333 Miles (27 page)

This proved enormously funny to the girls,
and to Gary as well. Alex was unsure how to react, but remained in
good spirits, especially when the dealer placed five black chips in
front of him.

The second nine netted the Italians a $2,000
profit each. They conferred briefly with each other and decided to
call it a night. Roger was miffed, considering it bad etiquette and
bad luck to quit in the middle of a successful roll. He also did
not appreciate the three-minute lull in the action which took place
while the dealers counted up the Italians’ chips and cashed them
out for one-inch-tall stacks of yellow chips and some change. Roger
was further vexed by the Italians’ failure to leave any kind of tip
for the dealers, but they happily scurried away from the table,
lighting cigarettes and heading toward the cashier’s cage. It was
now just past 4:30 am.

The dice were passed to the girls, who
reduced their opening bets back down to $100 and again managed
mediocre results. The table managed to break about even during
their rolls, except for Roger and Alex who lost a few hundred
dollars on hard way bets made for themselves, the shooters and the
dealers.

Alex did a quick scan of everyone’s chips. He
noted that Roger was up $950, he was up $1,100 and Gary was up
$900. He did not know how much the girls had started with, but a
summation of their chips showed they now each had over $3,500 in
front of them.

Apparently the girls were also doing some
mental accounting and were feeling content with their good fortune.
Berlin told the guys that they were going to quit gambling for the
night but hoped they would join them for a drink in the Center Bar,
even offering to pay for the first round. Gary thought it was a
good idea for two reasons. First, he was already beginning to
understand that coming home with several hundred dollars in extra
cash might help smooth things over with Blair. Second, he was
having a very good time talking with the girls who seemed in tune
with his sense of humor.

But neither Gary nor Berlin appreciated the
impossibility of removing an intoxicated Alex and/or Roger from a
dice table when they were doing well, at least not before sunrise.
Alex attempted to persuade the girls to stay for at least Gary’s
roll by promising to do the monkey noise before every throw. The
girls huddled quickly and decided even if they lost it would be
worth the entertainment value alone to stick around for one more
roll.

The stickman slid Gary the dice just as the
cocktail waitress arrived with three more Stolis. Gary and Alex
each exchanged a red $5 chip for theirs and Roger gave her another
purple chip. Starting to feel the effects of the booze, Gary and
Alex elected to switch the next order to grapefruit juice while
Roger opted for a Bud Light. Alex used the opportunity to light
another cigarette for good luck.

Gary’s first roll was a three, prompting a
groan from the table and incurring a $100 loss for all of its
participants. He followed it up with a twelve, yielding the same
result. Two of the girls, Natasha and Gina, began to urge the
others to quit now. Alex assured them the best rolls often started
this way and increased his pass line bet to $200 to show his
confidence. The girls agreed to one more try and Gary rolled a five
to establish a point.

Alex again backed his $200 bet with single
odds and the rest of the table, beginning to lack confidence, did
the same. Alex and Roger immediately began making $50 come bets
with double odds and in no time had the lower half of the board
covered with money on the four, five and six. As promised, Alex was
providing a jungle soundtrack with every roll. One of the dealers
made a derogatory comment about it, but the remaining dealers were
encouraging, perhaps influenced by the few hundred dollars Alex and
Roger had already tipped.

Between “ooh-ooh-aah-aahs,” Gary proceeded to
roll three tens in a row, a difficult feat which helped nobody. For
Roger, it was painful to see the possible winnings left behind, and
he placed a $50 ten for good measure.

The next roll was a four, netting Roger and
Alex a quick $250, which they each immediately deposited back on
$25 hard ways, including the six and eight for the dealers. Alex
took the final drag of his Dunhill, then puffed up his cheeks and
let out an enthusiastic “ooh-ooh-aah-aah.” Gary responded with
double threes and the dealer called out the six the hard way. “Ohhh
yeah. That makes me hard!” Roger exclaimed, while Alex put one fist
to the ground and waved his butt around in two concentric circles.
“OOHH, OOHH, AHHH, AHHH, OOH, AHH!” he exclaimed while careful to
hold onto his now extinguished cigarette, another superstition.

The dealers collected the $500 dollars for
their hard way bets and paid Alex and Roger $225 each for their
hard way and returned $320 each for their come bets on the six.
They each promptly gave back $100 for place bets on the six and $50
to get the dealers back on the hard six.

The girls, while amused at the goings on,
still found themselves down $200 on the roll with $200 more at
risk. This changed promptly as Gary hit a five on the next throw,
inciting applause and a round of high fives all the way around the
table. One of the girls even tried to produce a monkey noise, but
it came out poorly. From there, they left the primate imitations to
Alex who was now nearly constantly bobbing his head even when not
making the sounds.

Once Gary hit his first point, things started
to happen fast. Gary rolled back-to-back eights, including a hard
way on the second one. Everyone on the table increased their pass
line bet to $200.

Natasha: “Gary, you are awesome.”

Roger: “That’s our man, G-Balls.”

Natasha: “Sorry. My mistake. G-Balls, you are
awesome.”

Roger: “Come on, shooter. You are rolling
until the sun comes up.”

Alex: “Ooohhh, oohh, ahh, ahh, oooh,
oooh.”

Dealer: “Dice are out, coming out.”

Stickman: “The role is eleven. Pay the
front.”

Berlin (her arm around Gary’s waist): “We
love you, G-Balls.”

Alex (head bobbing wildly): “Oooh, ooh, aah,
aah!”

Gary’s next roll was an another eight,
establishing a new point. After placing odds, Roger gave the dealer
an extra $520 and told him to place five-twenty across, covering
the table with bets. Alex did the same, switching his dead Dunhill
from one hand to the other to do so.

The next rolls were: three, ten, ten, five,
twelve, six, six and eight.

Once paid for his pass line bet, Alex paused
from his monkey act to give Roger a quick glance which said without
words, “Holy, shit, this is really good.” Roger acknowledged by
raising his eyebrows and reaching around to pinch Alex on the ass.
Alex rotated his gaze to Gina who was bending down to organize her
winnings, revealing most of her well-shaped breasts. For a moment,
his vision started to blur from the alcohol and he saw four of the
beautifully shaped mounds, but he was able to snap himself out of
it and refocus.

Kelly, who had been the quietest of the
group, bounced over to Gary and gave him a hug and a kiss on the
cheek. Gary was all smiles, but switched his game face back on for
the come out roll. He hit a seven, costing Roger and Alex a few
small come bets but making a winner out of everyone else.

Alex, who paused to brush some cigarette ash
off the sleeve of his sweater, remained uncontrollably happy, both
with the few grand in winnings at the casino and with the good fun
he was having with two of his best old friends and four new
friends. After a quick “oooh-ooh, aaah, aah” and an “aaah, aah,
ooooh, ooh” for good measure, he put his arm around Roger and
watched as Gary rolled another five for a new point.

Roger remained confident in the shooter, who
had now been rolling for eighteen minutes. He began reaching into
Alex’s rack of chips, a nearly full but disorganized array of
white, red, purple, black and yellow. Heavily slurring, he said,
“Gimme two yeeeelow ones.”

Alex: “Dude, get your grimy paws off of my
chips.”

Roger: “Just gimme a grand. It’ll be good.
We’ll split it.”

Alex reluctantly pulled out two yellow chips
and handed them to Roger, curious to see what his intentions were.
Roger handed them, along with two of his own, to the dealer and
asked for a $1,000 nine and a $1,000 ten. Gary, not wanting to be
left out, threw down two black chips and bought a $100 nine and a
$100 ten. Even Natasha and Kelly decided to throw in an extra $200
each to join in. Alex pressed the six and eight another $120 each.
Roger followed suit.

Gary, who still had over $1,500 in his rack,
suddenly began to feel a bit nervous and he could feel his heart
beating faster. His jitters were somewhat relieved when he looked
to his left to see Alex in the three-point position, trying to use
his ass to knock Gary closer to Berlin. Gary let himself fall into
her lightly, then fired the dice. Again, the results were nearly
immediate. His first roll was a nine, igniting a shout of
jubilation, a round of hugs, and more ass-grabbing from Roger.
Roger and Alex pressed their nine up by $500, spent $200 on new
hard way bets and put the remaining $700 of the payout in a new
rack of communal funds.

With the point still five, the next rolls
were as follows: four, eight, eleven, two, four, ten, nine, four,
ten, five.

The rowdy band of seven’s enthusiasm for
hitting this last point was so great that the casino manager
wandered over from the blackjack pits to see what was so exciting.
She was an attractive woman of about forty years of age with short
straight brown hair, wearing a black suit with the skirt cut just
above her knees. Her name tag identified her as Roxanne. Upon
arrival at the table, she crossed her arms and watched with a
combination of amusement and annoyance as Alex jumped up and down
“oooh-ooh, aaah-aahing” like a gorilla in heat. She quickly scanned
the chip racks to see what kind of damage was being done to the
casino’s finances. It took her only two seconds to identify the
players as the type the casino wanted to attract, but no threat to
the bottom line. She walked behind Alex and patted him firmly on
his ass, shocking him back into humanity.

Roxanne: “Good morning. What is your
name?”

Alex: “Alex.”

Roxanne: “Okay, Alex. I am Roxanne. I am glad
to see you guys are having a good time in here, but try to tone it
down a bit, okay? This is a casino, not a zoo.”

Alex, who for the last half an hour had been
oblivious to anything except the craps table and its small group of
participants, scanned the casino floor, surprised to see it was now
nearly empty of patrons.

Two carpet-cleaning vehicles were silently
maneuvering themselves around the slot machines, erasing the
evidence of earlier activity with a soft hum. Outside, totally
unknown to anyone in the casino, the sky over the eastern mountains
surrounding Las Vegas began to brighten. It was a new dawn,
announcing the imminent arrival of another day, in case there was
any doubt. Perhaps the new day would be slightly different than the
last. Perhaps it would build from its predecessor. Grow. Evolve.
There was simply no way to know. The only certainty was that this
night would soon become part of the past, irretrievable.

Alex agreed with Roxanne to behave and
instinctively looked at the girls who were giggling like
fourth-graders, which is pretty much what he felt like. Then he
looked at his rack of chips and the piles of chips on the numbers
on the table and ceased to care. Roxanne walked away and Alex
leaned into Gary’s ear and whispered, “Oooh, ooh, aaah, aah,
motherfucker. Hit some more numbers.”

Roger considered any type of interference
from casino personnel to be a bad omen and considered pulling down
the bets on the nine and ten, each of which were now two grand, but
he decided not to.

Gary started a new roll and delivered a very
well-timed seven, adding three more black chips to everyone’s
hoard. Roxanne was forgotten and the cheering and high fives
commenced at an only slightly subdued level. These gains were given
right back when Gary came out with a three, then replenished once
again with an eleven. Finally, Gary made a new point, a six. Roger
and Alex emptied out their communal treasury by placing $1,000 on
the five and pressing the nine up to $3,000. Gary again imitated by
placing $300 bets. Alex bobbed his head and did some monkey speak
and Gary threw the dice. They bounced off the back wall. One fell
into the middle of the table showing a six, but the other bounced
strangely to the left and flew off the table leading to a round of
cursing and concern. All three of the guys subscribed to the
universal belief that it is extremely bad luck for any of the dice
to leave the table.

Roger: “Oh, no. I don’t like that one
bit.”

Alex: “Hmmm. It’s okay. We just need to get
through two rolls. G-Balls is our man.”

Roger: “Okay. Let’s go, shooter. Get back on
that six. Numbers, numbers, numbers.”

Alex: “Oooh, ooh, aah, aah, ooh, ooh, aah,
aah.”

Dealer: “Three, crap dice, three.”

Alex: “Okay, no harm. Nice work.”

Roger: “Let’s go, shooter. All night.”

Berlin: “Come on, G-Balls. Hit my spot.”

Alex: “Oooh, ooh, ahh, aah, aah, aah, ooh,
oh.”

Dealer: “Four, the roll is a four. Duece,
deuce, four the hard way.”

Alex: “OOOH, OOOH, AAAH, AAAAH, thataboy,
G.”

Roger: “Yes, G-Balls!”

Alex (quietly to Roger): “Have you ever seen
anything like this?”

Roger: “Maybe once or twice, but it is very
rare. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Kelly came back over to Gary and gave him
another kiss on the cheek, her hand lingering on the small of his
back. Alex decided to press up the four and the six by $2,000 each
and also pressed the hard ways by $100 each and $10 more each for
the dealers. He also made a $500 come bet. Roger and Gary had given
up following Alex precisely but also added a number of black and
yellow chips to their bets already on the table.