9/23/2022

After a lovely weekend in a cabin at Mt Charleston it was time to do my week of graveyard shifts. The team would be operating on a limited basis during my absence as I didn’t trust anyone else to open machines and check jackpots. We would reduce the amount of fake jackpot slips and there would be less direct pulls of dollars from the carousels. I was unsure of what I would learn from the week, but it was a good career move to let management know I was a team player and the more I learned about the overall running of the Slot Department, the easier it would be to find weak links. I tried to alter my sleep pattern to no avail, the first night was a test of endurance and the power of black coffee. The shift started at 11pm and by 2:30 am, the place was pretty much deserted. The table games reduced to one craps table, 3 blackjack games, and one table each of roulette, baccarat, and poker. All other areas of the hotel and casino also ran skeleton crews. There were less observers, but it was easier to see across the casino without the crowds.
At three 0’clock the drop team began to assemble, and the carts were driven from their underground vaults to the casino floor. There were ten electric motor cars pulling four carts loaded with empty buckets. They were accompanied by two coin room employees, a casino floorman, and two security officers. Supervisors from the slot and coin room departments watched from several vantage positions and cameras tracked the entire operation from the surveillance room. I was allowed to watch from a distance as the trains headed to different parts of the main casino and the smaller Slots of Fun next door. The drivers parked the trailers at designated points and the coin room guys placed an empty bucket by each machine. After all the buckets were in place, everyone started in the same area and as the slot foreman opened a bank of machines, the workers took the full buckets and replaced it with an empty one. A smaller team from the casino gage worked the table games replacing boxes of cash with empties at each game. The process took three hours on most weekdays and up to five hours on the busiest of weekends. In the old days it was a much longer process, but it was still labor intensive and an impressive sight to see for the first time. I think there were over eight hundred slots in the main casino and 2-300 in the smaller casino. That’s over eleven hundred mop sized buckets of nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars, every day, 365 days a year. A lot of the time there would machines where the coins overflowed the bucket, and the base of the cabinet would be covered with a few inches of coins.
Patrons were allowed to play in areas where the drop had been completed but no one was allowed to be within ten feet of the active drop. The security guards were polite but there were a few customers that had to be physically moved away from the team as they did their work. I could not see any areas that weren’t protected and any advantage from moving our skimming to the graveyard shift.
I made it home and Mel, bless her heart, had a light breakfast ready for me and let me go right to bed. She woke me up at 3 pm and we ate again before she had to leave for work. Her in-laws were dropping Suzy off around 9 in the morning and I excused myself by arranging to have a meeting with a counselor at the Southern Nevada Community College to get my GI Bill benefits started. I had no idea what I wanted to study but the VA was paying my tuition and more, so I planned to use it. Mel had encouraged me to go back to school and she was planning on doing the same. We were making progress with her math, and she was eager to see how it translated to the classroom. She also suffered from test anxiety, so I gave her some advice.
Never change your first answer unless you absolutely know it’s wrong.
Do not leave any answer blank if possible.
The most common answer on multiple choice questions is C.
Answers to questions are often given in different questions
Use extra time to check your answers but remember rule #1.
After signing up for classes the next morning I grabbed a cab and headed home. I had picked out a car and was waiting for them to do some minor things before it would be ready. I was buying a 1970 Oldsmobile 442, it was a four speed, bright orange with black striping and it was quick. I hoped to have it by the time I went back to my afternoon shift. Fear of the unknown crept in as we drove up to the condo and I paid off the cab. I opened the door and there she was. Suzy was a miniature of her mom except for her long hair was a blonde mixture. She had her mom’s green eyes and upswept nose, and her rosy cheeks were bracketed with deep dimples that now surrounded a wide grin. She half-stood behind Mel, holding onto her wide skirt and lifting it like a matador, and I was the bull. Pulling her to the front, Melissa introduced her.
“Suzy, this is Mr. Broomfield, my friend who will be staying with us.”
Looking up at me she added,
” And this is my Suzy.”
“Hi Suzy, I’m so glad to meet you.”, I stuck out my hand to grab hers. Suzy took her other hand and rubbed my skin, as to see if the color washed off. I grabbed her hand and did the same to her. We locked eyes and both started laughing.
“I’m happy to meet you too.” Suzy said.” Do you want to see my dolls?”
“Of course, I do. Let’s go!”
I was grateful for my childhood of playing with my three sisters. I amazed Suzy with my knowledge of dolls and then wowed her with my abilities in jacks. Melissa rescued me a half-hour later saying it was time for my nap and that they needed to go shopping for school supplies. I didn’t see much of Suzy the first week because of my schedule but we quickly became friends when we went back to our normal hours. Suzy spent the school day evenings with a friend in her class, that lived in the same complex. On our off days we spoiled her with trips to the park, beach or other kid attractions and lots of activities at home. Suzy was above her classmates at school, and she wanted to learn even more. Thankfully, this was the era of educational shows gaining popularity. Captain Kangaroo and the Muppets were great babysitters and Sesame Street topped it off. At the end of a month, she was Suzy Q, and I was Barrow (the closest she could get to Barron).
At work, things continued to run smoothly, and the money began to pile up. Between work, school, and Suzy, we had little time to enjoy it, but it sure was nice to see our bank accounts going up and we invested in a wall safe to set aside money for bigger purchases we didn’t want traced and for an emergency getaway or legal slush fund in case things went badly. One Saturday night we were busier than usually, so I called in two more “slot catchers”, as I called them for the dollar machines. I had just opened the door and was getting the last seven in place when I heard a voice,
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Turning around, I saw it was the lead Slot Mechanic.

Until next time,

Barron Broomfield