There was very little for teenagers to do in Vegas in ’82. Sure, you could go to a movie, play video poker at the Mexican restaurant, or sneak into the Caesar’s Palace Jacuzzi. But all that got old. So my best friend, Jeff, and I came up with the perfect game. We called it...
The game goes like this: First, take about two feet of surgical tubing. Remove the guts of a ballpoint pen, and stick the front half in the tube, with the cap on. Then fill the tube with twenty-five gallons of water. The tube will expand to the circumference of a good-size Schnauzer. This makes the most excellent water-assault weapon ever. There’s so much pressure that when you pop off the cap, the tube releases all the water in a blast with laser-like precision.
I had this enormous battered station wagon with tinted windows. The operation started with my friend Jeff and me in the front seat and our girlfriends, each holding a fully loaded Water Weenie, hiding in the backseat. I would slowly approach a “sexual service engineer”; Jeff would partially roll down the window and motion her over. When she entered the target zone, the girls would kick open the back door and blast the prostitute with fifty gallons of water, and then we would speed away, before the pimp arrived.
Perfect fun for the whole family, and a public service at the same time.
Where Sahara Avenue meets Las Vegas Boulevard, there’s the famous Sahara Hotel on the east side, but on the west side, there was a big patch of desert. Usually, this was trolled by the toughest and meanest whores in Vegas, and we avoided playing the game there. However, on this night there was only one prostitute, and she looked like she wasn’t cranked up on angel dust and probably wouldn’t try to shank us. Seemed like a perfect way to start the night.
The operation began smoothly. I pulled the wagon to the curb, and Jeff motioned her over. But she did not approach. Instead, she shouted, “What do you want?”
I looked at Jeff. “What do we want?”
Jeff shrugged. “I dunno what we want.”
“Tell her you want some action,” said my girlfriend from the back seat.
Jeff shouted, “We want some action.”
“What kind of action, and what will ya pay?” she retorted, not moving an inch closer.
All the blood had drained from Jeff’s face. “What kind of action do we ask for?”
“How the hell should I know?” I was a bit panicked. “Let me think for second.” The girls were giggling in the back.
Jeff’s voice was now quivering. “Uh ... hold on ... I’m uh ...”
My mind was only coming up with the most depraved and perverted things. Things I would never say out loud. I was sweating and red-faced.
After a long five seconds of silence, from the back came, “Tell her you want a BJ for fifty bucks.” I turned around, absolutely stunned. This was from my girlfriend, who in the presence of her father was like pure Snow White goodness. She even apologized for saying “darn it,” and now she’s now teaching my best friend how to solicit a hooker. I will never understand the complexity of women.
It worked. The hooker got up and meandered over. She hit the target zone, the back door kicked open, and the water blast from hell hit her square in the neck. Suddenly from the dark desert, her pimp lunged for the car. But our girls were too quick; they turned the water blast from the hooker and hit the man right in the face. I stomped on the gas, and we flew over Las Vegas Boulevard and east into the night.
That would make a perfectly good ending right there, only it wasn’t the end. You see, that was no prostitute we hosed down, and that man wasn’t her pimp. She was a detective with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, and the man was her partner. It was a sting operation.
So at the same moment we were speeding down Sahara, cheering and laughing, there were about thirty police cruisers chasing us down.
The first thing I saw was red and blue lights in my review mirror. I thought I was caught for speeding, so I pulled over. Then I saw another set of lights, then another, then another. Two more sets approached from the front, and within five minutes my car was surrounded by cops.
All four of us were folded over the hood of my car, when an unmarked police car screeched to a halt, and out hopped a soaking wet pair of cops. They were so mad, but I could see the other cops were laughing. I would have laughed too, but they had called our parents. My girlfriend’s father was the first to arrive.
As soon as he stepped out of the car, my girlfriend broke down sobbing. I mean, she was cool as a cucumber through the whole event, and suddenly she was like the fountain at Caesar’s. The police yanked her off of my car, and brought her to her father.
She whispered something to him, and then he looked at me. It was like cold death melted with hot steel poured over the testicles of a rabid bull. Veins started popping out all over his red, sweating forehead; his eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he was panting like a crazed dog. I could hear his teeth grinding under the pressure.
I turned my head toward Jeff, like, Check out this shit. Jeff just shrugged. Then my girlfriend’s father was standing next to me, with a cop between me and him. “If you ever, and I mean ever,” he spit, “talk to my daughter again, I’ll...” The father looked at the cop, then made a motion with his hands like he was breaking a twig.
He stomped away, grabbed his daughter by the shoulder, and then gave her a great big hug. As he was gently putting her in the car – and this I swear to God – she gave me a quick glance and winked.
