienic and just plain being pleasant and personable. Chatty. Easy to speak with. I barely need to put out my hand. I just turn on my low sure voice and sweet crooked smile and out come neat hard stacks.

✶

My friend and I keep talking via texts. I send him a picture of the first desert scorpion I spotted. It was completely flattened onto the pavement of a side street.

I grin and know that one day I’ll be that little insect, yellowing in the sunset. But right up until then, I’ll be happy.

If you enjoyed this piece, consider purchasing a copy of I Didn’t Marry a Prostitute… on Amazon.