Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!

by Bob Harris

  I had no idea why Susanne was calling. It had been years, after all. But the day before, a new contestant wrangler named Tony had called, telling me Susanne would be calling me at home. This was puzzling. My only theory was that they were looking for new players and might ask if I knew anyone who would be good for the show.

  This theory was not even close.

  The actual reason was memorable enough that the following is very near, I promise, to Susanne’s exact words:

  “Fine. Listen—we’re having a special tournament in a few months. We’re inviting fifteen of the best players from the show’s history to compete at Radio City Music Hall. We’ll fly everybody in, first class, and put you up at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. We’re calling it the Masters Tournament. Oh—and the grand prize is a million dollars.”

  She said this with excitement and friendliness, but also a bit crisply, as if she had said precisely this a dozen times in the last hour. Which, I imagine, she had.

  I still wasn’t sure that I was included. Maybe I was supposed to carry Frank Spangenberg’s bags or something. And then she actually said:

  “So what are you doing in February?”

  This doesn’t make sense, I thought. My mind was suddenly running at full pace. Dan Melia has already beaten me. Twice. Kim beat me, too. So did Grace. And those were just players from my year. There must be dozens of players more deserving. I wonder who else is involved.

  I wanted to ask, but there was a speed to Susanne’s phrasing, as if she was working down a list and had more calls to make.

  Maybe Dan will be there, and I’ll get a new crack at him. Or maybe he can’t make it. Maybe lots of better players just can’t make it. They’re like Wes, curing people and stuff, too brilliant to take time for a game. Or maybe the show is planning multiple tournaments, and this is just one that I’m in.

  I also had the feeling that if I wasn’t quite sure, I could be replaced. This could be humiliating. You’ll be way out of your league. Another good game for the airlines. “Would you like to play?” Susanne asked, waiting, as Jeopardy! instants ticked by.

  I thought it over for about four or five tenths of a second. An eternity. Someone else could ring in.

  “Are you kidding? Of course!” I heard myself say. Then I thanked her, she promised more details, and we hung up the phone.

  I took a few breaths and stared at the wall, straining hard for old memories. Who came first again? I asked myself, scared.

  Buchanan or Pierce? Or Millard goddam again Fillmore?

  I called Mom right away. I was already worried again about letting her down. It’s amazing how old habits die hard.

  She was excited and proud I was even invited. She couldn’t care less if I won.

  I was worried I might not deserve even to go.

  “But they invited you, son,” she said. “It’s their show, after all.”

  Sometimes I need my mom to point out the obvious.

  I called my sister a few minutes later. I was still afraid that saying yes had been a mistake.

  Connie picked up the phone, but her voice sounded weak. Marvin was having a very good day.

  At the time we believed Marvin might have been lupus, an often-tragic autoimmune disease with a scary-bad future. She had symptoms so constant and yet changing and frustrating that you could almost lose track and forget. But there were other symptoms that didn’t align with lupus, so we couldn’t be sure what the hell Marvin was.

  And here I was calling with my vanity troubles. After everything that happened with Jane. I was ashamed of myself in an instant, before I even said hello.

  “That’s fantastic!” was Connie’s only real thought at the news. It was a show to look forward to, something the kids could brag about in school. No envy, no concern for results.

  I wished she could go in my place.

  I thanked her and promised to have fun enough to share.

  Jane squealed when I told her the news. An actual squeal. GWEEEEP! would be a decent transcription (although the laugh that can be spelled is not a genuine laugh).

  I was sitting on the edge of her bed, actually worried I’d have to choose between spending time studying and spending time helping her heal. Previous relationships had taught me to think that such choices were necessary, that my own life and any partner’s would overlap only slightly. There still was so little I knew.

  “We have a project!” was the next thing she said.

  We.

  And then followed more GWEEEEPing and giggles.

  Shortly thereafter, I saw the list of my Masters opponents. Two names leapt right out:

  Frank Spangenberg, the highest-scoring five-time champion ever

  Chuck Forrest, Chuck, actual Chuck, the real Chuck guy

  I went down the list. It was an amazing array.

  Rachael Schwarz, first woman to win a Tournament of Champions

  Brad Rutter, the reigning Tournament of Champions winner

  Robin Carroll, winner of both a Tournament of Champions and an International Tournament of Champions

  And so on. Players I’d seen and admired, all much stronger than I’d been.

  My eyes scanned on down and finally found:

  No Dan or Kim.

  No Grace.

  Nobody who’d beaten me.

  I did not quite understand. I wondered if I was only chosen to be the funny guy. It’s a show, after all, entertainment, and I can’t help but be playful while we’re on stage. After so many years on stages where laughs meant survival, it’s probably as built-in as my name.

  I did know for sure that if I lost, that’s why people would think I was there.

  I called Dan. I called Kim. They were both graceful about it. Via e-mail, so was Grace, but you’d figure on that. They were friends, and they were kind in a way I suppose I would muster, but I still felt bad they were mustering now. All anyone said was they hoped that I’d win.

  Besides, it would look better for them if I did.

  Jane hurled herself into prepping and coaching and quizzing and teaching. Seeing her brighten this way was the best prize the show ever gave me.

  Keep in mind that Jane’s love of learning at least equals mine. She’s a writer with a vast knowledge of literature, a linguist from Berkeley whose education far outpaces my own. So like a mother beast pre-chewing the kill for her beasties, Jane prepped me on things even Chuck never listed. We knew the clues would be the toughest Jeopardy! had ever dared ask. So we couldn’t rule anything out.

  Jane’s strengths were many of my weaknesses, so those were a main focus: Greek and Latin roots. Archaeological sites. Great poets and prophets. The lives of great writers and artists.

  Even for subjects she knew nothing about, Jane would spend every spare minute poring through books, preparing me lists of things I might need. Fashion design, flowers, and fabrics. Ethnic cuisines. Tallest trees. Deepest geologic depressions. Explorers and songwriters. Dancers and theme parks. Airports and boy bands. Her dancing enthusiasm was startling and joyous. It made me want to win just for her.

  And Jane wanted me healthy, just as I did her. She made me jog and take breaks and eat vitamins. I wouldn’t be sick, not on her watch. I got all of my rest every night.

  Every evening before sleeping she’d grill me on basics. Every world capital, no matter how obscure, in every nation of Asia and Africa. Every world currency. Presidents, vice presidents, and first ladies. Greek and Latin roots.

  Most nights, we’d run one-to-ones.

  “One-to-one” is Jane’s term for unique Jeopardy! identifiers, words in a clue that often provide instant answers. Here are a few that most fans of the show already know:

  Bog fruit = Cranberry

  Belgian + surrealist = René Magritte

  Danish + philosopher = Søren Kierkegaard

  Grand duchy = Luxembourg

  Finland + composer = Jean Sibelius

  There are hundreds of these, if not thousands. And even if Jeopardy! someday has a clue written somethi
ng like

  IF A FINNISH COMPOSER AND A DANISH PHILOSOPHER WENT INTO A BAR IN THIS GRAND DUCHY, A BELGIAN SURREALIST AND A FINNISH COMPOSER MIGHT HAND THEM A BOG FRUIT

  you’d only have to scan for the word “this” to sort out which one mattered.

  Compiling a list of one-to-ones is itself a fine exercise. You have to check to make sure they’re truly exclusive, and that means looking deeper into each subject and name.

  Take Jean Sibelius. Please. (Buh-dum-bum! Thank you, I’m here all book. I write this with a plunger on my head.) What, pray tell, would make this particular guy the composer identified with the nation of Finland?

  Turns out he wrote a courageous piece called the Karelia Suite, standing up to Russian domination of his country. Imagine Thomas Jefferson singing, and you’ve got the right idea. (And now we’re back to the musical 1776 again.) I found myself wondering how patriotic Finnish music might sound, and how the Finns would then honor the man, and what his Helsinki monument would look like.

  Music and revolution mix potently in that part of the world, especially in anger at Russians. Not long ago, tens of thousands of people stood in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, in what became known as the Singing Revolution, playing forbidden songs night after night.

  Soon, tens of thousands became hundreds of thousands. Eventually, two million people formed a line across three countries, joining hands in protest through Latvia and Lithuania, a human chain literally crying out for freedom, extending hundreds of miles, made from millions of hands holding hands holding hands.

  Everything connects to everything else.

  This must have been something to see.

  Potent Potables, however, was still a hard subject. Neither Jane nor I drink much. Since Dad liked his beer, I avoided it for years, even when working in bars every night.

  Fortunately, I had just the instructor to call on. One weekend I drove up to Berkeley to receive specialized coaching from a certain professor I knew.

  Dan Melia, my friend, now becoming my old friend, invited me in. An evening of hard work awaited. His girlfriend Dara, a college English instructor with graduate degrees in Advanced This and Comparative That, came to join us with a hug and a smile. We had dinner and played with the dog.

  Dan, you understand, is an esteemed professor of Celtic Studies. If it’s Irish, has been mistaken for Irish, or once touched a green surface, he knows all about it. Perhaps this is a complete coincidence—and I write this as an Irish-American writer who grew up around alcohol—but Dan also knows much about Potables of every conceivable Potency.

  Dan knows exactly what you distill or ferment. He knows what you brew and he knows what you decant. He knows just which wine goes in which glass and why, which grapes grow in which ground from which vine, what the hops do with barley or malt for how long.

  Dara went to bed early and left the two of us to our studies. There were many lessons to come, with many tastes, smells, and colors. It was a long night of work in the lab. A few hours later, we discovered that Dan reads Old Norse more easily after a few rounds of aquavit.

  So did I.

  If livers ever stage their own Jeopardy! tournament, mine will know every response.

  As the weeks passed, Jane’s recovery sped along. We did learning dances in great number. We were closer than ever, joined by what felt like our own private language: Sinhala and Sotho; Arbuthnot and Achebe; Celebes, Lombok, and Komodo.

  Whole worlds I wanted to see opened up.

  This was much as before, only more so: the more that I learned, the less I realized I knew. Entire lifetimes can be spent learning to marvel in humility at all the diversity.

  Lifetimes like mine, I was beginning to realize.

  Many miles from here (although not far away really) is a country called Bhutan with a capital of Thimphu. It is here you can spend the ngultrum. (The ngultrum, so you know, is worth 100 chertrums. You can buy five of the latter for two U.S. cents.)

  Bhutan lies high between China and India, not far from Himalayan Tibet. Kathmandu is not far, nor is Kolkata, nor Dhaka. The kingdom is explicitly Buddhist, the only such state in this world. It was closed off to us, mostly, until very recently. It’s the place fiction calls Shangri-La.

  The main thing to know is how little we know. One of their mountains is the highest one left that has never been climbed. No one even quite knows where the name Bhutan comes from.

  But the king once announced, with the pomp of such things, that “Gross National Happiness” was more vital than Gross National Product. This is the kind of a king I could vote for.

  They eat yak meat and drink butter tea and sometimes wear large red hats. Their big sports are archery and shot put. There is no word in their language for “traffic jam,” although elephants frequently migrate. Cigarettes are an illegal drug.

  They just got their first traffic light. Then they took it back out. It was too much, too soon. People just stopped and stared.

  I’m not saying Bhutan is paradise or ever was. Nowhere is paradise. But Bhutan seems as close to nowhere as the world may have left.

  Someday I’d like to visit, and sip butter tea in a large red hat under a Bhutanese sun, eating yak meat and watching young shot putters. But I’m oddly afraid I might spoil it all. Perhaps the remnants of cola still deep in my bloodstream would contaminate something and all of the elephants would die.

  Then again, something like this is happening already. Seven years ago, Bhutan got TV. There now are five satellite dishes, in a field filled with pink flowers. And so Bhutanese schoolchildren in flowing ceremonial robes can be seen acting out Wrestlemania moves.

  Timelines and cultures converge in an uncontrolled Bhutanese swirl. Centuries mix.

  So perhaps I will go. Perhaps I must go, and soon. It’s mutating anyway. That’s what human cultures do. But for me and for now, Bhutan remains just a place in my head, another small part of Trebekistan.

  There’s so much more to the world than I ever dreamed in the Snow Belt.

  The notebooks filled quickly, although not quite as fast as Jane’s hopes for my performance. She was smiling and healing. The days ticked away. We were running out of time faster than things left to study.

  I just wanted to win once. Just once.

  For myself, I wanted to prove I belonged on that stage. But for Jane, and more than anything else, I wanted to see the smile one win would bring, what the excitement would look like as it played on her face. This was our project, after all, and with time feeling so precious, every day a prayer answered, I wanted every minute she invested to pay off. I didn’t know what a we-won-at-Radio-City dance could look like, but I could imagine nothing more wonderful to see.

  This was my old lifelong racket, of course, performing for others’ happiness and approval. But I understood why, in this case. Jane’s laugh was good reason. The best reason of all.

  One game. Just one game would be enough.

  CHAPTER

  21

  MY LIFE AS A ROCKETTE

  Also, Why I Have an Ancient Civilization in My Pants

  Newark was dark and freezing when I landed.

  In the car, my nose kept fogging the window. It was the first time I’d seen New York without two of its towers. Six months after the unspeakable happened. Now there were empty shafts of light, a glowing memorial, rising in the twin towers’ place.

  I stared from the car all the way through New Jersey. Trying to comprehend. Fogging and wiping. And trying to comprehend once again.

  Grief, fully felt, can give way to sheer wonder as you realize the size of a loss.

  I arose at 7:00 a.m., which was four in the morning on my body clock. The producers wanted us all downstairs and ready at 7:30.

  As you may have guessed, I had been rising at 4:00 a.m. in preparation back home. At 4:00 a.m., every day, in Los Angeles. For a month, I arose at 4:00 a.m. so my body would be ready.

  Jane woke up with me. Every morning.

  She loves me, you know. I am grateful. Although I
question her sanity.

  My own you’ve already assessed.

  I hurried downstairs, hoping to spot the Jeopardy! group in the Waldorf-Astoria lobby. I was wondering whom I would recognize in the tumult.

  In the distance stood a man who looked just like Frank Spangenberg, only larger than any human being I may have ever laid eyes on.

  I’d seen Frank on the show, so many years earlier, oozing the quiet assurance of a spaceship computer, all whispering menace and walrus mustache. But nobody had warned me that Frank might not be human. But here he was, almost seven feet tall.

  He was so big I was slightly frightened even to say hello. He could crush me or stomp me or just gently crinkle my neck in one giant paw, all possibly by accident, not even noticing until the thwump of my limp body hitting the ground. I felt like a pudu approaching a moose.

  (The pudu mentioned here is the world’s smallest deer, native to the mountains of Chile. They come up to your shins when they’re full-grown adults. As babies they fit in your hand like a prize. Their full Latin species name is just Pudu pudu—scientifically extra silly—and they look like furry Vienna sausages with large worried eyes. Their only defense is to run up a log, but only if there’s a log nearby. Sometimes they bark when they’re scared. Overall they’re endangered and look like they know it.)

  Frank couldn’t have been nicer, as he shook my arm in his hand. He was as excited and nervous as I was. This was no HAL computer, just a big friendly guy with a big eager brain.