A thin man wearing circles of cherry red blush and a red toy soldier uniform is guarding the door under the three-story wooden Trojan horse. The temporary sign above the toy store's door, one that has been drawing rounds of "awww" and "oh no!" from tourists in the Caesars Forum Shoppes for weeks, says FAO Schwarz is closed for a makeover. But today, a few privileged people—mostly men in suits suppressing lucky-dog smiles—are slipping inside.
The company is preparing to auction off the store's innards—a prospect that is both tantalizing and morbid, or tantalizing because of its morbidity: I picture the dismantling of the Trojan horse, limb by limb, and scads of Lord of the Flies boys hauling off shanks like war trophies. It's a sad image—I've come to love this horse as much as anyone who's ever tried desperately, for hours, to entertain a 9-year-old on the Strip could love anything—but with that sadness comes equal parts curiosity and sadism. There's a little bit of me, surely the fault of amoral reality TV and not anything I should feel accountable for, that wants to see the bones of a gutted wonderland. So I talk my way past the sentry.
Inside, where once were huge displays full of stuffed animals right up front—only weeks ago I considered buying myself the life-size German shepherd (stop judging me) now is a toyless floor and a fast-approaching PR guy. He's got the double-wide smile of a man whose professional life involves both public relations and Hot Wheels. The auction isn't scheduled to start for three more hours, so he agrees to give me a whirlwind tour of what's left in the mostly hollow store: the displays that are up for auction. But first he floats his official line about the end of this FAO era, at least five variations of which he will repeat on our tour: "We're really excited because it's just paving the way for brand new, exciting things." He omits the phrase "FAO has filed bankruptcy," and I am glad not to hear it. We're clinging to the notion that death means resurrection is near; we're Las Vegans.
And so it seems appropriate in this out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new mode that we should turn immediately to Item No. 194, tagged "One dinosaur foot, molded plastic." It's hanging above our heads, four feet wide or so, next to a giant set of Jurassic Park dinosaur ribs. Out with the old bones, in with something new. Jurassic Park is so yesterday. I feel like Fred Flinstone—(who's so yesterday?)—as we walk through the bones on our way to the beloved Velociraptor, Item No. 192: a three-foot window, inside of which a mechanical green dinosaur head lunges toward you and screeches menacingly. How can they part with this? How can they just parcel out the dear memories of ... of tourists and sentimentally compulsive capitalists—or is it compulsively capitalistic sentimentalists?—of people who have walked with purpose into the giant horse, searching for that elusive bit of wow! that they didn't get from the talking, fire-ringed statues at either end of Caesars, or from the foot-long margaritas. More please, give us some more.
I confess to Jake, my suited, clean-cut guide, that I would very much like to have the Velociraptor, and I press my hand up against the window in the manner one would reach for an incarcerated loved one, and the Velociraptor lunges and screeches. Jake seems unmoved to charity and ushers me along, but not before I take one last look at the giant rib cage and ask, "Where would you put something like that?" because, while I'm sure I could find a place in my house for the Velociraptor window, maybe in the bathroom, I think the rib cage could be tacky. "Oh, you'd be surprised," he says. "People want it for their childrens' rooms." Oh. Yes. For the children. I am briefly awed by the idea of a childhood that involves Mommy bidding on toy store displays.
Jake tells me that at least a hundred people from around the nation would be putting up the $200 entry deposit and bidding on Vegas FAO Schwarz displays via personal shoppers and the Internet, along with a few locals in person, later this afternoon. We walk onward and then upward, via escalator, passing a row of 4-foot, yellow and red dancing lollipops on the way to the second floor. Lawn ornaments, perhaps?
On the second floor, however, my faux sentimentality begins to turn to faux bitter alienation. Here, where once the Barbie room overflowed with so much pinkness and sweetness and frilliness that walking in felt like skating across a giant birthday cake, now all that remains on the dirty white linoleum are a couple of life-size, marblesque Barbie statues dressed in Caesar-style togas. Three other lonely Barbie statues rotate in the window, sans pink. The hollowness of the room lends itself to the slightest misty feeling, a touch of suppressed indignation, and when I peer out the window with Barbie statue No. 3, down at the parade of happy shoppers below, well-dressed bidders on their way, I feel the bitterness. These are not happy Barbies.
Jake and I move along. The piece de resistance is on the third floor in the corner: the Star Wars displays. When something Star Wars-ish goes on sale anywhere in the world, collectors pounce—particularly when it's a one-of-a-kind replication of the cantina scene, complete with dancing mechanical alien musicians.
Finally, we come upon a garbage can out of which pops Oscar, from Sesame Street. He's moving and talking, and I slow down to take him in one last time. A droll Latina with a baby stroller and a toddler—where did they come from?—sees me and slices off a quick warning: "You don't want that." She glares. It's hers. And theirs. They have paid the $200 bid deposit and are parked right here with Oscar, prepared to wait the three hours till the bidding begins.
The Forum Shoppes is fat with shoppers and new shops, and I make the corner around Dolce & Gabana and pick up my pace toward the horse. FAO reopened at the end of October; I'm finally getting a chance to check it out. I have no 9-year-old with me, excepting the 9-year-old I am this near to Christmas.
Now contributing to the reputed villainy of Wal-Mart there's this. The big-box discounter became the No. 1 toy-seller in 1998 and continues to grow, hitting Toys R Us and FAO Schwarz in the bottom line. After FAO filed bankruptcy in 2003, D.E. Shaw Laminar Portfolios bought the New York and Vegas stores for about $40 million, left the 13 other stores behind, and decided to focus on toys not available in Wal-Mart or Target, and on Internet sales and specialty, higher priced toys. The store was retooled with the idea of making it even more of a special experience, a luxury store, rather than a competitor to the big-boxes. And I thought it was pretty near perfect as it was.
I speed past more boutiques to the new FAO. I am relieved that the horse façade is still there; God forbid they had remodeled that. What's this? There's a malt shop or something in front. FAO Schweetz, it says. Little counter, stools to sit on, sundaes to order. Hmm.
Out front, a young woman is tossing a boomerang glider to grab attention, to draw people into the horse—she pitches the little plane over and over, and it loops through the air and returns to her. Nice, but she's no velociraptor. Onward. There's a new information desk. And a row of employees behind computers that looks suspiciously like every other retail store in America. No matter. I'm immediately wooed by a life-size stuffed pony on a high shelf; I reach up and squeeze its hoof. Then, a row of stuffed puppies elicit an inexplicable bit of sweet talk from me: "Aren't you cute?!" I say to a small cotton Pug. It doesn't reply, except to plead that I should buy it and hug it and take it home and give it a good life and love it forever.
I explore the more wide-open floor plan at the new FAO, happy and curious, one part glad-it's-back, and then, slowly, one-part sad-it's-not-back.
The new Las Vegas FAO, which is, with New York's, the last standing, has a rec room with a sofa and TV, and foosball and air hockey games to be purchased, a selection of grown-up-targeted, vintage videogame machines for sale—Centipede, Galaga, Ms. PacMan. Gone are the distinct fairy-tale enclaves; gone is the disturbingly garish Barbie room. Instead, there's a shelf of classic Barbies surrounded by new Barbie dolls. One is a guy in a sports coat described on the box as a sensitive artist. There are boxed, child-size yoga mats on sale; there is a guy in a Safari suit walking around; there's a wandering magician now amusing a small boy with sleight-of-hand disappearing tricks. It's a toy store, all right. But to me, less of the fantasy, less of the packed-to-the-rafters, decorated-to-the-maximum, Willy-Wonka-ish wonderland—which seems to go in the opposite direction of the idea of distinguishing it from Wal-Mart.
But Christmas is almost here and I'm shopping. I could buy a life-size stuffed pony, with several paychecks. Or I could take home a stuffed dog—for some child on my list, of course. I could invest in a foosball table or Ms. Pac Man machine. The thing is, I'm not really here to line up my quarters on the Galaga machine, no matter how many memories of a misspent youth it conjurs up. I'm here because I want to be overwhelmed by an experience, not a video-game experience, but further back, into childlike awe; I'm here for absurd escapism; I'm here to continue a fantasy. No wonder FAO went bankrupt.
Upon leaving FAO, which I still love, but ... I'm still chin-down—I nearly run into a woman. It's somewhat miraculous that I don't, actually, because her very fantastically faux bosom springs forth well ahead of the rest of her. I turn, and see flames—that's right, real live fire, explosions, nearing the ceiling down the corridor, apparently coming out of a large Caesar or one of his compatriots, who happens to be sitting atop an encased ocean, which sports real and, ergo, surreal stingray-looking creatures along with blowfish and, I believe, sharks. Behind that is a big sign advertising cheesecake. A not-so-young woman in the crowd is wearing a Santa hat and skintight leather pants; next to her a slightly younger, plain-faced woman is wearing a sweatshirt with a wreath on it, sipping a Corona. Been here a million times, I have, and yet—I am giddy once again. It's Christmas in Las Vegas, and I'm in the biggest fantasy toy box on Earth.