Fat Old Woman in Las Vegas: Gambling, Dieting and Wicked Fun (12 page)

He said, “Okay, then. Let us know if anyone comes back.”

“Wait, a minute,” I insisted as he walked toward the door. “Can’t you check the cameras? I write mysteries and …”

“Cameras?” he asked.

“Surveillance cameras. Don’t casinos have video cameras all over the place.”

He said nonchalantly, “Nah, we just have them in a few of the hallways.” But then added proudly, “But they’re all over the casino.”

I wanted to answer
,
Good! At least you know your slot machines are safe.

Instead, I said firmly, “I don’t want to stay here. There’s no way I can sleep in this room.”

“Call the front desk,” he told me.

Over the phone, I was given an hour deadline to pack my bags and vacate. The hotel’s key system is so automated and computerized the front desk was able to change the magnetic strip key card to work for my new room in Tower Two.

I hung up the phone and looked around the room. Crap. An hour seemed too short of a time. I’d have to somehow cram everything into my luggage, pack my sleep machine and meds carefully, without forgetting anything. An hour may seem like a long time, but not when you’re old, obese and have to pick up half of your clothing from the floor. It took me forty-five minutes to finally leave the room.

By the time I reached the lobby, the casino was jam packed with revelers. Hoots and hollers were bouncing off the machines and card tables. Dings and electronic celebrations competed with loud drunks or just plain way too happy irritating people. Everyone seemed to have either a cigarette or a drink in hand, sometimes both. I maneuvered my way around thousands of people, pulling my luggage, while taking up more space than a human being is normally allowed.

Tower Two was on the other side of the gaming floor. My deluded mind, pictured a thirty-year old and way slimmer me, pulling my luggage and looking cute, sexy and available. In reality, I was a two hundred and twenty-five pound woman, huffing like she’d just run a marathon. Yet, I walked slower than a hundred-year old limping turtle with corns.

When I finally entered the room in Tower Two, I dead bolted it shut. It took me only a few minutes to duct tape the peephole, put two armchairs, the waste basket, the floor lamp, and the foldable luggage rack against the door.

Finally, I felt safe again. I was asleep within a matter of minutes.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family in the ’50s, Easter meant two things to me: a new dress for church and a candy-filled basket. I was more excited about the packaged goodies hidden behind green cellophane than the story of Jesus. Even as a young girl, I leaned toward the dark side, especially if it included chocolate.

When I woke up Easter morning in Las Vegas, a tinge of guilt hit me about not planning to attend church that day. That surprised me. I hadn’t attended services on a regular basis in five decades. I’d long identified myself as the prodigal daughter who’d never bothered to return. Yet, Easter in Vegas had me haunted by the image of close-knit families worshipping together.

Perhaps I could just drop by a casino chapel to say “Hi there” to whatever gods might be hanging around? Hopefully, the chapels were open twenty-four seven. If not, they should have been. More urgently uttered and heartfelt prayers were raised in a casino than any place on earth.

All I knew was that I needed to get away from the strip. I was feeling the need for a calming environment. A place, as they say in Vegas hype, where “the locals go.”

There were two free shuttle options to get off the strip. One shuttle carried riders to Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall, a casino resort that catered to the working class. The other shuttle took gamblers to the far more elegant M Resort, located in the affluent Southern Highlands neighborhood. Over coffee, I kept debating at which casino to spend my day.

My brother’s face flashed before me. I remembered him telling me over and over how Sam’s Town was one of his favorite places. It wasn’t a question for me anymore. I’d head to Sam’s.

For a change, I actually listened to what a family member had once told me.

Thank God, I did.

∞

I’ll call him Mel.

The shuttle to Sam’s Town originates in the covered parking lot behind Harrah’s. Arriving fifteen minutes early, I waited on the hard plastic bench. An older woman sat down besides me and immediately buried her head in a tattered paperback. I strained to see the title.
The Fault in Our Stars
, a smattering of drama and sadness mixed in with triumph of spirit, appropriate for the ride.

A crowd began to form. A few would-be riders asked nervously if they had missed the 10:15 a.m. departure. I reassured them they hadn’t. Gamblers and old people get antsy. Five minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, it pulled into the parking space in front of me. A slew of passengers filed out. They were more than likely Sam’s Town guests who would spend the day gambling on the strip.

The other casino, the one you are not playing at, is always the lucky one.

I stumbled up to be first in line. It’s not that I thought I deserved priority seating. Instead, I love a driver who not only chatters but shares stories that only he would know. As usual, I will ask a gazillion questions, as if my true identity is Pat Dennis, Girl Reporter. I managed to grab the seat directly behind the driver.

Mel pulled out of the parking garage and maneuvered the large vehicle through the narrow road behind the casino. Eventually we were riding through Las Vegas neighborhoods of pawnshops, strip malls, fast food joints, and pay day loan establishments, each accented with swaying palm trees in front.

I started off the conversation with Mel. “How long have you been driving?”

“Seventeen years,” he answered, slowing to a halt at a red light. “Started driving a shuttle bus the month after I moved to Vegas.”

“Were you born here?”

“Nope.”

“And you like driving a bus?”

“It’s great,” he answered. “Best job ever. I used to drive to the airport but for the last few years, I’ve been doing casino runs.”

“It must be a lot of fun.”

“It is,” he answered. “Way better than the airport run. Folks are rarely happy when they leave Vegas.”

I nodded in understanding. For a year of my life, I worked as a stand-up comic on tour buses going from Minneapolis to various casinos throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. Thirty minutes before the tour bus would arrive at the casino, I’d perform a twenty-minute stand-up routine.

The bus gigs were some of the best I’ve had in my comedy career. Comedy is meant to be close and personal. And there’s nothing more intimate than standing in a bus aisle, a cordless mic in your hand as you tell jokes from seat to seat.

I learned fairly quickly to only do my routine on the way to the casino, and never on the return trip. The chance of the captured audience being in a good mood on their way to a casino was a no-brainer. Coming back? Not so much. In fact, never. On the way back, I’d hide in the back seat, my face buried in a newspaper to avoid anyone asking for their tip back.

I decided to get serious with Mel, the Sam’s Town driver. I asked. “Everyone talks about the winners. Got a special story about a loser?”

The older gentleman who sat across the aisle interrupted. I gathered he and Mel were former co-workers. The man retired from shuttle driving two years earlier.

“There was one lady I’ll always remember,” Bob said. “It was when I was driving an airport shuttle around ten years ago. I pulled up to the bus stop and loaded a dozen or so passengers. She just stood on the sidewalk, next to her luggage, looking dazed and hopeless.”

Bob knew how to tell a story. He paused for dramatic effect. Eventually I asked, “What happened?”

He continued, “She told me she couldn’t pay for the ride to the airport. She didn’t have any money. I told her I couldn’t let her ride for free. I’d get fired.”

This time Mel said, “I know you, Bob. What did you do? You wouldn’t leave her standing there on the corner.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t. The woman was older than me, for Pete’s sake. I slipped her a five and told her to give it back to me on the bus. That way it’d look like she paid her own way. Surveillance camera,” he explained.

“A surveillance camera on the bus?” I asked.

“Yep,” he nodded.

So basically security cams are everywhere in Las Vegas except the hallway outside my hotel room. Gheesh!

Bob continued, “On the ride to the airport, she said she was a retired nurse. It was her first visit to Las Vegas. First time she ever gambled.”

Mel said, “That’s not good.”

“It wasn’t. She played craps, badly. Within two weeks, she maxed out all of her credit cards, and managed to empty out her savings account of forty-four grand. All she had left was a plane ticket home.”

“Wow,” I said, realizing there, but for having an actual career with a pension fund, go I.

Bob said, “I heard from her six months later.”

“Really?” I asked.

“She’d asked for my name and address. She promised to pay me back the five bucks.”

“Did she?”

“She mailed me a check for fifty bucks. I didn’t cash it. Vegas had taken advantage of her. I didn’t want to do the same.”

∞

I like Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall. The architecture is playful with a wild-west theme. Designed to resemble an old time western town, it managed to include an eighteen-screen cinema and a fifty-six-lane bowling alley as part of its allure.

Sam’s promotes itself as a place locals like to go, the implication being Vegas residents have an inside scoop on gambling. I prefer to think it’s because the locals, who are often employed in the tourist industry, frankly get tired of tourists. I know I would. One too many angry and disappointed Real Housewives of New Jersey gamblers would drive me over the edge fairly quickly.

The gamblers on Easter were sparse. I’d been at Sam’s before and the place was always hopping. It was a religious holiday. Perhaps the townies were attending church, just like my mom always said I should do.

A sting of latent fundamentalist dread hit me. I’d totally forgotten about my decision to visit the chapel at the Excalibur. Now, it was too late. I was checked out of the Ex and my luggage was waiting to be claimed later at The Paris bellhop station.

I roamed around for a few minutes and ended up at the twenty-five thousand square foot open-air atrium named Mystic Falls. Sam’s Town’s indoor park contained tall living trees, babbling brooks, animatronic woodland animals and chirping birds. A river flowed through the park and ended at a gigantic rippling waterfall. Directly in front of the waterfall, a wedding was taking place.

When I saw a wedding officiate holding a bible in his hands, I smiled. I had ended up at a church service after all.

A small group of family members were gathered, watching the ceremony. The young bride and her beau held hands and listened to the minister talk about not entering the marriage lightly, but reverently.

The bride wore a white satin, strapless ball gown. Her waistline was encrusted with red and silver beading. Her three bridesmaids wore the exact same gown but in red satin while the beading at the waistline was white and silver. The groom and his men were sharp in their black tuxedos and red cummerbunds. But it was the ring bearer that made me tear up.

The boy reminded me of my nephew, fifty-some years earlier. He was the typical four-year old who thrived on mischief. If the young boy could do what he wanted to do at the moment, it would be running around the park at full-speed or climbing its trees to the highest limbs. It was obvious he’d only agreed to do the wedding gig if he could do it his way. Over the four-year old’s tiny tuxedo was his red Superman cape.

The moment the groom kissed the bride, the crowd broke into applause and I headed to the gaming floor. Seeing a family wedding was a pleasant way to start the day. Watching a ceremony filled with hope for the future made me happy.

I was about to get a whole lot happier.

Buffalo Stampede is one of my favorite games to play. Although it is a “penny machine” the minimum bet is seventy-five cents. Still, if the wheels line up just right, the payoff can be enormous. I decided to slip in two twenties and let the fun begin.

In the early ’80s, thousands of my quarters were lost to playing Pac Man. On one comedy trip in North Dakota, two comedians forcibly stopped me from playing a crane claw machine. Before they’d arrived, I’d lost a hundred bucks trying to win a three-dollar stuffed animal.

Buffalo Stampede has that same draw for me. Not only does a herd of buffalo charge at the player at certain times during the game, there are bonuses with chances to retrigger automatically. Back on the plains, I’ve won as many as eighty-five games in a bonus, and as much as five hundred dollars.

The design consists of four-wheels and five columns of images including wolves, antelopes, cougars, and more. The audio is a mixture of eagles screeching or the sound of a buffalo herd stampeding. In the bonus round, all of the wild symbols pay two times, three times or four times the amount on the machine, and makes a major difference in the win amount.

I was down to the last dollar from my initial forty, when I hit the bonus round. Eight free games! I retriggered immediately when two gold coins appeared. After that, the retriggers kept coming. And so did the wins. By the time of the last bonus spin, I was up $654.50.

I rushed to the cashier and traded in my ticket for cash. Six hundred dollar bills ended up in the zippered compartment of my purse. Once I could breathe fairly normally again, I hunted down the Firelight Buffet. It was time to eat.

∞

Easter Sunday’s Champagne Brunch, including the bubbly, was only $13.99. But the low price didn’t really matter. I still had two hundred sixty dollars in cash left from my daily ATM withdrawal. Plus, the six hundred dollar jackpot from the Buffalo Stampede was barricaded in my wallet behind zippers and firmly clasped diaper pins. Deducting the cost and a five-dollar tip to the server, I had close to nine hundred dollars.

Not only was I rich, but I was on a
bona fide
winning streak. Maybe I’d even break my four thousand dollar record by the end of the day.

It could happen!

The line for the Firelight Buffet was surprisingly short. Within a few minutes I was grabbing a slab of Easter ham and slamming it onto my plate. I added a mountain of Brussels sprouts, green beans
almondine,
and fresh organic greens with olive oil and vinegar drizzled on top. Even with the egg white veggie omelet I planned on eating in my second round of food consumption, I’d still be within my calorie count for the day.

The table I sat at provided stuffed bench seating on one side and a chair on the other. It provided a perfect view of the milling crowds around the food stations. The clientele were either senior citizens or young families, taking advantage of a holiday feast for so little cost. A few of the tiniest girls wore Easter bonnets.

The number of single eaters equaled the parties of two or more. Las Vegas is a town where you can eat alone, and not feel like an odd duck. Though, not for a second, was that a guarantee for not feeling lonely.

“Having a good day?” I asked the woman seated a few feet away from me on the stuffed seating.

“Not really,” she muttered in repressed fury.