Magic Mike

We all cope with tragedy differently, and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do it. My hope is we can all hold each other’s hands throughout the sadness that life gives us and offer each other grace as we go through the process. Maybe that makes me seem like that character in Mean Girls who just wants to make a cake of rainbows for everyone, but it’s how I feel. Our time is hard enough without the unexpected events that can break our spirits. It’s important we all have shoulders to lean on, strength to keep moving forward, and friends to help us find the laughter when it feels impossible to smile.

Leaving my family and friends in the Midwest when I entered adulthood was always a difficult decision for me. My parents live one street over from both my brothers and their families, and they all work together too, so me wanting to fly across the country to live my life never made much sense to them. Many of my childhood friends have also set up shop in Ohio, so it becomes a challenge to keep in touch with them while I live in California. Part of me always figured I would end up back there after a few years of adventures in my twenties and thirties, and while I still haven’t decided to make the move back, I do find time to spend with my loved ones, usually meeting in Las Vegas for debauched days in a casino. It’s an easy forty-five-minute plane ride from Los Angeles, and flights from Ohio to Vegas are cheap, so it’s convenient to meet people there, catch up for a few days, and then go back to the real world.

One of my lifelong best friends, Katie, now lives in Columbus, Ohio, but in 2017, we decided to have a frienaissance in Sin City. She’s a nurse, and my schedule is all over the place, so we weren’t able to do a proper weekend; instead we planned to fly in on Sunday and have three nights together in a cheap hotel room. We had aspirations of sitting at a slot machine, drinking countless vodka sodas, and eating at buffets. What we got was quite different.

I was first to arrive, Sunday morning, while Katie’s flight was due to get in early afternoon, so I had time to check into our hotel at Planet Hollywood on the strip, get some lunch, and unwind.

“I don’t want to spend too much time gambling. Let’s see a show tonight to keep us off the tables! Can you check to see what tickets are available?” Katie asked me over the phone from the airport.

“Sure,” I said before heading to the hotel concierge.

On my way downstairs, I browsed one of those pamphlets I carried with me from the inside of a cab that listed every magician, comedian, popstar, and dance show on the strip. It was an overwhelming selection. The concierge helped me out, telling me there were no divas (Mariah, Céline, Britney) playing that Sunday night, but there were some hot tickets, namely Magic Mike Live, a country music festival, and a Cirque du Soleil–esque dance show. I was about to buy the country festival tickets for the both of us when Katie texted me that her flight was delayed. She wouldn’t arrive at the hotel until around seven, so it would be tough to make it to anything other than the late show of Magic Mike Live.

Detour

I LOVE Magic Mike with all my heart and soul. Channing Tatum’s performance as a male stripper was revolutionary, one of the greatest in the history of cinema. No man has ever moved on screen the way that he did, and I’m not sure any man will ever again. How the Academy didn’t shower his fine ass with awards, I’ll never know. Of course, I liked Chan when he burst onto screen in the underrated Amanda Bynes vehicle, She’s the Man and the wonderful Step Up, but nothing could have prepared me for the magnetism that he would display as an exotic dancer who also made furniture and even did drag in that one random sequence in the first film. While I don’t remember any plot points of that first movie, I do remember his “Pony” dance, a sequence that will live rent free in my mind for all of eternity. I’ll be on my death bed thinking of the subtle way he thrust his junk into the face of a blessed extra. His red thong should be hung in the Louvre, and dancing should be outlawed, Footloose style, until every man can move like him. Magic Mike XXL, the second film, continued the story of Channing as Mike, and it’s an almost flawless movie, my only complaint is that there isn’t enough nudity for a stripper tale. My understanding is that women prefer the tease and don’t want to see the full male body on display. I remember watching a segment on The View discussing the Fifty Shades of Grey movies and how Jamie Dornan wasn’t showing his full Peter Rabbit, while his female costar Dakota Johnson showed her Meredith Grey, and the entire panel actually said on air that they didn’t want to see his disco stick. The double standard was obvious to me, but the ladies argued that women weren’t interested in seeing full penis. Many of my girlfriends feel differently, so I’m not sure I believe that, but I can tell you with 100 percent confidence that gay men DO want to see the full male body on display. At the very least, we want to see Matt Bomer in a thong for multiple scenes/frames, and Magic Mike XXL didn’t give us enough of that in my opinion. Regardless, I hold both films to high esteem and will defend them to my death.

Channing opted to take the Magic Mike film franchise to the stage, and not since The Lion King on Broadway has there been such a seamless film-to-stage adaptation. The idea that people could descend upon Vegas from all parts of the world and see this IP with the lax Vegas liquor laws is…chef’s kiss. I was so excited for a night of abs with one of my very best friends.

When Katie finally got to the hotel, there was just enough time for her to shower and shove some food in her mouth before we headed to the Hard Rock Hotel for the hot, naked men show. The cocktails started flowing the moment her suitcase was wheeled into our room, so we were nicely lubricated by the time we got to the ticket will call.

The show started beautifully, with sexy lighting and a server who took our drink orders before we even sat in our seats. We opted to get the fishbowl-size vodka sodas, reasoning that we had already started drinking hard liquor, so even though the glasses were big enough to house a living creature, at least we weren’t mixing different types of alcohol like wine or beer. I’m here to tell you that no one actually needs a drink that big. You might think you do, but you don’t. Never. There’s no occasion where that makes sense. Just have one human-size drink and then order another if you’re still thirsty or not buzzed enough. A fishbowl should be for fish, not vodka, but I’m 100 percent certain that I will again make the same mistake in the future.

Drinks were flowing so freely that I couldn’t tell you if there was a story line on stage or if the men were simply taking off their blouses for the audience to ogle. I blacked out the details, but I do remember the men were gorgeous, and the hostess gave everyone in the audience paper money that was like Monopoly dollars, only instead of buying hotels for Boardwalk Empire, you used it to make it rain on a man whose baby-maker you wanted to see up close and personal. I also remember the crowd, filled with women and gay men hooting and hollering in a way that can only be described as unspeakably horny. If straight men had any sense (they don’t), they would hang outside the venue, waiting for the show to end, because everyone’s motor is running during Magic Mike Live.

There’s no real easy way to transition here, but about three quarters of the way through the show, just when Katie and I were starting to see double and order triples, I got a text from a friend who lived in the area. Her husband is a police officer in Las Vegas, and she said that he just got word that there was an active shooter on the strip. News like that is sobering, to say the least. The woman next to me was shouting, “Show me your dick,” at a dancer, while I was trying to read a terrifying, albeit blurry to my drunk eyes, text. I showed Katie and neither one of us knew exactly how to react.

“Should we leave?” I asked Katie.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, let’s just get another drink,” she replied, waving down our server for another fishbowl.

I texted my friend for more details, put my phone in my pocket, and continued waving my paper money at the nearest topless man. News like that is often hard for me to digest, and I naively assumed it was all an overexaggeration or misreported. Surely it was nothing because nothing bad like that ever happens in Vegas, a place of pure adult joy…right? We put reason aside and finished the show.

As soon as we exited the dark lights of the theater, we knew something was really wrong. We all, unfortunately, now know how the evening ultimately played out, but at the time, things weren’t so clear. Casinos are always a little hectic, but word was traveling fast that there was an active shooter nearby, and everyone in the casino was visibly terrified. While the Hard Rock Hotel is off the strip and far away from Mandalay Bay, where the shooting took place, there wasn’t a lot of concrete info as to what was actually happening. People were running around, scared, some yelling, others telling people that there were attacks at other casinos. Our first instinct was to get a hotel room at Hard Rock, as we didn’t want to go closer to where this was all happening, in case that would put us in more danger. It seemed like the best course of action was to stay put in one spot, away from the crowds. The line for reservations filled up quick, but we were able to book one of the remaining open rooms.

Next we went to the gift shop to get some essentials for the night. We wouldn’t know how long we would be in our room, so we grabbed the basics…toothbrushes, contact lens solution, and because we were hammered, snacks upon snacks upon snacks. All the while, pure chaos erupted around us. As I waited in line, I called my parents, who were asleep. I told them to turn on the news and promised them Katie and I would go to our room and keep them posted when we knew more. Texts started coming in from friends and family who knew we were both in town. I texted back everyone I could, letting them know I was fine and at a hotel.

Katie, drunk as she was, decided to post on social media to let her network of people know she was okay before her phone battery died. It would’ve made sense for her to update her Facebook status or her Twitter feed with something like, “I’m okay! Will check in when I know more,” but she had deleted Facebook and Twitter a few days earlier, so IG was the only platform at her disposal. Obviously, you have to post a picture on IG, so she couldn’t just update the caption with her whereabouts. While I would’ve opted to post a Notes app update or a blank screen with information in the caption, Katie uploaded the most recent photo in her camera roll, which happened to be an accidental screenshot of her iPhone screen. She posted it with the caption, “My only form of social media at this point. Phone is about to die. I’m safe. At the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas. I’ll contact loved ones when I can.” Almost immediately her phone battery ran out, and since we didn’t have chargers at our new hotel, that was the last communication we had with people. That accidental screenshot was all her people saw throughout the entire night. In the screengrab (shown on the next page), you can see an email she got from Zazzle, and another from Groupon.

Comments immediately flooded in underneath the photo, people saying things like, “wtf is this photo?” or “is that an email from Zazzle?” as they tried to extract extra meaning behind Katie’s picture during such a tumultuous time.

In the gift shop, I grabbed every Kit Kat they had, paid, and went straight to our room. The tragic events were not happening where we were exactly, but again, we didn’t know anything other than what people were saying on the casino floor. In our new hotel room, we put on the news and watched in horror as the events unfolded so closely to us and new information trickled out. I’ll never understand how anyone could be so heartless, so evil.

Everything that transpired sobered us up, so we didn’t wake up still tipsy like we normally would have. We exited the Hard Rock Hotel that next morning, and the Vegas strip felt like a ghost town. Normally the street is bustling at every hour with people, laughing and smiling or angry about money lost at the craps table. Instead, a sense of sadness filled the city. A former adult Disneyland was now a place of lingering devastation.

Even as sadness filled the air for lives lost, there was a sense of perseverance that permeated the city. Video billboards that once advertised Boys II Men and Carrot Top were now showing “Vegas Strong,” reminding residents and visitors that it will get through the darkness. It was nonnegotiable.

We were like zombies walking through the motions that next day, thinking of how easily it could’ve been us at that concert and thinking about how those people who died were people just looking for some time away with their own best friends.

Katie and I contemplated flying to our respective homes early, but that didn’t quite feel right. It might be years before we were able to spend quality time together again, and there was a comforting collective mourning that was happening in town that I’m not sure I can put into words. I wonder if the people who think anyone should be able to own an assault rifle would still feel that way if they were able to be in Las Vegas that morning. Maybe they would think differently if they could feel the unspeakable loss that hung in the air.

With our trip still in progress, and every live show canceled on Monday night, we decided to order some drinks to the room and try to have a dance party. To be honest, we didn’t know what to do. Maybe it was inappropriate of us to dance? We had spent the day tense and sad. I’m not a religious person, but I prayed for all the lives lost and the families who were finding out that they had lost loved ones. In our hotel room, we put on the TV and every channel was dedicated to the events of the night before. I felt helpless and trapped in sorrow. Grey’s Anatomy has taught me that dancing it out is self-care, so we put on Mariah Carey and did our best to lift our spirits as much as we could. Eventually, we made our way to the casino floor, where many others were trying to force on a smile just as we were. Slots and blackjack only did so much, and we needed to do something to get our minds off the events. Enter a psychic.

Psychics have long fascinated me, usually from a distance. It seemed like a fun, spontaneous thing to take our minds off the sadness. Katie felt similarly, and although we thought it would be easy to find one in Vegas, it turns out there aren’t a ton on the strip. We sat at a casino bar, scrolling the internet on our phones for the closest clairvoyant.

“I’m gonna run to the restroom,” I said to Katie.

By the time I got back a few moments later, Katie had already booked us an appointment and ordered a car that would take us off the strip. Way off. The drive to our reading was almost an hour. We ended up in a small town outside of Vegas, empty and desolate, pulling up to a small apartment complex with no streetlights and very little sign of life. We should’ve turned right around, but instead we got out of the car and Katie texted the woman she had been communicating with who was set to give us a reading.

The woman, who told us her name was Xelcius, led us into her home, where Fox News was playing on the TV in her living room for her daughter, who looked roughly ten.

“You first,” Xelcius said to Katie, bringing her into her bedroom as I sat on the couch in her living room. How we just went along with all of this is beyond me. There were so many red flags, reasons we should’ve bounced, but we did whatever Xelcius told us.

Rather than make small talk with the child who was watching Tucker Carlson, I decided to get on my phone, text friends, and take some photos of our whereabouts. I thought it was important to document the occasion, not just for safety, but so future me could remember what was happened this night, as I would surely try to block it out of memory.

Katie finished up and Xelcius asked me to step in her room.

“I’m gay!” I shouted as I entered, a fight-or-flight response, in effort to erase any potential sexual tension that could arise as she asked me to sit on her bed for the reading. I was wearing a Britney Spears shirt and a light layer of concealer, so there’s little reason to think she wouldn’t have known I was homosexual, but I told her anyway. As I sat on her bed, my faith in her psychic abilities was nonexistent. I wanted to get in and get out, satisfied that Katie and I would have this batshit story without needing any sort of tarot card thing.

“You have a show,” she said, eyes closed while holding my hand.

“That show is going to grow. You’ll have celebrity guests and go on the road. It will open many doors for you,” she continued.

I thought it was all bullshit. I left the room, rolling my eyes for only Katie to see, and politely smiled at Xelcius as we left her apartment.

“Did you tell her I started a podcast?” I asked Katie.

“No, why would I talk to a psychic about a podcast?” she countered.

Our effort to take our minds off the grief fell flat, and the whole psychic experience made me feel gross. Gross that we had spent so much money, gross that we drove so far for so little, and gross that we were on this trip in the first place when tragedy struck so many people. There was also an air of guilt that we were able to continue when so many others were no longer afforded the opportunity.

We both looked out our windows on our ride back to the strip, thinking about everything that transpired over our two nights. A tear flowed out of my eye, a culmination of every emotion, and then, unexpectedly, I heard Katie laugh. Not just any laugh, it was the laugh I first fell in love with when we met as young teenagers, familiar, warm, and infectious. It was the chuckle that I remember hearing at fourteen when we went on a student council trip and the one I remember hearing at eighteen when we got tipsy after our high school graduation. Before the tear could even dry on my cheek, I joined her, laughing for the first time since we arrived. I wasn’t sure what I was initially even laughing at, but it happened, and it was the church giggles, the kind of laugh that you know that you shouldn’t be participating in but trying to stop it only makes you laugh even more. The sad tears and happy tears combined into a release. The rest of the car ride was filled with those laughs, the kind only two close friends find together that you would never be able to explain to anyone else. We laughed at Katie’s absurd and inappropriate Instagram post and at our ridiculous psychic visit. We laughed and laughed and laughed. When we planned our trip, we expected to have a traditional visit…slots, booze, and shows. We had all those things, but it was anything but traditional. Every time I had a milestone with my podcast, I thought about the tarot cards, and the prediction, and in turn, Katie. I’m still not sure I believe in Xelcius, but I believe in the power of a frienaissance, reuniting with an old friend for a fun time.

So many lives were horrifically lost in that shooting, sixty in total. Countless friendships broken, robbed of the kind of laughs we were so fortunate to have on our ride back to the hotel. My heart will forever hurt thinking of the people who were tragically killed and the loved ones they left behind, but if you’re reading this and thinking of your Katie, a person you don’t get to see as much as you want, I’m here to remind you to book that trip. Meet them somewhere and make some memories while you still can, because you never know when you won’t be able to anymore. Life is hard and short, and in the end, those friendships are all we have.