A Very Vegas Halloween

I can’t see, I can barely hear. Have the clocks gone back in Nevada to join the rest of the World? Is it 4 am or 3 am? Does it matter?

Most storm troopers don’t have a persistent cough, but tonight this one does.

As I flex my patellas which are roughly being bruised by reinforced heavy white plastic trying to walk through the Hard Rock Hotel, I can hear people asking for photos with me. It is exactly how a celebrity must feel except I am just a faceless British Doctor inside a Star Wars Halloween costume. (A boyhood fantasy if ever there was one, and where better to experience a fantasy than Vegas.)

“Erm yeah can you put the mask on please?” She asks politely.

I don the white helmet and I am blind again, I feel her arm around me and can barely make out a flash through the 2 visor screens in the helmet. All I can make out are large silicone implants flashing through my visor as groups of girls dressed as maids, snow white or simply just wearing lingerie walk past.

“Thanks so much, awesome costume.” She says.

Yet it’s great fun, I am in Vegas with my 2 friends from medical school, except we are running on empty. 2 hours sleep a night, if that and I have not eaten a full meal in 4 days a result of a timely diminished appetite from a shift in my circadian rhythm.

My body displays its unhappiness with my brains actions upon it. My lungs are irritated by rhinorrhea. My eyes are dark from lack of sleep.

We walk past the Poker Room, there she is my friend the gatekeeper of the room, Lexi.

I take my helmet off and cool off for a second and get a hug, I could fall asleep in her embrace right now I am so tired. She is dressed as “Officer Naughty” and she is at work, when she finishes work I will find her playing at the very poker tables she manages, head almost slumped over the felt.

This girl can sleep through anything, the other night she passed out in our room after ordering room service. No amount of times we dangled slices of pizza over her mouth would wake her. Vegas chews everyone up and spits those with addictive personalities out.

I walk into the “Joint” for a Halloween party, two old men approach me that are actually quite scary but only because I know that they are actually cute girls, Jeanette and Sara are underneath so it is sort of freaky that they can look so authentically kyphotic.

I ask around for Matthew but he is smarter than everyone else and has decided not to attend, a quiet night in Vegas is just what I need now myself but with Battle Cat, renamed Bengali Cat (Mash) sleep is not on the agenda.

“But it’s my bachelor party!” He tells us every night. He only knows it is his Bachelor party because I decided it would be a good time to do it seeing as we are all here in Vegas.

Whenever we suggest a night off from the clubs and parties he uses this line on us. Mary Shelley would turn in her grave. But we love him.

The death star blown to bits I return to my room, and peel off the outfit, it is 7 am and the light filters into the bedroom. We are all sharing a room now, Nadir is snoring away and I climb into the hard rock bed my eyes struggle to stay open and before I know it..

“What time is it?” Nadir is not happy to have been woken by the sound of a keyboard being tapped to death. Bengali cat is emailing his fiancée. It would be cute if it were not approximately occurring 100 minutes after lights out.

I look at my watch. “MASH!!!”

It’s 9 am.

I look at Nadir, he looks back at me.

“Are we entering the 1 pm tournament?” I ask expecting an all round fold.

Surprisingly we are all up for it. We flick on the TV, where the “news” channel informs us of the latest goings on of some pseudo celebs called Jon and Kate Gosslin. It is no wonder that only 20 percent of Americans own passports if this is what they watch on CNN.

“Rehab breakfast at Luckys?” The Bengali Cat is hungry.

The rest of the day is relaxed I cash for the third time in a poker tournament, my favourite dealer is working, things are good, the Sun moves Westwards in the sky till it disappears behind the mountains providing a wonderful desert red glow.

My iphone vibrates like an epileptic at a strobe lighting convention. Text inbound…..
“Sarah wants to combine forces tonight the Bachelorette party and the Bachelor Party are going to Tao, book that table!” TEXT RECEIVED FROM EM.

And several hours later there we are, Emily, Sarah the bachelorette and her entourage.

Bengali Cat the bachelor and his entourage.

Can I be Vince please or at the very least Drama I don’t want to be E or Turtle.

Our hostess, Teresa, is really sweet and much better than the one we had last time at Tao,she is Native American and just super hot but smart too. Teresa recommends drinks and stays with us pouring them out for everyone, she is a dream. The whole night is a dream. DJ Reach is MC and the tunes are absolutely perfect, every top 20 smash international pop hit in the last 5 years mixed stunningly. Everyone in costume, transformers walk about aimlessly, I guess the decepticons went to XS tonight. Just kidding.

Sarah and Emily are drinking the vodka like it might be taken away from them at any minute, we order champagne, and another bottle of vodka. Nadir looks at me and we are both thinking the same thing.

Bengali Cat is oblivious and just tells me to put it “on his tab.” We are only half way through the night.

Emily is looking worse for wear and is not long for this world. This world of Tao. Sure enough by 2 am she is outside puking into a trashcan. A former employee herself of the Venetian she’s now being asked to leave the premises.

I wasn’t sure if they were joking with us, they said they were nurses and we said we were doctors. But we really were doctors. Tonight we were dressed in scrubs covered in blood. Could they also really be nurses? I guess so.

Christina had Alice Cooper eye lashes and a black choker around her neck with leopard print gloves on, she was not like any nurse I had ever met in London. But this is Vegas and this is Tao, of course the Californian girls of men’s dreams, Ashlee and Christina could be for real. I pinched them and then myself, yup definitely real.

“Like the steak you know?”

DJ Reach pumped out Fergie’s “London Bridge” my favourite tune of a few years ago. I could not understand what she was saying.

“As in Porter house!” She yelled over the music.

“What? Your name is Stackhouse - Like Suki Stackhouse!?” I joked. She did not hear it anyway.

“NO PORTER!!!” I heard her this time. I committed it to memory and took another beer from the bucket.

We were on the tables now all dancing and fist pumping each other like American meatheads do by the pool. I am too old to be doing this - a voice in my head tells me.
Another voice tells that voice to fuck off. Luckily as a psychiatrist I know how to suppress both.

It is 4 am, I am having the best night since my Sister’s wedding.

“Right bitches, time to cash out.” Nadir said to the Cat and I.

We looked at him in horror.

With an hour till closing time we let him have his way and asked Miss Stygar for the cheque. We were sad to leave our new friends, the good tunes, the beautiful hostess but with the powers of the internet we all said we would stay in touch.

Day 7 was over, the holiday was pretty much over.

As my ocular muscles give up the fight to hold up my eyelids, I pass out.

I awoke a few hours later and the first thing I see is the Bengali Cat dancing in front of the mirror dressed in nothing but his underwear and my storm trooper helmet.

Yeah that’s what you get for waking up in Vegas, the best holiday EVER.