Beneath the Neon Life and Death in the tunnels of Las Vegas

Here are the few paragraphs from the book,

Standing in front of the storm drain, a stream of runoff pressing against my boots, I felt as if a double-barreled shotgun was pointed at my head. My chest was tight. My heart beat violently. As I stared into the darkness, which seemed as deep as a midnight sky, chills shot down my spine and shook my soul. The drain’s two tunnels were each 12 feet wide and eight feet high, decorated with cobwebs and drooling algae. They exhaled mildewy air, which washed over me like bad breath.

I was at the bottom of a drainage ditch in downtown Las Vegas, just north of the Fremont Street Experience. The ditch was 20 feet deep, lined with concrete and surrounded by a barbwire fence (“No Trespassing!”). Ladder rungs jutted from the banks and flycatchers glided above the stream—and the half-sunken plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, and aluminum cans swooping in and out of the tunnels. The sun, too, had spread its wings and was high in the sky. Late morning, it was already 90 degrees.