Club Regent regency
Their satanic majesties’ request
Ben Poggemiller, Staff
I have never been to the casino before, and as I walk in, I think I know what to expect. A gruff security woman without courtesy gruffly says “IDs” with the gruffness of Scruff McGruff, Chicago, Ill., 60652. We show her and enter.
My initial impression is overwhelming until I realize that I am supposed to feel that way. It is the first step to forgetting about my money. Seas of slot machines and bingo players flood my sight, and the rocky tropical scenery hits me with a sense of the sublime. Then I realize that it is not real and that the coconut trees have cameras in them.
She hasn’t been in a while. She approaches the window for quarters for the slots, only to find that things have changed since her last visit. She reports back to me that the slot machines take only bills and casino tickets and we can cash out any time we want. After walking around looking for attractive machines, we find some and sit down. I am adamant that we play on mechanical slots for reasons unknown to me. I put a bill in the machine and my money is instantly transformed into credits, a meaningless denomination of which I have 400. I am alienated from my money. I am playing and I soon forget how much money I have. I go up and down but I dance around my original amount. On a whim I bet the maximum amount. The credit counter starts increasing. It doesn’t stop. It is going up slowly and steadily and I don’t know when it will stop. She is astonished. I suddenly feel embarrassed as people start looking at me as they walk by. I’m excited but I want it to stop. I try in vain to figure out how I won. I don’ know and most people probably don’t. Finally it stops. I have tripled my amount.
She says, “Cash out right now,” and I do so without hesitation. I realize that I had already been pushing the cash out button even as the counter was still increasing. Instead of getting money, my amount is printed on a slip of paper. They will do anything to avoid giving me actual money. I am removed from it. As we get up, an old, old woman is slowly looking around her, presumably to find a hot machine.
I say, “This is a good one,” and point with my thumb to the machine I was just at. She looks up at me, not believing that I would say anything to her and certainly not comprehending. We move on.
We walk around, trying to find another set of machines and we think we do. This time they are electronic. As she tries to sit down, a nearby man who is helping his elderly friend whirls around nervously.
“Umm, I’m sorry. I’m on this machine, OK?” he jitters out. He looks at us as if we are about to take his eyes, or his judgment, but we know he has already lost both. His fear subsides as we walk away. Later I will see this man trying to explain to his elderly friend how much he had lost.
I am tempted to keep playing, but my mind resists. At the back of my head a voice keeps saying, “You could get a little more. You could get a little more.” I have her judgment to reinforce me and I stop. They will not get my winnings. I have earned them.
