A Super Society
Las Vegas, NV. Just hearing the city's name conjures up mental images of larger-than-life casinos, slot machines, and poker tournaments. A never-ending fantasy of cheap buffets, lights, partying, and sex. Just close your eyes and try to picture anything about Las Vegas other than the world-famous Las Vegas Strip. Even the sign, sitting just south of Mandalay Bay, greets you on Las Vegas Boulevard, beckoning you to come onto the Strip; it makes you feel welcome, like you belong here.
But this is a fallacy. This is the Las Vegas the media wants tourists and outsiders to believe in; this is the picture that has been driven into our minds, forced onto us to make us more apt to want to come here. We are told that this is an adult version of Disneyland, and that everything here is all fun and games, all in an attempt to get people here spending their hard-earned money in the casinos that were built upon the losses of generations of people who came here before.
The real Las Vegas - the one that the locals know and live in - is much different. They have jobs and responsibilities, kids in school, car problems and pollution to deal with. They have to buy groceries, pay bills, put gas in the car. They have to decide which school to put their kids in - public or private - and figure out how to avoid as much traffic on their way to work as possible. They have to pay rent, and utilities, in order to insure that they have a place to sleep every night.
And this is merely the legal side of the city. Drug deals and shooting appear on the news every night. The homeless wander the streets aimlessly, being arrested for vagrancy or told they can't sit on the steps of any of the casinos. People still cross the street outside the crosswalk, even though the city averages 1 pedestrian death every 3 days. Con men wander Fremont street, hoping to separate you from your cash, while pickpockets work the crowds that gather to watch you lose your money to the con men. It's a sick city; crime is a disease that infects all we who live here hold dear.
The city also happens to be a great place to lose yourself. You can blend in with the crowd, no matter how unbelievable you look or feel. Costumed entertainers right on the strip, begging for people to take pictures, make for the perfect escape for any who dare to don a costume for real. Who will know that you are really that masked vigilante who took down a slumlord the other night?
This is why you moved here. This is why you make your home here. This is why Sin City called to you, and why you answered that call. Anonymity. You can blend in and make a life for yourself here, without the pressures of being one of those costumed freaks in New York or Los Angeles. Let them deal with the criminals, right?
If it could stay that way, things would be great...
