April 23, 2025
By: Clyde Mercer

She had legs like tree trunks—powerful, unapologetic, and covered in a fine shimmer that caught the light with every step she took. Said her name was Elke. Said she’d danced up and down every inch of the Las Vegas strip, but that she and her mom came from Baden-Baden, Germany.

Baden-Baden.

That name hit me like a sucker punch. I hadn’t heard it in over two decades, but it dragged a memory right out of the cellar.

“I was there once,” I told her, probably a little too fast, like I was afraid the moment would vanish. “Twenty-six years ago. I bought a lady too—but it wasn’t like this. I was green, working the backside for a horse trainer who swore he could get us into every club if I wore a tie and kept my mouth shut.”

Elke didn’t say anything at first. Just blinked those long lashes at me like I was a ghost telling her a bedtime story.

“I met her in the casino,” I went on, voice soft now. “She was older than me. Wore pearls and red lipstick like armor. She didn’t ask for money. We just… talked. All night. She taught me how to gamble slow and how to drink slower. I never even got her last name.”

Elke finally smiled—small, sad. “Was her name Dottie?”

And just like that, I was seventeen again, fumbling with a cigarette I didn’t know how to smoke, sitting across from a woman who knew the odds and didn’t care about winning.

“She told me she left a boy in America once,” Elke added. “Said he was kind, and nervous, and made her feel seen in a way that scared her.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. Just sat there, looking at this tall Vegas showgirl with the heavy legs and the soft German lilt, and wondered if life wasn’t just one long roulette wheel, spinning us back to the same red numbers again and again.