6/6/97

The Games We Play

I figured it was time my kids got involved in a healthy competitive pursuit.

    I met my wife nine years ago at the Jerusalem Scrabble Club, but since our kids were born, I'm afraid we haven't exchanged too many well-chosen words. Since then, if ever we do play a game together, it's Junior Scrabble.
    Now, I'm a pretty good Scrabble player, so I figured I could outscore my own kids and their mother without much effort. Sure enough, first time we squared off, I was winning but good. Then the mother pulled me aside.
    "Throw the game," she hissed out the corner of her mouth.
    I threw her my most effective Clint Eastwood look. "I wouldn't know how to lose," I snarled.
    I found a way. I won't tell you what she threatened I'd have to do without if I happened to win, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk. I haven't won since.
    I wondered if maybe Bobby Fischer's downfall was that he began losing to five-year-olds. It can really shake your confidence.
    Everyone assumes I'm raising my progeny as Scrabble fiends, but you just know what's going to happen: Some day in the future, I'll find myself paired against one of 'em at a tournament, and a bunch of little old ladies'll back me into a corner and hiss at me: "Throw the game."
    Uh-uh. I've got a mature ego to protect.
    We'll find some other game for them to play, I announced to my wife recently.
    "Like?"
    "Like, uh, team ballet. They're girls. They'll love it."
    "No such thing."
    "C'mon, this is Israel; They've got leagues and clubs for every game ever invented, and for most games that haven't been. By the turn of the century, mark my words, every Israeli girl will be wearing a pink tutu with a number on the back and an endorsement on the front."
    The wife pointed out that by the turn of the century, sexists like me will be deported to Lebanon. "No," she said, "you'll sign 'em up for rugby. Tomorrow."
    Think fast, I thought. "Sure!" I said disagreeably. "That is, if you don't mind the unbelievable amount of laundry my three little rugby players will create."
    Too quickly for her own good, she allowed that maybe we should think this out.   
    No, I said. We need professional advice.
    "The school social worker?" 
    "Nope. Skunk. Skunk Skolnik, an old war buddy of mine. Manic gamesman. You name it, from sumo to dwarf-tossing, he's played it. He'd pass himself off as a chicken if cock-fighting were allowed. During the Gulf War, he bet on Saddam -- and cleaned up. I'll talk to Skunk, see what he suggests."
    "To tell you the truth, I have my doubts."
    "About Skunk?"
    "About you. You dodged the draft, how come you've got war buddies?"

WHEN I caught up to Skunk, he was wrestling with his conscience. "Got problems, Wrong-Way (uh, never mind why he always calls me that). Hapoel made me an offer, but Maccabi matched it. Hell, I could play for both, against each other even, but the stiffs won't go for it."
    I was impressed.
    Skunk, I said, ya gotta help me.
    "What's wrong, Wrong-Way? Cheating at Junior Scrabble and you still can't win? Ha, ha, ha."
    (How'd he hear about that?)
    I told him my problem. He shrugged. "So? Pick a game. Bocce. If I know your kids they'll be Israeli bocce champs inside of a year."
    "What's bocce?" I asked Skunk.
    He shrugged again. "Nobody really knows."
    I poked him good-naturedly; he bobbed, and decked me.
    "Okay, let's look at this scientific-like. How tall are your kids?"
    I pulled out an 8x10 glossy. "That's them. Life-size."
    "Hmm. Short. I was thinking basketball, but they look like jockeys."
    "There's no horse racing in Israel, Skunk."
    "I meant dog racing."
    "Get serious. You know there's no racing of any kind. Country's not big enough. They had a car race once, in the Negev, but found they couldn't do zero to fifty without reaching a border."
    "Baseball's popular now. Three kids, three outfielders. You'd really enjoy that, you being from America."
    "Close, Skunk. I'm from the outskirts. Canada."
    He snapped his fingers. "Hockey then! They've got rinks here now."
    "Get real, man. My girls aren't even pre-peewee yet."
    He suggested soccer, but I nixed that: I could just imagine 5,000 beetle-browed louts rampaging every time my girls lose a game.
    "Then teach 'em bridge," he said disgustedly.
    Too bitchy, I countered.
    "Backgammon."
    "Oh, sure, who plays backgammon in this country? Beetle-browed soccer fans."
    Tennis is popular, he said. Not if you're a threesome, I reminded him. Bowling? Not until my sprites weigh more than the ball. Cricket? Nah. They'd never go for a sport named after a bug.
    "Aha! Judo! That's it, Wrong-Way. Israelis are really into judo ever since the '92 Olympics, when we won --"
    "Yeah, I remember, our first two Olympic medals. Not a bad idea, Skunk."
    I called my wife. An inspired idea, I assured her.
    She didn't even have the grace to give it a moment's thought. "Am I raising three little Chinese girls?" she hollered.
    I cleared my throat. "Japanese, actually."
    "An Israeli game I want, something a little more in tune with Judoism. I mean Judaism. Y'hear?"
    "That would be wrestling, then," I pointed out.
    I got her with that one. Took her breath away.
    "Name me one Israeli in history who ever wrestled," she sneered.
    I winked at Skunk. "But dear," I intoned into the telephone, "that's where Israeli history starts. When Jacob outpointed the angel. Getting back to his feet, the divine messenger blessed the victor with a new name: 'The One Who Wrestled With God' -- or, in Hebrew -- 'Yisrael.'"
    Skunk high-fived me. My wife hung up.
    I put on my hat and thanked Skunk. He looked pensive, which was completely out of character.
    "Wait a minute," he said. "We've overlooked the most obvious: our national sport."
    I blinked. We already crossed off soccer, tennis, basketball; I knew that matkot was the only game Skunk hated, so it couldn't be that. I took a wild guess. "Cross-country skiing?"
    "Get a grip."
    "Alright, then; I'll bet --"
    "Precisely."
    "Huh?"
    "Gambling. Everyone and his Israeli mother does it. That's the national pastime, Wrong-Way, it's what makes this nation what it is. Ninety-nine percent of the population doesn't go to Caesarea for a round of golf, or Metulla for a dash across the rink, or to Eilat for a dive into the corals. They drop by the local kiosk on the way home, pick up a load of Loto or Toto or Sportoto forms, race to the kitchen table and exercise their feeble minds filling out the little boxes with little numbers. Then they work up a sweat dreaming what they'll do with all those millions they have no hope of winning.
    "The real sportsmen slip into the friendly neighborhood illegal gambling hall, where a good time is had by all if you manage to drop a few thou before the cops bust in. Huh. Just wait and see what happens when, inevitably, they legalize casinos in this country. You won't see a soul in the streets. You want true-blue Israeli kids? Get 'em into gambling."
    "But my wife --"
    "Just tell your wife it'll ease up on her laundry load. You won't dirty your shirts, you'll lose 'em."
    I thanked Skunk for his time, and stepped out into the cool night. I realized that, ultimately, it was I who knew what's best for my girls.
    Scrabble.
    After all, that was how my wife met me, right?