The Good Las Vegan

A certain man went down to Las Vegas from Bakersfield. And while en route he was crowded off I-15 east of Barstow by a wild carload of drug-crazed punks. They stripped him of his jewelry and credit cards, beat him to a bloody pulp, and then drove off in his maroon Chevy Malibu, leaving him half dead in the white '86 Corolla they had stolen only minutes before in Victorville.

By chance there came along a certain ultra-liberal democrat on his way to a Hillary Clinton rally at a posh Las Vegas hotel, and when he saw the battered old Corolla and the bleeding man inside, he slowed down his bright yellow Hummer and said conceitedly to himself: "Look what eight years of George W. Bush has done to this country. It's time we had an administration in Washington that cares about people." And then he passed by on the other side.

And likewise, a social worker from the Bay Area with a masters degree in public administration from Berkeley, when she was at the place, stopped her blazing red Mustang convertible and looked on him. "What a shame," she said sympathetically to herself. "I surely wish I could help this pitiful man but I am not authorized to dispense state or federal welfare funds outside Marin County." And then she passed by on the other side.

But a certain twice-divorced blackjack dealer from Las Vegas, who scarcely had made it through high school and was poorly instructed in the principles of humanism, as he was journeying homeward after a weekend of debauchery with some chicks from Santa Monica, he came to where the wounded man was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.

And he went to him, and bound his wounds, pouring into them some SPF 30 sunscreen and a little Jack Daniels, all that was left over from his misspent weekend at the beach, and placed him in his own '93 Grand Cherokee with torn seat covers and brought him to a seedy motel in Barstow, and took care of him.

And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two Jacksons and a Lincoln, every cent that remained of the rent money he had imprudently taken with him to California, and gave them to the motel clerk, and said unto him: "Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." And the unshaven and scruffy motel clerk rolled his bloodshot eyes and said blandly: "Yeah, sure. Whatever, dude."

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was the neighbor unto him who fell among the drug-crazed punks?