She clearly only liked tall guys.

It was enough for Zack and I to look at each other and smile. We had no place in this hotel room.

D.P. was standing in front of us caressing this Persian chick that he towered over, next to the bed; some hot piece of tail he picked up at the bar on the main level of the Bellagio that beckoned him up to the fifth floor. Zach and I only followed them because we were really drunk, and she had two lesser looking friends that we thought we could woo.

Ben and Brandon beat us to it.

Both of them stood behind D.P. and his girl, both stuffing their tongues down throats and slowly picking apart their clothes; tacky pink and violet monstrosities sewn together from what looked suspiciously like circus clothing.

“No luck,” I whisper to Zack.

Zach swayed and rested his arm against the wall. “Dude, maybe, we-should-leave,” he grinned.

I smile and turn to Zack. “Agreed. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

We leave the room — and our friends — to their business, and head down the long stretch of hallway towards the elevator.

“I totally would’ve gone for either one of those frumpy chicks,” says Zach, pulling out a cigarette.

“Yeah, well, there are plenty of frumpy chicks to be had in this place.”

I take a deep breath and attempt to regain my composure while choosing one of the two hallways in my failing vision.

“I really think I’m in favor of finding some more ass. Bar?”

“Bar,” nods Zach.

Once we hit the ground floor, we head through the maze of slot machines and card tables — weaving and looping around hotel employees and inebriated gamblers until we get to where we see a place to grab another drink — B-lining it to the bar stools.

“Dude, I’m so happy Jake’s not here cause he never would’ve let me borrow his EGA’s for these dress blues.”

“That’s kinda … f****d up,” Zach says smiling nonchalantly.  “But to be fair, it’s his own damn fault. He can’t hardly handle his alcohol at all.”

I nodded, and regarded Zach. I had never much cared for most country people I came across because more times than not, they fed that stereotype of being extremely stupid. Much like Jake. But Zach, a Missouri native, was a swift counter to that stereotype.

Zach had short-cropped hair, a sharp face and small build, and was surprisingly smart. And all in all, was just a fun guy to be around. Plus, he was the reason the six of us came to Vegas in the first place.

Our friend Jake had been in the drunk tank for the better part of two days after punching a cop in the face, we would later discover. Though, knowing Jake, I couldn’t say anyone was surprised once we found out.

Jake was a big guy who never took crap from anyone, but not in the noble and enviable way.

He was always trying to start fights and always tried to lay his steeled Kentucky attitude on people. Plus, he was a raging alcoholic. You mix all the unfavorable drunken idiosyncrasies together and you get a 220-pound hurricane of unpredictability — which sucked, because he had a good heart — but he was just a jackass.

The last three mornings in Vegas he’d been waking up and taking shots of liquor on an empty stomach, but to be fair, we’d all been drinking every morning. It was the ritual we unofficially established the moment we woke up the first time in our hotel room.

??? AM

Wake up without an alarm clock.

10:10 AM

Nut-tap people still asleep.

10:13 AM

Pour shots.

10:15 AM

Take shots in unison.

??? AM

Open a beer.

??? PM

Order Bloody Mary’s and breakfast down in the lobby.

The rest of the day we spend maintaining a steady buzz as we hang out next to the hotel pool and drink Mai Tai’s, waiting for the sun to go down while admiring the herds of college girls gallivanting around us.

But Jake.  Freaking Jake doesn’t have the willpower to stop himself from drinking everything he can, as fast as he can.

We do our best as a group to mellow him out, but he’s not having it.

Jake calls us, “f***in’ c***-s***in’ mood-killers,” and orders another round of shots for everyone despite our pleas for a reasonable degree of subtlety and a reasonable amount of time between drinks.

The next morning arrives, and we commence our ritual as usual.

Jake does everything twice in row. And before we realize it, leaves without a word to anyone and ventures out on his own to tear Vegas a new one.

Zach orders two Vegas Bombs as we sit down at the bar.

“Did you see him when he was feeling up on that waitress’ ass that first morning we were here?”

I drunkenly recalled the memory.

Jake. Already fumed, fermented and smiley, squinting his eyes as if the sun itself was in the diner. We were eating breakfast that first morning in Vegas, and his hand making the acquaintance of a young woman’s left butt-cheek before being rushed out of the restaurant by Ben and Brandon.

I light a cigarette. “Well, at least he made it to day two.”

“God help that guy, man.”

The bartender approaches us and pushes two glasses full of Red Bull, Crown Royal, peach Schnapps and God knows what the hell else towards us, and we slug them down.

“No more of those, I think,” I say wincing. “The sugar’s harder to take than the alcohol.”

Zach looks at me like I have a penis protruding from my forehead. “Dude, we’re in Las Vegas and you’re being a pussy about drinking Vegas Bombs? The hell is wrong with you?”

“There’s only so much of these Willy-Wonka shots I can stomach. And don’t forget we still have tomorrow. We have to save ourselves for your reception and it’s already past 3:45 in the f***ing morning, dude.”

In eleven hours, Zack would be a married man.

Zach orders two Budweisers and hands me one. “Ain’t no rest for the wicked,” he says, and pulls out a cigarette. “And don’t worry about tonight because of tomorrow —” Zach tilted his head sideways and rolled his eyes “— or tomorrow because of tonight. It’s my f***in’ wedding, so chill out.”

We sip our drinks and look out at the scene before us. You would barely be able to tell what time of day it was because the casino floor looked unchanged compared to daytime hours. There were still a whole bunch of gamblers and loose-looking women around the casino floor. The former making up the bulk of the crowd.

Then, there they were.  Making eye contact with me first and then cruising up to the seats where Zach and I sat, they greeted us with smiles.

One was a short blonde that was slightly overweight, but had a nice face, and was wearing a skirt that appeared to be on the verge of tearing.

The other one was a little taller, dark-skinned, and looked way more weathered than her counterpart. But she smiled and focused on Zach, which he didn’t seem to mind based on his grin.

“Heyyy there,” they said in unison.

“Hey yourselves,” I said smiling.

Zack took one last draw of his cigarette and crushed the butt into the ashtray. “What’s going on?”

The blonde sat on the empty bar stool next to me. The other took the seat next to Zach.

The blonde rested her hand on my lap and smiled. “You are sooooo cute, guys,”

“Yeah, we do okay.”

I look to Zach and he’s already having his own conversation with his new lady friend and ordering another round of drinks.

Zach and I spend the next hour talking to these girls at the bar before we decide to make our way back to our hotel, accompanied by our new friends.

We walk out of the Bellagio and towards the Vegas strip, slowly stumbling and laughing our way through the crowds. And after what seems like an immeasurable amount of time, we were one crosswalk away from the lobby of our hotel.

As the traffic flow stopped and the signal to walk appeared, we begin to cross the street before Zach and I stop dead at the sight of a familiar face, smiling and walking towards us.

It didn’t immediately dawn on me that Ben was actually there in front of us.  For all I knew I was hallucinating, and the man just standing there smiling at us wasn’t really our friend, but immediately ruled that out once he started talking.

“Hey guys,” he smiled, looking between Zach and I excitedly, and then to the two girls behind us, “What the hell are you doing with those prostitutes?”

Zach and I looked at each other, then slowly turned together to face the girls behind us.

What we had failed to take notice of before we left the bar that night was how extremely skimpy the clothing looked on these two girls in conjunction with perhaps the most outrageous platform shoes I’ve ever seen on anyone ever. And suddenly it all made sense.

After the realization of what had almost happened to Zack and I, the super-concentrated sugar and alcohol in my stomach decided it had overstayed its welcome in my body, and decided to leave me via projectile vomiting.

The prostitutes didn’t even say goodbye as they ran away from the flow of vomit creeping and splashing towards them.

Zack, Ben, and myself began laughing so hard that we all forgot we were standing in the middle of a crosswalk that was no longer safe for pedestrians.

The next day, Zach and I had told everyone about our mini-adventure we had had with genuine Vegas prostitutes.

After the wedding, we all went out drinking. Again. The difference being I had decided to abstain from sugar, Red Bull, and all things overly sweet in my booze for the rest of my time in Las Vegas.

I have yet to drink another Vegas Bomb since that excursion years ago, and I still get a gross taste in my mouth whenever I think about platform shoes or crosswalks.

Spencer is an editor for The Apollos, read his full bio here!