The casino is never a good place to be when you have bad luck. It’s a strange karmic circle that sends anyone susceptible enough to flashing lights and bells and whistles, bad acid flashback carpeting and smoking inside, straight to an empty wallet.
I sighed, at once transfixed and annoyed by the intermittent blinking of the SPIN button. I pressed it almost mechanically, betting another quarter that I may as well have just dropped into a sewage drain.
Nothing. Tilting my paper cup down, I tap a melted down ice cube out and begin to chew on it, fighting the urge to smoke another cigarette. Instead, I cash my ticket out and begin to meander. Wandering past fellow empty shells, addicts with different vices, sequencing neon marquees of all colors, oxygen tank burdened fossils still puffing away, drug dealers in pajama pants peeling hundos out of a thick roll they kept in hoodie pockets and dumping them into the slot machines like monkeys. Beyond all that was an unoccupied corner. More importantly, it was quiet.
I set my paper ice cup down next to the clean ashtray, prompting me to light one up. Seeing as my ticket only had a little over $6 left, I decide that this will be my last machine. I only brought as much cash as I was willing to spend on a night out, so after this, I’m leaving, I think.
The machine eats my ticket, and as usual, the “Processing Voucher” sign comes up and my credits appear.
However, as I was about the press that mocking SPIN button, another screen appeared.
CONGRATULATIONS MR. FORBES.
Then another one,
PLEASE COLLECT PRIZE.
Then nothing for a moment. How did I win if I haven’t even played yet? I looked around for an employee or something when a CD tray looking slot opened and ejected. On a small bit of black velvet was a key, slightly larger than normal. Gold. There was a symbol of a lion head, jaws wide, teeth snarling. Someone started talking over the loud speakers.
“Will Malcolm Forbes please report to the Players Club. Malcolm Forbes to the Players Club please.”
PLEASE COLLECT PRIZE.
Club? I think, me? I’d never joined or wanted to join any club. Why would I be a part of this one? I’m not a regular here. People don’t know me. I just find a quiet corner, spend twenty or thirty, and leave.
I slowly pick the key up and the tray snapped shut. What did I just win?
The blinking Players Club sign hung next to the restroom and the exit. I had to choose, so I chose the club because why not? What’s worst thing that could happen? I could at least politely refuse membership, or see if this is a mistake.
The sign passed overhead as I entered a short corridor with muted colors and fluorescent bulbs humming. A heavy set bouncer in a black tuxedo stood at attention in front of a set of double doors. I was still fiddling with the key I had “won” when I got there.
“Welcome Mr. Forbes.”
With that, he spun on his heel and held the door open with an outstretched arm. I walked in like I had been pulled by a rope or some sort of intense change in air pressure. Before I could turn and ask any questions, the door shut with a click. A single light centered on the ceiling let out a soft purple hue and I was now standing on top of dark wood flooring. The room was a small square with three other doors, all bearing a different symbol. The one to my left had mine, the lion; to the right, an eagle; in front of me, a gorilla. I hesitate, still processing this whole happening. If this was a sort of recruiting attempt for some gambling club, I could just walk out. I waste enough cash as is without joining a club for it. Then why the key? How did they get my name? Everything about this stunk with elite exclusivity. Like I was important. Like I wore a suit and knew people. But I’m not, and I don’t, so why me? Or maybe I’m lucky. This key might be a better prize than I thought.
Fuck it. For confidence, I light a cigarette.
The key made distinctive clunks as it turned, and once unlocked, the door gave way with ease.
It was a much bigger room than I was expecting. Lit by the same purple bulbs, grounded in the same wood flooring, ceiling twice as high, and quite expansive, yet almost bare. Off against the wall was a small bar with a lone bartender polishing a glass. About thirty yards in front of me was a group of people surrounding what looked to be an arena or a stage of some sort. I chose the bar.
As I sat down, a thick heavy coaster was placed in front of me by a hairy arm wielding an Omega watch. I meet eyes with a balding man and red cheeks and an equally smug and warm disposition. I order a Maker’s cloudy, please, and within half a minute the drink appeared. As I’m pulling out my credit card, he waves at me in dismissal.
“Compliments of the house, sir. I suggest you make your way to the stage. The show is about to begin.”
Seizing a moment to ask a question finally, I say “What is it tonight?”
“Special,” he said with a wink. “A real fightin’ Irish.”
This all felt so wrong. What the Hell was I about to watch? My heartbeat was incredible and I could feel it in my ears.
“Have you made your bet sir?” He slid a box to me with two buttons on it. One had a lion symbol, the other of a man. I started to explain that I had no more betting money, and what am I about to bet on, where the Hell am I, he just held his hand up again.
“You have a beneficiary and a very reliable account, Mr. Forbes. You don’t lose here.”
My breathing sharpened. My glass sat sweating, untouched. Palms started to sweat. I had a bet to place. I’m not losing any money, but I couldn’t shake this feeling some impending dread. I pressed the man button.
The machine disappeared, as did he through a door behind the bar. I downed my whole drink, I had begun to shake. The murmuring crowd behind me grew silent as I approached.
The stage was sunken into the floor about four feet, a chain link cage sprouting up another four feet, chain link covering the top, stretching across, about the size of a boxing ring. On either end of the “pit” was a small door, each covered in what looked like scratches and dark dried patches of liquid, along with, getting a better look inside, the walls and the majority of the floor.
I realize that I needed to leave. I really did. I wish I did. Call it morbid curiosity. Call it whatever. I was hypnotized. I thought I was dreaming, in a world of make believe, telling myself so, convincing myself that this wasn’t actually happening, the sheer absurdity of it. Then reality struck me like a lightning bolt
The doors began to open. Upward, excruciatingly slow. On the right, underneath the door, a dirty, muscle bound bloody arm protrudes, flinging around in a frenzy, the sounds of muffled screaming growing less and less audible as the crowds anticipation rose louder and louder. There was nothing coming out of the other door.
To the right again, the door open over a foot of the way, an impressively built man bursts out, cut and bruised, stark naked except for a ball gag and a steel collar attached to a chain. He was losing it. Flailing around, climbing up the chain link, only to have his fingers kicked and smashed by other onlookers. I felt sick.
My hands were shaking again. I could feel bullets of sweat clinging to my eyelashes. My throat was bone dry.
The doors were all the way open now. Slumping out of the opposite door was a beaten and scarred lion. The mane clumped together in bloody splotches, a huge gash struck across his face, an eyeball missing. The eye he had seemed tired, broken, defeated. The man stumbled backwards, straining his vocal cords against the gag. The lion didn’t react. Instead, he drug himself a few feet away from the door, and sat. Eyeing the man cowering on the ground now crying.
Directly across the top of the cage, I could see a man dressed up like a card dealer, much nicer than the regular crew, out front, away from this macabre. In one hand he wielded a machete that gleamed impossibly against the purple light with a shimmering silver. Once he reached the middle of the cage the crowd reached a peak volume that shook me all the way through. How could this not be heard? How is this kept such a secret? How come I am now a part of it, the urge to sprint out and bring this terrible dark world to light firing through my nerves like electricity, yet my legs are unable to move, my eyes hardly able to blink much less pull away. The vested man raised the machete in the air, summoning a silence that came to quickly. The lion remained unperturbed and the man’s cries were reduced to whimpers as he gazed with dread upwards.
Without a word of announcement, a cliche welcome to the crowd, without even a nod, the vested man pinched the tip of the blade and started lowering it into the cage.
A person next to me nudged my ribs with an elbow, whispering “Who’d you bet on?”
Operating on some sort of robotic instinct, fear and anxiety, I manage to respond “The man.”
As of that were his cue, the machete dropped and clanged against the floor, centered perfectly between the opponents. For the first time, the lion snarled. Claws retracting with rhythm. Razor sharp teeth veiled by reeled back muscle bound jowls. The crowd lost whatever mind they had. People shaking the cages, releasing inner demons through howls and thumping their chest with their fists. No one paid mind to my retained stillness. If I was noticed, I didn’t. My stare was locked onto the machete.
The gagged man seemed to have accepted his fate, for he was almost crawling towards the blade, trembling arm outstretched, urinating himself. With each move forward, the lion’s back arched, muscles tensed. As soon as he gripped the handle, the cat pounced, paw swiping through the air, coming only an inch away from his nose. He jerked backwards, white knuckle gripping the machete, slipping in his own piss. The lion stood pulling against his chain. After a moment of standstill, the lion jerks forward about a foot. He glared at the man with his single black void of an eye. They were giving him a longer chain.
The man was past hysterics now. He was standing. Still grasping the handle, the blade hung still. After as deep a breath as he could take, he sliced the thick air in between them, and with primal speed, the lion swiped back, saliva sputtering off angry fangs with a roar. The man was pacing, trading swings with the ravenous beast, who had begun standing on his back legs and lunging for strikes. Like clockwork the lion’s chain kept getting longer.
My face was numb. I couldn’t even hear the crowd anymore. Just a distant humming. I was longing. Unsure of what exactly. My mouth wasn’t dry anymore. I was salivating. I’d stopped blinking. In my pocket, my fingers felt the key. It was almost giving off some sort of energy. An unfamiliar one. Aimless. Primal. My vision blurred.
At once, I snapped back in focus, like I was struck by a two-by-four. The man had a deep gash on his shoulder. The floor was layered in fine mists of blood everywhere a puddle hadn’t formed. The lion had a bloody paw, sliced, sticky red imprints with every step, and streams with every swing.
For one last time, the lion reared back and pounced. His back feet slipped. He landed with a deep thud. As if he was anticipating his fall, the man lunged for the first time, driving the blade into the lion’s last good eye, drilling it until his hand was almost inside.
All the winners cried out in triumph, including me. Maybe out of relief. Catharsis. No. Something else.
In my car, I thumbed through the roll of hundred dollar bills, unsure of myself. I was in a daze. Drunk with something much stronger than Maker’s Mark. I started laughing.
I’ll definitely be back next week.
–
Credits to: grizzlykid
Comments