The lights came up inside The Joint at the Hard Rock to a round of boos and disagreeing whistles. The crowd had hoped that The Foo Fighters would be coming out for an amazing but unnecessary third encore. Jessica was one of the group to release an audible sound of disappointment. She truly wasn’t upset though. This was one of the best shows that she had ever seen and she had gathered enough memories of Dave Grohl’s stage presence and sheer energy to keep her satisfied through many future, solitary evenings. She stood at her spot twenty feet from the stage and waited for the crowd to filter through the doors and on to the casino floor. After a good show, the Hard Rock could make thousands in profit from exuberant concert goers dropping money in their casino while hanging around and reliving the moments with random strangers of the show that they just witnessed. Jessica had a feeling that the Hard Rock was in for a good evening.
She looked around to see if her roommate Kate and Kate’s fiancé, Brian, were still in the room. She had become separated from them sometime during the first encore when Jessica was carried in the flow of the mosh pit closer to the front of the stage. Her eyes were still adjusting from being in relative darkness for the last 2 ½ hours to this now moderately lit environment swimming in a smoky haze. Jessica knew first hand that most of haze wasn’t from your standard Camels or Marlboros. With her trip in to the mosh pit came a quick puff or two from a complete stranger’s marijuana cigarette. She had done her share of pot but nothing she had done in the past had affected her quite as much as those two (or was it three?) hits in the pit. Combined with the straight vodka shots that she had earlier in the evening, she wondered if the room was swimming due to the smoke or if she had possibly overdone it…again. “Fuck it,” she thought. She felt good; better than she had felt in a long time.
She began to shuffle over the discarded plastic cups and miscellaneous other garbage as the crowd around her steadily dispersed. The lights of the casino were getting brighter as she moved towards the doors but she was surprised that she had yet to pick up the din of noise that comes with a packed gaming floor on a Saturday night in Vegas. Maybe the ear plugs that Kate offered her before the show would have been a good idea. Suddenly, the room swam in front of her eyes and the combination of this and the almost painful ringing in her ears threw her equilibrium off and caused her to swoon into a sweaty, shirtless man walking beside her.
“Watch it, lady,” uttered the growl through the gray goatee and dentally-neglected teeth of the 50-something that she fell into.
She tried to say “Sorry, Mister” but the words slurred and it sounded more like “Sorree misha”. She broke her eye contact with the man that she was using as a prop and straightened herself up. She bowed her head to partially avoid any further embarrassment but to also hide her face so that Mr. Harley didn’t change his mind and decide to plow her over with his motorcycle later. She stumbled her way in the direction of the door farthest to the left and away from him. “What’s happening to me?” Jessica thought. She found a wall shadowed in darkness near the exits and took the time as to not fall over to lean herself against it. She squeezed her eyes shut to try and clear her head but this turned out not to be a wise choice as the room behind her eyelids started to rotate as if she was on an out of control merry-go-round. Quickly, she opened her eyes wide and inhaled deeply through her nostrils. The clean air that she needed to clear her head did not come. Instead, stale “concert” air made up of smoke, alcohol and a plethora of different body odors caused her stomach to flip. “Shit, Jess, don’t throw up,” she said to herself. “Hold it together for fuck’s sake.” She stopped trying to figure out why she felt invincible just three minutes ago to now barely being able to hold her down her quesadilla from the Pink Taco that she had at dinner before the show. The thought of the marijuana being laced with the date rape drug, Rohypnol, never crossed her mind.
Jessica finally made her way through the exit at The Joint and on to the casino floor of the Hard Rock. As her eyes adjusted to the new light (and a whole new cloud of smoke), she began to look around for Kate. She realized that she had given Kate her small purse, which held her key, before making her way into the mosh pit earlier. The nausea had passed momentarily but she wanted to go up to their room and lie down. She didn’t like the way that her body was reacting. First, she felt sick. Moments later, she felt like she just had a slight buzz and was ready to party at the craps tables long into the next morning. Between dizziness and euphoria, she broke into a cold sweat which gave her the weird sensation of having a fever and a great high at the same time. She didn’t know how long she stood there looking into the action of the casino but her search for Kate was now turning to desperation. Not only did she want to lie down but she now really had to pee.
She didn’t recall moving but before she realized it, she was shoulder to shoulder with people between two rows of black jack tables on the gaming floor. Even though her ears were still ringing from the screaming voice of Dave Grohl, it did not block out the sounds of the small parties going on at every table. A cheer from her right as the dealer pulls an eight to bust on his fourteen. A groan from her left as a gentleman pulled a two on his double down bet. A high pitched squeal from a table behind her that could have been a young lady hitting a black jack but turned out to be a reaction to a cocktail being spilled in the woman’s lap. She continued to glance around the room in an effort to find either Kate or Brian. She started to look for Brian more as she thought that his 6’4” frame would be easier to find in a crowd than her mid-statured roommate. She really hoped that Kate and Brian had not gone upstairs to celebrate the after-show in the same way that she heard them kick off the weekend from their bathroom this morning. Jessica didn’t mind the noise earlier and actually used their poorly muffled sounds of ecstasy to rub one off herself. If they weren’t down here though, Jess didn’t have a key to get past the security to the elevators and in her current condition, that would be very problematic.
The thought caused her to panic. She found herself paying more attention to taller gentleman in hopes that they were Brian instead of paying attention to where she was walking. She didn’t see the gentleman standing in the aisle in front of her and was surprised that he did not fall over when she walked right into him without slowing down. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said, not sure if he could even hear it over the constant noise surrounding them. She reached out in what she hoped looked like an effort to be helpful towards him when she was actually trying to steady herself. He wasn’t much taller than she was and was holding his head when she grabbed him by the shoulders. “Did he bump it on something when I hit him?” she thought to herself. He looked up into her eyes and she felt a chill run up and down her body. His eyes were piercing blue in color but for a brief moment they looked as though he had lost all control and he had every notion to strangle her right there in the middle of everyone. She convinced herself that her body was going through another bout of the cold sweats and believed it when she blinked and saw the man sheepishly smiling at her, with nothing but warmth behind the icy blue stare.
“It’s quite alright,” he responded. Jessica noticed his slight lisp when he said “it’s” and felt silly in thinking that this man could cause any bodily harm. “In a hurry?”
“No, just not paying attention. Trying to find someone,” she responded.
“Me too. Good luck.” And with that, he straightened his jacket and walked away in the direction in which she just came. She noticed that he walked with a limp and again felt sorry for him, hoping she didn’t cause the abnormality by crashing in to him. He soon disappeared between two crowds merging behind their respective black jack tables. She brushed an auburn strand of hair out of her eyes and continued her search.
As she made her way through the banks of black jack tables and past the serious social gatherings at the craps table, she saw Brian standing at a roulette table one aisle over. She was happy to see that Kate was with him and even more happy to see that she still had her purse. “Finally,” she thought.
