Drink, Play, F@#k

by Andrew Gottlieb

  But I was definitely going to tip this guy because he really had made me feel welcome. More importantly, I was hoping that a tip might get him to wish me luck. My already superstitious nature always kicked into hyperdrive whenever I was gambling. For some reason I decided that if this complete stranger in the cream-colored uniform and silly captain’s hat would wish me luck, then I would have a great stay in Vegas.

  I reached for my wallet and realized I was fishing in the wrong pocket. I found the right pocket but dropped my wallet as I pulled it out. Then I almost head-butted the valet like Giovanna as we both reached down to pick it up. Finally I tugged out a five-dollar bill and offered it up to him in the palm of both hands like a mental patient. Fortunately he acted as if this was all normal behavior. He took the bill and handed me my claim ticket as I walked away.

  “Thank you, sir. And good luck!”

  I swear to God—I almost went back and hugged him.

  15

  Here are the drawbacks to Las Vegas casinos: 1) People still smoke in them. 2) You can lose all of your money in them (plus money that you don’t have but that your credit card companies will be only too glad to lend you).

  Here are the good things about Las Vegas casinos: 1) Everything else.

  I seriously cannot comprehend the inner workings of some-one who claims not to like a Vegas casino. It’s like hearing someone whine about having to breathe oxygen. And there are plenty of people like that out there. Not people who are oxygen whiners, casino complainers.

  I guess I should be accepting of everyone’s differences, but I truly don’t understand why people dump on casinos. Sometimes I think that if money were never an issue, I would spend all my time in a nonstop gambling rush. But then I realize that the money is always an issue. That’s a big part of the rush. If the money ceased being an issue, the fun might dissipate. I guess that’s how guys like Charles Barkley end up in such hot water. Those who love to gamble will always push the stakes up until the threat of getting seriously hurt financially rears its ugly head. Those who have a real problem with gambling will not stop when the ugly head-rearing takes place.

  While I don’t understand the naysayers, I do understand the addicts. I know for a fact that I am not a gambling addict. I love doing it, it gives me a visceral thrill, and I have been known to bet over my head occasionally. But if I had to stop tomorrow, I could do it. No problem. I would miss it. But it doesn’t control me.

  I have felt the pull of it, though. And I have felt that stunned, heart-dropping feeling that comes after you’ve bet over your head and lost. I’ve noted the weird, powerless sensation you get when you realize you were just on the verge of being out of control. As if, for a brief moment, someone else had become the boss of your central nervous system and slid that stack of black chips onto twenty-nine. And I have been known to follow a bad bet with a worse bet in an attempt to win it all back, plus interest. This is what Rick calls “chasing the dragon.” It can be fun, but you better be careful. Because dragons—while fictitious—are famous for eating people.

  The human brain is weird. There are many complex scientific formulae and theories that doctors and researchers can spout about the brain, but none of them is going to be truer or more profound than that. Gambling is an activity that encourages the brain’s weirdness to flourish. What is a rabbit’s foot, or a lucky chip, or a sacred card protector other than a manifestation of the brain’s bizarreness? We all know about statistics and probability. We all accept that the future has not been determined and cannot be influenced by the present. But if that’s true, then why do we embrace silly talismans in an attempt to alter our luck? Why do we cross our fingers as the Hail Mary pass is in the air? Why do we bet our mother’s birthday in the lottery? Why does my mind go through such tortured, pretzeled ramblings while the roulette wheel is spinning?

  Here’s a quick account of what goes through my head when I’m gambling. I jotted these notes down after one of my Vegas roulette sessions. Obviously, I have left out a billion thoughts that flew by too quickly to notate. But these are the biggies—the broad strokes—the feature film that was playing inside my cranium one afternoon at the Mirage moments after I eschewed my better judgment and slid that aforementioned stack of blacks onto twenty-nine.

  First I think about how amazing it would be for twenty-nine to hit. As I start to calculate how much I’d win, another compartment in my brain starts berating me. “What the fuck are you doing?! You’re jinxing yourself!” Properly admonished, I stop thinking about hitting my number. But then I start thinking that it’s preposterous to stop thinking about hitting my number because my thoughts have absolutely no bearing on where that white ball lands. What possible difference could it make if I think about twenty-nine or not? But then I think that no one really knows that much about time. Didn’t Einstein postulate that it’s theoretically possible for the past and the future to exist simultaneously with the present? Or was that just some shitty movie I saw starring Dennis Quaid? Just to be safe, to hedge my bets, as it were, I decide to think about nothing at all. I will not jinx myself by being positive, nor will I jinx myself by being negative. I will outfox the fates by thinking nothing.

  There’s a moment where I am at peace and my brain is like a blank slate. But then I realize that thinking about thinking nothing at all is, quite obviously, thinking. Technically I was thinking about a blank slate, which made me think about chalk-boards, which made me think about high school chemistry, which made me think about petri dishes, which made me think about The Dick Van Dyke Show. The wheel and the ball are slowing down now and I’m starting to get desperate. I have to choose one thought and stick with it. I shuffle between around five hundred billion thoughts. For some reason I settle on Larry Johnson’s four-point play for the Knicks in the 1999 playoffs. It was ridiculous. There was no way Antonio Davis fouled him during the shot—and I’m a Knicks fan! By the time the ball settles on fourteen, I’m lost in a sea of memories of LJ making that ridiculous L sign with his arms and wondering when we’re ever going to make the playoffs again. By the time I realize that I have lost my entire stack of black chips, I barely have the energy to berate myself for not focusing hard enough on the task at hand.

  They say that playing the stock market is exactly the same as gambling in a casino. But they are completely wrong. The actual gambling—the risking of one amount in the hopes of receiving a larger amount—that’s the same. But the trappings that surround the gamble make a huge difference. On a basic level, almost everything is some kind of gamble—getting married, having kids, buying a house, eating sushi. You’re laying out x for something that you hope will yield greater than x. But most other kinds of gambling are socially accepted. More than that, there’s a whole other, more complex layer to the endeavor that’s larger than the gambling aspect. Those other pursuits aren’t defined by the gamble at their core. Stockbrokers put on suits and ties and take the 6 train to the office. They hide the gambling behind business, tradition, and custom.

  It’s not “normal” to consider your children to be a gamble. Most parents talk about playdates and SAT scores—not odds or returns. That said, when the guy across the street’s kid gets into Cornell, he will walk around the neighborhood like he just hit the trifecta at Santa Anita.

  Climbing Mount Everest or having unprotected sex in a tent in the Dutch countryside with some woman you just met at a bookstore aren’t talked about as gambling either. There’s a whole vocabulary for mountaineering or hooking up with backpackers that separates those acts from their essence of risk/reward.

  But with gambling that veneer has been stripped away. The only concession to artifice is that chips take the place of real money. But trust me, if you insisted on only playing cash, you would always be able to find someone willing to handle your action.

  I’m no longer even sure what point I’m trying to make. Gambling has a way of twisting the mind. I guess that’s the point. Straight casino gambling is heady stuff. In some profound way it’s more
in tune with the core of being a socialized human being than playing the market, or having kids, or sleeping with Lowlanders. I can see how it could ruin people’s lives if they’re not equipped to handle it. I just can’t see why other people—who are equipped to handle it—aren’t interested in giving it a go.

  Anyway, I wasn’t thinking any of this as I walked into the Bellagio Hotel. I was thinking, “Holy shit! This place is like heaven on earth, if they filled heaven with sweaty, smoking sinners who use too much cologne.” For those of you who have never been to the Bellagio, it’s pretty much everything you expect a Vegas hotel to be. There are polished marble floors, and dancing water fountains, and a fancy modern art gallery, and an indoor botanical garden. There are five different pools, an enormous spa, a million restaurants and shops, an amphibious stage where crazy contorting Canadians gyrate on a nightly basis, and a gigantic Chihuly sculpture featuring thousands of glass flowers hanging from the ceiling—all attached to a huge casino.

  Honestly, if I were designing paradise, I would use the Bellagio as a blueprint and then make some minor tweaks and adjustments from there. For example, I would definitely implement a no-smoking rule. And I might move the golf courses closer. But that’s about it. I stood there in the lobby underneath those Chihuly flowers and I thought to myself, “How the hell does this Chihuly guy have time to make massive glass floral installations for every major hotel in the world? Doesn’t he ever get stuck in traffic?” I consider my day well spent if I manage to get some letters in the mail and maybe change a lightbulb or two. That guy creates hundreds of cubic feet of top-notch art before breakfast.

  But I didn’t have time for jealousy or self-doubt. I had already heard the siren call of the casino. Those bells and chimes and clinks and clangs that drove Dostoyevsky to distraction were making me salivate like Charlie Sheen at a strip club. I wanted to dump my bags and hit the tables as soon as possible. Unfortunately, everyone else on the planet wanted the same thing. One thing about Las Vegas: every time I come here it has expanded exponentially in size. I have noticed literally two or three massive new hotels each time I arrive. And each time, everything is filled to capacity. It’s as if it doesn’t matter how big they make the town; it will always swell with hopeful tourists accordingly. And that’s when it’s over a hundred degrees outside. Can you imagine how popular this place would be if going outside didn’t involve the possibility of bursting into flames?

  I stood on line behind a sea of arriving tourists in order to check into my room. When I finally got to the front, I gave my name to the woman behind the desk. She punched some keys into the computer and announced that I was booked into one of their penthouse suites. She also suggested that if I needed any further assistance, I shouldn’t hesitate to check in with the hotel’s VIP services. She apologized profusely for having made me wait in this interminable line. I was liking the Bellagio more and more as she continued stroking me. Clearly my old Vegas client had taken care of me, but I wasn’t exactly sure to what extent. I nervously asked the lady how much the rate on the room was going to be. She assured me that the hotel would be happy to comp me to a suite for as long as I would honor them with my presence. I was now liking the Bellagio as much as one can possibly like anything. I had reached the absolute peak on the like meter and was almost in need of switching over to the love gauge.

  Thrilled, I headed off to the elevator bank to check out my new home for the next few months. I made a mental note to check in with my old client to ask him what kind of ridiculous lie he had fabricated in order to get me a free ride at the hotel. Was I supposed to pretend to be some dot-com whale eager to blow billions at the baccarat table? Did he tell them I was a Russian gangster laundering money earned selling illegal biological weapons to the Portuguese? Whatever it was, I was going to do my best to live up to it. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to convince anyone that I was a legit high roller, but I was willing to play whatever part I had to. Because I felt quite sure that I could definitely get used to the VIP lifestyle.

  The bellboy accompanied me up to the thirtieth floor. I have never been in an elevator that moved so fast in all my life. It was almost the opposite experience to Colin’s alcohol-fueled time travel. Instead of slowing things down, it seemed as if we magically teleported to the future. One moment we were in the lobby and the next we were on the top floor. It happened so quickly that it almost felt like we had arrived at the top floor before we had been in the lobby. In which case I guess we actually would have teleported to the past. Clearly, time was taking on a somewhat elastic quality during my travels. I decided not to mention any of this to the bellboy for fear that he might taser me repeatedly.

  He led me to my suite, opened the door, and allowed me to enter first. I am not too proud to admit that when I saw the room, I almost started crying. And that was a pretty great feeling. Because I had done my fair share of crying recently and absolutely none of those tears had been tears of joy because I had just been comped to an unbelievable penthouse suite. They were mostly tears of sorrow that my wife was banging some guy named David. But that was in the past—like the magical elevator ride.

  This hotel room wasn’t just large, it was stupid large. It was crazy large. It was large and in charge. It was larger than my college dorm, my first apartment, and my second apartment all put together. And I’m pretty sure that neither my college dorm nor either of my first two apartments had two bedrooms, a massive wall of windows, a whirlpool bath, or a walk-in steam room. I would have remembered something like that.

  I made a tight fist and dug my fingernails into my palm to avoid crying in front of the bellboy. I figured that ultra high rollers rarely wept in front of the hotel staff. It was now time to tip again. But I promised myself that there was not going to be a repeat performance of my embarrassing faltering tip with the valet. Since I was still operating under the assumption that I had to pretend to be some kind of big stakes player, I decided to tip the bellboy one hundred dollars. Somehow I managed to do this as if I had done it many times before—no dropped wallet or fumbling for bills or awkward exchanges. I just peeled off Ben Franklin and pressed him into my man’s hand. I believe I actually said, “That’s for you, kid.” Dean Martin couldn’t have tipped a bellboy with any more ease and style. I was already starting to relish my role as a player. The bellboy pocketed my C-note looking like a ten-year-old who just got a bicycle from Santa. He thanked me and insisted that if I needed anything at all I should ask for Paul. I assured him that I would. Paul left.

  I pulled open the curtains and looked out over the dancing water fountains, past the Paris Hotel’s Eiffel Tower, beyond the exploding volcano in front of the Mirage, and off into the distant mountain range. For a moment an intense feeling of satisfaction squeezed out every trace of the pain, rage, sadness, and disappointment with everything that had gone wrong with my life in New York. In another second, a lot of the misery squeezed back in. But just experiencing its absence for an instant filled me with hope for the future.

  I kicked off my shoes and scrunched up my toes in the deep shag rug like John McClane in Die Hard (the first one). I popped the cork on my bottle of complimentary champagne the hotel had thoughtfully left on ice and took a swig right from the neck. I stared out at the city and toasted my reflection in the window. It’s not often that a white man from Connecticut gets to say this, but I felt like I should be starring in a rap video.

  Continuing with my newfound self-image as the star of my own glossy, Hollywood studio blockbuster, I decided to get a little exercise. I did a few deep knee bends to limber up the old joints. Then I dropped to the shag for some push-ups. I thought I’d do fifty because that seemed to be the default number of push-ups that guys do in the movies. At around number fourteen I started having severe doubts about the whole endeavor. I struggled to a shaky twenty and called it a day. I threw some water on my face, clapped my hands a little more like an ecstatic trained seal, and told my reflection that the time had come. I headed down to the casino
. It was official: the Vegas portion of my yearlong journey of discovery and stupidity had begun.

  16

  When I told people that I was planning to disappear for the year and explore the world (or at least a few small slivers of it), they all had a lot of questions. To my surprise, the first question they asked was never “Why?” It was almost always “How are you going to pay for it?” I guess I should have been insulted that no one thought of me as a dashing, carefree millionaire who could effortlessly afford whatever capricious whim popped into my head. God knows there are a plenty of those guys in the ad business. I once worked for a company founded by a South African man who was so stupendously rich that he bought two Caribbean islands—one for his wife and one for his mistress. To his credit, the wife’s island was larger—but the mistress’s island was closer.

  But I was not one of those guys. I had always worked hard and made decent money. But I couldn’t afford to take a year off cruising around like a college kid whose daddy was paying for a semester at sea. I used that money I made to support myself and my wife in a style to which she became extremely accustomed.

  Anything “extra” I would set aside and place in an investment or savings account. There wasn’t a ton of extra money there, but over time it had built up respectably. There would be no Caribbean islands for anyone, but no one would be holding a fund-raiser for me either. I was never tempted to dip into my savings. They were clearly earmarked for a bold and brilliant—but completely undefined—future.