you paid the price

Littlegirlcop was very content to be sitting in a plane, barreling down a runway, about to take off from McCarran Field. A week in Vegas is much too long, thought Murphy. On paper it all sounded great: a cop convention, a city where people come to do things they wouldn't want to talk about when they got home. "What happens in Vegas stay's in Vegas" The words held a promise, but that promise wasn't kept.

You would think that a city built on a foundation of camp, neon and vice would be more fun for a gay man. You would think there'd be atleast one fag bar on the strip. Maybe a Liberace themed club or someplace dedicated to Judy, Bet, Babs or Liza; but there wasn't. There were bars, Littlegirlcop did do a bit of research, but they weren't on the strip. Murphy found his way to an area that'd been affectionately referred to as the Fruit Loop. There wasn't a neighborhood, just a strip mall in a industrial area between the Airport and the Hard Rock Casino. Just a couple of discos, an adult bookstore, a Hamburger Mary's and a bear bar called The Buffalo. The beers were cheep, that's always a good thing, thought Murphy. But this place was obviously on the wrong side of the tracks. Once you made it through the door it was like any gay bar anywhere, but getting there didn't make you feel out and proud.

Sure there was the lights and the glitz of the strip, but again it was an unkept promise. You got the replica swiss watch, but you paid the price of the original. You got Venice with one clean canal, you got all you can eat shrimp in a dessert. The cheesecake at the Carnegie Deli at the Mirage was great, so great that Murphy stopped back for a third piece the night before his flight, but you just can't recreate a Manhattan deli in the lobby of a vegas hotel. Mouthful after delicious mouthful, Murphy thought of the man he shared a piece with the last time he was in New York and felt sad because they no longer spoke. He felt sad because Vegas wasn't New York; and he felt sad because he wasn't home.