Afterthought
By ALAN BRIEN This game is rarely played in that raw and bloody manner where I live. (And I hope I need not say that I am against capital punishment of anybody—let alone of lunatics.) In my experience the wooden leg can take many shapes or forms, even that of a genuine artificial limb, but it is essentially some drawback, real or imaginary, which is used by White as an excuse for be- haviour which would otherwise appear com- pletely inexcusable. For the unfaithful spouse, the justification may be the possession of irresistible sexual appetites. (Though phrased as a confes- sion, White's play usually has strong overtones of boasting.) For the unsatisfactory employee, it may be the admission of alcoholism. Sometimes the wooden leg is revealed as a disability which was suffered so far back in the past, through cruel parents, impoverished childhood, corrupt school- fellows or damaging war experiences, that no reasonable opponent can blame White for not overcoming its effects in adulthood.
It is often displayed as a chip on the shoulder but the chips are worn like epaulettes and White lets it be known, with a brave suffering smile, that nothing short of a dangerous surgical opera- tion could remove them. Like Byron's limp, the wooden leg never seems to prevent White from indulging himself in any activities which pleasure and flatter him but it can always be counted upon to act up whenever he is called upon to extend himself on behalf of Black. Many diseases are wooden legs; mild non-fatal handicaps, lovingly carved and polished by their possessors through- out a long and leisurely life. They can usually be distinguished from real diseases by observing the way White talks about them—if he exhibits them with a quiet, narcissistic pride as though they were unruly but lovable pets then you can be sure he is making the opening move in 'Wooden Leg.'
Once alerted by Dr. Berne (who pays tribute to the pioneering research of Stephen Potter in this field) it is difficult not to see every meeting be- tween people as a Game. Another American psychiatrist, Dr. Edmund Bergler, some years ago supplied a clue which explained for me the otherwise mysterious stability of so many stormy marriages with his concept of 'Injustice-Collect- ing.' What draws such couples together, and pro- vides a narrative line to their common serial, is the masochistic pleasure of being continually misunderstood, regularly underrated, inevitably rebuffed, in their attempts to make 1cife happier and easier for the other, Eaoh day they start anew, determined, as they tell their confidants with weary candour, to spare no inconvenience or even hardship to themselves in the attempt to satisfy the other's selfish wishes. But somehow the timing is always impeccably wrong. Both of them slave away, warmed by the confidence that no other husband or wife would take such trouble or incur such expense, only to find that they are frustrating each other's desires at every turn. By bedtime, each has a list of injustices which would make a Divorce Court Judge weep. And each is right. But sincerity is not enough. In marriage, what counts is what you do not why you do it. White and Black reach a stalemate with their stale mates. But they go on playing the game because no other available player knows and practises the elaborate, almost Japanese, ritual of blocking each move before it is com- pleted.
Usually, the Game is played with the points collected and totalled up in separate interior monologues. When the weight of injustice is so heavy that recrimination must burst out into open argument, a visiting friend will find that his arbitration is sought over some obscure technicality which would baffle a Ministry of Labour official adjudicating between hole-borers and hole-screwers in a strike-hit shipyard.
In its most light-hearted and affectionate form, the Injustice Game is played by one couple I know entirely as disagreements over nomencla- ture, and who knows what real clash underlies a passionate dispute over whether a mushroom is a vegetable or a plant? Another pair I remem- ber carried their progressive, outspoken, married wrestling to the extent of sitting down in separate rooms to type out a list of the number of lovers each had entertained in ten years. This was.
officially, supposed to be a seal on their recorr ciliation and a proof of their mature honesty in personal relationships. It failed, to their surprise but to no one else's, when it appeared that hls list was half the length of hers.
Illness is a Game very often—concealing under an array of painful, and often dangerous, syrnr toms, the unspoken appeal of a father, a wife or
son to the rest of the family. Seduction has alwaYs been known to be a Game, with moves refined over the centuries to a complexity and subtlelY unmatched even in three-dimensional chess. Even
in its crudest, adolescent state, when it is played almost in silence and with little intellectual con' tent, it has its rules, its theories, its eternal problems. I remember in schoolboy days our long discussions as to whether White should begin at the bust with the brassiere straps or at the knee with the suspender knobs and work down
or up. And I recall I. was something of an inna' vator in arguing for starting at the waist, where there was the freedom of choice and possibililY of surprise feints in one direction or another.
What I cannot decide, after having had the advantage of the advice of Mr. Potter, Dr. Berne and Dr. Bergler, is whether you can profitablY go on playing any of these Games once both
sides admit that it is a Game. I have made 3 resolution to give up 'Wooden Leg,' for instance, but will I have more or less control over II1Y, destiny if I begin playing another one which s
do not understand? Surely the great Games Master is the man who does not need to play any at all?
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