Part 1 The Emporium
The Emporium
Crossing the threshold into Fegefeuer’s Emporium from the breezy, mid afternoon sunshine of the Las Vegas spring, the smoky quality of the Emporium air was immediately palpable. Fegefeuer had installed the fog machine to achieve that effect, precisely.
The Emporium sat between the famed strip and the vintage neon downtown, closer to the strip. The one story stucco building was flanked to the north by a large parking lot for Emporium patrons. Fegefeuer’s was visited, alternately, by downtown tourists who undertook the long walk south, and strip tourists who drove, or also sometimes walked, a short distance north, either often quite without the express intent to end up there.
In the lot next to the strip an ageless restaurant operated, and sometimes the restaurant employees, as well its patrons, also wandered into the Emporium.
In addition to the capacious array of “Las Vegas” emblazoned souvenirs, such as pool noodles, coffee mugs, mouse pads, translucent red-orange sun visors, stainless steel water bottles, shot glasses, and all manner of keychains, Fegefeuer had more recently cordoned off a west facing portion of the store, which was now contributing robustly to the enterprise as a pawn shop. He had previously opened, and subsequently, recently closed a lost and found in the Emporium.
Below the artificial scented fog, in the west facing portion of the Emporium, previously owned items for purchase, mostly higher end accessories, sat inside a glass vitrine, beckoning obstreperous and silent shoppers alike.
On this particular afternoon, Vencesla Tovar, the only South American granddaughter of an absconded Nazi war criminal, was trying on a straw hat. It was her first visit to the United States, and although she took care to neither share nor perpetuate her antecedent’s widely outlawed views, she was still more like him than not, especially against the contrast of the sunny American desert.
Taking a few more minutes to pick up some trinkets for the maid and her kids, and for her elderly widowed mother, Vencesla planned to drive back to her hotel afterwards. She almost never drove in Latin America. At home, an orphan the family had taken in usually conducted this task for her. Vencesla had been unable to procure a US tourist visa for him to take the vacation with her, and thus found herself in the position of operating a rental car, slowly and carefully, along the wide, orderly Las Vegas streets.
Later, Vencesla had tickets to attend an elaborate theater like production,“The Bunny Dolores Show.” Attending that event had been the primary reason she had traveled to the United States. Vencesla had been fascinated with the elaborate stage production for years, following the artists’ growing popularity on television, and it seemed increasingly unlikely they would ever offer their performances in her hometown.
Vencesla had considered, and decided against, traveling with a tourist group. She had concluded it was best to not get mixed up with people she did not really know, particularly so far from home.
“The hat suits you” said Fegefeuer, approaching the only patron currently in the Emporium.
“Do you have any more?” Vencesla inquired, in heavily accented but well practiced English. “I would like seven, please.” At this she held up seven fingers, just in case her communication/pronunciation was more deficient than she anticipated.
Delighted, Fegefeuer assisted her in collecting six more of the “Las Vegas” emblazoned hats from the aisle display.
“If you purchase ten, I can give you a free ...”
A jolt of thunderous lightning cut through Fegefeuer’s sales pitch, startling him into silence. A moment and a half later, he had not resumed, and it began to rain loudly and voluminously— it rained, it seemed, desperately.
“A free water bottle?” Vencesla asked, smiling.
“Two free tickets to see a new tourist attraction that opens at the end of the month, they are good for a year.”
“Yes, please, thank you.” Vencesla answered, thinking about the size of her soft shell luggage and how it might accommodate the several hats.
At the register, her back to the entrance of Fegefeuer’s Emporium, the uncommon sound of heavy rain continued to pour down, crashing, splashing, dramatically punctuating their conversation. A bell jingled. It was an indication that another patron had entered the store.
Her attention momentarily drawn to the tall narrow mirror behind Fegefuere, Vencesla Tovar noticed the reflection of a couple entering the Emporium.
Precious wore a pastel velour track suit and satin high heeled sandals. He wore golf pants and a polo top in similar pastel hues. A golf umbrella he was now folding and depositing into an umbrella urn that Fegefeuer almost never had to think about had shielded the couple from the rain in the glitchy moment when they stepped between their luxury vacation car rental and the threshold of the Emporium.
“Well, Precious, what would you like to bring back for your soon to be step-children?”
“Alfonse, you are bossing me around again, you know how I don’t like that,” her silky voice conveying only mild disapproval, her lip gloss glistening.
“Take your time, Precious. Afterwards we will go for Margaritas in the hotel lobby and talk about what will become of them after our honeymoon.” He was smiling as his well manicured hands brushed a few drops of water from the front of his cashmere polo. Slowly he rotated his entire head, from one shoulder to another as he inquisitively looked up and around the Emporium. “Will you get a load of that fog, Precious?”
What could she deign to bring back as a souvenir for those brats, she wondered silently. Over a board game during the holidays one of his two children had decided it was somehow appropriate to make light of World War Two era concentration camps. She thought their natural mom must have been responsible for this malaise but at this particular moment kept her observations from her relaxed, widowed, mild mannered fiancé.
Across from the register a terrarium sat atop a burled walnut wall unit; in the terrarium lived a red, white and black milksnake, which Fegefuere had named after himself.
Fegefeuer the Snake usually went unnoticed, however on some occasions he had startled the customers.
When Precious realized she was looking at a snake she had almost cried out, and her hand momentarily, involuntarily, covered her full mouth. She wasn’t so much repulsed as surprised, and immediately walked away from the terrarium and reminded herself to resume her search for souvenirs. Her fluted heeled satin sandals left a faint indentation in the deep pink rug of the Emporium as her perception consciously followed her line of sight, to an aisle of sporting goods: Golf balls. Terrific for Alfonse, she thought, drawing a complete blank on the idea of gifting for his kids, and she started to feel anxious about it, and then she suddenly saw the ping pong paddle sets emblazoned with the words “Las Vegas” and concluded immediately they would be a perfect souvenir for them.
Precious & Alfonse in the Hotel Lobby
Later in the gilded hotel lobby, Precious and Alfonse each sat comfortably and somewhat formally in swiveling plush velveted club chairs, sipping margaritas and passing a travel tourism brochure back and forth amongst one another. An older, thin, heavily made up woman in a chartreuse sequin headdress had handed it to Precious earlier on Las Vegas Boulevard.
The rain from the late afternoon sky had briefly abated before again resuming, and traffic on the strip was a tangled and uncharacteristically slippery mess.
Although Precious carefully planned their leisure time on this, and the many vacations they took together, the couple still found the local, more impromptu possibilities intriguing. They were currently considering whether it might be worthwhile to attend “The Bunny Dolores Show.”
The heavy crystal goblet she held was faceted with images of tikki masks and encrusted with natural crystals. Precious’ coral nail fingertips left opaque impressions on the condensation on the stem of the very cold goblet as she took another long sip of her freezing, nearly colorless margarita.
“What if we find out if we can get on this Lake Mead tour last minute? We don’t have any plans for tomorrow morning.”
“We left the morning open in case we had too many margaritas and wanted to sleep in, isn’t that how you remember it, Precious? I think this one is already stronger than the last three I had at Firefly’s going away party. It’s not advisable to get in one of those tiny planes in that condition.”
“We’re in Las Vegas, Honeybear, it’s okay if we over indulge a little.”
“Agreed! We’ll take the tour next time. Let’s sleep late tomorrow and order room service.”
And, as Precious was carefully placing her heavy, condensation covered goblet back on the smoked glass cocktail table, the lights began to dim in the hotel lobby bar. The change of atmosphere was immediately apparent as there were no windows anywhere. Quiet darkness quickly and dramatically enveloped the space.
Before the blackout the well heeled crowd had basked in the light of several large overhead handmade chandeliers, as well as additional sconce lighting distributed along the walls of the chamber, underscoring the etched texture of the casino wall coverings.
The Alien
Although it did not sense light in the same way the humans did, the Alien (earth name: Hortense) knew there was a difference between the waking time and the sleeping time. The latter tended to guarantee Hortense’s security as it explored the barren and it thought, beautiful desertscape which the humans referred to as “Las Vegas.”
Hortense was not visible to the usual human eye. Some humans could see it though, it had deduced, displeased, one late night as its placid stroll through the dessert had been unceremoniously disturbed, soiled really, by a screaming earthling teenager who, apparently through some genetic mutation, was able to detect its nearly three story high presence as Hortense had been enjoying its vacation from its distant home.
The teenaged mutant human female had been with her earthling male companion of similar age and rotundness, who could not see Hortense, and a terse argument between the two had ensued.
To Be Continued
(Editor's Note: The Blackout at Fegefeuer's Emporium is fiction)
The Blackout at Fegefeuer's Emporium I
The Blackout at Fegefeuer's Emporium II (Available December 20, 2023)
The Blackout at Fegefeuer's Emporium III (Available 2024)
🦃 Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃
