Fear and Loating in Las Vegas. A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve never missed a plane yet.” I smiled as the memory came back. “Except once in Peru,” I added. “I was already checked out of country, through customs, but I went back to the bar to chat with this Bolivian cocaine dealer ... and all of a sudden I heard those big 707 engines starting up, so I ran out to the runway and tried to get aboard but the door was right behind the engines and they’d already rolled the ladder away. Shit, those afterburners would have fried me like bacon ...but I was completely out of my head: I was desperate to get aboard.

“The airport cops saw me coming, and they gathered into a knot at the gate. I was running like a bastard, straight at them. The guy with me was screaming: ‘No! It’s too late! Don’t try it!’

“I saw the cops waiting for me, so I slowed down like maybe I’d changed my mind ...but when I saw them relax, I did a quick change of pace and tried to run right over the bastards.” I laughed. “Jesus, it was like running full bore into a closet full of gila monsters. The fuckers almost killed me. All I remember is seeing five or six billyclubs coming down on me at the same time, and a lot of voices screaming: ‘No! No! It’s suicide! Stop the crazy gringo!’

“I woke up about two hours later in a bar in downtown Lima. They’d stretched me out in one of those half-moon leather booths. My luggage was all stacked beside me. No body had opened it ...so I went back to sleep and caught the first flight out, the next morning.”

My attorney was only half listening. “Look,” he said, “I’d really like to hear more about your adventures in Peru, but not now. Right now all I care about is getting across that god damn runway.”

We were flashing along at good speed. I was looking for an opening, some kind of access road, some lane across the run way to the terminal. We were five miles past the last stop light and there wasn’t enough time to turn around and go back to it.

There was only one way to make it on time. I hit the brakes and eased the Whale down into the grassy moat between the two freeway lanes. The ditch was too deep for a head-on run, so I took it at an angle. The Whale almost rolled, but I kept the wheels churning and we careened up the opposite bank and into the oncoming lane. Fortunately, it was empty. We came out of the moat with the nose of the car up in the air like a hydroplane.. . then bounced on the freeway and kept on going into the cactus field on the other side. I recall running over a fence of some kind said dragging it a few hundred yards, but by the time w e got to the runway way we were under control ... screaming along about 60 miles an in low gear, and it looked like a wide-open run all the to the terminal.

My only worry was the chance of getting crushed like a roach by an incoming DC-8, which we probably wouldn’t see until it was right on top of us. I wondered if they could see us in the tower. Probably so, but why worry? I kept the thing floored. There was no point in turning back now.

My attorney was hanging onto the dashboard with both nds. I glanced over and saw fear in his eyes. His face appeared to be grey, and I sensed he was not happy with this move, but we were going so fast across the runway—then cactus, then runway again—that I knew he understood our situation: We were past the point of debating the wisdom of is move; it was already done, and our only hope was to get the other side.

I looked at my skeleton-face Accutron and saw that we had three minutes and fifteen seconds before takeoff. “Plenty of time,” I said. “Get your stuff together. I’ll drop you right next the plane.” I could see the big red and silver Western jetliner about 1000 yards ahead of us ...and by this time we were skimming across smooth asphalt, past the incoming runway.

“No!” he shouted. “I can’t get out! They’ll crucify me. I’ll have to take the blame!”

“Rediculous,” I said. “Just say you were hitchhiking to the airport and I picked you up. You never saw me before. Shit, thos town is full of white Cadillac convertibles ... and I plan to go through there so fast that nobody will even glimpse the goddamn license plate.”

We were approaching the plane. I could see passengers but so far nobody had noticed us ... approaching from this unlikely direction. “Are you ready?” I said.

“Why not? But for Christ’s sake, let’s do it fast! He was scanning the loading area, then he pointed: “Over there!” he said. “Drop me behind that big van. Just pull in behiond it ad I’ll jump out where they can’t see me, then you can make a run for it.”

I nodded. So far, we had all the room we needed. No sign of alarm or pursuit. I wondered if maybe this kind of thing hap pened all the time in Vegas-cars full of late-arriving passengers screeching desperately across the runway, dropping off wild-eyed Samoans clutching mysterious canvas bags who would sprint onto planes at the last possible second and then roar off into the sunrise.

Maybe so, I thought. Maybe this kind of thing is standard procedure in this town