Gillespie's Disease

Day 10 Monday Nov 3, 2014 - part 2

Frank and the Steins, in a photo unrelated to the narrative in which it appears.

As I walked back through the Four Queens casino from the Keno lounge, bearing a Keno ticket purchased with the last of my Admin money and the last of my tipping dollars, I spotted my pal Jeff, who was playing one of the dollar Jacks machines that had murdered me.

I went over to say hello to him, and his savvy wife Janis. I look up to these guys a lot - they have way more experience at this sort of thing than I do, and they are pretty nice people to boot.

"If you had been here half an hour ago," I said to Jeff, "you would have heard swearing and curse words the likes of which you've never heard of before with body parts and orifaces and things you didn't know you had going in and out of other things you didn't know you had in every kind of violent which way the likes of which you could not imagine if you weren't as utterly pissed off and spitting nails as I am right fucking now."

"Good morning, Royal," said Jeff, "so, run into a speedbump?"

It was good that I had someone to vent to and I also had a purpose in bothering Jeff while he was playing - I desperately needed some information.

So we talked.

What I needed to know was, in his experience, how much of an outlier my morning (and the Quad Queen's sessions overall) was and were.

One is always wondering if the math is wrong, if one is just supremely unlucky, if one is having a bad streak that is easily within mathematical probability, or if the machines have been diddled by the casino so that the math doesn't apply any longer and you have no chance of winning. (The answer for that one is, they have no need to do that, people generally lose.)

Anyway, I found out that it is easily possible to drop $1100 on dollar Jacks like that with nothing much to show for it and in fact, it could easily go as high as $3500 to $4000 - something I hope I never experience. But looking back on it, over the six days, the Quad Queen pretty much had experienced that.

"So what do you do?!" I asked him.

"I keep pushing the buttons. And when I lose my never, my better half smartens me up and insists that I trust the math and keep pushing the buttons."

Back in my suite at the Four Queens, I ate snacks, and watched losing Keno and pouted.

I thought back to the way I'd reamed out (gently, in my view) the Quad Queen when she was down $1000 and wanted to keep playing.

And here I was, my all time worst day, down $1100 by lunch.

Gratuitous photo of one of the Golden Nugget bars, unrelated to the narrative in which it appears. Because also.

And what was I going to do about it?

We had plans! I was a winner! I was coasting!!!! Goddammit!! Where did all that go????

If I kept playing and lost more could I lose the whole trip? That would NOT be good.

The age-old gambler's conundrum - you can not win if you do not play.

The Quad Queen played for me and got most of the rest of the points I needed for the day. But she'd also lost quite a bit. We talked.

And what we decided was... we'd just start over.

"Let's just say this was a bad day. We'll start a new day now."

"Like, have two days in one."

"Right. We'll each take $1000 from the brown envelope, and we'll start over."

Much to my chagrin, I agreed. We went over to the Nugget and opened the safe. I reached deep, deep into the safe, my skin looking red, as though it were lit somehow by the fires of gambling hell, the devil on my shoulder, pushing my hand ever closer to the filthy stash in the little brown envelope.

"Fuck off devil, I don't need your help," I said, "We're going to SLS to gamble!"

As we rode the quiet elevator down from the 23rd floor of the Rush Tower, I looked at myself in the mirror.

I did not like what I saw.

I puffed my cheeks out. They puffed out. I puffed them out some more, and they puffed out even more.

"I'm afraid I might be getting Gillespie's disease," I said to the Quad Queen, who was watching silently, mesmerized by the primal display.

"Huh?"

"Remember? That trumpeter?"

"But you don't play trumpet."

"Exactly! That's why I'm so concerned!"

And with that, we found the rental car in the Four Queens corral (after stopping to take yet another picture of the sad, disused Four Queens custom-made video poker progressive sign, stored in the dusty parkade) and drove to the newly refurbished SLS Las Vegas.

Sad disused Four Queens custom-made video poker progressive sign. I think Diamonds is the hottest.