Stripped: Lockdown in Pictures
Cover Image: The Bellagio Fountains on March 14th, 2020 (top), and April 19th, 2020 (bottom).
We walked almost a mile before we got to the Strip, passing several massive hotel parking structures as we went, all mostly empty with their entrances blocked off. Outside the Cromwell I almost expected the flower and smoke smell to come wafting out of the wide main entrance. Instead, glass doors sealed the entrance, reinforced with a chunk of wooden two-by-four wedged into the handles. Even without the sign plastered in the window, it clearly read CLOSED.
From Flamingo to Tropicana and back we toured the old familiar places, all made strange by the heavy absence of the human river that usually flows at the feet of the towering resorts. Not that it was entirely empty. Cyclists puttered on rented bikes up and down the streets and the cars, though reduced to a trickle from the normal deluge, still added a spark of energy.
A trio of fat tire riders passed us on the sidewalk outside the Cosmopolitan. For some reason, this struck me as a very strange thing to do. When we reached the stairs that led to the upper walkway, they came circling back from under the first landing, And I remembered — the city fenced off the sidewalks on this part of the Strip a long time ago.
The only ways out are to go back or to go up.
With the urgency of getting to the next place stripped away, the details stood out like never before. On the bridge between Crystals and Aria, a pane of glass puckered in the middle, the bubbles and swirls looking almost like a logo or a sign. My husband insisted it was just warped from the sun. Probably true. Still, I studied it for ten minutes to see if I could tell for sure. What else did I have to do?
As we headed south, my camera never left my hand as we passed favorite restaurants shuttered and boulevards that would be otherwise packed in this high-tourist season now completely empty. Event signs advertised events that were woefully out of date-and painfully ironic, which seems to be the overall sensibility of this period in our history. And while we wander these once-glittering roads, the questions hang unspoken in the air.
When will it be back? What will it look like when it does? And what will we lose for good?
Sidewalk construction in front of the Excalibur stopped our southward progress, so we turned around and headed back on the east side of the street. The sidewalk wound into a small court of smoothie stands, t-shirt kiosks, and sundry restaurants lining the perimeter. The ubiquitous music was gone, yet the covered grotto hummed unaccountably with something that resembled the old energy.
“Hungry?” A man with a white mustache and a cigarette grinned at us from a plastic chair, stationed between a counter and a plastic rope that separated the public walkway from the commercial space. Behind him, a dozen people congregated in the atrium, spread out in pairs and small knots.
“Uh. I. What,” I stuttered, shocked at how difficult forming words had suddenly become. “Are you…open?”
“Oh, yeah. We’ve got food to go.”
His wrinkled face broke into a wide, slow smile. “And if you’re thirsty, the bar is open.”
My husband and I exchanged a look as if he had offered us a free trip to Hawaii. Was this for real? Was it legal? More than that, was it safe?
The man was already on his feet, sliding his chair back so we could pass into the roped-off area. Part of me wanted to run in before he changed his mind. Another part of me wanted to run away. But all of me is Midwestern by birth. I didn’t want to be rude to the first extra-household human being who had spoken words to my actual face in nearly a month.
Leading us by six feet, he ushered us inside the roped-off serving lane of the bar.
“We’ve got everything you see here,” he said, gesturing to the laminated menu attached to the bartop. Then he pointed to a nearby spray bottle full of clear liquid. “And that’s rubbing alcohol if you need it.”
We studied the options. We could order anything? And they would give it to us right here, where we stood? The food looked amazing, but we’d been out in the April afternoon heat for over two hours. There was only one thing I wanted.
“Vodka soda, please,” I said to the solo bartender. He spritzed his hands and made our drinks. We paid and took them into the atrium. Nearly everyone wore spandex or other workout clothes. A few braced their arms on the handlebars of their bikes while they sipped a beer from a plastic cup. We didn’t exchange words, but each glance I met held a smile. We scoped out a spot appropriately distant from everyone else, and for the first time in weeks, we sipped cocktails not made by ourselves in a place that wasn’t our living room.
It only lasted for a couple of minutes before security told all of us we had to move along. But for that handful of moments, all was good. Not back to normal, but better than where we’ve been lately.
Afterword
It’s now ten days later, and so far neither of us has seen any symptoms that suggest infection. Either a) it’s taking forever to show up, b) we’re both 100% asymptomatic, c) our distancing precautions worked, d) the colds we both had in February/March were actually this and now we have some level of immunity or e) no one there was sick/contagious.
All or some of these could be true. We’ll probably never know for sure. In any case, in this time of seemingly endless struggle and pain, I’m calling it a victory.
Originally published at https://sgtasz.com on April 28, 2020.
