“… whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul … I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon the sword; I quietly take to the ship.”
– Ismael, the narrator of “Moby Dick”
Call me Ishmael, The Reporter said to himself as he sped south from Tribune Tower in a company car, heading for one of the casino boats along Lake Michigan in northwest Indiana.
Certainly he was familiar with the angst that is part of the human condition and is piercingly described by the introspective seaman, Ishmael, in Herman Melville’s classic novel about the doomed pursuit of a white whale by the sailing ship Pequod.
And Ishmael’s idea about rejuvenating oneself by going to sea also seemed appealing.
Doesn’t everyone yearn to escape the drudgery of daily life now and then, to forget cares, clear the mind, change the scenery?
That’s why on a recent weekday afternoon The Reporter, intent on following Ishmael’s prescription as closely as possible in an attempt to dispel his own morose and surly mood, quietly took to a ship named the Majestic Star, which was docked in a remote corner of Gary, Ind.
Granted, this vessel is a gambling boat rather than a full-rigged whaler, but the latter is not available in the waters around Chicago, and besides, The Reporter wanted only a brief break from routine, not a lengthy voyage.
What’s important is the experience itself, he told himself. Ishmael sailed in search of truth and self-knowledge. The Reporter just wanted to get away from his workplace for a couple of hours and take a look at what has become a growth industry.
– – –
The Majestic Star shares a dock with another gambling ship, the Trump Casino. Opening for business last June, the boats are berthed at Buffington Harbor, which is geographically in Gary but, in a sense, a world apart from the never-glamorous, down-at-the-heels old steel town.
While Gary aggressively wooed the floating casinos and receives a salubrious slice of their revenues, the boat folks don’t mention Gary in their promotions, a conscious avoidance of a potentially negative image that has not gone unnoticed.
And to drive through the arched gateway to the Buffington Harbor casino site is to enter a fenced, fastidiously landscaped compound that’s designed as an inviting oasis in a bleak industrial desert of weathered factories, machinery sheds and oil storage tanks.
This was to be The Reporter’s first view of a casino boat, and he had done his homework. He had learned that the Majestic Star is owned by Don Barden of Detroit, who made a fortune in cable television and real estate, and that the Trump Casino is named after its owner, some fellow from New York City who shuns publicity. Just kidding.
– – –
The entrance to both boats is through a common pavilion that is in reality a fancy barge — a carpeted, encapsulated, multistoried fuselage that contains a gift shop, bars, restaurants and offices and is used and paid for by the two casino corporations.
The Majestic Star has four levels, which are stocked with some 900 slot machines, a host of video screens for poker and keno and around 50 board games offering craps, blackjack, roulette, Caribbean stud poker, baccarat and mini-baccarat.
Professionally curious, The Reporter stopped to talk with Cathy Ewen, 48, who was playing a 25-cent slot. She said she drives in “at least once or twice a week” from Westville, Ind., population 3,000 and less than an hour away.
How long does she play? “It depends on what I’m doing that day . . . if I’m having a good time or not. But I’d say anywhere from 4 to 8 hours.”
It’s now 3:45 p.m., and she has been gambling steadily since noon. And how is she doing?
“Pretty good. I’m having fun. This is one of my favorite machines. I’ve won a lot on this machine.”
She started by inserting a $100 bill, she said, and as she talks, she plays, two and three coins at a time. As she plays, The Reporter records her balance, which is displayed by the machine: 57, 71, 69, 66 . . .
Ewen said she’s able to gamble regularly because she has had open-heart surgery and doesn’t work. . . . 65, 62, 59, 56 . . . Seemingly a bit defensive, she added: “And you can write down that I’ve been married 28 years and I’m still married and I gamble. Isn’t that amazing?” . . . 47, 44, 64 . . .
– – –
After several such interviews, The Reporter decided to leave the patrons alone. For one thing, a conversation was obviously distracting to them and thus not conducive to particularly thoughtful insights.
For another, when asked why they gambled, virtually everyone, not surprisingly, gave the same sort of answer, which began to sound like a mantra: It was fun, it was entertainment.
The Reporter had wanted to stay away from the moral and social and economic and public-policy questions that surround state-sanctioned casino gambling, but he couldn’t help but reflect anthropologically on the incredibly varied ways in which our species seeks diversion.
Some of us loll in front of the tube, some read good books, some read bad books, some travel, some follow sports, some go for golf, some sample high culture, and then there are night life, needlepoint, booze and stamp collecting.
And some will sit and stand for hours in a casino and risk their resources against odds that are stacked against them.
– – –
Finally, perhaps the best reason for curtailing interviews was the ferocious noise. The most accomplished Buddhist monk would be hard-pressed to meditate in such an environment.
A loud, constant, repetitive musical sound whose purpose apparently is to excite seems to emanate from all 900 slot machines; the calliopelike tone is something similar to what you hear at a carnival.
– – –
At the beginning of 1992, there were no gambling boats within an hour of Chicago. Today, there are 11, with a 12th slated to open soon in Michigan City, Ind.
In September, a new Majestic Star, bigger and more elegant and built as a casino, will replace the present version, which is the former New Yorker, built in 1972 as a dining and excursion boat that plied the waters of New York harbor until it was refitted as a casino boat and assigned to the Midwest.
On this day, the captain on duty was Erik Sawyer, 32, who worked ore boats on the Great Lakes for 10 years, rising from third mate to captain.
He’s one of four captains, two of whom alternate working 12-hour days, seven days a week for two weeks, then vacation for the next two weeks.
Sawyer is from Whitehall, Mich., 180 miles north of Gary. He rents an apartment, where he sleeps when off duty.
Don’t forget, these babies are now required to cruise at least 10 times a day, when conditions permit.
Because new customers can board each boat only every two hours (even hours on the Majestic Star, odd hours on the Trump Casino), there’s not a lot of time for cruising.
“By the time we get the lines off and the gangplanks up and get spun around and out into the lake and cruise around the sailboats out there, it’s time to hurry back and get people off,” Sawyer said. “So we don’t go too far.”
So far this year, Sawyer said, the Majestic Star had logged 120 cruises. Not that the customers care.
“It’s the easiest job I’ve had,” Sawyer said, laughing. “The only worry I have is the high-priced cargo. Iron ore doesn’t cost much if you wreck it, but if you start wrecking people, it gets expensive.”
– – –
And what’s this thing about choosing water over land for casinos? For an answer, The Reporter called Ed Felgenbaum, publisher of Indiana Gaming Insight in Indianapolis.
“It’s probably a distinction without a difference,” he said. “I’ll tell you what a state senator who was involved in the legislation told me. He said, `Well, Ed, I wanted to see what was going on in this business, and so my wife, Shirley, and I went to Las Vegas and went to a casino at 10 a.m., and we came back at 10 at night and we saw the same faces. We went to Iowa and did the same thing on their boats, and we didn’t see the same faces.’ “
His thinking was that by limiting access on boats, gambling problems would be reduced.
– – –
Talk about coincidence. Or symmetry. Henry Leong, an executive host for the Majestic Star, is and was a boat person.
In 1979, when he was 10 years old, he and his family were among 335 refugees who fled Vietnam on a 70-foot vessel, spending five days at sea and enduring two attacks by pirates before landing safely.
“We spent a year in a camp in Malaysia before we came to this country. We lived on sardines,” said Leong, now 27. “This is the land of opportunity. Most people take it for granted, I think.”
– – –
The Majestic Star employs some 940 persons. Dealers, who are a majority, are paid the minimum wage, plus tips, called tokes. A casino spokesman calculated that the combination comes to about $25,000 annually.
The Reporter, relieved to come upon the silence of an employee snack room, again broke his ban on interviews, talking to two dealers — Bryan Johnson, 24, of Chicago Heights, and Tim Nead, 43, of Gary, employee-of-the-month for May.
When he’s not working, Johnson likes to gamble at other boats (employees can’t gamble on their own boats).
“I don’t gamble,” Nead said. “I go straight home.”
Nead, as it happens, is the son of a Presbyterian minister.
What does his father think?
“Well, we’ve had some talks,” Nead said. “He knows I’m too old to be told what to do, but he’s let his feelings be known. He doesn’t see gambling as being worthwhile.
“And I said, `Well, I think there’s an entertainment value there, possibly.’ I think if you come here looking to pay your rent, you’re in the wrong place. I think if you come here with a set limit of what you’ll spend, it’s like taking your wife out for dinner and dancing. If you don’t go beyond that, and you get off the boat after two hours with half of what you came on with, and you’ve had some smiles and laughter, then I think it’s all right.”
– – –
An hour later, as The Reporter made the return trip to Tribune Tower, he felt relaxed, renewed, eager to get back to work.
Well, not really.
It did enter his mind that Ishmael was wise to hunt whales instead of jackpots.
