Car park cordoned.
Police patrol.
The Strip stripped of a stretch of side road.
Twenty four hour partying under neon never noticed.
Though traffic backed up.
The boy with the lunch pail,
bit his lip,
worrying how this would
effect his tardiness record.
Proud he never received a slip.
Today was different.
Mom wasn't taking him today.
Mom wouldn't have taken him this route,
past the casinos and strip joints.
He never knew that she didn't want folks to recognise her,
while he was with her,
near her place of work.
Today was different.
Uncle Mike was taking him.
He'd been his Uncle for a month now.
He told the boy, his mom had to go into work early.
He was upset she hadn't told him herself,
when she kissed him goodnight,
but he wasn't going to tell Uncle Mike that.
The boy was still afraid of him.
He bit his lip again.
Then coughed,
"'cuse me, sir... err - Uncle. How long will we be? I don't wanna be late, you see as..."
He broke off at the shrug viewed through the rear mirror.
Uncle Mike went on ignoring the boy to pop a window, and lit a joint, as he sneered at the rows of cop cars.
The boy slide down on the sticky back seat and
peered out the lower edge of the dirt ingrained glass.
He watched bored police leaning against hot hoods and cool shaded walls.
He saw the ambulance,
all flashing lights and sirens,
lost in the cacophony of Las Vegas.
He saw the stretcher and black bag on top.
A long black bag.
Containing something.
The boy frowned.
He was expecting to see a man,
or even a lady on the stretcher,
like he'd seen at the hospital that one time,
when his mom got bruised and broke her nose,
by a silly fall down some stairs,
and Uncle Benny stopped coming around.
He'd like to be a paramedic, or a police officer, or a scientist, or a fireman, or an astronaut, or a doctor, or Justin Bieber.
"What's in that bag, Uncle Mike?" The boy asked.
"Bad news for someone today. You wouldn't wanna be that person now would ya, boy?"
