The Sit Boy
Chaos in Vegas (Part II)
← The Sit BoyBy noon on Saturday, a very tired Dixon needed some air. He had been in the Venetian Hotel for almost a week without stepping outside. His only view of the outside world were the large windows looking out from the lobby of the convention center. He decided it was time to go for a walk outside and feel the warmth of the Nevada sunshine. He made his way down the long hallways of the convention center, through the shops in the Palazzo Hotel and out onto the landing overlooking the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue. There was a footbridge that spanned Sands Avenue, connecting the Palazzo Hotel to the Wynn Hotel on the opposite side. The bridge was crowded with people looking down Sands toward the new Sphere, watching the bright animations and videos on its massive globe shaped screens. The bridge was also crowded with Las Vegas ‘attractions’ of various types. Showgirls to pose for pictures, a man with a very large snake, and a pair of Stormtroopers of the Star Wars variety. But what caught Dixon’s attention was the distinct sound of an electric blues guitar filling the air with a wondrous Mississippi Blues song. Dixon walked toward it, mesmerized by the skill of the player.
Dixon’s first impression was that the performer was very old. He must have been in his late 70s or early 80s to Dixon’s eye. He was African-American with a dark blue suit, a perfectly tied bow-tie and light brown felt fedora. His shoes were shined like mirrors, almost reflecting the lights from the Strip. His guitar was a vintage electric, which was connected to a small, old, Fender amplifier. He had a mic-stand holding a vintage microphone. He leaned in so close that his mouth was almost touching the mic as he sang. Dixon didn’t recognize the song, but it felt like a Blues-Gospel testimonial about a weary and hot place, perhaps somewhere in the South. Dixon was struck by the incredible fingerwork on the guitar, the player’s hands moving so precisely and quickly as to defy imagination. Dixon listened to one song and then another. The crowd clapped appreciatively at the end of each song, some tossing coins into an open guitar case on the ground.
The man announced that he was taking a break and took a long pull from a water-bottle. Dixon thought it must have been hot in his suit and hat in the dry Nevada sun. Dixon walked over and introduced himself. “Good afternoon sir, I’m Dixon Davie, but people call me Dixon,” he said.
“Well, hello there Mister Dixon sir. It’s very nice to meet you,” he said with a slow drawl, heavily accented from the American South. “My name is Riley James. Sometimes people get that backwards, and when they do, I get a bit ‘riled up’.” He paused and then continued, “See, now you’ll remember,” he said with a grin.
Dixon laughed and dropped a twenty dollar bill into the guitar case and said, “thank you. I needed a break and listening to you was just exactly what I needed right now.”
“You’re very welcome. I’m glad you came my way,” he said, taking another long pull at the water.
“How long have you been playing Mr. Riley sir?” Dixon asked, adopting the courtesy that Riley had shown him.
“Oh, I first started playing in the church when I was just a little boy. I’ve been playing all my life if I were to say. I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t playing or singing music. You could say it has been my life I suppose.”
Dixon thought about this for a minute and then had what at first struck him as a crazy thought. But after considering it for no more than two seconds, the words started coming out of his mouth: “Hey, Mr. Riley, what are you doing tonight? You wanna play in a show? I’m putting on a carnival of sorts and I think you’d be great.”
“That’s very nice of you to offer, where’s this carnival happening?” he asked.
“Right behind us in the Venetian Convention Center. We had to pull this together over the last couple of days and we’ve got just about every kind of Vegas act coming in. I’m thinking an authentic Blues musician feels like a must-have.”
“Well, you didn’t think it was a ‘must-have’ before or you would already have had one,” he said coyly.
“I supposed you’re right about that, but now that I’ve heard you, I think we missed something. Are you up for playing a couple of songs for a few people?” Dixon asked.
“That would be very nice. There’s nothing I love more than singin’ and playin’,” he answered kindly.
“Great. We can pay you. How about $5,000? Would that be enough? You’d need to sign a release in case anyone takes pictures or videos,” Dixon said, having signed talent many times before, although never on a pedestrian bridge.
“That sounds like plenty. That might get me out of the sun for a few days,” he said and reached out to shake Dixon’s hand. “Thank you for letting me be heard.”
“Oh, and I should probably say. . . there’ll be a lot of people there.”
“How many is a lot sir?”
“About 25,000.”
There was a long pause.
“Oh my. Well, that’s a mighty big carnival,” Riley eventually said in response.
“Yeah, it is. Are you OK playing in front of that many people?”
Riley considered this. His face brightened. “You know, the most people I ever played for were the summer church gatherings when we brought all the churches together. I don’t even know how many people were there. But I learned then, that you just play. It’s the same if you’re performing for 10 people or lots more. You just play what’s in your heart and hope it meets those people where they need it. Like it did for you just now,” he said genuinely. Dixon was touched.
“Great!” Dixon said after a moment.
“Although, I don’t know if that’s true for 25,000, but we gonna find out,” he gave Dixon a wink. “Thank you for inviting me. I will do my best.”
Dixon didn’t doubt this. “You’re welcome,” Dixon said, shaking his hand warmly. He gave Riley Imani’s phone number and told him to reach out to her to set up a time to meet and get ready for his performance. He thanked him again and then turned back toward the Venetian. He pulled out his phone and texted Imani.
Dixon: Just found the most amazing Blues act. He’ll be reaching out shortly. His name is Riley James.
Imani: Where did you find him?
Dixon: On the Strip, of course.
Imani: Oh perfect. I knew I shouldn’t have asked.
Dixon: Trust me. He’s amazing. I promise.
The carnival was all set to go at 7:55 PM on Saturday with just five minutes to spare.
The doors opened on a hall that had been transformed in forty-six hours from a planned concert venue into something that, Dixon would later be told, was the single most discussed event of the entire corporate event scene that year. Cirque performers descended from the ceiling on silks. Donny Osmond performed two songs and an extremely heartfelt cover of “What a Wonderful World.” The Stardust Five played a forty-minute medley that contained four different decades of Vegas. A man on stilts dressed as Elvis circulated. The BMX riders did a half-pipe routine in the central atrium. The fire jugglers that Marcus had cleared with the fire marshal by personally walking him through the venue at 6:00 AM, juggled fire inside their twelve-foot space. The salty magician called everyone sweetheart, but managed to otherwise not say anything so offensive that it would have gotten him fired. The psychic gave fifty-seven readings and accurately predicted, among other things, the next quarter’s earnings of two attendees’ companies. The card tricks were performed at a table near the third bar. Dixon was later told that those were a surprise hit. The karaoke stages were both at capacity for the entire four hours. Glitter, despite Imani’s negotiations, ended up everywhere.
The party was scheduled to run until eleven. At 10:30 PM, Dixon made his way backstage as the DJ from Tao was hyping up the crowd, which had descended into a state of drunken chaos. He rounded the edge of the stage and found Imani and Tara talking with Riley in the Green Room.
“Hi Mr. Riley sir. How are you doing?” Dixon asked.
“Well, Mr Dixon, I just looked out and I see a whole lot of people out there,” he said in a very worried sounding voice.
“I think when those people hear you, they are going to lose their minds,” Dixon said with a big smile. “How about I introduce you?” he offered. Tara and Imani gaped.
“That would be very nice of you,” he said, picking his guitar up off of a stand and putting the strap over his shoulder. He was again immaculately dressed. He had changed into a black leather hat, but was still wearing a suit and bowtie. He now had on black leather cowboy boots as well. “I guess we should get on then,” he said.
Dixon motioned to the DJ to finish the current set. When the music settled, he walked out into the middle of the stage to a lone microphone. A few members of the Stardust Five: a piano player, a drummer and a bassist, took positions on the stage. The spotlight came up and the crowd cheered in drunken appreciation. The whole audience appeared to be leaning slightly to the right, perhaps holding each other up.
Dixon: “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight, you’ve experienced the most Vegas mix of entertainment that anyone could have ever imagined. We hope that you’ve had a very VEGAS time tonight. . .” The crowd roared. “But we’ve got one more act that is going to just blow your minds. Will you please welcome, all the way from Mississippi, my new friend Mr. Riley James!” The crowd went absolutely bananas, which was a lot considering no one here had ever heard Riley James play. Dixon looked out at the crowd as Riley made his way slowly out to him. Dixon briefly thought about Jon and whether the original concert would have even been anything near as amazing as this carnival had been for them. He concluded at that point it would not have been.
Riley raised his guitar into position, put his mouth close to the vintage mic, and looked out briefly at the ocean of people. For a moment, he held his breath and then he broke out into a huge smile, stepped back from the mic and launched into a blues guitar riff that absolutely electrified the crowd. The Stardust Five players joined in and the hall came alive with the magic of his Blues music. It was a stunning moment of music that brought the house down.
The song’s first verse called out Dixon by name, and Riley looked over at him on the side of the stage as he sang it:
“Two days to make a room
into something nobody’s ever seen
Mister Dixon givin’ me a chance to get up and be heard”
Dixon was shocked and surprised. He was touched with gratitude.
He thought about how they’d found all of this assortment of talents in the last two days, but that the one really landing it was a street busker that Dixon had stumbled upon a few hours earlier. He could feel the tiny tremors of the universe speaking to him again. He wasn’t sure what they were saying, but he was paying attention. He thought back over the last two days as all of his things had been sold off back in Atlanta, having to whip this event together at the last minute, meeting the cowboys and now seeing how Riley was touching the crowd.
He pulled out his phone and started recording. He had a sudden thought. He started texting almost immediately.
Dixon: Hey Sloane, you would not believe this guy that’s performing here in Vegas right now. Sending you a video.
It was late in Atlanta, but the three dots started pulsing a minute later.
Sloane: OMG so good. I love it. What’s his name?
Dixon: Riley James.
Sloane: OK for me to send this to some of my music friends and post to socials?
Dixon: Do it. I think the universe is telling us that his music needs to be heard.
Sloane: You and your universe again.
Dixon: Yeah, that’s me. Always listening.
Sloane: You figured your shit out yet?
Dixon: Well, not really, but I sold all my stuff.
Sloane: Wow. You coming back to Atlanta? Can I see you?
Dixon pondered this for a moment and then wrote: Yes. I’d like that.
Sloane: Cool. Thanks for sharing. Send me Riley’s number.
Dixon: Will do.
Riley’s performance ended just before 11:00PM and Marcus directed the lights to be brought up. The crowd was swept out of the room and they moved their parties along to other Las Vegas environs. Labor crews descended on the room to start dismantling the carnival. As with all things in the event business, things are built that are fleeting. They exist for only a moment in time.
Dixon breathed a sigh of relief.
The bus came at midnight.
It was a chartered mini-bus that the company always rented for closing-night crew transport, and it had a massive sound system. The driver was a Polish gentleman named Marek who Dixon had met on three previous shows. Marek was sixty-eight, gray-bearded, square-shouldered, and had the calm of a man who had been a long-haul trucker in three countries and had not been surprised by anything since 1994. He nodded at Dixon as he boarded. Dixon, who was last on the bus, nodded. The communication said silently, “that’s my flock, let’s show them a good time.” Marek closed the doors and the bus pulled off into the night.
Dixon was the only sober person in the moving vehicle. He also, somehow, got the responsibility of being the DJ. This was one of those things that just happened at Vegas after parties. The crew wanted to really let their hair down and Dixon was there to facilitate. And also to keep them out of jail.
“Dix, you have the AUX cord!” Diego yelled, throwing it at him from three seats back.
Dixon knew he needed to protest, even though he also knew that it didn’t matter. “I do not want the AUX cord,” he said flatly.
“You have it. You are the DJ! Make us happy. We’ve earned it,” Diego said. He was not wrong.
Dixon took the AUX cord. He plugged in his phone. He scrolled through his music. The bus was already noisy chaos, with bottles being passed around and a feeling that no further professional restraint was required. Dixon spotted Jack Daniels and Champagne and beer. He hoped people were not mixing all of that together, but it was Vegas, so that probably wasn’t a hope that he should have hung on to dearly. One of the young PAs was singing loudly. One of the other PAs, in the back row, was crying again. Two people who had been working alongside each other for ten days without acknowledging that anything was happening between them were now, on the bus, very publicly acknowledging it.
Dixon put on “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen.
The bus erupted. Dixon had not seen a group of people erupt like that in years. The bus was now singing. The bus was, in fact, now a moving karaoke room. Marek’s eyes met Dixon’s in the rearview mirror. Marek shrugged the shrug of a Polish bus driver who had seen this and more.
“Don’t Stop Me Now” gave way to “Jack and Diane,” then to “Mr. Brightside,” then somehow to “Footloose.” Imani, leaning across the aisle, put her mouth at Dixon’s ear so he could hear her over the singing.
“You’re a good DJ,” she said. She put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder.
“I’m a sober DJ.”
“Ha. Same thing I guess.”
The bus pulled up to the Rio. Marek opened the doors. The crew tumbled out in the manner of crews tumbling out of mini-buses, which was loudly and in slow motion. Dixon stayed back. He paid Marek for the round trip, tipped him a hundred dollars, and asked him to come back in three hours. Marek, a professional, agreed and asked no questions.
Dixon walked toward the elevator bank.
Meg was standing in the lobby.
Dixon hadn’t told her where they were going. He hadn’t invited her. Someone else must have. She was in a different work group and this was really supposed to be Dixon’s after party to reward his team for their hard work. Diego or one of the production coordinators had probably mentioned it in a Slack channel that, Dixon was now realizing, included people who were not strictly on his team.
Meg was thirty-eight, Texan, blond, and tall. She was wearing a black one-shoulder dress that, even by Vegas standards, was a confident choice. It was very short. She had knee-high boots on. She had brown eyes that crinkled when she smiled. She was leaning against the wall by the elevator bank with one shoulder against the marble, holding a phone in one hand and a small clutch in the other. From her body position, Dixon could tell she had already been drinking. She had a strong Texan twang that would be accentuated even further by the alcohol. She lit up when she saw Dixon walking across the lobby.
“DIXON!” she yelled across the lobby, and started sort of run-scooting across toward him with her arms wide open. She hugged/fell on him. Her face was on his neck and he could feel the warmth of her skin on his. He held her for a moment and then gently helped her stand in front of him.
“Meg,” Dixon said, “you’re. . . here.”
“You SAID. We were getting a DRINK. And now we can get that DRINK,” she said, taking him by the hand toward the elevator before he could respond.
“I did, in fact, say that,” he said walking along, not really resisting the pull on his hand.
“Tomorrow you said. WELL TOMORROW IS TODAY Y’ALL,” she slurred very loudly.
“Meg, it’s after midnight. Yesterday was tomorrow. It’s not tomorrow anymore,” he said wistfully.
She thought about this. She tilted her head and squinted her eyes a little. She nodded slowly in agreement. She decided it was correct.
“Well, WHATEVER MR SILLY PUSS, we are getting our drink YESTERDAY then,” she drawled and continued the march toward the elevators.
“Okay.”
“DIXON,” she said again, lower now, half a laugh, taking his arm. “You are SO put together. After all of that. You should be a mess. WHY ARE YOU NOT A MESS?”
“I think I am not allowing myself to be a mess yet.”
“Well you should. I want to see your mess,” she said, gesturing wildly with her arms, causing her purse to drop to the floor. “Whoops! I want to be in your mess,” she said as she picked up the purse. Dixon, and anyone else around, could see her bare butt cheeks because her dress was so short as she reached down. She was not wearing underwear. Dixon remembered the pair she had left in the envelope. Maybe she only had one pair, he thought.
She laughed at her own line. She was loud but she was, Dixon knew, very kind under all the noise and the alcohol. He liked Meg. He wasn’t ready for Meg, but she had earned his trust and friendship over years of working together.
“Let’s go up and get that drink, Meg.” He helped her back up and headed her into the elevator.
“Yeah, let’s get that drink,” she said, tapping his chest.
She took his arm. They went up.
The Voodoo Rooftop, atop the Rio, was a circular bar with a glass railing and a 360-degree view of the entire Las Vegas area. The Strip lay below them, a glittering corridor of lights. Mountains sat dark in the distance. The air at fifty stories up was pleasant and clear. The DJ was good. The crowd was a mix of tourists, locals, cowboys and a small bachelorette party that had taken over the entire west side of the bar.
The crew arrived in waves. The crew immediately began to make the Voodoo Rooftop louder.
Dixon ordered a non-alcoholic beer. Meg ordered a vodka soda. The bartender brought them. Meg took two sips of her vodka soda, announced she was going to dance, briefly tried pulling Dixon to the floor, but after the mildest of resistance, she hopped and bounced over to the dance floor without him. She was immediately absorbed into the pulsing mass of the crew and all the others dancing.
Dixon stood at the bar. It was the first moment he had been alone in days.
His phone buzzed.
Brenda: Dix sweetheart. We’re closing out the paperwork now. Final number comes Monday once the credit card charges clear. You did a brave thing. Get some rest.
Dixon read the message twice. The garage had been the last thing. The garage door had been the thing he could not bring himself to open three months ago. The lawn mower. The boxes of books. The matching luggage from a trip to Iceland. The Christmas decorations from twelve years of Christmases. Sports equipment. So many tools. The patio furniture they had picked out together at a place in Dunwoody on a Saturday in August twenty-seven months ago.
It was all gone now, except those few things that Brooklyn had held back behind the storage closet door.
He stood at the bar at the top of the Rio in Las Vegas and read the message a third time. He felt, very quietly, the small click of a door closing that he had been trying to close for ten months.
Dixon: Thank you Brenda. Truly. I owe you.
Brenda: You don’t, sweetheart. Have a good night.
He pocketed the phone. He drank his NA Beer. He looked out at the strip. He suddenly felt lighter.
What happened over the next three hours, Dixon would later remember in fragments.
Diego on the dance floor, attempting to lift a member of the Cirque acrobatics team who had inexplicably come to the after-party, and being immediately, gently, and very expertly lifted by her in return.
A man in a cowboy hat at the far end of the bar who Dixon was ninety percent sure was Earl, lifting his hat in Dixon’s direction. Dixon lifting his drink in response. Earl drinking what appeared to be a club soda.
Imani was approached by a producer from a Cirque touring company who tried to recruit her. Imani smiled, said she would think about it, and two minutes later told Dixon she would never leave him. Dixon believed her, and also knew it wasn’t entirely true. The right offer would come someday from someone, and Imani would take it, and Dixon would understand.
Marcus, asleep at a banquette. Upright. Eyes open. Asleep.
A man at the bar trying to sell Dixon cocaine. Dixon, kindly, saying no thank you. The man trying again. Dixon, more kindly, saying no thank you. The man giving him a thumbs-up and moving on.
The bouncer checking in on Dixon. Dixon saying everything was fine. Dixon then keeping a quiet eye on the bouncer for the next twenty minutes to confirm that everything was, in fact, fine.
Meg returning from the dance floor twice, each time with a slightly different request, the requests escalating in directness, Dixon redirecting her each time with the practiced gentleness of a man who had worked with her for years and respected her and had no intention, ever, of allowing her to wake up in the morning and have to apologize.
The third time, she came back without dancing first. She walked up to Dixon at the bar. She put one hand flat on his chest, leaned in, and spoke in his ear.
“Dixon,” she slurred.
“Meg,” he answered.
“I want you to take me back to my room.”
“Meg.” Dixon turned slightly so he could see her face. His voice was very gentle. “You’ve had a lot to drink. I respect you and I want to keep it that way. I could not imagine our first time being some kind of a drunken mistake.”
She pulled back. Her face looked somewhere between upset and angry. The loud-Meg dropped a layer.
“A MISTAKE!” she almost-yelled. “I get to choose what I do with my body. And I get to decide what I want,” she said, pushing away from him. “And I WANT TO GO BACK TO MY ROOM AND HAVE SEX, WITH YOU!”
She said this with a small, real wobble underneath the loudness. Dixon saw it. He put his drink on the bar. He took her hand. Not romantically. The way you take a friend’s hand.
“Meg.”
“What?!” she said angrily.
“You’re right. It wouldn’t be a mistake and it is your choice. But I would want us to both remember it and I’m not sure we both would. You’re pretty drunk and I am sure you are tired after the week we’ve all had. It’s not that I don’t find you attractive. I promise.”
She looked at him. She considered what to say next.
“Are you doing the thing where you read me?”
“I’m doing the thing where I tell you what I see.”
“Goddammit, Dixon,” she said, smacking him on the chest again.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
“I’m sorry I’m not going to sleep with you, because I REALLY want to,” she said and she sank back onto his shoulder.
“Well, I’m sorry too.” I would kinda like to give you a good old fashion tumble,” he said with a chuckle.
They both laughed. Meg turned her head and kissed Dixon’s neck softly.
“I had it all planned. I was going to ride you like a cowgirl,” she said very quietly, almost whispering.
“Oh, the horse emoji?” he said, surprised.
“Yes. The horse emoji. What did you think that meant?” she asked.
“I had no clue,” he admitted. And he now thought it was very funny.
“Can I get you home, friend?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said softly, her head still on Dixon’s shoulder.
Imani materialized at Dixon’s elbow as if she had been waiting for exactly this moment, which she almost certainly had been. Dixon handed Meg off to her. Imani took Meg’s arm. Imani would later tell Dixon that she had walked Meg to the elevator, ridden down with her, ridden to the Westgate in the Lyft with her, walked her to her room, made her drink an entire bottle of water, removed her shoes, left a second bottle of water on the nightstand, and sent Dixon a text reading she’s good at 4:11 AM.
Dixon would frame, mentally, that text. It was the kind of small heroism that he would never quite know how to repay and would, on every show going forward, attempt to.
At some point after Meg left, the group dragged Dixon onto the dancefloor. The club was moving and thumping rhythmically to some kind of intense industrial EDM track that the DJ seemed to be creating out of thin air. The lights pulsed. The speakers thundered. Dixon was swept up in the bouncing crowd, moving with the bachelorette partiers, sweaty Vegas revelers and a cowboy or two, along with the rest of his crew that were still in the mix. Dixon felt the music more than he heard it. The singer sang: “chaos in the night” over and over. That pretty much summed up the moment for him.
After bouncing for a few minutes, Dixon went back to the bar and picked up his drink where he had left it. He took a sip and it had a slightly strange, bitter taste, that was different from before.
Moments later, the room moved. Not violently. Just enough. Just a quarter-turn off-axis. Dixon set the glass down. He looked at it. He looked at the bartender, who was not the bartender who had served him earlier. He looked at the bouncing crowd. His thought was that the crowd still contained at least one person who had wanted him to have a more interesting night.
He did not panic. He had been to enough Vegas parties to know what had happened. He felt weak and his vision was waving, the lights reformed as beams and halos where they had been sharp before. His stomach tightened. He was afraid he might throw up.
He picked up his phone and called Marek.
“Marek,” he said. “I need you to wait for the crew and make sure they get home ok. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, of course. I’m here. I will wait for them, don’t worry. Are you ok?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just need to get out of here. Just get them home for me, ok?” He wasn’t panicking, but he was concerned for his people. He was usually the one that got them home safely.
Dixon walked to the elevator. He walked the way a drunk man walks as they pass in front of a cop and they’re trying their best not to have them notice. He passed the bouncer. He nodded at the bouncer. The bouncer nodded back. He slouched against the wall as the elevator took him to the ground floor.
In the lobby, Dixon could hear music from the roof, faintly playing through repeater speakers. The song pounded: Spin that room again, I dare you, I dare. He heard the words of the chorus: Chaos. In. The. Night. Even in his altered state, he felt it was completely on point. Later he would find the song and he would listen to it on repeat for the entire next week.
Over the course of the next 90 minutes, Dixon walked from the Rio back across the I-15 to the Strip and then north up the Strip to the Venetian. The lights glistened. Volcanoes exploded. Men slapped little paper flyers in their hands that echoed in Dixon’s ears. At one point, he sat and chatted with a pair of young Australian drifters. He may have given them some money, he wasn’t quite sure. Eventually, he took off his shoes and socks and was walking barefoot up the Strip. There were very few people around to see this as it was nearly four in the morning. A couple of hookers saw him pass and thought better of approaching him. Something must be going on with a man carrying his shoes and socks up the Strip in the almost morning hours.
Somehow, inexplicably, he led himself back to his room. He was on auto-pilot going down the long hallways. He had been in the building so many times, he thought he could lead himself anywhere blindly. This time he was almost doing just that. He fished his key card out for his room and opened the door. He staggered across the room and collapsed on the bed.
He woke up at 9:47 AM inexplicably wearing a fresh pair of his boxer shorts and nothing else. He was cold from the air conditioning blowing into the room.
The suite was, even as suites in Las Vegas went, enormous. Dixon’s friend at the hotel had booked him into a corner unit with a separate dining room he had not used, a wet bar he had not opened, a soaking tub he had not soaked in, and the king bed he was now lying in under a mirror that spanned the whole ceiling. His face was lying on his jacket with his Not My First Rodeo pin poking into his right cheek. The pin had left a small rectangular outline in his skin.
He sat up slowly.
His head was clear. The wobble was gone. He drank a bottle of water from the nightstand. He pondered, briefly, about whether he should be more concerned about the drink. He thought next time he would cover his drink when he was out on the dancefloor. He also thought about telling someone about what had happened, but he wasn’t sure who to tell or what he would exactly say. He filed this for further thought.
He picked up his phone.
He had 116 messages.
He scrolled.
Brenda: Honey, paperwork is being processed. Final number Monday. Love you. Get some rest.
Bobby: Heard you ran a CIRCUS last night. Need a full report.
Brooklyn: Have the Rolex. Have Magnolia here. She’s licking my face. When are you home?
Sloane: Can’t stop listening to Riley James. When are we going out?
Meg: Hey. Thanks for last night. For being a friend and not a creep. Imani is a saint. I will recover, eventually. Coffee at the airport? My flight’s at 2.
Imani: Status check. Imani (two minutes later): Status check. Imani (eight minutes later): I am in the lobby. Reply or I am coming up.
Dixon, smiling, typed back to Imani: Alive. Coming down. Can you order me a bagel? I need carbs this morning.
He stood up. He walked to the window. The strip lay below him in the flat morning light, the lights mostly off. The city looked the way Vegas always looked in the morning. Somehow it always looked hung over in the morning.
He texted Meg: Coffee at the airport. Yes. Friends.
She wrote back: Giddyup.
Dixon laughed and sent a galloping horse emoji back
He texted Brooklyn: Flying back tonight. Thanks for everything, friend. Tell Magnolia I’m coming.
She wrote back: Sounds good, Dixon. She misses you.
He stood at the window for a long second. The cupcakes had happened. The strep had happened. The estate sale had happened. The cowboys in the lobby had happened. The carnival had happened. Riley James had happened. The drink had happened. The Voodoo Rooftop had happened. Meg had happened, and not in the way she had wanted. They were still friends, and they were going to keep being friends.
He had, somewhere in the last few days, sold every object he owned that wasn’t in his suitcase, his car, his dog, or the contents of the small closet where things had been set aside in the house.
He looked at the Not My First Rodeo pin on his jacket hanging on the back of the closet door.
He took the pin off the jacket and put it in his pocket.
He picked up his bag.
He had a flight in the afternoon. He was supposed to have a coffee with Meg before then. He had, before that, one stop to make.
Cowtown Boots was on Sahara. Linda was behind the counter. Dixon walked in at noon.
“Earl from McAlester sent me,” he said.
Linda was sixty, white-haired, sharp-eyed, and had been selling boots and hats for thirty-one years. She looked up from a ledger. She nodded to acknowledge Earl mostly.
“Straw, I’m guessing,” she said.
“That’s what Earl said. Let’s go with straw,” Dixon confirmed.
She walked around the counter without hurrying. She looked at his head from one side, then the other. She walked to the shelves. She came back with three hats. She set them on the counter in a row.
“Try the middle one first,” she said.
He tried it on. He knew it before he tried it on, and he knew it more when he tried it on, and Linda, who had been doing this for thirty-one years, nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s yours.”
He paid in cash.
He walked out into the Vegas afternoon with the hat on his head and the Not My First Rodeo pin in his pocket. He drove his rental car back toward the strip, returned it at the airport, and walked to the gate with the hat in his hand, because security would not let him through with it on. He had a coffee with Meg at the airport. They sat at a table near the gate and talked for forty minutes about nothing in particular and everything in particular. They hugged at her gate. She kissed him on the cheek without lingering. She walked down the jet bridge without turning. He thought, watching her go, that she was going to be okay.
An hour later he walked through the door of the airplane onto his flight. He sat in 4A. The hat was in the overhead compartment. The pin was in his pocket.
The plane taxied and lifted off. Las Vegas fell under the wing. Dixon watched it go, and he watched a remarkably colorful sunset over the Great Basin as the sun sank below the edge of the earth. It was the first time he had seen a Great Basin sunset. As the plane flew on he watched the desert turn into mountains. He watched as the mountains turned into plains. Somewhere over Oklahoma, he fell asleep against the window with the hat above him and the pin in his pocket and Magnolia waiting at the other end and a house that was no longer full of things to deal with.
He slept all the way to Atlanta.
The Sit Boy Soundtrack Collection is available below:
The Sit Boy Soundtrack Collection
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All text, images and music copyright (2026), Slightly Moody Creative LLC and Joe English.