craps

My aunt's palms were itching last weekend. She could wait for us to drive her to the casinos. Though for all the times she's gone to Vegas she didn't know that the neon filled row of hotels was called, "the Strip."

"OK, Auntie, Let's go! We're going to the Strip now."

She thought we were talking about a strip club.

"No, Auntie, you know the Strip, were all the casinos are: MGM, Caesar's. the Strip. What did you call it?"

She just called it the casinos.

My aunt is a hard core gambler. She plays it all, cards, mahjong, baccarat, blackjack. She has the nerves to be down $1000 and still come back to win. My stomach starts to quiver at $20.

Friday night after a long drive we head to the Strip and stop off at Mandalay Bay. Blackjack tables are $25 a hand. It already seems like big money. For my aunt, it's quick cash. She likes the fast paced games, especially with only a few hours to play. Poker is probably a bit too slow for her, having to read the other people around the table. She'd rather just play against the house.

We tell our aunt to be good, not talk to strangers and don't go wandering off, we'll be back in 2 hours to pick her up.

Mandalay has a night club with fake fire torches, streams of waterfalled windows, and go-go dancers on platforms two stories up. It looks like a movie set. I wasn't much of a club scene kind of person. I feel more like a promdi, as in "from the province". Most of the clubs in Vegas are free for the ladies since afterall the ratio here is more like 4 frat boys for every bridesmaid. Guys pay like $20 each just to be near the ladies streaming in.

Walking past the club, I feel overdressed in jeans and a short sleeve top, surrounded by outfits kept together by oh the slightest of knots. My cousin's fiance comments, "I wonder how many noses are real?" Isn't that how many chests are real? "No, that's a given." I'm usually not a catty person and tend to avoid discussions or interactions that bring out that side of me. It brings a bad taste to my mouth, kind of bitter. But it's hard not to be catty in an environment like that: pounding drum music, eyes everywhere both men and women looking you up and down evaluating your sexiness/womanliness/lustiness, to see if you're "worth" any time.

I find myself playing the same game thinking about whether people look good or not in the outfits they chose for themselves. Certainly, there's a distinct double standard. While most of the women where basically handkerchiefs, high heels and a load of makeup, the guys are in slacks and untucked shirts to cover their beer guts. You would think it would be the guys that need to show off a bit considering the ratio. And that was just the area outside the club!

We get past the club scene and wander around the casino floor. Stop to watch the Texas Hold 'Em games area. $40 to $100 buy-in. From the few poker nights with friends, poker certainly is not my game. I get bored, but wouldn't mind getting into a hand just once to see. The waitresses don't make much money here, only water and soda. Poker players always need to keep their wits about them.

Every now and then we stop at one of the giant slot machines and stick in a dollar. We pull the arm at its side rather than push the button. To keep you from walking away so quickly, they pay out casino tokens instead of cash. We take the metrorail (that goes to all the casinos, but ends at midnight) to the Luxor. You know, the pyramid with the contant bright light blazing to the heavens. My theory is that they're signalling the aliens to come down. The hotel rooms have window overlooking the casino floor. Personally, I'd rather not stay in a place that is supposed to be a tomb.

We walk over one more hotel to the Excalibur and stop to have drinks and play video poker. Drinks are expensive. Better to nurse $20 at the quarter slots to score the free drinks.

We head back to Mandalay. It's now 2am, but feels like 4. My aunt managed to win $400. The itchy palms never lie.

-----the next evening

After the wedding, we of course, return to the Strip. The 21 and younger crowd of cousins are all hanging out at my uncle's house goofing off. Myself, my sister, and my cousin, are the few left who are over 21, still "single" and no kids, though in a few more years all that will change as well.

Since it's my cousin's fiance's first time in Vegas we drive the length of the Strip from Mandalay to the Venetian. Tons of traffic on the Strip with cops all over the place. Crowds everywhere on the sidewalk since the monorail closes at midnight. We missed the Bellagio water show. I'm driving the SO's car tonight. We're all in a state of euphoric consciousness from the lack of sleep. My sister and cousin seem particularly "high" on something sitting in the back seat as my cousin reads off the scrolling ads for the $5.99 buffet in a slow, irregular disjointedness as if she's Dori talking to the whales in Finding Nemo. "Stop BY TOdaY to ta-aste THE deLIC-iOus stEAK." We turn up the AC fans, maybe they're not getting enough air back there.

At a light by Caesar's we note that the statue of David was not built during the Greek empire, but hey what do gamblers care about historical accuracy. Many of the hotels actually have extensive fine art collections, particularly the Bellagio. As we get to the end of the Strip and enter downtown, the mood certainly changes. The buildings are more run down, some boarded up. We watch a fellow sit with his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees. It's the same look more and more people have the further we go along.

The Amazing Jonathan stares at us with his "evil eye" look on the poster to show just how "amazing" he is. Unlike New York where the neon is there to beg your attention, here it seems as those all the neon and billboards are looking at you: performers faces 20 ft high, chippendales, magicians, musicians, even Blue Man Group, stare at you in a strange gaze. The signs get more cryptic as you go along, "hypnotic exotics," "mud wrestling: Britney vs Christina," "The Borg Experience: now in 4-D."

This is now downtown where the old small rundown casinos are. Here you can easily find the tables for $5 or less bets and penny slots. I ask my sister where to turn next, we try this one street. She starts to comment how some of these streets around here can be "dangerous" and that it's not good to walk around here but she's not clear how "dangerous." It does look like we've run into a housing projects type area with very few people walking along the street. The SO and I consider what's "dangerous" in Oakland and LA and quickly make sure the doors are locked. My sister asks why we are so jumpy. The SO replies to her because she said it was "dangerous" and you didn't tell us if we should be ducking bullets. I manage to get us back on the neon boulevard. Strange how this street seems "safe" with all its bright lights.

It takes us nearly an hour to get through the entire strip, so we head back to Mandalay. We find my aunt who is down $1000. She has another hour to win it back. The SO and I look for Pai Gow or Baccarat, but Mandalay is a blackjack scene, with only a handful of other card tables. We try our hand at craps instead. I had been studying my computer casino game on the rules. It seems simple enough. Our first hundred goes well and I stay up for a while. I mostly bet on the Pass Line and study the bets the other players are making. Each shooter has his own system of rolling: the shake, the snake eyes stack. Each one hoping to get into a groove and rhythm. Our second hundred trickles down slower, but we end up crapping out. Hmm...should have noticed when the shooter bet on craps before he himself rolled. That's got to be a bad sign.

We find my aunt again, who managed to get back out of the hole and come out ahead. Next time, I'll have to take our $200 and sit next to her. It's always good to study from a mentor. She says $200 is plenty for blackjack even at $25 a pop.

It's now 3am. We call the 21 and under cousins who rode with us to Vegas. They're still at my uncles. We tell them they better get home. They ask if we could pick them up. The laughter is the car is deafening...no. Now that they're 18, we don't give them as much slack. If they want to go some place, they can find a ride back. The SO waits up for them back at the house. When we hear their laughter and the car drive up, he stands at the front door. He's already got the "dad in the doorway" stance down. They pile out of the back of a pickup truck, keeping their heads down to keep the cops from stopping them.

The youngest, a guy, comes out of the back of a truck too. As he enters the house, the SO tells him if his mom found out you were riding in the back of a pick up truck, she'd kick your butt. He replies, "Me? I wasn't riding in the back of the truck, I was sitting in the cab." Good boy.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.