The Last Drink Before the Weekend Ends

"Are you going to gamble while you're in Vegas?" The woman asking the question was one of my post-workshop straggler's, bent on extracting every last shred of evidence leading to my conclusion that the dollar really is going to fail. She had followed me out of the lecture hall to question me in the foyer – apparently oblivious to the fact that I was both psychologically and emotionally "done" imparting my bleak and macabre message to the world for the day.

Done.

I took a long pull from my glass of bourbon. Her accent bled slowly a thick, nasal Scandinavian root, shouting, "FUCK YOU, I'M FROM THE MIDWEST!" like a premium billboard aimed at rush hour traffic. I stared at her for a moment -- neutral on the outside, but positively roiling on the inside. I raised my eyebrows and we continued to stare at one another until I simply couldn't resist glancing at a girl in a tiger-striped dress standing shoulder-to-shoulder with another girl -- both speaking enthusiastically, yet cautiously to a couple of young Hispanic men. Or boys. Or whatever.

The badges around the boys' necks told me they were part of the convention in the hall next to us -- in town to absorb the delicate intricacies of franchising a Pizza Hut. My guess was that their day was done, and now they were going after these two kittens. Their badges bore the bold word "ARIZONA." The girls were laughing and nodding, in that sort of polite yet frantic I just want to go have about ten shots of tequila and get laid by someone hot kind of way. I'm probably not the best judge, but I'm good enough to know the boys from Arizona weren't making the cut.

"Mr. Ahlgren?"

I looked back at the woman. "I'm sorry. I'm very tired. I need to get back to my hotel."

"Oh! Where are you staying?" She smiled with an eagerness that terrified me far worse than the prospect of the dollar's failure. Her boingy-bouncy accent affected me like screeching metal, and I noticed the wedding ensemble on her left hand. I found myself wondering what it would be like to spend my life listening to that accent, and suddenly the Swedish Chef from the Muppet show took center stage in my brain, after hibernating for decades, and I had to suppress what would have only come across as a condescending guffaw.

I closed my eyes. I opened them again. She was still there. I took another sip of bourbon and said, "I'm staying at Hooters."

"Excuse me?"

I leaned forward a bit. "Hooters."

"Oh."

Normally I would have lied. But somehow I was beyond that here. Another moment of silence passed before she finally said, "Well, you didn't answer my question."

I smiled patiently. "What question was that?"

"Are you going to gamble?"

I let my smile broaden a little, and the bourbon took the moment. "As soon as I find the right prostitute."

In 1990 I took a tour of William Faulkner's estate in Oxford, Mississippi. At the time, I had written little more than a few dark pop songs about abandonment and broken love. I found it strange that the last stop on the tour was Faulkner's bedroom, in which a dresser stood -- a quarter-full bottle of Jack Daniels resting on its surface.

I stared at it for a moment, almost mesmerized. "Why is that there?" I asked the guide.

She smiled gently. "We don't talk about it."

Somebody else said, "Why not?"

More firmly, the guide said, "We just don't."

Three or four years later, a historian from Mississippi told me the bottle is original. "They keep it there," he said, "because it was both the source of Faulkner's brilliance, and the catalyst for his demise…" He let the words trail off dramatically, and for years, I thought it was simply a tactic to immortalize a legend.

It turns out on the night of his death, Faulkner reached for that bottle and begged the paramedics charged with transporting him to the hospital in Memphis to let him bring it along…

When I finally got out to the strip, I became aware of one inescapable truth: I needed to get to a fucking keyboard. Fast. But first, I needed more bourbon.

I walked quickly, chewing on this abject loneliness sitting in the pit of my stomach like a piece of rotten fish. The nearly inconceivable number of tragedies over the last month played in my mind, looping infinitely, reminding me just how the universe works.

Remember when you were on top of the world? Remember? Remember when you thought you were cool, and you had more money than you knew how to spend, and you didn't have to worry about shit anymore? Remember? Remember when you didn't have a daughter whose very existence makes you ache with emotions you never knew existed? Hmmm? Yeah, well we fixed that little snap of haughty fatuousness, didn't we?

I stopped and looked at the Vegas skyline as the sun melted into the horizon, and suddenly I was stricken by how much it had changed since the last time I was here. And I thought about how much everything has changed.

I slowed my pace, watching the sun disappear, wondering how this oasis of pure decadence in the middle of the Nevada desert was even moderately sustainable in light of the current economic crisis. And yet here it was, full of all the same throngs of fat, tattoo-covered bovines plugging up the walkways as they ambled to the next casino, dumping endless sums of money in ceaselessly flashing, dinging machines sporting themes ranging from Dale Earnhardt, Jr., to EBay. Yes, that's right. EBay.

What is the appeal? And why do these herds of cattle continue to pay five dollars for a small bottle of water, or $15 for a barely palatable cheeseburger? Why?

For my part, I was here by invitation to speak to a
group of investors -- many of whom still refuse to acknowledge that the U.S. government has just printed the dollar into its immortal place in history. They accepted my presentation with cautious skepticism, and I can't say I blame them; after all, who really wants to face the fact that everything we have ever known about our society is about to disintegrate? The whole world is coming apart at the seams; it has become imbalanced, and somehow I'm in the middle of it – inexorably and irrefutably. And here I was in Vegas. Confused. Scared. Angry. Tired. And driven…

In the last 36 hours, I've been cornered by brilliant people turning to me for advice on which leveraged ETFs will protect their portfolios most effectively… I've been approached by prostitutes better endowed than I am – which, granted, isn't difficult to achieve. A 21-year-old biology student from some college in California seduced me, only to abandon me, leaving me writhing in my passion like a hungry infant. I have walked miles and miles and miles in the unrelenting Nevada heat. And last night, I blew my chances with a 23-year-old supermodel because I refused to pay $32 for a drink, along with the privilege of wearing a fur coat in a glorified cooler containing a bar made of ice.

And I miss my little girl so much…

I guess my priorities are just all fucking out of whack. But as the day drew to a close, I knew one thing with a conviction so near certainty that my blood veritably boiled with a passion I have not felt for a very, very long time. Most of us know what it's like to experience that erotic perfect storm – that moment when you meet someone to whom you are so attracted, and from whom the attraction is so requited, that you almost can't get to a secluded place fast enough to shred the fabric from each other's bodies, like dog's scratching at the entrance of some elusive rodent's home. And when this happens, oddly enough, it's the unqualified, unquenchable desire that etches itself forever in our memories, whereas the inevitable sex itself results in an anticlimactic debacle that usually embarrasses everyone involved.

If you know what I'm talking about, then you know how I felt about getting to a place where I could write.

Now. This minute…

I needed to get this out of me… to spill it to the world… to offer one last temporary explosion before I launched into the sequel with all the strength I have left.

I marched into the Hooter's gift shop with all the confidence of an Oscar-winner traversing the void between his precarious membership in the audience, to his sacred place at the podium -- where his position in history is guaranteed, and his acceptance speech graduates from an insurance policy to a declaration of greatness.

The fat woman in front of me wore white socks beneath her Crocks, and some sort of shiny pink tracksuit that would have embarrassed Elvis Presley. She had a cigarette dangling between her lips which bobbed up and down as she counted coins in a pile next to her Michigan driver license, trying to achieve the exact cost of the bona fide Hooters golf ball, shot glasses, and bottle of Jose Cuervo. My guess was that she buying this crap for her family back in Kalamazoo – or whatever shitty hovel she came from.

The cellulite that composed the majority of her upper arm bore a tattoo that might have been a butterfly at one point. Or it could just as easily have been a likeness Nikki Sixx. There was just no way of knowing.

The clerk seemed as impatient as I was. She sighed and turned her eyes to me. "What can I do for you?"

I nodded once at the shelf behind her. "Bourbon."

She stared at me, and I felt something familiar. The faintest smile touched her lips, and involuntarily, one thought stampeded my mind: she knows…

She turned slowly – only pulling her eyes away from mine at the last possible instant. She turned back and handed the bottle to me in exchange for the cash I gave her.

"Keep it," I said.

She narrowed her eyes and smiled a little more…

I finally made it back to my room, where poured a quick, sloppy drink and tore off my clothes. I fumbled with the zipper, pulled out my laptop, and fell onto the bed. What you're reading is what came next…

Nine years ago, it took me three months to write the first draft of Discipline. Those three months followed the worst year I had ever known – up to that point. But compared to the last two years, that time of my life seems like a goddamn day at the carnival.

I'm trembling right now, because the ghosts are back, and they are angrier than I ever remembered. They are screeching at me, forcing me to see things I didn't think I'd ever have to look at again. This place is so black, and it hurts so much, and yet this is what it takes. This is where I have to go, and I was a fool for thinking I could ignore it forever.

But, of course, there's something new now. She is the most beautiful thing in the universe. So fuck it. It's not like I have any choice anyway. Let's see what happens this time.