Oliver Benjamin
Having no better ideas, they all made a run to the desert to test
out Bennie’s family magic. What else could they do? It was no
wonder they finally turned to the black arts: they were lowly and had
to supplicate to lesser gods. Yak stayed behind. He was an disbeliever
in hocus-pocus and a conscientious objector to wars of any kind.
Las Vegasmeant “The Fertile Plains” in Spanish, but surely it had
been baptized during a wetter era. On their way to a city said to be the
brightest spot on earth, they had traveled alongside only dirt and
sagebrush, tumbleweeds and rocks. Yet somewhere out in the midst
of all that desolation lay the world’s foremost artificial oasis. Like a
giant silicon microprocessor, it too had been carved out of sand by
visionaries and amplified man’s dreams in the same garish fashion.
There was no greater candidate for Utopia on earth than Las Vegas.
Only, it was the Utopia of the average shmo, not of the intellectual,
politician or clergyman. A far cry from Augustine’s New Jerusalem. If
heaven were a democracy, it would look a lot like Vegas.
“Where should we go first?” Colin said. He was providing most of
the bankroll and so took the liberty of choosing where and how they
gambled. Bennie assured him that it didn’t matter what they played,
so long as numbers were involved.
“Well then, Roulette’s the ticket,” Colin said. “Caesar’s Palace. If
we’re going to steal someone’s money, it might as well be the
Romans.”
When they stepped out of the car, Izzy almost collapsed on his
shaky legs.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together, man,” Bennie cautioned,
“They don’t let crazies in here.”
“My God,” Izzy said, gaping at the towering neon ziggurats all
around them, “This is Babylon.”
Colin beamed. “It’s better. We’ve had thousands of years of
practice!”
He turned and led them into the casino. A whirl of activity
transpired therein, mostly in the form of blue-haired old ladies
yanking slot machines and pretty young waitresses cavorting with
trays of rainbow cocktails. Further on across the crowded floor they
passed blackjack tables where overweight mustachioed bumpkins sat
slumped before the limits of their imagination.
But the roulette tables featured a more lively mix of humans.
Foes of technology, and unconcerned with strategy, these were the
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