Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (31 page)

Hold on. Wait. You can’t fly-fish Moby Dick.

My hand stops.

Doing nothing is better than doing something really stupid.

The second chorus of the Think Music begins. I physically slump, putting one elbow on the podium and resting my chin on my hand. I still have no idea.

OK. Fish. Rods. Reels. Hip waders. Ice fishing. Angling. Bait. Boats. Back up—there’s an old book called
The Compleat Angler.
And it’s spelled funny, like “The Compleat Beatles” was, that documentary I saw on cable once. Must be old and famous. Good. Go!

Electronic pen on glass.
Clackity-click-whap-clackity.
Racing the Think Music to the end.
Write, come on, write,
write
you bastard…

I drop the pen just as the tympani thumps the final
bum-BUM!
whump.

Peter has written “What is the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
?” Alex reads this with surprise in his voice, not recognition.

Peter and I will stay in touch for several years. We have lunch and encourage each other. He will eventually co-write a parody of both the L.L. Bean catalog and modern business practice that will make me laugh out loud. But it is instantly clear that Peter will hear the “Oooh.”

Lyn, too, has written “What is
The Compleat Angler
?”

If she is correct, I have won.

Alex looks at Lyn…and he
smiles
at her.

Somewhere on a distant football field, Brian Sipe is on his tiny little ass. And another man is holding a football under a pair of goalposts.

Somewhere back in the Snow Belt, my mother and sister and the memory of my father are cheering.

The game we have just played is only the second of three semifinals. Glenn and Grant wrangle me directly into a cordoned-off section of the audience, where I will sit next to the winner of the first semifinal. For security reasons, the two of us must be carefully sequestered. Together we will watch the third game, speaking to no one but each other.

We will make small talk and pretend that we are not measuring each other, although in truth we will have immediately begun to compete under our breaths in a private head-to-head for pre-final supremacy.

As I climb the stairs, I recognize a familiar face smiling back at me.

Dan Melia.

I will be left alone in the dark for an hour with the Ivy League Serial Killer.

And then I will confront him twice that afternoon in a two-day final.

I have no idea in this moment that one day the result would be played as in-flight entertainment.

CHAPTER
15

A HAIL MARY FOR ANTHONY HOPKINS

Also, Fishing Up the Urethra

D
an and I spent the better part of an hour alone in the cool Sony stillness, illuminated only by blinding stage lights, able to hear nothing but the sound of Grace and Kim clawing and slashing at each other’s jugular, fighting over the third spot at our side.

I would like to tell you that I discovered my opponent to be cruel of hand, uncaring in heart, and of questionable dental hygiene. I would like to tell you that my first real conversation with Dan made me want to defeat him even more.

I’d like to tell you that, but I can’t.

Dan seemed genuinely happy for me. He could tell by my face that I hadn’t known
What is
The Compleat Angler? and he was delighted that I’d figured it out. When I explained my thought process, zigzagging through 1980s R&B, Herman Melville, Broadway shows, and the Beatles, Dan erupted with the same half-admiring, half-baffled laugh I’d have wanted to hear from my best friend right then.

Dammit.

So my attention turned from trying to find any edge against the professor, and toward rooting for Grace and Kim, who were busily crushing each other’s mental rib cages. Besides, I wanted to conserve energy, lest the prior day’s fever return.

Grace led the match entering Final Jeopardy, but Kim came through with a correct answer in the Final for the win. Kim will later describe this to me as “like one of those World War One things—I just climbed out of the trench with two fellow soldiers, and when I got to the next trench, they were gone. I didn’t know why or have authority to question the orders. I just knew I’d have to gear up and climb out again in a few minutes anyway.”

I would face Kim and Dan for the $100,000 grand prize.

I reviewed the broadcast dates: the first game would air on Lincoln’s birthday, and the second was set for a Friday the 13th. For a nine-show run that had begun the previous Halloween, this seemed a fitting way to close.

We had the usual Sony escort to the cafeteria before the two-day final would begin. Kim, Dan, and I sat together, eating lunch, wondering which of us would walk away as the best player of the year, not to mention $100,000 richer.

During our conversation, I learned that their pre-game rituals were at least as careful, slightly absurd, and necessary as my own. Kim went for long swims on the night before every taping, then carefully prepared himself a high-protein fillet of cod. Dan, the Berkeley professor, felt completely unable to play without going to Disneyland the day before.

Since the show had no higher-level tournaments, these games really would be the end of my
Jeopardy!
career. Finally.

Win or lose, I was glad to share my last games with these two.

Thanks to a high final score compelled by Lyn’s Daily Doubles, I’m assigned to the champion’s podium. I realize while we’re walking out that it feels like Dan really belongs there.

This is a very Cleveland thing to be thinking.

Game one begins with the following categories:

ARCHITECTURE
(Excellent! Notebook stuff—but I’ll need the break to think ahead on that.)

LITERARY POTENT POTABLES
(Great; let’s combine my two weakest subjects.)

MOVIE DEBUTS
(This could be any actor or director in the world.)

BODIES OF WATER
(More notebook stuff—but I feel pretty good here.)

PEOPLE OF THE MONTH
(What the heck is this?)

WORD ORIGINS
(Eek. This sounds like one for the Berkeley guy.)

I pick up my Jeopardy Weapon, hefting the black plastic, rubbing my index finger against the tiny button, marveling for a moment at the fraction of movement in the clickity instants, an eighth of an inch that can feel just like miles.

I plunge with blind faith into
BODIES OF WATER.
We begin.

“What’s the Mediterranean?”

“What’s a hansom cab?”

“What’s a cowslip?”

“What are jack straws?”

“What’s a filbert?”

These all dash by in a blink. Unfortunately, I do not give any of those responses.

“What is beer?”

I do not give that one, either.

After the first seven clues, I have known fewer than half of the responses. I pass the time by moving my finger without touching the buzzer, keeping the rhythm of the game in my body. I must remain patient, and detached, playing each passing moment. But for now I am only an observer, watching the show from third place in the distance. My only solace is that Dan’s voice has wavered in asking for more clues. I remind myself that he and Kim are nervous, too.

Finally:

Who is Gatsby?

After eight clues, I have given two responses and won on the buzzer exactly once. In desperation, I briefly peek at the Go Lights, trying to figure out if I’m early or late. But they barely illuminate.

Let’s zoom in on the single split-second before the flash of a Go Light, to feel the fineness of good
Jeopardy!
timing.

Sometimes you will see a trio of players whose exact buzzer movements are visible. Maybe all three thumbs are in view, or the clenching of one player’s hand causes her arm to twitch. (In my own case, my right shoulder drops slightly before I ring in, preceding my actual Weapon volley by roughly one video frame. Also, there is a puff of smoke on the grassy knoll.)

In advanced games, multiple players often twitch within three frames. In the United States, standard video zips by at 29.97 frames per second. (The missing .03 frame is collected by the IRS, which has a secret storage facility of fractional video frames, said to be used by the Pentagon for sinister purposes overseas.) So, in tournament play, all three thumbs might go
cliklikikkitylikkityclikit
in under one tenth of a second.

Just for comparison, a 90-mph fastball takes about 0.45 seconds to reach the batter. Most coaches think it takes about half that time to recognize a pitch and begin a good swing. Therefore, the reflex of a .300 hitter takes two tenths of a second. Twice as long. (Of course, we’re not comparing athletic ability—whoa, hey, heck no—just the
bang-bang
iness of timing.
Jeopardy!
clues are not curving in flight, nor do they slip out of Alex’s mouth occasionally and bean us, so we rarely flinch and hurl ourselves to the ground. Although I’ve come close a few times.)

On rare occasions, two or even all three contestants will twitch within a single video frame. One third of one tenth of a second. About 30 milliseconds. I would not believe this myself if I hadn’t seen it on tape. At these times the player who comes closest to when the Go Lights
actually receive electricity
—without being early—is the one who gets in. And tungsten filaments take a glimmer of time to heat up.

Studio audience members sometimes notice that the Go Lights occasionally seem to stay off or barely illuminate, as if skipping a clue here and there. Now you know why. Obviously, nobody is reacting that quickly. It’s just rhythm and state-dependent retrieval and a touch of good millifortune, nothing more. But that’s how on-target the best Jedis can be.

I would discount this occurrence as utterly random, especially since the whole process is triggered by
another
imperfect human being, invisible offstage, listening to some internal rhythm of his or her own. With four people pressing buttons, there’s too much margin of error for these single-frame moments to be more than a crapshoot.