An elderly man with a prosthetic leg lead me through the smoky VFW hall and pointed me towards what appeared to be a maintenance closet in a back hallway. I mustered a half-hearted salute and opened the door. A dimly lit stairway unfolded downward in front of me. This apparently mislabeled broom closet was my wardrobe, and I was taking my first steps into the Narnia-like world of the MiLF League’s 2019 season winner, Bieber.
The smoke grew thicker as I descended, but the stench of stale cigarettes was now blended with a more… fragrant and floral variety of scents. I heard a multitude of voices. Whispers and screams. None of them in English. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, an old black man with a cane and sunglasses frisked me, then pulled back a curtain for me to enter.
There sat Bieber, at the head of a strange, pentagonal card table. Four older men (apparently of Asian descent) sat stationed around the table at the other corners. Bieber held up a finger to me, instructing me to wait, and then yelled something in what I can only imagine was Cantonese. The table was littered with large stacks of cash, comically over-sized dice, two caged guinea pigs, a deck of UNO cards, and lipstick tubes. Each player had what appeared to be a three card hand in front of them, and a large knife beside them on the table.
Two cards were flipped from the UNO deck in the center of the table. A green six and a Wild Draw Four. Bieber smiled. Chatter around the table reached a fever pitch (of course I couldn’t understand any of it), as one by one the players laid down their three card hands. After two of the other players had laid down their hands, Bieber placed his hand down face up. He showed two sevens and a red three. A panic fell over the other players, as Bieber said something that sounded like “fay hwa” and began to roll the dice.
The players to his left and right scrambled to get the guinea pigs out of their cages and hold them still while the players on their other sides readied their knives. Just as they were about to stab down into the guinea pigs, Bieber rolled a leaf and what appeared to be a pig face, grabbed the lipstick and applied it. His disappointed opponents groaned as they crammed the guinea pigs back into their cages and Bieber scraped together all of the cash off the table.
He asked me if I had brought his money. I nodded and held out his winnings. He took the money and said we’d have to do the interview another time, that his game was apparently going into overtime.
A midget with a red cape wheeled in what appeared to be a ten (or so) foot tall lottery machine. Numbered balls resembling those from a billiard table shot around within the large container. A goat followed him, tied to his belt with a rope. One of Bieber’s opponents was now zip tied. As I exited back through the curtain, I bumped into the blind man who was carrying in a pinata. I could have sworn I heard a gunshot as I reached the top of the stairs, but you couldn’t have paid me to go back down there.
We never got that interview rescheduled. To be honest, I never even tried. I had learned everything I needed to from what I saw that night. When there’s money on the line, it doesn’t matter how much bullshit or random noise he has to cut through, Bieber finds a way to win.