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Eric: Moments in Time: two two-day blocks. So, four days, more or less.

February 8, 2008

I was out of place.

Work had sent me to a week long training course, so for eight hours a day, I was in a small room typing on computers, learning ways of tweaking server configurations and remote setup. My trainers were good, the lessons were useful, the work was challenging enough to get my brain pumping.

Which left sixteen hours of the day when I wasn't in training. This included sleeping, mind, but even that was suspect, because the training was in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This, by the way, makes eminent sense for my employer. So long as I had the diligence to actually... you know, do my job when I was supposed to, Las Vegas is the least expensive city that the school could send me to be trained, outside of something I could drive to. And a week work of gasoline reimbursement might not be any cheaper, to be honest. I did a package deal of hotel, flight and rental car, and it was by far the least expensive package deal I'd ever gotten to go anywhere. Food, which was covered under expenses (or chargeable to my room -- which is backdoor expenses) was way less expensive for good quality food in Las Vegas than anywhere else. I was at the Excalibur, for example, and they had a strip steak meal available from seven o'clock at night until seven o'clock in the morning for seven dollars. And it was a good strip steak, I would add, with the appropriate good strip steak sides. The Excalibur buffet, which was well stocked (and actually featured on the Food Network as one of the best deals in town) wasn't materially more, and that was All You Can Eat. All told, I was saving my employers significant coin by flying to Sin City.

The Excalibur was... well, quaint. Opened in 1990 as a show and theme casino, it was a curious mixture of old school aesthetic and slick new Vegas theme fun. Its casino floor is expansive, and relatively bright and quiet. The mazes of slot machines chirped happily, of course. There were a couple of bars with live music every night, of course. But for the most part the Excalibur wasn't chaos and it wasn't decadent. It was almost homey. The Excalibur was more or less my speed.

This night, I wasn't at the Excalibur. A series of sky bridges connects the casinos at this end of the strip together -- the Excalibur, New York New York, the MGM Grand, the Tropicana, the Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and the like. And to be blunt, almost none of these casinos feel like the Las Vegas you see in the movies. They're grand, they're expansive, they're triumphs of Civil Engineering. New York New York is meant to be loud, like plunging into the streets of the Bronx during a party. The MGM Grand is, as the name implies, grand and expansive, and eerily quiet. (Not a bonus, to my mind, to a casino floor). It also has lions. It's interesting to look up as you're walking into a gift shop and realize that three feet above your head, through what at the time looks like a thin piece of lucite there's a black maned lion looking back down at you.

Lions are very large, by the by.

(Old school Vegas, by the by, did exist on our block, at the Tropicana. The Tropicana casino floor is mirrored and glitzy and cramped and looks like every movie you've ever seen about Las Vegas. It is exactly what one expects a Las Vegas casino to be. It was worth the trip, at least for one day.)

This night, I was at the Luxor. The Luxor is the famous black glass pyramid -- the theme is Ancient Egypt (technically ancient Thebes, but there were no pyramids in Thebes. On the other hand, it's frigging Vegas. Don't overthink it). The place is huge, and if the Excalibur is homey and almost friendly, the Luxor is sheer bacchanalia. Scantily clad dancers writhed on the top of gambling tables. Noise and lights and music were everywhere. The main bar was in the center of the room, and water cascaded down all around it. The casino floor was as loud as the MGM Grand was silent.

I was, to be blunt, overwhelmed. It was huge fun, but it was also out of my league and I knew it. But I was determined to enjoy myself.

April 7, 2008

"So, what's the matter?"

I shrugged to Chris, one of my coworkers. "I have a chest ache."

He arched an eyebrow. "You going to the doctor?"

"Yeah. It's really, really mild but with my heart problems even a really mild ache--"

"Absolutely. You don't take chances. Not with your heart. When do you go?"

"1:30."

"You sure you shouldn't go sooner?"

I shrugged. "It's really mild, and that's when they could fit me in. I'm staying next to a phone and I'll stay near people. If there's a problem--"

Chris half-smiled. "Sure. But you know. Don't take stupid chances, okay?"

"Since when do I take stupid chances, Chris?"

February 8, 2008

Now, I have a good gambling system. I go to a gambling floor with a crisp twenty dollar bill. I put it in my left pocket. This is my bank. At some point, I get it changed for ones, because ones are useful. When I go and gamble at the Casino de Lac Leamy in Quebec, it's way more satisfying because they give you the money as quarters and you can feed the coins into the machines. Las Vegas left quarters behind a long time ago, and even the penny, nickel, dime and quarter slots only take dollar bills. They figured out this meant they got more money.

I then put that twenty into different slot machines, one dollar at a time. I take my time. It's more fun with Wednesday because then it's about the banter, not about the gambling. The gambling is secondary. Gambling all on my own is, to be honest, a little bit dull.

Now, whenever you win in a current slot machine, you don't get cascades of coins (though the machines have the digitally sampled sounds of coins falling into their coin trays). Instead, you get that many credits added to your total. So, if you're playing quarter slots (which I prefer, on the whole), you have four credits for your original dollar, and however many credits after you play four times is what you have won off that machine. You then hit "Cash Out," and it prints a barcoded ticket with your winnings encoded onto it, which you can redeem at the bankers or at an number of machines spread throughout the floor. Or, of course, you can feed the ticket into a slot machine and keep playing.

That, by the way, is what they want you to do. They want you to "see how long you can go." If you do that, they're guaranteed to get your full twenty dollars from you, no matter how much you 'win' along the way. You're renting entertainment, and the longer you can go the better off they'll be -- especially if you're having so much fun that you decide to get another twenty dollars out, and then another twenty, and then maybe a hundred.....

I am their worst case scenario customer. I expect, going into the gambling, that said twenty bucks is going to go away. I expect not to win a thin dime. Whatever the machines return to me goes into my right pocket. Remember that my bankroll is in my left.

When I'm out of money in my left pocket, I go and redeem the tickets in my right pocket. Whatever comes out of the redemption machine is mine to keep, and I'm done gambling for the night. I never have to worry about selling my car to pay off my gambling debts. I enjoy lots of spinning wheels and noises. I can play everyone's favorite casino game "do you think that girl in the minidress is a prostitute," so popular in Vegas, where the answer is very often 'yes.' And then I hit the bar and have a couple, using my 'winnings' to fund that.

Because slot machines are designed to hook you in, you're going to get some return on investment from them if you hold yourself to a specific amount. At the Casino de Lac Leamy, up in Canada (run, I would add, by the Quebec provincial government. Now that's a lottery system), the slots are 'loose.' They pay out relatively often. In fact, when Weds and I have played twenty dollars worth of slots together, we've never failed to leave the casino floor with more money than we had entering the floor. That twenty dollars has been anything from thirty to sixty-five dollars, the three or four times we've done this.

I assume the Casino de Lac Leamy hates us.

Vegas slots ain't that loose. I was averaging $4-6 dollar losses each night, with one night I left with $26. Not a big deal. It was decent enough entertainment, though lonely without Wednesday. There's something vaguely pathetic about being forty years old and wandering casino floors by yourself in Las Vegas, feeding dollar bills into slot machines. And "is she a prostitute" becomes downright creepy as a game. Especially if they catch you looking, because if they are a prostitute, then that means they come over and solicit you. And honestly, that's an uncomfortable moment.

This night, I was in the Luxor, and "is she a prostitute" was unplayable, because essentially everyone was young and -- if women -- largely naked. The men were mostly in sportcoats and open collars. It was enjoyable, but a little over the top. If Weds had been with me, it would have been a blast. As it was, I felt displaced.

But, I was determined to have a good time.

Now, one of the things I had done was reserve little bits of my twenty dollar bankroll, each night, to "do the Vegas thing." That meant that one night (at New York New York) I played some Blackjack, to say I'd played Blackjack in Vegas. (I pissed off one of the other players for not betting smart enough. "We don't hit on fifteen when they show a five," he said, stabbing at the table. "We do not do that." I accepted his word for it. As it was, I broke even after five one dollar bets and moved on.) And I decided, while at the Luxor, that this would be my night to play a round of Roulette.

Now Roulette is a sucker's game. The odds are astronomically in favor of the house. You play Roulette because you don't mind losing. I found an electronic version -- people put X amount of money in the bank, they entered their bets on a touchscreen, and then a real, physical roulette wheel was spun by real, physical girls who paid winners in real, physical chips when they cashed out. It was 21st century, and old school, all at once. So I figured play five bucks spread out over various bets for a few minutes, take my losses and spend the other fifteen bucks at the slots, then retreat back across the bridge to Excalibur for some liquor and sleep. I was in over my head.

I did this for about three spins before I realized (there were no posted minimums) that I was at a five dollar minimum table. The system had essentially rejected all my bets, which were 'intelligently' done on things like 'even' and 'red.'

"Fine," I muttered, annoyed, and I slapped a bet. And it was the stupidest bet you could make in Roulette. I just wanted to lose my five bucks and get on with my evening, tired of this thing. So I bet a number. 23, to be exact.

Betting a number in Roulette is moronic, by the by. It's essentially the worst bet you can make in Vegas outside of betting on the Washington Generals to beat the Harlem Globetrotters. Idiots bet numbers in Roulette. If you look at the hardcore Roulette players, they play the safer bets I mentioned above, and they play corners or sides of numbers, in effect putting their bet on 2-4 numbers at once. If they bet numbers, it's out of superstition and never, ever the only bet they play on a given turn of the wheel. Only the kind of hayseed yokel who hits on fifteen in blackjack when the dealer's showing a five would play a number in Roulette as his only bet. Please, please, please. If you learn anything from my tale, learn this -- do not play numbers in Roulette. It's stupid.

So I finished, and I hit 'cash out.' A mere formality in my case, since I bet five and my bank was five, but this would close me out of the system and stop my Player's Club card from recording my activity there. (Yes, I have a Player's Club card. Telly Savalas would be proud of me, right up until he learned I played a number in Roulette. Then he'd be pissed and leave.)

There was a flurry of activity, and the attractive woman carried over a small tray of chips of various colors.

I blinked, and looked more closely at the screen.

I had cleared $295.

I looked at the number of the last bet.

23.

I had just hit on Roulette.

I was a winner.

April 7, 2008

My usual doctor was booked, and his partner had recently left the practice, so I was seeing a temp. Which was fine -- it was Doctor Fleet's handpicked temp, and I have a lot of faith in Doctor Fleet.

"It's a very, very mild pain," I said. "If it weren't in my chest--"

"We're going to run an EKG," he said. "We want to make sure everything is all right."

I nodded. "Makes sense. We don't take chances, right?"

"Absolutely."

So they taped electrodes all over my body, and I lay back, and then ran an EKG. And then they left the room for a while (after taking the electrodes off me) and I waited.

About fifteen minutes later, they came back in. "We'd like you to go over to the ER," the doctor said.

I blinked. "Is there a problem?"

"Probably not," he said. "But... well, we want to run a blood test for Troponin levels. That's an enzyme your body releases when there's damage to the heart. It's probably nothing, but we want to see -- we want to just make sure everything's okay -- and if you go to the ER you'll get the test results back more quickly."

"Oh. But it's probably nothing?"

"Probably. But we want to make sure."

So I took a copy of the EKG over, after they called ahead. I went into the outpatient ER queue.

And I was moved to the front of the queue. Which surprised me a touch. I told each new tech or nurse the symptoms ("On a scale of 1 to 10? The pain's probably just a 1 or a 2. Really, if it had been anywhere else on my body--")

They put me on a telemetry monitor. They took blood, and started an IV. They took another EKG. Everyone was very nice and pleasant, and no one seemed to be annoyed that this dumb hypochondriac was taking up time and resources.

I began to get concerned.

February 9, 2008

I was a little bit delicate, going to class the next day. Hitting in Roulette meant having more of a good time than I normally had been, including introducing myself to a couple of scotches with names I couldn't pronounce. This was the closest I was ever going to come to being a high roller, and I had fun with it.

I called Weds a number of times. She was amused, and excited over the win. I was missing her a lot but trying hard not to let that affect the good vibe. I'd god damned hit in Roulette.

That morning, though as I said delicate, I'd done some recalculation of budget. I'd paid off all my gambling for the week. I'd paid off some other personal expenses (the kind of thing that work wouldn't cover, like the Star Trek teddy bears I'd picked up for Weds. Don't judge me for my sappiness, damn it, they were cute bears). And at the end of everything, I had a hundred dollar bill in my pocket that was entirely outside of my budget. It was, in effect, free money.

I had not expected free money. And somehow, it seemed wrong to not do something with it. Something wild, and nuts. I was in Vegas and I was way ahead. And it was on a dumbass bet. Being an agnostic who enjoys superstition now and again, I tend to ascribe good luck in gambling to Fand, Celtic sea goddess, wife of Manannán mac Lir, Queen of the Faeries, and she who teaches ninjas to disguise themselves as pigeons. A decent amount of the Scotch the night before had been dedicated to her, which must have amused my bartender. Who, a couple of days later, I learned made an outstanding hot toddy, using Benedictine of all things, but I digress.

Weds, being smarter than I am, counseled keeping the hundred bucks. Or at most adding some of it to nightly revels. Bump my last few nights' gambling to thirty bucks instead of twenty. Or go see a show, maybe. Or hold onto the money and be glad for it in the weeks to come.

But that didn't seem right to me. For dumb reasons, but validly dumb. I had a hundred bucks above and beyond my budget... and I was in Las Vegas. No, I had an idea. A thing on the big list of things one wanted to do in Vegas but wasn't dumb enough to do, most of the time.

I wanted to play a hundred dollar slot machine.

Every casino had them, mind. One section cordoned off for "High Stakes Players." And I had budgeted for one moonshot slot pull -- a twenty dollar moonshot played in a high stakes slot machine, probably on my last night. If Fand or blind luck or what had you wanted to give me a big ass payout, I reasoned, I might as well give them one chance to do so. (The major jackpot on a quarter slot, generally speaking, is not materially more than I make in two weeks at work. I had not been playing with the Lottery dream of being rich in mind.)

Well, I had a hundred bucks in my pocket. Why not take the moonshot with that? I mean, when would I ever have a chance to put a hundred bucks on one pull of the machine again? I don't play in those leagues, and I wasn't going to.

So why not? Why not take this money I never expected to have and take one grand shot at the moon?

Slots, for the record, are about as safe as any Vegas bet you can play, which means most of the time they don't return very much. Obviously, most spins of the tumblers you lose. Welcome to gambling. But reasonably often, you do win. The machines work in "credits," which count as one of whatever amount is printed on the machine. On a quarter slot machine, each credit is twenty five cents. On a dollar slot, it's a dollar. On a nickel slot, it's a five cents. Most of the machines let you play more than one credit at a time, it's worth mentioning. Vegas likes money, and this was a way for people to spend it faster. I'm a one credit per play kind of guy.

So, it's not hard to hit a one credit payout on the slots, so that you get back what you put in. It doesn't cost the house anything for that, after all, and most slots players will just play again. It's not uncommon to hit 2, 3, 5 or 10 credits for one. I've hit 35 credits for a spin lots of times, which when you're playing quarter slots means an $8.75 payout. Nothing to write home about, but exciting at that one moment. I've even hit 100 credit payouts or more. Weds and I hit a forty dollar payout on a quarter slot once, which meant we hit 160 credits on the spin.

On the hundred dollar slots, one credit was a hundred bucks. Hitting a 5 to 1 would turn my $100 into $500. Hitting 35 to 1 would be $3,500. Hitting 160 to 1 would be $160,000 -- and no doubt a comped room and many opportunities to be a VIP. The casino would want that money back.

It was astronomically unlikely I would go home with hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it was nigh impossible I would go home with more. (Many machines topped out with a 3000 to 1 payout on a 1 credit play. That's a cool $750 on quarter slots. On a hundred dollar slot shot, that's three million dollars. Seductive sounding, but it wouldn't happen.) But the chances weren't bad that I would get my hundred dollars back, or even turn it into two or three or five hundred dollars.

And it wasn't money I had expected.

And I would never have this chance again.

By the end of the work day, it was clear to me I was going to do this. In the land of suckers, the hayseed sucker who hit on fifteen when the dealer was showing five and was stupid enough to bet on a single number in Roulette was going to take a hundred dollar bill -- five hundred meals, if one bought Ramen noodles -- drop it into a slot machine, and take a shot at the moon.

April 7, 2008

"Here's the thing," Doctor Boucher said. He was the ER doctor on duty. He'd consulted with Dr. Fleet directly, mind. "If you look at this EKG from your doctor's office -- see this peak that recurs every little bit? Well, right here..." he pointed to the line in question "it doesn't. It stays smooth. Now, that might have been the placement of the electrodes. That might also just be normal for you. But it might -- might -- speak to something that's wrong."

"Okay," I said, lying in an ER bed. There were electrode pads all over me, now, and I was in a hospital gown, and there were tubes in my nose feeding me oxygen. Probably with absolutely nothing wrong with me, mind. But you don't take chances. Not with your heart. Not when I have so much to live for. The final visa appointment for Wednesday and I to cross the border and get married has finally been set, for the 18th of this month. We're that close to being done with this process (assuming they approve the paperwork, of course). Then we have her move in May, and then we get married, at least on paper, in June. (We have to be married within 90 days of the border crossing or they make her go back. And as it turns out, I have a conference I and my supervisor are going to be flying to in Las Vegas within that period. Since we're going to elope no matter what happens, and since paying for Weds's ticket to fly out as well is dirt cheap, why wouldn't we do the elopement in the elopement capital of the world?) So I have to be healthy. I need to be healthy. I need to live, God Damn it.

For the record? The good package deal in June was for the Luxor. I can show Weds the roulette table. I expect the casino floor to be more fun when I have Weds with me.

"Now, we got your Troponin test back," he continued. "And a normal Troponin level should be 0.01 to 0.05. More than that is an indicator for cardiac damage."

"And?"

"You're at 0.05. Which is in the normal range and may be normal for you. But it's borderline."

"Which means I've now had two tests showing anomalies?"

"And a history of Cardiomyopathy." The Doctor nodded. "We want to keep you overnight for observation. We'll take several more blood tests, keep you on telemetry and monitoring -- we want to see if your Troponin levels rise or fall. If you have actual heart damage, they should rise, and we can track that."

"Sure, of course," I said. "Whatever you think is best." I don't take stupid chances, I reminded myself. I have too much to live for.

They brought to the observation room in a wheelchair. I told them I really felt okay to walk, but they laughed and said "hey, it's a free ride, right?" It wasn't until later that I realized they had to bring me in a wheelchair. If I walked and that pushed me into a catastrophic heart attack, they'd have been liable because I was in with chest pain -- no matter how mild -- and they were having me walk. As with Casinos, hospitals want to keep as much money as possible -- they sure don't want to lose it in malpractice suits.

I was not, I was told, admitted to the hospital. I was in an observation room, because I was under observation. The major difference is the beds aren't nearly as comfortable as when you're admitted. They're essentially gurneys with a Craftmatic adjustable bed welded to them, narrower than a twin bed. If I had a heart attack, they'd easily be able to get people and defibrillators around it. If I had to be wheeled into emergency surgery or otherwise, it was just a matter of taking the brakes off and hauling my ass where it needed to go. It made sense in every way.

But it wasn't comfortable. Essentially every tech or nurse who came in mentioned that. I told them not to worry about it -- I was simply glad they were there. And I was glad.

I made sure Weds and my parents knew. I gave a friend my emergency contact list -- representatives of everyone I knew would need to get the word if something happened. (Something, you know, meaning 'massive heart attack and dying.' Weds, of course, who would also get the word out here on Websnark and on my Livejournal, if need be. My parents, of course. My big friend Frank, who would let the Ithaca/Syracuse contingent know.

I kept a copy of the contact list with me, just in case. It had been some years since I had made plans for these contingencies. I hadn't missed them. And I got both Dad and Wednesday on the "give information to these people if they call with questions" list.

And I settled in. They got my meds list, to make sure I got my pills. And I waited, under observation.

Feburary 9, 2008

I got back to the Excalibur. This was not a night to go scoping out other casinos, I'd decided. The Excalibur, for no real reason, was home for me. It was comfortable. The bartender knew me. The prostitutes knew I wasn't in the market.

I hit my wallet and got out twenty dollars. The hundred dollar bill sat looking at me, Ben Franklin's eyes looked amused. I left it where it was for now. First, we hit the night. Same as always. Exactly as expected. A twenty dollar bill became twenty one dollar bills. I got out my Player's Club card, and I began to walk the floor, finding games to play.

Always, I thought about the end of the night. The moon shot. The single pull. Should I wait? Should that be my last bet in Vegas before I headed out to the airplane and my normal life? Should I do it at all?

I played a game based on Wheel of Fortune. I played one based on The Munsters. I played Double Diamond. A dollar in. Four credits. Four pulls. Cash out. Pick up the ticket, and move on. Taking my time. Getting some decaf coffee -- complimentary, from a trolley circling the floor. Lots of things were complimentary when you were playing the games. Hell, if you play video poker at the Jesters' Club, and put at least ten dollars in, they'll comp you single malt scotch. They want your brain mushy, your judgement relaxed. That's why I was sticking to decaf right then. My judgement was questionable enough without liquor being involved, thank you.

A dollar into a machine. Hit the "one credit" button. Ignore all the things extolling the virtues of playing two or three or five credits. Watch the tumblers spin. Feel good when they line up in a way that makes your credits go up. Not worry when the credits just go down. Cash out. Ticket in the right hand pocket.

Look over the shoulder. High Stakes, the neon sign gleams. The home of the five dollar slots, the ten dollar slots, the twenty dollar slots and the hundred dollar slots.

And then I was done. My left pocket was empty. I went and redeemed the money in my right hand pocket.

Twenty dollars when into the machines. Seventeen dollars and twenty five cents came out. An hour and a half's wanderings and occasional playing, and it had cost me two dollars and seventy-five cents.

My wallet felt heavy. I took it out. Took out Ben Franklin. I put him in my left hand pocket, the return on the night to date going into my right.

I went for another walk, downstairs, to the arcade -- where kids were allowed. There were a lot of kids in town tonight -- some sort of cheerleading competition here in the city -- and it was disconcerting to see fourteen year old cheerleaders in the center of sin. But they weren't allowed on the casino floor. Smoking was allowed on the floor, and gambling and drinking. This is one of the rarities of rarities in today's world -- a place unreservedly for adults, where you went in knowing that if you saw something offensive, it was your own damn fault for going there in the first place. The presumption was you were making your own decisions, and no one but no one was to blame if you gawked at showgirls or prostitutes, lost your Mortgage payment playing craps or betting on the Knicks, and drank yourself half-blind on single malt scotch you were comped because you spent a hundred dollars losing at video poker.

The arcade was literally a carnival arcade. No video games here. Just token drop games, guess your weight games, throw the ball and knock over the pins games. It was, I realized, entirely devoted to teaching kids to spend their money on taking a chance -- shooting for the moon. Heck, you might get a prize if you were good enough or lucky enough! Gambling, legal almost everywhere for children of all ages. Preparing cheerleaders for that day, five or six years later, when they could come to town as adults and spend their time at tables with green felt on them.

I went upstairs, and got one more bit of coffee. I felt conflicted for a moment, and then I walked to where I saw the High Stakes sign.

April 8, 2008

It was early in the morning. My back hurt, and so did my leg. Sciatica wasn't happy with the accomodations, it seemed. Doctor Fleet was there.

"Your blood pressure and pulse are excellent," he said, grinning. "And it looks like your Troponin levels have gone down to 0.01."

"So I'm okay?"

"We think so. Do you still have the ache?"

"Well, yeah."

He nodded. "We should try Mylanta. And I want you to have a stress test, just to be sure. Schedule it with my office on your way out. We'll do a nuclear resonance test at the same time -- see your ejection fraction, make sure everything is good."

"Good. Yeah, we don't want to take chances."

"Exactly. I'm going to write this up, and we'll check your last set of test results.. Give us a few hours, and you can get out of here. Sound good?"

"You bet." I grinned.

"Thought it might." He went out the door.

And he's right. Things seem to be okay -- the ache wasn't likely my lungs or heart. It might be muscular, or my back (nerve endings do funny things in the body) or any of a number of things. We test. We rule them out. We don't take chances.

After a couple of hours, they did indeed spring me. I called Weds, and called my folks, and called work. I discussed the need for second opinions and other tests that should be done and the like. "You need to be careful," my boss said, worried about me. "You don't want to take any chances."

And I went home -- my boss insisted -- and I relaxed and let the stress out a bit, playing with the cat a little. She was right. I didn't want to take any chances.

But then, I never took stupid chances, right?

February 9, 2008

I walked into the area. It was oddly quiet -- very few people play the high stakes slots. I looked at the machines that were there. The five dollar machines, the twenty dollar machines... they all looked essentially the same as the quarter or dollar slots.

And, for that matter, like the small bank of hundred dollar machines.

This is nuts, I thought. Play the twenty dollar slots. You'll get five spins on that one, not just one. Play the quarter slots all night. Keep the damn money and consider yourself lucky.

I closed my eyes, and thought about the following week. Back home, in the middle of one of the more miserable New Hampshire winters we'd had in the past ten years. What would I feel if I played this and lost? What would I feel if I didn't play it? Was it better to have your stupidity confirmed or to wonder for the rest of your life what might have been.

I thought of that paean to gambler's enabling, "If–". I have to believe this poem has been responsible for more bad decisions than almost any other poem in literature -- not counting The Bible, anyhow. For those who don't recall, the passage in question goes like this:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds–worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And–which is more–you'll be a Man, my son!

It's a hideous thing, that poem. A Man done throw all his money into the pot and shrug when he loses. A man does everything right and nothing wrong. A man keeps going. A man does it well or doesn't do it at all.

And that poem or not, I realized that the recrimination I would feel for not taking this dumbass chance would be way worse than the shrug when this money -- that I had never counted on in the first place -- was gone.

I walked to the machine. It promised up to 10,000 to 1 payouts, which wouldn't happen, though in that moment you do stop and consider what ten million dollars would give to you. It had lots of payout options of at least 1 to 1. I'd already decided that if it returned 1 to 1 it would be a sign from Fand to keep the damn hundred, and I would, gladly.

I fed in the hundred dollar bill. But for Franklin, it was just like feeding in one dollar, except instead of four credits, it gave me 1. One credit.

I closed my eyes, feeling silly for feeling nervous.

I opened them. I hit the right button to put one credit on the line. I made sure my Player's Club card was in place, and I pulled the lever, watching the tumblers spin and the electronic sounds and lights as they played their cheerful tune for me, one last time that night.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at April 9, 2008 1:53 PM

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