May 13, 2008 ~ Las Vegas, Nevada ~ Pure Nightclub
Creating ridiculous situations is one of the few things in which I excel, but the admiring look that the familiar face gave me as I escorted my list of characters through the masses of the aromatic glitterati at Pure would have been enough for me. I had worked closely with Alex, a VIP host at the time, enough times in my corporate event planning life that he didn’t ask me any questions when I submitted my list of players for the evening – the fabrication of a slightly buzzed mind written and sent from my home a few days earlier. He must having taken pause, however, even if only briefly, to admire with his own eyes the odd collaboration of personalities coming off that written page that included a reclusive dj with an aversion to sunlight, an Asian billionaire with Triad mob ties, and an erotic dancer with her own cabaret show in Manhattan. I slipped him $100 of our pooled money as he gave me a smirk and a wink. And with that, a 350-lb bodyguard and two girls a quarter his size escorted me and the seven bar staffers from Auburn, Alabama behind me into the sea of electronic hysteria and manic festivity that is Las Vegas.
5 Days Earlier ~ Auburn, AL ~ Sky Bar Cafe
I gave Sunny a hopeful look through the smoke that lingered over her station at the bar. We had been friends for years and she was used to my humming in her ears to take time off once in awhile. She was a diligent worker, and had been a giver since the day we met. Whether it was for her mother, her animals, or her friends, she thought of others first. I, on the other hand, had found a way to hit the desert six times since the previous fall.
“You’re going”, I said with purpose. “I’ll cash in every favor in Vegas to make this happen. They still don’t know I’m a fraud.”
I saw a different look in her eyes than I’d seen the previous several times I asked her to do something absurd. Somewhere in there she knew that she deserved a break, and thankfully she took it. Before she pulled back the smile on her face my phone was dialing Beth and resting on my ear. Beth is one of the mysterious characters in my shadowy network of connections that grease my passage between desirable destinations – places that I have no business being but access by riding the coat tails of clients that have the money to make just about anything happen. Within minutes she accessed my Delta mileage account and Sunny was booked in an upgraded ticket next to me in first class. She slid me a shot of Jack Daniels across the damp bar top and I raised it…”to Vegas”.
With some help from more Jack Daniels, my mind started racing that night. I had spent more time in Las Vegas lately than I had in Auburn, but it was hard for me not to take note of the unique group of individuals signed up for this trip, especially with the addition of Sunny. It had become a veritable “who’s-who” of Auburn’s nightlife.
There was Brett, the general manager of one of the largest bars in the Southeast, a Vegas casino regular, and a heavy gambler. Casinos love Brett for this reason, so our accommodations were always taken care of. Vegas is an anomaly in this way. It’s the only place in the world where I don’t receive any preferential treatment in the hotels because of the corporate group business I represent. The reason? I’m not a huge gambler. I figure I live a charmed life as it is, why tempt fate? I can escort dozens of people in and out of hotels all over the world and be treated like a king for it, but in Vegas they’d rather I bet $100 a hand then bring a hundred people through the doors.
Tommy, Tina, and Swing were three other players that I had already spent some time with in Vegas. Tommy works as a manager at the same bar as Brett and Tina as one of its tenured bartenders next to Sunny. Swing was a local DJ.
On another trip to Las Vegas, I made the mistake of settling our main tab at Ghost Bar and giving Tommy my American Express card to take care of any “emergency” situation he might find himself in before I made my way back to the MGM. He stumbled in early that morning “wearing” an unbuttoned white shirt ripped in several places and covered in blood with no explanation. We had to find out later from the girl he was talking to on his cell in the midst of his escapade that he had walked home from the Palms, a solid two-mile journey. She said it sounded like he may have caused a ten-car pileup shortly after scaling and getting himself hung on the fence separating the access road from the interstate. I was driven back to the hotel by a girl I met that night whose job it was to massage people as they experienced blissful rejuvenation at an oxygen bar. In an effort to keep us from calling her the wrong name, we simply referred to her as “O2”. Tommy had knocked a few pictures off the walls and replaced them with blood stains as he returned to the room. And Swing, who only four hours prior convinced a group of girls that I owned the Varsity in downtown Atlanta and that Tommy controlled the world’s largest tuna and whaling fleet off the coast of Japan, returned from an evening at the Monte Carlo with a young lady from the Eastern Block who he convinced that “staying over isn’t customary in our country”. Three weeks later I received a bill from Amex that included a charge of $148 that Tommy couldn’t come close to explaining.
The rest of the pack was made up of supplementary slovenly figures including Laura (Tina’s sister) and Cole (a bartender/pilot, in that order). And of course Sunny, whose life had mostly been set in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. And then there was me. To most of the students around town, I was the owner of Tiger Meat; the guy who had hot dog carts outside the bars feeding their drunken desires in his local life, but treaded the waters of places like Vegas frequently in his other life, and I was set to unleash at least one night on this group of complementary personalities the only way I knew how: with the reckless irresponsibility of posing as people who matter.
I made my way home and sent an email to my contact at Pure explaining that I would be in town with a group of clients from the Southeast that were involved in a club opening and promotion I was handling. A lie. In that email I briefed him on a background and listed my “clients” along with brief dossiers including fake names.
The stage was set…
Sunday ~ Las Vegas, Nevada
We arrived in Las Vegas without incident and I fell into my normal routine of ultra pools by day and club hopping by night. Our night at Pure was to be our last night, so there was plenty of time to kill and money to spend before unleashing anything left on Tuesday.
A few of us headed to Tryst on our first night in town which ended, as it always does, eating a sunrise gourmet meal at Fat Burger. That has to be the only trash on the floor, grease on the walls burger joint in the world whose clientele look like they just left an Oscar’s after party at Dennis Hopper’s house.
I woke the next morning to a text from O2 asking if I wanted to join her and some friends at “Rehab” over at the Hard Rock. I gave her the “I’ll see you in 30” text back and started gathering my wits to focus on the scene around me.
My eyes aren’t great, especially with no contacts in, but I’ve worn them since I was in the 4th grade so I’m an accomplished squinter. I surveyed the room through the millimeter left between my eyelids as I squinted down to 20/20 vision. Sunny was curled up in a ball like a Labrador in the bed next to me with what appeared to be all the covers from both beds. Tina and her sister were in the other bed huddling together for warmth and the room itself looked like a pizza delivery vehicle had just crashed through an Express clothing store. Either I’ve slept through a week’s worth of partying or the mess in our room after one night out is excessive. Either way, O2 was at the Hard Rock and I planned on gathering a pool crew.
Swing, Laura, Tommy, Cole, and I ended up being the only ones that could muster the energy needed to take an elevator down to a cab and ride to the Hard Rock to pass out in a pool chair.
The line at the Hard Rock pool entrance was extensive as always. After we all did an 11:00 AM shot of Jagermeister, I gathered the group and walked toward the front of the line. I looked at Swing and told him not to react to what I was about to say to the door man. We got those familiar “who are these people” looks from all the disgusted patrons impatiently awaiting passage to the lush grounds of the pool deck as we stumbled forward wafting the stale stink of a long night.
“Todd Bordini plus four”, I mumbled to the glorified pool boy standing guard at the threshold. He lifted the velvet rope and we filed through.
Once we were clear of the door I felt Swing’s question coming before he asked.
Who the hell is Todd Bordini?
I silenced him with a quick wave. “Don’t ask,” I said, fending off his confused look.
The sun hit us like a punch in the face and as our eyes adjusted, hundreds of people came into view through the palms and fronds of the pool paradise. Never wanting to look like I don’t know where I’m going, I made my way across a bridge to one of the many bars around the gardens without hesitating to look for O2. There were simply too many people. We ordered a round and I sent a text to her while forcing down the day’s first sip of vodka.
Swing met O2 briefly before he disappeared into the night with the Bulgarian tourist a few months prior and although I doubted he could describe her to a police sketch artist, I was confident he would know if he saw her. Just then I heard Laura say with a bit of a shutter,
“Todd, could this possibly be her?”
I laughed a little to myself as O2 made her way carefully down the bridge stairs in six-inch heels, D&G shades, a candy apple red string bikini.
“Let’s get these girls out of some of these clothes,” she said slyly directing her gaze at Laura who was wearing a t-shirt over her bikini. “I went out last night wearing less than you have on right now, baby.”
“Perfect start to the day”, I said as I greeted her with a vodka drink and cleared the way for her to lead us to the area that would become our waterside home for the next four hours.
That night we hit Jet Nightclub at the Mirage followed by another late night health boost at Fatburger.
Tuesday morning I woke Sunny up and set up the next 24 hours.
“Sunny, if you do everything I tell you to do today to the letter, I promise you this will be the best day of your life,” I stated with confidence. She agreed and before she could stop shaking her head in accordance, I handed her a glass of water and a multivitamin.
“Take this, finish a second glass of water and get ready for the pool,” I said with purpose. “We leave for Tao Beach in 30 minutes.”
We had a bigger group for the pool that day. Tina, Laura, Sunny, Cole, Swing and I descended on the Venetian feeling a lot better than we probably should have. Haley was the VIP hostess that day at Tao Beach on the roof of the Venetian which was a bonus. She has given me access to the different VIP cabanas several times to take naps during days that I have spent out at that pool by myself over the last few years.
Haley set us up in one of the cabanas with a flat screen TV, a Playstation console, a bottle of Absolute, a dozen Red Bulls, a pitcher of raspberry mojitos and a basket of Tao Beach logo’d products. I handed one of the bottles of water to Sunny and told her to drink it before she had anything else.
The rest of the day at Tao Beach was just what it needed to be…relaxing. The only exception was a hunt for an “over served” Cole, who disappeared for about an hour before he was brought back to the cabana by 2 girls that had an escorting arm around each of his shoulders like older sisters of bad influence.
When we returned to the hotel, I made the call that I usually make the day before I arrive in the desert. It rang only twice before Kristy Vegas answered.
“Lance!” she shouted referring to a playful identity game we play. “It’s been a while.”
I met Kristy years ago and she has driven me in her limo a dozen times with clients, friends and often times when I’m by myself in the city. The night we met she started calling me Lance because she thought I looked like the magician, Lance Burton. I call her Kristy Vegas simply because it’s hard enough for me to remember one name, let alone two. But Kristy has driven me through the Vegas underworld in her chariot for years now and I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do as good a job.
I wanted to surprise the group with a limo to Pure that night as an added bonus to what was already destined to be an epic event. There were members of the group that had never been to Vegas so I just saw it as the right thing to do. I had given everyone a set price for “the best night of your life”, and I was planning on using every dime of that money.
I told everyone to be at the front of the hotel at 7 p.m. and to be ready for anything. I had printed out several copies of the various identities and back stories I had developed and distributed them to the hotel rooms. Everyone was primed and ready but had no idea what the night entailed. I hadn’t even shared our destination for the night. Somewhere at that moment however, Alex was reviewing the dossier sheet I’d sent him and probably laughing a little to himself.
The limo pulled up, we all got in and the first drinks of the night were poured. A quick stop was made for Cole to throw up, and then we made our way to the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign for a picture. We followed that with a trip downtown to see the original Vegas light show and then a stop at the Bellagio fountains before being dropped at Caesar’s Palace.
The night seemed to escalate at a dizzying pace with the crescendo coming at the entrance of Pure. The sea of people parted as Alex caught a glimpse of me approaching. The ropes were lifted and the group hurried into the cover of various security staff as if one of us was targeted for assassination.
I exchanged a few necessary pleasantries with Alex as he corralled the group in a small area in front of a sectioned off partial that had five different lines of people feeding into it.
There are a lot of funny things about how the nightlife in a city like Vegas works, but one of my favorites is the front entrance to a popular nightclub. You stand in a line shoulder to shoulder with scads of beautiful people that are nobodies until they’re on the other side of those ropes. Once there, they leave you standing separated from the rest on display long enough for you to be seen and feel an air of importance before they send you to your ultimate destination. It feels a little like a product viewing before an auction.
And so…
I slipped him $100 of our pooled money as he gave me a smirk and a wink. And with that, a 350-lb bodyguard and two girls a quarter his size escorted me and the seven bar staffers from Auburn, Alabama behind me into the sea of electronic hysteria and manic festivity that is Las Vegas.
Swinging pendulums of light swept down from high blinding us briefly before illuminating our clean path through a mob of sweat and shame. Zeus, our bodyguard, produced a flashlight from somewhere within his triple-digit jacket and sent another beam of light into the eyes of anyone in his way leaving us following hastily obscured in his wake. Send a big enough guy with a flashlight in front of you and you create your own red carpet.
We wound around the massive room and through three more security checkpoints before entering the VIP area and our private section adjacent to the dance floor. Pulsing bass beats pounded off the walls and seemed to hang in the air all around us as DJ A.M. spun away on a raised platform above the back of one of our couches. I huddled Alexa and Kimmie, our servers, as the group filed around the white leather lair. The girls were the typical VIP club servers – young, hot, and ready to bring you anything you ask for knowing that by the time the sun rises they will be scurrying out the back doors with a four-digit take home purse for eight hours of work. They will put up with just about anything to ensure that they hold on to the good shifts and cash in within the very small window of their lives that they’re young and hot enough to do so.
I handed Alexa my AMEX and another $100 bill from our pool and chose five bottles of liquor and a selection of mixers from the menu in Kimmie’s hand. The girls hustled off and the security manager waiting behind them approached and introduced himself to me. He directed my attention to Zeus who stood at post in front of the entrance to our section, casting a shadow over our table even indoors. He would stay with us for anything we needed, and Tony, the manager, would be at the entrance to the VIP area and readily available as well.
And so the night truly began. I had greased the necessary palms to establish my identity as head of the group to stay in character and precipitate service. The tips at the beginning of the night served a purpose as well. Both were either seen or received by Alexa and Kimmie, the actual targets of that particular show. It appeared to them that I was both gracious and aloof with money, and believe me, those girls take note of that. In reality, I meticulously crafted a detailed budget funded by a bunch of characters that had to work two weeks straight just to afford this one night. But I had no intention of anyone else knowing that. To anyone that mattered at Pure that night, there was a shine of importance radiating from our section. My job was complete, so I just sat back and watched it all happen.
From that moment on the night ran through like a laser of activity. Without involving a serious trip to the hospital in an ambulance, five bottles of liquor can’t be consumed by eight people in the amount of time we were given, so a certain amount of liberty was given to anyone in the group that decided to bring someone from the dance floor across the velvet rope for a very quick drink and casual introductions. I didn’t really want anyone lingering long, just long enough to send a buzz around the room. All it took was a little glance at Zeus followed by a point in someone’s direction and he would escort them over to us. The VIP scene is a brilliant concept in this way; you never have to move. Be it something with an alcohol by volume content or a heartbeat, they come to you.
Various guys and girls were coming in and out to talk and have a drink with us. Alexa and Kimmie were pouring and mixing as fast as they could when I felt my cell vibrate in my jacket breast pocket. When I saw the screen I was disheartened to see that I had missed several calls from the guy that appeared on my dossier as “Casey”, the pro baseball pitcher that was my friend from childhood. The “friend from childhood” part was accurate, but that’s where the validity stopped. “Casey” was in town on business and I had invited him to join us for the night. He had obviously arrived late, but that wouldn’t be a problem. However, he had been calling me for a while and I’m sure was quite perturbed by the chaos at the door. I texted him back quickly to let him know that I was on my way. He immediately shot one back saying that he was already in the cab line ready to go back to his hotel and told me not to worry because he needed some sleep anyway. I set a new record on speed texts.
“Turn your ass around, you don’t want to walk away from this.”
I looked at Zeus who already seemed to sense that there was trouble. I had to shout over the heads of Tina and Sunny who were putting on a dance show and seemed to be in another world. Brett was smiling and leaning back comfortably on the couch, Swing was staring blankly in the direction of DJ A.M., Tommy was nodding his head in my direction and giving me a thumbs up, and Cole was missing. Alexa frantically cleaned up the spilled puddles of Red Bull while Kimmie pinched my cheek and asked if I needed anything.
“Zeus and I are on a mission,” I answered as I shot off my seat and let the girls shimmy by me.
I met Zeus’s inquisitive stare and yelled, “Zeus, we’ve got a broken arrow, let’s roll!”
With the help of his frame and his flashlight, Zeus had me at the front entrance in less than a minute. I saw Casey’s face hovering over the rest of the outside crowd with a look of utter confusion and disbelief. It didn’t get any clearer for him as the crowd in front of him parted and Zeus approached. I must have looked like a white knight when I peered around Zeus’s waist and said, “I’m here to take you home.”
We were plus one at the table now and everyone was settled into their respective activities. The dance floor was a frenzied mess and a lot of the group was in the middle of it. Sunny pulled me out at one point for a quick dance. I could see in her eyes that she was truly enjoying herself. That was the entire goal of my trip, so I was able to relax.
I returned to the table to check on the troops. Everyone was more than occupied including Casey, who was talking to a girl that looked very familiar. As I approached, so did Tommy. The girl met our gaze and blew our cover.
“Wait a minute, aren’t you guys from Sky Bar in Auburn?”
I couldn’t believe it. This girl recognized us. She was a recent graduate and Tommy remembered her. Thankfully, Casey was pretty oblivious to anything that was going on, so no lies had blatantly been passed along. She hung around reminiscing for a while and then she moved on.
Alexa grabbed the near empty glass of vodka from my hand and replaced it with a fresh one. The tank was full, so I grabbed Zeus and said I needed to head for the head. He thrust his flashlight forward and led me through the crowd toward the restrooms. I never feel right about this part of the VIP treatment, but that hasn’t stopped me from taking advantage of it over the years. The entrance to the restrooms is outside and reachable after a short elevator ride. Zeus blocks the elevator doors as I enter so we’re riding in our own lift. As we exit the sliding doors one floor up, the men’s line snakes out of the restroom door by only a few people. But that’s still an unacceptable wait for someone of my importance. I’d laugh if my bladder wasn’t about to burst, so Zeus clears a path for me and eases my entrance past all the guys patiently waiting. He stands firm outside my stall as I go about my business ignoring the hateful stares of those remaining in line. We exit and make our way back down to the VIP area the same route we came up.
As I approached the table, my heart skipped a beat. Everything seemed to be as I left it, which was chaotic, granted. But a vibe of horrible consequences came rushing at me like a stampede of wild animals. The analogy works in this case because of the person who met my bewildered gaze. Casey, our “plus one” was haphazardly handling a drink that was spilling with abandon dreadfully close to our now “plus two”: “Iron” Mike Tyson.
Don’t get me wrong, a random celebrity at the table can be a good thing. But I could have picked a better surprise guest than a guy with a well documented anger issue that could knock out my entire group with an aggressive reach for his drink. Not to mention the fact that Sunny was hanging off of one of his shoulders and Casey was spilling his drink on the other.
Sensing an impending disaster, I sprung into action. Casey was finished. He wasn’t making a lot of sense and now he was looking at me for assistance. I signaled Zeus and explained that I needed Casey taken to the Bellagio and confirmed in his room safe. Zeus gave me a pat on the shoulder, a nod, and Casey was gone.
I approached “The Champ” and shook his hand. Surprisingly, he was very understandable, likable and coherent. Sunny had me snap a picture of the two of them. Once that was done, Sunny weaved back to the table and the secure setting hosted by Alexa and Kimmie.
Tyson watched Sunny walk away and said to me casually,
“That’s a beautiful girl right there.”
I soon found out that it wasn’t Sunny that he was interested in, however. It was Tina, who for some reason he thought was Cameron Diaz. I was wondering when that Buster Douglas left hook was going to make itself known. Before I came back from the bathroom Tyson had made his inquiries regarding Tina as well as a proposal for her to leave with him. I looked over at our section and barely saw Tina hiding behind her sister in total disinterest and a little fearful. I smiled inside as I met the rest of Tyson’s small group and Kimmie whizzed by to hand me another fresh drink.
The night went on as such. An endless tale of false entitlement that can only be truly understood by the ones that were there. I have to applaud the group because other than Casey’s quick exit there were no real casualties. Sunny continued to drink water when I told her to, and I think she would tell you that it was one of the best nights of her life. As we left the club that night, we appeared to be a couple as she had hold of my arm. When I wandered away from her briefly, a guy approached her and told her if she dropped me and went with him for the night he would give her $2,500 in cash. This guy made the mistake of saying this within earshot of Tina who quickly blew a gasket and exploded toward the poor jackass in a fit of rage. Knowing none of this, I walked back toward Sunny and I noticed Tina being physically held back by Swing and Tommy in a continued attempt to defend her friend’s honor.
I gestured toward Tina, looked at Sunny and said, “Do I want to know what this is about?”
“Nope,” she replied.
And we were gone…
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Wednesday, April 6, 2010 ~ Auburn, AL
Recapping stories like this always makes me nostalgic. People and places will drift in and out of your life, which has always been a challenge for me to accept. It’s just another bullet point under the main title of indisputable truth: Time Marches On.
Certain things haven’t changed since this night, but even more have. I’ve been back to Pure a few times, but Alex has moved on to another post. Alexa and Kimmie have more than likely been downgraded to one of the many cocktail lounges in one of the main properties on the Strip, and DJ A.M. was found dead in his apartment in Manhattan late last year.
Kristy Vegas still drives my chariot when I’m in town, and she’s always at the airport greeting me with a smile and a hug on arrival. Each time I see her we’ve both aged a little.
Sunny is rather pregnant and due in the next few months. I haven’t seen her in over ten, which is a sad fact. But she is well and happy.
Vegas continues to lie in wait, and will never disappear. I don’t sustain the same frequency – there was a time that I was there once every few months – and so my contacts there aren’t what they used to be. I’ve lost touch with more people in Vegas than there are hotels. But now I look at the place as a snow globe of memories. They linger and I can visit them any time.
Today I sit at Tiger Meat Beach, a poolside grill I opened last year that was inspired by Tao Beach at the Venetian. Haley doesn’t sit as a VIP hostess at the entrance, and the Europeans don’t walk around topless. But if I close my eyes when the sun’s just right, I can still see Sunny sitting with a drink and a truly peaceful aura radiating from her, shaded by the lush lace curtains of a Tao Beach cabana.
