Educational Experience

Part III--Chapter 8

It started off okay. In fact, the whole town was turnt up.

There were about 500 invited guests and some real dance crews from New Orleans on hand for the first official, star studded strut around the towers. You could probably hear Trombone Shorty's band all over Las Vegas, getting the party started.

The instruments were mic'd, so there was a huge crowd out front dancing even if they couldn't fall in line for real.

They'd seen us on the news, a lot of them. But there were also all these roving packs of drunk tourists going in and out of all the hotels on the strip, filling up on free champagne and food to keep them going 'til midnight.

We started throwing them those bead necklaces and all kinds of candy and stuff, too. So pretty soon everybody was doing the, "Throw me something, mister!" thing, fighting over those necklaces and diving for candy like kids.

Whenever it got too crazy, we'd stop throwing. But that didn't happen too much. In fact, I even dragged a few of 'em into the line with us. Not the sloppy drunk ones, just a few wide eyed kids who looked all excited and star struck.

Joie got hold of some very vocal queens who'd dolled up for a night on the town. The girls grabbed some young guys who looked like they were up for whatever and some. And I bet they were pretty stoked to be dancing with the Fun House Girls up close and personal.

Plus, it looked like all the young folks on all the Hollywood/TV/Sports/Music Industry A-Lists had come out to get crazy buck with us. Sure, they'd been to some powerful pachangas before. But I could see in their faces that this one going to be the party they talked about forever.

The circuit started in the front tower, and danced our way through all the lobbies and casinos in each of the side buildings. We had to cut through DeVillier Plaza, too, which gave everyone a chance to see the big picture pool. I expected to hear a "splash," given how drunk most of them were, but nobody jumped in. Not right then, anyway.

The girls were in the first row after the band, with me and Big Man, who had finally come running up to get us around six or so, looking all sharp in his sik designer tux. He was all business, telling us the routes and how security was set to handle everything like clockwork. The girls and I had a real hard time trying to keep straight faces while he went on and on and on about how "cutting edge" it was.

But we managed to get through it without him suspecting anything. And once the band started playing, he forgot about all that and got down to some authentic New Orleans street moves. A couple of guys in the band actually grabbed him and put him up front by Shorty after a while. That gave all the ladies a thrill, for sure.

But we weren't going to follow the route he'd been given. We snaked through all the buildings and then headed to the rear tower lobby-where "JJ" would be.

We were headed for the entrance of...get ready...the Terrance McKinnon Center, this huge space where there'd be concerts, rodeos, sports events, conventions, you name it. Named after Big Man, right?

It blew him away. He kept saying, "Y'all need to quit," over and over again, like he didn't believe his own eyes. We'd made sure he couldn't see the actual entrance on his little tour because there'd been big sheets of plywood in front of it, supposedly because there was construction going on back there. But they took it down and opened up all the doors by the time we got there.

So as we were dancing up, everybody could see his name up there above those doors big as life. And I swear we almost had to carry the man into the big arena once he saw it. He just stopped dead, all wide eyed, with everybody swarming around him, slapping him on the back and heading for the tables and whatnot inside.