RMMLA, Part 1: Nevada Blues

It's not hard to imagine Nevada without the highway and the power lines. The road stretches contentedly through the sagebrush, as straight as a path across ice. To either side, beyond a chain-link fence I could easily hop, the level, scraggly brush sweeps slowly upwards toward the snow-dusted mountains in the distance. With a little more imagination, I can see Wyatt Earp or Clint Eastwood, steely-eyed and watchful for danger, riding a weary horse through the featureless landscape. This is what the American West really looks like: plants that are neither really alive nor dead, the skeletal dream of green life shrunken into brittle points by the sun.

We pass through a canyon, the wind whipping through the plastic that covers one broken window, roaring into the cabin and making us shout to talk. We turned the radio off countless miles ago; one mile or ten seems to pass with the same speed, as though the desert isn't crossed by time or distance but by will and humility, an accession to its endlessness. Time is a solid entity here; it has shaped the rocks into chunks, standing like soap whittled by an attentive boy's sharp knife. The towns we pass are few, sleepy restaurants with names like "Rita's Diner" handpainted on the peeling eaves. Now and then, a blue sign announces how many miles it will be before the next service station or rest stop. Here, it's important to pace yourself, like a Pony Express rider judging the time and energy between posts.

In the dark, it's hard to tell whether the dark, low shapes on the side of the road are cows or just trees. The car's headlamps don't penetrate the restful darkness. It's a time for deep thoughts and long conversations. I call my brother and we talk about things without any intention of arriving at understandings or resolutions. It is a conversation we might have had a hundred fifty years ago on horseback, feeling the steady motion of flesh between us and the sun-baked ground, weaving unhurriedly between bushes of blue-black sage. I'm just pleased to talk to someone, to hear my voice, proof that I still exist. Chapped white tumbleweeds roll across the road surprisingly quickly, as though unaware that they are cliche; the wind is strong enough to shiver the car.

After hours in the desert, Reno makes a kind of sense, a child's dream of the big city: all lights and flamboyance without enthusiasm or meaning. It's grand without class, and a giant sign proclaims in bold block letters: "Welcome to Reno, the biggest little town in the world!" It reminds me of red light districts I've passed through: attention is everything, as though, if everyone looked away, Reno would blow away and fade back into the desert it's meant to be, just another lonely stretch on the highway.

We stay at the Fitzgerald's hotel/casino, across the street from Harrah's, the hotel/casino at which the conference will be held. The "/casino" is ubiquitous; there are slot machines in the gas stations. A giant plastic leprechaun greets me at the entrance to Fitzgerald's; I weave between blackjack tables and slot machines on my way to the elevators. The room looks just like every other hotel room one stays in for between fifty and a hundred dollars a night; beds, color TV, coffee maker, bathroom. The wallpaper is peeling where years of chair backs have scraped it off; a plastic sheet at chair-level failed to prevent it. The remote for ordering pay-per-view is a repurposed Nintendo 64 controller; it still has the Nintendo logo on it. I pick it up and run my fingers over the controls, feeling my fingers and thumbs slide into a position they haven't been in in years, remembering Goldeneye and Perfect Dark as a teenager.

I step outside into the bitter cold, feeling my nose, ears, and fingers complain first after I leave the blast of hot air projected from the casino's ceiling. Less than ten feet from the entrance, a man asks if I can give him 43 cents. I tell him no and he tells me to have a good day. Across the street, street art in the form of oversized gambling chips adorn the corner. A few steps away, a man is curled up on his side, trying to sleep.

There is no class in Harrah's or even attempt at class. Patrons walk around in sneakers and T-shirts. Most of them are elderly, backs bent and faces pressed close to the game screens. Seeing so many quarter-driven machines without Street Fighter or Area 51 in sight makes me uneasy; it feels basically wrong. A group of Latinos talk loudly over the sound of a horserace; the announcer excitedly follows the progress of horses and the chariot-like carriages they pull. I don't know what this sport is called. The youngest people here are the waitresses, who look like teenagers in tiny black skirts and black stockings. I try to imagine what resolve it must take to stand peacefully in clothes like that, holding a tray stock-steady on an escalator surrounded by shuffling patrons. As I go down one escalator, an animated board announces a card tournament, intercutting a lively game with pictures of the busts of hardly-dressed women. Youth and beauty seem out of place here.

In the morning, thick flakes of snow blow past my window, hinting cars and buildings like spraypaint. A few blocks from my hotel, bridges cross a quickly flowing river. The water tumbles over itself; it is secure in its self-knowledge. That is something the rest of the city does not know.