In June of 2003, I transferred to a surveillance position in my casino. Normally, one has to have certain certifications for this, but my friends in that department said I could start my classes after transferring. Without hesitation, I quit the position that I'd shared uncomfortably with my ex-girlfriend, Casey, and began this new venture.
After learning how to work all the different controls, the overall duty of surveillance was not that difficult. You pretty much kept a careful watch over anyone gambling with a substantial amount of money. You also kept your eyes peeled for lost children, clusters of teenagers, or anyone who looked suspicious. Anytime a big cash transaction was made at the casino cage, or at one of the table games, you had to zoom in and record it. It took me three weeks, going to school for five hours a day before work, to get my certification. After that, my supervisors left me alone to my own surveillance station.
Between Thursday and Sunday, there was so much action on the casino floor that I barely had time to blink my eyes. It was on Mondays, which translated to Friday for me, that I began my obsession with watching people.
It began with faces; certain men or women who struck me a certain way. Sometimes I toggled the joystick so that the miniature camera, hidden inside the black globe, followed them as they went from restaurant to casino table, and then upstairs to their hotel room. There were times I caught people making love at slot machines, in hotel room hallways, and anywhere shadows provided cover. I caught old men transferring cash to prostitutes and celebrities squeezing women who were not their wives. At times, it was like peering into a bathtub filled with writhing maggots.
We were supposed to phone security in most instances, but I refrained. These were my discoveries. My treasures. Whenever something exciting fluttered like a moth across my monitor, the real world faded into darkness behind me.
This obsession stuck with me even after I clocked out at 1 in the morning. Now that I'd broken up with my girlfriend of two years, I was supposed to be going out and trying to meet new girls. No matter where I went, I found myself looking up at globes in the ceiling. If there were none, it meant the casino had hidden them somewhere I was unaware of. In the few occasions that I struck up a conversation with a girl, I discovered that I no longer knew what to talk about. All that really interested me anymore was surveying humans as they carried on, unaware of the eye staring down at them from inside the black globe.
In time, I stopped going out altogether. There were many webcams on the Internet that showed crowds passing by on city sidewalks. Of course, there were sexually-oriented webcam sites too, but I strayed from them. After my breakup with my ex, I just... the interest wasn't there.
That attitude changed the night Casey fluttered onto my monitor.
A month had passed since I'd seen her, but she was still as beautiful as the day I'd met her. Her hair, a sandy-blonde curtain, inspired feelings of a beach during the summer. The sight of her with another man infuriated me.
He looked familiar. Then I realized he was this little punk from valet, a wiry kid with spiked-hair. I hated him at first sight, but I also admitted that I'd dumped Casey and that she had every right to pursue other guys.
Probably because her boyfriend had good connections at our casino, they came there often to eat or to dance at the nightclub. Even though I was supposed to be watching gamblers, I stalked every move this couple made. Whenever they fell out of view, my heart began to race. I imagined him ... I imaged him and her ...
Imagination enveloped me.
Considering my mental state at that time, I had no choice but to do what I did. A prostitute will do almost anything for a thousand dollars. This spiked-hair kid, I knew exactly what kind of guy he was. So, I set up my little plan with the sort of prostitute I thought might win him over. I caught it all on camera.
I remember the shocked look on Casey's face when she opened the door the night I visited. She was wearing some grubby, gray sweatpants and a plain black T-shirt. Her hair was a mess. She'd never looked so beautiful to me.
"Just a minute of your time," I said.
She hesitated, and then decided it was safe to let me in. I put the disk into her DVD player and pressed play. We sat about a foot apart on her white, leather sofa. "I want to apologize ahead of time," I said. "What you're about to see is going to hurt you."
The video flickered on, and we both sat there in silence watching the spiked-haired kid and the prostitute.
When the 20 minutes of footage clicked off, Casey put her face in her hands and began to cry. I put my arm around her shoulder. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't want to show you, but ... when I saw it ... I found that I still cared for you."
She brushed her hair away and bore into my eyes with a searching stare.
"Are you seeing anyone now?" she asked.
I shook my head no. A wicked smile crept across my face.
The sensation of her wet lips against mine made my plan worth it. I had Casey back. The world, for me, became a warm place again.
But, as it turned out, I was not the only who had been watching all the little moths fluttering across the surveillance monitors. A few nights after Casey and I had gotten back together, two security officers entered my control booth and asked me to come with them to a conference room. There, the head of surveillance and a few other upper-echelon explained that I was being fired due to personal use of surveillance equipment. They showed footage from cameras that watch the surveillance agents. I was embarrassed, but in a way I didn't care. In Las Vegas, you lost one casino job and picked up another. It was like an Easter egg hunt. With Casey back in my life, things like this were just minor setbacks.
When I returned to Casey's place that night, the guy with the spiked-hair was sitting beside her on the wooden swing. I figured he'd come to apologize and try to win her back. But the truth dawned on me when I saw the hateful glare in Casey's eyes.
"I want you to meet Mike," she said.
Mike stood and cracked his knuckles. He was not very tough, but some sort of power had possessed him. He looked like a boxer just waiting for a ringing bell to signal the start of the first round.
"We'll shake later," I said to him.
He scoffed. "I happened to have a video of my own," he said triumphantly. "The one where you pay a prostitute a thousand dollars to trick me."
I turned to Casey. "If he loved you, he wouldn't have been so easily tricked."
"That's not the point," she shouted. Across the street, a porch light turned on. Neighbors stepped out.
"That is the point," I said. "I did it to get you back. Casey, I ..."
That's when Mike sucker-punched me, doubling me over onto the red rocks. I sprung up and swooped down low, hitting him right in the stomach. I shoved hard, so that we both toppled backwards into the swing. Once he was on the ground, I unleashed all my fury upon him.
It was Casey who picked up the flowerpot and decided which of us she loved more.
That was all three years ago. I still live in Las Vegas, but I don't work the casino circuit anymore. There's something about it. Sharks preying on other sharks. Real estate is hot right now, and I've had minor success as an agent. It gets me by. That's all people really want—just to get by and to try to find love if they can.
When possible, I like to eat my lunch alone in one of the Valley's many public parks. There are always kids running around and yelling while their mothers sit and gossip. After a while, all the sounds fade out and I am able to focus on the wide sky above me. I think of all the people passing through the casinos, so focused on entertainment that they are unaware of the eye in the sky that watches every movement and every action. For the first time in my life, I've given serious thought to the presence of a God above, staring at us and recording all of our little sins. What really terrifies me though is the possibility of a different eye, staring up from the ground below.
Next week, I'm going to start attending a church. Not sure which one yet. I remember that Casey was a Catholic, so maybe I'll try that and see how it goes. Who knows, I might even run into her.