Night had fallen, and it was showtime. The Strip was like a parade, cars inching along, the cacophony of hundreds of varieties of music blaring in the sultry night air. He stood before the Venetian, watching rowdy young men screaming from the balcony. They held yardsticks, a beverage in a thirty-six-inch plastic container colored in sherbet shades acting as camouflage for the intense alcohol content. Honking car horns, laughter from various groups of people, and the babble of different languages filled the night air. Clutch paused, leaning on the railing of a fence, the oversized bronze sculpted heads of Siegfried and Roy behind him. A group of girls, one wearing a cheap rhinestone tiara with a short white veil, banged into him, squeezing him into the shrubbery to take a picture with the statue. They were happy, silly with drink, their dresses too short, their hair too high, their eyes too shiny. Clutch perked up. Women, he thought. One of the things he missed most from this world—a close third after whiskey and poker.
