Lost in Las Vegas
© By Jack Niedenthal [1991]

It was the metal hangers clanging together in the closet that woke me up. I checked the clock. It was just after four in the morning. When my bed shook and the bathroom light blinked and the floor moved all in the same instant, I jumped up, stumbled toward the window, threw open the shade. The world was out of focus, the lights in the street appeared to be bouncing; I got this feeling like I wanted to reach for the horizontal hold on a television set to make it all settle down. Then it registered through my early morning fogged brain: This is an earthquake. I am in Las Vegas residing on the sixteenth floor of the Imperial Palace Casino and Hotel. Moments after the seismic event ended I noticed that a thin crack had etched its way across the ceiling of my room. Unconcerned though feeling good about walking on a steady floor, I yawned, fell onto the bed, eased back into a deep sleep.

After a short while, a woman from the hotel banged on my door, informed me that I had to move to another room. The small fissure, apparently, had gone clean across the new wing of the building and they wanted to check it. Yes, I said as I crammed my dirty clothes in with the clean in a hurry to get the relocation process over with, it's going to be one of those days...

Later, in the afternoon, a representative from the U.S. Department of Energy--the branch of the American government that, over the past four decades under the guise of several different names, has been responsible for confusing the hell out of the Bikinians with regard to the radiological condition of Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands--was speaking. The man was explaining about how this was a new era, a time that would find the DOE working in cooperation with the islanders to restore their damaged islands. I was interpreting for him, English to Marshallese, not really thinking about what he was saying because I've heard the routine many times before from other U.S. government officials, though I know they all mean well. A new era? The Bikinians have been through a dozen of those since 1946. As the official spoke, I noticed four islanders in the corner; they were huddling, whispering, shaking their heads. Unusual, I thought to myself. Normally they were hanging on every word when a U.S. representative was speaking. As I continued my translation the men turned up the volume of their conversation; indeed, they started talking rudely in loud voices, almost as if they were arguing among themselves, which never happened in this kind of setting. "Hey," I finally snapped in their language, interrupting the bewildered DOE rep, "please, I can't concentrate while you guys are holding your own private debate back there."

They nodded, apologized, separated, appeared to pay attention. I turned to the American, "Okay, sorry for the interruption, go ahead."

The small circle of islanders reconvened even before the DOE rep ended his first sentence.

"Lucky," I asked with a bit less irritation as I realized something had to be wrong, "what are you guys talking about? What's the problem?"

"Sorry Jack," replied the thirty-five year old Councilman, "but it's my roommate, Dretin, we haven't seen him for a while."

"What do you mean, when was the last time you saw him?"

"Yesterday afternoon." That would make him missing for almost 24 hours.

I turned to the U.S. government official, explained to him that we were going to have to end our meeting because something of a personal emergency had come up. He looked at me, wondered for a moment, then realized we were sincere, that there was no insult intended. After thanking the man for his presentation, I whispered to our attorney what Lucky had just told me. The lawyer slipped out of the room to call the local hospitals and the police. We had been through this drill before--an old man lost in Las Vegas--but I was more worried this time: the islanders keep good track of their elders. Dretin Jokdru was not the type of man just to walk off and not tell anybody. I sensed in the faces of the other councilmen the fear one experiences upon hearing that a close relative has just taken seriously ill: they were obviously really scared. I asked Lucky to take me to Dretin's room.

The room provided a few clues: A tattered wallet still full of bills. Shoes. A flowered shirt from the day before. A key. But no Dretin. "Where in Las Vegas could he go without shoes or money?" I asked his roommate.

"Don't know," replied Lucky with a troubled expression on his face. "What are you going to do now?"

Me? Try not to panic even though I was completely overcome by a sudden surge of anxiety. I walked briskly down the hall and entered the casino. The lights, the smoke, the bells, the gamble-fried humans gaping at their machines as if somehow expecting a god to ram a finger of fate into the mechanism that would trigger a sudden rush of silver coins: the images swirled around in my head as I wandered up and down the aisles of the Imperial Palace Casino. Dyed black hair. Slightly upturned eyes. Dark brown skin. A full set of teeth with a couple in the front capped in gold and silver. Dretin, where are you? Every Bikinian I passed searched my face: Where is he? they didn't have to ask, no words needed to be spoken, I'd been living with them for that long.

Up to the second floor, the third floor, the fourth, the restaurants, the hotel auto display that brags about having Hitler's private limo, the lounges filled with quivering humans sucking on cigarettes and gin-filled straws. I even checked the sports betting wing: Dretin knows how to fish, that's his only sport, though I doubt you can bet on it even in Vegas. He wasn't there either. He was gone. I searched my way back down to the main floor of the casino. "You'll never find him," one of the Bikinian men whispered to me in a serious tone. "He's gone, he's lost...We have this feeling, maybe it's black magic, maybe someone did something to him..."

We Westerners generally think of Heaven and God and the Ten Commandments when disasters strike close. When these guys get feelings that big things are at work of course there is God, but there are also demons, spells, potions and medicines that consist of crushed leaves, root juice and seaweed. This all exists in their world and it is as real as Pepto Bismal, Prozac and Advil are in ours.

I asked an acne-scared, uniformed man proudly displaying his tin badge if I could make an announcement in Marshallese over the casino's public address system. "Can't do that, not in here, has to be in English, house rules."

Rules? In Las Vegas, with all of its gambling and prostitution?...Oh-Kay. "Look, I've got an old man that might be lost in this place--he's been missing since yesterday. Are you telling me I can't make an attempt to tell him where to go so that I can help him?"

"Just following casino policy. English only. Sorry...not really sure why that is, though...You want me to call my manager?"

I waved him off, turned in disgust, rushed out the front door of the casino: Maybe Dretin had ventured outside for some reason.

Now this is Las Vegas in the summertime: Mid-afternoon, hot as hell, dry, burning desert heat. If he's out here, he just might be dead, I recall thinking to myself as I felt the sun scorch my face. I wandered around the block once, twice. The beggars called for loose change, shoved their palms in my face; the smut peddlers promised great massages at discount rates, crammed leaflets covered with big breasted blonds into my hands; the visitors, the tourists, scurried to find new places to lose their money, to eat, perhaps. I gazed up at the sun, at Ceaser's Palace across the street: Spraying, dancing fountains, massive majestic columns, white plaster statues of ancient Roman soldiers. This place just has to be the equivalent of the Twilight Zone for an islander.

The third time around the block I got an idea. I whipped out my wallet, began passing out one dollar bills to the bums and the smut peddlers all up and down the Strip: "I'm looking for an old brown man with dark black hair. He's a Pacific islander, he doesn't speak any English, doesn't have any money and probably isn't wearing shoes. His name is Dretin Jokdru, but he'll answer to the name 'Joe.' Tell him 'Jack is looking for you', bring him back to the Imperial Palace--there's a reward." I widened my eyes to give the impression that the money I was offering might just be substantial: this was not a manipulative ploy, by then I had grown quite desperate.

"Say, uh, Jack is it?" a one-legged African-American man sitting casually on the ground asked after I put a dollar in his bucket,"what's he doing here, this island man from the Pacific?"

"His islands, the United States used them to test bombs in the 1940's and 50's. His people can't go back to their homeland, but the U.S. government has given us some money, we're trying to clean the islands now, we're here for a meeting with the Department of Energy...I've just got to find him."

"Yeah, okay Jack, calm down," he remarked after hearing the impatience in my voice. "He'll come back, only so many places he can go here. Now what about those bombs? And where did you say those islands were?"

The sweat poured down my face as the sun edged toward the horizon. Dretin in the neon-lit streets of Las Vegas--the thought caused me to shiver even in the heat, I wanted to end this conversation, run around the block again, scream his name into the onrushing crowd, hope to hear his voice calling me toward him.

"The Marshall Islands. You just fly 2,500 miles southwest from San Francisco to Hawaii, then keep going in the same direction another 2,500 miles into the middle of the Pacific."

"You? You live out there on those islands?"

"Yes," I replied as I quickly realized the man was gearing up to have a long conversation: He had put down his plastic begging bucket and was now eying me from head to toe as if I had just been beamed down from a flying saucer. I could tell he was about to request that I go through the entire 50 year sordid nuclear history. I smiled, said, "Listen, I'm sorry, but I have to go. Please tell your friends to look for Joe, all his relatives are afraid, I really need to find this old man, they're counting on me to bring him back."

"Hey, I told you, if he's out here, we'll find him. If he's wandering around this town, he'll have to pass by one of us."

So around I went. Wandering. Passing. Again and again. Back through the casino--broke down, put on some what I knew were useless announcements in English: "Mr. Dretin Jokdru, please report to the front desk"-- raced back out to the street, looked high, looked low, looked in between, checked the alleyways, behind vending machines, everywhere. Gone. Dretin, he's gone, I concluded. I envisioned myself explaining to his wife, children and grandchildren how I had lost the dear sweet old man in Las Vegas. "Sorry, lost him, don't know where he went, never found a trace of him anywhere." Feeling a rising sense of hopelessness, I slumped against the wall by the one-legged beggar with nothing to do but wait for a miracle...

*****

Dretin Jokdru's day, too, started with the rumble of the earth; then, as he told the tale later, a voice, coming from the image of a white ghostlike spirit, erupted in his head: "Wake up, Dretin. Wake up, go outside, don't stay in this room. You're all alone."

He scratched his head, wondered: A white demon? This is unheard of...This, this is terrifying! He bolted upright from the nightmare, fumbled around, clicked on the light. Where's Lucky? He called out, looked at his roommate's empty bed, opened the bathroom door. Gone. Maybe he's out in the hallway. Dretin opened the door, stepped out. The door closed. "No, he's not out here." Turned, tried the doorknob. "It's locked," he giggled as he felt around in the pockets of his trousers, asked himself, "Now where is that strange cardboard key? Gone, just like Lucky...Now what?"

He looked up and down the hallway: not a soul. "I'll just wander out to the lobby, look for some of the guys, they'll help me find Lucky or get another key."

Just as he started to venture down the hallway, a harsh voice rose up from behind and startled him: "Hey, you, what are you doing in here?"

Dretin turned, gazed at the muscular uniformed security guard who stood snarling at him. The old man smiled, started to reply in Marshallese, stopped. He tried to remember: How do you say "help" in English?

The guard grabbed the old man by the arm, snapped, "Come on, out you go, no vagrants in the casino. If you wanna come back, you have to put on some shoes and wear a shirt: that's the rule. Go on, now, out you go..."

The English words "shoes" and "shirt": he would hear them repeated so many times that day.

After he was pushed into the Las Vegas night, Dretin heard the door close behind him: the wind blew dust across the partially empty parking lot stinging his eyes.

Another aftershock frightened him. What is this? He hurried around the building, tried another door, and again got tossed out by another guard: "No shirt, no shoes." After a couple of hours, a woman offered him a glass of water when he approached another door. At least it was something, an act of kindness that he would never forget. He ventured on. Visions: gushing fountains, cascading streams of water, lights, sleek cars, strange looking white people, more lights, laughing, smiling, poking at his belly, rustling his hair, cursing, angry faces, expressions of disgust, "No shirt, no shoes": the ultimate midnight cowboy, a stranger in the strangest of lands.

The sun rose, the sidewalks rapidly crowded with humans, the shuffle had started: where could all these people be going? I'm so turned around, where is that building I'm staying in? They all look the same: big, bright, full of people and noisy machines. Which side of the road was it on?

People continued to push him aside, to make fun of him. A policeman told him in Spanish to get away from the Strip, pointed angrily toward the edge of town. Hunger. Fear. "Death, I'm going to die, yes," he started to repeat to himself, "I'll never live through this." He rummaged through a trash bin, found a boy's sleeveless, neon blue hunting jacket that someone had discarded. Though too small, he put it on anyway because it made him feel normal, a part of the modern world that now surrounded him.

He walked around and around and around. Mid-afternoon. The sun warmed the sidewalk until his feet couldn't handle the 100+ degree heat anymore; they began to blister. With a raging thirst, his lips cracked and dry, he crawled into the bushes shaded by a huge hotel. Never mind the dirt and dust, never mind if he was in America and lost and afraid for his life, he curled up, nodded off, dreamed of his islands and prayed over and over to himself: "God, please help me...Please."

Hours and hundreds of people passed before he finally fell asleep.

Then, a raspy voice woke him up: "Yo, you Joe?...Are you Joe?"

He opened his eyes, squinted...How long have I been lying here? And who is this? What does this man want from me? Those scars on his face, his black dirty clothes, the tattoos; he looks like one of those murderers from the American films we watch back home. I'm not going to say anything to him; I'm just going to sit here, pretend I don't see him and wait for someone to find me.

"You Joe? From the islands? Jack, you know Jack? He's lookin' for you, got every one lookin' for an old island man named Joe...That you?"

Dretin slowly pulled himself up, smiled at the man, patted him on the shoulder, replied in one of his few English words, "Yes."

*****

Meanwhile, the Bikini Liaison stood in front of the Imperial Palace Casino & Hotel. Though the sun was casting its late day shadows it was nevertheless just blistering hot. No hope, no Dretin: how could I possibly face those other old men who had grown up with Dretin from the time they were children? I kept trying to come up with excuses, but there was just nothing I could say to them. I couldn't go back inside until I found the elder, I decided, no two ways about it.

After about another hour past, I heard a shout that seemed out of character with the steady flow of noise that emanated ceaselessly from the Strip. I spotted that toothless Hispanic guy in the strange black outfit; I remembered him because of his many tattoos. He was dodging through the crowd, jumping up and down and hollering in my direction, "I got Joe! I got Joe!" My newfound beggar friend with one leg pushed himself into a standing position, saw the pair coming, laughed, started to clap, "I told you we'd find him. Here comes Charlie with your old man."

Feet burning from the sidewalk, Dretin limped awkwardly causing the fluorescent blue half-jacket to flop at the sides of his dirtied Buddha-belly. His eyes squinted, tried to make out where the man was taking him. "It's really him, it's Dretin!" I exclaimed to myself as I forged my way between the gamblers who strolled beneath the maze of spiraling, erupting wild yellow, green, red and blue neon signs.

"Jack," Dretin said with a smile when he realized it was me, "Oh, I am so happy to see you. I've had such a hard time..."

I turned to the man who had brought him to me, shook his hand. "Charlie, that's your name, right? Hey, thanks, thanks a lot. We thought we'd never see him again. I owe you something." I opened my wallet, pulled out a hundred dollar bill and gave it to him, shook his hand again, and then walked away excitedly with Dretin.

Into my ear, as I maneuvered him through the crowds of people toward the hotel, Dretin whispered an abbreviated version of his story: the white demon, the hallway, the door locking, the security guard, the confusing series of visions, the heat, the bushes, the mean people, the nice woman who gave him a glass of water, the words "No shirt, no shoes." We entered the building. Immediately, as if on cue, a guard strutted up to us and snapped, "Can't come in here with that man, sir, he's not wearing shoes...and he's dirty."

Even though the brutal looking guy outweighed me by about sixty pounds and was taller by about six inches, I growled, "Listen you bozo, this man is a guest at your hotel. One of your people threw him out last night when he was searching for his key. He has been wandering the Strip all day, he's lucky to be alive. You people are responsible for this, so, if you want to make a problem go ahead but I'll have your head for it. Now, please, I have to get this man some food and a shower."

The shell-shocked guard backed off, nodded, motioned with his arm that we could go through. His walkie-talkie crackled with static as he informed the rest of the casino security personnel: "Let the old man pass."

As we crossed the main floor--the limping, dirt-covered, barefoot old Bikinian man in neon blue and the sunburned sweaty American--amid the stares of the casino's bewildered patrons, some islanders spotted us. "Dretin! He's back," they uttered in delight as they slapped his back, slapped mine, laughed about an event that only hours before had them completely horrified.

By the time we got to Dretin's room we had collected twenty or so of our colleagues. We waited for him to shower; I told what I knew of Dretin's ordeal, called out for some room service.

Showered and clean, Dretin settled onto his bed, hoisted the tray of hot food to his lap, and ignoring the silverware, ate quickly with his hands. The men gathered around him as if he had just returned from the moon: "What happened?" they asked as he gorged himself on fried chicken and rice. "Where were you all this time?"

Happy to be alive and among those he loved and cared about most, he put down his food, paused, chuckled, then launched into the telling of his tale: "There was this strange white demon...After the earth shook me awake, he spoke to me...I'm telling you, the earth shook, rattled my room, just like the other day. Did you men feel it, too?"

They all nodded vigorously as if to reassure their friend, "Yes," they concurred, "we felt it too, go on..."

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