—Big Trees to Big Apple—
USA Roadtrip w/ Nixie Neutron
In under two days, Las Vegas shifted from, “Everything’s fine, guys, you should all parrrrty, it’s almost St. Patty’s Day, wheee!” to “Everyone GTFO, yesterday,” to [………crickets].
It became obvious that we had no viable alternatives but to abort mission and try to get ourselves to secure places as soon as possible, and prepare to be stuck there for weeks to months. Nixie bought a flight; I made arrangements to scoop my sister out of now-derelict Los Angeles and then backtrack up the coast the way Nixie and I had so recently finished driving down.
We were squanched out of Luxor as it shut down the next day, and thus squanched over to Flamingo to spend our last night before Nixie’s getaway spaceship outta dodge.
Nixie’s favorite cocktail bar in town had made DIY cocktail kits for the folks stuck at home [i.e., everyone]; we availed ourselves of one of these and marinated in azure soup, donning bubble mustaches, in our room with a view of the deserted city below.
By the next day, everything was shut down except for weed dispensaries, which had long lines out the door. Otherwise, the streets were empty, except for a few homeless stragglers who didn’t have anywhere to hole up. I wondered how many of them might still not know why the city was empty.
While we loitered in a parking lot, a raggedy older woman lugging a trash bag shuffled up to the open passenger door of the van, while Nixie was in the back packing her things. The woman asked me where I was from; I struck an attempted balance between friendliness and aloofness, worrying that the woman might be leaning a bit close [more worried for her sake than for mine, but not thrilled about the prospect of potential contamination in either direction]. After we exchanged a few words, she said, “You girls best get inside now. It’s not safe out here.”
“We know. We’re both headed home. You should get inside, too.”
“I live out here. Ain’t no inside for me to be.” Without a goodbye, she ambled off, looking frail and resigned to circumstance.
We were tired, Vegas was uncharacteristically gloomy and wet, and there was nowhere for us to be, either—no hotels, no cafes, we found an empty botanical cactus garden but were kicked out within minutes—so we parked by a supermarket and used their WiFi to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race in the van until it was time to drop Nixie off at a nearly-vacant McCarran International.
Then, equipped with a chicken’s foot around my neck and a cockroach on my carotid sinus, I drove the 4-5 hours back to Los Angeles, to serve as getaway driver for a different sister [this one being from the same mister], so that we can hole up together in Northern California for up to the next several months.
This trip’s been prematurely ejaculated, but I’m optimistic about the future:
We’ve already laid the groundwork for an awesome tour. We spent about six months planning this trip, plotting a route, sussing out interest in different cities, securing potential venues, arranging accommodation, researching martial arts and circus gyms to continue our training, networking with local wrestlers and dommes, making arrangements with clients, pouring overhead into all the things we might need, kitting out the van, compiling outfits and itineraries. That doesn’t have to have been for nothing. If the world settles back down in the foreseeable, we could pick up right where we left off.
“How will we get on traveling together?” is always a relevant concern when embarking on the road with someone new [especially with the added complications of being on a high-stakes and fast-paced working tour]…but I figure, if we were able to get through the uncertainty, absurdity, and stress of a looming pandemic [and major economic downturn] together, and not just “barely”, but symbiotically and intact and managing to still have a really fun time of it…I think that bodes extremely well for how smashingly things would go in a happier, healthier, more prosperous time.
I’ll figure something out—I always do.
Meanwhile, I’m offering up a slightly different menu than my usual [check out my new Virtual Offerings page].
Use my Contact form or email virago.khutulun@protonmail.com to inquire about any of the above options.
