Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (43 page)

This meant in a game I’d get perhaps thirteen responses. Thirteen times Alex would say “Bob!” and I’d speak.

If I was right every time—every single time—with an average clue value of $900, my projected score entering Final Jeopardy would be $11700. Still in the game. All I’d need after that would be a big bet in the Final.

A small slip on a cheap clue might be tolerable, but that’s all. Just one mistake on a high-dollar clue—just one—could be crippling. (An incorrect $2000 response would knock the projected score down to $7700. Even an all-in bet in the final would still leave less than a fifty-fifty chance of survival.)

So I’d focus instead not on responses, but on making fifty-seven good buzzer decisions. No mistakes. Ring only when certain. Just playing each moment. This was the way to survive.

One perfect game. Just one. And then Harry would smile, Dan would be proud, my family would clap, and Jane would make up a dozen new dances.

Just one perfect game.

And then the waiting began. I was prepared for a long day.

Susanne entered, calling out the first round of names:

“Frank Spangenberg! Rachael Schwartz! Bob Harris!”

Oh. OK. Well.
That
was certainly fast.

If I lost, I’d be out in the very first game. The whole trip would be over already.

Frank Spangenberg,
I thought. In almost twenty years and four thousand shows, no one had ever broken his five-day record for winnings. He was still considered possibly the best player ever to pick up a buzzer.
I’m playing Frank Spangenberg.

As we stood, my eyes came up to Frank’s armpit.
Just don’t eat me,
I thought, feeling ever more like a pudu.

And then:
I’m playing Frank Spangenberg at Radio City Music Hall.
Facing him. As equals, almost, at least for this moment backstage. I could scarcely believe I was here.

I looked at Rachael, remembering her defeating all contenders in her year. Her smile was genuine, but her eyes were busy with thought. She was focusing, readying, already playing ahead in the pre-game game.

The wranglers led us downstairs through an electrical labyrinth, where we meandered until reaching the stage. Taking our places, we were wired for sound. My forehead was de-chromed by courageous professionals. This last touch was familiar, an odd little comfort amid so much excited strangeness. I had been placed, I should add, at the champion’s podium, the one nearest center stage. I do not know why.

Rachael and I were given small boxes to stand on, to raise our heads level with Frank’s. Somebody checked how this looked, and they gave us both a few more. I was teetering higher than ever before.

To my right was the opening through which Alex would enter. Perhaps there were technical people making last-minute fixes, but it sounded like someone tall from a snowy working-class town in Ontario was pacing back there.

I placed Jane’s Luxor token on the podium near the buzzer. I didn’t want it out of my sight.

We were still behind Radio City’s grand curtain, still safe in our glamorous cave. Beyond, there was hubbub from great pregnant masses. All around us, dashing bodies made last-minute adjustments, calling urgent instructions in hushed rapid tones. The electronical doojobbies all gossiped and thrummed. The air itself glowed.

I had to close my eyes and shut out the murmur of six thousand people, hidden just beyond the large fabric mountain. Snapping my fingers, again,
snappity-snappity-snappity-snappity,
like a member of a dancing gang in New York. Which, in a sense, I had finally become.

This is not a podium. It’s a low bookshelf. This is not a buzzer. It is a roll of masking tape wrapped around an old ballpoint pen, the one Jane recognized in exactly one glance…

I can hear, in the distance, the floor director, John Lauderdale.

“Quiet, please,” he says quietly. And the mass starts to settle.

“Quiet, please,” John repeats softly. Bringing Middle East peace.

But it’s not quite silence enough.

“Quiet…
please,
” John says a third time, a tiny edge in his usual hush.

And then molecules stop.

Music plays. Johnny Gilbert’s voice booms through the cavern.

The multi-ton curtain slowly starts rising. I smile at Rachael. She’s edgy, but beaming. Frank glances our way, just as excited. We are in this together, all together, for one bewildering moment.

And revealed to us now, throbbing and golden and sparkling in light, are nearly six thousand people, bodies and motion to the very last balcony, applause coming so hard that it makes the stage throb, cheers echoing off the back walls.

I’ve been on stages for most of my career. This is the biggest and best. The greatest one I might see.

But this is only a stage. One, in a sense, I’ve been on all my life.

This is Wisconsin. This is Ohio. This is a strip joint in Arkansas, a Mexican biker bar. This is the place where I’ve worked many years.

It is actually calming to be here at last.

And in this moment, surprised,
I understand why I’m here.

I will give the producers their show.

CHAPTER
22

ATTACK OF THE PUDU

Also, I Get Lost in Africa

A
lex strides out, all smooth reassurance, commanding the room just by projecting a sense of comfort. But I know his voice by now. There’s a tremor, barely present. I’ve never before seen Alex even mildly ruffled. But he’s smart enough to acknowledge the fact.

“Understandably, we’re all very nervous. Myself included,” he says. The four of us, dwarfed, take a tiny deep breath. “But I think the best way to break the tension is to play the game.”

We turn to the board. The crowd disappears.

I brace myself, remembering the clues will be a bit esoteric. And so we begin, as the six categories for the first round are revealed.

LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY
(OK. Not a strength. But OK.)

WATER TRANSPORTS
(Hmm. How many of those are there?)

WAX MUSEUMS
(Hmm again. And how many of THOSE are there?)

AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS

Wait. Hold on. You’re kidding me.

AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS

is an actual
Jeopardy!
category? Be serious. But there it is:

AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS

it says. I’m standing here with six thousand people in the audience, playing the biggest game of my life. And Alex says

AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS

is one of the categories.

Connie, I love you, and I am so sorry for your years of great pain. But, just this once, I am almost glad to know Marvin so well.

Now everybody just stand the hell back. Pudu coming through.

The other two categories,

LET THEM EAT CAKE

AW, SO YOU’RE THE “SMART” ONE, EH
?

barely even register. But I’m at the champion’s podium, so Alex will give me first choice. I’ll want to think ahead in the first three categories if possible, and I’d like to save my tribute to Connie. But with my years of performing, I finally realize, I’m probably the least nervous of the three of us. I might have an early timing advantage. I choose the
SMART
category—general knowledge, relatively easy, since half of the answer is already provided—as a simple buzzer contest. This will be the best time to try it.

Naturally, Frank wins on the buzzer on the first clue. I’m a hair early. (Reviewing the tape, this hair is exactly three frames wide. A tenth of a second.)

I take another deep breath and go back to my apartment.
Not a podium. Not a buzzer. Radio City Music Living Room.

My timing kicks in, hitting three straight clues under
SMART
:

What is
Get Smart?

What’s the “smart money”?

And this, still stuck in my head twenty years after I first read about it in college, thanks to the dark irony of calling a solid ton of explosive “smart”:

ONE EXAMPLE IS THE 2000-POUND GBU-24

What’s a “smart bomb”?
I ask, and I jump out to an early advantage.

The $1000 clue, however, I know nothing about.

FROM 1914 TO 1923H. L. MENCKEN CO-EDITED THIS SATIRIC MONTHLY WITH GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

I stand down, doing Jeopardy Zen. Rachael grabs the clue immediately. “What is ‘Smart Set’?” she asks. She’s good. I remember just who the hell I’m playing.

Rachael then takes a breath, and takes us straight into
AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS.

OK, Connie. This is for you.

ON “THE WEST WING” JED BARTLET HAS A RELAPSING-REMITTING COURSE OF THIS AUTOIMMUNE DISORDER

When Connie was thought to have this disease, “relapsing-remitting” was the term doctors used to describe the random timing of Marvin’s strange visitations.

What’s multiple sclerosis?
I practically shout.

BOTH GRAVES’ DISEASE & HASHIMOTO’S DISEASE ATTACK THIS GLAND

Connie doesn’t have either of these. But she has been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which I then looked into as a possible co-factor in her symptoms.
What’s the thyroid gland?
comes out without blinking.

DEFICIENT PRODUCTION OF HORMONES BY THESE ENDOCRINE GLANDS CAUSES ADDISON’S DISEASE

Lupus, Connie’s then-current diagnosis, is often treated with a synthetic version of a steroid produced by these very glands. Their eventual fatigue and failure, known as Addison’s disease, sometimes accompanies lupus.

What are the adrenals?
flows out so fast I almost feel like I’m cheating. But another part of me is thrilled at the chance to say this on national TV:
See, only sister? I’ve been paying attention. I think of your health every day of my life.

Incidentally, the adrenals also pump out the stress-related glucocorticoids that can impair memory function. So in this moment, I’m trying to keep my own glands from getting too thrilled. I’m not exactly succeeding. Once the category begins, in fact, I know I should bounce out and save my strongest subject for later. But I am too excited by my growing momentum to change the subject.