What ancient road goes straight out of the lap of luxury and into the filth of destitution? Something absolutely revolting can come into the mind of a destitute man. Now, there surely could have been some big winners, some real trifectas, but the man only got losers and debt collectors. So after a few bad days at the races and some real mean rolls at the craps table, Travis was a destitute man. The simple fact of his being a destitute man need not lead us to the conclusion that something absolutely revolting had come into his mind. However, under any circumstance, Barstow is a very revolting thing.
So how do we get from the lap of luxury to Barstow? Any map could tell you that Barstow is somewhere between Los Angeles, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada. But any gambler can tell you that Vegas is exactly that point in between the glamor of Hollywood and the trailer parks of Barstow. It's only a matter of changing the way you look at the map.
Long before Barstow, Travis had problems spending money. He spent money on things, on experiences, on people, and he gambled quite a bit of away. Vegas was always quite close to Los Angeles on Travis' map.
"What the fuck does she care I lost twenty fuckin' thousand dollars?"
"It's not your money, Trav. You have gambling problem."
"Who the fuck says it's not my fuckin' money?"
"Travis, would you mind taking a few moments to think this over?"
"Who the fuck are you to talk to me about this shit, anyway?"
"Travis...be reasonable. I think we can all come to a fair resolution of this matter."
"A fair resolution? Why don't you take a godamn second and think about this? You fucked my wife and now you are representing my wife in our divorce? Ain't we got here what you might call an interestin' conflict?"
"A conflict of interest? Is that what you mean, Travis?"
"No. We got ourselves a fuckin' conflict, and it's gettin' real fuckin' interesting."
Travis punched the man in the face. Presently, we are dealing with the back-and-forthing between Travis and his estranged wife's best friend, lover, and attorney: a Mr. Carlton H. Burgin. Margaret Beauchamp, Travis' estranged wife, had come from what would normally amount to humble beginnings, with the exception of some old tracks she had co-composed with a now legendary country-western star. The royalties just piled up over the years, and before Travis knew it, they were sitting on a several million dollar fortune. Travis and Mr. Burgin now backed-and-forthed in the extremely gaudy pool area of a moderately gaudy estate in Bel-Air. Travis wore leopard-print Speedos.
Somewhere in the kitchen someone was very upset that they had just eaten tuna straight from the can. An impropriety, one might suppose. A lapse in judgement, as it were.
"Now, not only does my fuckin' mouth taste like tuna, but my fuckin' beer tastes like a goddamn can o' fuckin' fish. What the fuck?"
The mystery man snorted a line of cocaine and put on a bathrobe and skipped his way out of the kitchen.
Mr. Burgin and Travis argued their way through the pool area and into the den. In the front yard, a tiger paced back and forth in a large cage, lagging slightly after recently having devoured a large goat. If it weren't for its bestial nature, that tiger could have smiled from ear straight o'er to ear after having consumed the tasty meal. Such was life in the lap of luxury, all thanks to the popularity of country western tunes.
One could ask, however, what makes this not revolting? What could possibly distinguish such a revolting existence from the vulgarity of Barstow? Well, the answer for Travis, obviously, was all that motherfuckin' money.
In his dreams, when the cold world could fade into the quiet of sleep, who was he? Was he that thing of flesh inside a box of metal flying down the interstate 15 waiting for something to happen? Was he that thing dancing with cocktail waitresses in Barstow? Was he that sack of consumption in Los Angeles? In his dreams he felt the hurt of all men, that universal pain caused by the earth's spin around an invisible axis. He wore an ascot and sat in front of a computer, writing the greatest novel ever known to miserable mankind. He had emphysema, and coughed continuously as he wrote and smoked into the early hours of the morning, listening to old vinyl copies of the Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis.
He awoke in the gaudy bedroom of discontent, Bel-Air, California. His cell phone buzzed incessantly from its place on a red ottoman in the center of the room. The circus continued around the house, with hangers-on and perpetual house guests enjoying the gratuities of a life with clue-less millionaire friends and their gaudy Bel-Air property of open-door policy. He stood by the large windows and looked at his phone. Voicemail messages had accumulated throughout the morning, the entirety of which Travis spent sleeping. A message from Carlton Burgin informed him of a prenuptial agreement that had been signed years before. In a second message from Margaret Beauchamp, Travis was reminded of his infidelities and his monstrous temper, in between caustic attacks on his, well…physical inadequacies. In yet a third message, a bookie spoke in equally aggressive terms about certain debts owed and certain accounts as of yet unpaid. He shut off the phone.
In the gaudy bathroom of discontent, he drew himself a bath with a sea salt and rose oil infusion. He lay still in the bathtub, and closed his eyes.
He walked over to the mirror and adjusted his ascot and straightened his smoking coat. With a cigarette holder reminiscent of a haughty 19th century poet, he walked to his austere, wooden desk. His mind filled with tales of distant fictions and imaginings of unlikely places and unlikely people. A foreign wanderer lived in a strange boarding house after having loved the matriarch of the Republic. This stranger ducked and hid in every town, pursued as he was by the Republic's secret guard. Travis felt so moved by his fantasy, so affected, that it had to become the world's next great novel. He went to the mirror and re-adjusted his ascot.
Travis now woke up in the tub, spitting up the taste of salty roses. His bath was lukewarm, and this upset him so much that he decided to drive to Las Vegas. After pouring himself a glass of early afternoon Scotch, he took his laptop and locked himself in the large, gaudy closet in the bedroom of discontent. With so many online banking options, he experienced some difficulty in deciding which would be the best in which to hide obscene amounts of money. Despite the alternatives, a small online bank operated by an unsavory offshore parent company seemed the most enticing. The name provided the final, seductive detail that convinced him that the match was providential. As a subsidiary of a hedge fund known as Genghis Khan Capital Management, LLC, the online banking service took the appellation of Genghis Khan Bank of the Cayman Islands, Inc. Travis opened the account and dumped half a million dollars in with the click of a button. God bless online banking.
