Supposedly if one million monkeys randomly press the keys on one million typewriters for one million years, one of those monkeys, at some point in time, will type Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
Who knows? I thought. Maybe I could be that monkey!
There were only three boards left, including the one that we were in the middle of playing. All I had to do was choose the right card every single time.
I concentrated on every card that was played. I tried to imagine what bid Trapp would make or what card Trapp would play. I tried to form a bridge between my conscious and subconscious minds.
When we finished, Gloria said I had done "very well." East and West complimented me too, not so much for my card-playing skill as for my composure.
Arnold and Lucy returned to the table. Gloria told them what had happened, but they already knew most of it, having heard the commotion, and having seen Teodora come and get Trapp. They also had seen me sitting in the South seat, alone.
"Alton did just fine," said Gloria.
What happened to "very well"? I wondered.
Lucy and Arnold didn't look too optimistic. "Let's add it up," said Lucy.
We lost the match by 24 IMPs. My only consolation was that if we didn't count the last three boards, we would have lost by 5.
We didn't even stay the night in the hotel. When Gloria and I got off the elevator on the tenth floor, Teodora was there to meet us. "Trapp wants to go home."
"Now?" exclaimed Gloria. "It's ten-thirty at night. We've already paid for the rooms. Why don't we just wait and see how he feels in the morning? Maybe a single-session pairs game will give him back his confidence."
Trapp appeared in the doorway. "Pack your bags. We're leaving."
Twenty minutes later, we were on the highway, with Trapp snoring in the backseat next to Teodora, and Gloria up front with me. "Don't you worry, Alton," said Teodora. "He will be himself again."
"It makes no difference to me," I said, angrily staring at the road.
He had never even asked about the remainder of the match. It had never occurred to him that I might have played well enough for us to win.
It wasn't impossible that I could have played the right card at the right time. I wasn't just your random monkey. I had played the game before, and I had watched him play hundreds of hands. I knew what it meant to take a finesse and to pull trump.
You begin each hand with thirteen cards, but I figured my odds were much better than thirteen to one on any given card. For one thing, you have to follow suit. So if someone led a spade and I only had three spades in my hand, I had a one in three chance of getting it right.
He could have at least asked!
All of my passengers had fallen asleep. I turned on the radio to keep myself awake, but not loud enough to wake them.
Bidding had been more of a challenge for me, but there, too, it wasn't as if I had to choose between all thirty-eight possible bids. Usually I had two, maybe three reasonable choices.
I decided I didn't believe that thing about monkeys and typewriters. If Lincoln's Gettysburg Address could be typed solely by accident, then that would mean it would be almost typed millions of times, with maybe just a couple of words wrong. Four score and six years ago. A government of the people, by the people, and smell the eggplant . It would also mean that those monkeys would randomly type millions of other works too, including a page out of the phone book with every name in alphabetical order and every phone number correct.
Gloria was snoring too, and then Teodora started. The inside of my car sounded like a factory.
I turned the radio up loud.