Chapter Ten

Ed's note: No pictures exist from this journey into the heart of the American Dream. It's a good thing, too. Here's chapter ten of Chasing Sunsets, my novel.

X.

Blissful ignorance almost always trumps over-thinking

“…For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood not desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Travel no more than two miles outside of the Las Vegas strip and you’ll believe you’re centuries away from the fun. North Las Vegas is run-down, low income homes, a liquor store on every corner, the dry desert heat smashing the pavement. The extremely poor living just a stones throw away from a place where billions are made every day. Few people see this part of Las Vegas because of the conveniently located airport a few miles from the strip, which doesn’t shuttle taxis past this part of town. The tourists would never know it existed. You won’t find directions to the Thai restaurant on East Washington Avenue on any map you buy on the strip.

We checked into New York, New York and brought our stuff up to the room. We would only be staying there one night, then we would move down the road to Treasure Island.

After sitting down for a relaxing dinner, we headed back into the room to shower and change, something the entire city of Las Vegas should have thanked us for. The air conditioner was used rarely on the drive during the day, so we essentially let the hot air into the car all day long. Combined with other stenches, we probably didn’t smell as good as we wished. While Marisa took her shower and did the essential “girl” stuff, Eric and I ventured down to the lobby for a drink.

The things people can get away with in Vegas blew my mind. The best words to describe the extent of the trouble a person can get into is that Las Vegas is a place where you can drink outside and smoke inside. A drink bought at one casino can be brought onto the street and into another. ID’s are checked as often as you see clocks, which is never. Flyers advertising “late-night visitors” to hotel rooms were passed out openly on the street, and I figured that the $49 an hour for “La-La” would probably end up with me getting way more than that in medical bills for an itchy dick. So, while the girl on the flyer looked like a tempting late night phone call, it’s best that we didn’t take any of these things too seriously.

After we all had cleaned up, we spent a good time wandering the streets and having drinks at each casino within a reasonable walking distance. Limos raced passed us, groups of girls – probably lawyers, teachers, and bankers in their other lives – screamed as they were hollered at by cars of guys trying their best to present themselves as high rollers. The real high rollers flaunt it very subtly.

Eric’s rule was that no gambling would go on unless we were suitably intoxicated. The idea, on the exterior, sounds like a terrible one. In essence, it suggests that you should risk winning or losing a large sum of money while unable to think logically or coherently. However, having a few drinks before sitting down at a table involves the logic of trusting your initial instincts. There would be very little second guessing. Trusting Eric based on his call to stop in Denver, we sat down at the MGM Mirage for a round of blackjack once we had sufficient drinks. Once we sat down, we would be getting free drinks anyway.

I’ve always been a recreational gambler. This started with my father bringing home “football cards” for me to play since I garnered the ability to read and understand football. Once those two things came into play, I was filling out cards, betting on spreads, and being all the more immersed in who was winning, who was losing, and by how much. The bets were never very big – maybe $5 to win $20 – but I won despite the fact my picks were based solely on the big name teams. When I started getting older and what I thought to be wiser, I started to up my bets, sometimes looking too deeply into the games and I began to lose more than I won. The truth of the matter is blissful ignorance almost always trumps over-thinking.

Now, I’ll bet on anything. Again, since I was very young I have been filling out an NCAA March Madness bracket. I’ve succeeded on numerous occasions in that arena, winning the entire pool a couple times in the past five years. I can make educated wagers on who’ll score first in the Super Bowl and who’ll win the French Open. I bet mostly on sports, but it is not entirely out of the question for me to bet on politics or whether or not it’s high tide or low tide. I’m beginning to think I have a minor problem.

So naturally, in Las Vegas, though I was inexperienced, I had to sit down at the table and pray for beginner’s luck.

We played at the $25 tables, starting with just $200. This way, we would either be out really early, or keep on for just the right amount of time. We’d play eight hands regardless. Eric and I had comparable luck, up and down, up and down for about an hour while Marisa wandered off to play slot machines. In a stroke of genius, she chose the machine closest to the bar so when the waitresses walked by, she could just pick up drinks right away. She disclosed this plan to us later when she stumbled upon our game smoking Marlboro menthols, a glassy look in her eyes.

Both Eric and I were up about $100, so I took my $200 and put it in my pocket. At least I could leave with what I started with. He was a little more liberal with his spending and let his winnings dwindle. I think he broke even that night. If not, he didn’t lose too much money.

Around 3:00 in the morning, Eric and Marisa were ready to hit the bed. We had been up for a good 20 straight hours. The drinks were starting to kick our asses, but I decided that I’d go for the gold with my remaining $50 or so. As they headed up for the hotel room (we were back at New York, New York at this point), I stopped in for a final couple hands of blackjack. My luck was running out, and I had lost the last few hands at the previous table, so I wanted to try my luck with another dealer.

I propped myself down for a duel with the dealer. There were about four or five other gamblers at the table. For those unaware, swearing at the tables in Vegas is strictly enforced. One strike gets you a warning, but depending on the dealer and the level of the offending word, they could boot someone off the table.

The pit boss was standing around the dealer just watching the action around. The first hand, I remember, I busted taking a chance on a 16 when the dealer had a 19. “Bullshit,” I mumbled to myself, but audibly enough that the pit boss gave me a discouraging “watch your language” look.

I placed my final $25 on the table for the next hand. Two queens, a 20, and a swipe of my hand to say “I’ll stay here, thank you” as the dealer moved around the table. I figured I had just won myself another hand, maybe even another Southern Comfort on the rocks, which I was drinking consistently since I landed a spot at the tables.

The dealer then drew himself a blackjack.

“No fucking way!” I screamed, motioning my hand in the direction of the dealer as if I was throwing a deck of cards directly at him. Realizing what I’d done, which was get myself thrown off the table, I threw my hands in the air as the pit boss politely walked in my direction and lifted his index finger, motioning my removal from the table.

“I’ll leave,” I said begrudgingly. Once I collected myself, I smiled at the pit boss and told him “sorry, I’m just a competitive person. I thought I had him beat.”

“Go to bed,” he responded.

This wasn’t the first time my language had gotten me thrown out of a place. My sophomore year in high school, my relay team was ranked number one of all the freshmen and sophomore teams in the state. Heading into the annual state freshmen-sophomore meet, our team was pretty cocky. Since the relay wasn’t the only event I was entered in, my first race was the 300 meter dash. I ran a pretty good race, in the lead heading into the final stretch in the preliminary heat. As the final ten yards approached, I hit a wall and was subsequently passed at the finish line. Again, the f-word got the best of me as I screamed, “Fuck!” upon crossing the line. I was thrown out of the meet for lack of sportsmanship, and, amazingly, my coach, much like the pit boss in Vegas, didn’t buy the “I’m a competitor” excuse as the relay team couldn’t compete due to lack of a full squad.

I got lost on my way back to the room, but I had two $100 chips in my pocket, which was a moral victory for me. Once I found my way back to the hotel room, Eric and Marisa were out cold. I put my chips on the nightstand, so that I could wake up to the sight of two black chips staring me in the face, reminding me that beginners luck wasn’t a bad thing after all.