Drink, Play, F@#k

by Andrew Gottlieb

  After my wife left me, I discovered that the future was now. Because within a week I began to notice that my financial ship had suddenly sprung a leak. My wife was taking money out of the extra accounts faster than I had ever put any in.

  Ever since we met, I never begrudged her anything. From the first moment that we were together, I shared everything I had with her. Her name was on the deed to our apartment and our country house. She was even listed on the pink slip for my Volvo SUV, and she never even drove it. Her cars—the BMWs and then, after her semispiritual awakening, her Toyota Prius—were always hers and hers alone (even though I paid for them). She also had unlimited and equal access to all of our funds. I never took exception to the fact that I would work hard, save, and invest—and then she would go to Canyon Ranch with her friends for a week and gut punch our credit cards. I never fought with her about money once. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t concerned sometimes. Just knowing that she was burning big bills at a luxury spa made me nervous. I would walk to work and eat ramen for dinner hoping to offset the expenditures in some small way. But I never held that against her or threw it in her face.

  When I saw what she was up to after she left, however, my mind-set shifted slightly. There was no way I was going to sit idly by and let her spend all the money I’d made while she rode David’s baloney pony. What the hell did she suddenly need twenty-five thousand dollars for? A titanium broom and platinum pointy witch’s hat? I couldn’t believe that she was doing this to me. I felt like a character in an especially crappy John Updike short story. Well, I wasn’t going to take it any longer. I decided that it would be duplicitous (and possibly illegal) to suddenly shift the money to a different account with just my name on it. But I felt it would be the very essence of justice to withdraw as much cash as I could get my hands on and use it to fund my fun.

  So the answer to the question “how could I afford my travels?” is that I couldn’t. I could pay for them only because I was blowing all the money that I had set aside for my future to enjoy my present. Just like Albert Brooks in Lost in America, I now found myself in Las Vegas gambling my nest egg. Of course, I had already been in Ireland drinking my nest egg. At least in Vegas I had an outside shot of getting some of it back. So between my wife siphoning the accounts and my harebrained scheme to drop out of the rat race, my savings were disappearing quickly. When you consider that I had quit my job and was now an aging, slightly unbalanced advertising executive in a world that probably didn’t even need young, totally balanced advertising executives, you may begin to realize what a precarious position I was in.

  But as I took the world’s fastest elevator down to the casino floor, I wasn’t even remotely concerned about any of that. I had five thousand dollars in cash in my pocket, Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” blasting in my brainpan, and I was ready to give the Bellagio the beating of a lifetime.

  The elevator doors opened and I allowed the sights and sounds of a first-class casino in full swing to wash over me. Here’s a partial list of what I took in during my first moments out on the casino floor:

  An old, obese lady with prodigious rolls of neck fat, wearing a green-on-green pantsuit, sitting on a bright red motorized scooter, was pressing the “max credits” button on a slot machine over and over without ever looking up, without ever touching the cigarette that dangled from her lips and was growing desperately close to burning her face, and without ever hitting a single payout in the entire time I watched her (about three minutes).

  All I heard was an absolute wall of sound. Phil Spector would have been impressed (if he weren’t so deranged). I could not pick up a scintilla of silence anywhere in the dense aural tapestry of ringing bells, clinking coins, piped-in music, joyful shrieks, and desperate wails.

  A tall, thin cowboy-looking guy with a sleeveless Harley-Davidson T-shirt and faded jeans sat down at a nearby roulette table and placed four purple ($500) chips in front of him. He bet them each, one by one, on black. Red hit three times. Then double-zero (green) hit. The tall man stood up and reached into his pocket. I thought it was fifty-fifty that he was going for either more chips or a pistol. Instead he pulled out a five-dollar bill, tossed it to the dealer, and walked away. He never said a word to anyone.

  Three thick-necked, twenty-something guys wearing khaki shorts, sweatshirts, and baseball caps with various team logos on them were heading toward the exit. The one on the right was jokingly telling everyone in front of him to step aside. The one in the middle was grinning widely.The one on the left was pounding the one in the middle on the back with an open palm. He was yelling the following: “That was the sickest shit I ever saw, bro!” He said this at least three times. They left the casino. I do not know what “sick shit” he was referring to.

  A young boy who looked to be around eight years old wandered down a carpeted path that led through a block of slot machines toward the table games. He was staring at the ceiling (which, in his defense, was pretty impressive, filled as it was with “eyes in the sky”). After a moment a woman who must have been his mother grabbed him by the arm and slapped his face. “You can’t be over here, Devin! I told you to wait by the fountain.” Before the boy could explain himself, the woman asked if he’d spent his ice cream money. Devin hadn’t—which was too bad because the woman demanded it back and sent him off to wait at the fountain again. I did not stick around long enough to find out whether or not the ice cream money bore fruit.

  At the same time that the thin cowboy got felted, a stunning young Asian woman with an Asian boyfriend wearing a polo shirt with the collar popped hit the double-zero hard. She had around twenty five-dollar chips that paid off to varying degrees. Her total bet of $100 must have yielded at least $1,500. I don’t think she quite understood what had happened when her number hit. But, as the dealer slid the large ziggurat of chips she just won toward her, she let out one of the six most lengthy and piercing screams that I have ever heard in my life. If she ever wins the Super Lotto, I’m sure everyone in the galaxy will know about it instantaneously.

  These vignettes are merely momentary observations. If I had taken a photograph of the scene at the far edge of the casino closest to the elevator banks, I’m sure I could describe fifty other moments like these. There’s always something happening on the floor. And always is in no way hyperbolic. There’s never nothing going on in a Vegas casino. At every second of every day, at least one person is gambling somewhere in every casino. I have no facts to back this up, but I’d lay ten to one that it’s true. There really aren’t any mirrors at casinos. And there are no clocks. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they pump in pure oxygen, as some people have suggested. The casino bosses don’t want anyone to see how haggard they really look, or know what time it is, or get too sleepy. They want you chasing that dragon at all times and they’ll do everything in their power to keep the chase going twenty-four hours a day.

  As it turns out, they don’t really have to do too much in their power. The absence of mirrors and clocks does the trick for me. When I’ve got a good gambling vibe going I lose all sense of time within about fifteen minutes. If the tables are running hot, what difference does it make if it’s four in the afternoon or four in the morning? It’s not like I have to get to work. When I was in Vegas, I became a vampire. I gambled instead of drinking blood. And instead of avoiding sunlight, I avoided ever not being inside a casino. When the time came where I could no longer avoid the overwhelming need to rest, I would repair to my two-bedroom penthouse coffin and grab some shut-eye.

  But this first moment on the floor wasn’t about rest, it was about kicking off the action with a bang. I could already see what Rick had meant about playing the slots at the airport. I felt like a moron for wasting all that time that could now still be stretching out before me—so that I could waste it here. What should my first move be? High-stakes roulette? Should I navigate the mysterious waters of Caribbean stud? Perhaps a visit to the Orient with some Pai Gow poker?

  But then it was as if the skies par
ted and the sun shone down on a newly vacated seat at a twenty-five-dollar-minimum blackjack table. The assembled players looked like a hearty bunch of good-natured scoundrels. The dealer seemed an honest soul—as dedicated to making me a winner as I was to not letting him down. As I drew near, I noticed that his name tag read, “Onald.” I don’t know why I took this as a good sign, as opposed to an obvious typo.

  “Mind if I play in midshoe?” I asked the others at the table. Usually it’s considered poor form to start playing blackjack before the dealer finishes the deal, shuffles the cards, and sets up a new shoe. I guess some people think that it throws the luck out of whack. So I always ask. The last thing I want is some angry Korean grandmother giving me the stink eye all night because she thinks I stole her queen of diamonds. But everyone encouraged me to hop right in. As Onald converted my initial $500 offering into twenty green $25 chips, he wished me good luck.

  “Onald,” I said. “If I win big tonight, I’m going to buy you an R for your first name.”

  Onald looked at me without any reaction whatsoever. I think he was from the Philippines so it’s possible that he didn’t understand my attempt at humor. Of course, it’s far more possible that it just wasn’t funny. But my philosophy of talking to dealers is that it’s not always so important to be funny. The important thing is to say completely crazy things and to never stop saying them.

  Gambling has a lousy reputation as a silent, introspective, solitary, and selfish pursuit. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is that talking really is one of the most fun parts about gambling in a casino. Playing these games loosens the tongue for almost everyone. The free cocktails also help. But there’s an openness of exchange that happens at a casino that doesn’t happen everywhere. Complete strangers high-five each other when the dealer busts or someone hits a twenty-one. Deranged shouting, howling, singing, joking, and pleading isn’t just tolerated—it’s encouraged. Craps players holler at the dice, pleading for them to land on “puppy’s paws” (two fives). When the dealer shows sixteen and takes a card, seemingly mild-mannered housewives shriek at him to “Break! Break, damn you!” When high rollers are placing hundred-dollar bets at roulette, they’ve been known to exhort the dealers to “Hit them cupcakes with some chocolate sprinkles, baby!”

  When I went to work in New York City every morning, and when I came home every afternoon, I must have passed a total of at least one million people. I never said a word to any of them. But five minutes in a casino and I’m best friends with the dude from Senegal sitting to my right. And I’m asking the pit boss about where’s the best place to buy some pork chops at five in the morning. We may never see each other again, but while we’re shoulder to shoulder playing hard, we’re sharing something real.

  Playing at a casino is a lot like drinking in a good Irish pub that way. The chips and the beer, the money and the whiskey are almost beside the point. Sure, we wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the chips, the beer, the money, and the whiskey, but the reason we keep coming back—the reason we stay so long—is because we’re all having such a goddamned good time together. That’s why I never got seduced by online gambling. If I wanted to make money depressed and alone staring at a computer monitor all day, I’d just go to the office.

  I start my Las Vegas casino gambling sojourn small. I bet the table minimum, twenty-five dollars. My first two cards are a nine and a three. The dealer shows a two. I’m a big believer in “the book.” I’ve never actually read the book. I don’t even know if there really is a book. There are probably thousands of them, all completely contradictory. But over the years I have internalized certain rules for all these different games. And, in my heart of hearts, these rules compromise the book. They’re what you’re “supposed” to do. And in my book, you always hit a twelve once—and only once—when the dealer shows a two. I have never bothered to learn whether or not there is any mathematical validity to this technique. But you simply don’t mess with the book.

  Onald peels off a three for me, and I wave him off telling him I’m going to stand pat. Onald flips up his hole card—a ten of clubs. As he reaches for the next card out of the shoe, I shout out a well-meaning “Over the falls, Onald!” Onald deals himself a Jack of diamonds. He has a twenty-two. He has busted. He has indeed gone over the falls. There is some small rejoicing at the table as Onald pays us out. He places a new green twenty-five-dollar chip next to the original twenty-five-dollar chip that I just bet.

  I have just doubled my money in Vegas. Life is good.

  I decide to play what I like to call a modified Kogen. This is a system of betting that probably makes no sense whatsoever but one that I think I heard about from someone who seemed to know what he was talking about. The nuts and bolts of it are as follows: if I win three hands in a row, I double my bet. If I lose a hand, I scale back all the way down to my original bet. And that’s the modified Kogen. So, after that initial twenty-five-dollar win, I pulled the winnings off the table and risked my initial twenty-five again. I won. Then I won for a third time, so I pumped my bet up to fifty dollars. I won again.

  On the next hand, Lady Luck saw fit to bestow upon me a blackjack featuring a luscious queen of hearts and an elegant ace of spades. I was now up two hundred dollars. Although if I counted my losses at the airport, I was actually down one hundred dollars overall. I decided that I better cut that shit out. If I was going to spend four months in Vegas, there was no way I could keep a constant running count of how much I was up or down. I was just going to play and have fun. I’d worry about profit or loss at a later date. Besides, the actual numerical amount you are up or down has very little to do with whether or not you’re a winner in Vegas.

  We’re now heading into an extremely complex and theoretical discussion about abstract mathematics. I like to call it “Vegas math.” There are plenty of brilliant math geniuses in the casinos of Las Vegas. Guys like Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth can compute the odds of winning a pot or pulling a two-outer to make the nut flush in a heartbeat. But that’s not the kind of math I’m talking about. You don’t have to be a genius to grasp “Vegas math.” Here—I’ll break it down for you.

  Say you went to Vegas with $3,000. You lost it all, and then you withdrew another $1,000 as a cash advance on one of your credit cards. You blew $850 of that. You probably would have gambled away your last $150, but you were late for your flight home and your friends forced you to leave. According to conventional math, you lost $3,850 (plus the interest you’re being charged by those bloodsuckers at your credit card company who really nail you for those cash advances).

  But according to Vegas math those numbers are very different. Sure, you lost $3,850. But how much fun did you have? Did you get comped to go see O? You did, didn’t you? And it kicked ass, right? And how about those steaks for dinner on Tuesday? They were awesome! And then when you and your buddies got wrecked and Josh tried to jump across the canal at the Venetian? That was hilarious! And what about that smoking hot chick who grabbed your ass when you asked her to blow on your dice? How much was that worth? Well, I’ll tell you how much: $12,000. That’s right—according to my calculations, you had $12,000 worth of fun. So when we subtract $3,850 from that we discover that you went to Las Vegas and you actually won $8,150! Congratulations!

  Strangely there is no converse corollary to Vegas math. If you actually won $12,000 at a poker tournament, but you had a really shitty time, then you still won $12,000. I’m telling you—it’s a wonderful place.

  I kept my hot streak going at Onald’s blackjack table for a few hours. Even though they kept filtering in new dealers, I still thought of the table as Onald’s. And every time he shifted back in, I would great him like a long-lost brother—from the Philippines. My modified Kogen did me proud. I got up to betting two hundred dollars a hand three different times. By the end of the night when I was too exhausted and jet-lagged to think straight, I had a nice stack of greens and blacks in front of me. I thanked my fellow
players and wished them a good evening. Then I tipped Onald some chocolate (a black one-hundred-dollar chip) and asked him to color me up. He thanked me and slid back a respectable stack of purple five-hundred-dollar chips, which I shoved in my pockets.

  The hypervator hurled me back to my penthouse suite and I tumbled into my giant and supremely comfortable bed. I knew that there would be many more twists and turns in my upcoming journey—some would be good, some would probably suck. But day one in Las Vegas had been about as great as I ever could have imagined. I had to just enjoy the good, and I’d deal with the sucky if and when it happened. As my head hit the pillow, I was surprised to find myself thinking about Alicia. She seemed like the kind of person who would have gotten a real kick out of a day like today. But why the hell was I thinking about her? I barely knew the woman. I never even got her phone number or her e-mail address. What an idiot. I should have asked for her card. Fortunately, I was too tired and too content to beat myself up about it. I pushed her out of my mind. After all, I’d never see her again. “Today was a good day,” I told myself as Elvis Presley continued to sing “Viva Las Vegas” in my brain. I closed my eyes and slept the sleep of the innocent, the lucky, and the happy.

  17

  The next day I got demolished.

  Everything started out as wonderfully as the previous day had ended. I got up around noon in total darkness. All I heard was the low, steady whirr of the air-conditioning unit, which was maintaining the interior temperature of my suite at a delectable sixty-eight degrees. I’m sure that I was single-handedly deforesting at least an acre of rain forest, but when it comes to AC I’m not a tree hugger, I’m a Bush hugger. Call me a Neanderthal reactionary, but I consider conditioned air to be one of my inalienable rights. I’ll bring my own fabric bag to the supermarket, and I can recycle with the best of them—but I will not forsake the Freon-cooled air that made this country great.