Read from the bottom up to enjoy these episodes as written.
Norma is thrilled Mayor Goodman wants to open Vegas up.
“It’s about time,” she said. “Somebody needed to grow a pair. Figures it was a woman.”
She was dealing out a hand, queen to herself and now an 8-3 to me.
“Speaking of growing a pair,” she said, nodding to the thousand dollar chip I’d bet. “Doubling down, aren’t you?”
I looked at my stack, which wasn’t tall.
"Do you think it's time?" I asked.
Norma hacked into her elbow. "It's been time. What's your play?"
I swayed side to side on my swim-up stool. My funds were low. @DurwoodOakJones and I had made a haul saving the Fins from those fjörd blasters, but I'd blown most of mine on GofundMe pages for experimental ventilator designs.
Well, 60 percent. The rest had disappeared here or at Spearmint Rhino.
I pushed a second thousand-dollar chip in.
Norma grinned, her eyes gleaming like a shark's.
I said, as she pulled my next card from the shoe, "Your bosses here aren't ready anyway. The Casino won't open."
#Norma scowled up at the eye-in-the-sky. The two of us were only here gambling because she was too stubborn and tenured to be told what to do, and I'd been vaccinated by a supervillain.
She's wearing thin on me. Norma's a gas, but I enjoyed our time better in thirty-minute chunks. Maybe tomorrow I'll dial in to Molly McGill's neighborhood Zoom.
Norma is the only blackjack dealer working. Caesars is shut down, but she's got seniority to do as she likes.
"So here we are," she said, raising her hands as though daring the heavens. "Two idiots and a deck of cards."
She dealt the first four hands briskly, beating me three times. The pit boss watched with wrists crossed over his belt buckle. He wore a navy suit and a face mask.
Norma hacked into her elbow, then jabbed a finger at me. "No mask, eh?"
I winced at my cards, a king and a three. "I'm vaccinated."
Norma dealt herself a nine against fourteen, busting. She sneered sideways at me. She didn't challenge my claim. I've spoken at length with her about Third Chance Enterprises.
I volunteered, "I know a supervillain."
She paid me out. I tipped her a green chip.
"I know a super ass,” she said. “My husband. I do his laundry every week."
"Isn't Stu in a wheelchair?" I asked.
She slammed down my next cards with contempt. "You need legs to fold a pair of boxer shorts in half?"
I lost the next four hands. I wished they’d taken me down at Las Vegas General this morning. It’s unclear whether my total lack of medical experience or the mention of Fabienne Rivard’s experimental vaccine doomed my offer of help.
“Norma,” I said as she shuffled for the next shoe. “Is there a stranger conversation happening anywhere on the Strip, do you think?”
She hacked again into her sleeve. #Norma doesn’t entertain questions of this sort. But I keep asking.
My favorite #blackjackDealer here at Caesars is Norma. Her nametag has no last name or city. She scowls through chute after chute. Amorphous hair frames her face like brown stuff-paper in an Amazon package.
I joke with #Norma. She’ll ignore 9 running, then on 10 she’ll bark like a seal and say, “Funny idiot, this one!”