Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy!

CONTENTS

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

This book has not received

Author's Note

Acknowledgments

Recommended Reading

About the Author

Copyright

For my family

And for Jane

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A
few names from my personal life have been changed. Otherwise, all
Jeopardy!
games are on videotape, which can be examined down to the thirtieth of a second, and I have fact-checked until I can’t fact-check no more. Still, I’m sure there must be a few errors I’ve missed, and that these will become obvious five seconds after publication. These will be entirely my fault, and I will be waiting expectantly. In addition, a few moments in the story are inevitably based merely on my own perception and memory, which are admittedly fallible, as I have demonstrated on national television with some frequency.

CHAPTER
1

WHY ALEX MAY NOT HAVE A PHYSICAL BODY

Also, Choosing the Correct Millisecond

I
’m standing at the centermost of the three contestant podiums, which are wider and deeper than they look on TV. My feet are teetering on a wooden box, creating the illusion of height for the camera. To a viewer at home, the game board is as near as the screen. But here, it’s a faraway wall, the opposite side of a river-blue stage.

Though glowing with color from remote-controlled spotlights, the room is remarkably quiet and still. The black plastic buzzer feels cold in my hand.

I can’t see my opponents while we’re playing the game, but I can feel their movements, the bodily cues of who’s winning and losing: the small changes in posture, the shuffling of feet, the tensing of shoulders. With every response, our voices betray our excitement or calm, confusion or certainty, eagerness or dread. Choices of category and clue reveal personal strengths and confidence. Sometimes, I can even sense someone’s breath being held very slightly when they realize—faster than me, far too often—that they know the next response.

As Alex reads a clue, I now sense such a breath being held on my left. A full second passes. And another. Our buzzers are powerless, disconnected until Alex has finished. Instants tick by. On my right, barely glimpsed, a thumb readies. But we wait.

I can’t see Alex, either. I hear him, of course. His voice fills the room, reciting each clue with the perfect insistence of the timeline itself, a new clue every twelve seconds (on average) for more than twenty years. He is standing, as always, at his podium, just ten feet away, and almost in front of my eyes. But I cannot see Alex. In this moment, to my knowledge, he may not have physical form.

I am target-locked on the vast, distant game board: scanning the categories, thinking ahead, searching each clue for that one telling hint, considering dollar amounts and Daily Doubles and doing small silent bursts of math. And five times a minute, I am focusing on the last letter of the last word at the end of each clue, anticipating Alex’s last syllable, preparing my signal, tweaking my rhythm, adjusting my perception of time.

Millions may watch. Friends, family, lovers, all those I’ve cared about, or ever will, might be silently present in spirit. If the TVs in Heaven have decent reception, even my dad may be watching right now. But while actually playing, I am deep in my head. Surrounded by cameras, I can see no one. In this moment, I’m completely alone.

Even Alex is simply a voice from within, a Freudian ego with perfect inflection, pushing your memory, probing your defenses, testing your tiniest grasp of reality. Move your eyes for an instant, break the trance for one moment, and the game will be finished too soon. As will you.

So every twelve seconds, every twelve seconds, every twelve seconds,
finally
: plastic cacophony,
cliklikikkitylikkityclikit,
fingers and thumbs, fingers and thumbs, frantically seeking correct milliseconds, white buttons crashing down hard on black buzzers,
cliklikikkitylikkityclikit,
an urgent loud triple attack.

I drive an old car named Max.

I am wearing shoes I bought for a funeral almost ten years ago.

I am competing in a tournament with a $2 million prize.

In the spaces between instants, entire futures float by.

This…is…
JEOPARDY!

Eventually, mercifully: one player’s light will come on.

It will very likely not be mine. Every contestant is always outnumbered.

To my right stands a five-time champion. He is taller and older and better educated than me. I have learned, in this very minute, that he knows words I’ve never heard. To my left stands a man who won an International Tournament of Champions. More than just a five-time champ, he was arguably once the best player on earth. He seems to know everything I’ve ever learned, at a minimum, and he’s better on the buzzer than I am.

Surrounding the game board is a series of lights that will flash when it’s time to respond. Since more than one player knows almost every response, precision of rhythm can sometimes trump brilliance. Winning and losing often turn not on memory, but on mastery of these electronic milliseconds.