Humping the American Dream

"What was I doing here? What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people, these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino. " Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

There are few places that I've been to that offer such a weird, disturbing cross-reference of humanity as a second-rate casino. The fact that the Argosy Riverboat Casino rests at anchor less than two hours' drive from my front porch has given me the opportunity to go there multiple times, and the mixture of expressions on its shuffling, mind-numbed occupants has me constantly checking my back pocket to make sure no one's lifted my wallet.

Of course, in a mega-building boasting as many video cameras as New York City, anyone trying to steal a wallet would have to be really dumb... or desperate. And it seems like there's plenty of those.

I have never seen a room with so many people in wheel chairs gathered at once, with wrinkly old women with purple hair and Dale Earnhardt t-shirts constantly switching hands to drag along their oxygen tanks while sucking on Camel Lights. Many of my friends tease me for being a little too into zombie movies, so believe me... I know zombies. Walking through the Argosy Riverboat Casino at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night had me casing the place for escape routes and security guards who might have a gun.

I'll go there because I like to play poker. The thought that my putting a little more R & D into a game than the guy beside me paying off with an extra couple hundred in my wallet makes my mouth water. Not surprising that I sat at the hold 'em table for almost six hours without so much as a bathroom break. But all of these obese Midwesterners with that thousand-mile-stare, a little swipe card clipped to their collar as they pump quarter after quarter into the slot machines... God it makes me depressed to be human.

The last time I went to the riverboat, I was sitting at a poker table when I heard a massive 'thud.' Turning around, a fat man in a suit and cowboy hat had fallen right off of his chair in front of the Blackjack table, and was having some sort of attack right there in the middle of the casino. No one did anything to help him - the pit boss got on his little phone and immediately some house medics swooped in, secured the area and whisked him out, clean as clockwork. The people sitting at his table never stopped playing blackjack, and I think someone else had snagged his seat before they even hauled him away.