Slot Attendant

by Jack Engelhard

  “Jay,” he says, repeating my name three times. He is something of a mystic and a thrice repeated name means something, I don’t know what, but it does.

  Boris also once taught me something that nearly amounts to a curse, or that will stop any adversary in his tracks. Goes like this: “I see ten feet under you.”

  That is supposed to freeze anyone in your path.

  “So?” he says.

  I bring him up to date on practically everything. He is a wise man. He says not to worry. There is a time for everything. If it is meant for me to be published, again, so it will be. If not, it simply was not meant to be, but there will be other lives, here, and in the hereafter. I am not so sure about the hereafter. Oh, he says with that big Russian laugh, there is. Trust me. Suppose I don’t want to wait that long? He laughs again.

  About my being a slot attendant, he says it is work, and all work is honorable. About Melanie, she will adjust, he assures me, if that is the end of my path.

  She will come around. I am lucky, he says, to have such a wife. Yes, I am lucky. Even if that is all the luck I have, he says, it is enough.

  We had it planned differently, I tell Boris…Melanie and I. We had planned on me becoming a great and famous writer.

  Ah yes, says Boris, Man plans, God laughs.

  We had planned on a literary life, not a slot attendant life. Melanie, at the outset, had pictured herself as hostess of a SALON, as in Proust.

  Tell her, he says, that you have made peace. I do not tell him that would be a separate peace, in her language, surrender.

  He asks if I am sure, really sure, that I want to make it big again, as I did that time before with the The Ice King. I say of course. That is my cut. But he’s not so sure. He says maybe that world is closed to me (for the time being) because I want it closed, yes, subconsciously. He says we only fail when we want to fail. No, I want to succeed. I wrote Smooth Operator to succeed, not to fail.

  “So it will succeed,” he says, slapping my back and then collecting me in an affectionate bear hug.

  But maybe, he says, I actually enjoy the casino life, even down in the squalor. That is where I feel accepted.

  “To feel accepted,” he says, “is everything. Like love.”

  No, not love. I do not feel love. In fact, I explain, this is why I’m here, to sharpen up. Bad things are coming. I tell him the story of Toledo Vasquez and my involvement and this upsets Boris, that it has taken this turn. I should be no party to this, and if anyone is familiar with corruption, first-hand, it is Boris. That is never good, theft, corruption. It soils the spirit. Boris is very spiritual. He was even spiritual when he was corrupt. There is nothing as spiritual as a spiritual Russian. They see ten feet under you.

  Boris is now an American, very patriotic.

  I tell him the story of Franco DeLima, how he informed on me. Boris says, “Aha.” Boris knows the type.

  Franco is probably behind Toledo’s miseries as well.

  “I think so,” says Boris.

  He even describes Franco to me. He knows how old he is, how tall he is, how wide he is and even was sort of family he comes from. Yes, he knows the type.

  “There is evil,” says Boris. “People say there is no good, there is no evil. We are all the same. I say no. I say yes. There is evil.”

  There is evil, and there is no root cause for it, either. No excuses. Some people are just plain rotten. Boris knows. Oh he knows.

  What was Stalin’s root cause? What was Stalin’s excuse?

  Boris’s father had been sent to Stalin’s gulag. There he died.

  Boris has a last name but it can’t be spelled or pronounced since it is so long and full of consonants, so he bought a vowel and made it Stone, Boris Stone. Boris has a dream. One day he will have these martial arts centers in every strip mall from coast to coast, and why not? This is America. Boris wants me to write his book on martial arts. He’s got 280 moves that nobody else knows about. There are as many different self-defense techniques, actually in the thousands, as there are different steps for dance and different positions for sex. He used to pursue me for that book until he understood that everybody approaches me to write a book, just as everybody I meet has a niece or nephew who works for Disney in Hollywood.

  We step onto his mat, his private mat, Black Belts only, and there are so few of us, but before getting started he nods to the next room where a class is in session, rape prevention. “Women,” he says, “they’re all over.” He laughs that big Russian laugh. Women – they’re everywhere! But it is serious. Martial arts is for women as much as it is for men. Men don’t get raped, usually.

  We go through the paces, Boris and I, up to defense against gun and knife, and Boris is pleased.

  “You haven’t lost much. You’re ready for anything, almost.”

  But not Melanie.

  She’s changed her mind.

  Maybe I should get it out in the open with Toledo, and maybe I should sing like a canary.

  “Out of the question.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I would hate myself in the morning and so would you.”

  “But your reputation!”

  “What reputation?”

  “You do have a reputation, you know. You’re mentioned twelve thousand times on Google. I just checked.”

  “That’s for the movie.”

  “But also about you.”

  “As a slot attendant?”

  “Oh you’re so funny. No, Jay, as an author. The author of the smash hit The Ice King. Come, see.”

  “I don’t want to see.”

  “No, you want to wallow.”

  “Wallow. Good.”

  “There’s also mention of Smooth Operator.”

  “That’s embarrassing.”

  “No, they predict…”

  “Who predicts?”

  “One of those websites, yes, a literary review on the web. Take a look. It’s very flattering.”

  “Never mind. I’m not informing, Melanie. Please don’t! I am not an informer. There is nothing worse.”

  There is even a Biblical curse – May there be no hope for informers.

  Later, when she’s content that she’s turned in a well-reasoned book review, she cuddles up and says I’m right.

  No, my position, she agrees, is virtuous.

  We kiss and make up, and it gets even better. That’s Sylvio on the phone, actually on the phone, really on the phone, returning my call, and here’s what it is; that other publisher is very high on my writing, big fan of The Ice King, the book, my book, not the movie, their movie. Very big fan, and he’s halfway through Smooth Operator and it’s clicking for him, resonating. Yes, resonating. You want that; you want resonating, always.

  There’s more! That lunch Sylvio had with Roe Morgan? It’s over and done, and went well. No, it wasn’t about me, about me especially, but my name came up. The lunch was about that other writer that Roe Morgan wants so badly and that Sylvio is saving as his ace in the hole. But my name did come up and there’s promise, since Roe Morgan may be forced into a two-way deal, me and that other writer who, apparently, is from America and not from New Jersey.

  “It ain’t over till it’s over,” says Sylvio. “Now I gotta run.”

  There really is no talking to them in New York or Hollywood. They always gotta run.

  So…good news.

  “Great news, isn’t it?” says Melanie.

  No, great is when something has already happened. Good is when it may happen. Frankly, I don’t even call it good. I call it nothing.

  Hemingway taught us never to mistake activity for action. I’m pretty sure it was Hemingway. I should go back to reading him. It’s been so long I’ve forgotten if he’s really as good as I thought he was. I’m not sure I want to know. I do know that about five years back I checked in at The Sun Also Rises and was miffed at all those pages taken up with description. Half the book is description, and who cares about the roads and the hills and the valleys and the trees?
Who remembers, who cares? He also could have used some editing. People like Jake Barnes are always nodding their heads. What else do you nod?

  But who am I to knock Hemingway? He was our master, our king. But he really wasn’t the first. Twain beat him to it as did that guy who wrote The Red Badge of Courage and whose name I forget, which has been happening to me a lot lately. Names just slip my mind, even names of authors, authors I grew up with and admired. Stephen Crane, right. Yes. Well Stephen Crane wrote just like that, hard-boiled, as did a slew of those mystery and detective writers, Hammett and Chandler and certainly James. M. Cain, the best of them all. But for declarative and hard-boiled you really have to go back, way back to the Bible. They all borrowed from the Bible, so far as style, simple but majestic. Even the titles, even that they borrowed, like The Sun Also Rises, and surely Melville had Jonah in mind when he wrote Moby Dick.

  “And King David was old and stricken in years and could get no heat.” That was written some 3,000 years ago, before Hemingway and the rest of us.

  James M. Cain is not highly regarded within the smart set. Cain distilled Hemingway as Bukowski distilled Cain. Cain writes too plainly, nothing fancy, hardly any embellishments or descriptions, exactly what I like about him and they don’t. He is not LITERARY and I have yet to find anyone who can tell me what literary is, as opposed to commercial. Literary must be when nobody knows what the hell the writer is talking about, so it must be literary. Some writers have to die before they’re accepted as literary. That’s something to look forward to.

  “Yes, Mel, good news, pretty good.”

  We kiss and make up all over again.

  Chapter 13

  Two in the morning – I’m in Zone 14 schmoozing with Mark the security guard who thinks he’s George from another life – so it’s two in the morning when Omar swoops down and tells me to be ready. For what? For my performance evaluation. Half an hour. Two thirty. Sharp. Prompt. Is there anything I need to bring? No, just yourself. (Truly, what an asshole!)

  The place is empty, except for the machines that have already done their jobs, taking in millions for the House a penny, a nickel, a quarter, a half dollar, a dollar at a time. They stand there, these machines, row by row, mounted upon their high places like idols awaiting the next round of worshipers, Big Bertha along the main aisle the biggest god of them all, and there is an attitude about them, according to size and jackpot. Big Bertha keeps watch over her lesser gods, Double Diamond, Triple Diamond, Wild Cherry, Slingo, Betty Boop, Jeopardy, Pink Panther, Keno, Joker Poker, Deuces Wild…just waiting but knowing that the sacrifices will come and hurl themselves at them to claim JACKPOTS GALORE.

  Some machines talk back. One machine, which mostly the Asians play for some reason, says “phenomenal” each time there’s a payoff, and I have a feeling that’s been researched, that word “phenomenal.” Must mean something beyond the obvious and trigger a subliminal message, just to keep you playing and keep you thinking that you’re a winner, when in fact the payoff is usually less than what you’ve put in. The machine makers study these things and it’s all quite psychological. I once read an article in one of these industry magazines, Casino World or something like that, and the message, in fact the headline, was about “perceived” value.

  About the only player still in action, at this crazy hour, is my nemesis, my bully, Howard Glass. He’s seldom here this late, but here he is with his usual scorn. He’s over by the dollars and nods me over with that derisive grin. I clench my fists against my sides and against what I know is coming, and it does. He says, “Yeah, I’ve read all about you. You’re a flash in the pan, a one shot wonder.”

  “Do you need any help, Mr. Glass?”

  “I’m terrific. How about you?”

  “Likewise.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I’ve got to run.”

  “Where? Doesn’t look busy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just do your job.”

  Just do my job, he says.

  But he’s not finished. “How does it feel to be a reject?”

  The trouble is, he’s right. No argument from me.

  I move on. I make a tour of the joint to rid myself of the creeps. I’ll be all right. Just need to bounce myself back.

  Anyhow, I’ve got bigger worries, like this evaluation process – performance evaluation.

  “Why,” I ask Mark, “should I be nervous about this?”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “I mean is this fair? Isn’t this like they do in North Korea or something?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is this really democracy?”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  “Like they own you.”

  “They do.”

  “People shouldn’t be allowed to EVALUATE people.”

  “Right. Corporate America is just like communism.”

  “Exactly, Mark. Do they EVALUATE you guys, too?”

  “Oh sure. But it’s real relaxed, unless you broke a rule or something.”

  “There you go, rules. They own us, Mark.”

  “Just like communism.”

  “This isn’t free enterprise, not for us.”

  “Right, Jay. Not for us. Only for them upstairs.”

  “I’m so pissed about this.”

  “Hurry up with that book of yours, Jay, and get the hell out of here,” says Mark.

  “Only it’s not much different in publishing.”

  “I guess it isn’t.”

  “It’s the same everywhere, Mark my man. Can’t escape. Run but can’t hide.”

  “I keep telling you,” says Mark, “every workplace is a dictatorship.”

  “Corporations.”

  “They keep getting bigger,” says Mark, “and soon we won’t have any rights at all. They keep chipping away. Why should I have to wear a seat belt? Why shouldn’t I smoke where I want? They keep making new rules and you’ll see, one day they’ll knock on your door to see what books you’re reading, what movies you’re watching. I’ve been telling you this.”

  Yes he has.

  Mark has told me about all this new technology that’s coming up for better snooping, that now there’s more than an eye in the sky, but also an ear, so how far are we from a mind in the sky, meaning that soon, if not already, they’ll be able to read your thoughts and come after you with the Thought Police as only Orwell could have imagined. Mark believes that it’s all connected to telephone wires and cables, that the phone company is behind it all, along with the government, even though there is no more Ma Bell, no more monopoly there, that’s all been broken up… but those wires and cables are still up there, and there is still a government, and that is still a monopoly and has not been broken up. So now it’s the cable companies, like Comcast, that rule over us, along with the feds and the corporations, and the casinos, with some aliens thrown in. He probably is a conspiracy nut, Mark, my man Mark, but strange things do keep happening.

  “But these performance evaluations, that’s the worst,” is what I say. “That’s the worst snooping. That’s the worst indignity.”

  “They have no right.”

  “Except they do.”

  “That’s right. They do.”

  Mark suggests that I write a book about politics. But writers are as ignorant about politics as are politicians.

  “Good luck,” says Mark as I take off for my inquisition.

  So I’m up there, in the tiny untidy room that’s supervisor headquarters, for the time being. It keeps changing. They keep changing rooms on us. The casino is always in flux.

  There are two of them for this performance evaluation.

  I’m surprised. There’s usually only one. But I’ve got Omar, bad cop, and Roger Price, good cop. I don’t know why and who cares.

  So, I’m sitting there across from them and they’ve got papers in front of them, on the desk; for sure my history.

  There’s an entire list to run down, and they take turns, and of course Roger is his
customary casual self and Omar is Omar.

  The points run from one to five…one the lowest, five the highest. Very few get fives. If you run out of there with a three average you’ve done okay.

  No raise, but okay.

  If you score a two you could get disciplined or fired, depending on how badly they need slot attendants at the moment.

  Okay…show time!

  How do I carry myself in uniform, neat and tidy or sloppy?

  Omar, frowning, or maybe he’s smiling, gives it a two.

  “I thought I dress pretty well,” I say meekly, for we shall inherit the earth.

  “Two,” says Omar resolutely.

  Roger shrugs, as if to say it’s really Omar in charge.

  Is my hair short enough?

  “Two,” says Omar.

  On this I have no dispute. I need a haircut. I always need a haircut. I am an arteest, when the meter is down.

  “Your shoes could always use a shine, I’ve noticed,” says Omar.

  “If people would quit stepping on me.”

  “Let’s move on,” says Roger, giving me a wink of caution.

  Am I well-shaved?

  “Two,” says Omar. He loves that number.

  “I’d give him a three,” says Roger. “I really think he’s well groomed.”

  “I think so, too,” I say.

  Omar submits, I guess. He’s writing something down. I guess three.

  How do I relate to customers?

  “Three,” says Omar.

  “I really disagree,” I say. “I can give you testimonials.”

  “He is well-liked,” says Roger.

  Omar writes something down. Either three or four, or maybe two, back to two.