I Like To Watch

My apologies for all those who were expecting the Copyright Adam Durrant quarter century in review. By the time I had finished 1987, the post was more than three thousand words long and I had only managed to talk about was Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Buck Rogers and fast food. How did I write eight hundred words on Buck Rogers? Well, most of it was a rant against Glen Larson and his overuse of Mormon theology that boarded on L. Ron Hubbard’s subtle infusion of pre-Dianetics Scientology theory into Battlefield Earth. The discourse really broke down into my crying over a highball of Jack Daniels as I found out that my literary hero, Robert Heinlien, praised Battlefield Earth as “A terrific story”. Say it isn’t so Mr. Heinlien, say it isn’t so! And now for something completely different. I recently found myself at the Fallsview casino and resort. There is nothing exciting or thrilling about the casino. Anybody that tries to tell you otherwise should be shot for telling such a heinous lie. Having been to Vegas, I find Niagara Falls to be rather underwhelming when it comes to “dealing excitement”. No free beers, no faux opulence, and no illegal Mexicans flicking prostitute trading cards at you (Gotta catch em’ all). Any halfwit that’s seen an episode of C.S.I. can tell you that Vegas makes Niagara Falls look like Pennsylvania Dutch country. So unless you have more money than brains what is there to do at this particular gaming establishment? If you’re like me, then the answer is simple: Make quiet commentary to your friends about the manic behavior of people with more money than brains. Case in point; Ray at the twenty dollar a spin slot machines. At the time, I didn’t know who Ray was, or why sat at that machine. All I did was watch him from five meters away, letting his story unfold before me. When I first found Ray he had ten credits in a slot machine where each credit represented ten dollars. Ray wagered two credits with each spin of the reels. In thirty seconds I saw him push the button four times. Eighty dollars passed on to the master coin bank and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Association. The stoop in his posture betrays his middle age as Ray pressed the button again, trying to forget about his boring job as a shipping clerk On the last two credits he had in the machine Ray lined up three sevens. Barely aware of his triumph, Ray’s eyes ever so briefly darted to the reels before returning to the credit count. Little red diodes in the bowels of the machine respond to a rudimentary computer program, showing one hundred credits now at his disposal. One thousand dollars, it was enough money that Ray didn’t need to worry about the mortgage payment for this month and would still have enough leftover to buy his wife dinner at the Brazilian steak house around the corner. At least, he would if his wife hadn’t divorced him and taken the house. But Ray, is far from done. What’s a thousand dollars when, if it is your night, you can win a hundred fold that amount? Besides, it’s not his money anymore. Ray has all the angles covered now. Fifty more spins and none of it will cost him anything. Tonight has to be his night, the day when he finally gets what is coming to him. Everything that has happened to him over the last three months was all leading up to ‘Ray Day’. ‘Ray Day’: Where the equation that is his life gets balanced. There’s no need to gaze aside to the spinning sevens and cherries. All Ray has to do is bide his time. Soon the light above him will flash. He’s a good guy, he deserves to win. Or so Ray keeps telling himself with every other spin. Temporarily, I parted Ray’s company as the desire to explore overwhelmed my voyeurism. It was a Tuesday night, which translated to my being able to go to places that people like myself don’t usually get to see. Nobody questioned me as I strolled through the part of the casino where only people with six figure lines of credit get to gamble. Even as I put my feet up in the Platinum lounge Big Brother’s security minions had better people to scrutinize, leaving me free to bask in the presence of twenty dollar martinis. There was no reason dwell in the lounge. I knew, just as the people gambling one hundred dollars per hand of blackjack knew, that I did not belong. The excitement was in getting into a place not permitted unto me and then leaving of my own accord, not at the hands of a steroid addled security guard. It had only been five minutes since I left Ray and his thousand dollars. Turning my attention to his score counter, I saw that he was down to fourteen credits. In the time that it had taken me to charge and then retreat from the lair of my social betters, Ray had given the casino back nearly all of its money. Where was ‘Ray Day’? What had he done while I was gone to so forsake the gods? The stoic expression and lifeless eyes stared into the credit counter and I knew something raged within Ray. More than anything he must have wanted to rip the machine from the wall and tear its circuits out with his bare hands. Each push of the button was a desperate stab at the unholy heart of the reels. Until, he won another twelve hundred dollars. Maybe it was ‘Ray Day’. After all, he’s a good guy, he deserves to win. I didn’t stay to watch the rest of the show. Compared to what I measure a rational person as, a case could easily be made for Ray having a gambling problem. Although, I think people who play the lottery hoping for some Deus Ex Machina to turn their lives around have a gambling problem of a different sort, so I might not be the best person to judge. Psycho-socio arguments on neurotransmitter imbalance leading to predispositions for manic behavior aside, Ray seems like one of those people that simply did not know when to quit while he was ahead. He probably is a nice guy that is deserving of a ‘Ray Day’. But, to turn to a slot machine, and like an automaton feed it bills until the lights flash seems like a pathetic cry for validation. Gambling, if practiced with a modicum of common sense – a commodity that I have determined to be in short supply on this planet - is harmless. Once it becomes a hunt for something more than 30 seconds of cheep thrills its time to step back because you’re looking for something more than what the machine can give you.