Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (50 page)

Alan’s from Georgia, where the munch of chilled boiled peanuts helps cold beverages dilute any muggy old August. We share happy memories of insufferable days made pleasant by this cold soggy snack. Later on, he will surprise me with a homemade batch as a gift.

In the green room we find Leslie Frates, the Spanish teacher from the Masters. Her hug is like falling into a room full of bright-colored balls. There’s Arthur, whose intensity has been channeled more carefully, now relaxed and amused and full of wry best-selling comments. There’s Babu, whose wit is as warm as his East Texas home. There’s Rachael, who has now taken a government gig, stopping impending Enrons. Another superhero like Chuck, doing good in a large way.

There are almost a dozen others there, people I don’t yet know. Tom Cubbage stands out, a two-tournament champion. He has the square jaw, easy grooming, and massive confidence output of a kid who must have played quarterback from seventh grade on.
I do not want to play him. I’m not ready. Not yet.

But everyone’s able to beat everyone here, I remind myself. This is what I must believe.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a coin. It’s an old token from the Luxor and Jane.

Johnny Gilbert’s voice booms through the studio.

“This is a special
Jeopardy!
competition, bringing together the greatest
Jeopardy!
players of all time in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions!”

We begin.

Since it’s single-elimination and no scores need to be kept secret, we can sit in the bleachers instead of the green room and watch, taking our turns.

Leslie Frates plays well, but goes out in the first game. This tournament is over for her way too soon. It’s not well remembered, but in the Masters at Radio City she led Brad Rutter entering Final Jeopardy. And she answered correctly. She only lost from overthinking her bet.

There is much Cleveland in this. There is Snow Belt. There is work unrewarded. But Leslie has put her son through college with her game winnings over the years. She is happy just to be here. I may understand how she feels.

Of the people I know, Rachael is called on next. And she plays well, and loses. The next day we’ll have coffee, and her competitive spirit will almost carry us both right back onto the stage to change the outcome. But not quite.

Alan is called on, and he plays well, and loses. We’ll have lunch a few weeks later, and he’ll laugh about it more easily, as Rachael surely would by now.

Babu and Arthur must play one another. I am torn over which one to cheer for. It’s a close game. Arthur implodes on a Daily Double but still makes a stirring comeback. Then they both screw up on the Final. Babu writes, “What is
All’s Quiet on the Western Front,
” which is a one-letter slip. Arthur writes, “What is
All Quiet on Western Front,
” a one-word omission. Two brilliant people definitely know the correct response, but neither one can simply write
All Quiet on the Western Front.
(Look closely.) The pressure is lethal in those thirty seconds. Arthur wins on the fluke by just $100. But both frat brothers are laughing.

“Tom Cubbage! Bob Harris! Frank Epstein!”

I am not ready.
Tom has won both a Teen Tournament and a Tournament of Champions.
Look at that suit. He’s a lawyer. He’s an adult.
Tom has a wife and kids and a happy family in Oklahoma.
He doesn’t just run off to Tasmania to watch penguins throw up.

I am psyched out completely by Tom’s shiny Confidence Field.
He has great hair.

Dead man walking again.

I am not ready. I know it. If you ever see the tape someday, you can see it in my face.

But there is a plan. A Path, actually. There are rules you must follow.

Tom’s Confidence Field is as strong as Dan Melia’s. I can’t let it get to me and start thinking I’ll lose.

You can often see only what you think you’ll see.

I must anchor myself and relax. I must stop seeing Tom kicking my ass.

See the obvious.

Well, I’m not ready. That much is obvious. So I know the next step.

Admit you don’t know squat.

OK. I’ll aim my Weapon with care.

Doing nothing is better than doing something stupid.

OK, OK,
back off,
enlightenment. I’ll keep my hand the hell off the buzzer. If I know, and I know that I know, I’ll buzz. Otherwise, nothing. Just trust in the process.

This would be a test of pure Jeopardy Zen.
What is the sound of one hand not buzzing?
My only chance was to swear off the Weapon as never before.

Believe it or not (although you can really believe it), not far away, on a bench in the sun on a hillside in Thailand, I once mentioned this game to a saffron-robed monk.

Yut thought it was funny, the whole exercise.

Was he laughing with me or at me? I wonder.

Let go of outcome.

Oh. Whichever. Right. Never mind.

Frank Epstein, I should add, is a Los Angeles police officer. He playacts stern gruffness, but he’s kidding. I think. Al Pacino would play him. But only if Frank said it was OK.

If Frank is as controlled with the trigger as he is with a buzzer, there is one neighborhood that sleeps very safe.

This is the second straight tournament where I’ve played a local cop named Frank. I would say this is odd. But compared to everything else, it is not.

The first clue goes by. I’m not sure. I let it pass.

I do this over and over. More than my usual third, I am letting half—
half!
—of this entire game go by unplayed, unattempted. Surrender is my only chance to survive.

Tom and Frank are as careful as I am. They also know not to play with a Jeopardy Weapon. So they aim every shot. I stand down. Even when I try to ring in, they usually beat me on the buzzer, over and over and over. And then I stand down again, letting yet another clue pass. And another. And another.

It’s nerve-wracking.

I’m in a distant third place at the first break.

Ken Jennings once responded correctly to twenty-five of the thirty clues in a single round. At the rate I’m going, I might not even attempt that many responses all game.

Before the first round is over, I have passed up at least a half-dozen clues on which I knew the right response but was not quite certain enough to ring in. I haven’t brushed up enough yet. Here’s an example:

THOUGH PATENTED IN 1862, THIS CRANK-OPERATED MACHINE GUN DIDN’T BECOME OFFICIAL U.S. ARMY WEAPONRY UNTIL 1866

That’s the Gatling gun,
I think. And then:
Wait—what if it’s the Maxim gun? No, it’s Gatling. Maxim was something else. I think. Ahhhh! I better not buzz.

“What’s the Gatling gun?” Frank quickly responds. I suppose I should be glad that the cop knows his weapons.

With just one extra week to review my notebooks, I’d be playing a completely different game.
Maybe I shouldn’t have stuck around in Tasmania, taking those night-vision photos of vomiting penguins.
I try to put this thought out of my mind. Besides, the clues and the competition are more than enough of a burden.

ST. AMBROSE CREDITS THIS MOTHER OF CONSTANTINE WITH FINDING THE TRUE CROSS OF JESUS

Jesus,
I think. The writers have made the clues as difficult as in the Masters.
I’m not ready.
“Who is Helena?” Tom smoothly intones, pulling away in the distance. I have to squint just to see his shadow on the horizon, even though he’s just two feet to my left. This guy is good.

So is Frank. Third place might be how this works out.

With five clues left in the first round, I get a clue and control of the board. The Daily Double still hasn’t been played, so I hunt around the bottom, finally landing on it.

Choosing a wager is a challenge. My little spurt has taken me up to $3800. But Tom has $6600, not quite twice my score. The category is
STONES
, and I’m not that good at geology. Worse, the clue is in the very bottom row, so it might be one of the hardest on the board. I can’t make my comeback, but a small wager would also tell the other players just how unready and unconfident I am. So I bet $1500, a least-bad compromise between unwise large and small wagers, and hope for the best.

THE BLACK TYPE OF THIS OCTOBER BIRTHSTONE IS QUITE RARE, & MORE VALUABLE THAN THE FIRE VARIETY

Jane had prepped me on birthstones for the Masters. Two years later, thanks to butt-oriented mnemonics, this one remained in my head:

In college, a friend and I used to salve our depression by making escape runs for pizza down an icy brick road that shook his tiny sports car so hard I could imagine my own butt falling off through the floorboards. Senior year, he took me out on my birthday. And thus my birth month—October—is connected (via my vibrating little bottom) to my friend Paul’s rusting old Opel.

What’s an opal?
I reply, playing now by the seat of my pants.

The Double Jeopardy round:

OPERAS BY CHARACTER
(I need study time for this; now I might know one or two.)

1970S TV
(Yes!)

THE HUMAN BODY
(I haven’t reviewed this yet, either.)

EVERYTHING HAS A NAME
(Although this category name doesn’t tell us much.)

THE SECRETARY OF STATE WHO…
(Eek. I haven’t studied enough.)

DERIVED FROM ETRUSCAN
(You are kidding me…right?)

DERIVED FROM ETRUSCAN
turns out immediately to be simple wordplay, seeking out words that can be spelled from letters in the word
Etruscan.
So at least this is something mere humans can do.

Tom gets the first two in
THE SECRETARY OF STATE WHO…
right away, picking up Colin Powell and John Marshall in about twenty seconds combined. The third one I don’t know right off and so, again, must let go.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE WHO GAVE WAY TO EDMUND RANDOLPH IN 1794

Frank guesses incorrectly, which gives my subconscious a few extra seconds. Suddenly I notice my finger is moving on the buzzer. It’s involuntary. My hand seems convinced that my head knows the response. I have no idea why.

Who was Thomas Jefferson?
my mouth says. I am both surprised to hear this and bizarrely certain of the reply.

This would be some deep-seated thing,
I am thinking (although not in these words; there’s not time),
some neural cluster stimulated by long-ago practice, state-dependent retrieval from a forgotten mental cranny, triggered now perhaps by the stage and by Alex.

“Correct,” Alex replies.

This must be how a high-school quarterback feels in his forties, his arm aching but still mustering one last perfect spiral, with no thought or planning but still marveling at the result, wondering just how his hand still knows what to do.

Speaking of quarterbacks and middle age: it occurs to me that Tom may be fighting the same rustiness that I am. He’s a lawyer with a family to raise. He has a new baby. The only thing cramming in his house is diapers.