It was the best I could think of. Give me a break.

“I feel old,” Nathan said. He took a pack of Winstons from the side table, slipped a cigarette into his mouth, and shook the lighter toward his lips.

“This is a non-smoking room,” I observed.

“The room isn’t smoking,” Nate snapped. “I’m smoking. If the room was smoking, I’d leave the room. I may be old, I’m not an idiot.”

“Okay.”

Nate inhaled, then coughed for about ten seconds. Inhaled, coughed. Inhaled, coughed. Then he said, “Let’s go get a drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Our flight doesn’t leave for three hours,” I said.

“Good,” Nate said. “I’m horny, too.”

I watched television while Nate dressed. Or I tried to, anyway, because Nate kept up a nonstop monologue from the bathroom.

“Eighty-six-year-old Mr. Birnbaum goes to confession,” Nate said. “Says, ‘Father, last night I had sex with a twenty-year-old girl.’ Priest says, ‘Mr. Birnbaum, you’re Jewish, why are you telling me?’ Birnbaum says, ‘Father, I’m telling everybody.’

“Birnbaum checks into a hotel with the girl. Desk clerk says, ‘Birnbaum, aren’t you afraid of a heart attack?’ Birnbaum says, ‘If she dies, she dies!’

“Mrs. Birnbaum comes home one day and finds him in bed with a girl. She throws him out the window. Cop comes and asks, ‘Why did you throw your husband out the window?’ She says, ‘I thought if he could schtupp, he could fly.’

“Crowd gathers on the street where Birnbaum fell. Another cop pushes through the crowd and asks Birnbaum what happened. Birnbaum says, ‘I don’t know, I just got here myself.’”

I knew just how Birnbaum felt. I was beginning to look for a window. Of course the windows in Vegas hotels don’t actually open, which is a pretty good idea when you think about it. You’d need a three-digit over/under on the daily number of competitors in the 100 Meter Concrete Diving Competition. And you’d still get some guy taking the million-to-one odds that this time, this one time, some poor suicidal loser is going to step out the window and fall up.