Fat Old Woman in Las Vegas: Gambling, Dieting and Wicked Fun (13 page)

I didn’t know whether to pursue the conversation or not. There were times when my depression was stopped in its tracks by a mere hello from a stranger. Other times, a hint of a friendly salutation would send me deeper into despair.

“It’s bound to get better,” I told her cheerfully. “It’s a holiday.”

“I hate holidays,” she answered.

I couldn’t help but laugh loudly. I answered, “To be totally honest, I do too.”

And with that we two old curmudgeonesses bonded and chatted gleefully about life’s disappointments and how we’d each soon have our foot in the grave.

And not a moment too soon!
She said with a chuckle.

It turned out to be a good casino lunch, after all.

My manically good mood was still in full rev when I returned to gaming. I never played max bets or dollar machines unless I played with ‘their money’. But I was in the black, and feeling fine. Besides, if I gambled more than usual, it wasn’t a big deal. After all it was their money I was playing with, not mine.

No one was seated at either of the Megabucks progressive dollar machines. That surprised me. Gamblers were very superstitious and often believed that lightning would strike twice. Only three weeks earlier seventy-eight-year old Trinidad Torres won $10.7 million at the Westgate on a Megabucks progressive.

The story was all over the web. Headlines were somewhat brutal, in my opinion. One site blasted across its webpage,
Elderly Utah Woman hits $10.7 million jackpot in Las Vegas
.

But then, with the amount of money at stake, I don’t know if I’d actually be bothered by my potential headline:
Fat Old Woman in Las Vegas wins millions.

A few million would certainly help to heal an injured age-conscious ego.

Five twenties were fed into the slot. If I was going to go for the big one, I might as well start big. I hit max play and watched the wheel spin. When it finally stopped, nothing. Not a dime.

Like a good solider, I continued to battle. I’d win a little and then lose a lot. It took me a little more than ten minutes to see zero credits registered on the machine. I was about to leave in a huff when a woman sat down beside me to play. My competitive nature took hold. What if she won the moment I walked away? I’d be ticked off at myself for giving up.

One hundred and sixty dollars, the rest of my day’s allowance, waited in my side pocket. I didn’t have to undo a single diaper pin to access it. The real money stash—the six hundred dollars—was safely hidden away.

I slid the entire one hundred and sixty dollars in the machine and hit max again. Within a half hour I was swearing nonstop as I headed outdoors. I’d lost every cent of my daily allowance.

The shuttle bus back to the strip was scheduled to arrive in twenty minutes. I plopped my body on a concrete bench and spent a few minutes chastising myself for chastising myself. I was still way ahead for the day. There were still six big ones in my possession. There was no reason to feel guilty. It’s not like I spent every dime I had on me.

Suddenly, I realized I didn’t have any money in my pocket to tip the shuttle driver. Though it wasn’t a requirement, I refuse to ride in a shuttle bus, van, or taxi, or eat in a restaurant unless I can tip. I worked too long and too hard in the service industry in my twenties and thirties not to leave a gratuity.

Ten minutes later, I removed the first of the one hundred dollar bills hidden away. It took me only a few hours more to lose five hundred and eighty-five dollars. I had only fifteen bucks left when I finally boarded the shuttle van in defeat. I tipped the driver three dollars and clung onto my last twelve. I still needed to tip the bellman at the Paris and find some sort of cheap, healthy dinner. I was completely out of cash until the next morning when I could access the ATM machine.

What would have happened if I’d chosen to spend the day at the M resort? I wondered over and over, berating myself for making what I thought was a bad decision.

I found out when I turned on a local television station hours later.

∞

Paris Hotel

By the time I checked into the Paris hotel, the sky was black and the streets were lined with a river of lights. Outside the front doors, a massive glass and neon replica of a hot air balloon with the single word Paris written in lighted cursive script served as the hotel’s marquee. Next to it, a brightly lit, five hundred -forty-one-foot-tall Eiffel Tower doppelganger shone like a welcoming beacon.

I’d settled comfortably into my room at the Paris. The décor was a bold salute to all things French. Deep blue carpeting, striped wallpapered walls, rich fabrics and dark wood comforted me after the day’s loss. I nibbled away at a salad and clicked on the television. The breaking news caused my heart to skip a beat. My eyes rolled immediately upward and thanked whatever God was watching over me. I’d made the right decision after all on where I spent my day, even if I’d lost all my money at Sam’s Town.

A man had shot himself in the head at the buffet line at the M Resort. According to the newscaster, the buffet was packed at the time. As soon as the shots rang out, confusion and panic spread. Customers ducked under tables or ran out of the buffet screaming. A few just sat in sheer, frozen panic.

The event had happened a few hours earlier. I opened my iPad and searched the Internet. It was still too early for a complete story but I knew there would be people posting on the web, already filling in the details, correctly or not.

The victim was fifty-three-year old John Noble, a man who’d sent a two hundred and seventy-page manifesto to a local news outlet, as well as a DVD voicing his frustrations at the M Resort. He’d also posted YouTube videos.

Five years earlier, Noble won an Eat - for - Free - for - Life Pass at the Studio B Buffet at the M Resort. Two years later it was revoked by the M. According to the reports, Noble supposedly had been banned for harassing female employees.

He tried to pursue legal action, but couldn’t afford a lawyer. Not one single attorney in Las Vegas would take it on as a pro bono case. Eventually, Noble’s depression and rage got to him. He claimed he wanted the world to know what he’d suffered. And he did just that on Easter Sunday, a day when the M was filled with guests and families.

The story disturbed me deeply. I understand depression all too well. I’ve suffered from it since I was a child. I remember being in fourth grade, sitting alone on a playground, wishing I were dead. Or more to the fact, that I’d never been born. I’ve fought the battle of dark moods and debilitating depression all of my life. As a young girl I felt my spirit shatter when my mother told me “being crazy” ran in my family. I knew she was talking about me.

For the rest of the evening in The Paris, I sat alone, staring out the hotel window. The faux Eiffel Tower was in my view as well as a million flashing lights from the rest of the city. The Las Vegas suicide rate was one of the highest in the nation. Much of it, I assumed was gambling related.

Taking one’s own life over lost wages and dreams does not just happen in the desert. A cop friend once told me the roads in front of casinos across the nation are lined with suicides. They are never reported by the news outlets out of “respect” for the victim. Not to mention the effect on a casino’s revenue if they were reported.

Suicide happens for many reasons. Even those with a rosy financial future and not an addiction in sight, take their own lives. But still, I had to wonder why I was so attracted to competing in a world where taking one’s own life was often the end result.

The chirping of annoyingly loud fake crickets stirred me out of my slumber, reminding me one more time to change my friggin’ ringtone. “Hello,” I mumbled. It was 6:08 a.m.

“You still sleeping? I figured you’d be up,” my husband said, no hint of an apology in sight.

“Time difference,” I answered, rubbing my eyes.

“You see the news this morning?”

“Ah, you just woke me up,” I reminded him.

“There was a suicide at the M yesterday. A man blew his head off in the buffet line.”

“Well, I don’t think it was blown off, but yeah, I saw the report. Sad. Where did you see it?”

“TV, on the Daily Mail web site. It’s all over the news.”

“Really?” I responded before changing the subject. I’d already put too much energy into thinking about John Noble’s demise. “What are you up to today?”

Our conversation lasted twenty minutes or so. Only after hanging up did I began my morning ritual of sipping coffee, doing a bra-wallet inventory, and writing in my journal.

I’d made two vows before leaving on my trip. One, to my Facebook followers that I would be making a series of short videos of me wagering twenty bucks in every casino on the strip; I’d given up on that vow on Day Three. Being an overnight YouTube star was not in my future; nor was the ability to figure out how my iPod camera worked.

The second pledge was made to my online, private writer’s group. I’d committed to writing a minimum of 500 words every day on my trip. My scribbling's goal was to eventually transform my words into a travel memoir. I’d already come up with a possible title—
Fat Old Woman in Las Vegas … Gambling, Dieting, and Wicked Fun.

It was the
wicked fun
part that was giving me trouble.

At sixty-six years of age, being wicked was decades behind me. I didn’t drink anymore. Nor did I inhale drugs, pick up men, or flirt with snotty, conservative right-wing women just to irritate them. Yet, if I wanted to include the word wicked in my title, I had to come up with something I could do easily and would not get me arrested. However, getting busted would increase book sales, especially if I ended up on COPS.

I wondered what wickedness I could find as I prepared to leave my room before catching my reflection in a mirror. Even with my Raquel Welch wig and zebra-striped top, I still looked like Wilford Brimley in drag.

It would be easier to remove the word wicked from the title.

Unless, I ... well, yeah…I could do that.

∞

Mon Ami Gabi,
a French bistro in the Paris casino extends to an outdoor seating area on Las Vegas Boulevard. Situated directly across the street from the Bellagio fountains, the view is spectacular. The patio was filled with patrons sitting under outdoor heating lamps as they ate blueberry crepes or fluffy omelets. For my thickened Minnesota blood, the early morning, mid-fifty-degree temperature felt like a sauna. In Nevada, the furnaces are turned on when it falls below sixty degrees. Two people walked by me wearing down jackets. The duo undoubtedly were locals who’d moved to Vegas for one-hundred degree-plus weather.

An RTC bus stop is in front of the Paris. At a little after 9:00 a.m. three-dozen people waited to board the bus when it arrived. Because of the number of riders getting off and on, and the time it takes for that to happen, it was often quicker to walk the strip.

After seeing no bus in site, I decided to do just that. Or at least give it a try. If it took three hours to walk what I used to do in one, so what? I had the time. There would be plenty of rest stops along the way.

My itinerary for the day was to eventually end up at the north end of The Strip at the newly opened SLS casino, formerly known as the Sahara. It was there I planned to do my dirty deed to achieve a bit of wickedness status. Or at least I would be wicked in my ultra-conservative dead mom’s eyes.

But first, I needed to start moving.

The sidewalks were dotted with tourists and hucksters. Costumed street entertainers lined the streets, tip buckets placed in front of them. Two Elvis impersonators in white bellbottom jumpsuits with red pleated slits on the side waited patiently to earn their keep. Red scarves hung around their necks and drifted down their potbellied fronts. Wide rhinestone belts circled their waists. Sparkly embellishments of various colors dotted their sleeves and formed an image of an American Eagle on their backs. All in all, it looked like a BeDazzler had thrown up on the two.

Between the two Elvis impersonators stood a living “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. The iconic costume covered a much shorter individual whose face and torso was hidden under the fabric sign. His eyes peeked out through tiny slits at the top of the sign. The Elvis pair rested their hands on the top of the faux sign as they waited for pictures to be taken for photo hungry tourists.

A few feet beyond, I came upon my first physical challenge of the day. The escalator leading to the pedestrian bridge spanning Flamingo Avenue was broken. Pedestrians were forced to walk up the packed stairway located between the up and down escalator. Foot traffic was not allowed to cross the busy avenue by foot.

I had two choices, to struggle up the steep concrete steps to the bridge, an estimated forty or so steps, or find the elevator provided for the physically disabled.

Walking up the steps to the bridge was not an option for me. I wasn’t lazy. Climbing any steps was a daunting and exhausting experience. I’d place one foot on a step and stop. Then I would bring my other foot to the same level and stop again. Then I’d repeat the process over and over again until I made it to the top. In Las Vegas there were too many antsy and rude people to attempt my painfully halting version of stair climbing.

I discovered the lift directly behind the staircase. When the elevator doors shifted opened I muttered, “Shit!”

Lying on the metal floor inside was a man, passed out drunk. His clothes were filthy and torn, his long grey hair matted. An empty pint bottle was still clasped firmly in his hand. The entire cubicle smelled like stale whiskey and fresh urine.

I stood there motionless, afraid to enter the space alone. Luckily, a young couple rushed up to catch a ride. Their reaction to the unfortunate being was to laugh, rather than cringe in horror. The lovebirds stepped inside and I stepped in front of them.

The scene was only a bit more cheerful when I exited the lift. A trio of homeless people were scattered along the bridge, holding up various signs made from cardboard boxes. The slogans ran from “Hungry. Need food. God Bless,” to “Ain’t gonna lie. Need Dope.” Before the day’s end I would see dozens of beggars, many of them pathetically real, many of them obnoxiously bogus.

In the middle of the overpass, a man stood over a large cooler of bottled water.

“One dollar each,” he barked in a heavy Mexican accent.

I handed him two bucks and took one bottle.

“
Gracious
,” he said with a smile.

“
De nada
,” I responded, and rode the escalator to the street.

I passed the small boutique hotel and casino, The Cromwell. Under a new name, the renovated resort had only opened a year earlier. Before, when it was Bill’s Gambling Hall and Saloon, I stopped by on every trip. My favorite free-to-see entertainer was a featured performer called Big Elvis, aka Pete Vallee. He had the kind of body and voice that filled a room. At one point in his life, he weighed nine hundred pounds. He’d slimmed down to a more reasonable five hundred within the past few years.

Pete was an incredible singer, but his ability to interact with an audience was where his true charm lied. When The Cromwell decided not to include him in their new entertainment line-up, they made a mistake. For many tourists, including myself, there was no reason to drop by The Cromwell. Elvis had left the building.

Instead, I headed to the Flamingo.

Two years before I was born, and after a complete renovation, Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo. The first night’s star-studded gala included Clark Cable, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford and Lana Turner.

Today the headliners are Donny and Marie.

Oh, well.

I squirrelled my way down the sidewalk, passing street vendors and beggars. A light breeze caused the top of the palm trees lining the sidewalks to wave as traffic whizzed by on The Strip.

Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding sounds assaulted my ears as soon as I entered the Flamingo. Following the audible trail, I was soon standing behind a woman at a Blazing Sevens dollar slot machine. A thousand-dollar jackpot flashed on the screen.

“Congratulations,” I said. Her grin was wide. Her enthusiasm to the edge of hyperventilation. A newbie, obviously. She was way too excited, even for winning a grand. An experienced player would know a thousand dollars usually turns into two thousand lost.

She pointed across the aisle to a similar machine. “A woman hit the same thing last night right over there. These machines are great!”

The hopes of catching her good karma by playing close to her was tempting. I resisted however, not quite ready to begin losing my money. I worked my way through the maze of bright lights, sirens, and mid-morning chatter, and watched as other people lost theirs.

A small group of lanyard wearing conventioneers, men and women, gathered around Kate. I know her name because they kept repeating it in cheer-like fashion.

“Kate! Kate! Kate!”

Grimacing, she pressed the button on a five-dollar machine. With every spin of the wheel, her compatriots’ cheers grew louder. When the reel stopped and three bars or three sevens did not appear, a loud groan emitted the group. Then, within seconds the crowd would start to chant her name again.

I continued past and stopped in front of Bugsy’s Cabaret. Six larger-than-life images of scantily dressed women stared down at me from the walls. I paused, not to stare, but to wonder if seeing the show would qualify as my being wicked, especially if I saw it alone. How many sixty-six-year old women were in the audience lusting after a dozen female boobs?

Who was I kidding? It was 2015. Hundreds, especially if they found a half-off coupon.

I continued toward the Flamingo’s wildlife habitat. I longed to see real Flamingos, the kind Alice used as croquet mallets. I exited through the glass doors and walked a winding path, past streams and minuscule waterfalls. Turtles, ducks, swans and parrots moved about. After being in Vegas for only five days, I ached to touch nature, even if it came with showgirls as a backdrop. The ringing of my phone had me spying a bench. I slowly hurried toward it.

“Good morning,” I said, sitting down. My husband couldn’t have chosen a better time to call. I would actually be telling the truth when I announced I wasn’t in a casino.

“Where are you?” he asked.

I proudly answered, “At the gardens at the Flamingo Hotel.”

“Oh yeah?” he answered, not sounding totally convinced. “Why?”

“I needed someplace to sit and think. I want to do something wicked today. I can’t figure out what.”

“Oh yeah,” he mumbled back again in response. “So, I’m thinking about painting the back porch and …”

My husband never listens to a word I say.

Or perhaps he realized my doing something wicked with my body would mean I’d have to invent time travel first and then travel backwards by three decades.

Steve and I chatted for twenty minutes or so. By the time I left the gardens, it was past 11:00 a.m. and I’d yet to wager. Impressed with my discipline, I promptly plopped down at a machine and lost ninety bucks.

∞

I pondered.

I ponder a lot when I gamble, especially if I lose. Winning doesn’t provide me the opportunity to review my life and its tsunami of bad choices. Nor does coming out ahead set me off on a spiritual quest for salvation or an explanation of the pollution in my life.

Nope.

If I win? I sit grinning like an idiot.

Ah, but losing!

I sat there stirring my tea, satiated from a feast of greens, fruits, cold shrimp, grilled salmon, mounds of sugar-free pudding, and cheesecake sans the graham cracker crumb crust. Cravings at the Mirage was a buffet I visited every trip. My husband and I have stayed at the resort a dozen or more times. The buffet feels like home, if my dining room were thirty-two thousand square feet with ten different international food stations scattered around it.

Mid-afternoon found me tired, but I refused to go back to my room, retreating in shame because my vacation was still G-rated. I found comfort in losing another sixty-two dollars at the nearest slot. Including the cost of lunch, I was down one hundred and eighty-one dollars for the day.

The tram between the Mirage and Treasure Island took longer than if I’d chosen to walk the distance. But it allowed for sitting, something I need to do, a lot. When I made it to Treasure Island, I walked directly through the gaming floor, stopping only to smell the Krispy Kreme store in the hallway. It was 4:00 p.m. by the time I walked over the pedestrian bridge and ended up at the Fashion Show across from the Wynn.