Call Or Die.

I wake and look at the clock to see my birthday, 11:27, a number that I’ve always been convinced carries deep numerological significance. This is particularly worthwhile today, though, because the so-called rally started at 11:00. I get in my car, pack my pipe and drive past the spy store and the one-hour dental whitening clinic and two girls bouncing in synchronicity on the corner. I arrive at the office, and observe that, under rally conditions, it has changed little, with the exception that there are a few more people talking on cell phones outside and that a table has been set up in the parking lot bearing bagels and a tray of ominous sandwiches.

<>“Call or die,” Eliot reminds me as he walks away. I am standing with a piece of paper and a many-paged list, laying them out on the near end of the sandwich table. I work down the list and call people with ridiculous names, names taken from everyday objects and names comprised of unpronounceable strings of letters. “Is Lgviaolksvstnee there?,” I ask the phone, afraid, and I will never know if the hang-up that results was due to my pronunciation or merely my annoying and altogether regrettable existence. Along with the street names I saw yesterday, this has helped me to see the name warp that exists here in Las Vegas; signifiers are thrashed and distorted by the logical vortex of this place, resulting in a system of identifying words that drifts in turmoil and strife. “I keep forgetting the area codes when I’m dialing,” I tell Eliot. Also, I have forgotten people’s names after they’ve answered and after a tense second of silence I have hung up the phone in shame. He shakes his head and blinks. “Call or die.” He angles his pencil so it is pointing at my throat.

An hour later and I register a total of eleven confirmed voters, which actually gives me a good success rate and makes my chest swell with pride. One of the directors of the operation—I don’t want to use her real name, so I’ll call her Strawberry, or something—comes out of the office, screaming at the empty air. Excited screams. I watched her all day yesterday as she flailed about on the telephone, promising people food and giveaways for attending the rallies (a promise made good on, by the way, with t-shirts and trucker hats complementing the sandwiches), and with violent earnestness telling people things like, “Wow, great!, so I REALLY wanna’ meet you!, I can’t wait!, so will you come tomorrow!, can I count on you???” Now she is holding oversized bags of candy which she launches at people with dangerous speed, and she charges up to a group and I overhear things like “so here’s the skinny!” and “keep on chugging!” (here she is comparing the forward thrust of our telephoning to the movement of a train). She runs up to me and as the candy falls the ground around me she asks, “So!, how’re you doing!” “Good,” I tell her. “Do you have more confirmations than last time? You had three last time!” “I have eleven.” She staggers back, hit with the freight train of my eight new confirmations. “Eleven??? Wow! That’s…that’s great!” “Did you ever doubt me?” I ask, but instead of answering she chooses to withdraw.

The day wears into afternoon; I reach my twenty call quota and wander. I go to lunch, buy a cartoonishly oversized hat and speak to my parents, and then I return to the office to find it deserted, a ghost town. I call Eliot. “Where are you?” “Baskin Robbins.” “I came back to the office and it was empty so I left.” Silence. I can almost hear him blinking on the other end of the phone.

I lean against a wall back in the office, eating my ice cream cone. I watch as the core group of organizers plans what to do, and wait for my assignment. I don’t actively volunteer for anything, choosing instead to wait passively for someone to take notice of me. This, I feel, is the best course of action. If my enthusiasm becomes too extreme they’ll know it’s a show, and suspect my intentions even more than I imagine they already do. I will prove myself a mindless drone, incapable of independent thought. I will show them that my observations and wandering, my constant coming and going, are merely the last gasps of my suffocating will, and that soon when someone looks into my eyes the pupils will be the tiniest of dots. “Hey Andy,” they say. “You feel like doing some scanning?”
‘Feel’…? What’s that?

I leave the office as the sun is setting and drive to my cousin Arthur’s house and the clouds in the sky are glowing and beautiful. Arthur’s house used to be the house of our grandparents, but they are gone now and Arthur lives there alone. I am never able to get him on the phone, and I have no choice but to go to show up and hope he is there—but when I arrive I find the house empty and dark, and standing there on the lawn, looking at that place of memories, both warm and frightful, I start to feel a little empty and dark myself. I wish to myself that Arthur were home, because I know he would understand. And maybe that’s why here’s not there in the first place. I scan the house, the lawn, the garage door, for signs. I look for the fingerprints of m family and the events, the loud staring and furious breathing, that have transpired here over the years. I look for a scuffmark, anything. I look for the faces of my grandmother and grandfather, my aunt Mary, my cousin Ben, all dead now. But I can’t find a thing. I stand there and wonder if it’s really all just disappeared into thin air. I watch the sunset from the sidewalk.

I return to the office and people are giddy. They know that for once they will go home at a reasonable hour, around seven o’clock (Eliot was there until 3:00am the previous night), and they show their excitement by laughing and shooting each other with rubber bands and paperclips, aiming (as I suspect) right for each other’s eyes. I try to stay out of the way, but eventually I find myself continually caught in the crossfire and taking shots, not all of them accidental.

Eliot and I have eaten dinner and are wandering around the strip. We go from casino to casino and I try not to gamble and occasionally succeed. We exchange numerous phone calls with our old friend Matt Finegood, they pied piper of Tijuana, who has come to Vegas with Matt Steinberg, another friend, also to work on a campaign. We fail to meet up with them, however, because they have been unlucky enough to each win a sum of money the night they arrived, and so are now cursed to lose that amount many times over, proving to themselves that they can do it again. They want to GAMBLE, with a purpose, and Eliot and I are in no mood for that. Our confinement to the office has kept our cash in our pockets, and we desire not to throw it away at a table, but to spend it on overpriced drinks and cover charges for unpleasant nightclubs. We briefly meet with the rest of the office staff, but they are on a different kick than we are, ambling around the Strip with big beers and muttering about roller coasters—and so before long we separate. This is mainly my doing. Eliot would’ve been happy to wander with them, and so would I on most nights, but this was an occasion when I was craving something, something elusive and mysterious, an emotion I can experience but not describe. I’m tempted to refer to its pursuit as “chasing the dragon,” but it’s not as serious as all that, more like chasing the iguana or other small and harmless lizard. Nevertheless, it always takes its toll on my behavior, making me cranky, irritable and impatient, and after following the group through the same two casinos we had just been inside I force Eliot to break away from his friends and follow ME instead. He acquiesces, and doesn’t seem to bee bothered much by it, but he may or may not be secretly contemplating snapping my forearm in two.

We end the night at Studio 54, watching a man and woman pet and dry-hump each other on a trapeze, while dancers writhe on a stage and the shrieking members of the crowd below eyeball each others’ sex organs and shower in a downpour of shiny silver confetti.

When we get back to the room, Eliot goes to sleep, having to be back at the office at nine in the morning. But we have gained an hour, this being the night of the end of daylight savings, and so to celebrate the one night a year when I feel not in fear of or confused by time, but instead exist as its rightful master and comptroller, I head downstairs alone. I miserably play the tables for a little while, and begin desperately seeking a cigarette without wanting to pay for a pack. I see two girls, one with green wig, one with purple, playing two adjacent slot machines, smoking. I approach them, and to my own surprise I find myself leering at the bewilderment that comes across their faces when I make my presence known.

“Uh, excuse me, I…I don’t want to interrupt or anything, but, uh, could I buy a cigarette off you?” Ha ha ha ha, I think, yes, my mention of money will convey power, not servility, and surely they’ll be unable to resist my overwhelming confidence. They look at each other, and I see a spark in the air at the bisection of their gaze. They both turn to me.

“Uh, I have like one left.” Then a pause. I pretend not to understand what this implies. They look at me. “Sorry…” she adds. I look into her eyes and let the details of this ultimatum sink in and register on my eyes, ears and mouth.

“Oh,” I say, and walk away.