Casino Rock
Sitting in the parking lot looking straight ahead Teddy could see the Rainbow Bridge, traffic lined up at customs and New York state on the other side. Looking in the side mirror he could see the skinny guy with the long hair carrying the big rectangular guitar case coming from the casino and he thought, what an asshole.
He watched the guy come up behind the Escalade and look around like he was in a fucking movie, somebody might be following him before he looked in the passenger window and Teddy pressed the button unlocking the door.
The guy got in, dragging the guitar case up on his lap, saying, “Shit, it’s cold. Is it always so wet?”
“The falls are right there,” Teddy said, “if you want to see them.”
“That’s okay.”
A million tourists looking over Niagara Falls a year and this guy doesn’t want to walk fifty feet to see them. “Okay,” Teddy said, “let me see it.”
The guy said, yeah sure, and opened the case. Just like he’d said, a white Flying V.
Teddy said, “I’ll give you five hundred.”
“It’s worth three grand, it`s vintage.”
Teddy said, yeah, if it was Johnny Winters’, “But it’s not. Five hundred.”
“I played with Johnny. And Edgar. We opened for them in `76, I was just a kid.”
Teddy thought the guy looked familiar, tried to picture him before the million miles on the road, the groupies, the drugs and the booze. He thought maybe if he knew one of the guy’s songs.
“Grand Funk that summer, Ted Nugent, too, you know Cat Scratch Fever? We opened for Alice Cooper and Bowie, man.”
Teddy was thinking, yeah, but what’s one of your songs? He said, “I can give you a grand.”
The guy said, okay, and closed the case.
Teddy flipped open his cell phone, hit a button and said, “Grand.” Then he said, “What’s your band called, The Sky?”
“The High. I guess you weren’t at the show.” Teddy said, was anybody? and the guy said, yeah, man, “We do okay on the casino circuit.”
“Just not quite good enough.”The guy said, “Blackjack, it’s my weakness,” and Teddy thought, yeah, among others.
“Okay, you go back to the casino, somebody’ll meet you.”
“You don’t have the money?”
“The way it works, pal. There’s fucking cops everywhere.”
“It’s against the law to sell you a guitar?”
“We’re full service. Cheque cashing, pay day loans and mobile pawn shop. Buy a lot pink slips, I could open a car lot.”
The guy said, “Shit,” and opened the door. Teddy could tell the guy didn’t like being lumped in with all those pathetic losers gambling their lives away, but really, what did he think he was, an artist?Barry stood by the door to the Fallsview Casino smoking a cigarette and watching Curtis get out of the Escalade and walk through the parking lot. When he was between a mini van and a pick-up a short guy stepped in front of him and it was like they just barely bumped, Curtis didn’t even slow down slipping the envelope inside his leather jacket. Barry dropped his smoke and followed the short guy to a Lexus, coming up behind him close and saying, “Hey, buddy.”
The short guy turned around, saying, what, and seeing at the Glock in his face.
Barry held out a grocery bag and said, “Put it all in here.”
The short guy said, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing,” and Barry said, “All of it.”
“You’ll never make it out of the fucking casino.”
In the tour bus Curtis said, “He recognize you?” and Barry said, “I could have been wearing the make-up, he wouldn’t have known who I was
Curtis said, yeah, of course. Still he was pissed. The High had one of the biggest selling albums in ‘78, it was just too late, the end of an era. No more glam, no more glitter; Aladdin Sane said Let’s Dance, KISS were Unmasked, after that it was all big hair and spandex. The High just couldn’t make the change.
Barry said, “Holy shit, looks like thirty grand. Add that to what we made last night on stage, this casino rock is working out, man. Glad you put the band back together.”
Curtis said, “Yeah.” Ripping off shylocks wasn`t the real plan, but if it kept them going, kept them out on stage, kept the band together it, was worth it.