Stripped Poker
I felt the hard edge of the red cube pressed between my thumb and index finger as I lifted it off the green felt. I was convinced that if I handled the dice in just the proper manner and made sure they read a certain number before I threw them it would somehow be favorable for myself.I was in the middle of my first hot run on the dice table, a moment that I have dreamt about for the past ten years. It was four am on a warm spring morning (well, really it was still nighttime, because morning does not start until you have woken up from at least 90 minutes sleep). My friend and I were up a couple of hundred dollars each which was a lot of money to a couple of college students from downtown Los Angeles. I was the expert, teaching my friend how to play craps. I calmly explained what it means to “come out” with a tobacco pipe precariously dangling from my lip, wisps of fragrant smoke sweetly drifted skywards, briefly distracting somebody in some security booth somewhere.
I picked up the dice, and with one swift forward motion I fired the cubes downrange, hoping for the perfect shot. At the moment a pair of treys would drive the crowd wild. I was working on my fifth consecutive point and the parlayed bets were growing in height and value. Redbirds were pressed into quarters and then bumped to blacks. Every roll of the dice meant the winning or losing of thousands of dollars for the community which was this table. Nothing else in the world mattered except the eventual report from these transparent cubes.
This roll would be different. My first die was thrown very hard and hit squarely on the bottom of the tower of green ($25) checks in front of the far dealer. The chips exploded with a beautifully unique noise and made an utter mess. The second die missed higher and righter and bounced off the top of the dealer’s beer belly and off the table.
“What the hell was that kid!?! Asked the pit boss with a snarl.
“That’s it Devo. This guy’s gonna card you, they’re gonna take you in a back room, take all your money, and kick your ass.” Thanks for the support friend.
I fortunately did not have to show the gentleman my ID because if he asked for one I wouldn’t show it to him. I was only twenty years old at the time, and this was my first adult memory of a town that I had been coming to for all of my life already.
You see, Las Vegas was basically a vacation home for my family for, well, infinity. My earliest tragic memory of my young childhood was when I left my favorite stuffed animal in a hotel room. To this day I still think about Kanga (who happened to be a kangaroo in case you didn’t guess from my four old creativity with phonics), especially when I walk into the Circus Circus, where I left him in 1985.
Back in those days they (obviously referring to the powers that be that we have zero influence over in any context where they are referred) were making a strong effort to make Las Vegas more of a family friendly town. Las Vegas was just emerging from the mafia prominence and dominance of this worldwide tourist destination. The Circus Circus was the perfect family spot and the poster resort for the town‘s family friendliness. . Everything they offered catered to the entertainment of the family. Above the gaming pit was a complete circus trapeze act that performed every ninety minutes or so. The building was oval in shape much like a circus tent. The first floor was the casino, the second floor was the circus. Circling the trapeze are were midway games just like you find at the fair. My dad and I would spend hours shooting squirt guns at clowns’ mouths, throwing softballs at milk jugs, and shooting BB machine guns. Our family would meet for dinner every night. I would tell of my adventures, my mom would tell of hours of playing blackjack for two dollars a hand and how one time she bet ten dollars… you get the idea. After dinner my mom would take me and eventually the other kids as they came along upstairs to bed time.
Mornings were always the most exciting time. More often than not I remember my dad making it rain chips all over my mother. I would bounce in my one piece pajamas with feet on my bed a few times before launching across the canyon that separated our beds and coming to a rest leaning against my mother. I picked up the chips and let them slowly fall out of my little fingers like adventurers standing on piles of gold that I had seen on TV. I was in wonderment with the colors, all the blues, reds, greens, blacks, and the occasional purple.
Even on the times that my Dad did not come home with chips, he would still tell me tales of adventure the previous night as we enjoyed some all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. He would tell me about how at one time he had over two hundred dollars at risk every roll of the dice and woulda won huge with a couple more rolls. But he always had fun in his stories, and thus I grew up seeing the glamour in high stakes gambling and dreamt of the day that I could too partake in the game.
Little did I know that by the time I experienced my quarter life crisis I would be a professional gambler living in Las Vegas.
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This is hopefully the start to my first book. I am obviously writing it from my own perspective, but I am going to market it as a fictional book with a fictional character. I want to focus on the struggles of a twenty-something living in Las Vegas wrestling with issues of life. I want to explore the issues that so many people my age have with abandonment from their fathers. I want to explore the issues that so many of us have with the clash between religious parents with a modern mindset vs. postmodern kids like us who just don't agree all the time. I want to tell a fun story about a quarter of life that has managed to center around las vegas, and I want to learn something about myself in the process.
What do you think? Gimme compliments and criticism both, but any hating bitter comments are gonna result in a ban.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
posted by Devo @ 7:24 PM
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