Shadow Play

Another note to self: When driving across a desert, buy sunglasses FIRST.
Newly ordained with confidence from MJ’s trusty radiator cap, I recalculated my timeline as I headed (this time, correctly) on I-15…having already been on the road for 3 hours, I figured Vegas was a trip to the beach. Imagine my surprise when the first sign indicated that it was 380 miles away. I was hoping to have dinner and a quick visit with friends right after their workday; now, by all indications, it was going to be a later arrival than I thought. It was then that I received the first of many texts.
Jenn Hook Kratochowill is a former colleague from The Grand and a friend you simply can’t forget. She moved to Vegas when she married her husband Chris, an audio engineer who does primo work for some of the major casinos, including the up and coming “largest ever,” The Aria. Jenn now works with the Nevada ballet, and while I have always stayed in touch over the years, I have never had the pleasure of visiting. This was to be my first destination.
Her text was simple: “On time?” to which I responded (after pulling over), “Waylaid. 5 hours?” She was quick on the reply, “No prob. BE CAREFUL.”
Of course I was being careful, I thought (this, the first of many such thoughts, would turn out to be multiple conversations with myself, God, and many other Sybil-like personalities I had not yet met). How could I not be careful? This is everything I have, my whole life, all I own, in this truck; I’m going to guard it with my life.
And then the first series of slopes and curves really started to kick in. I was suddenly in mountainous terrain, surrounded by streaks of deserts here and there…all very much in the middle of nowhere. It made me wonder where the hell all this traffic was coming from. And moreover, where they were going. I could feel the tremendous weight on the bed of the truck as gravity pushed down and Jesse’s Girl sloped with the road. The tractor trailers whizzing past didn’t help, and I reached across to pull the passenger window down a crack to create an air vent for the vacuums they generated.
I decided to be more careful.
After several scathing remarks where the first of Sybil’s voices started to reveal themselves, I found myself out of the major traffic and on level land. Very. Level. Land. The beginnings of the Mojave were in plain view, and plain is the word. At first. The sun continued its beating, and the road began to take on the effect of that blurriness that occurs over a charcoal grill…the gaseous wavy lines rising above. By now I was realizing two things: my hands were hurting from the decades old steering column that was not exactly designed for a comfort grip, and my face was hurting from squinting so much from the glare, and (not realizing it) the sunburn I was getting from the reflection off my hood.
Jenn continued to text me as I continued along the straight, unending, bleak road before me. The mountains in the distance seemed so miniscule; I wondered if they would ever rise. The sun on my neck started to creep to the left, as time marched on, and I tried to keep on keeping on. I was starting to feel a little dazed and confused, but just then something caught my eye.
The mountains, all around, ahead, and in the distance, started to come to life. The setting sun was beginning a game that has to have been going on since the dawn of time: shadow play. The left sides of the mountains were highlighted in radiant golds, ambers, rusts and reds, as the right sides started to deepen their hues and often take on the shapes of faces and figures. As the game continued, I was grateful to witness it; a natural wonder viewed by fresh eyes. I was grateful too, for my overheated temperature gauge, for without that delay, I may not have borne witness to this tete a tete between earth and sun. The game continued for some time, and instilled me with new energy.
My landmark prior to Vegas was an armpit of a town called Baker, which really is a last resort before you hit the Mojave heading the other way. The Mayor of the City of Wilmington is named Baker, and the irony was not lost on me as I laughed at the cosmic coincidence that I was “heading home.” Armpit that it was, it was a welcome stop, and as I careened into a convenience store parking lot, I was blanched into a cool spot of shade on the far façade. My squinting eyes peeled open with some resistance as my pupils dilated.
More texts from Jenn, as the 8:00 hour approached. “You’re about 40 min away. Call when you get to Vegas exits,” and after a quick stretch (and with growing concern over losing sunlight), I was struck by one more irony, the last exit in California before the state line: Bailey Road (my old boss’ name…hmmm). Without fanfare, Nevada’s state sign “welcomed me” and then about 10 minutes into the area, the fanfare really began, as a series of twinkling lights, mini casinos, questionable bars and neon-everything started to light the way.
Jenn had told me that she lived in a new development that was “hardly Vegas,” but I nonetheless had to cruise through the cotton candy lights ahead to find it. Upon several missed exits (stranger in a strange town, it happens), I called Jenn, and said three things to her: “I’m stiff, I’m sunburned, and I’m sober.” She laughed and quipped along with alliteration: “Well, I got Solarcaine.” Her husband Chris got on the line and gave me comprehensive directions, due to Jenn’s confession that she essentially drives only to work and home. Before long, I was on a beltway around the City of Sin, and cruised into the lovely development of Summerlin.
My last visual memory of Jenn was at her wedding, with her long tendrils of chestnut hair cascading through her veil. As my pickup turned onto her street, I slowly revved up alongside the house, partially obstructed by several trees. From the porch light glow behind one of them stood a new shadow play: that of a familiar figure stooped over to one side as if in anticipation. Familiar, with the exception of one thing.
Jenn had bobbed her hair.
It was Throroughly Modern Mille, Vegas style.