Bright and early the next morning we were ready to start our Las Vegas adventure. After two cups of coffee and a light breakfast of eggs, sausages, and toast it was almost nap time. Dexter was a big man with a big appetite. He always claimed he was losing weight and had just lost twenty-five pounds. Dex, as usual, was then claiming to not weigh much over three hundred pounds, well maybe three twenty-five. Monica and I always figured that he had to eat like crazy right after we left town so that he had time to gain fifty or sixty pounds, and then lose twenty. I myself was a trim one hundred seventy pounds, and Monica didn’t weigh one hundred pounds while wearing a heavy sweater. Now that I think of it, Monica had passed on the eggs, the sausage and the toast. She had drunk two cups of coffee in honor of being in Las Vegas. The next thing I heard was Monica reading from the local want ads. “Hey, here is an ad for a photographer. It says ‘Glamour photographer wanted, good pay, must travel, must be able to start immediately.’” She looked at me expectantly waiting for some reply

Taylor/Job 7
to her news. Knowing that National Geographic did not advertise in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper, I told her to call and see what it was all about. Meanwhile Dexter and I went to work on his computer. We were drawing up the plans for the super studio that was going to make us rich. If we could photograph four portrait sittings per day at an average of one hundred dollars each, and do an occasional wedding, we could afford to eat. That should be easy. The fact that we were unknown in town, had no money to advertise, nor did we have any money for a building lease – none of this discouraged our dreams. We had worked up to the “what if” stage when Monica came into Dexter’s bedroom. He had a massive computer on a desk next to the bed. His computer was big enough to run the entire city with room left over for hundreds of computer games.

“I called about that job,” Monica informed me.
Knowing that no studio was going to hire me sight unseen, I asked if I should call them back, or if it was a lost cause from the get go.
“No,” she replied. “I told them about your background, and what you were doing now.”
“So do I have to go in for an interview?” I asked.
“No, just show up for work next Tuesday in someplace called Moriarty, New Mexico. You have to be there by ten o’clock in the morning. They are going to train you on their equipment for a week.”
“What did you tell them?”

Taylor/Job 8
“I said you would probably arrive on Monday night,” replied Monica. “Also, they hired me as a make up artist. They are going to train me the week you come back to California. Then we’re to work together as a team.”
“What am I supposed to be shooting pictures of?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Monica said, “but I told them you could do it.”
Dexter, who had been listening to this conversation, asked the most important question. “Where the hell is Moriarty, New Mexico?”
We found a Rand McNally map and looked up Moriarty, New Mexico. It is located thirty-seven miles east of Albuquerque on Interstate 40. Early Sunday morning Monica and I said our goodbyes to our friend Dexter and drove back to our apartment in Long Beach, California. That afternoon I threw some stuff in my two-year-old 1993 Buick Century. I planned to leave early Monday morning in order to avoid the heavy rush hour traffic. At five AM I was headed to my new career in New Mexico.