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all-concealing “skin is sin” dress with a jacket and skirt, the only other garments I’d brought-something like you’d wear to work on a Wednesday morning.
    Sooner than I’d have liked we were out the door, appearing to the world as if we were headed to a $2.99 all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet or to lose ourselves for a few hours in front of the dime slots with the pensioners. We were alone in the elevator and kissed briefly, and then we staggered through the lobby bombarded again by a wash of noise and sleaze.
    Outside it was nearing sunset. An ashtray on wheels picked us up. The cabbie was a fat guy with an East Coast accent and exactly one hair on his forehead, just like Charlie Brown. He slapped the steering wheel when we asked him to take us to a chapel. He told us his name, Evan, and we asked him if he’d be our witness. He said sure, he’d stand up for us, and for the first time that day I felt not just as if I was getting married, but also like a bride .
    The chapels were itty-bitty things, and we tried to find one in which celebrities had never been married, as if a celebrity aura could somehow crush the holy dimension of a Las Vegas wedding. I don’t know what we were thinking. Evan ended up choosing a chapel for us, mostly because it included a snack platter and sparkling wine in the price of the service.
    There was paperwork; our fake IDs aroused no suspicion. Out the little stained-glass window up front the sun was like a juicy tangerine on the horizon. Quickly, a dramatically tanned man in white rayon, who might just as easily have been offering us a deal on a condominium time-share, declared us legally wed.
    Nearing the front door, Jason said, “Well, it’s not quite two hundred and fifty of our nearest and dearest, is it?”
    I was so giddy: “A civil wedding. What would your dad say?”
    We went outside, leaving Evan to his snack platter-out into the hot air scented by exhaust fumes, snapdragons and litter, just the two of us, dwarfed by the casinos and dreaming of the future, of the lights, both natural and false, appearing in the sky, and of sex.
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    I hoped that both the shooting of the windows and the flooding sprinklers would distract the three boys, but this didn’t happen. Instead, they began to fight among themselves. Mitchell was furious with Jeremy for wasting ammunition that could be more effectively used “killing those stuck-up pigs who feed on taunting anybody who doesn’t have a numbered sweater.” To this end, Mitchell fired across the room, into a huddled mass of younger students-the junior jocks, I think, but I can’t be very sure, because the tabletops and chairs blocked my view. I also didn’t know whether the gunshots scattered or formed a concentrated beam, but I clearly remember blood from the huddle mixing with the streams of sprinkler water that trickled along the linoleum’s slight slant, down to behind the bank of vending machines. The machines made a quick electrical fizz noise and went dead. From the huddle came a few screams, some moans and then silence. Mitchell shouted, “We know that most of you aren’t dead or even wounded, so don’t think we’re stupid. Duncan, should we go over and see who’s fibbing and who isn’t?”
    â€œI don’t know-I could get a bit more pumped about all of this if saggy-assed Jeremy would start pulling his weight.”
    The two turned to Jeremy, the least talkative of the three. Mitchell said, “What’s the matter-deciding to convert into a jock all of a sudden? Gee, won’t that make the Out to Lunch Bunch hot for you. A killer with a heart of gold.”
    Jeremy said, “Mitchell, shut up. Like we haven’t noticed that all your shots are missing their mark? The only reason you shot out the windows was because it’s impossible to miss them.”
    Mitchell got angrier. “You know what? I think you’re