Working the Bar in Beautiful Downtown Sodom & Gomorra (chapter 4)

Chapter        4

    MCKERRAN’S AIRPORT INN HOTEL & CASINO (1988) we were at the end of Paradise Road, Las Vegas, Nevada. We had a hotel with pool, full restaurant & a bar slash casino. At the time, we were the first hotel you saw when you left the airport, and the last one you saw on your way to the airport. I’m not sure how much Vegas has changed since then. 
    Vegas is a high rolling town, that means that pretty much everything in and around the town is done to excess. This behavior is encouraged by everyone. The only thing that I know for sure you’re not allowed to do in Vegas is be a vagrant. If you’re caught walking around town without I.D. you will be picked up for vagrancy. If you run out of money, and sell your plane ticket just so you can gamble, you are screwed! If you were caught, you’d better have someone back home who can bail you out. 
    Las Vegas is a twenty-four-hour-town. You can walk out of one casino with your drink in your hand, walk into the next and get a refill in the same glass. We all had the exact same glassware, this way you are encouraged to keep on drinking, which impairs your judgment, and you spend more money. There is so much pure profit going through Las Vegas casinos that the residents of Nevada don’t pay any state income tax. In addition, the residents of Vegas don’t have to pay city income tax either. The casinos pay all the taxes. This way all the employees have enough money to gamble too!
    Both Las Vegas & Reno Nevada, were the closest things to Sodom & Gomorra that I had ever seen. I worked the bar in beautiful downtown Sodom & Gomorra, for eleven months. 

I worked the graveyard shift. (Midnight – 8 am) One day when I got to work, there were many police cars around the property. They had set up a barricade, and were not letting people come or go. I had to go in through the front door to get into the bar. After starting work, I asked what was going on. One of the customers who had been there for several hours told me that there was a hostage crisis. Someone was hold up in one of the hotel rooms. That only lasted a few hours, was at the other end of the complex and was resolved without incident. 

On another occasion I came to work, and could not come in through the bar door. There was police crime tape in front of the entrance, and a chalk out line of someone in the fetal position, and blood near where the head would be, was right in front of the bar door. I went in through the lobby, main hotel door. 
    After things settled down in the bar and the customers were gone, I talked to the security guard, Tim about the goings-on earlier. He told me that some guy (high on drugs) was trying to buy something in the vending machine and the item would not come out. The “high-guy” started beating on the machine. Someone called security. The security guard, Tim, (Tim was a former professional football player), tried to coax the “high-guy” into easing up on the candy machine. Tim tried to retrieve the candy for “High-guy”, but to no avail. Now “high-guy” was angry with Tim the security guard. Tim, who was much bigger than most people were, and not easily pushed around, but “high-guy” was doing his very best. Tim had no choice but to take “high-guy” to the security office on the second floor. When Tim started to call the metro police, “high-guy” became more unruly. Tim said that he had to knock “high-guy” to the floor and handcuff him. At that point, he was out of fight and lying on the floor. 
    When the metro police arrived, they told Tim that he had done a good job, and they were officially taking custody of the suspect. Consequently, they told Tim that they were going to take “high-guy” up to headquarters for questioning. The officers left with the suspect, and Tim began the time-consuming paperwork for the incident. Only a few seconds later, Tim heard a short scuffle and an unsettling thud. 
    Metro police told Tim, that the suspect simply jumped off the balcony. Tim told me, “Nancy, the guy was in handcuffs, and there were two police officers with him. Moreover, the railing is high enough that you cannot simply jump or fall off. And where he landed, it looked to me like he would have had to have been thrown off.” “What did you say to them?” I asked. He said he was told to say that the “high-guy” jumped. Tim was a good man, a big teddy bear and he was like a little brother to me. 

    Some security guards wanted to be police but couldn’t make it. They flunked out of the police academy, or even worse, they couldn’t pass the entrance exam to get in. These guys were on a mission to prove something. Many of them were unstable. The dayshift guard liked to talk crap. One night he made a point of showing me his “extended-clip”. I asked him, “What does that mean?” He told me that it is also called a “banana clip” that means it has twice the bullets of a regular clip. I asked why he needs that many bullets. He told me, “This is a very dangerous job, and I have to be ready!” Well, he didn’t last very long at our hotel, I think he was looking for a reason to unload his extended-clip on someone.

    I didn’t have much need for security at the bar, I was used to doing my own bouncing. I would get my occasional idiot, who would try to impress me by eating the top of a Budweiser bottle and chewing the glass in his mouth in front of me. I threw him out! People can get stupid enough while their drinking, without putting up with customers who are stupid before they come in. I think the only time I ever had to call security, while I was in the bar was the time I almost got robbed.
    Before my shift was over, at eight (8) am, I would have to re-stock the bar for the next shift. On this particular morning, I had almost everything done and cleaned. I only needed to re-stock the beer. I had a handful of customers only about five or six. Everyone was taken care of, and with so many people in the bar, it would be difficult for a customer to do anything stupid with all those witnesses. Therefore, I went to the stockroom. When I came back, there was a man inside my bar. I said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing in my bar?” He said, “I just need to make change.” I said, “I don’t care what you need. You don’t have any right inside my bar!” Then I took all the money out of his hand. He ran out the bar door, crossed the pool area, and ran towards the back of the property. I called security, and I said, “Tim, some guy just tried to rob the bar!” I described the guy to him and he said, “I see him!” Tim was in the back of the property, and this guy came running passed him. Tim just reached out and grabbed him.  Tim was a pretty amazing security. 

    Most of the people who stayed at the hotel were clients vacationing in Las Vegas from all over the country and sometimes the world. However, some of these people had a weekly rate and used us like an apartment house. We had a diverse clientele, and I only knew the ones who frequented the bar. One guy was a limousine driver for “The Chicken Ranch”, that was one of the legal brothels in Nevada. They were not legal within Las Vegas city limits, but they were legal in the rest of the state, and their fees were taxable. This limo driver would look for customers. 
    I had a girl who was a showgirl at one of the casinos, a couple of construction workers, a factory worker who worked in Carson City and a bookie. These were some of the regulars. The bookie had a real gambling problem. He would cash his paycheck, pay his rent, and then sit at the slots in the bar until he was broke. After doing this for several weeks in a row, and almost being evicted, we (the bartenders) decided to help him. We took charge of his paycheck. We would cash it for him, pay his rent, keep $20.00 a week for his meals and then he could do what ever he wants with the rest of it. And he would sit until it was all gone. It was really sad, he was such a nice man. Nice looking, not too old, good personality and charming. It was a shame.

    There were loads of people with gambling, alcohol, or drug problems in Las Vegas. You just didn’t see vagrants walking around the city, because that was illegal. One night I saw a man come in with a child’s piggy bank, empty it, and put the money on the slot machines I even saw a woman come in and beg for money to buy diapers for her baby, and the go into the next bar with the money.
    
    Every month we would have a big birthday party for all the regulars in the bar that had a birthday that month. It was always somewhere other than our bar, like a park or somebody’s house. Everyone in the bar was invited and each would bring a covered dish. Most of us did not have family in Vegas, so getting to know and care about each other’s lives meant that we would look out for each other. It made us all feel like, a real family. 

    One day when I woke up, I found a note from my husband. It was two pages long and basically said that I was too good for him and I deserved better. He went on to say that, I was young enough to find someone else; and he was going back to Texas. (I never saw him again!) What he didn’t give me the chance to say was, that if he cared that much about me, then he was exactly right for me. 
    Of course, I was devastated. I cried all day until it was time to go to work. When I got to work, the bar was full; the crowd was already half drunk. I was starting the night off in a bad mood before I even got there. What do you think I heard the minute I walked into the bar? The song on the jukebox was “All My Ex’s Live in Texas”!  At this point, I was ready to explode. If someone were to give me just the slightest bit of flack, I would have no choice but to kill them. 
    The first thing I did when I got in the bar, was knock that song off the jukebox, (there is an eject button behind the bar) and state very loudly to the entire bar, “I DON’T EVER WANT TO HEAR THAT SONG AGAIN!” The crowd got a lot quieter, and there was lots of whispering, “What’s wrong with Nancy?” They were used to sweet happy Nancy, and they had no idea who this person was. 
    Naturally, I did not want to talk about it. I did not want to start crying at the bar in front of all my customers. A few hours later, Tim the security guard came in to the bar; I can only guess that someone told him I was in a bad mood. Tim came up to the bar and said, “Hi But crust!” Tim always made me laugh. He asked me what was wrong. I don’t know why, but I had my husband’s letter in my pocket. I gave Tim the letter and asked him not to let anyone else know about it. Tim read the letter, and asked me what was I doing after work? I said, “Nothing! Why?” He said lets go out after work. I told you, that Tim was just like a little brother, so I agreed. 
    When we got off work, at eight a.m., still in out work clothes, we went out bar hopping. The first bar we went to was empty as we walked in, somebody inside told us that the bar was closed. Hey, in Las Vegas all the bars were open twenty-four hours a day, all of them! We asked them why they would be closed. They told us that the bartender got shot during the night and they were closed. 
    At the next bar, we had a couple of drinks. We talked, I cried, he consoled me, and then we really started drinking. We played the slot machines at the bar. We started laughing, and whenever I would say something funny, or sarcastic, he would give me one of those shoves, like guys give to each other. But, I’m not one of the guys, so every time he pushed me, this big ex-professional football player would I would knock me on the floor. It was really funny, and it did hurt a little. When I got back up, I would shove him back. We drank for hours, and then Tim took me home.

    Some nights, my bar was more like a morgue. There would be hours at a time that there were no customers. “Graveyard Shift”, is called just that, for a good reason. Sometimes it would be difficult to stay awake. Surprisingly, we were not allowed to sleep on the job. We were expected to be at the ready, anytime a customer would like to come in to drink or gamble. 
    Occasionally, Tim and I would play the slots while we were working. THIS WAS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN & AGAINST THE LAW! You were not allowed to gamble at the same place that you worked, because if you win, people might think that the machines are rigged. The poker machines on the top of our bar were automatic payout machines. If you won anything, the machine would automatically pay out into this large bin on the bar, and they were very loud. That insures that everyone knows that you have just one, which prompts others to want to play as well.
    We did not want to be caught, so I put a bar towel down inside the shoot to the payout bin, to muffle the sound. When we were living dangerously, we would only play the dollar slots. The smaller bars do not have their own tokens like the big ones do, so we don’t have to go to a cashier to get our money. Our machines paid out in Eisenhower dollars, we called them Ikes.
    You can’t win too much like this, the machine only pays out amounts less than the taxable amount. If you win over a certain dollar amount and the machine shuts down, and you have to call The Gaming Commission to come and do the payout, and reset the machine. At the bar we only gave out change, we did not do payouts. It’s not like lottery tickets. All payouts come directly from the machines or from The Gaming Commission.

    An interesting incident happened one day, when a gentleman came into the bar early in the morning. He told me he was broke. He said that he had gambled all his money, and had no-way home. He said he had a car, but not enough money to buy gas to go home. I was not going to give him any money, but I asked him if there was anything, I could do for him. He asked me if I knew anyone who would like to buy a car. I was interested. My husband had left me, and I was already planning to go back home to Ohio. It would be nice to drive cross country home, and have a nice car that had never seen the snow or the road salt that you have to deal with back home.
    Of course, I called Tim. I told him that I was interested in the car, but I couldn’t go out to see it while I was working. I asked Tim if he would look at the car for me. Tim reported back to me that the engine looked clean and dry, no oil leaks. He said the tires were decent; muffler looks good, and seems to run good. No rust on a used car is un-heard of in Ohio. The gentleman only wanted three hundred dollars for it. He only wanted enough money to buy a plane ticket home.
    I told him that I wanted the car, but I had to wait until I got off work to get the money out of the bank. Meanwhile, Tim called his wife; he had her go to the bank. She took the money out of the bank and brought it to Tim at work. 
    Yes my friends, Tim bought the car right out from underneath of me. I was understandably shocked and amazed. Essentially, Tim stole my car!

    My bags were packed. My plain ticket was purchased. A moving van had been paid to move all my stuff back to Ohio, when the darnedest thing happened. I got laid off six days before I was supposed to quit. This qualified me for un-employment payments delivered to Ohio. Cha-ching!!!