It's Friday night and that means I'm going to the casino with my mother.
She makes me take her once a month and has strict rules for herself. She takes about $40 cash in her little white purse and spends it on the penny machines. I disapprove of this and have tried and failed to convince her to do something else with her time, but she's hardly a high roller. "It's not just about gambling," she says and that's true.
She likes to have dinner at the mediocre restaurant with the cheap deals that draw the seniors and low-income people. Where else in town can you get a steak and lobster dinner or turkey dinner buffet for $9.99? Oh, and while you're here, throw some money in the machines. The tactics are insidious, but she doesn't see that.
She likes to browse around with her glass of orange juice, taking in the sparkly, demented chaos of the coloured, flashing lights. She has friends she meets up with, they line themselves up in seats at a bank of machines, hooting and hollering when they get a row of blazing sevens or diamonds on a line. She gets a kick out of it, like it's a giant arcade for seniors. Her friends seem to pump in way more money than she does, they don't have her self-control, or non-addictive personality. I feel sorry for them, chasing the dream of fast, free money.
The noise is assaulting. Screeching eagles, stampeding buffalos, ringing bells, beating drums: all signalling to you that someone nearby is winning an enormous fortune. You'd better find a machine fast and plug twenties into it so you can get your share. It's so manipulative, this ringing, spinning, brightly coloured den of dreams.
When they first opened the place on the waterfront years ago, the argument was they'd tap into the lucrative cruise ship market; rich tourists would flock to the place and spend their plentiful American or European dollars here to boost the island's economy. So far, as expected, that's not how things panned out. Cruise ships have casinos, and there's always Vegas for folks with money to burn.
These casino patrons are always same, month after depressing month. Seniors like my mom, spending their pension cheques, the odd smattering of university students out for a kick on a Friday night, worried-looking middle aged men and women looking like they've got the cares of the world on their shoulders.
I park the car and she grabs my arm as we go in the front door, walking in step with me. "Isn't this fun?" she says with a giggle, and I can't help but smile. She's like a kid at the fair.
"I still think you should find something better to do with your time than visit this den of iniquity. What about Bingo at Father Jake's church?"
She scoffs. "What am I, an old lady? Get out of here."
The first thing she does after we show our ID at the door and descend the escalator is ditch me. She knows I don't like to play the machines and she doesn't like me looking over her shoulder while she does, so she deposits me at the bar and takes off. I usually nurse a cup of coffee or a wine spritzer and look at my phone for an hour before I get restless and go look for her.
"The usual, Darcey?" The bartender leaves his conversation with the waitress and heads in my direction.
I'm here so much, I have a usual.
"Sure, Joe."
"Coming up." He turns his back and fills a glass half-way with white wine and tops it with lemonade, a splash of sparkling water and two cherries. The cherries are the best part of it.
"One Darcey special," he says, sliding it over to me. I pass him a ten and tell him to keep the change.
The casino is on the ground floor of a hotel and convention centre, a big, expensive complex that got a shitload of money from the government years ago.
I think back to a chamber of commerce event I went to here last year. My boss couldn't attend the dry lunch presentation and asked me to go in his place. I was at a table with the CEO of the company and the top-selling agents. One of them, a fake blond with eyelashes like crushed spider legs asked me what I did for the company. When I said I was the administrative assistant, she nodded and then turned her back to me to chat with the person beside her.
"My father always said casinos were a tax on the stupid," I heard her say moments later. The table roared with laughter. I pictured this woman and her family sitting around the dinner table having a good chuckle at the poors who gamble. A fool and his money are soon parted, isn't that the saying?
I'm an Undercover Poor. I walk among them, the high-end realtors with newly stuffed bank accounts, respected faculty members, university chancellors and provosts, but they don't know my background. I've been to academic conferences in Switzerland, Germany, and France with Clive, attended gala dinners in elegant ballgowns, charmed university presidents and Nobel prize winning researchers. When they make comments like this, they don't picture me and my sister as children, huddled under coats in a dark house with no food in the cupboard. Poverty is an idea to them, a wonderful thought exercise inviting discussion around the dinner table while the duck roasts.
My mother is not stupid. None of these people are. They just want a bit of hope in this wretched life.
I nurse my wine and people watch. There's a lady with dyed red hair at a machine next to the bar. She smacks the button to her right repeatedly, barely leaving time for the reels to stop spinning. I saw her when I first sat down, she had a balance of $391, and I was pleased for her. I notice with alarm she's betting an astounding five dollars per smack of the button. In the time it takes me to order a drink and daydream for a few minutes, her total dwindles to $27. In seconds, that's gone, and she shoots up from her chair to head in the direction of the bank machine. Mom bets the lowest possible amount, a few cents at a time so she can play longer. She doesn't care if she wins or loses.
My phone buzzes just then and it's her.
I'm winning!!!! Come see – I'm by the escalator. Quick!
Amused, I gather my purse and head that way. She gets excited if she wins ten bucks, and that's a rare occasion. I come around the corner and see her chatting excitedly with the gentleman seated next to her and pointing to her screen.
"Let's see this windfall," I say. She bounces up and down and claps her hands, again reminding me of an excited child.
She's won a hundred bucks and it's like she won the million. "Great job, Mom!" I'm pleased we can get out of here early. There's a true crime marathon on TV and a tub of Haagen-Dazs in the freezer with my name on it. "Cash out and let's go!"
She looks disappointed. "Leave already? But we just got here!"
"Mom, if we hang around, you'll put all your winnings back in and leave with nothing. You're ahead of the game! Let's skedaddle."
But skedaddling is the last thing mom wants to do. "Oh, I won't put it all back in. But I still have my forty dollars and I did come to play." By the time she cashes out and tucks away a hundred dollars in her purse, I realize she's talked me into staying. I'm irritated but I agree. I can never say no to my mother.
"Here, sourpuss. Live a little." She hands me a twenty and ditches me again. "Go play!"
"Keep your phone on," I call to her as she walks away. She has a cellphone but never seems to have it on or charged. I can never find her in here when I want to go, the place is a maze.
I tuck the twenty into my purse, there's no way I'm wasting money on this nonsense. I'll give it to Audrey. I'm on my way back to the bar for a coffee when I notice a brightly lit machine flashing rainbow colours. The lights are pretty and unlike the others, this machine isn't loud and annoying. It's sparkly. I look around.
What the hell, I'm stuck here anyway.
I sit down in front of it, feeling like I'm doing something bad, like sneaking a cigarette behind the school. I take out the twenty and insert it into the little slit on the side and it snatches the bill greedily from my fingers. I won't lose the whole thing, that would make me sick. I'll play until I'm down to $15 and then take it out.
Placing the bet as low as it would possibly go, I hit the button. Nothing. I hit it again, and the machine jingles a bit. Two bars and a cherry land on the middle line. I won twelve cents. Wow.
Why does my mother like this so much?
A few more slaps of the button and the same result. I'm now down to $17, even betting as low as you can, the money goes lightning fast in here.
"You gotta put your bet up if you want to win anything on this one," the old guy in a tweed cap sitting next to me says.
"Oh, ok." I hit a button and before I know it, I've bet $3 just on one spin.
"Ah! I didn't mean to do that," I say, watching in alarm as the reels turn. Suddenly, the screen fills with cherries, about 16 of them.
Lights and sirens go off and animated diamonds and gems spill out across the screen while a jaunty tune plays. I picked this machine because it was quiet, now it's making enough noise to wake the dead.
"What's happening," I mutter, wondering if the thing is broken. I look to the man on my right and his face is lit up.
"You won the jackpot!"
A new screen comes up, a red scroll that unfurls and displays rapidly spinning, large gold numbers. I've won something but there is so much light and noise I can't tell what. "Look at that," I say when the buzzing and flashing starts to settle. I'm shocked and pleased at my luck, I never win anything. "I've won $80!"
"No dear," the man next to me says, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "You've won $800."