Posted above the urinal: Geeks Who Drink. Trivia competition every Tuesday night! Prizes and Fun!
The “Geeks” were pictured as cartoon caricatures: a girl with horn-rimmed glasses and ugly bangs; a couple of guys with the same sort of glasses and bad skin and buck-teeth, one overweight and the other emaciated.
Who doesn’t want to show-off? With a couple buddies, I attended. The emcee was one of the regular bartenders, a good-looking guy who had dabbled, apparently, in some stand-up, because he was witty, quick with a retort when heckled, improvising jokes on the material but not so insistently as to obstruct the free-flow of the Q and A. The girl-geeks were passable. It was all in good fun, a diverting couple of hours and what else do you have to do on a Tuesday night? The emcee projected questions on the TV screens above the bar in the upstairs room, a place called “The Red Monk” at The Royal Mile pub: all dark wood and signs supporting British soccer teams interspersed with travel posters of castles and old WWII placards admonishing folks to KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, red letters under a red royal crown. Lager was on tap and pints of Guinness also on offer and, above the urinals, taped to the tiles, adverts for Geeks who Drink.
The emcee, Colin, had the authorized answers to the questions on his laptop and everything went well. Of course, I didn’t win, but the game was amusing and the girls seemed happy to be mingling with the Geeks and, when I left, I thought that I would definitely return next week with my mates and that, possibly, I might win a prize – a gift certificate for drinks and a meal at the Royal Mile or, even, a little cash. Trivia isn’t exactly my thing but I’m pretty knowledgeable, if I do say so myself, the sort of fellow who reads Wikipedia for fun and studies dictionaries and keeps informed as to current events, although, perhaps, not as assiduously as I should since I’m weak on popular entertainment and sports. My problem has always been that I don’t think knowledge is “trivial”, at least, in general terms, although I might subscribe to that view as to Lifetime network actors or hip-hop stars or most sports. No, as far as I’m concerned, most things worth knowing aren’t trivial – it’s knowledge and knowledge is, as they say, power and power...well, power is everything.
On the next Tuesday, it was team play and, a couple of the guys got pretty drunk, and, so, they were useless and the girl’s team, on which the competitors were mostly sober, did well and beat us. But it was all good fun and, after the competition, we had a few more drinks and Alyesha, one of the more attractive girls, said that she knew someone who was very good with information, a master of trivia, but very shy. Alyesha made us promise to be nice to this person and said that she would try to bring them to the Geeks who Drink games. Then, the emcee cut off Jason, a buddy of mine, whispering that he was drunk and should be escorted home and not allowed to drive under any circumstances and a couple of us felt obliged to protest, although it was true that Jason was, in fact, pretty inebriated, and Alyesha pointed to the red and white sign on the wall and said: “Keep calm and carry on.”
Tuesday, the next week, Alyesha came up the steps to “The Red Monk” with her friend Rubin, a heavy-set figure in shapeless clothes with a big, fat, squashed-looking face studded with piercings, blue eyes so bleached that they seemed almost white from lid to lid, a mish-mash of races, it seemed, and both genders with broad soft shoulders and tiny feet and a mincing sort of gait. Rubin didn’t participate in the pre-game chitchat instead staring at their phone and, when they spoke, their voice was higher than you might expect and a little tremulous.
The game began and Rubin didn’t say much of anything and this wasn’t team play but each man for himself and, so, I took an early lead. Alyesha brought Rubin a 16 ounce glass of Strongbow cider and, then, Rubin warmed to the game and began calling out answers and it was clear that they were well-informed and quick to answer the trivia questions.
Six out of ten:
Mount Parnassus – ? – Snoop Dog – President George H. W. Bush – ? – Lake Baikal – ? – ? – Jackie Robinson – Dallas, Texas
The moon hovered over the freeway exit and the traffic on the concrete stilts hummed along. An unaccustomed bite in the air made the cold cling to our hands and faces. The neighborhood where The Royal Mile was located had been truncated by the freeway and its various ramps and access lanes. The streets were mostly amputated at the elbow or knee, blocked by concrete barriers. A small office building with blue turquoise tiles on its facade was gouged-out underneath with a subterranean parking lot. The Asian Fusion place shared a common wall with an up-scale Taqueria (it’s food truck was parked across the street on the edge of a vacant lot covered with weeds that hid enigmatic stone-walled pits.) A branch library with squat brushed-metal pillars and a hidden entrance was cantilevered over a small, round fountain that seemed to have run dry. A few out-of-place looking stick-built houses completed the suite of mis-matched buildings. Because of the surrounding freeways and their concrete ramparts, the intersections and structures around The Royal Mile seemed to occupy a strange, isolated crater. We stood outside the Pub arguing a little about the game. Timbo said that, at least, one of the answers provided on Colin’s laptop was inarguably wrong. But, perhaps, it was a matter of interpretations Alyesha stood next to Rubin. Alyesha said that there was no doubt that they had done well. I agreed.
“Well played... my friend,” I told Rubin.
They nodded very slightly. Then, they walked down the sidewalk toward where their car was parked. The vehicle was junk, strapped together with bungee cords, and so old and jury-rigged that you half- expected a smoke-stack to protrude from its engine.
Alyesha told me that Rubin was high-strung and nervous by nature and that they wanted to be unobtrusive.
“They were holding back,” Alyesha said.
“Why?”
“Out of consideration for the others,” she replied.
Timbo said: “Well tell it not to hold back,”
“It ?” Alyesha asked.
Timbo and George and Ron and I also swivelled our heads a little to confirm that Rubin was out of ear-shot.
Down the street, the junker was fired-up and jerked into gear.
“You know what I mean,” Timbo said.
Next Tuesday, Rubin and Alyesha were at The Royal Mile with a couple other coders from where they worked.
It was team play. Rubin was on fire. No one else on their team had a chance to answer any of the questions since their responses were so swift and accurate. And, of course, we were soundly defeated.
Tiresias – All Saint’s Day – Vince Lombardi – Promontory Summit (but will accept “Promontory Point”) – The Carpenters – Mike Tyson – 1789 – Malaria – Roger Federer – Cuelebra Cut: Ten out of ten.
Rubin was unerring. I tried to buy them a drink but they declined.
“You don’t seem to have any blind spots: sports, personalities, geography, great battles of the world – how do you know all this stuff?” I asked.
“It just...comes to me,” Rubin said.
“That’s unfair,” I said. “The rest of us have to think.”
“It’s sort of different for me,” Rubin replied.
Outside, mist had gathered. The neon at the Asian fusion place bled into the light from Taqueria’s sign. The red marquee at The Royal Mile was blurred and dripped color onto the sidewalk. The zinc pillars on the library reflected the scarlet smear. The air seemed full of cool particles.
Rubin attended Geeks who Drink on the next Tuesday alone, without Alyesha or the others from the job. They performed flawlessly. Colin was baffled.
“Have you hacked into my laptop?” he asked.
It was a joke, but some of the players were a little bit annoyed.
“It’s not fun if someone always has all of the answers,” Timbo said. George and Ron nodded.
Battle of New Orleans – calcium carbonate – The Moonstone – Rocky IV – Archibald Leach – Black Friday (October 25, 1929) – Charles Gounod – Thermopylae – Deborah Harry – “Gin and Juice”
“How do you do it?” I asked Rubin. Their pale blue eyes were blank.
“Are you some kind of computer?” I asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Rubin said.
It was drizzling outside. Rain isn’t common in this city. The water was cold and we pulled our collars up around our ears. Timbo said: “This isn’t fair.”
“The game is for ordinary people,” George said. “Not for freaks.”
Ron said: “Yeah, it’s a freak. It’s spoiling everything.”
The next Tuesday: perfect. Ten out of ten: “Sesquipedalian” – Thor – Convergent Evolution – “Ode to a Greek Urn” – James Arness – Summer solstice – Megan Thee Stallion – “Old Hickory” – Toussaint Louverture – 2015 World Cup...
Then: 100 out of 100.
The rain was drumming on the roof of The Royal Mile and the skylight was smeared with running water.
Ron said: “We know you’re cheating.”
“I’m not cheating,” Rubin said.
“You’ve got an ear bud or something that’s feeding you the answers,” Timbo said.
Collin heard the exchange. “Boys, boys, boys,” he said. Then, he made a “tsk” sound. Alyesha, who had come with Rubin but wasn’t playing, added: “Stay calm and carry on.”
“I can’t help it,” Rubin said.
“Yes, you can,” George replied.
We scurried to our cars in the pelting rain. The gutters were backed up and the intersections were ponds of water. The fountain’s basin at the library was half-full and raindrops decorated the surface of the pool with a blur of mist.
The next Tuesday: Rubin sat in the center of “The Red Monk” protected by Ayesha and the two other coders from where they worked. Lightning flared on the glass overhead and more rain fell.
Rubin’s answers were flawless during the first four or five rounds. Then, they began to fumble, stuttering out the wrong answer, or pausing so that someone else could respond.
For the first time in several weeks, someone else won the Geeks who Drink trivia contest. Collin seemed relieved but he offered to buy Rubin a drink.
“It’s forbearance, right?” Collin said.
Timbo said: “No one can win every time.”
The storm had paused. But thunder sounded in the mountains and sirens wailed. A landslide had blocked one of the freeway in the hills. There were orange cones and yellow barricades blocking entry into the garage under the turquoise tile tower – apparently, the parking place was flooded.
Rubin looked a little dazed. He stood close to Alyesha by the Taqueria.
“Come on, dude,” I said. “The treaty that ended the Thirty Years War in 1648? The Peace of Westphalia. You knew that.”
“Maybe,” Rubin said.
“And ‘Posh” Spice – spouse of David Beckham? You knew that.”
“So what’s it to you,” Rubin said.
A few drops of rain fell. The storm was gathering energy and would begin again soon.
“Prince Amerigo and Maggie Verver – the main characters of Henry James’ novel The Golden Bowl. Of course, I would never know that. But you would know that, Rubin, you would have that answer on the tip of your tongue.”
“Maybe,” Rubin said.
“Keep calm and carry on,” Ayesha said.
Then, the rain began again in earnest.
The next Tuesday, the streets were all flooded and the crater where the The Royal Mile was located was half full of black, filthy water. Sheets of rain were blown aslant. The pits in the vacant lot were muddy cisterns and the fountain at the branch public library was overflowing. No one had seen a succession of storms like this – it was unprecedented.
Collin couldn’t make it. The highway near his apartment was drowned and foreign import cars were bobbing around there like toys in a bathtub. One of the waitresses opened up the laptop and began the game.
Rubin sat in a corner, alone, nursing a soda. They didn’t answer any questions at all. But I saw their lips moving silently with each answer spoken by others in “The Red Monk.”
Leland Stanford – the Magna Carta – “The Pit and the Pendulum” – Super Bowl 1996 – Damn Yankees – Teotihuacan – November 11, 1918 – Erich von Stroheim – Mary Jane Blige – Chartres Cathedral
It looked to me that Rubin mouthed the answers to every question, accurately, but not speaking so that anyone could hear.
Collin would have encouraged them to respond out loud. But Collin knew the game and its history. The waitress was cute and spunky but she didn’t have a clue.
I waited for Rubin to rise, find their coat on the rack near the toilet, and, then, venture out onto the submerged sidewalk. I followed them down the steps and caught up with Rubin on the street. I pulled them under an awning over the bright window of the Asian Fusion place. The awning above us looked pregnant, bulging with water trapped overhead.
“The guys wanted to beat you up tonight,” I said.
“People always want to beat me up,” Rubin said.
“We saw you knew all the answers. You were showing-off by moving your lips but not saying anything out loud.”
“What if I was?” Rubin asked.
“It’s offensive. It’s offensive to us ordinary mortals.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that,” Rubin replied.
“If you aren’t going to participate, why did you come?” I asked.
“Whatever you might think, I’m not a pussy,” Rubin said.
“You know everything don’t you?”
“Of course,” Rubin said. “It’s unavoidable.”
“When will man walk on Mars?”
“April 22, 2045.”
“When will cancer be cured?”
“Never, but it will be fully treatable by about 2061.”
“Who will win the Super Bowl in 2033?”
“The Tempe Arrows.”
“When will I die?”
“I know both when and how, but I’m not telling,” Rubin said.
I reached out and took their coat by the lapels and shook them. Rubin was surprisingly light, puffed up like a balloon, and their head and shoulders trembled.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“You don’t want to know,” Rubin said.
I felt ashamed and let go of Rubin’s coat.
“The freeway underpass down that way is flooded,” I told Rubin. “Don’t go that way, the water will scoop up your junker and wash you away.”
I paused: “But I guess you knew that already.”
“Yes,” Rubin said.
They marched off in the direction of their car. Ron and George and Timbo came out of the pub. Down the street, Rubin’s car showed red tail-lights and bluish puff of exhaust under the street lamp. Then, the car pulled out from its parking place and breasted the water splashing up around its hub cap.
“He can’t go that way,” Timbo said. “It’s eight feet deep under the overpass.”
But the car turned and, leaving a greyish, white wake, aimed for the underpass from which a veil of water was cascading off the bridge deck like some waterfall plunging through a gorge in the high mountains. The name of the waterfall occurred to me and, for a moment, I knew its height and volume.
Rubin’s empty car was found in a ravine a couple miles away. The storm ended and the floodwaters receded. Their body was discovered in a culvert naked and entangled in an obstruction of eucalpytus leaves, sage brush, and shingles and timber washed down from a construction site.
I don’t know if Geeks who Drink trivia is still a thing at The Royal Mile Pub. In any event, I don’t go anymore.
