Glitz bisects reality at Vegas bus station

Stacy J. Willis

Sunday, Aug. 8, 1999 | 9:19 a.m.

The Las Vegas Greyhound station stands at the intersection of tourism and poverty: it is a couple of blocks from the folly of the Fremont Street Experience light show, it is a couple of blocks from some of downtown's darkest alleys and dirtiest flop houses.

For more than 60 years Greyhound buses have carted people in and out of Sin City. Today the 24-hour station on Main Street has 43 inbound and 38 outbound buses daily. Each bus seats about 50 people.

The station is filled with backstreet Las Vegas -- there are no limousines here, no comps, no feathered showgirls or neon lights. Instead, people who have had their dance with the Strip are now leaning against a row of lockers or sitting on the peeling linoleum floor awaiting a $100, two-day trip to Omaha or Amarillo, to Wichita or Spokane.

A little Hispanic girl is asking strangers for "a dollar so that (her) mom can pay to get (their) bags out of the locker."

A tattooed, blond teenager is fighting with a vending machine that sells nothing but pain relievers -- Tylenol and Advil in packets of two.

A middle-aged Asian man stores his duffle bag in a locker and heads next door to the Plaza hotel-casino, where in two hours he will be slamming his fist down on the bar and cursing his luck in a series of ill-fated keno bets.

As they slip out by the busload, many of the Greyhound riders take with them stories that defy the thriving Strip's promise of fantasy and fortune.

Losing

Duaine Dewey, 35, is sitting on the floor next to his cowboy boots, wiggling his white-socked toes. He is wearing a cowboy hat that is bent down into a point over his forehead. Opposite his worn boots sit two plastic grocery bags full of wadded up clothes.

He is headed for Wichita, Kan. -- roughly a 48-hour trip.

"It's going to be a cold day in hell before I ever come back to this city," he says.

"I've been mugged. I've had my room broke into. They stole my luggage and half of my clothes -- that's why I got these here bags. You think I'm kidding? I used to have a little black suitcase with wheels on it, but it is no longer with me.

"I came out here to clear my head -- I went through a bad divorce -- I actually thought I might get some work out here and get a fresh start.

"I stayed at the El Cortez (hotel), and the muggers got me between the 7-Eleven and the El Cortez when I was walking home one night. Two of them. I didn't call the cops, that wouldn't do me any good. They ain't going to catch them. They took all I had -- about $300.

"Then a week later I came upstairs from playing nickel slots and my door was open. My luggage was gone. They left my T-shirts.

"This town, I'll tell you what -- no morals whatsoever. I'm getting on that bus, and I ain't never going back here. ...

"I came here after the divorce. I was married 10 years, and my stepson who was 16 wanted to be the man of the house," he said. "But he was ditching school and shoplifting. Then he told the police he was scared to go home because of me -- and the cops told me if I didn't leave, they'd take my other two kids away from me.

"My wife got the house and the car and all of the furniture. I got a TV and a VCR. ...

"I was trying to start a new life here. I looked for work -- I work on cars -- and I had some pretty good prospects, but nothing came through.

"I don't care though. This place is something else -- muggers -- damn -- people trying to swindle you out of your money, people trying to sell you drugs. Just when I came in here just now, two guys tried to sell me weed at the front door outside the bus station, not 20 minutes ago. Damn town.

"My mom back in Wichita had to get me my bus ticket home. I'll tell you what. ... "The last two years of my life have been hell. In fact, the last three years of my life have been hell.

"I'm going to go home and find work. Make up for my losses. I want to go home and see my dog.

"But I did love that light show on Fremont. That was awesome. That was the one thing I did like.

"I hate this place."

Living

Anne (who asked that her last name not be used) is 54. She is sitting on the floor, leaning against a row of lockers next to the women's restroom. She has bleach-blonde hair and brown eyes, and she is wearing a Caesars Palace T-shirt. She's been in Las Vegas 10 years, pawned all of her belongings three separate times and is now on her way back home to Chicago. Her trip will last from Monday afternoon until late Wednesday morning.

She is reading a hardback mystery novel and blowing on her fingernails, which she has just painted pink.

"I came out when my husband died. We had planned to retire out here, but he got cancer and passed away. It took me nine months to find a job. The first one I got paid $5 an hour, clerking for an exterminating company. Stayed there six months. Then I got another job as an office clerk paying $6.50 an hour.

"I've worked a lot of places. Finally I got a job as a jewelry store clerk. For two years I managed that, but somebody who had a key went in at night and stole the deposit money, and they fired everyone who had a key. So I went back to secretarial work.

"I ended up the last three months at Caesars Palace, working at the gift shop. I liked that. But I went into work yesterday, all dressed and ready to work, and they took me to security and said there was $50 missing from my register. They suspended me.

"I know what happened to the money, and I told them: a guy came in with a hundred (dollar bill), and I mis-changed him. But they're going to check my background and find out about the jewelry store, and it's not going to be good.

"Another thing is, in all these years I haven't had a bank account, but when I started Caesar's I finally opened a savings account, and deposited my paycheck. But I went there yesterday to get my money, and they said that I had to wait for the check to clear.

"So I have no money. I went home and called my sister in Chicago and said, 'How would you like to pay for a one-way ticket? My money is still locked up at the bank. ...'

"The thing is, I love Las Vegas. I love living here. I actually hope to come back some day. I love the pace, the lights, the casinos -- I love walking up and down the Strip, I like being able to get up and go out at 3 a.m. and have a drink if I want to.

"I love the people. I've met a lot of people -- it was really fun to talk to people from Germany or Japan or Korea at Caesars gift shop.

"I lived in a weekly rental. All I had to do was clear that friggin' paycheck from Caesars Palace and I would've stayed. "If just one thing had happened differently, I wouldn't leave. If one thing had happened to pick me up, I'd stay. If my ATM card had worked, I'd stay and keep fighting. ...

"I've had a lot of roommates at the Budget Inn suites. Some of them have gambled away their paychecks and left me there with the rent. One even locked me out of the apartment and stole my stuff and pawned it. I knew her maybe four months, and we got along really well. But she just up and decided she didn't give a s--- about anything.

"But others fed me and bought me cigarettes when I was down on my luck. ...

"So anyway ... I just decided that's it. Three times I've had to completely rebuild my wardrobe and TV and VCR after they were pawned.

"I'm a gambler. I've gambled all of my life. Slots. The biggest I've ever hit is $2,000 on a 50-cent roll.

"My advice to anyone coming to Las Vegas is 'Don't gamble.' Or if you do, take your paycheck and decide up front how much you can lose, because you will lose it."

Visiting

Yong Hwan Kim is 24. He is wearing a snug New York Yankees cap and has a backpack the size of a small refrigerator. He is traveling alone. He has on khaki shorts and white socks pulled up to his knees. He speaks broken English and has a giant smile.

"I am from Korea. Traveling 30 days by bus. Las Vegas for just one night."

Kim stayed at the Las Vegas International Hostel on the Strip, where a dormitory bed costs $12 per night. He shared a room with three other people but didn't meet them because they were all asleep when he came in at 2:30 a.m.

"I walked around, gambled a little. Las Vegas is amazing. The lights are amazing. A lot of different people here, I like that. I like neon signs.

"But I lost $100 in slot machines. Not a lot of money maybe to some, but a lot of money to me. To stay in Las Vegas would make me crazy -- 'ding ding ding ding ding' all the time.

"I'm ready to go on to Los Angeles. Tomorrow, Disneyland and Universal Studios. Hollywood.

"Would I come back to Las Vegas? Maybe on a honeymoon." Working

Jim Scott, 25, is wearing a red baseball hat that fits tightly on his head. He is sunburned. He has on an oversized blue-striped T-shirt, jeans and steel-toed work boots. He shows his palms: they are hard and red, calloused not just in key spots, but all over -- swollen to a thick crust. Scott is from Jay, Okla., a town of about 1,500, 100 miles from Tulsa.

He is an iron worker who specializes in building water and grain tanks -- a "top man " -- the one who builds the highest part of the structure. Scott came to Las Vegas on a construction project but is headed home before its completion.

"Las Vegas is the definition of heaven and hell. It's got everything you want, so it's heaven, but you can't have any of it, so it's hell.

"I've been here two and a half months -- I'm gone. I just made a little money and lost a little money. Played slots.

"But I'm a country boy. I'm used to doing other things, like fishing. There is only one thing to do here and that's spend money. Either shopping or gambling, all there is to do here is spend money."

"Slinging bolts on top of iron, that's what I do. A group of tankers traveled out here in a van -- seven of us from Oklahoma and one Missouri boy. The company sent us."

They stayed at the Budget Inn on North Rancho, and every day they were bused out to Death Valley to build water tanks for a prison construction project.

"It's dangerous work. I'm up there 30 feet slinging bolts with a hammer. I don't wear a safety harness -- plus it's inside that metal tank, and it reflects the sun, so it's hot. Death Valley desert is not a nice place. If the sheets of iron don't get you, the snakes or sun will. It's cookin' out there.

"I'm from a little town. When I was little, I'd be hanging out in this pool hall, and I'd see these tankers coming in all the time. And they were big and strong. And they were always talking about their job, and all the places they went and the partying they did. And I thought 'That's what I want to be.' I knew the boss man, and I'd ask him if I could be a tanker, and he'd say, 'When you're old enough.'

"So this is a dream come true for me. I love it. It's the job for me.

"We put our heart into the work. We got one built, and another nearly built -- but I've had it with Las Vegas. So I asked them to send me home. I wanted to fly, but they wouldn't cover the plane ticket, so this is the cheapest way out.

"When I get home, I'll have two or three grand in pay -- big money. Plus the company paid for my food and drinks while I was here, we had all the steak we could eat.

"But I hope I get sent to Nebraska or Minnesota next time. I'm ready to get out of here. It's not my kind of town.

"I went out down on the Strip one night by myself, right up there on Fremont, went to a club, drank a little bit, and when I was ready to come home, it was about 3 a.m. and all the cabs were filling up. I couldn't find a cab. So I walked -- it was not a nice walk. I heard bullets. I was looking around the corner of every alley. This is Vegas, it's not the movies, it's real. Just a little while ago they found two dead bodies in the hotel I'm staying in. I said, 'I'm outta here.'

"If I see this place in 20 years, it'll be too soon.

"I just can't wait to get home and throw my fishing pole over the water."

Thinking

Michelle Eubanks, a middle-aged black woman from Syracuse, N.Y., is sitting at the end of a row of chairs. She's wearing a long skirt and has a knit hat pulled over her ears. She and a friend spent two days in Las Vegas, after visiting her sister in Phoenix. She stayed at the MGM Grand. She is on her way back to Phoenix via bus and will fly to Syracuse.

"Two days here was enough. I gambled a little -- made some money and got out. I made $25 and got up from the slot machine.

"It's my first time here. It's pretty extravagant, the MGM was nice, but I wonder about the poverty we see down here in this area. I think it's almost a trap -- we see the nice hotels, and we're not supposed to see the real people. The Strip is a wonderland, but these streets out here around the bus station are not.

"I could not imagine living here and having this kind of lifestyle. It's totally commercially oriented and driven. You can't rely on any other values. It's all about money here.

"I look at these hotels, and I wonder how all the money is filtering into the community, and when I come down here and see people on the street, I don't think it is filtering.

"This is the top level of capitalism. This is what capitalism uncontrolled looks like at its highest extreme. It looks like all that out there on the Strip, and it looks like that right there --"

She points to a dirty, disheveled man sleeping on the bus station floor, his backpack under his head as a pillow.

Leaving

Tisha (whose name has been changed to protect her identity) is 15. She's wearing an orange halter top and white shorts and has been dropped off on the curb in front of the station by a woman driving a white Chrysler. They hugged in the front seat and said quick goodbyes. She has a duffle bag in one hand and a bus ticket in the other. She is from Chicago.

"I came here to spend the summer with my aunt. Las Vegas is raggy. I miss my friends, and I can't wait to go home.

"What Mama don't seem to know is that my aunt is no good. No, she's not that bad. But she's got boyfriends all over and always going out and getting drunk. Stinking, stinky drunk.

"I wouldn't want to live here. I was supposed to stay until September, but I called Mama and asked to come home. I wouldn't want to live here. It's boring here. My favorite thing was nothing. Big deal -- some lights. Everybody just dumping their bank accounts into a bunch of machines. For what? A bunch of lights. Big deal. "You can have it. I gotta go. I gotta get on that bus."

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