February 12
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – OMP
Henry 2 – moi
Henry 3 – Shaggy
Shaggy desperately tried to swap, but, as anticipated, no one was willing, so he was stuck.
The problem is Shaggy, like most people who do not like the hotel, simply is not predisposed for the quiet and solitude hotel work usually offers.
Here’s an example. Right off the bat Shaggy was sent to break up a party in the 100 wing of the third floor. I was in the EDR, where I had stopped for no really good reason before heading to the hotel, and was chatting with a very pretty dealer named Lisa.
I head on up, because, of course, that’s the way we do it in the hotel: we have each other’s back. We get there and there’s no party going on in the 100 wing; which isn’t a surprise. What probably happened was that a group of people was leaving a room and made too much noise for their neighbor’s taste, and, the neighbor called and tattled. We conducted a thorough 30-second investigation, too.
“Whew, that was tough,” I tell Shaggy. “Let’s go take a break.”
Shaggy looks at me like I had just mentioned I favored sexual intercourse with yaks; he thinks I’m kidding.
“Come on, there’s a sweet place for us to sit down right here on the third floor.”
I take him to the maids training room, which is located right off the E-Core. And herein lies the difference between Shaggy and myself: where I see a desk and a chair and see opportunity, Shaggy sees a waste of time. It simply does not occur to him that sitting with your feet up in a dark room is a worthwhile way to construct a work night.
February 14
Here was your Dispatch lineup for swing shift on Monday:
David 1 – Paul W.
David 2 – moi
Paul is a retired police chief from a Chicago suburb. He really knows what he’s doing and he took complete command. The only time I did anything was when he was busy or on 482 or grabbing a smoke.
While he was at 482 I got a call from Houchins, who was at the podium, saying an old man had stopped by and said his wife hadn’t come out of the bathrooms near the poker room in 45 minutes.
It’s nice to have a female officer enter the bathroom in these situations. It’s not always possible, but it is nice, so I send a bike officer named Cathy to check it out. She reports the lady isn’t in the can, so she takes charge and sends out a description, with a warning the lady is suffering from partial dementia and I think we eventually found her. I say think because right then I got busy with something in the hotel and was coordinating matters between Chet and the front desk.
Graveyard in the casino was shaping up to be one, long dreary night when a female dishwasher with breathing problems perked matters up. This was just what the doctor ordered; we go four-nine-nine, of course, and Russ and Houchins respond and they’re asking for someone to escort the paramedics from North Drive into the food and beverage office. I’m on 10-10 and selflessly break it off early and announce I am standing by, asking only to serve.
Redneck Randy is waiting on North Drive for the paramedics and gets on the horn.
– Gaylon, what door do you want to bring the paramedics in at?
Hell, I don’t know. Truthfully, I spend so much time in the hotel I am rather lost in the back of the house area anymore. I really didn’t know which outside door would provide the quickest access.
Unfortunately, there’s not a 400 code for ‘Hell I don’t know’. Masterfully, I hit the ball back into Redneck Randy’s court.
– I was going to ask you the same question.
Right then Guy steps in and announces our best bet would be the loading dock doors. I have no clue where the loading dock doors are, but I manage to work my way to doors that do lead outside and manage to find my way to the loading dock doors in short order.
The four-nine-nine was a Godsend, and set a great tone for the rest of the night. After I cleared from that call I headed to the cage to put boxes for the pit drops out with Code Four Carlin and, after that, Houchins and I conducted a triumphant west pit drop then I went and collected markers from the pit and then sat at the podium till 0400 when I went 482.
0400 482’s are nice because there are usually fresh pastries out and while I seldom indulge, they are nice to smell. At 0500 I had validators with Houchins. He told me about his dog dying recently and when that was done I was sent on yet another 10-10 and then killed the last half hour staring at a drop-dead gorgeous Bulgarian dealer named Mariana.
We are so shorthanded we were only able to put seven Charlie units on the floor because we had four OT units: myself, Houchins, Dee and Special Ed, who spent the whole night at Eddie – 2.
And Special Ed even got a haircut before he went on day shift! It was funny. Ed had tried giving himself a haircut at home and butchered it so miserably that someone brought clippers in and actually gave him a rather serviceable trim. It wasn’t Haircut of the Year, but at least his hair no longer looked like it had been attacked by a pissed off badger.
We also ragged him about whether or not he was going to color his hair, because the gray was starting to return. Ed colors his hair a really awful shade of brown that makes his hair look like an old pair of loafers.
“Ed,” I asked. “You going to be using that liquid shoe polish again?” To emphasize my point, I made a fist and waved it over the top of my head as if I were applying liquid shoe polish. Like it should have, it got really good laughs and Special Ed told me to go fuck myself.
February 11
February 16, 18 & 19
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