The New Sense

Sunday, July 07, 2002

We didn't end up going to the casino yesterday, but we did today. Yesterday was kind of wasted in fact, with me suffering from morning, afternoon and evening sickness. For some women it's normal, apparently. Hopefully it won't last too long.
Anyway, the casino. What a place. I've seen casinos in the movies, but the real thing is quite a sobering experience. Unfortunately for gambling addicts it's the opposite of a sobering experience, or whatever the gambling equivalent of being sober is.
First of all, the style. I knew it was going to be tacky. I was expecting to laugh at its tackiness, but I was just in awe. And there's such a polarisation of society — it's full of rich people with money to waste for fun (which is tacky enough by itself when there are starving children around) and poor people who can't afford to feed their own families but who are trapped by hope. The surreal thing is that there are some great artworks on the walls, thanks to Loto-Québec's collection. But what a place to hang them! No-one pays any attention to them whatsoever. It's like a sort of art zoo. Just as the creatures in a zoo are deprived of their natural habitat, so these pictures are denied the proper light, the proper atmosphere. I guess the artists who painted them are pretty happy to have sold them at all, but it's still a shame. Then again, how many of the world's artworks are actually on display? A minute percentage, I bet.
I bet!!! See — it's got to me already! Gambling fever has gripped my soul! Okay, not really. Thanks to B—'s super sense I didn't have to actually risk my money at all. I went in with $50 and came out with $80. He told me he didn't want to help me win more than that or the authorities would have started to get very suspicious at a couple who both beat the odds so regularly. He actually had to keep losing on purpose, just to not attract too much attention! He took in $200 and walked out with over $3,000! Not bad for an afternoon's work. He's obviously done this a few times, because he was very cool and very careful about what he did.
First of all he spent about twenty minutes on the slot machines, and encouraged me to do the same thing. What a sad sight those machines are. People sit at them like pigeons in some kind of experiment, pecking at a button in return for food once in a while. The psychology of the whole thing is terrifyingly simple. When someone wins they want to keep playing because they're 'on a roll' and if they don't win they have to keep playing because they're sure they're going to get a big payout soon. It's the latter situation which is the most pathetic because people become practically chained to their machine. They just can't bear the thought that they might walk away and the next gambler put one quarter in the slot and get the huge win. They can't bear it. So much so that they even have buckets to piss and shit in. It's fucking disgusting.
The thought that they might miss something… What a weird thing the mind is. And it's all just an illusion because the chances of winning don't increase the longer they play. It's not even the fact that they put so much money in the machines — I guess it all comes around again somehow, since the government runs the casino — but that they are oblivious to the degradation they are causing themselves and the amount of time they are wasting there. Time isn't something that comes around again. It's a shame, because the casino's so successful the Quebec government could tack a few extra holiday days onto the end of each year for the whole population, based upon the amount of time the casino had 'earned' over the previous twelve months. What's also weird is how many Chinese people were there — especially older ones. Apparently it's to do with the importance of luck in their culture. I'll never look at a fortune cookie the same way though, having seen how much time and money the Chinese spend there.
Anyway, after a bit of time putting quarters into the slots B— told me we should play the roulette wheel. This was all very clever, though he made me promise not to ask him any questions about his tactics for winning while we were there in case of hidden microphones. He used up $100 on roulette, winning occasionally, but not really playing very well. I was beginning to wonder if he had been bluffing the whole time, but I stuck to my promise not to ask him any questions.
Then we hit the blackjack table and that's when the fun started. He made sure that he sat to the dealer's left, so that the other players didn't affect which cards he and the dealer were likely to get following the deal. Of course the cool thing about blackjack is that it's impossible to win all the time, because you might be dealt bad cards for a few hands. However B— obviously knew when he was going to get those bad cards and called and gambled accordingly. Then when he knew that a great card was coming his way, he upped his stake. When he knew it was going to make him go bust he stayed with what he had in his hand. It was fascinating. I think he made some mistakes, which I guess is understandable, but he gradually accumulated chips. Suddenly there was a hand where he had twenty-one and the dealer had a two turned over. He explained to me afterwards that he knew the other card was a three, and that there were several picture cards together just a bit further on in the pack (they're really easy to spot for him because they're covered in ink compared to the others). He knew what the other players had and who was likely to call for extra cards so he put almost all his chips in and stuck with what he had. The dealer turned his card and revealed the three, then he took one from the deck and it was a king. He couldn't stay with fifteen and B— already knew that the next two cards were worth ten. Sure enough he went bust, paid B— his winnings, who then left the game and cashed in his chips.
It was as simple as that. He was just waiting for the right hand, not betting too much, just staying even, then when he was almost 100% sure (he admitted that sometimes his method went wrong because the other players did unpredictable things or because he counted wrongly how far in the picture cards were) he pounced. It was so cool! I can stand some of the other weird stuff to have a boyfriend who always wins at the casino!
We left right away, and were both kind of stunned at the sight that met our eyes. It looked as though we had left Earth and emerged on Mars, because the sky was yellow. Some of the people standing around waiting for the shuttle bus told us that there are wildfires burning in northern Quebec, and that the yellow sky is from the smoke they've produced. The air even smelled like smoke — like a log cabin in winter with a fire burning. Some people were grumbling or laughing about global warming. I'm so sure it's a Canadian plot to take over the world, and that today is a deliberate greenhouse-effect-increasing exercise.
When we got back downtown we walked around for a bit, just soaking up the atmosphere (not sure if this is good for the baby — oh what the hell — it's probably equivalent to a Friday shift at Olga's) and watching people as they behaved slightly strangely, like they were in a Twilight Zone episode.
I thought about B— and his sense. I guess today was the concrete proof I needed. What a life he leads. I mentioned to him that his sense is the proverbial blessing and curse rolled into one. He laughed, then enigmatically replied that I'm seeing things from a very limited perspective. He wouldn't elaborate when I asked him what he meant, and it annoyed me a bit so I went out to Café Selekta and wrote this.

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posted by Sara