Summary

Chapter 57 marks the beginning of Section VII. This chapter takes place in Las Vegas from Curtis’s perspective. The chapter opens as Curtis enters the lobby of his hotel while two charter buses are unloading visitors. The people are presumably in town for a business conference, based on the itinerary Curtis sees on a big poster one of them is carrying. He sees a fake painting ahead of him of a hero on a winged horse about to fight a fire-breathing monster. Curtis gets caught in the crowd but moves on as it thins. He gets stopped by a security guard and realizes that he is standing in Jay Leno’s path. Jay Leno reaches out and shakes Curtis’s hand as he passes, continuing to greet people and shake their hands in the lobby (519-20).

Curtis leaves the hotel and gets in...