The Castaway Casino

The gaming commission generally didn’t give a shit about The Castaway. Not anymore at least. Once? It’d been a legendary precursor to the modern age of casinos. Bowling lanes and neon lights with blinking bulbs that caught the eye of the roadside tourist. The theming had once been immaculate, with a facsimile paddle boat dropped into the middle of a roving sea of desert nothingness. Sure, it’d been comically enlarged and made practical in the guise of a building. But the shell of it was there and it had once been—in the way something like it could’ve been—beautiful.

But now half its bulbs had been shot out or broken by relentless time. Letters had faded under the sun and never been repainted. Some doors no longer led to anywhere and the glitz of a roadside stop before stepping foot into Vegas proper had died in the wake of air travel and instant gratification. They’d added a gas station at some point in the late 90s to try and lure people in for gas, snacks, and a quick fountain drink before crossing into the city. It worked. Kind of. Truckers and wanderers found respite in it’s perifery and annonyminity that could only come at the border of it all. Here, the rules were definitely a little more fast and loose.

Which was, ultimately, why Annie loved it in every shape. They’d been there at the start, some werd coincidence that’d brought them from the murky swamps of Jersey and into the dry heat of endless grit. Outside told the same story as inside and the bar itself was a testament to busted Americana— the same Americana that had made them. All grimy and storied with the blood and sweat of mortals and beyond that didn’t have the class or normalcy to end up on the Strip or even on Fremont. The drifters, the damned, and the downright nasty whose respectable masks had long ago slipped into nothing but the grit of existence without pretense. They’d entered the place with the usual indifference that bore that feral edge layered under black leather pants and a three sizes too large silk button-down that billowed and flowed with every move they made. Red lens sunglasses gave that air of danger that was entirely cliché and, ultimately, endlessly amusing to the irreverent being that’d learned how to take a human shape and crawled from a swamp hundreds of years ago to end up in places like these.

They never regretted a minute of it and loved every dirty, nasty thing that had made this place possible. In Vegas they had to put away that feral edge of themselves and pretend to be a certain level of respectable. The Inferno had a violent elegance about it and Vegas itself loved to pretend it wasn’t as awful as it truly was. And for their part, they could play along. But at The Castaway? They could be what they were and when they plopped onto the weirdly sticky, cracked vinyl barstool that’d long ago become more tape than vinyl they delighted in the puff of decrepit foam that shot what was likely asbestos into the stale air of the casino. Most would’ve retched at that feeling, but they smirked.

Dirt had always had a way of making them feel alive. The dealer looked at them like a problem they loved—and hated—and couldn’t decide yet which they were going to go with.

“What’s the game?” They grinned at him, wide and low in the way that said today was going to be a hate day because no way were they not going to be a problem that’d end up kicked out for a 24-hour ban by the end of the night. Things like Annie could not be permanently run out—so there’d been an agreement they’d mostly respected.

“Fuck off Annie, you ain’t playing today.” They frowned at that and sighed, bored with that refusal but still not quite ready to give in. A poker chip flicked into their hand and they rolled it to its side, spinning it as they talked. No one else was at the table because, ultimately, no one was ever really at the tables. No one came to places like this to play games, just machines.

“Booo, what the fuck? Just a little—“

“No. That’s final. Go play around with the machines if you wanna gamble. You’ve got that look and I’ve had a bad day.” Annie’s look dropped and because they knew better than to press problems in a place they did actually enjoy, they begrudgingly slid from the table with a flick of the chip back to the dealer before looking out to the floor to find some slot machine to play—or, more accurately—a player to bother. Bright lights and winding machines sat over the ghosts of older machines while pristine holes of vivid red contrasted against faded, stale paths that said there’d once been so many more machines.

Like so many of these places, the machines were far outdated when compared to what existed in the city. They had their few modern screen-based progressives that had friendly characters to appeal to the more modern sensibility. Aliens and Chinese spirits, cows and fishes, avatars of wealth and excess that all had the same mechanics but different faces. Besides them was the one shiny new purchase of a branded machine—Wizard of Oz, it looked like. Even their biggest and best was dated, and Annie could appreciate that, though wouldn’t touch the things. They liked the simplicity of the classic. Sevens and bars and cherries, whirling on a three-wheel pull that had once spat coins but now spit paper. They missed the coins, but could appreciate the need to modernize. THey were trying themselves to get the shape of it, but truly hadn’t caught onto the rapid appeal of internet socialization.

It was then, finally, that the current of it caught them. Somewhere near the back, the tell-tale taste of ozone and metal that crackled a barely contained storm at the seat of one of the machines that they never dared touch. Folk like them were always in and out of places like these and they never were surprised to see one in these spaces. But most knew a trap when they saw one. Maybe this one didn’t, maybe she did and like Annie, it was part of the game. Whatever it was? They’d find out.

Willing to let what they were guessing at hold before approaching fully, their sharp eyes stopped the lazy trail over machines and honed in on the back of what was absolutely an attractive enough form to have caught lingering looks from the sparse others that had strewn about the place. He looked, ultimately, bored and Annie could also appreciate a man who’d gamble with his own boredom. Another few beats and the sudden announcement of a big win triggered a lot more pieces into play than the young folk—they couldn’t pin just what they were yet, but knew from the copper of ozone that he was something—probably realized. The bells sounded and the lights flashed until very suddenly it sputtered beneath The beings hands, the tell-tale whine and smoke of machine whir against something otherwordly. They should've let it go. Let nature unfold the way nature did and go about not giving a shit like they always would. But the dealer had said it himself.

They'd end up kicked out by the end of the night. Maybe they could press the luck of that 24 hour ban into something more holding. 

Annie could feel the frustration from the staff already begin to creep when the very particular machine-- the one with the draw that even for Annie pulled at their senses with a magical draw that had nothing to do with vice-- did not do as it should. And the action and smell of movement beyond the lazy bones of washed-up drunks peppering the space around them. If Annie realized something—or cared—it didn’t show and they approached the winner with the creep of someone who didn’t necessarily care about money.

“You keep goin’ at it and the big man upstairs gonna come down and give you the what for on zappin’ his lmoney bots.” They grinned, deciding that maybe testing the waters on this would be worth losing The Castaway for a few years. 

“From that win?” They tapped the machine's dead screen, a bloom of dead pixels igniting under the brief pressure of too-shiny nails that read more like claws than human.

 “They’re already comin’. It ain’t supposed to do that for folks like us.”