Leaving Las Vegas

by John O'Brien

though she could see the pain in his eyes.)

Sera remembering a conversation with Mom and Dad, so this must be taking place back East, right before she leaves for LA. Her Mom thinks the travel is a bad idea. It is left to the reader to fill in why she is going west - what the cover story is. She has a better relationship with her father and while he agrees travel will broaden your experience he, implied by the pain in his eyes, doesn't want her to go either. We learned earlier she was 16 in LA working for Al, so she must be 16 or less her, much too young to decide to leave home. Why? We don't know.

sleeps until she wakes, is awake until she sleeps.

there was a time when he would not even trouble himself to pick up the change from a hundred dollar bill,

thinking of a woman whose nearness he can sense.

And this would be Sera.

“lnshallah,”

This means "if allah wills it." So the casual reader who only knows english will have to look this up. In 1990, when this book was published, that would have been hard to do. Now we have google. Not sure this would be in a dictionary. So what Al is saying is that he wants to find and possess Sera again, both as a pimp and sexually as a partner. He is too proud to masturbate and instead hopes he will simply wait a little longer until Sera is back in his control.

If faced with her own imminent death, she could at least release the relentless anxiety of futility.

Highlighed by more than 20 readers of kindle. This shows just how much she needs to not be idle, to be doing something useful and to her usefullness is work.

she has never pondered the line that runs between death and death at one’s own hands.

No but she is about to, so the author has placed this here on purpose to forshadow what is to come - her falling in love with Ben whose only remaining purpose is to find death by his own hand. Something that makes no sense at all to her. Also interesting that the author killed himself 4 years after this was written. He could certainly cleanly separate the character from himself.

So it stands disadvantageously to even a stopped clock, which is assured of proudly facing the correct time at least twice a day.

Sera must work; this has always been her weakness, even at the start.

This is definitely the worst number she’s ever had done to her face.

She thinks SHE has done. Not the boys have done. She takes responsibility for it - part of the job, the territory.

(“.

clothing.)

perspicuous.

She needs some straight, simple business.

Sera has never understood why so many people choose contempt as the first option.

It has been quite awhile since she’s felt such a lack of control.

This is a nod to Al, whom she is about to run into. So a forshadowing. When she was with Al, he was in control. Since coming to LV - for at most 10 years - she has been in control. This little incident is placed here for this reason - to lead up to Al re-discovering her.

(Safely

Barstow.)

“Al sent me over—Arab guy—said you were a good sport. So how much?”

This is the moment the entire cheeries section has been building too. The present has been leading up to this, and her flashbacks have been filling in the backstory as to why this is a climactic incident.

seven years vanish in an odious, bloodshot wink.

So this is how long she has actually been in LV - 7 years since leaving LA and leaving Al.

she feels a longing for something that isn’t here right now. She doesn’t know what it could be.

Perhaps this is Ben?

“Give me the keys to your apartment, Sera. I’ll wait for you there.”

She is an observer again.

(Tough trick, but at least it was a trick. Al found a trick for me.)

(Everything is fine now; things are back on track.)

(There ought to be a stronger connection somewhere. There should be another level.)

Again a foreshadowing of Ben

(Her father loved her in the super-sexual way that is far too sublime for incest.)

The narrator reveals that in fact her father had sex with her as a child, and she remembers it as "too sublime for incest" - sublime meaning elevate to a high degree of moral or spiritual purity or excellence. So her affection for him and good relationship with him has clouded her memory and made the incest in her mind morally right. This is the reason why she loves Al, has in a way been trained by her father for Al, but Al is not her father.

interesting technique. I think the narrator is trying to show Sera's mind becoming detached from what is happening around her and she is turning in on herself now that Al has stunned her with his arrival.

( )

( ) ( ) ( )

She looks up, a little surprised at the question. “Nothing,”

This ending signifies her complete detachment from the world - as if with Al returning she is living outside her body and thus not really feeling what is happening to her as a psychological defense mechanism like she did in the old days before LV. So she has returned to her LA state of mind. In a way how sex workers turn to drugs to numb themselves to the physical and emotional humiliation they are being forced to endure.

that show.”

Its pretty clear the show is Wheel of Fortune, and its on at 10am. According to Wikipedia, the show in the 90's ran in the am between 10:30am and Noon so this is about right.

There’s no longer any need to call in to work—he

La la la la la la.

Ben doesn’t need a straw now, at least not until tomorrow morning.

The introduction to Ben who is addicted physically to alcohol, and as such suffers the DT's in the morning until he can get enough into his system to quiet them. Thus his first drinks must be consumed via straw, and the stopping of the shakes demarcates his ability to function until the next day when it starts all over again.

But this is all painfully moot now; it has been a while since anyone has looked for or bothered him anywhere.

The narrator has let us know that Ben has lost everyone who cared for him in his life due to his drinking and is now totally alone.

“We’ll see you all again tomorrow. Bye Bye for now,”

Double meaning, in that the the game show host is saying they will see the viewer tomorrow, but it is also true that the purpose of being in this bar at this time has been fulfilled for Ben and he will see it, and his 3 vodka cranberries, again tomorrow.

Time has become very important to him, much more important than it was when he had a job.

So we are told he had a job at one time but has lost that.

At six a.m. the hardcore bars open and the stores can sell,

Never let two o’clock happen unless there is more liquor in the house than you could possibly drink in four hours—no small quantity.

Outside it’s still overcast—spring in Los Angeles.

When he lost his job last week he gained a sizable final check;

For the last year and a half his daily routine

being handy is the kind of conspicuous skill that makes it easier for others to tolerate you.

what it really represented was a whole fucking lot of booze.

five thousand dollars.

That gives him ten thousand dollars in drinking money.

If he drinks one hundred dollars a day—and he can—he’s got one hundred days to drink.

Throwing up at your barstool is frowned upon in Beverly Hills.

To Ben, shaving is evidence that everything’s fine.