In August I helped stave off what would’ve been just another disillusioning Las Vegas ending.

Over decades, we can say the number of visitors who’ve come to Las Vegas, enjoyed themselves, then somehow think the city so hospitable for them short term will extend such should they relocate here is countless. Unless the diligence has been thorough, living in Las Vegas is ill-advised.

By all means, come to town. Please do act like an imbecile. Yes, take chances, even risks, if the stay is term-limited. A weekend. A long weekend. However, lose that mindset if the goal becomes to reside here.

When I arrived in 2013, I came with two essentials. A plan and a stake. That I had the latter permitted realization of the former. Moreover, I traveled light. No wife. No children. I made cold-blooded decisions about myself and never had to bother how these might affect others.

Oh. I also arrived with one more vital item. Impulse control. Over the years I’ve punctured the fantasies of many visitors mesmerized by Las Vegas. It’s a city that easily provides so much in the ways of entertainment, distractions, and amusement. It may be the city on earth where easily impressionable visitors somehow believe living here will be akin to the short stays they’ve experienced. When I worked, I did what I could to have them punt such thoughts.

Living in Las Vegas is nothing like playing in Las Vegas.

Coming for the short term, visitors know they must leave. They also only have x amount of disposable to cash for their time here. Therefore, while ATMs are plentiful, responsibility often rears its sensible head. Although visitors may feel compelled to conduct relay races to cash machines, nagging voices in the backs of heads become louder about all the bills the next withdrawal could extend.

Sure. If you’re winning those sirens remain silent. However, too few visitors get that peace and quiet treatment as the stay progresses. They’ll proceed then pass certain lengths. Many will crash through the roadblocks they set up to limit what’s spent.

A reminder to the reckless, pawn shops also happily cater to out-of-towners.

Visitors can be mindless. Because they’ll be leaving. Residents can’t do the same. They reside here. Too many who succumb to excess get on gerbil wheels. Since they’re Las Vegans, the goal becomes staying ahead, getting even, or get in positions to get back to being even.

After a while of living in Las Vegas, it became nothing to see bettors reluctantly defy gravity, rise from tables or away from machines then trudge to ATMs for withdrawals. And it quickly became nothing to see piles of hundreds withdrawn before resuming places at the tables or before the machines.

These are the same bettors who are in continual straits. They seldom catch up on bills. They pay enough to hold off repo men, evictions month to month. They maintain the lowest payments possible on revolving charges.

All for that huge score. The one that makes the evening news. When these infrequent strikes occur, it seems the jackpots are most often off airport machines. Usually by some passenger killing time before his or flight departs.

Nonetheless, a stranger hitting a six-figure jackpot is some of the best advertising ever. It further motivates, incentivizes. Can there be a more powerful lure the most powerful for locals to keep drowning tables and machines in their dollars? It is human to yield wholeheartedly to the belief, “Hey! That could be me!”

Possible? Yes. Unlikely? A much better bet.

The exact numbers will never be calculated, but just anecdotally a bad portion of new arrivals in Las Vegas apparently didn’t bother with any due diligence. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say plenty of new residents decided to settle in Las Vegas after being stupefied over weekends by the city’s bells and whistles then blinded through bright lights while watching others rake in piles o’green. Not hard to imagine. Las Vegas weekends can be off the wall. Returning to humdrum responsible life may be a letdown. It could hypnotize some merrymakers; a mirage that could lead to this errant decision: “I could make it in Las Vegas!”

Now, plenty of people relocate to Las Vegas. Particularly Californians. But aside from retirees, those still in their productive years have jobs, or at least job prospects, awaiting them. They also enter the Mojave with working capital or sufficient credit to buffer most delays or detours.

Others, though, jump into Southern Nevada on the same basis that have launched, that may and will in the future launch, infinite spur-of-the-moment Big Mayberry weekends. The slimmest cash reserves back their ventures. For many their optimism is a pipedream.

Again, without solid strategy relocating to Las Vegas can easily carom from adventure into disaster.

Steve and I had relocated to Las Vegas at about the same time. He was from Chicago. I’m a New Yorker. Our start dates at the firm were close. Then, he was in his late 20s. I was riding through my middle 50s. We had different goals. His were those of 20-something guy in Las Vegas. Mine focused solely on reaching 65. Why so specific? Medicare.

Our company offered health insurance. Since this isn’t the America of my parents or Steve’s grandparents, we had to contribute to the plan. That and deal with co-pays as well as shouldered deductibles when necessary. It was good we each belonged to a union because with Nevada being a “right to work” state and “for cause” keeping employees timorous, that half measure of health coverage wouldn’t have been provided otherwise.

Until Covid, every workday presented opportunities to earn nice pieces of money. One would needed to have been stupid and lazy not to workweeks in the black.

Again, my purpose for being in Las Vegas differed from Steve’s. I arrived to glide. Bought my home out of pocket even before I had a job. At that time, Southern Nevada still lagged in recovering from The Great Recession. Desperate owners offered inexpensive homes. Abandoned, bank-held properties begged for buyers to take them off the institutions’ books. Mortgages were laughably low.

The above was the driving reason behind my relocation to Southern Nevada. My out-of-pocket home purchase here just would’ve been a big down payment in New York. Years later when the housing market lost its mind, I wondered why more Nevadans hadn’t grabbed the same homeownership opportunity I had. After all, they’d lived extensive lives here. They couldn’t have missed what the distressed housing market offered.

Their own homes. Ownership. Ownership confers one of the strongest notions extant in humanity. Possession. Not yours. Mine!

Instead, it was up to outsiders and newcomers like me to start snapping up dreams of security which would become equity by which we could leverage into financial advantages.

Long-time residents have been content to reside in apartments or short-term rentals year after year. Yes, having been an apartment dweller, I understand the convenience. Not tied down in an apartment. If there’s a problem within the residence, it’s the landlord’s responsibility to repair. Moreover, back then Las Vegas rents were cheap. They had been so for decades. And who could’ve foreseen they’d ever become monstrous?

Still, though, months and months into years and years of rent remittances could’ve gone into and become ownership. In Nevada at least, it doesn’t take many missed rent payments before landlords get eviction judgments and the sheriff is piling worldly goods on sidewalks. In the past, there had been mornings I’d seen evictions proceed between 3 and 6.

Those weren’t owners whose furniture was getting the air. Those were delinquent renters.

A younger man, doubtless Steve would’ve had enough for any kind of down payment. Though again in the mid-2010s it wouldn’t have taken a sizable pile to satisfy one then. Depending on the property, I’m not joking to state 2-5,000 dollars would’ve gotten keys to a 2 bed/2 bath home whose mortgage might’ve been around a luxury car’s monthly nut.

Instead, Steve went the apartment route. Ultimately that apartment cost him more than a mortgage would’ve.

He also acquired a girl in short order. This being Las Vegas his girl also had a child. So that gave Steve a ready-made family.

Getting a toehold in Las Vegas as he was, Steve either overestimated his prospects or accelerated acquisitions before his own foundation was established.

For a time there the money to be made in Las Vegas let structural financial defects be overlooked. Amazing how much money can fix. Or even beautify. It’s like duct tape for real life. But then Covid arrived. That upset more than just apple carts.

Yes, a great many furloughed workers benefited from the supplements that bolstered unemployment payments. Those kept tens of millions of heads above water. Though in Las Vegas, admittedly, there seemed to be a high percentage of recipients who failed realizing those spigots weren’t for playtimes. Instead of spending wisely, say, paying bills or rent, a bad number squandered that money on pleasure buys. Huge screen TVs. New furniture. New cars even.

Steve got caught up in this. When life somewhat returned to normal, and work resumed, with it the loss of the weekly extra six yards, what earlier debts had accrued remained pressing.

The initial post-Covid revival brought hordes to Las Vegas. However, a high percentage of them were drawn by bottom of the sea discounts. Understand, Strip operators wanted two-fold results. One, fill up their properties with guests. Two, get crowds into the high tourist areas in order to make it appear Las Vegas was back, baby!

Word of mouth. Finest advertising there is. Family or neighbors or friends visiting Las Vegas, telling all back home who’d listen about the fabulous time the crowded, loud, lively city hosted. Of course, if hospitality purveyors broke even during these weeks and months, they could consider themselves ahead. Otherwise, they needed to have taken solace that below market rack rates put bodies in rooms that would’ve been vacant. Thereby losing even more money.

Moreover, for people like Steve and me who were employed in casino adjuncts, too many of the new people drawn to Las Vegas were definitely low-end customers. This is how low Strip rack rates were – before Covid none of them ever would’ve considered staying on the Strip because it would’ve been unaffordable.

They cascaded into immediate post-Covid Las Vegas because prices were so enticing. All were aware that never again in their lifetimes would suites at some swank property on the Boulevard be reachable. Ask anyone who worked in a service industry then. The paucity of tips against demands those customers made weren’t commensurate with the heavy labor involved.

Outside of those spinning wheels or dealing cards on gaming floors, this shortfall struck any not employed in management positions. Yes, even bartenders and servers. Particularly the servers. Las Vegas hospitality employees worked hard. Yet they realized less.

I was fortunate. Even when making good dollars, I lived frugally. Yes, I saw falloff but it minimally affected me. Steve, on the other hand, had occurred high-money obligations resultant post-Covid/low money circumstances weren’t meeting.

Although he cut back drastically, his measures were insufficient. So much so his car got repossessed. In Las Vegas, that’s akin to having one’s horse stolen during the frontier West era.

Adding insult to this chapter’s injury, Steve’s car got towed to a Salt Lake City impound lot. Seems to thwart certain owners in arrears, a few of the respective cities’ towing operators have a pact. They will exchange vehicles for storage. So, sometimes what gets hooked up and towed in Las Vegas winds up in Salt Lake City. Sometimes what gets hooked up and towed in Salt Lake City gets stored in Las Vegas.

Thus, Steve had to schlep to Salt Lake, find a one-night flop before retrieving his wheels, then drive back to Las Vegas. Just the sort of expenses which burn holes in budgets.

He managed this but he couldn’t shake loose other obligations. And what he earned those days never opened any space between what he owed. Further compounding his dilemma, he changed jobs. That deepened the hole. He tried getting back with our old firm. That worked out worse. After Covid, with management knowing it had an upper hand, the company became vindictive.

Receiving a mild dose of this as I had, it was shock therapy enough for me to drop part-timing after retirement. Believe it not I saw myself pulling part-time hours until reaching full retirement age. But I decided a couple extra hundred dollars a week wasn’t worth the aggravation. Instead, I just economized until reaching FRA before drawing off investments.

About two years passed before Steve’s call out of the blue. Yeah. He was desperate. Sleeping in his wheels. Burning through whatever money he could make to augment his credit cards. Poor fellow was adrift.

Listening to him I didn’t hesitate to apply the remedy I would’ve used for myself were I in his plight.

Go home.

He wasn’t going to make it in Las Vegas. Go home. Go back to his family and friends in Chicagoland. Go home. Unless he’d been a complete rat bastard there, he’d get help from all but the few who grudged him most.

He listened to me. Admitted he’d thought the same. Yet until we spoke all the others he phoned, sought advice, help from, had suggested this way or that, this possibility or another of his remaining in Las Vegas.

I was blunt. Told him if he stayed in the Big Mayberry, he’d be marooned in short order. Wouldn’t take any time until his current vehicle was repo’d. Then he’d be living rough. Stretched out on pavement at nights; hitting up and antagonizing strangers during the day for “spare change” or “bus fare” or a dollar towards “something to eat.” Search for a job as he would, what employer might chance him looking the scruffy way we both knew resulted from leading a fringe life?

I told him to go home. Had I smashed into his wall, it’s what I would’ve done. I wouldn’t have struggled with pride to have made the decision. If that was an anchor keeping Steve in the Mojave, I told him to cast it off. Failure should not be a sentence.

Again, talking to him was like talking to myself were I in the same straits.

Only after speaking did I realize what I’d said. How it sounded.

Rather than be resentful, Steve thanked me for leveling with him. He’d been thinking along the same course. But no one else he’d spoken to pushed an escape direction. Likely because none of those others imagined being victim of the same bad fortune. And should they have, somehow saw themselves pulling a Houdini.

Must wonder how many of the damaged people one sees floundering around Las Vegas led orderly lives until they got so caught up in “Las Vegas” none could extract themselves. Got so mired yet also considered going home but stumbled over then got stuck on how pitiable their states had become.

Rather than leave they preferred abandoning themselves here. Rather than being embarrassed before intimates, they’d rather embarrass themselves among strangers.

Steve’s “rescue” ended on another cloudless extreme heat Las Vegas day. Naturally he needed money to travel. He also needed to top off a storage bill as well as rent a trailer for his possessions. Me? I would’ve left that stuff behind. New stuff is always available later down the road. But it was too late to dissuade him. That money for retrieval had already been spent.

We met at his storage unit. He thanked me effusively. For that I was grateful because if tables were turned, I knew of no one in Las Vegas who would’ve “saved” me.

His chick and her child had been dispatched back to wherever they’d emerged before hitching their wagons to his star. Maybe Steve would reunite with them. He was still young enough to hold that possibility.

Yes, we reminisced. Pre-Covid times mostly. Years even the laziest bastards on the Strip could still make good dollars. Current events got the shortest of short shrifts. Why rehash disappointment?

I handed him $400 for gas and sundries. Isn’t that the amount a great many Americans lack should they need to cover emergency expenditures? To my way of thinking the figure needs another zero.

In the end before we went our ways, I bade Steve to “be careful.” In 13 years of Las Vegas living, he’s the only person I’ve ever cautioned thusly. I figured telling anyone else that would’ve been a waste of breath.

If you lived here, you’d know what I mean.

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