October 9
Fred and I moved on a call tonight that was pretty funny. It started in pit four and ended in the hotel with Fred and I obliged to pretend we were airplanes.
We were sent to pit four to deal with a guy who was, according to Ted, acting strange. He’s a Japanese guy, apparently in his late 60’s though sometimes it’s hard to tell with the Japanese, and he’s pretty drunk. He’s at the table fumbling for his money and Fred and I make contact and he speaks absolutely no English whatsoever. None at all, which is funny because most Japanese we get at Monte Carlo have at least some English, which, combined with a lot of bowing, is usually sufficient to get their point across.
But this guy doesn’t even know ‘passport’ and ‘ID’ which are pretty universal, and, Fred, who has some Japanese despite being 6-5 and black (he has a Japanese wife) announces he is completely useless because he really needs the person to speak at least some English for his ‘Japanese’ to be effective.
The guy is in great spirits, though. He’s laughing and babbling in Japanese and waving and bowing and even issuing hand salutes. Eventually, he produces a room key and he must’ve gotten the impression we wanted him to call it a night because he gets up and heads towards the elevators so Fred and I decide not to fight it and follow him.
We end in front of room 30-104. The man inserts his key, opens the door, then promptly closes it and decides he prefers room 30-107 instead and heads there. He seems genuinely surprised his 104 key doesn’t work in 30-107, but he bows some more and we bow and eventually steer him back to 30-104.
From which we’re not allowed to leave. He holds a hand out expansively as if giving us a tour and then he goes and looks for something, probably his passport, which we don’t need because his room key worked. Fred and I try to leave but he insists on being a gracious host and Fred says goodbye and bows and I bow which he thinks is very funny and then he sticks his arms out imitating an airplane, and, when Fred and I do that, too, he waves and we are allowed to leave.
At 0530 Radtke and I are killing time near the escalators when I get sent on a 10-10 (a 10-minute break). I tell him to get his notebook out because I am going to give a clinic in How To Take A 10-10. For emphasis I tap my watch. Actually, I tap the back of the wristband because I wear my watch with the face facing down.
I take the escalator up and by 0532 I am in PBX, where Angelica and James are on duty. Dougie Fresh, wrapping up matters as Henry – 1, is there, too, playing his Nintendo. James is trying to sleep, with about as much success as you would expect with Angelica and Dougie Fresh in the same room.
At 0540, ten minutes after being sent on 10-10, and eight minutes after arriving in PBX, I announce I am starting my 10-10.
Angelica still is not sure she believes my Prothonotary Warbler theory on why men are slobs, but she has taken to calling me Bird and we end up playing Tetris together, a game I completely suck at. I use James’ Nintendo and Angelica uses WiFi, or something like that, to connect the two games, and she beats me 5-0 before either of us has broken a sweat.
At 0600, twenty minutes after I started, I announce I am done with my 10-10 and at 0610 I am back on the floor, a full 40 minutes after I had been cleared for my 10-minute break.
Radtke and I then spent some time at Roberta’s table. Roberta is a very pretty brunette, who looks like she’d be from New York, but is actually from LA. She goes by Bert, and with Radtke right there I did some recon work for him.
“What about Nong?” I asked after a few minutes of small talk, adding I knew someone who was interested, though – again citing privacy issues – I didn’t mention Radtke’s name.
“Oh,” Bert said, dismissively before effectively ending Radtke’s life as he knew it. “Nong is single, but she doesn’t date at work.”
Radtke took it well, managing not to faint, and, typical of the attitude that will propel him to a long, prosperous bachelor career, turned it over and put it to work for him. He said when he gives notice here he can ask her out telling her he won’t be working here anymore. I told him he was high because 20 years from now we’ll both still be here scheming about women we’ll never actually go out with.
As noted, Radtke has a great bachelor career ahead of him. He says there’s this girl at UNLV who has the hots for him but he doesn’t have the hots for her and I told him he gets points for not working it just to score, because these things generally come to no good and nothing ends a bachelor career faster than a kid.
I spent as much time as possible the first two hours on the east end, hovering around pit one because there were three incredibly hot dealers working there. The first was Letty, a tall, youngish Cuban girl who is so drop dead gorgeous she was actually designated the Future Mrs. Gaylon when she arrived last year, at least until Rich smacked me around, reminding me I don’t really want a Future Mrs. Gaylon.
The second was Cassandra, who just started. Short, brunette, late 20’s or so, with a very cute nose, she is of a very pleasing size which indicates she appreciates the value of a square meal while realizing the importance of not over-indulging. I’ve chatted with her a couple of times but so far my “How’s it going?” seems to be the cornerstone of our relationship. Rich appreciates her, too, which isn’t surprising because our tastes in women are pretty similar, although he has the hots for Radtke’s woman and I really don’t.
The third foxy dealer working the east end was Blanca. Blanca! I didn’t recognize her at first, but she is the same Blanca I lusted after when I trained on swing shift when I started here in January of ‘05 and she was on days. She is one of the most beautiful women on the planet, right along with Estela, who deals on graveyard. Blanca has grown her hair out and the little eye contact we’ve had indicates she doesn’t know who the hell I am, but that’s all right. She was, I think, dating a guy on day shift, so maybe she isn’t anymore. She’s not wearing a ring, but you learn that doesn’t mean anything in a casino where married women sometimes won’t because they think they get bigger tips and some single women will because they think it keeps leeches – like me, for instance – away from them.
October 7
October 11
Backstairs Homepage (Includes two months of complimentary entries.)
