Las Vegas

“Here, you can find it all,” my Uber driver mumbled behind his facemask. “You want girls? You got it. You want drugs? You got it. You want to visit Paris? You got it. Whatever you want”—he locked eyes with me in the rearview mirror—“you can find it in Vegas.” He wasn’t offering, I don’t think. He was merely stating the facts. Built in the middle of nowhere, Vegas is a spectacle of stimulation and simulation where one can find anything....

It was as if the pandemic never happened. Gamblers and revelers, some with open containers in hand and others with skunky herb, stumbled through the streets. Like a school of fish, the amorphous throng moved as one. Individuals peeled off here, and some departed there, but the maskless crowd continued late into the warm Las Vegas night. Lights, slot machine noise, music, cars. Too many people, too much stimulation. We needed out....