Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!

by Bob Harris

  Robin Carroll and I wound up talking about Jane. Robin is a fan of Jane’s writing, and Jane’s a fan of Robin’s games. I promised to say hello in each direction. Robin is a tech writer and full-on triple-kid mom, one of the few players I’ve met who won with almost no study, in her case because there was simply no time. She plays Jedi, has trouble with the Forrest Bounce, loves the game win or lose, and I think she misses her dad as much as I miss mine, appreciating her parents even when she’s onstage.

  Brad Rutter had been briefly thrown by one clue about the Icelandic Parliament. Which by now I thought everyone knew was the Althing. But to be fair, Brad knew his African capitals, and the difference between Kigali and Kampala. He probably also knew the distance between them, the train schedules and fares, which window to sit at to get the best view, the name of the woman who had installed the new safety glass, and the man who had broken her heart. Brad played football in high school, one of the popular kids, and had a squadron of friends in the crowd. He worked in a record store until his big wins, and always laughs when he says he might still be working there otherwise.

  The afternoon and the evening went on like this, all comparing of clues and exchanges of phone numbers and e-mails, less a competition than a well-informed party.

  That first moment, when the curtain rose, and it felt almost as though Frank and Rachael and I were briefly on the same team, became more the rule than the exception. These were just hardworking people with great curiosity, all willing to try interesting things. One of which was Jeopardy!

  Knowledge and creativity and a sense of community wove through all of their stories. Eric worked for the Alzheimer’s Association. Leslie Frates and Babu taught Spanish and history. Kate was a law school professor. Claudia and Eddie were newspaper writers. Rachael was an attorney getting a degree in biotechnology. Bob Verini and India both worked in theater. Leslie Shannon ran a technology research lab after living on four continents. Jeremy was an EMT who had saved numerous lives.

  The conversation hopscotched far corners of Trebekistan.

  Chuck, whom I sought out to thank for his book, was glad to chat for a while, hanging out in a hallway of the Waldorf-Astoria. We were both playing the next day, so we had to be brief. There was much sleep to gather, and I still wanted to review a list of foreign phrases that Jane had faxed to my room.

  As we chatted, I learned that Chuck lived in London, where he’d founded a group that worked to prosecute war criminals. Well, of course. No surprise. Of course Chuck fought ultra-evil. I was finally able to hang almost even with the guy, and it turned out his day job was Superhero. Me, I told jokes to alcoholics and complained on the radio. Chuck was bopping around Eastern Europe and the Middle East, helping governments figure out the whole justice thing. Me? I said “boo-beef” for eight thousand dollars.

  But Chuck was humble. (Of course he’s good at that, too.) Years later, he would tell me he was a little surprised at his own success the first time on the show, and about a clue (“What was The Sotweed Factor?”) that was as big a surprise to him as “Who are the fishmongers?” was to me.

  I started at last to express thanks for the book, but somehow it sounded kinda dumb. But Chuck was delighted to hear that someone could put it to as much use as I did. “I always wondered,” he said. “That’s cool, and you’re welcome. Thanks for telling me. Maybe we’ll play each other tomorrow.”

  I hoped so. But I wasn’t here to compete anymore, at least not like before. It was enough to keep learning how much I can still learn.

  The next morning, the nine remaining contestants rehearsed on the Radio City stage, warming up both ourselves and the crew. We rotated in and out, playing all sorts of match-ups for a minute or two.

  For a moment, for the first time, I was playing against Chuck.

  We went about fifty-fifty before he was rotated out.

  He smiled as he stepped down. I grinned.

  Good enough.

  Rachael was the alternate for the second round of play, the highest-scoring player who didn’t quite make the wild card.

  That’s got to be frustrating, I thought, watching her go through all the makeup and rituals, knowing she wouldn’t get to play. Like Jeremy the day before, stuck just outside the clubhouse, even though the kids would have happily shared.

  Clanging backstairs above the Radio City stage entrance. Green room and couches. Not quite so crowded as yesterday. Strangely, not quite so exciting.

  Hours, again, as six thousand more people gather.

  Susanne, the head wrangler, reminisces about Broadway and her younger days in New York, years filled with song and dance and magnificent drama. It’s a thrill for her, too, sitting backstage in this hall.

  As Susanne speaks, time flattens, and you can see younger dreams poking up through its fabric. Many of these dreams are satisfied now. Enough that Susanne is only pleased to remember them.

  Her contentment is a lovely sight. I am grateful she once called out my name.

  A few hours later, “Eric Newhouse! Leslie Shannon! Bob Harris!” Susanne calls out my name yet once more.

  First game again. Nothing new, really. Already becoming a familiar experience.

  Leslie giggles excitedly. But of course, this is Leslie. I’ve learned that she laughs almost constantly. It’s not fake, not even slightly. Her laugh simply lives near the surface. The slightest amusement produces shorts bursts of giggiggiggigg, a bit like Jane’s noise but smaller, more rapid, and thus even harder to transcribe. (Of course, as we’ve seen, the laugh that can be spelled is not a genuine laugh.) If an encyclopedia could look like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart and speak with a slight Australian accent while thriving in a bath of pure nitrous oxide, that’s Leslie. I adore her immediately.

  Buried in the back of the Jeopardy! website, there’s a snapshot of Leslie and me. We are laughing, mock-wrestling for control of a buzzer, playing like children on the Radio City stage. This photo was taken literally seconds after our very first real conversation. This tells you a lot about Leslie.

  In a back hall by a bathroom, Eric stubs out a last furtive cigarette, vowing to quit, waving the last remnants of smoke out the window. He works for a health-care organization, and he smokes. Eric has a fierceness of gaze, as if he could outstare the eye of a needle. He’s quiet in the green room. This could be intimidating. I will later learn, however, that he’s simply interested in listening to everyone else. The fidgety secret smoking means he’s as vulnerable as you and I are. I enjoy him immensely. He puts on a game face and wishes me luck, meaning it more than his grimace lets on.

  Down the stairs to the stage. Winding through hallways and power cords and large men in thick gloves, little flashes of light from above and ahead filtering through.

  The Radio City curtain has remained up since I watched it raised yesterday, at the moment the tournament began. I was lucky to have been on the stage for the view. The audience peers in as we’re wired for sound and I’m daubed freshly again with humanoid-colored powder.

  I’m at the champion’s podium again for some reason. To my right, Alex is peeking through the set, relaxed now and joking.

  Even Radio City Music Hall can start to seem familiar. Newness of experience can command your attention almost as strongly as danger. But once the newness wears off, even playing Jeopardy!, live, at its highest level, on Broadway no less, can start to slip into routine.

  In truth, I don’t remember much of this game. I believe this is because I’ve quite carefully not tried to. But Eric played so well he deserves a full list of memories.

  Eric’s Weapon was smoking. He seemed to black out the Go Lights for much of the match, repeating the nameless induction of buzzerly darkness I had only previously experienced against Dan and Kim.

  He had $5500 at the first commercial. I had zero. And I was in second place. Leslie was momentarily no longer giggiggiggigging. Eric “Powerhouse” Newhouse was earning his affectionate nickname from Alex. All Leslie and I could do was applaud.


  I’d rarely even glanced at the Go Lights in ten prior games. But this time I looked—there was time to, since I wasn’t getting in a lot anyway—and the lights often just winked when they came on at all. If I ever learn how to adjust to the lights mid-game, that’s when I’ll really know what I’m doing, I thought silently. Eric gave me time to consider many such thoughts.

  Still, I’d learned much about patience and biding my time. I would try to fight back like a pudu enraged.

  If you haven’t noticed, pudus are really quite small.

  In a new category called BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER, a triple Smush requiring three responses at once:

  “Who is Steve Martin Luther Vandross?” Eric asks, correctly.

  What is Gulf Stream of consciousness raising? I reply.

  “Who is Sitting Bull in a china shop master?” he counters, making one tiny slip.

  Who is Sitting Bull in a china shop steward? I retort, correcting him. Aha.

  “What is Sudden Death in the Afternoon of a Faun?” Eric finally adds, getting the last word here, and most of the money, again.

  By the time we reach a category on Shakespeare, now one of my strengths, Eric has over three times my score and over fifteen times Leslie’s: $18700 to $6000 to $1200. But the first clue, at $400, is unusually hard for that level, and Eric, for once, doesn’t buzz.

  LAVINIA HAS HER TONGUE CUT OUT & TAMORA IS SERVED HER OWN SONS BAKED IN A PIE IN THIS FAR-FROM-TASTEFUL TRAGEDY

  This early play is notorious as one of Shakespeare’s least brilliant efforts, a splatterfest so sticky that his authorship is often questioned. Trebekistanily enough, Anthony Hopkins, who played the drop-dead guy in Amistad, played this title role shortly thereafter.

  What is Titus Andronicus?

  I have control of the board, late in the game, in a category I like. There are still two Daily Doubles in play. Beaten badly all day, I suddenly have a real chance.

  I call the next clue in the category and hear a delightful sound: Bweedwooo, Bweedwooo, Bweedwooo-dwoo-dwoo-dwah.

  A Daily Double in SHAKESPEARE. It is my chance to risk everything, attempting another Brian Sipe comeback, going deep as the last seconds tick down, and before a large cheering crowd on Broadway. This is a prize in itself. I make it a true Daily Double. The crowd cheers. I bow, with a silly grin. I am grateful for this moment, but still trying to win.

  HE HAS THE NERVE TO WOO A WIDOW BESIDE HER FATHER-IN-LAW’S COFFIN, BUT SHE MARRIES HIM ANYWAY

  After all these years, now, no mnemonics are needed. It’s a scene I know well. My favorite performance on film is by Ian McKellen, who looks remarkably like my own father. I think Dad would have loved seeing himself seduce Lady Anne.

  Who is Richard III?! I exclaim, giving battle in vain. The crowd cheers again. One more Daily Double and I could still steal this away, just as Lyn almost did to me once years before.

  But in less than ten seconds, as my blood floods with glucocorticoids, I make two small but lethal mistakes. I choose poorly, remaining in SHAKESPEARE, the only category where the second Daily Double cannot possibly be. While realizing this one error, I let one become two, screwing up an easy response while distracted. Eric seizes the rebound, chooses well, and takes away the last Daily Double. My chance at grabbing the lead is gone.

  This takes less than ten seconds. That’s what a good game is like.

  Eric now controls the game. There are still ten clues on the board, but the only question remaining is how the betting will shape at the end.

  It comes down to the Final once more.

  The category—p-TING!

  IN THE DICTIONARY

  IN HIS DICTIONARY, SAMUEL JOHNSON SELF-EFFACINGLY DEFINED THIS JOB TITLE IN PART AS “A HARMLESS DRUDGE”

  “Self-effacingly.” So Johnson is calling himself a drudge. While he’s making a dictionary. So they must want the word for the person who makes dictionaries.

  What’s a lexicographer? I whap with my light pen on glass. This seems far too easy, I fear.

  I am correct on both counts.

  Eric has bet the minimum necessary, like the good sport that he is, and defeats me, in the end, by one dollar.

  This is precisely the value of the token from the Luxor and Jane, which I hold in my left hand throughout.

  We all join, center stage, and I take one long last look at what Radio City looks like with that great throbbing mass of applause. Eric is cheered loudly. Leslie and I cheer him, too. We thank Alex, who goes off to prepare the next game.

  After a moment or two, the three of us realize we’re still up on stage. In the emotion and commotion and congratulations to Eric, we’ve simply forgotten to leave. It’s an odd little moment. What to do? Unprepared, with six thousand watching. Fortunately, I am holding a token from someone who knows the correct Final Jeopardy response.

  So as we exit, stage left, I start to dance. Just a few seconds, a dumb hammy thing, a little mocking soft-shoe, all pumping of arms, with accomplished unskill. But it’s good for a long, rolling laugh. Leslie joins in at the end, and giggiggiggiggs all the way off the stage. Eric smiles and bows slightly, which I count as enough.

  Imagine a chance for one moment of dancing, on Broadway, before a full happy house. With new friends you will know for a lifetime.

  This game, in which I lost my chance at a million dollars, was a spectacular win.

  The rest of the Masters games were a breathtaking show, fireworks I could barely believe I’d been part of. Answers were pulled from the remotest of orifices. The betting was daring as hell. We were all here to win and believed in ourselves. True Daily Doubles were common.

  Here’s a typical Final Jeopardy clue from the rest of the games:

  NUMBER OF MALES WHO SERVED AS BRITISH PM IN THE 1990S PLUS OSCARS WON BY TOM HANKS PLUS PROTONS IN A HELIUM NUCLEUS

  Take thirty seconds and mull that one over.

  Chuck, unsurprisingly, got the correct response easily.

  But like me, Chuck had been only in second place entering the Final. Bob Verini, the leader, also responded correctly, and so Chuck lost by the exact same one dollar. In a sense, Chuck and I had finished dead even. “What is six?” was not enough to advance at this level.

  My score was the highest that didn’t quite reach the Finals. So on day three I took Rachael’s and Jeremy’s place as the alternate. Groomed for a million bucks, primped, pruned, and powdered. And then doomed to look on, watching others compete.

  This was fun, in a way. It was my most Cleveland result yet.

  Life is too strange to believe much in destiny. But our subconscious habits are real, and they’re powerful, and in effect would look exactly like destiny’s hand. Standing to one side while three others played for the grand prize, I wondered if deep down I would ever completely leave the Snow Belt behind.

  Brad Rutter, age twenty-four, defeated Bob Verini and Eric, winning the show’s first million dollars. Alex handed him a check the size of Bhutan itself. We were all glad for Brad’s win. He deserved it.

  Brad’s buzzer timing was so machine-like precise that a term finally existed for someone snuffing the Go Lights: “getting Ruttered.” The phrase has been used ever since.

  That night, Brad (aka the Master from Lancaster, the Ruttweiler, the Eviscerutter) took the entire group out for dinner. Most of us had changed into new shirts or blouses, relaxing offstage like any gang after work. Rotating ourselves as in a pre-game rehearsal, we matched up with new friends all night long. Pictures and a sense of fraternity grew. Beer happened. We promised we’d stay in good touch. Most of us do to this day. In this very hour as I write this, I swear, I’ve received e-mail from Robin and Leslie Frates. Dan Melia hasn’t met them all yet, but he will someday, I am sure.

  As parting gifts, some contestants will receive friendship in Mrs. Butterworth quantity.

  And this, finally, definitely, at last, for certain this time, was the end of my Jeopardy! career. Had to be.

  You’d know I was lying if I said I wasn’t disappoin
ted. Of course. A million bucks would be nice.

  But it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. I had more than great memories; I had new friends on three continents, a head full of curiosity from months buried in notebooks, a girlfriend returning to health glad for every new day, and a token of love to take along on my travels.

  This was hardly an end. It was a beginning.

  It was time to explore Trebekistan with my own eyes.

  I didn’t realize baboons would be waiting, or that lost in Malaysia would be a fine place to be, or that slinging bricks in a cave could be a source of such joy.

  CHAPTER

  23

  LOVE, KINDNESS, AND AN OLD CHICKEN SANDWICH

  Also, Why Penguins Throw Up Down Under

  After the Masters, and some sleep, I came back to Jane.

  The we won! dance was everything you’d hope. A lot of arm movement involved in this one, with a Rockette-kicking thing going on. Very aerobic. The kind of thing you do when you’ve fully returned to health.

  I’m afraid, however, that I must confess something that I didn’t like any more than you will.

  Jane and I didn’t quite manage to get married.

  Or move in.

  Or even keep dating for long.

  I warned you of many surprises to come.

  In fact, we even broke up, then stayed best friends anyway.

  We dated other good people, whom we drove up the wall by talking about our best friend. This was a cruelty to all concerned: to the people we dated, and to each other, and most of all to the smooth resolution of this book.