1
The Park
The cops arrive, as they always do, their Aegean blue NYPD cruiser
bumping onto the sidewalk and into the northwest corner of Washington
Square Park. There are no sirens or flashing lights, but the late-
model Buick does emit a staccato bwip-bwip to signal to the public
that business is at hand. The drug dealers usually shuffle away,
perpetuating the cat-and-mouse game that occurs hourly in this six-
acre plot of concrete, grass, dirt, and action in Greenwich Village.
The druggies whisper, Sense, smoke, sense, smoke, as they have for
twenty or thirty years, seemingly in tacit agreement with the cops to
ply their trade as long as they do it quietly. But now, instead of
allowing the dealers to scatter as they normally do, officers in
short-sleeved summer uniforms, chests bulging from flak jackets,
actually step out of the cruiser, grab a man, and slap on cuffs.
Whats going on? someone asks.
Theyre arresting a drug dealer.
I dont look up.
It is a hot, humid, windless Sunday afternoon in August 1997
in New York City, an asphalt-and-concrete circle of hell. The
blacktop is thick with urban detritus -- broken glass, bits of
yellowed newspaper pages, stained paper coffee cups, dozens upon
dozens of cigarette butts. In the southwest corner of the park,
hustlers occupying the dozen or so stone tables attempt to lure the
unsuspecting. You need to play chess, one of them announces. Tens
and twenties are exchanged and surreptitiously pocketed with a glance
over the shoulder. Not that the hustlers need worry; on the scale of
petty crimes, board-game gambling ranks even below selling $10 bags
of marijuana to New York University students. Around the fountain in
the center of the park, hundreds gather to watch the street performer
of the moment -- the juggler, the magician, the guy with the trained
monkey that jumps on the arm of a rube. On the south side, the dog
people take refuge in their fenced-in, gravel-covered enclosure,
where humans and animals eye one another cautiously before succumbing
to the bond of their shared interests, dogs and other dogs,
respectively. There is hair of all colors and styles, piercings and
tattoos that would make Dennis Rodman blush, bikers and skaters and
readers and sleepers and sunbathers, homeless and Hare Krishna, the
constant murmur of crowd noise floating in the thick air.
None of it matters.
Ive already squandered points with consecutive low-scoring plays
intended to ditch a few tiles in hopes of picking up better
companions for the Q that fortunately, I think, has appeared on my
rack. And I got them: a U, two Es, an R, and an S. But the chess
clock to my right taunts me like a grade school bully as it winds
down from twenty-five minutes toward zero. I have these great
letters, but no place to score a lot of points with them. Its only
the second time that Ive played in Washington Square Park and,
frankly, Im intimidated.
My opponent is Diane Firstman, a fact I know only because she
has handwritten and taped her name to the back of each of the
standard-issue wooden racks that hold the games tiles. She is a
tall, physically awkward woman with short hair, glasses, and a mouth
of crooked teeth: Janet Reno with an anagram jones. She carries a
clipboard with her personal scorecard -- Dianes Score, it is
titled -- which contains boxed areas to record her point totals and
those of her opponent, each of the words they create, and all one
hundred tiles. She marks off the letters as they are laid out in word
combinations so she can keep track of whats left in the plaid sack
sitting next to the board.
Diane is an up-and-coming player at the Manhattan Scrabble
Club, which meets Thursday nights at an old residence hotel in
midtown. On her right wrist she wears a watch featuring the
trademarked Scrabble logo. On her head is a crumpled San Diego Padres
baseball cap, circa 1985. Without knowing, I figure that excelling at
Scrabble is a way for this ungainly thirty-something woman to shed
whatever insecurities she might have. During a game, shed them she
does. I have watched her play another novice, Chris, who chats during
play. Among the Scrabble elite this habit might be a highly scorned
mind-game tactic known as coffeehousing, but in this case its just
friendly banter. Worse, Chris thinks out loud, and when her brain
momentarily short-circuits and she questions Dianes play of the word
LEAFS, the retort comes quickly: Duh! As in leafs through a book!
When Diane makes a particularly satisfying or high-scoring play, she
struggles to stifle a smile, rocks her head from side to side,
proudly (and loudly) announces her score, and smacks the chess clock
with too much élan.
I have made sure that Diane and the others who gather daily
at the three picnic tables in this corner of the park know that Im a
newbie. When asked, I say that Im just learning to play the game.
Which in the strictest sense isnt true. Everyone knows how to play
Scrabble. Along with Monopoly, Candy Land, and a few other chestnuts,
Scrabble is among the best-selling and most enduring games in the two-
hundred-year history of the American toy industry. Hasbro Inc., which
owns the rights to Scrabble in North America, sells well over a
million sets a year. Around a hundred million sets have been sold
worldwide since the game was first mass-produced in 1948. In some
households, Scrabble is extricated from closets around the holidays
as a way for families to kill time; in others, its a kitchen-table
mainstay. Regardless, say the word Scrabble and everyone knows what
youre talking about: the game in which you make words.
But its much more than that. Before I discovered Washington
Square Park, I was aware of the games wider cultural significance.
Scrabble is one of those one-size-fits-all totems that pops up in
movies, books, and the news. I once wrote an article that mentioned
the Scrabble tournament that Michael Milken had organized in the
white-collar prison where he did time for securities fraud. Theres
the scene in the movie Foul Play in which one little old lady plays
the word MOTHER and another extends it with FUCKERS. Mad magazine has
regularly made fun of the game. (A 1973 feature on magazines for
neglected sports included Scrabble Happenings: My Wife Made XEROXED
on a Triple . . . So I Shot Her!) Scrabble has appeared in The
Simpsons and Seinfeld, the Robert Altman films 3 Women and Cookies
Fortune, the Cary Grant snoozer The Grass Is Greener, and the
seventies comedy Freebie and the Bean. In Rosemarys Baby, Mia Farrow
uses Scrabble tiles to figure out that the name of her friendly
neighbor Roman Castevet anagrams to that of a witch named Steven
Marcato.
Rosie ODonnell regularly talks about her Scrabble addiction.
Higher brows love it, too. In a bit about mythical Florida tourist
traps, Garrison Keillor lists the International Scrabble Hall of
Fame. Charles Bukowskis poem pulled down shade ends with the
lines: this fucking/Scotch is/great./lets play/Scrabble. Vladimir
Nabokov, in his novel Ada, describes an old Russian game said to be a
forerunner of Scrabble. The game is a cultural Zelig: a mockable
emblem of Eisenhower-era family values, a stand-in for geekiness, a
pastime so decidedly unhip that its hip. In places like the park,
Im learning, it also embodies the narcotic allure of strategic games
and the beauty of the English language.
I have been dabbling in Scrabble since I was a teenager.
There is a summer-vacation photo of my two older brothers playing
with two older cousins; barred from their game, I -- somewhat
pathetically but what choice do I have, really? -- am relegated to
keeping score. Like many childhood snubs, this one haunts me into
adulthood. In the last years of high school, I play late-night games
with a friend on the next block, a couple of decent suburban kids
listening to seventies rock and killing time before the next sports
event or night of bar- and diner-hopping.
Around the same time, my brother Lampros gets hooked on the
game. He is eight years my senior and mathematically inclined; he
scored a perfect 800 on his SAT and taught me square roots when I was
in the second grade. Its the middle of the lost decade of his
twenties, and Lamp is on a long-term plan to graduate from M.I.T.
Hes got plenty of time on his hands, so when he and his journalism-
student roommate pick up the game, he becomes obsessed. He masters
the two- and three-letter words. He stays up all night reading the
newly published Scrabble dictionary. The two play marathon sessions,
and keep a running dime-a-point tally of their scores, which they
apply against utility bills. I think them weird. And cool.
But Im never much intrigued until a girlfriend and I
christen our blooming love with a travel set. We tote it to the
Canadian Rockies and the Grand Tetons, to Greece and Turkey, to a
ranch in Colorado and an adobe in Santa Fe, to Vermont ski chalets
and Hamptons beach motels, where we play constantly, recording the
date and place of each encounter. She presents me with a copy of the
OSPD -- The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (first edition) --
with the following inscription: For consultation only. NO
memorizing! And though I abide her request regarding the dictionary,
I win too often. Why do you even want to play with me? she asks
after one especially lopsided contest, and my heart sinks as I
realize that this refuge in what has become an otherwise imperfect
life together is forever gone. When the time comes to divide our
belongings, book and board are mine.
Panicking, I lay down the obvious QUEERS, aware somehow that
I am doomed.
A good living room player. Thats what John D. Williams, Jr., had
dubbed me, and if it sounds like a backhanded compliment, thats
because it is. From a storefront office on the eastern shore of Long
Island, Williams runs the National Scrabble Association, the
governing body of the game. Many top players, I learn, resent his
authority, but hes also partly responsible for the wild growth of
tournament play in recent years. The NSA, which is independent of but
funded predominantly by Hasbro, publishes a Scrabble newsletter
received by about 10,000 people, keeps track of the ratings of some
2,300 active tournament players, sanctions 200 clubs, and oversees
150 tournaments a year, twice as many as a decade earlier. The
national championship the previous summer had attracted 400 players.
In a few months, Williams tells me, Hasbro and the NSA will host the
world championships, with players from thirty countries, some of whom
barely speak English.
I had proposed a game against Williams as a starting point
for the quest I had hatched with friends on New Years Day: to become
a competitive Scrabble player. Why? I couldnt say exactly. I had
read a recent Sports Illustrated story about the eccentric,
apparently cutthroat world of competitive Scrabble and thought, Ive
played this game, I can do that. My newlywed friends Jonathan and
Lynn Hock had been squaring off daily and would call to brag about
seven-letter words and high-scoring contests. I joined them for
occasional three-handed games, hoping that engaging in a cherished
pastime from my old relationship would help me mourn its demise. In
the aftermath of the breakup, I conveniently blew out a knee playing
soccer and spent most of my nights in obsessive postsurgical rehab.
But physical therapy was winding down. I needed something to do. I
needed, horrors, a hobby.
En route to Jon and Lynns Upper West Side apartment to ring
in the new year with a few games, I stopped in a Barnes & Noble and
bought every Scrabble-related book on the shelf, including (a
mistake, I later learned) the third edition of the OSPD. To record
the first step of my journey, we photographed the board. Weeks later,
I called John Williams to propose a friendly game. My goal: to lose,
and lose badly. After all, this was supposed to be a journey.
Odysseus wandered around for ten years. Columbuss crew nearly
mutinied before he happened upon land. The Donner party starved in
the mountains.
You just might win, Williams says as we sit down to play in
his midtown hotel room.
Yeah, right, I reply, clinging to my script.
Williams plays CARED to open the game, scoring 22 points. I
draw a bingo -- a play using all seven of ones tiles, worth an extra
50 points -- on my first turn: LEAPING, which I place below the last
two letters of CARED, forming EL and DE. There you go, Williams
says, before pointing out that PEALING would have been worth more.
But I am unaware that PE, which I could have made by placing the P
above the E in CARED, is an acceptable word (its a Hebrew letter).
After a few low-scoring turns for each of us, I lay down SQUIRE, and
suddenly Im ahead, 139-44. A few plays later, I throw down another
bingo, RESIDUE, for 77, and my lead grows to 233-116.
I will say youre getting great tiles, Williams remarks.
Its true, I already have pulled both blank tiles, three of the four
precious Ss, the lone Q accompanied by a U, and a bunch of Es and
Rs. Still, I think, he could be a little more generous. But then
Williams says, Not only are you getting great tiles, you know what
to do with them, and I feel a touch guilty for my ungracious thought.
I play LOGE for 13. He plays DICE for 27. I play ZEST for 41.
Score: 287-140.
Im surprised you didnt have a Y for ZESTY and a double-
word score, Williams cracks, gibing me for my good fortune. He
passes his turn, trading in an I, O, R, and two Us. Okay, so maybe I
am getting good tiles. I play WIDTH on a triple-word score for 36. I
play TAX on a triple-word score for 30. I finally do get that Y, and
play YAM for 21: 391-202. FIT for 30, NO for 17. When its over, I
have beaten the executive director of the National Scrabble
Association, 457-277.
Holy shit, I remark, trying not to gloat.
Youre not kidding, Williams replies. This may be the
worst Ive ever lost. I couldnt manage my rack. It wasnt happening.
By the way, that was my highest score ever.
Glad I could help.
I ask Williams to assess my current ability, and my potential.
Youre probably like an eleven hundred player, he says.
Player ratings in Scrabble are based on the Elo system for rating
chess tournaments and range from 500 at the bottom to over 2000 at
the top. You could be a twelve hundred player. Its hard to tell
after one game. Your strategy is sound. Clearly, youre a good living
room player.
Humph. Surely, I think, Im better than that.
A few weeks later, we stage a rematch. I lose, 502-291.
By the time of my first game against Diane, I have been watching the
parkies for three weeks. During my first visit, I sit on a concrete
wall behind the forest green picnic tables where the parkies play and
I observe. During my second visit, I wait for an invitation to a
game, and when I get one, I lose, but just barely, to a regular named
Herb. My third summer weekend in Washington Square, the parkies begin
to recognize me, asking my name again and how much I play. Just
learning the game, I demur, tossing off the deliberately self-
effacing line that is becoming my mantra. I ask how often there is a
game. Weekends, says Herb. For those who have day jobs, that is.
Those who dont . . . His voice trails off. Theyre here every day.
Always, the same faces are huddled over the banged-up
rotating boards, and everyone smokes. Theres a well-built African-
American guy with doe eyes and salt-and-pepper hair named Alan
Williams, a general contractor who takes long drags and ponders his
moves for long stretches. A regular opponent of his is Aldo Cardia,
who is always dressed in black slacks and a white shirt because he
runs a local diner. Aldo rides over on a three-speed bicycle,
Scrabble board, clock, and dictionary stowed in a front basket. An
excellent bridge player, Aldo spent a full winter studying words
before getting behind a board in the park and now is a top player
here. I meet Joe Simpson, a curmudgeonly African-American World War
II veteran usually dressed in a beret and army fatigues. Theres a
loudmouthed woman with blue nail polish who cant stop kibitzing
other peoples games. Theres Steve Pfeiffer, whose name I learn
because it is spelled out in Scrabble tiles glued to the back of a
double-long rack. Pfeiffer is a New York Scrabble legend who played
in the first sanctioned tournaments back in the mid-1970s. Hes
topless, not a good look for him, with a blue windbreaker covering
his legs. Pfeiffer is playing another expert-level player, Matthew
Laufer, who also has doffed his shirt in the heat, exposing an ample
gut and torn underwear protruding from the rear of his pants. Matthew
seems to have a predilection toward random proclamations about
Scrabble, language, or virtually any other subject. Matthew tells me
he is a poet.
You know, youre better off with one E than two Es, he
says. And youre better off with one S than two Ss.
I make a list of some of the words laid out on the boards:
LEZ, GOBO, VOGIE, TAOS, FOVEAL, GUID, MOKE, JEREED, LEVANTER, ZAYIN,
GLAIVES, SHELTIE, DOVENED, CAVIE. They all are alien to me. And as
for my beloved Q, I learn that it is a Trojan horse. Sure, it and the
Z are the only tiles worth 10 points, but clinging to the Q for too
long in hopes of a big score, as I did against Diane, prevents you
from drawing letters that offer a fresh chance for a bingo. A
lingering Q is like an unwanted houseguest, gnawing on your nerves,
consuming your attentions, refusing to take the hint and get lost.
Ive let the visitor raid the refrigerator, plop his feet on the
coffee table, and channel-surf.
Even the least accomplished competitive players memorize all
of the acceptable Q words that dont require a U (there are ten, plus
their plurals), with QAT the most frequently played. But, novice that
I am, I pass up QAT as too skimpy for my precious high-scoring
letter, hoping instead that randomly plucking tiles from the bag will
lead to the kind of play that would move Diane to whack the clock and
announce her score with smug self-satisfaction. QUEERS isnt it. It
is worth too few points to have justified inaction for so long. (In
competitive Scrabble, each player has twenty-five minutes to complete
a game; go over on time and you are penalized 10 points per
minute.) It is the result of ineptitude, and of desperation.
Desperate Scrabble players normally lose.
And I do. The Q play unnerves me. Diane turns a tight game in
which we trade bingos on our second turns (she KINDLING, me RESOUNDS)
into a rout. For good measure, she ends the game with another bingo,
REDIRECTS. Eighty-six, she chirps. Whack. Final score: 429-291.
Oh, well, I think, Im just learning the game.
On my subway rides back and forth to the park, I study a list
of the ninety-seven two-letter words and nearly one thousand three-
letter words which John Williams had given me. I see a license plate
and wonder whether KEW is a word. (It isnt.) I see the Yankees
pitcher Graeme Lloyds name on the TV screen and anagram it: MEAGER
DOLLY. I learn the U-less Q words. I lose to Diane three more times
in the park. I make notes: 1. Need to learn my threes. Some doubts
on twos during game. 2. Clock -- over on all three games. 3. Feel
pressure when game close. 4. Diane not so obnoxious.
And after a few weeks in the park, I realize I have made a
small impression. Matthew, the poet, says while I play Diane, This
guy could be dangerous. Im not sure if its praise or sarcasm,
whether Im viewed as fresh meat or a potential player. But Ill take
it. Diane and the others invite me to the Thursday-night games at the
midtown hotel.
The beginners, someone notes, gather at 5:30.
Copyright © 2001 by Stefan Fatsis