Las Vegas Weekly

June 4, 2012 · 2:54 PM

Camels, rain, the Book of Mormon

By Rick Lax

That’s a camel in the street, alright. Real camel, real street, America.

Here’s what happened: At the last second, a ticket to Book of Mormon opened up, so I flew to New York for the weekend. (Really long flight, turns out. Who knew?) After the show, on Sunday, I wanted to take a quick stroll around Central Park before heading back to the bus station to make my flight back to Vegas.

On the way to the park, I walked by an Israeli Pride parade. Thousands and thousands and thousands of children wearing matching Sunday School t-shirts and waving Israeli flags. Also, randomly, a handful of African American marching bands.

Everyone was in a great mood, despite the pending rain, and it put me in a good mood, too. Well, until I asked the police officer how I was supposed to get through the parade to get to Central park.

“You can wait until it’s done or you can walk around it.”

“How do I walk around it?”

“Walk back down to forty-sixth, then cross to sixth, then walk back up to the park.”

He said it as if it were no big deal.

The walk took forever, and by the time I got to Central Park, it was raining, and everybody was rushing out with jackets and newspapers pulled over their heads. So I only got to spend a couple of damp, depressing minutes at the park’s southern tip.

But I did get a consolation prize: I got to pet a camel. There were two of them, hanging around a side street, waiting to join the parade. Poor things probably wanted to be in Central Park, too.

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