Tunnel Vision by Gary Braver Page B

He didn’t know what Aramaic sounded like, but this was pure deep-sleep blather.
    He played it a few times with his ear pressed hard against the tiny speaker.
    Suddenly the string of nonsense morphemes took on a vague familiarity. He couldn’t determine if it was real language or not; and he knew that he didn’t understand a syllable of the mutterings. But just beneath the skin of things, he sensed that what he had uttered was embedded deeply in his brain.

22
     
    THREE WEEKS LATER
     
    From the distance, it appeared as if the Emerald City had fallen out of Oz and into the middle of the Connecticut woods.
    Foxwoods Resort Casino was a series of towers pressed into a huge multilayered structure blazing with lights. According to Anthony, it was the largest casino in the world, with nearly five million square feet, two-thirds of which was devoted to gambling and serving fifty thousand people per day. Apparently the Pequot Indians were making up for the bilking their cousins took on Manhattan Island.
    Three weeks had passed since Zack’s release from the hospital. But for a slight headache, he felt normal. He no longer needed a cane and was back at the NU gym regaining strength. He was also back at his apartment and working on his thesis. He didn’t tell his mother, but he still owed nearly $4,000 on his Discover card. He had put on weight, his hair had grown back, and he sported a closely trimmed beard to discourage public recognition. The likelihood of that was low since in the YouTube video he looked like roadkill. Fortunately, no crazies had stopped him on the street for a miracle. A few reporters had met him on his release. He’d explained politely that he was not a miracle, that coma patients sometimes wake up, and that the Easter date was pure coincidence. As for reciting Jesus’s words in Aramaic, he had no explanation.
    A week later, he was a nonstory.
    Zack had never been to a casino, so as celebration of his “rebirth,” Damian and Anthony drove him to the Mashantucket, Connecticut, resort. Despite his mother’s worry, this wasn’t going to jump-start an addiction. He had sworn off online poker. This was simply an outing with pals. And maybe, if he was lucky, he’d make a few bucks to pay down Discover.
    Stepping into the casino was like entering a hysterical penny arcade. Machines jingle-jangled, whistles blew, sirens wailed, coins tumbled, lights pulsed. Roulette wheels, gaming tables, and one-armed bandits were running at lunatic speed. The place was a full-scale blitz on the senses for the sole purpose of creating an adrenaline rush to toss about one’s money. And it was working that Friday night. The place was mobbed, with people moving up and down aisles holding plastic tubs of quarters. This was nothing like the movies with women in elegant sheaths and men in tuxedos with martinis. This crowd could have been right out of the bleachers at Fenway: baggy jeans, tight pink shorts on fat bottoms, bandannas, tattoos, Hawaiian shirts, Red Sox tees, Bud Lights. “Not exactly Casino Royale, ” Zack said.
    “Lucky for us,” Damian said.
    “Look around you, man,” Anthony said. “What you see all comes down to this: They want your money and you want theirs. The rest is just excuse.”
    “You cynical devil, you.”
    “It’s the truth,” Damian said. “The place is a temple to mammon.”
    “But it’s not going to stop you from dropping a few bucks.”
    “Heck, no. When in Rome, et cetera.”
    “Think there’s gambling in heaven?” Zack asked.
    “I’m counting on it.”
    They walked a few crowded aisles as the jangling of slot machines brought to mind the Wordsworth line: “The still, sad music of humanity.”
    Most players looked like regulars, feeding coins and pressing buttons, undeterred when a pile of winnings didn’t jingle down. Or when they did. They settled at different machines, Zack finding one next to a middle-aged woman with freeze-dried yellow hair and a black Harley-Davidson