The Dice are Loaded: Part I

THE DICE ARE LOADED

PART I

♢♡♠♣

There’s heat rolling off the desert and sweat in my eyes. We’ve only climbed the first rock and already I’m out of breath. Damn this altitude, I think. Are we at altitude? I turn and survey below, my cousin scaling the last of the rock and the rest of the tourists like little ants below him. Beyond, the mountains of rock rise out of the flat dust, all reds, tans, and whites, seeming so close but really spread across a great distance. I’d have to spend a month out here to scale half of those summits. 

My cousin joins me on the rock and gives no indication whether we’ll continue on. 

Drink the water, he says and I drink. He says people die out here all the time and I don’t want to be one of them. He looks up to the rocks ahead and back to the mountains behind. 

Want to continue here? he asks. There’s lots of others to see. 

He’s tempted me with the prospect but I can’t resist a summit so near at hand — I mean just look how close! I say lets try for one more and he agrees so we wedge into the crevice and search blindly for footholds. They’re difficult to find and after a period of cursing and sweat and thorns cutting through the brambles, we’re catching our breath at the top of the next rock and I’m pissed because still there’s another above us and we seem no higher than before. He assures me it’s a trick of the desert and to keep drinking water but I feel we could scale the next rock quite easily. Anyway from here we can see Las Vegas in the distance, all hazy and obscured by the heat waves rippling over the highway by which we came. 

I’m absolutely gasping for air and trying to hide it for sake of pride. This damned altitude. He’s gasping just the same and sweating so finally I agree about going down to find a new spot and we turn back into the sun. It’s a funny thing about climbing those rocks that you put so much care and effort into scaling them without ever giving a thought to the way back down. Well it’s tricky and dangerous and you curse all the way but we make it and I’m sure now that the climb is a lot higher than it looks! We pass through the group of tourists and I can’t help but feel a little smug about their invisible tethers holding them to the ground. It’s a fleeting thought and soon passes as we’re back in the truck and flying along the highway deeper into the colossal formations of rock making up the mountains in this red desert. How many more trails did we climb — two? three? more? and there’s trickling seeps and cactus and wild burros and horses of the mountains and always in the distance hazy Las Vegas sweltering under the desert sun in a moment of calm before a night so restless. 

♢♢♢♢

In the airport the kid gets off the plane with timid steps in roper-toed boots. He’s head to foot in dark denim and his pale, rosy face pokes out from beneath a mess of dark, brown hair. He checks his reservation again; The Venetian - Two Nights. Well he’s never seen it but they say it's nice, all the accommodation you could dream of in a city built on hospitality. He sets his teeth and weaves his way through the travelers with their eyes all full of hope and excitement or else deadened with fatigue and defeat. The kid flags a cab and asks the driver if he knows the hotel. He stares at the kid then takes his bags to the trunk. He opens the door and the kid gets in with his lanky frame squished into the backseat. The driver continues his phone conversation all through the short journey, the buildings growing and passing faster than the kid can keep up, the scorched mountains circling in the distance. 

They hit the strip and now it's one immaculate hotel after another — MGM Grand, the Bellagio, Caesar’s. The people move in crowds and the crowds stop traffic. Finally the driver pulls to the side. Here, he says, and reaches back without turning. Seventeen. 

The kid looks ahead. Where?

The driver nods to the elaborate stone steps and the double high rise and repeats the fare. The kid reaches down for the clip and flips through the stack of bills they had given him. 

Can you make change? 

♠♠♠♠

We’re back on the highway and I watch as the distance of the mountains never fades in the rear view mirror. We’re still breathing hard and the sweat has cooled and sticks on our skin. My cousin is driving. 

Care to stop for a beer?

Of course, I reply. 

How ‘bout Fremont?

You’ve gotta be joking, I think. But ah what the hell why not? So we fight the traffic and park along the street. Freaks, geeks, and the rest of the zoo – they’re laughing dancing performing flying, all drinking of course, and a free price for admission. Maybe just your soul, I think. 

We stop in a shop for a couple of beers and take them out into the street. It’s the same old casinos with the same old smoke that hasn’t escaped in fifty years and I have to admit I’m quite enjoying it all. 

Let’s stop here, my cousin says, and I follow him into one of the casinos. It’s just as I said, all smokey and green and we make our way to one of the tables and he pulls out a ticket. 

They validate parking if you play, he smiles.

So we stay for a while, ten bucks here ten bucks there but really it's chump change. After a while I’m checking my watch. 

I gotta get goin’.

It’s time already? 

He’s up pretty big so he smiles at the attendant and pushes his chips forward. I give him the couple that I’ve got left and we walk out into the enveloping heat that accompanies us back to the truck. 

I hope I’m not making you late, he says as we pull back onto the street. 

I check my watch again. No I’m not late and really I have plenty of time before my associate arrives. I tell him so and that there’s just some business I need to ready for. He drops me off after some thank filled good-byes and really I just lay in the hotel bed with the fabulous view and sedate my mind with empty meditations. 

Dusk descends and when the time comes I jump alert from the bed and start the articulate process of preparation. There’s a cold shower with ice packs and I do push ups and slap myself in the face. The anticipation is mounting and my associate should be arriving anytime so I dress and head for the lobby for the ingredients to concoct my potion. 

And what a lobby! How could I forget the description of such an exquisite entry with all its semblance of art and beauty and niceties and the details so precise, sure to enthrall and pacify the fascinations of all who pass through so time becomes an illusion, dreams just hopeless fantasies, and reality surely embodied in this one moment for this one person held captive in the belief that time should continue as this always and really any other alternative must be simply unfathomable! but now enough of that we have business to attend to back to the room and down with the potion aimed to hydrate, caffeinate, and revitalize. Seize the night young man! and at last my associate arrives. 

♡♡♡♡

The kid sits in the chair with the little table and the window overlooking lights and excitement  of the city below. He’d meant to get started soon after landing but it had since grown dark and still he sits with his long leg bouncing and rattling the table. Eventually he finds some resolve and strips from his clothes and boots and takes the elevator down thirty floors to the fitness center. He pushes hard into a sweat and throws the weights around with a ferocity that strains into his muscles. It’s not a long bout but he leaves feeling exhausted and exercised and much more confident. 

In his room he showers and dresses, his square buckle shining out beneath the Canadian tuxedo. He takes a shaky breath in the mirror and smiles. It’s just cards after all. 

On the ground floor his long strides take him through the lobby to the casino, his roper-toes clicking on the granite. He sits at one of the tables for some low stakes hands to settle his nerves. The waitress comes and he drinks a tequila with soda and lime. Then another. It’s black jack and the dealer’s hands are a blur as she makes pleasant conversation with the other players at the table. Wordlessly he pushes his chips forward and taps for a card or stays and she smiles at him each time he wins.

♣♣♣♣

My associate is dressed head to toe in black and we’re sitting at a table of a nice restaurant. He hasn’t stopped talking since we arrived. We’ve ordered drinks and I’m looking around while he continually pulls at the waiter to order more food. It’s a small table and we’ve got it fairly crowded with plates and drinks and I ask him about our client but he brushes it off.

Plenty of time for that! he says. What time is it anyway? He checks his watch and exclaims, Christ the time really flies here! Anyway we have another hour before he lands. 

I rest back in my chair and we flag the waiter down. Eventually we ask for the bill and decide we ought to gamble some while we have the time. 

You never know once this business starts, my associate remarks. 

Where should we go? (In my greenness I feel the need to yield to the expertise of my associate.)

I know the spot, he says. 

The restaurant was in our fabulous hotel that we hadn’t yet left so I follow him out and across the street to another hotel casino. All around us the crowds have changed from the finger-pointing-picture-taking tourists of the day to the elegantly dressed elitists of the Las Vegas night. These guys better be rich, I think bitterly, and watch them pass with the beautiful women on their arms. 

My associate is giddy with excitement when at last we enter the casino and immediately sit at one of the tables.

I’ve been waiting all year for this, he says. Hey where’s that waitress off to?

I set down next to him at the table. Roulette? What the hell. Well, might as well throw some money down if we’re here. 

We’re losing a lot and making none of it back so he tells me to order more drinks to recoup the losses. We still haven’t discussed business or our client. 

The waitress comes around with drinks and my associate grabs two more as he loses his final bet on black. He turns and shrugs. 

Well that went quick, but c’mon he’ll be arriving soon. 

He drops a couple chips for the waitress and the attendant and I follow him through the casino and out the door with the drinks still in our hands. 

♢♢♢♢

The kid is still at the table when the dealers have changed enough times so that the woman is back. He’s up big, but not enough, not the kind of money they’d sent him for. He asks for another tequila. Typically he’s not one to drink this way but tonight it still isn’t enough to stay his shaking leg. Finally he pushes his stack of chips forward and gets up from the table. The woman smiles again and he leaves her a yellow. 

The lights flash and the tables crowd with people as he strolls through the casino. His head is light but footsteps grow heavy as he approaches the room to the back. He peers inside and sees much the same people and crowded tables but beyond that the starkly different quiet and dim lights. From here he can just make out the players with their backs turned to him. He takes a deep breath and turns away. 

Out in the night the strip is alive and buzzing. He hails down a cab and repeats the name he’d heard at the table. The driver eyes him in the mirror but says nothing and they start out into the street. 

It’s stand still traffic the entire way across town but the kid appears relaxed for the first time. Somehow the sequence of lights and the droning commotion are in concert with the stuffy numbness in his brain and an entire night and day play out in vivid images before he wakes with his head resting on the window and the driver’s calling for the fare. The kid pays and steps out into the night as the cab rushes back through the streets. 

It’s quiet on this side of town and a good deal darker. There’s convenience stores and a shoddy restaurant with some old gamblers pulling at slot machines in the window. His head clears and he smacks the sick taste from his mouth. He’s standing in front of a large parking structure and is sure there must’ve been a mistake until he sees the bouncer eyeing him from around the corner. He starts around a pharmacy and into the ramp all concrete and dull lights until he comes to a door where the bouncer stands on the bottom floor. The bouncer wears all black with a beard and glasses that reveal nothing and takes the kid’s ID and examines it wordlessly. Several moments pass before he at last looks up with eyes the kid can’t make out and he steps to the side to open the door. Instantly there’s a raucous of singing and laughter that spills out and echoes in the concrete of the ramp. The kid nods and takes his ID back on his way inside. 

A neon sign glows on a wood-paneled wall as he turns into the bar. Immediately to the front is a stage with some women crowded around a microphone and drunkenly lagging the lyrics on the screen before them. The floors creak underfoot and the tables are all pushed to the back where dimly visible faces watch from behind a couple of dancers who apparently are without regard for their surroundings and full of sweat binding their tightly pressed skin. The bar is busy with a line of customers squeezing between the stools of the other spectators, and a couple of bartenders run back and forth under a piece of paper with the words ‘NOW SERVING BEER AND SHOTS ONLY!!!’. Beyond that a couple of pool tables sit under the warm glow of hanging lights.  

Almost immediately the kid breathes lighter and strides boldly to the bar to take a beer. He sips absently and surveys over the next singers and the seedy patrons. He finishes the beer and quickly orders another before bringing it around to the back of the bar. 

The pool tables are set back in the room and have their own juke box despite the conflicting racket coming from the stage. It’s a somewhat serious assortment of characters crowded around and they feed quarters into the jukebox pumping out country music from the nineties. No one looks up when the kid leans up against the railing on the wall. There’s a man with a cheetah print bandana that holds back the blonde, curly hair falling down past his shoulders and he’s lining up a shot on the cue ball. He sinks a solid in the corner pocket then another in the opposite. Then another. Finally he has the eight lined up but off a bad leave from the other side of the table. His friend cheers when he sinks the eight and the cue ball rockets over into the corner pocket. 

Lucky bastard, snarls the cheetah man. 

His friend is thin and bald and snickers while the cheetah man racks the balls. Wordlessly the kid steps forward and drops quarters on the table. The cheetah man looks up. He smiles.

You wanna throw money away you can just hand it over. 

The kid shrugs, How much’s the game? 

The cheetah man looks across to his friend. 

A cowboy like yourself? Name the price. If you got any money, he adds.

How ‘bout a thousand? 

The cheetah man’s jaw stiffens but he hides it while racking the balls. 

That’s it? I’d have to see the money from a kid. 

The kid takes out the clip and flips a few bills before quickly stowing it away again. The cheetah man meets his gaze and shrugs. 

It’s your funeral. I break. 

♠♠♠♠

It’s a flurry of greetings and niceties when our client arrives and we drop his bags in the room. There’s the customary formalities and he’s sure that he’d like a shower and a drink but really I’m doing my best to push him out the door, I mean does he know what’s down there! …yes yes it’s good to see you… yes the arrangements have been made, yes yes…, but could he please hurry it up!

Well it’s not long but it feels like forever before we’re in the elevator and going down down down and we emerge into the beautiful lobby. It’s a short walk through to the beautiful casino and at last here we are. So we’re back at the tables and they take some money but give it back and the waitresses are quite attentive so I’m sure that our time here has finally begun. 

Sir, that’s a sixteen against a four. Are you sure you want to hit?

Better hit. 

As you wish. 

Well I’ll stay since you brought it up. 

Of course, sir. 

What is it. 

It’s a queen and the five makes nineteen, I’m sorry sir. 

Ah hell. 

But here you have an ace, good luck sir. 

Thank you. 

I also drew an ace, would you like insurance?

Better not. 

I’m sorry, sir. It’s twenty-one. 

Damn.

I’m having a wonderful time and the waitress is very attentive and each time I tip her a dollar. I’d lost track of my associate and our client but now I see them at a craps table looking fairly eager. Well I recoup my losses and keep pulling at the waitress until soon I’m up pretty big and our client says it’s time to leave but who knows what time it is in this place anyway there’s no time to care I mean just look at this carpet! it’s red and velvet and seems to skate on forever like the smoothest thing I’ve ever seen and who could care about the time with carpets like these! and what about the lights and the noise too, the chips clatter when they’re spilt on the table and the cards flutter in the machine and have you noticed how quick the dealers move the cards and the chips and count your hands they can be quite charming or quite indifferent and still I’ll lean forward on my stool so comfortable and at the perfect height to keep my feet resting so as not to disturb the carpet but if he says it’s time to leave then of course yes we’ll leave I mean what the hell are we here for anway of course it's time to leave. 

We’re still walking in our splendid hotel casino when he pulls us off to the side through some doors and into flashing lights and thundering noise. What the hell is this? The keynote speaker? A convention? It’s all quite confusing and the drinks aren’t free but our client seems to have found what he’s looking for so we follow him around and I wonder if we’ve finally arrived to the business discussions. He leads the conversation and I follow with mild interest – there’s a bit of an art to closing a deal you know. Come on too eager and you’ll bring up his defenses. Be casual, disarming, and if you do your job well it’s not much work at all really and he’ll end up talking himself right into the deal. Well things are going smooth and my associate feigns ignorance and surprise in all the right places and we really are experts in the banter. Our client is our friend and we’re enjoying his enjoyment and order more drinks and he’s roaming around so quick it’s almost hard to keep up. Suddenly the room disorients but it's okay because our limousine has arrived and a good thing too because it’s just in time for our meeting. 

Hurry driver, somebody tell the driver to hurry, this meeting is important and we can’t be late I mean what are we here for after all? We go over the deal once more and feel quite confident our client is ready for the business to begin. 

♡♡♡♡

The eight ball drops and the kid reaches into his pocket for another fist full of bills that he hands to the cheetah man. 

Care for another? The cheetah man had long abandoned hiding his smile. 

The kid curses and shoves more quarters into the table and racks the balls. He’d spent a lot of money and had only won the game before though he felt pretty sure the cheetah man had played left handed. 

The women had arrived some time ago and would hand him a new beer after each game though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d ordered. One was young and pretty and massaged his shoulders in between shots and now lights them both cigarettes after the cheetah man breaks. He leans close to the kid. 

Watch yourself, kid. You don’t need this trouble.

The kid brushes him off and calls a pocket. It had been sometime since he’d felt any control of the cue but he takes a drag of the nicotine and breathes steady and sinks a stripe in the corner. His best chance is to run the table and he does for several shots but forgets a ball on the side wall and now has a bad leave. He sets his teeth and calls a shot and the cheetah man smiles when the cue ball scratches.

After the game the kid flips over the cash and feeds more quarters into the table. 

♣♣♣♣

I remember the limousine being quite comfortable and all the time our client assures us of his confidence with the business. As it turns out the driver gets us there quite early and we have a bit of time before the meeting so we stop for a drink at the bar. Some of the professionals are also early and they’re quite easy to talk with at such an hour (what’s the damn time anyway?) and our individual conversations become very engaging so much as to separate us from one another and we’re pulled off into different conference rooms which in the end isn’t a bad thing because I’m with the professionals and as it turns out the meeting has already begun. Well I never do run into my associate or our client again and it doesn’t matter because this meeting is highly demanding and it turns out I’m on the losing end of all these deals I mean I’m being robbed blind! I can’t stop the negotiations and they’re capitalizing on my position and I’m just trying to talk my way out of it but no ones willing to cut a deal. Well I have to leave I just must I mean I have to check in with my associate for fear of mishandling our client but he’s nowhere to be found and I realize he’d had the better sense to get out of there long before and now I have to track them down through the anxious sweat of a failed business deal that stays with me all through the lonely streets of the crowded strip and it’s quite sometime before I stumble upon them gambling. 

They’re sitting at the tables and I’m worried what they might say but it seems they’ve forgotten the whole thing. So I join them and it’s back to the tables again up and down except now it’s all down down down and the carpet is a different color but still the smoothest velvet I’ve ever seen. My associate speaks. 

Well boys, that’s all the bankroll we had for this place. Let’s try another. 

So we follow him through the labyrinth of the casino and when we open the doors to outside the daylight just about knocks us off our feet. 

♢♡♠♣