Not-So-Cheap Thrills and the Amazing Zone of Warmth


January 23, 2004

The Ritual

In the movie Rounders, Edward Norton's character, Worm, arrives at the Taj Mahal to meet his poker partner Mike McDermott, played by Matt Damon. The first thing Worm does is to ask Mike for some money so he can go "take care of something". Mike asks him how much she's going to cost him. $200, Worm replies. He needs to blow off some steam so he can focus on the cards. I remember thinking--how cool is that, and that if I ever went to Atlantic City I'd have to play poker at the Taj Mahal and "blow off steam".

In a recent interview, Marlon Hill was quoted as saying he'd like to make it a pre-game ritual to "get some pussy". If it comes from Marlon, it must be a good idea, I thought, and I figured that Atlantic City was as good a place as any to start. How hard could it be to find a working girl there?

I try to avoid buying anything expensive without looking it up on the Internet--why shoudl a woman's services be any exception. Anxious for some "Scrabbling", I left work quite early and stopped at Starbucks to do some research. Right away I found an ad advertising a special rate, and I jotted down the number.

After some soulful food from Amifikas, in one of Trenton's 'hoods, and picking up three cases of the heaven-sent Tradewinds tea in Bensalem, and giving up on I-95 in Philadelphia to instead backtrack to the PA Turnpike out to the NJ Turnpike, I finally called the number. A perky-sounding girl named "Amber" answered and immediately started asking if I wanted to come over. I told her to hang on a moment and tell me how much it was. $180, she quoted me. Not overpriced, but I'm cheap, so I said I'd have to think about it. As she was telling me about a half-hour rate of $100, a call came in from a recruiter about a possible job, and I told her I'd have to get back to her.

A while later I decided a half hour was really all I'd probably have time for, and I called her back to get more specifics. I asked if she had any reviews. Never buy anything without reading reviews. She said she didn't because she was new. For some reason, I began to get suspicious, but I decided to take it a bit further. She gave me a more specific location, and I told her I'd call her when I approached.

After a stop a Starbucks to pick up a DoubleShot for the morning, as there were no real Starbucks in Atlantic City, I called her back and said I'd be there in about 30 minutes.

My suspicions doubled as soon as she opened the door. "Amber" was extremely pretty, blonde, and wearing a top that revealed her ample bosom. Just how I would expect a cop to look, I thought.

She beckoned me into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and asked for the fee.

I avoided visible wincing every time she said the words blowjob and sex, but the explicit terms made me very uncomfortable, and it seemed to me that her side of the conversation would make a great tape for a jury if this ever went to trial. In fact, it seemed to me like she was deliberately enunciating these words for maximum clarity on the recording device I was starting to suspect was hidden somewhere. It would certainly have fit between her ample bosom.

I stalled for time to think by protesting about paying the fee first. She insisted that she had to be paid first, and kept talking about how she gave a really good blowjob. That was it--I made up my mind. I needed to get out of there. So I enabled my duplicity circuits and switched to my backup plan. Having left my wallet in the car and stashed my money in my sock, I consented to giving up the fee as I patted around for my wallet. I looked puzzled, and I told her I had left my wallet in the car and needed to retrieve it. To distract her from thinking I was planning to bail, I repeatedly insisted that I had not intended to rip her off by not paying her, and that I'd be right back.

Now, having decided to escape, the sensible thing to do would have been to get out the door as quickly as possible. So it is rather hard to explain why I stopped to look at a cute little parrot or parakeet or whatever in a cage. This bordered on abject stupidity, really. I was momentarily captivated. In retrospect, I should have been saddened to see the creature so caged instead of flying free. Anyway, this is where things got really unbelievable.

As nonsensical as it was to look at the animal and ask "Amber" about it, what I did next made even less sense. I decided I wanted to hold the bird, so I lifted up the cage, expecting to grab the bird and have it sit on my hand. Even as I heard "Amber" crying "What are you doing!?" the bird was already darting past me out of the cage and towards the ceiling. "Oh, shit!" I cried and went after the bird, pointless as that was. I leapt onto a footrest and jumped up towards the bird, but I didn't even come close. "Amber" yelled for me to stop, a look of disbelief on her face. "Wait, wait, I'll get it," I replied, and perched myself back on the footrest like a crouching tiger. The bird continued to fly from one side of the room to the another. I leaped again, this time coming closer. Focused on the bird, I wasn't really paying attention to where I was leaping, and as I stumbled while catching my footing I saw the large-screen TV. I pushed away with one foot and avoided the TV, but not the fish-tank next to it, hitting it full on with my shoulder, knocking it back against the wall, where it shattered. "Motherfucker!" screamed Amber. "Get the fuck out! Just get the fuck out!!" I decided it was a good thing I had decided to cancel our appointment, if this was the temper she kept hidden behind her sweet facade.

As I scooted for the door, I wondered why a police sting operation would include a parrot and a fish tank. But as good looking as she was, and now that she was really angry with me, it just wasn't worth the risk, and I hurried back to my car. As I walked across the parking lot, I noticed somebody pulling into a parking space next to her apartment and getting out with a bag. Maybe it was one of her accomplices, or maybe it was just a neighbor returning with groceries. Maybe it was an ASPCA enforcement agent. I was in a fairly agitated and paranoid mood at that point. Yet, I resisted breaking into a full sprint, because I learned at a young age that running only makes you look guilty.

I drove away, keenly aware that my cheap thrills could have turned out to be very expensive instead. Actually, it seemed they were already going to be expensive for "Amber", or some police department, having to replace that fish tank. I hoped she didn't have my phone # on her caller ID, and chided myself for not having star-67'd the call.


A Good Reason to Take the Money and Run

As I headed towards the tournament venue, the Holiday Inn, I called one of the cheap motels on the list I had pulled off the Internet. Cold as it was, I almost booked a room for two nights, but just as I was about to give the attendant my credit card number, I flaked out and hung up, deciding to try for something cheaper. Closer to the city, on US-40, Albany Ave, I spotted the Hi-Ho Motel advertising a $29 rate. I figured that was just from Sunday to Thursday, and I was right. But I talked the attendant into a flat $80 for two nights. I was about to pay when he made the mistake of giving me the key and having me look the room over. I misread the number on the key and tried to unlock the wrong room, prompting shouts of "Mommy!" from a little girl inside. I scooted back to the office, fearing that some big burly guy would open the door and come after me. I got clarification from the attendant and headed to the correct room. As I fumbled with the key, I was hit up for a cigarette by some dude standing out on the sidewalk. Then I noticed the light wouldn't come on. I looked around, and decided $40 a night was too much for this dump, and that I didn't want to leave my car in such a dubious area. I'd take my chances with the cold. If I died, I probably wouldn't feel any pain. The attendant looked disappointed and offered me a different room, but I insisted I'd find something else. He reluctanctly return my ID and credit card, and I nearly slipped on the ice getting back into my car. I shook my head at the foolishness of the attendant, for not having taken my money when he had the chance.

As I made my way to the Holiday Inn, I must have hookers on the brain, because every girl I saw on the street or in the elevator prompted me to wonder if she was a hooker. This being a gambling town, I figured there had to be hookers all over the place. But when I reached the playing room I decided it was unlikely that any of our fellow Scrabblers were moonlighting in such a manner. I don't know why, but I'm guessing the Scrabble-playing mentality and the hooker mentality don't overlap much.


Satisfaction of a Different Kind

Holy crap, but the intermediate division was large, and loaded with high-rated players. 1784 was the highest--my best opportunity to crack 1500, or even approach 1600, if there ever was one. 60+ players! But the names on the tally board were in alphabetical order--I didn't like this, because it made it time consuming to determine where I was in the field.

Pairings were handed out instead of posted, which took a while. Shouts of "can we start!" echoed throughout the room. I won a close game against Jay Strieb, but then I stumbled early against Florence Spanfelder, losing a turn because I had somehow convinced myself that VIREO did not take an S. She exchanged and probably drew the blank that she would later bingo with--perhaps if I had not challenged I would have drawn it instead. But I managed to beat the highest-rated player in our quad, Verna Berg, and without a killer draw either. She just flat out made a mistake at the end and gave me a 48-point WEeP, and that made the difference.


Mr. Butterfingers

I left the playing room pleased that I had won two games--better than I expected. My satisfaction was short-lived, however, as I reestablished my position as the clumsiest man alive by dropping my laptop while in front of the elevators in the hall. D'oh! I quickly booted it up to see what the damage was, and I immediately discovered the LCD screen was shot. I hope at least the computer itself had survived, and I was relieved to discover that I could boot it up and shut it down even without being able to see the screen, indicating that the operating system was working. I shook my head at the folly that is my life as I headed back to the parking garage.


Cold Comfort

Suddenly I was really fatigued, and, though hungry, I did not feel like searching for a restaurant, so I just settled on Dunkin Donuts. I had to resort to pen and paper to make notes about my trip--like being back in the stone age. The clumsiness continued as I shook the juice without fastening the top securly, spilling it all over my papers. Then, when I take a sip, the juice spills from my mouth onto my pants, and I'm feeling truly retarded. As I sat there, I looked through the AC Weekly and noticed the escort ads. Another possibility, but the loss of my laptop had really gotten me into a funk, and I didn't feel like doing anything. After a quick donut, I abandoned plans to try my hand at the poker table, and I set out to find a place to crash. At some point I remembered that I was supposed to call a prospective employer in the morning, and that his number had been on my now-inoperable laptop--d'oh!

Without my computer, I had no good map of Atlantic City, which made driving around frustrating. Still, I got a kick when I suddenly remember Monopoly, and that this was the town the properties were named after! I found my way to the Atlantic City Expressway easily enough, and I discovered a welcome center just up a few miles, but the restrooms were closed, and I could find no dark corner affording any privacy. So I moved on to the next exit, for some town named Pleasantville. How could I go wrong in Pleasantville? Disappointingly, the town was in color, and not black and white as I had hoped.

I did not have to drive too long before finding a small, dark parking lot behind a laundry, with an alleyway where I could do my business. Snow fell throughout the night, providing privacy. With my three blankets, I slept fine despite the bitter cold. My body had an amazing ability to generate intense heat, and the blankets trapped much of it, creating a "zone of warmth". The only untoward effect was the maddening persistent thirst, which I understood to be because the colder air was drier. I had to keep drinking water to avoid a headache, which meant I had to keep stepping out into the cold air to relieve myself. All in all, the experience of sleeping in 15-degree cold could have been worse.



January 24

The Real Atlantic City

I decided to get up when a van belonging to the laundry parked next to me. I headed over to the Wawa, where I had to wait quite a while for Ron to get out of the bathroom. "What the hell are you doing in there, Ron!?", I asked myself. While I waited, I noticed that the logo Wawa has chosen for their brand of espresso looks an awful lot like the Starbucks logo, and I wondered why I hadn't heard about a lawsuit yet.

I drove back towards AC, still amazed that I had survived the bitter cold. I wanted to print a t-shirt commemorating my accomplishment. At the toll plaza, the attendant gave me two receipts, presumably so I could get reimbursed twice. I guess he thought he was doing people a favor, rather than just tempting them with corruption.

I drove around looking for a place for breakfast, and I found Constantino's, not listed on the map handed out at the hotel. I could tell right away that this was where the real Atlantic City residents ate, as opposed to the tourists. If the waitress lacks a thick local accent or don't sass the customers, you know it ain't real. But what was really a hoot (or a shock) was that she was smoking behind the counter! I thought that was a sight from days long past.

Just before entering the restaurant, I had waited in my car for a few minutes to listen to the end of a "Weekend Edition" report about Super Size Me, an indie film about the filmmakers experience eating nothing but McDonald's for something like a month. I tried not to think about the grease and fat as I ate my bacon and eggs.

When I finished up, a busboy picked up my plate and gave my word list a queer look, like "What the heck is that?"


Obligatory Poker

I had time to spare, so I headed over to the Taj Mahal for my obligatory poker playing. On the way to the poker room I stop for some overpriced fake Starbucks. The baristas at these licensed, non-company owned, locations are never as pretty as the ones at real Starbucks.

I could tell right away the clientele was different from what I was used to at the Mirage in Las Vegas. Perhaps it was because it was early in the morning, but there appeared to be quite a few locals, some who looked like they were gambling with money they couldn't quite afford. A few hands into the game, one of the players, older and African-American, seemed to be giving advice to another, perhaps a buddy, and this irritated another player at the other end of the table, this one perhaps an Arab who speaks with an accent. Tempers flared. The security guard edged closer. There was talk of something being shoved up somebody's ass. I'd never seen this type of drama back in Las Vegas.

After about thirty minutes, I was up a few bucks, but I showed remarkable self-control and pulled myself away so I could avoid being late for the first game. I arrived at the Holiday Inn and saw Terry Kang working away on her laptop. I missed my poor laptop. Poor, poor laptop. While waiting for the pairings, I had a chance to finally meet Ron Tiekert, of All-Stars fame.


A Rocky Morning

My game against Steve Ozorio started off with a bang, three bingos, his ILLICIT, my URINATES, and then his aRGIMONY* (did he misspell it, or did I miscopy it). I almost tied it up a couple of turns later with STATURE, and then again again a with XI/HAJI, and then again a couple of turns later. But I ran out of tiles, and with a miserable ending rack Steve was able to outscore me and win by 43. You can't say I didn't try.

Outside, in the hallway, some lady, not too old, not too young, walked by wearing bright red leather pants. I wondered how she didn't get cold in those, as cold as it was outside. Then again, one should never complain about a lady in hot pants, as long as she has the body to get away with it.

Despite holding a blank for a whopping twelve turns, I was never in the game against Diana Grosman, and my weak 59-point ANgINOSE to bingo out left me 28-points shy. But what really irritated me was that, after the game, as I sat at a back table taking notes, Diana was nearby with her friends gloating about the win. Talk about rubbing salt in my wound! Maybe it was hunger that contributed to my irritation.

While waiting for the pairings I experienced shock and awe as I discovered that the player I had thought was Rita Norr for several months was actually Sally Ricketts. Double-take as I returned to the playing room and spotted Verna kneeling conspicuously in front of Mark Berg. I had initially assumed that their shared last name was just a coincidence, but the sight of this indiscretion (which turned out to be innocent shoe-tying) made me reconsider. I made inquiries, and I discovered that they were in fact married. Hurray for a color-blind planet!


Some Improvement

I picked up my first game of the day against Sarah Rosenblum. The game turned when, after I came back from an 82-point deficit to lead by one, Sarah tried to hook TRESSLE* to ANATOMIC. I breathed a sigh of relief and made sure she could not play the correct spelling anywhere and managed to maintain a small lead for the duration.

Against Heidi Kujac, bearing in mind that I had gotten KOTH* past her in our previous game, I threw out OOF*, and after a long hold she let it go. I decided right then that I'd start a tradition of playing a phony against her during every game. I almost lost this one too, but at the very end time trouble got to her and she threw out LAPE*. I the pity the fool who tries to get fake fours past me.

I heard another player complaining about the delay between pairings. I agreed it was too long. She claimed that she wouldn't be coming back. I didn't believe her. Scrabble is just too addicting.

The next round featured some wife-swapping, as the Bergs and the Spanfelders traded partners, across the Scrabble board of course. I myself faced Ted Mast who had beaten me in Baltimore. I'd been doing better at dealing with bad draws, but the fact that Ted had not played a tournament since Baltimore, while I had been playing constantly, made it even more of an insult that he just got the good tiles and won without having to make any brilliant plays. His first bingo--LUCKieR. A couple of turns later, GRANITA rendered the board almost unplayable. Only good tiles could have saved me. I didn't get them.

My final game of the day, against Charlie Pollard, was a redeeming one. The game turned dramatically when I found one of the bingos I'd recently seen on the high-probability list, DECIARe, and Charlie challenged. I scored 94, plus another 36 on the triple that the bingo had opened, and Charlie was not able to come back from the 100-point lead I had racked up.


The Warmabout

For dinner I went to La Colombiana, a Colombian restaurant I had spotted that morning. Afterwards, I felt too tired to drive even the short distance to Pleasantville, so instead I drove lengthwise (west by northwest) across town towards where the city seemed to end. I found privacy between a pair of shuttles in the Jitney shuttle parking lot. My only disturbance was that periodically a shuttle would park and the driver would go home or vice-versa. It was supposed to be warmer that night, but I sure couldn't tell.

Sometime after 2:00 AM I awoke rather chilly. The old Integra warmed up more quickly when driving, so I decided to go on a "warmabout". I was also curious if, in this bitter cold, there would be any hookers out on Pacific Ave, as I had read on the Internet. Specifically, if there would be any hookers crazy enough to be wearing skimpy clothing, but everyone I saw was bundled up, making it impossible to tell a working girl from a sherpa. I thought I saw somebody wave at me as I past, but he/she looked like the Michelin man with the thick white coat. I figured if there were any girls working, they'd have to be inside the casino. I didn't feel like getting dressed, so once my car warmed up I headed back to my parking lot.

A few hundred feet from the parking lot, on the corner, there were a couple of rough-looking characters hanging about. Given the cold and the lateness of the hour, they could only have been drug dealers. I did not want them to risk arousing their curiousity if they saw me pulling into the lot, so I drove around the block. After a couple of times around the block, they appeared to have moved on, so I went ahead and settled into my corner.


January 25

An Okay Finish

Atlantic City is actually not very big, so I did not expect to find another local breakfast spot--I settled on Constantino's again. I thought I heard the waitress talking about Scrabble, but she was actually talking about scrapple. She was telling one of the regulars about an encounter with some customers from the south who came in and said, "Scrabble--what is that? Isn't that a game." Kind of like with grits and northerners, she continued.

On the way to the hotel I caught the last part of Weekend Edition, the segment with puzzlemaster Will Shorts. By coincidence, this weeks set of puzzles required anagraming. A programmer from a large software company in Redmond, WA (gee, I wonder which one) called in, and I discovered that my aural anagramming skills were rather poor--the caller was doing much better than me. The experience only served to confirm what I had suspected all along, that my word skills are visual, not aural.

I arrived early enough to play a practice game with Glenn Filzer. Again the reference to Richard III. I wondered if he had actually read the play. I think there should be a rule that you can't quote a work unless you've read it (or seen it performed). A scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind comes to mind, in which Kirsten Dunst's character keeps reciting Nietzsche quotes she got from a book of quotations.

Poor Arlene Silverman had a headache going into our game, and needed a soda, for the caffeine I guess. I beat her anyway. But to convince her I wasn't completely heartless, I offered her some of my pain reliever and some of my wonderful Tradewinds tea. I think I pulled the wool over her eyes, because after the game she said I was very pleasant to play with.

I'm still not sure what this equity thing is, whether it's Maven-specific or more general. But regardless, I'm sure I gave up a lot of it against Drew Allen. Drew was the player that I had forfeited against at the last Philadelphia tournament, and so I was eager to beat him and confirm that I would have done better in Philly had I not missed that first game. But after challenging off his TREKING*, basic psychology should have told me that he probably wasn't going to try another phony, so it was silly to challenge KETONE. After the game, I noticed one or two more places where I had given up points, and since it turned out to be a three-point game, I knew I had just given it away. And thus Drew Allen joined my ever-growing hit list.

My final game was against Ed Stewart, who had triple-tripled me in Baltimore (I have a loooong memory for triple-triples). He drew both blanks, but I drew everything else. Even with only one bingo, LISPING, and getting stuck with the Q, I still managed to score 513 to win by almost 200. Not a bad finish, and my 7-5 would mean a ratings increase. Of course, I would not see that increase for weeks and weeks because of the infamous recount incident.

Not a great performance, but satisfactory, and I had no major regrets as I headed back home with my take-away Colombian food in my lap. I took advantage of passing through Philly to catch Girl With a Pearl Earring at the Ritz East, starring Scarlett Johansson, one of my latest starlet infatuations. Finally, before heading back to Princeton, I visited a friend and connected my broken laptop to her monitor, and confirmed that the CPU did in fact work--it was just the LCD screen that was kaput. A minor relief.



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