Small Recall From The Night We Met Kang
♾ I hate Vegas. That’s what ‘people’ say. ‘That’s’ also what people say. It was the annual MTL shareholder meeting and vveed was just allowed for medicinal use. This proved to be a hindrance in the long-term, speaking of society generally. Less than 30% of MTL members were in attendance, as to be expected. The 3 of us, Adam, Andrew and myself, were perched up in the Trump. Don could not make it.
Adam was a blue collar Jew with a surgeon’s sensibility. He loved Dick Tracey novels. He didn’t actually, but he was the kind of person that looked like he would tell you he liked Dick Tracey novels. Andrew, resident WASP, was barely legal, and had just started dating one of the local Egyptians (a story for another day). I forget about the MTL and our work together. We loved doing jabroni shit, we were brothers.
Post check-in, we’d noticed hotel tv porn prices had skyrocketed since our last visit; we lamented, and hit the Jack Black tables. I proceeded to chain smoke American Spirits (light blue) shadowing Andrew and Adam from casino floor to bar to casino bar to bathroom to bar to casino to bathroom, rinse & repeating for best results. ZIRP was the vibe. The evening heat map? Dungeon cabbage. Collective finances in the red, we decided to complete our evening at Czars. We joined a table simultaneous to a short chubby thing. An elderly Chinese woman dressed in a red + tan adidas track coat w oddly loose gray faded lycra joggers. She wore a crusty pair of black Keds circa 2000 and a weathered smile like a veneered-crocodile.
Yup. Fking ‘Kang.’ Jus us n Kang. She was drinking a coke n rum, enjoying the smell of the cigarettes, not actually partaking herself. It was 4 AM and it was her birthday. Energy. Inspired. We all decide to make a last withdrawal. This is our last stand, Custer level shit. Four hands are played, we sweep the board consistently. 4 more hands are played and we go 15-1 against the house. We are jubilant, drunj, and delirious. I can’t discern whether or not Kang’s ramblings are broken English or actual Chinese…blame the intersection of endorphins. We win again, and again. Kang is screaming, jumping, joyous. Now it’s 5 AM at this point. We’ve been on a heater for nearly 50 mins at this point. At this point we’re pumped. And the adderall has def not worn off at this point. But now, at this point, ebriation worn, we cash, crash, and Kang. Dreaming of her, my Chinese dad.
No one actually hates Vegas.
