I took a stool at the bar by two men sitting alone, and Mike-Mike sat down next to me. “Happy birthday, motherfucker!” Lolly shouted, barreling toward a man in the back of the room. Not counting myself, Mike-Mike, Lolly, and the bartender, there were five people inside. Kitschy bric-a-brac lined the walls and filled the shelves. Above a dark glass facade, in big block letters, hung the words “DIVE BAR.”

We came to a stop in a strip mall parking lot near a cluster of Harley Davidsons. I took a deep breath, pulled open its steel front door, and walked inside. So it was that on a bright, cloudless May afternoon, I found myself squinting at the dingy exterior of the Double Down Saloon. It was there, I imagined, that I might discover the city beneath the city.

I figured that when they aren’t waiting tables, dealing cards, impersonating dead celebrities, and otherwise sustaining the maximalist fantasyland we believe Las Vegas to be, these locals could be found in the city’s dive bars: places away from all the hubbub where they can be themselves. But propping up that unreality is an ecosystem of full-time residents keeping the hyper-indulgent dream of Las Vegas alive. Every year, millions of tourists-thirty-two million, to be exact-fly in from all over the world to party and gamble with other tourists, all of them seeking a reprieve from the mundanity of everyday life. Sin City is sold as a hedonistic escape somewhere you go to be someone you’re not. But beyond that, I wanted to see a side of the city you won’t find in a travel brochure. I had lobbied for this assignment, in part, because nothing brings me more joy than crushing Miller Lites in a complete and utter shithole.

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