Animatronic Performance Arts
Hobbes and I were stumbling towards a collective diagnosis of liver cirrhosis, and our declining energy levels required that we seek means of recharging our drunk to catch a second wind. A villainous vendor dispensed us a couple of notorious hourglass beverages— fruity, blended with ice, and supercharged with clear alcohol. These potions were mixed strong enough to anaesthetize unsuspecting amateurs. Despite the odds set against us, we endured a night in Las Vegas.
We descended the escalator into the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino as the hourglass containers were depleted of their blood thinning venom. Our collective consciousness was arrested by the allure of the one arm bandits’ spinning reels. It seemed as though the chemical and electric stimuli had brought our energy levels back to full power. But we were nothing more than hollow apparatuses performing acts of agency unaware of the marionette strings tugging at our free will.
Hobbes, my good friend and I were prodigal partners and had planned this last minute rendezvous in Las Vegas before returning home together to Central Alberta. Vegas had book ended my motorcycle mission lasting three weeks, which started in Nevada, carried on through California, and concluded on the Vegas strip. Hobbes had been conducting biological research on the island of Vanuatu. Circumstance brought him out of the jungle and back to the Western Hemisphere. The chapters of my mission were stained with liquor. Hobbes, however, was not accustomed to high octane drinking.
A dutiful cocktail waitress had given us complimentary beers as we arm wrestled with the odds of the one arm bandits. Through skewed perception I sought to understand the technique Hobbes applied to activate the spinning mechanisms of the slot machine. His bodily frame rate was set to molasses and it was as if he was simultaneously drowning upright and operating a telephone switchboard. His discordant limbs were a slow motion chaos.
The booze had stripped the jungle man of basic language. I began to worry about Hobbes. His mind was crosshatched with voodoo babbling. I feared he had succumbed to madness, and that it would be weeks or months, under the care of trained psychiatrists, before his psyche could function adequately. There was no time to spare — I had to cash out and get this creature out of the casino. I carefully cajoled the jungle man to abandon the machine before security was alerted to our irregular behaviour.
Despite my own troubles coordinating bipedal movement, I led Hobbes away from the casino floor. The escalators to the surface were within our blurred vision. However, latent brain synapses propelled the jungle man towards the Rainforest Cafe’s floor-to-ceiling aquarium.
The poor bastard had truly become a part of my savage and twisted journey to the hard limits of the mind. I felt guilty for surrendering another man to the oceans of alcohol. When I caught up it was too late — I was watching a terrible display unfold in front of me.
Hobbes was positioned like a seal on the floor in front of the aquarium. He cackled as his eyes darted back and forth following all the brilliantly coloured aquatic life. Laughter and guttural animal noises indicated he was amused with the unique species that were swimming safely behind the glass. While all this played out, families with adolescent children made their way through the enormous gift shop in which the aquarium was located. The families politely yet carefully avoided us. Hobbes was now quietly entranced by the aquarium and I was swaying a few paces away in deep alcoholic deliberation.
It seemed like hours went by before I was able to apprehend Hobbes’ attention. I diverted his curiosity to the Rainforest Cafe’s photo booth. With our beers in guilty display, we became photographed with digitized jungle animals surrounding us. But for all Hobbes knew he was still in the Jungle — I think a piece of his mind will always remain there.
We departed from the Rainforest Café only to encounter another challenge for two drunken bozos. The escalator out of the MGM and upwards to the Vegas strip was no longer operating. Hobbes and I had to summit the stalled escalator. We resigned to the physical task before us and were surprisingly efficient at our ascension, despite a collective blood alcohol content that would kill an ape. About half way up the escalator, however, the Cafe’s animatronic show started.
Upon seeing the mechanical animals come to life, Hobbes broke free of his bloated-Caucasian-sea-porpoise handicap. He momentarily transformed into Super Dave Osborn and attempted to jump off the escalator to join the animals. Luckily, I caught Hobbes mid-jump saving him from an embarrassing career in the animatronic performance arts. In hindsight I suppose he wanted to share his beer with the mechanical gorilla.
Had I not caught Hobbes mid-jump, he would have surely mingled with all the Rainforest Café mechanical animals, and later he’d be captured by casino security and sent straight to the pound. I would have been deemed guilty by association and sentenced accordingly. Thankfully we summited the broken escalators and left the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino.
Hobbes and I had to eat. We began the evening with bellies fueled by McDonald’s. In our twisted alcoholic logic, it seemed appropriate to dine again at the popular burger franchise. I heard obscure oboe music playing in the background as we forced fast food into our gullets. Hobbes was oblivious to the music and struggled to maintain bodily comportment as he masticated his last chicken McNugget.
I’m positive that if I was examined in the final moments of finishing another Big Mac, a cardiologist would have warned of imminent death. Hobbes and I were collectively saturated in the grease and the filth of our choices.
We were back on the strip and rudimentary language skills had resurfaced in Hobbes — he was mumbling about finding some ladies. He wasn’t interested in the ladies you had to pay for. That would be unsportsmanlike. Hobbes wanted the chase. I was skeptical but agreed with Hobbes’ proposal despite that neither of us were lucid enough converse with members of the opposite sex.
We stumbled into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Hobbes had said with surprising clarity, “take me to where all the girls are at.” Within moments we had found a nightclub. His eyes were open but the alcohol had sullied his vision. He repeated, “take me to where all the girls are at.” The bar in which we stood had an agreeable volume of ladies. Through my blurred vision I surmised there to be three sharply dressed ladies to every male. Hobbes, now within earshot of some of the female nightclub patrons, had again repeated, “take me to where all the girls are at.” The only suitable response to Hobbes was to lead him up to the bar to procure another drink.
An irresponsible bartender gave us more alcohol. As we stumbled away from the bar, Hobbes’ jungle consciousness misfired. His utterances had once again devolved. His speech acts egregiously combined the prefix “Mc” with the various slang for female genitalia. Everything Hobbes had uttered was a tumbler of offensive syllables.
A few of the patrons had become aware of our presence and were not impressed. Hobbes carried around a rum a coke he wasn’t drinking and talked in vulgar spirals. My drunkenness was metastasizing. I felt like my entire body was out of focus. Surely we were to be apprehended by casino security at any moment.
I used the threat of corporeal punishment to trick Hobbes into leaving the bar. I explained to him that if the authorities were to arrive at the scene, they surely would castrate both of us before sunrise. I corralled Hobbes into the elevator where we ascended to floor of our hotel room.
Neither of us got laid that evening. But I felt sexually assaulted by Hobbes’ devolved vocabulary.
Hobbes past out while mumbling incoherently to himself. There remained a full rum and coke in a glass on his nightstand to which I was surprised not a drop was split. Though my thoughts were chaotic like a dozen ping pong balls were poured onto a spinning roulette table, I felt sober when I laid down to sleep.
I awoke with the sun beaming through the windows and got up to urinate for what felt like an eternity. When I returned to my bed I looked over at Hobbes lying in the other queen bed. His arm hung awkwardly from the side. He was pale and appeared lifeless.
My hangover and irrationality determined that an unmanageable amount of alcohol had killed Hobbes. Then his arm twitched. He survived.
