Swimming with Bridgeport Girls
Page 10
Penny’s Tooth Fairy message made me think about L for a change. About how we were at a party up at Lake Lanier once, at the home of one of the partners in a firm she was interning at. There was a kid there, a little girl about Penny’s age, and she lost a tooth and had a complete meltdown. The parents couldn’t settle the little monster, so L told her this elaborate story about fairies and how they love to swim when they come for your teeth, and if you put a glass of water on the nightstand, they’ll take a dip in it, and you can tell what color their wings were in the morning by looking at the color of the water. The kid calmed down, L helped put her to bed, and then she put some food coloring in a glass of water to make it light blue. Why do I mention this, other than the fact that I swiped the idea and did it for Penny? Because L was always coming up with stuff like that, things that were decent and surprising and that you’d never heard of before. Things that made your heart warm when you were with her and your chest go cold thinking about when you weren’t.
I poured another vodka pineapple and popped on the tube. I saw myself again, this time on CNN, and turned it off immediately. I started to get riled up, thinking about Boyd Bollinger sticking his nose into all this, finking to the cops and taking my girl out of town, but I realized that wasn’t productive and headed toward the bathroom to clean myself up for the big night. What the hell was he besides a blip on the radar screen of our lives, anyway? When it was said and done, would the Old Rooster merit a footnote? Would we even remember the time we were divorced at all, or would we delight in joking about it, a wink to a silly and misguided patch of history long since put in perspective and tossed away as a relic from another time?
I showered and headed down to the floor. When you have cash on account like I did, you sign a marker for whatever amount you’d like to play with, the chips are brought to you in plastic racks, and you get a table all to yourself if you want one. The house prefers that you play alone for a couple of reasons: 1) it looks good for the casino to be hosting the kind of people who play with stacks of colors the nickel-and-quarter crowd like to gawk over (lavender $500s and canary yellow $1,000s and chocolate $5,000s and even pumpkin $25,000s); and 2) if a heavy player is sitting by himself, he will not only play faster, but the likelihood that he’ll start playing multiple hands increases, along with the probability that he’ll blow his stake much quicker than if he were seated at a table with six other people. With the slight edge the house has, it’s all a matter of dealing as many hands in the shortest time possible, which is why, of all the great gambling-related inventions, the automatic shuffle machines that eliminate the time wasted by dealers shuffling in between shoes is the most ingenious. Increasing the speed of the game is the surest way of shuttling a player to the inevitable ahead of schedule, because nothing is truer than this: A small crack, given time and pressure, will always break open. Casinos were founded on this principle. Which is why they never close. You don’t hang a BACK AT 6 sign on a sure thing.
Now, let’s get something straight: Most things in life reward commitment, obsessive attention to detail, and a go-get-’em attitude, but gambling is not one of them. To gamble successfully, you need a plan. A clearly defined goal. You need, in war terms, an exit strategy. The problem with most gamblers is that they don’t have any of those things. They play for the sensation, the action, and even when they’re winning, they can’t walk away from the game because the action means more to them than the money. They have no plan. They have no purpose. That was my glaring weakness as a player. I had gambled for a variety of vague and wasteful reasons up until then, and eased down into the shithole inch by lousy inch because of them. But walking across the floor of the MGM, with my dreams of L and the Kinder House firmly in my grasp, I realized the error of my former ways. I understood that a person without a goal had no business gambling. No business living, really. For the first time, I knew exactly what I was doing and why I was there. And because I had a purpose, the casino became a hall of light, sound, and promise once more. You can’t go home again? The fuck you can’t.
I strolled merrily past the craps tables and roulette wheels. Was cheered by the sound of jackpot bells tolling among the slots. Delighted by every last thing I saw, from the recently arrived and hopeful, tentatively walking across the floor and trying to decide what machines looked ready to pop, to the newlyweds trotting gaily past the Race and Sports Book, all lace and cocktails and big plans. It felt great to be in a casino again. The direness of the routine in Connecticut was a thing of the past. Never again would I see busloads of retirees filing grimly through the parking lot, their aluminum walkers placed gingerly on the snowy pavement, or construction workers hastily signing over their paychecks on Friday afternoons, eager to join the parade of local grinders nickel-and-diming their way down the slow road to bankruptcy. That blue-collar misery was behind me. This was different. This was Vegas.
I ran into Bob Mota and told him I would like to be referred to as Raoul McFarland from here on out. He nodded casually (for six hundred grand, he’d be happy to call me Louise) and then introduced me to Manny C., a quietly surly, pockmarked Chilean pit boss who led me to a table. It was cordoned off with a velvet rope and metal stanchions. I requested $100,000 in chips, and while I was waiting, I popped a couple more painkillers, ordered a vodka pineapple, and chitchatted with a friendly dealer named Patrice who lived in Henderson and had five kids she loved and one ex-husband she didn’t. Not drinking at the table is pretty much gambling rule number one, but I didn’t care, and I didn’t care because I knew I was going to win. There was nothing that could keep me from it. For over a year I had sat at that motel and tried to figure out how to get back home. How to backtrack to the point where I had gone off course, and reclaim the rightful arc of my life. A journey that had been interrupted by unforeseen forces and events, all of which had tumbled into each other like dominoes and none of which I’d been able to quite see coming or keep from happening. But why talk about it? The time for talk was over. The Kinder House Plan was all about action. There was no use for talk. Did Gatsby show up at Daisy’s house one day and say, “So, listen, I’m thinking of reinventing myself, becoming ridiculously wealthy, and then, as a grand gesture, I may just buy a place across the water and throw a bunch of parties in hope that you might show up one day and be blown away by the grandeur of my love?” Of course not. What the Old Sport did was get the plan in his head and then put it into action. It was a matter of vision and execution. Vision and execution—that was all it took.
I started out playing conservatively. A thousand or two thousand a hand. This went on for about fifteen minutes before a voice in my head said, “What the fuck are you doing, Ray? Air it out already. Time’s a-wastin’.” I was short-arming it big-time. Playing tight. The problem was, I was still in the Mohegan Sun mind-set. It was a question of colors. I had never played with anything beyond black ($100 chips). Had never seen monster stacks of anything that wasn’t red or green. But the plan didn’t have anything to do with red, green, or black. The plan was going to be realized only with the colors I mentioned earlier, the yellows and chocolates and pumpkins, and I needed to adjust my thinking, because $2,000 a hand when you’ve got $600,000 to play with is like taking $6,000 down to Fremont Street and playing the minimum at the $2 tables. You could conceivably spend the rest of your life sitting in front of the same bankroll without anything ever happening besides developing hemorrhoids, getting old, and dropping dead. I had $100,000 in front of me, another half million in the cage, and Boyd Bollinger drinking chamomile tea out of my Kentucky Derby mug. What was I dicking around for?
I put out a stack of ten yellows and breathed deeply. Patrice smiled and put an 8 in front me, then a jack. She showed 7, turned a queen. She paid out the $10,000 and I left it out on the table, stacking it about as high as a card turned on end. She dealt again. Out came a 7, then a 4. She rolled a 5. I breathed deeply again, reached into the rack, leveled a stack of yellow next to my first one, and doubled. Patrice tapped the table
with her knuckles, turned a 9 for 20. She flipped a 7 to go with her 5, then a 4, then a king, and see you later. Winner. I had just made $50,000 in under a half minute.
And that was the beginning of it. Soon the lavender and yellow went in, never to be bothered with again, and the chocolate and pumpkin came out. Bob Mota might as well have stood over me with an umbrella, because it was raining face cards at that table. Just pouring face cards. And Patrice and I were having a party. She’d put out a face card and I’d say, “Put a bullet in that monkey,” and then, voilà, there was the ace.
“It’s like a shoot-out at the zoo,” she’d say, “nothing but bullets and monkeys,” and I’d say, “You got that right. It’s a regular bloodbath on the grounds. Someone should call PETA.” And then, moments later, I’d double up on a 6–5 and say, “You know what this house needs, Patrice?” and she’d smile and say, “Looks like you need some paint, Ray,” and then, of course, the “paint,” the 10 or face, would come.
It was magic. I’d put out a play, $20,000, say, and then I’d hit a natural, which paid $30,000 at 3 to 2. And then I’d hit another. And another. Queen-ace. Ace-ten. Jack-ace. Whatever combo you wanted, there it was. And when the house finally replaced Patrice with a dour Swede named Ingmar, it made absolutely no difference. I buried him, too. I won so many hands in a row, my chip stacks grew so quickly, that people started lining up behind the rope to watch. I should have worried about this. Should have been afraid that someone would recognize me. But I felt bulletproof. My hair was brown. I had a hat on. Was sporting blue-lensed Ray-Bans. It was free and easy down on that floor, and I was playing it fast and loose, like Eddie Felson. I mean, why worry? These people had come to Vegas, after all. They were seeing magic shows at the Monte Carlo. Riding in gondolas at the Venetian. Taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower at Paris. They had better things to do than sit around their rooms watching ESPN or CNN. There was a good chance that none of them knew what I’d done out at Belmont Park. Plus, word had spread that my name was Raoul, and every time a shout of support went up, it was for Raoul McFarland, not Ray Parisi. I was rolling in plain sight.
After an hour or so the spectators were four or five deep, all of them cheering like they were at an English soccer match every time I hit a 16 and a 5 came tumbling out of the shoe. I tipped the cocktailers $100 every time I ordered another vodka pineapple, tossed the dealers $1,000 chips every time I hit another big hand. I could not lose. The pit bosses just sat back and shook their heads. Every time I had a questionable call, say, a 12 on a 2 or 3, I’d ask the opinion of the crowd, and they’d shout out advice like I was a contestant on The Price Is Right who was trying to get the audience’s read on how much to bid on a dinette set. It was raucous down on that floor. It was a good time. They loved Raoul.
Now, normally, shoes run hot and cold. You crush one, the next one buries you. At best you might get a couple of sweet ones in a row before things start evening out. Runs rarely last. But that night, everything was different. None of the usual rules applied. Even when I got dealt garbage up, I knew I’d get bailed out. If I sat 13, I knew without a doubt that a 7 or 8 was on its way. If I called for it, or the crowd called for it, it would come. If I sat 15 and the dealer showed 5 or 6, it was just a matter of waiting until he turned his hole card, which was always a face, and then turned another one, to bust and pay out. Everything played out as it should according to the basic strategy of the game. I knew exactly what was going to happen two seconds ahead of time—it was like living inside a dream you’ve had before, a glorious kind of déjà vu that wasn’t unlike the zone some athletes talk about, when they know a shot is going to go in before it leaves their hands, or can clock the rotation on a ball before it hits the bat.
I knew what was coming before it came, and I knew it was happening because I was finally gambling for a reason. Before, I was just like the others, doing it for the adrenaline rush. But once I found a legitimate cause, there was no stopping me. As I sat there drinking vodka pineapples and listening to the crowd cheering and watching the stacks of chips grow higher and higher, it was obvious to me that the only reason I had ever gotten into all this trouble in the first place was because I was being punished for not having a clear purpose in the casino. Having suffered bitter losses and myriad humiliations, I had finally learned the golden lesson and seen the light that is Purpose, and so the gambling gods had pardoned me then and there for all past transgressions. It was no longer a game of chance—anyone could see that. Fate and Just Cause were arranging my passage back to the place I belonged and the person I belonged there with, and as I chased another painkiller down with another cocktail, I had no doubt that right at that moment, in the glow of the emerald lights of the mighty MGM Grand, winged angels were working furiously to lift Vegas Boulevard into the clouds and stretch it all the way to my new house. They were preparing a gilded road for me to travel on, the west wind at my back the entire glorious way.
Through it all, Bob Mota did his best to appear happy for me. He raced about offering suite upgrades; show tickets, meals at Emeril’s and Pearl, massages, helicopter tours of the Hoover Dam, anything and everything my heart desired. Manny C., on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to put a permanent dent in my forehead with his pinkie ring. He wanted to turn a fire hose on the crowd. Wanted to tell them that this was the MGM Grand, not an Alabama-Auburn tailgate, and to shut the fuck up already. But he didn’t. He just grinned as the crowd swelled and rumors began circulating about me. “Where’s he from?” “What’s he do?” “Who is he?” “He’s somebody famous, but who?” “Wasn’t he in that movie with what’s-his-face?” “Wait, isn’t he what’s-his-face?” And you know, in that moment, I am famous. I am what’s-his-face. Hell, I’m everybody who was ever famous. I’m American-made, baby. I’m Paul Newman in the pool hall. Willie Mays in center field. I’m Billy the Kid on the draw and Rocky running the stairs and Brando in a T-shirt. I’m Mickey Rourke in the eighties. Hell, I’m Bruce and Clarence on the cover of Born to Run. I’m the chorus of “Thunder Road,” too. The window is rolled down. The wind is blowing back my hair. I am pulling out of here to win.
I have waitresses bring out trays of shooters for everyone. Because I am Hope Springing Eternal, I make toasts to Possibilities. Raise a glass to the Wonder of It All. I change chocolate to black, and every ten minutes I toss those $100 chips into the crowd like I’m pitching pennies into the Fountain of Youth. Guys slap my back. Girls sign my cast. And in the middle of it all, one of them touches my hand and says, “Well, I guess the high roller wasn’t lying after all.”
Renée.
W LCOME TO T E HAP IEST P ACE ON EAR H
January 25
. . . and it’s something that, while he never says anything, makes me feel like Boyd might think less of me for it. But that’s just me projecting. He’s wonderful. He’s truly nonjudgmental. Not in R’s democratic, “hang out with anybody at any time no matter who they are or what they’ve done” way, but in the way of an older man who sees the world in the way it’s meant to be seen and engages it in the way it’s meant to be engaged. With care and reverence. Not greed and gratification. R is a child to him, and he’s either not threatened by his antics or simply man enough not to show that it bothers him. But I know he wonders how I lived my entire adult life the way I did. Why wouldn’t he? I wonder about it myself all the time.
WHEN THE RUN FINALLY ENDED, I met Bob Mota over by the cage and watched my racks of chips counted off. Renée was with me, filling me in on pertinent details, such as her age (“greatteen”), where she was from (“Blowhio”), what her hometown was like (“crap”), what her ex-boyfriend was like (“total crap”), and what it was like working in the paper factory in town (“beyond crap”). As she was talking, Mota informed me that my account stood at $1,252,500. Less the check I had deposited, I had just won $640,000 in four hours. You know how people are always saying, “It takes money to make money”? Believe it.
I asked for $252,500 in cash for three reasons:
1) it brought my account to a clean million, which was exactly half of the way back home (and only one winning hand away, if I chose to play it that way); 2) I was curious to see what a quarter million dollars in cash looked like; and 3) Bob Mota kept telling me to leave it all on account, just take some “walking-around money,” and it was entertaining to watch him squirm, because the last thing in the world he wanted to see happen was for me to sashay off with his cash. He would rather have slathered himself in barbecue sauce and walked nude through the tiger exhibit at the Bronx Zoo than have me take a quarter million dollars and saunter off with Renée for the night. As long as the money remained sequestered in the MGM vaults, he figured it had a relatively reasonable chance of staying there, but once cash went the wrong way out of the cage, it probably wasn’t coming back, and he knew I wouldn’t be donating the entire $612,500 check as expected. This had to come as a disappointment to Mota, who only had to take a cursory glance at me when I’d walked in the previous morning to be pretty certain that emotional stability, reasonable behavior, and I hadn’t sat down for a chat in a very long time. I didn’t look anything like a guy who could be trusted to hang on to a quarter of a million in cash, and Renée looked like a girl who might have an idea or two how to spend a buck, and Mota knew this, only there was nothing he could do about it. He had to keep me happy. If an out-of-state check for $612,500 gets you VIP treatment at the Grand, take a wild guess how another house would treat you if you walked in their front door with $1.25 million in cash. Vegas is the kind of town where, if you strolled into a hotel with a million dollars under one arm and a severed head under the other, not a single person working the front of the house would think to ask about the head.