No one wears electric blue sharkskin suits anymore. His is impeccably tailored, shines like the iridescent body of a garbage fly. The suit fit glove tight. His slight frame resembles Prince with Larry King sunken shoulders. He looks weedy, sprouting up from ankle high–side zipper boots. His hair–slick–gunmetal black is Zevonian perfect. His birth name is Jesús DeCicco Dominguez. On the strip he’s known as Casino Jesus.

Jesús struts his ass down Quo Vadis Boulevard, iPod jammin’ to a hip-hop rhythm. His silver lamé shirt, brilliant in the Vegas sun.

“Yo, Jesus whas the deal,” shouts a brother sucking on the mouth of a paper bag.

Jesús nods, flips a V and palms a fifty into the brother’s hand. The strip is his; he knows it and so do they.

The floor boss at Casino Casino, left arm raised, flicks his wrist and snaps his fingers with a bullwhip crack. Two Pavlovian goons flank the boss in a pose reminiscent of psych ward orderlies ready to jacket a madman. Jesús DeCicco Dominguez stops just ten inches from boss man’s nose. He fans out hundred dollar bills, an orgy of Franklins ready to play.

Boss snaps his fingers again and two ten-foot Ziggy girls punch in. Lustful apparitions–Amazonian gazelle legs–teetering on seven-inch patent leather heels. The girls shimmer like heat waves rising off the street. The girls move arm in arm with Jesús–feckless phantoms floating across a graveyard.

Above the craps table hangs a faltering sign that sputters in neon–Lucky’s Lagoon. The table is lined with hot streak shooters, mouths smeared with jelly stains of greed. The crowd parts as Jesús glides by, emitting a pheromone that sticks to this winner like sidewalk gum to a shoe.

Jesús fingers the dice; the vivacious Ziggy girls loom at his side. He rockets his wrist in an obscene jerking motion, freezes while the Ziggy girls kiss and blow their hot breath of luck into the cool cup of his hand. He licks his lips and blasts his roll as the table seems to shiver. The dice bounce and the crowd goes wild. This is style, all part of the show. Jesús grins and wins, though is never beaten–for Casino Jesus the night air is young. He hands out money to the venerable crowd made-up from everyday people who struggle to live. Across the floor and by the stage, Boss thinks of the car that will speed away, in the rancid smoked out hours of this unfortunate day.

***

The canyon burros forage for shrubs and defecate as they eat. Natures balance without the porcelain fanfare. The sun burns off the chill of the night desert air as a scorpion spears a mole into a place of eternal blindness. Buzzards circle, sniff and wait, to feast on the man who is staked to the ground. Naked, his arms are outstretched, dislocated and broken, ankles bound at the base of smashed knees. Around his head, from ear to ear, a plume of fat feathers is fashioned from hundred-dollar bills. Jesús DeCicco Dominguez, crowned King of the Desert. A simple wooden sign is nailed to his chest: “Here lies Casino Jesus, Savior to None.”