Madman Fagel

Capers down the bleachers

Top Hat and cape he winks at the boufant hairdo ladies and they

Giggle and lick their lips

When Jay Sarno built the Circus Circus he was the cutting edge, ahead of the curve greatest

Fortune teller of all time

He saw the writing on the keno squares

Find a way to make gambling a carnival and the only losers are the poor schmucks who clean the gum from the floor

Madman Fagel runs junkets from the cool side of L.A.

Marching the gamblers to the best seats in the pit or the showroom or if your lucky up close and personal with the pearl diving Asian ladies

I was six years old and sitting in Mr. Sarno’s office on the top floor of the hotel

Feet dangling and heart pounding as the larger than life man offered me an apple and then him and dad

Disapeared into the suite somewhere

Vegas was a different song then

Bracketed by shiny men in shiny suits with shiny hair and pockets full of guns and cash the town

Ran like a liquid clock purring in the periphreal

You came with your twenty dollar bill and felt like someone

Surrounded by what can only be described as a sexual energy

Spinning the wheels the soft slap of cards the throaty laughter from the beautiful showgirl on the arm of Another sucker and it was, I’m sure, a surreal childhood if it was compared to the rest of civilization

Sneaking into the pools, cruising the Strip and Fremont street, eating .49 cent breakfast at the Bingo Palace at three in the morning with 500 other high school kids and it was a drunken magical mythical Ride that ended up with getting laid or wishing to get laid or being 7 deep in the adult bookstore until We got throwed out on our collective ass

Madman Fagel lays bets all over town my worried mother chasing him from casino to casino just a few Seconds too late and behind him by the time she finds him he’s ten large out

Hot desert wind bansheeing through the empty lots and floods always floods taking houses like candy

Hipsters really aint that hip ‘less they sported a truth in the Vegas of yester

The ching-ding-a-ling of slots bouncing money into huge plastic cups that smell like metal

Chips givving off that cool clay click in the side eyes

Smoke always smoke filtering the scene in shades of gray vines

Everyone winning

Everyone losing

Madman Fagel dancing and whoring the whole damn time

Vegas is morphed now, it’s in your face over the top and full speed ahead like before only now theres

This slick veneer that you can’t stand on without slipping and whacking your face

It’s louder than ever and the pimps are everwhere bumping into each other

Immigrants pass out prostitution pamphlets to every swinging dick and theres

More characters in costume as you walk down the boulevard than at the damn Disney parade

Yet it’s still appealing this “New Vegas” for some wicked reason I am not sure

I only know that the whole city is like a Reality T.V. Show where everyone is the star

My dad could explain it better but Madman Fagel, like the easy comp and the mob front man

Is just a memory.

 

©2011 Harry Fagel all rights reserved