7-12-01 I Asked the Drunk Woman How She Was Doing

 7-12-01 Th 6:38 PM

I turned down a side street and parked on a road behind the main street of Virginia City. I as perched on a hill looking down on a valley of abandoned mine detritus, church spires aspiring to the colors of the Western sunset, but the ghosts of whores flashed and mooned and leered at me from the balcony of a building of which its construction blatantly bespoke of the brothel that it once was. A staircase made a Z up the back. Sure enough, a plaque set in stone commemorated the area as the red-light district. A steam engine whistled in the distance. I sat in car and finished my wine, heady with anticipation of place so romantic with history. I tried to type a line for Jim, but the laptop wouldn't fire up. I scanned the area with my video camera and waited on the bottom of the steps of the back entrance to the Silver Dollar Pub until the train whistle reverberating across town spurred me to action. The pub was closed. I ascended the steps of the establishment next door, the Bonanza where two young men sipped beer nervously. I nodded to them and entered a room full of slot machines. I found a wood bar with a window overlooking the northern Nevada desert and ordered a beer from the barmaid who was otherwise entrenched in cigarettes and conversation with the only other patron of the place. So, no one was around but still I was enthralled. I wrote in a notebook and reloaded my camera. The place was closed, but the barmaid brought me another beer. I gulped it down and exited to the sheltered wooden sidewalk. Painted signs hung down announcing the Bucket of Blood Saloon. I continued on into the Union Bar where a scraggly-bearded biker minded the bar, an old drunk woman smoked. I walked back out the back where glittering red, white, and blue stars festooned a pile of junk below the balcony. I was high, I remember now and when I had downed my beer, I asked the drunk woman how she was doing.