tales from the casino

It was 2004. My parents planned to take a fall vacation to visit my aunt and uncle in Arizona. They invited me, but I refused to go once I learned that they planned to drive for 20+ hours from North Platte to Lake Havisu Ariz. This was a major logistical problem, as neither one of them is able to stay awake that long. They had counted on me to drive at least half of the distance and were rather angry when I refused. So be it. Any sane person would gladly disown his/her family in order to avoid the hell of driving accross the high plains of Eastern Colorado and Northern New Mexico.
Imagine Nebraska after the apocolypse. This is what it's like to drive Colo 71 an hour south of Limon. Grass, bridges over dry washes, dirt trails to nowhere. The fucking cows are 10 miles apart from each other, unfenced, apparently belonging to no one.
Anyway, the problem was solved when my sister secured plane tickets from Omaha to Las Vegas. This required spending a night at her apartment on West Center before going to the airport the next morning. I suggested a trip to the East Farnam bars in order to mark the begining of our vacation. The rest of the family- well they rejected this. Even my sister believed that going to east (read, black) Omaha was maniacly dangerous. My mother suggested that we go to Ameristar in Council Bluffs. Whenever she's in the Omaha area, this is where one will find her whenever she's not at Nebraska Furniture Mart or Olive Garden. If I didn't go with them, I would be left with my sister's basic cable, and candles, and cats, so I went.
Council Bluffs, Omaha's New Jersey. Interstates, river levee, ethonol plant, strip clubs employed by meth addicts, hourly fuck box hotels, families with 3 or 4 abused, broken down cars and 3 or 4 abused, broken down kids. A trip to Council Bluffs is just the thing for a homesick country boy disoriented by the lights of Dodge Street.
Ameristar is near the river. The lights of Omaha can easily be seen as you ride the shuttle bus through the giant parking lot. The smell of urine and/or crystal permiates the air. We reach the door, the bus driver wishes us luck. Door greaters in red jackets and guards in blue jakets wish us luck. We enter to a blaze of ruby carpet and pale lights.
(You could win... Your own Loveboat! doo-doo-doo---do-dododododo) so the sound comes in cheap outdated synth. In case you don't know "casinos" are nothing but slot machines. Wheel of Fortune Slot machines. Beverly Hillbillies slot machines. Dynasty, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Brady Bunch. I asked a woman where the craps table was and she laughed at me. She didn't mean it as an insult. She sincerely believed I was joking.
Modern casinos, you see, cater to people at the high end of middle age. They were still too old in the 80's to be hypnotized by the likes of Pac-Man or Space Invaders. So this is their first experience with magical talking money-eating machines, machines decorated with the safe family entertainment of their young adulthoods.
And that's what its all about, family-friendly gambling. What makes it family friendly? Random patriotic symbols like flags and the all-american buffet. along with row upon row of slot machines covere with uncontroversial icons of pop culture. Dice and card games would suggest everything that makes gambling dirty. Strung out hookers in the back, cheaters being chopped up in the kitchen. But Ameristar doesn't cater to those types. These arn't filthy hedonists, they're just trying to win the American dream, just enjoying a scotch and water or two and trying to win their own loveboat.
My mother handed me a 20$ bill to go gamble with. She never gave me 20 bucks when I needed it for drugs. I headed to the bar. Sam Adams for 2$ a bottle. There was a band consisting of a male lead singer/keyboardist and three female back-up singers. They sang a beach boys song, than they did a medley from the Grease soundtrack. They were wearing matching neon green outfits with hot pink trim, perhaps hand-me-downs from a mariachi band. They called themselves the American Romanticas, or the Loving Arms, or something.
I head upstairs to the indoor dog-racing stands. Betting on greyhound races is far more popular than you are meant to know. Losing dogs have a way of ending up in mass graves before their first birthdays. Winning dogs have a chance to make it to five. And so the Ameristar Dog track is well away from the All-American buffet and the family-friendly slot machines.
It was night, and there were no races going on. The observation deck had T.V.s. These were meant to show dog races from around the country, but you can watch anything you like. This was the floor for the hard-core gamblers. A little ESPN woundn't distract them from trying to win their own LoveBoat. They had no interest in getting dirty while pretending not to.
I watch the presidential debate with some other guy. He's about 40, t-shirt, sandels, slacks. Every now and than he chuckles at something one of the candidates say. Otherwise he watches intently. I have a notion he was betting on the debate.
The old hands scattered about give me filthy looks the whole time I'm upstairs. A security guard comes and asks for my ID. I shw it to him. I get the message and go back down to the slot machines.
I have 3 more beers, I go to the bar, open a Sam Adams, and then wonder around the main hall, taking in the lights and the carpet, looking for a slot machine more stupid than the last. A manager-type copmes up to me.

"We've observed that you've had a few beers" he said.
"Yes" I said.
"That's fine sir. You do know that Iowa law forbids gaming while intoxicated, so we just wanted to see if you're o.k."
"Well, why don't you be the judge."
"Well, heh, you seem pretty alert to me, your eyes don't look red or cloudy or anything. So I think we can let you stay here and enjoy yourself. Just be careful o.k. Enjoy your evening at Ameristar Casino and good luck."

I went to a slot machine with a name like "House of Terror" and put in $10. I stayed there for about an hour and had two more beers delivered to me by a waitress. The manager didn't come back to bother me again. I made a five dollar profit.
I tracked down my sister, and we tracked down our mother. She had had six jack and cokes while playing the Family Fued slot. The manager didn't bother her either. Once she was 30 or 40 dollars in the hole she quit.

the attendents wished us a good night. Faith Hill was playing over some sort of sound sstem in the parking lot as we made our way back to the car. My sister commented on how filthy this part of Council Bluffs looked as she drove us back accross the Missouri.