Dead-pool divers.

When Ken Kesey's son, Jed, was killed in an accident?the van carrying his wrestling team skidded off a cliff?I immediately flew to Oregon. "I feel like every cell in my body is exploding," Kesey said as we embraced. A few days later, several friends were sitting around the dining room table, and someone mentioned that the Dead Kennedys were on tour. "I wonder if Ted Kennedy is gonna go see 'em," I said.

Kesey, standing in the kitchen, said, "That's not funny."

"You're right, I apologize. It's not very abstract right now."

"It's never abstract."

I recalled that little dialogue as I began to explore the Game, now in its 34th year, the longest-running dead pool in America, currently with 125 players. Before Jan. 1, everyone submits 68 names of people who might die that year. (Dr. Death, Game co-founder, liked to work on a legal pad?34 lines, two columns, 68 names.) Points are awarded according to the age of each dead person?anybody in their 50s is worth five points; 60s, four; 70s, three.

Each participant gets one wild card per year, worth five points no matter how old the deceased. Gamesters generally pick one-pointers for their wild card to get four extra points. Last year, most picked Bob Hope. When he died, one Gamester said, "My father was shot during World War II. While [he was] recuperating in England, Mr. Hope came up to his bedside and stuffed a half-dozen golf balls into his mouth. It cheered my old man up."

Deaths become official when mentioned in the New York Times or any two major newspapers. One player "is extremely frustrated," I was told. "He has Idi Amin, who is on life support in a Saudi hospital. Now there have been death threats, and armed guards have been posted." Since the listees are all on various rungs on the ladder of celebrityhood, the Game is understandably rife with abstraction.

"After all, the dead pool has probably been around since the phenomenon of fame itself," write Mike Gelfand and Mike Wilkinson in Dead Pool. "It has certainly been around as long as gallows humor has. In the heyday of hard-boiled journalism (the Front Page days of the 1930s), reporters who covered a country ravaged by organized crime and engaged in a world war found respite in the dark humor of the dead pool? Even before the Internet, the dead pool was slowly emerging from the shadows of our culture."

The Dead Pool book is a guide to profiting from money-based dead pools, such as those found in offices or, say, on Howard Stern's radio show. Members of the Game play solely for the fun of it. Whoever has the most points at the end of the year wins?"bragging rights only"?slightly ironic since Gamesters (lawyers, ad people, educators, psychology professors, lobbyists, writers, "everyday stiffs") all play under aliases like Bury Pranksters, Fade to Black, Frozen Stiff, Worm Feast, Decomposers, 2 Dead Crew, Johnny B. Dead, Wm. Randolph Hearse, Daisy Pusher, Silk Shroud, Necrophiliac Pimp, Legion of Doom, Gang Green, Habeas Corpse, Die-Uretic, Shovelin' Off, Blunt Instrument, Rig R. Mortis, Flatliners, Unplugged, Toe Tag, Clean Underwear, Gratefully Dead and the Moorebids. They "play for honor, not bragging rights. It has to do with honoring who you get the hit on."

Each Gamester pays $10 to Pontius, official coordinator and editor, to keep score and report the hits. There are players in more than 30 states (23 in New York), plus one each in Quito, Kuwait, England and Australia. You can become a Gamester only by being recommended by another Gamester. They're mostly baby boomers, attracted by a whimsical, informative style of reporting.

Last year, 49 Gamesters "hit" Buddy Ebsen. Obituaries mentioned that after 10 days of filming The Wizard of Oz, Ebsen fell ill because of the aluminum make-up on his skin, and was replaced as the Tin Man by Jack Haley. (This led one player to wonder, "Did Jack Haley add something to the aluminum make-up at the Wizard set?") On the other hand, there have been "solos" on the unexpected demise of Princess Diana and JFK Jr. "A solo I am proud of," one Gamester told me, "is the hit on Christian Nelson, who invented the Eskimo Pie ice cream bar."

"The Game is a light-hearted way of spitting in death's eye," noted one player. "[It's] your opportunity to pick a Generation-X rock star who ODs on heroin, a geriatric blue-hair who finally kicks the bucket, a fascist totalitarian in the Mid-East who is assassinated. I'm not doing great this year because I invested too heavily in Hamas, but I'm still in the top 10. The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is doing its job, I just guessed wrong. Last year, I scored on Khattab, a Saudi-Jordanian rebel leader who was killed by a letter he opened that was poisoned. Our first poison-pen-letter death."

Isn't it a bit ghoulish?

"No more so than fantasy baseball," another participant said. "We can get up in the morning and either pick up the newspaper or turn on the Internet to see if we scored, every day. It's like baseball stats?you want to move up in the standings of the veterans. The reason we Gamesters play, I would say, is about style. Style involves who you pick. Some concentrate on music, some on politics, some on sports."

As for social significance, one player explained that "the pastime has been going on for more than 400 years, so I don't think it's his or her own perspective."

"The Game is irreverent, even a bit shocking, and some take pleasure in that. It's a poke to the ribs that lie beneath stuffed shirts, a tweak of bluenoses. The Game is a competition?challenging, engaging and energizing. The Game heightens awareness and helps us to recognize our kinship with those whose deaths we note."

The Game's list-serve emails are titled "It's a Hit!" They can be poignant, respectful, even sentimental: "July 4th?A score of swaying Gamesters were heard singing 'I Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe' as each collected a five note from velvety-voiced singer Barry White...."

Or they can sound like a warhorse race: "July 22nd?Mosul, Iraq. Qusay and Uday, the brutal and powerful sons of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, were ambushed by Special Forces and the 101st Airborne that resulted in a deadly four-hour firefight. Enjoying the best day of his career was Tomb Essence who had a 14-point Daily Double...."

But the Game giveth and the Game taketh away: "August 21st?British and American armed forces in Iraq announced today that they had arrested Ali Hasan al-Majid, aka Chemical Ali. Back in April of [last] year, the British armed forces announced they had killed him. Tomb Essence celebrated then, but is crying like a baby now...."

Animals have also been "scored," from Morris the cat to Dolly the cloned sheep to Keiko the killer whale.

Choices can get personal. One player told me, "I purposely left off a good friend [former New York Post editor Jerry Nachman] who I knew was dying, and one our game mates refused to list a friend's [famous] mother who she knew was dying. Sometimes we just don't want to 'cash in' on our friends' pain."

Gamesters have scored on all the Kennedys, as well as Lorraine Petersen, the model on the Sunmaid Raisins box. But, under the title "It's Not a Hit!" came this email: "August 9th?The entire Game failed to list dancer and actor Gregory Hines, 57." In the Game's 2001 Hit List, under the subhead, "Other Notable Deaths That No One Picked," included was "Ken Kesey, 11/12/01, author, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

This was not abstract.

[paulkrassner.com].