STARDUST EMPLOYEE, EIGHT-OH-EIGHT

Today's blog is overwhelmingly true.  So don't expect the usual 15% slathering of embellishment. Instead, it's a remarkable story of an unremarkable casino worker who...depending on the reader's imagination...got his just rewards in a spectacular, sensationalized action movie-worthy manner.



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BOB.  In my generation, the name was both common and plain.  When I was a craps dealer at Hotel Fremont, (September 1979-March 1980), every third guy was a BOB.

One particular BOB, BOB Honiker a box man  (the immediate supervisor who sits between the dealers and regulates a craps game) stood out in the crowd as a complete zero.  So much so that calling this BOB, common or plain would have been a compliment.

DECEMBER - 1979. YES THE FREMONT HAD SHRIMP-COLORED DEALER SHIRTS BUT AFTER WORKING FOR PEANUTS AT  LESSER CASINOS, A PINK UNIFORM WASN'T GOING TO SWAY ME AWAY FROM  A SOLID INCOME BUMP.

BOB Honiker (40) was a festering pimple on the ass of mankind.  His lack of looks, personality and intelligence contributed to him being a friendless bachelor.

What made BOB prominent among ordinary losers?   He was a hater too.  On the bright side, BOB was such a milquetoast, he rarely had the confidence to speak up while putting down his "inferiors."

I doubt BOB was a member of a white supremacist group but I'm positive that this Aryan's short, skinny and bald body was NOT the prototype of the master race.

The little hair that this nebbish had, (reddish blond with flecks of gray) was left long, (comb-over-style). to mask his barren top.  His black, horn-rimmed glasses were out-of-style and he had crooked, yellow, baby-sized teeth.  BOB's goofy appearance was highlighted by a grayish, chipped, front tooth.

He was also cheap.

Any suggestion about fixing his teeth or getting braces was countered with, "It's too expensive,"(ironically, he was covered by the Fremont's dental insurance.  So the only things stopping him were...laziness or he was so vain that deep down, he was satisfied with his look).

At work, BOB alternated between a slate-colored, western-cut sports jacket and a puke-green leisure suit.  He augmented his ensembles with a string tie and two-tone (brown-on-brown) cowboy boots.  Those boots looked like a hybrid of artificial plastic and imported pleather but he swore they were genuine rattlesnake, (behind his back, the Fremont staff called them genuine shit-kickers).

BOB's glasses fooled some people into thinking he was an intellectual but he was incompetent as a craps supervisor and equally dopey off duty.

BOB's countrified accent and (poorly timed) rural witticisms made him came off like a Southerner but he was from Pocatello Idaho. In the rare instance that he caught a dealer error, he was likely to crack; this here boy has more moves than a can of worms or; son,  you look busier than a one-legged man at an ass kicking contest.

I never saw BOB deal craps but there is a clever remark saved for weasels like him:  Those who can't deal, sit box.



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The Fremont was a better than average downtown casino.  Which meant in the overall Las Vegas scheme of things...it was a toilet.

IN 1979, THE FREMONT, (MINNIE PEARL ON THE MARQUEE), BINION'S HORSESHOE AND GOLDEN NUGGET WERE THE ONLY THREE DOWNTOWN CLUBS THAT A CRAPS DEALER COULD GROSS $275.00 A WEEK.

Most Fremont employees knew it was a dump and dreamed of working in upscale strip casinos.  But BOB made it known that he was happy to stay there, (the Fremont and Stardust were owned by the same corporation.  The major league Stardust funneled all its new hires through the Fremont as if it was their minor league affiliate).

Downtown casinos attracted raucous, redneck customers, so occasionally BOB was in his element.  My coworkers and I got annoyed when BOB aligned himself with classless drunks especially when he joined them in ethnic slurs or insulting/teasing gays, senior citizens, the handicapped or hobos (he loved targeting bag ladies.  He must've had a lovely relationship with his mother).

Some of the staff tried to "jackpot" BOB, (set him up to be disciplined or fired).  The strongest I ever got was calling him BOB Chanukah, (the Jewish festival of lights), but he wasn't bright enough to see the similar sound of Honiker and the holiday.

A dealer on my crew who verbally jousted with BOB was JB.  Moralistic BOB frequently referred to himself as a "good Christian" so he had no qualms about criticizing JB for stepping out on his wife.  These knuckleheads were at each other's throat after JB went into intricate pornographic details of his escapades with a customer, the night before.

The next day, BOB called JB a sinner after he bragged about his second lusty, all-night session with her.  JB said that this school teacher from a small town in western Canada was a sex machine and that she had tuckered him out.  Maybe she invented the phrase; what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Several times,JB lamented, "I hope she doesn't show up after work."

An hour before we got off, she appeared.  The woman was a Plain Jane (35).  She was wearing a short, summery cotton dress and greeted him with a big smile.  He rolled his eyes.

Jane spun in place and said, "Like it? It's new."

My eye fixed on her rising hem.  Then to her ample cleavage and her pointy nipples poking through the thin, white fabric.

JB refused her latest proposition.  She got upset.

Terry, another dealer was going on break and JB said, "Take him."

In the aisle, to make JB jealous, she grabbed his butt.  Terry had a buddy in valet parking and didn't hesitate to lead her towards the garage.

In some poor schnook's car, she "took care of him."   To pay for their hospitality and facilities, she also took care of Terry's friend and another car jockey.  Terry returned to the craps pit and spread the word of Plain Jane's willingness to display her talents.

BOB was still our box man when Jane, looking quite disheveled, returned to our craps game. In a sexy combination of moaning and whining, she let JB (and everyone else) know how badly she wanted him.  He ignored her as the action of our craps game heated up.  Soon the dice were hotter than Jane as the table became flooded with golden, twenty-five cent chips and white dollar . To help BOB, a second box man (an old-timer named Kelly) was brought over to split this voluminous but petty responsibility.

Jane sat on a slot machine stool behind JB's players.  He tried to look disinterested in a third night of debauchery. To lure him in, she waited until the customers separated and spread her legs to fully expose herself to him.  JB, the ultimate parasite didn't divert his eyes and kept sneaking peeks.

The valet parking escapades spread to "Tony the Pirate" our pit boss.  Under the guise of overseeing our wild game, he stood between the two box men, to check-out Jane.

Jane opened her legs for JB.

Tony got an eyeful and called out, "Hey honey, I hear you suck!"

She stood up from the stool and blasted, "What did you say?"

Our pit boss adjusted the sleeve of his cranberry, pin-striped suit and said in a lower tone, "I hear you're stuck, you lost all your money.  Wanna meal ticket?"

The game didn't slow down as Jane pried her way between players and shouted, "I heard what you said...and I do suck, I'll suck all you..."

Tony patted the shoulder of  Kelly (70) and jibed, "How about my father?"

She said, "Yeah! I'd do him"

The old timer pleaded, "No Tony, please no..."

Our boss pointed at BOB, "How about my son?"

Just as she said, "Yup," BOB was getting off duty.

Outside the pit, she hooked her arm through his and led him back to valet parking.



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I guess as a good Christian, BOB didn't see the hypocrisy in using Jane.

The following day and for the next few months, he frequently reminded us, "I took that Canuck home. She could suck the porcelain off a urinal...hell, if she wasn't a damned Catholic, I'da married the bitch."



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Around that time (March 1980), Tony took me aside to solicit a bribe, "Hey kid, wanna get transferred to the Stardust?"

In addition to the prestige of working on the strip, this promotion would triple my tip income.

I said, "Definitely!"

Tony added his signature statement, "My 1969, maroon Riviera is parked next to the time office. I'll crack my window open, just enough to slide in an envelope.  We'll see how much you want to go."

At the hotel's front desk I got an envelope.  I ran to the cashier and converted chump change (small bills) into a fifty and hustled outside to Tony's car.

My fifty was enough! The next day someone from personnel phoned and told me where to pick up my transfer papers to bring to the Stardust.

MARCH - 1980.  I WAS SO PROUD TO WORK THERE, I WORE MY STARDUST SHIRT LIKE A TROPHY.

The payola I gave Tony the Pirate changed my life.  I had done the near impossible, dealing craps on the fabulous Las Vegas strip at twenty-four, with only thirteen months experience and no connections.

THE STARDUST (1958-2006) HAD AN OUTER SPACE-THEME.  MORE THAN THE BIG BUCKS AND STATUS, I FEEL THAT I SHED MY CHILDHOOD AND BECAME A MAN, IN MY TWO YEARS THERE.

Tony earned his nickname by being the epitome of a conflict of interest.  Unlike any pit boss I ever worked for, he demanded a layoff (a cut) when a four-man craps crew scored a big toke day. He also used his position to blackmail his underlings into making charitable contributions to him, (he donated our money to civic organizations and his church, in his name).

Once, he "encouraged" my crew into buying seventeen boxes of his daughter's Girl Scout cookies...as well as other random amounts to all his dealers.  He was so cutthroat that when his supply couldn't meet the Stardust's demands, his standards for transfers got mighty low.

The idea of him taking graft from anyone was proven a month later.  BOB Honiker was offered a promotion.  At first BOB refused. Later, somebody must have clued him that a twelve-dollar a day pay raise might not sound like much but it was 15%...which translated to three grand a year.

The Stardust attracted a more sophisticated clientele and had a savvy, veteran staff who immediately labeled BOB as a jack-off and a lump, (an inadequate bungler).

The first time, I saw BOB in his Stardust powder blue, box man's uniform was in the break room. He was getting ripped into by a female blackjack dealer, for calling women; a minority group.

BOB's reputation for being weak was justified..  He easily got rattled and failed to keep up with the faster pace and higher action.

In hushed obscenities, BOB vented his frustration.   Far worse, he spotlighted his ignorance with a negative attitude towards black and Hispanic dealers.  This pissed off a lot of people. He also referred to all Asians as "Japs" and spitefully littered in front of the Native American porters (sweepers) and called the Holocaust, "an exaggeration dreamed-up by the Jew-controlled media."

He was so offensive that the ultimate pacifist, our flower-child, employee-waiter challenged him to a fight when BOB joked, "What's the only difference between a hippie and a Commie?...A Commie moves the dirty dishes before he pees in the sink."

BOB was so buried, I doubt he noticed that few people spoke to him, nobody invited him out for drinks and the craps crews never included him in their layoff rotation.

For four months, BOB defied the odds and kept his job. Until the Stardust generated a strange memo.  It required all dealer shirts and supervisor jackets to be embroidered with the employee's first name, in cursive lettering with navy, cable-knit thread.  The notice mandated that all the sewing work was to be done at the Andiamo Dry Cleaners, on Industrial Road...at $4.00 per garment.  In bold letters, the  communique's last line specified a one month window of opportunity for total compliance or risk termination.

  YES INDEED, ABOVE THE POCKET, THAT'S NAVY, CABLE-KNIT THREAD SPELLING OUT, "STEVE." 

This embroidery conspiracy was extortion.  A conservative estimate of a hundred-fifty dealers (times four shirts), plus forty supervisors, (two sports jackets each), at four bucks a pop, netted some fortunate friend of management, a quick twenty-eight hundred dollars.

Many of Stardust's front line casino staff mildly protested.  But within two weeks, the uniformly stitched names started to appear.  When the deadline passed, everyone I knew had cooperated except BOB.  He maintained his frugality by hand-sewing his own block-letter name, in thin red thread.

His three uppercase letters, (B-O-B), stood-out because they were rounded, unprofessionally measured, poorly spaced and ran downhill.  The mess made his name look like the number: 808.

BOB seemed to be getting away with murder.  So nobody felt like they were ratting out a comrade when they complained about his non-compliance.  Yet weeks passed and "808" as he was exclusively and unaffectionately called, had neither been warned nor disciplined.

During my time at the Stardust, the place was rumored to be run by the mob. Years later when the movie, "CASINO," came out, it was based on the Stardust. It's possible that wiseguys stealing millions weren't concerned about 808's eight dollars worth of sewing slipping through the cracks.

808 maintained his lucky streak until the CM, (casino manager), came out of the lavish baccarat salon long enough to make a token appearance in the craps pit.

He noticed 808's name emblazoned in an amateurish way and asked, "What happened to your embroidery?"

808 didn't know who he was talking to and scoffed, "Did it myself."

The boss of bosses fumed, "Heh?"

808 crowed, "Shucks, those cheap chiselin' 'I-Ties' are more hard-up for money than Jews."

The boss calmly walked away.  Several minutes later, a posse of gun-toting uniformed guards, led 808 to seldom used door behind the security podium...where they took the hard-cases.

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU SEE IN THE MOVIES BUT IN "CASINO" THEY MADE A STRONG POINT AT HOW MANY HOLES THERE ARE IN THE DESERT AND HOW EASILY THINGS CAN GET LOST FOREVER.

BOB Honiker (a.k.a. 808) vanished! The casino called it job abandonment.  Over the next three years that I lived in Las Vegas, I never saw him nor did anyone else I knew.

If it's any consolation to him, he wound up being unique after all, by being the only guy named 808, I ever met.

For his sake, let's hope he's somehow alive, well and reading this blog up in Pocatello.