Quiet OKC and a Vegas Rampage

My time in Oklahoma City was relatively uneventful. I spent the bulk of the nights trying to find a place to sleep. Only one night was spent couch surfing with a nice group of people with whom I saw "Across the Universe", an awesome movie based on the Beatles' music. The other nights however were spent in truck stop rec rooms and random spots, like an overgrown lot behind a best buy. That particular night I woke up with a snail on my sleeping bag, and a big old spider inside with me.

While I was happy to spend time with Carolina, the time had a prison visitation vibe to it, her school is very controlling about where she goes with who, but so goes religion. Time to leave, and while I contemplated Dallas and Austin, I decided to bus it to Vegas. It would be right on the way to Bakersfield, where I'd like to be Halloween. This is where things get interesting.

On the bus a guy named Jason sat next to me. Jason had just hit the road, traveling in a similar fashion as myself with Vegas as his destination. We decided we'd stick together and try and find a place to stay.

As I got closer to Vegas I was informed that the San Diego crew was all in town. Once in Vegas Jason and I met up with them and had a great night of drinking, beer pong, and I gambled most of the night building up credit to get a comp room, which I was eventually given at Treasure Island. The San Diego crew had to leave early the next mourning. Jason crashed at their place, and I shut my phone off with my voice message saying "I'm on Floor 33, room 023". Jason heard "I'm in room 433", and coincidentally that room was unoccupied with the door ajar. Later on when I called him we figured this out and he came up to the real room, but not after using this random room to shower and wash his clothes and whatnot.

Jason said he had to hustle to get by, he had less money than I did. He said he needed $90 to buy some stuff so he could sell it and then he'd pay me back. I was up big from craps and I gave it to him. He disappeared into the night, and the following day I got a phone call from him. He says he just got out of jail, and I met up with him outside the mirage where he tells me his whole story of trying to sell something to a cop, and his mom had to bail him out of jail. Here comes the scam setup...

He says he told his mom I lent him $200, this way I could keep the $100 he owed me, and he could get $100 for his travels that his mom wouldn't give him directly. The catch is Jason has to leave town right now, so I'm supposed to give him $100 out of pocket with the understanding that western union is on the way. I knew he was scamming me. I gave him the money anyways, I'd won enough playing craps and he could use it more than I.

We parted ways, but it wasn't long before I got a call from him again. He wanted to give me $30, and I had to rush down to get it. I got out of bed and went down to the casino where he told me had some cocaine to sell me for $30, he needed the money. I told him I wasn't into it, and had left my money upstairs. He said $20 was fine, so I gave him $20 in exchange for an empty folded up piece of paper. That's the last I heard of Jason Mills.

After that I decided to start seeing some shows with my free comp power. I saw the Beatles Love cirque du soleil, Mystere cirque du soleil, and some random burlesque show. I also managed to lose all the money I'd won. Then I managed to lose the money I came with. I had a bus ticket out of town, but arrived late to Greyhound just in time to see the bus leave without me. That's the first time I've seen Greyhound on time.

I took my last $70 to the closest craps table and an hour later had only $2. I then decided to walk the 3 or 4 odd miles back to the strip, back to the Mirage that had put me up the last 2 nights. They comped me one more night while I wait until the next bus out of town tomorrow.

So here I am, 14 floors above the Las Vegas strip in the Mirage hotel with 2 dollar bills and a pocket full of change, bank accounts cleared out, credit cards maxed. Tomorrow is Halloween in Bakersfield though, so that's cool. Looks like the day has finally come where I have to figure something out though, odd jobs here and there maybe? Whatever it is I need a couple thousand in a hurry, so it should be a fun time.

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