The Clairvoyant In the Casino

By Rev. LTC Peter E. Bauer MS USAR

Recently, my wife Kate and I spent our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary out in Las Vegas, NV. We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton because my wife wanted to see Barry Manilow.

The Southwest flight from San Antonio, TX was interesting. I got bumped due to over-booking, received a two hundred dollar travel voucher, and took the later flight which arrived first to Phoenix, AZ before proceeding onto Las Vegas. I looked out of the plane window as we were landing in Phoenix. I saw hundreds of people crammed into a big municipal swimming pool, which from ten thousand feet up looked like so many flies scurrying on the surface of the water while the temperature was 108 degrees.

We finally landed in Las Vegas and I took the shuttle to the hotel. We passed the Hard Rock Café and the Joint, passed the Mirage and the Palazzo and Caesar’s Palace, with architecture that mimicked Roman palace facades. When I arrived at our room at the Las Vegas Hilton, I looked out of the window at the rugged craggy brown mountains overlooking the desert valley floor and wondered; what was it like for those pioneers, before there were Hondas and BMWS and Mercedes- Benz with air conditioning?

Walking through the Las Vegas Hilton and Casino on a Tuesday was like a ghost town. Where are all of the people? Is this another sign of the bad economy? At one point I walked into an alcove area with slot machines that had a décor of what I would describe as Star Wars from hell with no one there. I found myself asking Am I in a scene from the Twilight Zone?

I finally got my answer to why there were so few people. Thursday afternoon, my wife and I took a cab over to the Bellagio to see the art exhibit of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. The female cab driver observed “I don’t know how people work in Las Vegas Monday through Wednesday; there are no people here then. The people really arrive from Thursday to Sunday.” She was right, as I noticed a definite surge of people in the hotel on Thursday morning.

Meanwhile back at the casino my wife and I played the two penny slots. You put in twenty dollar bill and you play. We started pulling the slots and started to win several rounds. We even started to speak our dog’s names before we would pull the slot. Willard, pull the slot, and then ding, ding, ding, ding. Watson, pull the slot and then ding, ding, ding, and ding. I mentioned to Kate, “You know I really think there is something with evoking the dog muse.” But unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to break the ceiling of the four dollar profit. I kept trudging over to the cashier’s window thinking that the teller is going to be so impressed that I am cashiering a receipt for twenty-four dollars.

I was beginning to think that the Las Vegas economy was so bad that the casinos were definitively limiting how much money they would pay out to being paltry sums. I even noticed that there weren’t even any coffee makers in the hotel rooms. Another interesting economic indicator for Summer 2009.

But the most telling indicator was when we were walking down the hallway to the hotel elevators and we saw the sign announcing the engagement of Lisa Williams, well known clairvoyant featured on Lifetime and on other television networks. I then thought “Well why not, a clairvoyant in the casino might have some real possibilities.” What might the next world think of this world of the casino?

It’s an interesting question. So much of what we experience in life can be unknown. Sometimes events happen with random luck much like hitting all three cherries on the pull of a slot machine. Where is God for us in those moments? How does the love of Christ made manifest in human form come to be known to us?

For the two days we were in Las Vegas, there was the glitz of the Barry Manilow show, there was the art of Roy Lichenstein and Andy Warhol, the flowers of the Bellagio, and the waitress who served us our meals in the Paradise Café. She was a constant, always cheerful, always had a kind serene smile, always very thoughtful and generous in telling us what activities were going on at the hotel and in Las Vegas. For me, she became a compassionate God presence amidst an environment that at times was both unpredictable and comical.

Do we need a clairvoyant in the casino? Do we need a guide to the next world who can help us make sense of this world? I don’t know if we will ever get a clear answer to that question.

I do know that if I ever have a clairvoyant with me in a casino, I hope he or she will help me break the four dollar ceiling for winnings on the slot machine.