by Jack Cheng
They don’t let pups into the Stratosphere, so Steve’s watching Carl Sagan right now. I hope he’s doing OK without me. After we got to Las Vegas we found a motel that allows dogs and then we parked our car, and then we walked down the Las Vegas Strip which is the main road. There were tons of palm trees and lights of all different colors and like a million people too, and Carl Sagan was getting SO nervous. He was crying and hiding behind my legs and I had to pick him up because my feet were getting tangled in his leash. I told him, It’s OK boy, you’re safe with me, but I could feel him shivering even though it’s so hot out, Carl Sagan was so scared.
Oh! I found out what Steve’s personal business is. I don’t know why he didn’t want to tell me about it before. When we were walking, Steve was giving out his business card to people and telling them he’ll pay cash for their cellphones and just text his number. I was surprised so many people took his card—don’t they need their phones for emergencies? Steve said people go to the casinos and they spend all their money but then they want to keep playing, so it kind of is an emergency, and he helps them by giving them money for their phones. Steve’s very thoughtful.
Do you guys have casinos where you are? Me and Zed had to walk through the casino downstairs to come up here to the observation deck, and it was like an arcade except with even more lights and noise. It was so loud, I couldn’t even hear myself think sometimes. We watched people playing the slot machines and every once in a while someone would win a bunch of money but they didn’t even yell or get excited, they just kept playing like they didn’t win any money at all. I’d get really excited if I won that money because then I could buy all the parts I’d ever need for Voyager 4, but they won’t let kids play the casino because you have to be at least twenty-one years old which I’m not, even if you use my responsibility age.
Maybe my maybe dad wins a lot of money at the casinos . . . I wonder if he’s been up here to the top of the Stratosphere. Maybe he came up here after he got amnesia, and he looked out at the Las Vegas lights and he had a funny feeling because it reminded him of being on top of Mount Sam with my mom. Except he didn’t know why he had the funny feeling because of his amnesia.
Maybe when I meet him tomorrow I can ask him did he have a funny feeling on the top of the Stratosphere, and if he says yes, I can tell him why and help him remember.
I wonder if he’s going to have strong arms. When he hugs me and lifts me up in the air is he going to make noises like a rocket taking off? Or is he going to think I’m too old for that kind of stuff.
Is he—
Oh. OK, Zed.
Zed says we should go, they’re closing the observation deck.
NEW RECORDING 20
6M 52S
It’s a lot quieter in Las Vegas when you’re not on the Strip.
It’s a lot darker too.
The brightest lights I see are the tall lights in this parking lot, and they have a bunch of moths flying around them. There are SO many moths, it really is Moth Vegas.
I can’t wait to tell Carl Sagan about the Stratosphere. I wonder if he’s tired. Steve said they call New York the city that never sleeps but Las Vegas is a city that never sleeps too, and he’s right. It’s 1:28 in the morning and I’m not sleepy at all, and the Zelda’s parking lot is almost full so I guess there are a lot of other people who aren’t sleepy either.
Zelda’s is some kind of, um, weird casino. I thought it was going to be like the castle from the video game but it’s not, and it’s not like the huge casinos that have a hotel on top either. It’s a lot smaller and the inside looked like an old basement except darker and filled with card tables and tons of people, and I had to hold my nose because the whole place smelled like an ashtray. It smelled SO bad.
Zed’s already been inside for five minutes now . . .
I hope he didn’t get lost. And I hope Carl Sagan’s OK because he usually gets nervous around loud music like they’re playing in there.
I don’t know why Steve would even bring him here. Why didn’t they just stay at the restaurant bar?
I think I’m starting to get ants in my pants again.
We didn’t even know Steve and Carl Sagan were here until we went to the restaurant bar where Steve was doing his personal business. When we first got there we didn’t see them, and I looked in the bathroom and they weren’t there either, so Zed went up to the bartender and he wrote on his chalkpad, Phone? and the bartender asked him, Are you Zed? and Zed nodded like Yes.
The bartender gave us a note and it was from Steve, and it said, Went To Zelda’s BRB, which is an acronym for Be Right Back. I asked Zed, What’s Zelda’s and when’s Steve coming back, I thought we were supposed to meet him and Carl Sagan here. Zed shrugged like he didn’t know, but then it looked like he was trying to figure out something in his head. Then Zed wrote on his chalkpad, Let’s Go To Zelda’s, so I asked the bartender, Can you tell us where’s Zelda’s? and he said it’s close by and he told us where.
We walked behind the restaurant bar across the parking lot and down the street and across two more parking lots here to where Zelda’s is, and we went inside and it was loud and crowded and freezing cold too, they had their air-conditioning turned on SO high. And the waitresses bringing drinks to people were all wearing silver bead necklaces and headbands with feathers, and then the security guy—
UNIDENTIFIED MALE 1: Yo, yo, check that out—
UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: Whoa! What’s that kid doing here haha.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE 1: Hey kid, did you get lost?
ALEX: No mister, I’m just waiting for my friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE 2: He called you mister haha! No, mister.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE 3: What’s the matter kid, they wouldn’t let you in?
ALEX: Yeah, that’s exactly what—
[men laughing]
[loud music]
ALEX: —happened.
[music fading]
ALEX: Um . . . Anyway, I was saying—
[loud music]
STEVE: —totally irresponsible!
[music fading]
STEVE: Why didn’t you guys just wait for me!
ALEX: Um . . .
STEVE: Did you even read the note that I left you, Zed? I know you don’t talk but you can READ, can’t you?
ALEX: Steve?
STEVE: So what part of BRB don’t you understand? Be right back. This is supposed to be the hottest place around here! TripAdvisor said it’s where all the locals—
ALEX: Hey Steve?
STEVE: Not now, Alex. You know how long I had to wait to get in, Zed? And for a seat too! I had to stand and watch for twenty minutes—
ALEX: Where’s Carl Sagan?
STEVE: —finally I got a seat and the dealer was really into me, I could tell. She kept smiling at me—
ALEX: Steve.
STEVE: —I mean I was on a winning streak! You saw how all those people were cheering me on. I could’ve doubled my money! I was just gonna play a few more hands and then go right back—
ALEX: But Steve—
STEVE: I said not now. Look, Zed, couldn’t you just watch him for another—
ALEX: STEVE.
STEVE: What is it!
ALEX: WHERE’S CARL SAGAN?
STEVE: Where’s Carl Sagan . . .
ALEX: THAT’S WHAT I SAID.
STEVE: You don’t have him?
ALEX: Of course I don’t have him! YOU had him at the restaurant bar and I didn’t see you until now so how could I have him!
STEVE: But I tied the dog to the No Parking sign over . . . I thought . . .
ALEX: What? . . . There’s nothing . . .
ALEX: He’s not there . . .
ALEX: Where is he?
STEVE: Um.
ALEX: WHERE. IS. HE. WHERE IS—
NEW RECORDING 21
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here Alex, tell them what’s happening.
ALEX: There’s no point! How’s that g . . . to . . . him . . . [muffled]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes it helps just to talk things out.
ALEX: I’m sorry . . .
ALEX: I’m trying to be brave.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You’re very brave.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m going to talk to a manager. Maybe their security cameras saw where he went. We’ll find him, all right?
ALEX: OK . . .
[sniffling]
[loud music]
[music fading]
Hi guys . . .
I’m sorry I got mad again.
I was mad at Steve especially . . .
[sniffling]
He was saying it’s not his fault we lost Carl Sagan, and the leash must’ve broken or something, and I yelled at him.
I said, What do you mean it’s not your fault! Why did you leave him alone, he’s not supposed to be alone!
He hates being alone . . .
[sniffling]
Steve kept telling me to stop crying but I couldn’t. I was hurricaning even harder than when my rocket failed. And I was so mad at Steve that I threw my Golden iPod at him.
I haven’t been taking very good care of my stuff. Or my best non-human friend . . .
[sniffling]
Steve went to look for Carl Sagan in the parking lot, and the whole time he was saying, The dog has to be here somewhere, he couldn’t have gone far.
And I asked Zed why does Steve keep calling him the dog, he has a name and it’s Carl Sagan. And then Zed picked up my iPod from the ground and he crouched down in front of me, and he said, We’ll find Carl Sagan, and I said, You talked!
I was so surprised that Zed talked.
That’s him you heard just now.
I told Zed, I’m sorry I made you talk. Zed put his chalkpad on the ground and his piece of chalk on the ground too, and I watched it roll away from the chalkpad and I started crying even harder.
Zed told me, You have to be brave if you want to find Carl Sagan, and I said, How can I be brave when I’m so sad we lost him and scared we won’t be able to find him, and I’m so worried he’s going to starve?
And Zed said that’s exactly how, because if you’re only brave when you’re happy then it’s not bravery.
I’m trying to be brave now . . .
[sniffling]
I wish I could call Ronnie . . .
But it’s almost two a.m. and he never likes it when I call him in the middle of the night and wake him up.
Ronnie would know exactly what to do in this kind of situation. He always has a plan.
One time, when I was five, my mom took us to the big shopping mall in Belmar to get him new basketball shoes for his birthday, and Ronnie went to go get the shoes by himself and I went with my mom to a store that had all kinds of different soaps, and I was smelling some of them but then I turned around and she was gone.
I walked around the mall trying to find her and I was crying because I thought I lost her, but then Ronnie found me and he asked me where’s our mom and I said I don’t know, and he said let’s look for her together. So we looked for her together and then we finally found her sitting by the fountain in the middle of the mall . . .
[sniffling]
Have you ever lost someone you love?
Did you ever find him or her again?
How did you do it?
Maybe you don’t have that problem because you’re never separated from anyone you love.
Maybe as soon as you love someone you’re physically connected to them with a tube that’s kind of like a leash, except it’s made out of flesh and it grows out of your belly button and you call it a fleash.
Or maybe you guys have something else, something even better, and I know my hero said that traveling backwards in time might not be possible but, I don’t know, maybe you guys discovered some new law of physics that makes it possible, and one day you’ll hear this recording and you’ll come back in time and help me find my pup, or at least you’ll send me some plans through a satellite, except instead of being for a transporter like in Contact they’ll be for some kind of shield that I can build, like, some kind of force field that goes up and covers the whole earth and prevents bad stuff from happening, anything bad at all, like asteroids crashing or the sun getting too big, or your mom having too many quiet days or your brother moving away from home or you losing your best non-human friend outside of a weird casino.
Can you do that for me?
Please?
Can you?
Hello?
NEW RECORDING 22
2M 43S
Carl Sagan’s still missing.
We looked for him all night but we didn’t find him, and came back to the motel because the guys were tired, and now it’s almost 4:30 in the morning.
I guess Las Vegas does sleep after all.
I’m not hurricaning or thunderstorming as much anymore. I’ve been trying to be brave like Zed told me. The manager of Zelda’s said they don’t have any security video of the spot by the No Parking sign, but then he told us that Las Vegas has a twenty-four-hour animal control hotline.
We called the number with Steve’s phone and I talked to the animal control lady whose name was Cheryl, and she asked me does Carl Sagan have tags and I said yes, and she said they don’t pick up animals with tags. I said, But what if his collar came loose when he ran away or someone dognapped him and put his collar on a similar dog to steal his identity? And Cheryl said, I’m sorry honey, and I said, It’s not your fault, it’s my fault because I never should’ve let him out of my sight, and then I started crying a little again.
Cheryl said she can check to see if they have him anyway, and she asked me what does Carl Sagan look like, and I told her he has gold-brown fur and floppy ears and an unusually long body. Cheryl put me on hold but when she came back she said they don’t have any dogs by that description. She asked for my phone number and I gave her Steve’s, and she said they’ll call us if they pick up my pup.
After I called animal control we looked for Carl Sagan in the Zelda’s parking lot again. We looked under all the cars and behind their tires and in the other parking lots next to Zelda’s also. Then we got in Steve’s car and drove around nearby but we didn’t find Carl Sagan in any parking lots or by any dumpsters either, and it was probably three o’clock in the morning by then. Steve said maybe we should retrace our steps, and I thought that was a good idea, so we went back to the restaurant bar where Steve was doing his personal business earlier but Carl Sagan wasn’t there. I thought maybe he picked up my scent and went to the Stratosphere after Zed and me left, so we went there but he wasn’t there either. Then I thought maybe he followed my scent from there to the restaurant bar and now we’re both looking for each other and never finding each other because he’s always one step behind, and maybe we both realized we’re going around in circles so we both stopped to wait for the other person or dog.
I wanted to look for Carl Sagan even more but Zed said it’s going to be light again in a couple of hours, let’s get some rest and look for him then, he’ll be easier to spot during the day. Steve said we can go to Office Depot when they open and make some MISSING DOG posters too, so now I’m just waiting for the sun to rise.
NEW RECORDING 23
7M 4S
I called animal control again this morning. It was a man this time, it wasn’t Cheryl, and I gave him a description of Carl Sagan again. He put me on hold to check, and then he came back and he said they don’t have him.
We already put up a bunch of MISSING DOG posters. We went to Office Depot this morning and then we went to all the places we were yesterday and put them up, we went to the restaurant bar and to Zelda’s and to all the supermarkets ne
arby to check the dumpsters. And I kept expecting to see him, I kept expecting Carl Sagan to jump out from behind a dumpster or a truck tire and run up to me and wag his tail but it never happened. And then when we were walking on the Strip to go to some of the places, I looked at the people walking toward us in the other direction and some of them looked scared and nervous and I could see Carl Sagan’s face in their faces. I asked Zed has he ever felt anything like that and then his face reminded me of Carl Sagan too, and even though Zed’s talking again, he just nodded.
I’m not mad at Steve anymore. He’s been trying really hard to find Carl Sagan, and it was his idea to make the posters in the first place. After we looked for Carl Sagan some more Steve said how about let’s have lunch, it’s his treat, and I said, How can you even think about eating when Carl Sagan is out there somewhere probably starving! I said we should go back to Office Depot and print out more posters and put those up too, but then Zed said that Steve’s right, we already skipped breakfast, and we should eat because then we’ll have more energy to look for Carl Sagan.
When Zed said that, I realized that my stomach did feel kind of empty. I said OK, fine, how about let’s go to Johnny Rockets then? but Steve said he has an even better idea. He said he’s going to take us to a hotel and casino called the Bellagio to eat at a Michelin-star restaurant, that’ll definitely cheer me up. I asked him what’s a Michelin star, is it a famous racecar driver? and Steve said it’s not. He said that the Michelin people know a lot about food and they rate the best restaurants every year and the most you can get is three stars. I said in that case why don’t we eat at a place that has two or three Michelin stars, and Steve said those places all need reservations way ahead of time and they have a dress code and there’s no way they’d let in Zed wearing sandals. Steve said the food at the place he’s taking us is going to be way better than Johnny Rockets anyway and I’ll love it, he guarantees it.
The food was just so-so. We had a Chef’s Lunch Tasting which means that there are five courses and the chef orders for you. The waiter asked us do we have any food allergies or is there anything we can’t eat and Zed said he’s vegan, and I said, Do you guys have apple pie à la mode?