Game Theory

by Barry Jonsberg

  Finally, the show got under way. Five hundred camcorders started to whir and there was so much flash photography it was like we were caught in a violent electrical storm.

  Phoebe’s routine was second, after a discordant warm-up by a bunch of kids on recorders. I remembered playing the recorder when I was in primary. I couldn’t get anything other than a screech either. Then the oh-so-familiar dance music started up and seven or eight kids filed onto stage. Phoebe was second from the right. I glanced over at Mum. She had her hand to her mouth and there were creases around her eyes. I saw my own fears reflected in her face. It is so hard watching someone you love on the brink, possibly, of showing her arse to the world. An arse that would be recorded by countless camcorders and frozen forever in dozens of digital hard drives. Summer, on the other hand, was smiling and relaxed. I watched her nod encouragement at her sister, despite there being no chance Phoebe could see it. Please God, I thought. Let this go well. If this goes well, I might even start believing in you.

  Well, there is no God, apparently.

  It wasn’t that Phoebe was any worse than the rest of them. As far as I could tell, there was only one kid who knew what she was doing and six or seven who were making it up as they went along. It was great, actually. I mean, who needs flawless choreography in a primary school dance? It’s just kids leaping around and having fun. Except that Phoebe wasn’t having fun. I could tell. She kept glancing at her fellow dancers and trying to match their steps. Unfortunately, their steps were all over the place as well, so it kind of degenerated into an aimless thrashing about (apart from the one kid who was keeping time. I bet her parents had their camcorder focused entirely on her. Maybe they edited out the rest of the group later). The more Phoebe’s rhythm, which was almost non-existent to start with, went awry, the more her body stiffened and the worse it got. But it was the ending that really fell apart. Literally.

  The way it should have gone, I imagined, was that all of the kids finished on one knee, in a line, left hand raised towards the audience at the moment the last chord sounded. There was never any chance of that. The final note sounded and the one dancer in the group slid gracefully into position. The rest followed, at their own pace. Two had their right hands raised, three their left and Phoebe had apparently forgotten that part entirely. Because of the mingling around, intentional or otherwise, Phoebe was now on the extreme right of the line. She teetered on one skinny knee, lost her balance and lurched to her right. It was almost like those scenes in the movies where it all happens in slow-mo. If she’d gone to her left, it might have turned out okay. But she hit the kid next to her, who in turn lurched and knocked the next in line. The dominoes tumbled. I heard a gasp from Mum and general laughter from the audience. It wasn’t nasty laughter. I could tell. It was laughter that expressed a kind of joy at the gaucheness of kids. It was affectionate.

  But Phoebe didn’t see it like that. She glanced along the row of fallen soldiers, a look of horror spreading across her features. Then she scrambled to her feet and ran from the stage, face buried in her hands. There was wild applause from the audience, but Mum and I were too stunned to clap.

  Summer pushed past me.

  ‘C’mon, Jamie,’ she said. I got to my feet instinctively and followed as she moved down the side aisle towards stage. Mum stayed in her seat.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘To mend a broken heart,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘So you shut the fuck up and leave the talking to me.’

  It wasn’t difficult getting backstage. A teacher pointed out Phoebe, sitting by herself in the furthest corner and sobbing. I have to admit, my heart clenched. There is almost nothing worse in this world than the unhappiness of children. Summer made a beeline towards her, and got down on her haunches.

  ‘Hey, mouse,’ she said. ‘What’s with the tears?’

  Phoebe took her hands away from her face. Her eyes were puffy and her mouth twisted in a strange, distorted shape. She wore her misery for everyone to see. She tried to say something but all that came out was a mangled wail. Summer rubbed her back, brushed away a strand of her hair and waited.

  ‘I messed up,’ said Phoebe finally.

  ‘No,’ replied Summerlee. There was sternness in her voice. ‘That is not true, Phoebe. You fucked up. Right royally.’ Phoebe’s face twisted again. ‘But it was brilliant and no one noticed. Only me and that was because I knew how it was supposed to finish. Did you hear that applause at the end? Did you?’

  Phoebe stopped crying long enough to register confusion.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Summer took her hand, held it in a firm grip.

  ‘What do I mean, mouse? What do I mean? I mean that the planned ending sucked big time. It was boring. All that on-one-knee shit, with the stupid hand in the air. Yawn. What you did – and I know you didn’t mean it – was turn it into something fantastic. With all of you lying in a row across the stage. That was the ending the routine needed. Just like in a ballet. And you did it, mouse. You did it. It was great. Wasn’t it great, Jamie?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Artistically, it was . . . perfect.’

  ‘Really?’ said Phoebe. I almost cried then. Maybe you can fool kids, even Phoebe, when the incentive for believing a lie is strong enough. ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  ‘Swear!’ said Summerlee. She put a hand on her heart. ‘I am so proud of you, mouse. That applause. The audience loved it. They loved you.’

  Phoebe turned to me. Tears were drying on her face, leaving pale track marks.

  ‘Do you swear as well, Jamie?’

  I followed Summerlee’s example and put a hand over my heart.

  ‘You were fantastic, poo for brains,’ I said. ‘I’m bursting with pride. True.’

  And when Phoebe smiled I knew Summer had done what she’d set out to do. She’d mended her sister’s broken heart and I loved her for it.

  What a pity she was a total twat the rest of the time.

  CHAPTER 4

  My best friend is Gutless Geraghty. It’s not his real name, obviously, but it’s what everyone calls him. His proper first name is Sean, but I only know that because he’s my mate.

  Most people assume the name ‘Gutless’ is a cruel and ironic joke, since he is anything but. It hangs over his pants and encircles his waist, a huge and wobbly doughnut of fat. Gutless is a gamer. He spends nearly all his leisure time on the computer, firing at endless ranks of disturbingly Asian-looking soldiers with vast supplies of similarly disturbing weapons. Occasionally, he takes time out from cyber-slaughter and stuffs thick-crust pizza into his mouth, washed down with Coke. Most times, he does both simultaneously. He is a walking cliché. But, according to Gutless, this is not how he came by his nickname. He told me the story once.

  It seems Gutless was a large boy from the get-go. In primary school he was an imposing figure, teased because of his size but feared for the same reason. His parents, worried he was turning into a human blimp, tried to impose enforced exercise and enrolled him in a junior rugby team. The coach, understanding that Gutless was unlikely to display an impressive turn of speed, placed him in defence where his physical stature would inspire fear and trepidation in the opposition. It was a sound strategy, but unfortunately there was one flaw. Gutless was a coward. He hated – he still hates – physical conflict, which is ironic since he dishes out so much of it on the computer screen. In the first training session, a whippet-like ten-year-old ran through the pack and bore down on the try line. Gutless, understanding something was expected of him in this situation, lumbered over to the touchline and made like an immovable object. The boy, to his credit, did not turn to jelly at the prospect of colliding with something the size and consistency of a brick shithouse, but straight-armed Gutless, who fell to the ground with a wail and had to be carried from the field. It took four of his teammates to achieve this.

  ‘You’re gutless, Geraghty,’ said the coach in the dressing room afterwards. ‘Totally gutless.’ This
was probably not the most politically sensitive remark to make (or, indeed, brilliantly motivational), but the name stuck. According to Gutless, he took his belly in both hands and jiggled it, to the considerable amusement of the assembled players.

  ‘And you’re blind, coach,’ he said.

  I have my doubts about the accuracy of the last bit. It sounds like something you wish you’d said. But, anyway, Gutless’s parents accepted defeat and didn’t try to get him to do sports again. For which Gutless was grateful. But the name stayed, even when the story that inspired it had faded from memory.

  In fact, most teachers called him Gutless.

  I mention this because I want to throw the preparation for Summerlee’s eighteenth birthday party into sharp relief. I said Gutless was my best friend. I neglected to mention that this is because he’s my only friend. Oh, I know plenty of kids at school and get along fine with them. We chat and laugh and hang out at recess and lunchtime. It’s not like I’m reclusive or that there’s anything seriously wrong with me. But I don’t spend any time with them after school. I just don’t see the point.

  Women are different. They make loads of friends and each one, apparently, would lay down their life for you at the drop of a hat. They hug, they wail, they chat, they gossip, they cry, they bitch, they pour out the deepest secrets of their emotional lives to each other. All the time. Hell, Phoebe does it and she’s not even eight yet. I talk to Gutless about video games and mathematics. He’d shut down if I tried to bring up feelings. Maybe bring up an Error 404 message. And I wouldn’t blame him.

  Summerlee spent two months preparing for her eighteenth birthday party and it cost Mum and Dad a fortune. They’d offered to pay as a part of their present, but I didn’t think they had anticipated Summer wanting something a Hollywood actor might consider excessive. She booked a club in the city and Dad put a thousand bucks on the bar – just for wine and beer. The guests would have to buy their own spirits. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. There was a DJ to pay for and decorations and flowers to arrange. Mum was for doing that part of it herself, but Summer insisted on employing an event organiser who stinted on nothing, especially her own fee. As the bills came in, Dad’s face got gloomier, but there was nothing he could do apart from get out the chequebook and eye the bank balance nervously on the internet.

  Summerlee invited two hundred friends. I heard later that Dad’s thousand-buck bar tab lasted all of fifteen minutes. She didn’t invite me. She didn’t even invite Mum and Dad on the grounds that she was eighteen and it would be desperately sad to have your parents at a party. They were a bit depressed at her decision, not because they wouldn’t see how their money was being spent, but because she was their daughter and they wanted to share her big day, if only for an hour or two. Summer vetoed it.

  Spider was going to play at the club with his band. He even had the nerve to charge Mum and Dad two hundred bucks for the gig. He told them he’d be happy to do it for nothing, but the other band members needed to pay bills, so they stumped up.

  Spider. What a dick! He had a wispy, pathetic moustache and a face pocked with old acne scars. I never found out his real name. Probably Brian or something. But what kind of wanker would choose the name ‘Spider’? Well, Spider, it seems, was exactly that kind of wanker.

  He’d been Summer’s boyfriend for two years. It was as if she’d deliberately gone out to find a partner who would piss off her parents, not to mention her brother. He was unemployed, obviously. Well, he said he was employed as a musician (a bass player in a band that never got bookings because they were shit. I’d heard them practising and they were woeful). But this alleged employment apparently didn’t stop him claiming the dole, which he spent on cannabis and whatever other drugs he could get his hands on. I rarely saw him when he wasn’t stoned. Actually, I rarely saw him, which suited me down to the ground.

  Two days before Summer’s birthday she came into the front room. I was sitting in Dad’s big leather recliner chair, reading a maths book. She harrumphed and I peered at her over the pages.

  ‘Come to tell me you’ve changed your mind, Summer?’ I said. ‘That I am now officially invited to your eighteenth as the guest of honour?’

  ‘Get real, Jamie,’ she said. ‘You’d hate it.’

  She was right, but I would have liked to have been asked, anyway. There’s nothing worse than being denied the opportunity to decline on your own terms.

  ‘So to what do I owe the pleasure?’ I said.

  ‘I need your advice.’

  I was surprised. I was more than surprised. I was stunned. Summerlee hadn’t asked my advice for years. Actually, I don’t think she had ever asked my advice. Normally our only interaction was me smiling at her and her grimacing like I was something unpleasant she had just stepped in.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m buying tickets for the lotto on my birthday. It’s a rollover jackpot and I’ll be eighteen, so I thought what the hell. So what are good lotto numbers to get? I thought you might know, being the hot-shit mathematician and all.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Do I look like I’m joking?’

  She didn’t. Summerlee never looked like she was joking, not anymore. It was one aspect of her tragedy.

  ‘It’s random, Summer,’ I said. To my credit I did not sigh. At least I think I didn’t. ‘There are no “good” numbers to get. Do what everyone else does. Birthdays, favourite numbers, whatever. Your odds are the same whatever you choose. Better still, get the computer to do it for you. What are they called? Lucky picks?’

  She shifted her weight, cocked her hip, put one hand on it and gazed at me through impossibly long and dark eyelashes. They were impossible because they were fake. Contempt oozed from every pore. She made as if to leave and I suspected that would be it as far as sibling communication was concerned for the foreseeable future.

  ‘I can tell you what numbers not to choose, though,’ I added. That stopped her.

  ‘Whaddya mean?’

  I settled back into my chair. There weren’t many occasions when she was keen to hear what I said – hell, there weren’t any occasions – and I was enjoying myself.

  ‘Game theory,’ I said after a suitable pause. ‘What other people do must affect what you do.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Let’s say the jackpot is fifty million and your numbers come up. Fantastic. But then you have to share that money with whoever else has come up with the same numbers.’

  ‘Yeah. So?’

  ‘So let’s say there are fifty winners in total. That leaves you with one mill as your share. Not bad, but not as good as fifty. Nothing like as good.’

  She twirled her hand, encouraging me to get to the point.

  ‘So what some people do,’ I continued, ‘is choose numbers that no one else in their right minds would choose, numbers that are outrageously unlikely to come up, even though statistics tell us that every combination is as likely as any other.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Jamie. Get to the point.’

  ‘So they choose something like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. They work on the principle that if those numbers come up, then they won’t have to share the jackpot with anyone, because who would think of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6? Instead of a measly one mill, they snag the whole pot.’ Summerlee raised her extravagant eyebrows.

  ‘What dumb fuck would choose those numbers? There’s no chance of them coming up.’

  ‘Wrong. They have exactly the same chance of coming up as 10, 13, 27, 28, 39 and 41. Or any other combination. It’s all about not sharing what you win.’

  ‘And so that’s a good idea, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s a really bad idea,’ I said. ‘It’s a spectacularly bad idea.’

  She did the hand-twirling bit again.

  ‘At any given time there are probably a couple of hundred people in the country who choose 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 precisely because they think no one else will choose them. I tellya. I would love it if those numbers did come up because
those greedy bastards would only get a quarter of a million, rather than the fifty mill they’d be expecting. Can you imagine how pissed off they’d be?’

  ‘So what’re you saying? Don’t choose 1 to 6?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

  ‘Well, thanks for nothing, Jamie, ’cos I wasn’t going to choose them anyway. You’d have to be a dumb fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, but at least you now know why you’d be a dumb fuck.’

  ‘For someone who’s supposed to be so smart, you really are a dick, you know?’

  ‘I aim to please.’

  I didn’t try to stop her when she made to go this time. But she stopped at the door, anyway.

  ‘What were those other numbers you said?’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘When you were telling me not to pick the dumb fuck numbers. 10, 13, whatever.’

  ‘It was just an example.’

  ‘Yeah, but they sounded good. Write ’em down for me, willya?’

  I sighed. This time I sighed. But I took a piece of paper anyway and wrote them down: 10, 13, 27, 28, 39, 41. Was that it? I couldn’t remember, but it didn’t make any difference. I gave her the paper and she slipped it into her jeans’ pocket.

  ‘Good luck,’ I said, but she left without replying.

  CHAPTER 5

  Gutless invited me round to his place on the Saturday of Summerlee’s birthday. I had nothing else to do. He wanted to show me a new video game he’d bought. Gamers never say ‘computer games’. They say ‘video games’. It must be cool to be retro in the world of hardcore gamers. To be honest, I’m not the slightest bit interested in computer games. I tried to be. Throughout the early years of high school, you didn’t really have a social life in the playground unless you were. But I never got into them. They were okay to while away a few hours, but then I got bored. I found it difficult to understand how someone like Gutless could spend days, weeks on the damn things with virtually no breaks. He told me there were others worse than him. He knew someone in Canada (Gutless knows lots of people around the world. Well, he knows them in a virtual sense) who wouldn’t even leave his computer to take a piss. He had his mother collect all these bottles and he would piss in them and leave them around his bedroom, just so he didn’t have to walk down the corridor and be away from his screen. And the really great thing was that his mother would collect the bottles and empty them for him. And bring them back, presumably, so he could start it all over again. I asked Gutless what his friend did when he needed a shit, but Gutless didn’t know. Just as well. I don’t think I wanted to know.