A casino gambling story loosely based on an acquaintance of mine long before the dawn of electronic slot machines.
1356 words
Hit Me
The deadbolt clicked. Willis placed the keys in his left trouser pocket and tiptoed down the steps. He cocked his head at the cardinal’s song coming from the maple and looked for a splash of red. No time, he thought and walked briskly into the morning sun.
He liked Fridays, especially those in July and August. Released from his middle-school classroom he would walk, expectantly, to seniors’ day at the Casino. The quickest link was the old LE & N trestle that had been refurbished into a walkway complete with lookouts extending out over the river. Invariably, Willis paused briefly to day dream. The river boiled off the dam and churned around the bridge abutments. Somehow the swirl readied him for the noisy confusion of the Casino. Chaos in an eddy he thought, unpredictable, like a slot machine. A prayer fragment surfaced: I’m Thine, save me.
The coat check girl greeted him by name as Willis checked his keys. His pockets had to be uncluttered, just his photo ID and Winner’s swipe card in the right pant pocket and in the left, a bankcard and one credit card for backup.
“Good luck, Willis,” the coat check girl said, a bit too brightly for 7:30 A.M.
He postponed breakfast for a while. At $1.98 with a coupon it was a deal. He could tip the cost of the breakfast and still eat for $5.00. Willis checked in, picked up his five free dollar tokens and strolled. He examined each row of dollar machines, scrutinized the carpet, the credit indicators and the coin trays. Any stray coin would be snatched up and any lingering credit cashed out. Once he had found a fifty-dollar bill on the carpet mere centimeters from a man’s foot. By stepping on it, bending over and pretending to tie his lace Willis retrieved his $50.00 gift. The gambler didn’t even look down fixated as he was on gaining a seat at a crowded blackjack table. Willis blew it on a quarter machine. He swore off quarters.
Surveillance finished, he approached a two-coin machine. With his usual pre-pull ritual he inserted his swipe card and threaded its curlicue braid down the right hand side of the machine between the casing and the pull handle. Never would he leave the spiral cord and card attached in his pocket. It had to curl, snakelike around the machine. After a pull on the handle he would carefully wrap the card in its umbilical tie and then unwrap it, even if two machines were side by side. He whispered, “Let there be a hit for me.”
Willis took two one-dollar tokens from his pocket deftly holding them between thumb and forefinger. Quickly he rolled them into the slot, caressed the knob on the handle and yanked. The pay line pierced three different symbols. No first strike, no hit. He then took a single token. Initially, he sought fast cash and refused to play maximum bets that would exhaust his stash. A cushion at the onset was useful because it reduced the stress. Odd though, that winning stress felt just like losing stress. A verse came to mind: Oh that you would bless me indeed… No match no hit. Willis took out his card, wrapped it up and moved on, eyes darting from carpet, to tray, from slot to slot.
For a half hour, he moved about. Time now to take a break, grab his subsidized breakfast and listen to the list of announced tournament players. On seniors’ day four rounds of sixteen players would be selected from all registered seniors to compete in a tournament. A special bank of quarter slots was set aside. Participants would be allotted five minutes to hit the spin button. Points were credited by the machine and the top four made it to the finals. First prize was $300.00. No handle pulling here. Willis would attack the spin button, sometimes fisting it, knuckling it, pounding it. No matter that the machine spun to its own binary logic Willis would break into a sweat. He murmured, “Please call my name.”
Breakfast weighed him down; eggs over-lightly, bacon, ham, sausage with home fries and three cups of coffee. He left a $5.00 bill under his saucer.
Willis now tried a different approach. Some three-coin machines would pay varying amounts depending on the number of coins played. Still in search of that first hit, he played a single coin for a maximum return of sixty. You had to be careful, though. It was quite possible for a winning combination to come up without a pay off. Once (always it seemed like once) three red sevens had popped up. It would have paid $400.00 if three coins were played. That time, he had spun in one. A hit on the pay line with no reward!
Not good, he thought, I’ve got to find a way to pay the man! Three tournament rounds over and my name not called. Down a $100.00 Willis shrugged. It was pay week. Yet he detested the thought of going down the escalator with no cash and bacon grease souring his stomach.
The ABM spit out the second $100.00 in the last hour. I’ve got to win! I’ve already dropped $100.00! Careful, these dollar machines can really attract the cash. He rolled another three tokens, another three dollars into a slot. I whisper this to Love: Hit me! The handle thudded after a gentle caress. The machine stood silently.
It was time to conserve, time to retreat, time just for the single coin strategy. Single coin deposits delayed the inevitable. Depositing bills and using credits, rather than placing coins in the slot burned cash. You could hit every five seconds that way, $36.00 a minute if you bet the maximum. Dropping single coins and pulling the handle slowed the process. Twelve more dollars evaporated, twelve spins. Every bandit in the row stood still, no sound, no flashing lights; an island of silence in a sea of white noise.
Oh, let there be a win for me. I thank You in advance. Thank You, thank You, thank You.
Name not called, no tournament, not one strike. $190.00 down Willis approached the progressive Giga-Bucks machine with its by-the-second jackpot flitting in neon red across its top. Willis thought, somewhere today I saw a flash of red didn’t I? These machines comprised a group that offered unique features. First, the final result of a spin was delayed. The symbols would gently waver and bounce above the pay line and then move up or down to finalize the spin. Once Willis had hit a bonus by waiting (only seconds) for the symbols to dance into position. The group was also connected to other machines Canada wide. If the right set of symbols, the Giga-Buck, came up, it was jackpot time. Jackpots ran into the millions and three coins had to be played. Several times Willis had rebounded from his last ten dollars. Recovery time now, he thought. He placed all remaining tokens in his right hand. One per spin he rolled them in, his curlicue tether fluttering to the side: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-… He hesitated on the third-to-last, almost hammering all three into the slot. He muttered an invocation: …that Apsara who makes the winnings, do I call hither.
Willis riveted his eyes on the pay line. He watched the center, stylized Giga-Buck lock into position. On the left a second identical symbol wiggled just below the line. On the right a third, danced millimeters above. He perceived something symmetrical and blinked. A black line intersected three identical symbols.
Willis groped for the chair as bells rung, slid to the floor as red flashed. Something ran up his arm, a searing pulse that exploded in his chest. Left cheek to the rug Willis spotted a dollar token under the lip of the machine. It rested out of reach. He extended the fingers of his right hand to touch it.
He hissed through clenched teeth, “I only put one in, one in.”
On the next machine, the man stuffed in three coins before he pressed the CALL ATTENDANT button.
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Reviewed by balikoowa joshua
9/1/2017
Your story is very captivating and insightful! it is game that takes ones life wandering in the dreamland.Thank you!
Usually the expression used at Blackjack tables, your story rings play through for pulling the one armed bandit. My father once claimed that he won three jackpots the order of $3000 each. What I wonder is how much he spent to make that kind of money. It certainly wasn't luck. Just the law of numbers.
I recall playing a slot machine for some time in Reno. But there was a high payoff poker machine nearby and I stopped to play that. Shortly after, some guy came to the slot machine that I been playing and hit the jackpot! A casino attendant came over and made the point to me. I don't gamble, so I consider playing casino slot machines to be a kind of charity to the casino. ;-)
All in all, a good write. Showing us what an addiction to gambling can reduce one to.
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