by Bob Harris
The first chorus of the Think Music is ending. I have to begin writing in a matter of seconds.
Everything connects to everything else.
Fishing. Old books about fishing. Wait—Moby Dick! Yes! Moby Dick!
On the tape, you can see my hand start to write.
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
Dan 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-banginess 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.
Except for one thing: some players really do seem reliably better at blanking the Go Lights than others, game after game.
This may be luck—an anomaly of insufficient trials, the unlikely flip of a coin that lands heads ten straight times—but it’s also possible that some Jedis are simply that good. Jeopardy! clues end in a limited number of rhythms and sounds, a few hundred combinations at most. Maybe someone with particular talent, watching the game in the months before playing, might preconsciously sense the unseen buzzer-person’s own internal clock.
This would not be different from my own Jedi skills. Just much better.
In any case, by the end, you will meet one player whose name has become synonymous with tungsten destruction.
However, as Dan and Kim have begun the $100,000 two-day grand final by making the Go Lights vanish repeatedly, there is not even a word for what is happening.
It occurs to me that one ought to exist.
But there is not much time to think about it.
I am not standing at a podium. I am standing at a low bookcase. And this is not a buzzer in my hand. This is a ballpoint pen rolled in masking tape…
Finally, ten clues into the game, I find my way in BODIES OF WATER:
SITTWE, BURMA, & CALCUTTA, INDIA ARE MAJOR PORTS ON THIS BAY
I’ve never heard of Sittwe, and the only Burmas I know are the country and the Shave. But there are three big hints: First, we want a huge body of water, since it serves ports in two countries. Second, the clue explicitly says we want a “bay.” So we just need a giant wet spot near India. Fortunately, I once drew a cartoon in my notebooks depicting, right to left, a Bengal tiger eating an Indian guy swearing in Arabic, representing the layout of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Thus:
What is the Bay of Bengal? is correct. (And if you ever see a rerun of one of my games, and I’m jabbing the air with my left hand just before a response, I’m working my way across a cartoon just like this.)
The next clue takes similar seat-of-the-pants logic:
THE KAGERA RIVER IS THE LARGEST AND MOST IMPORTANT TRIBUTARY OF THIS AFRICAN LAKE
I’ve also never heard of the Kagera River. But there are only a few big lakes in Africa, and this was just a $400 clue with no other hints at all, so the writers can’t be going for anything tricky. The obvious answer, then, would be the biggest lake in Africa, which is fortunately as round as its royal namesake:
What is Lake Victoria?
Finally comes this Daily Double:
NAMED FOR AN EXPLORER IT’S CANADA’S LONGEST RIVER
I flash to a cartoon in my notebooks—a hurried blue scrawl of Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis of SCTV dressed as Canadian hosers and drowning in a river of beer—and without hesitation I blurt:
What’s the Mackenzie?
I’m climbing back into the game.
Alex, for his part, seems to be having a fabulous time, decorating his lines with Hindi accents and Scottish brogues where appropriate. He seems at least as stoked as we are.
As we reach the first commercial, Kim, Dan, and I have played a nearly perfect game, responding to all fifteen clues correctly with only one missed guess.
Despite letting seven of fourteen buzzing opportunities pass—still surrendering half of the game so far—I am tied with Dan for the lead.
During the break, I am playing ahead furiously. I still have no idea what PEOPLE OF THE MONTH is, and MOVIE DEBUTS is too broad of a category to consider. But my notebooks do have a large section on ARCHITECTURE.
In my mind, the first important English architect loves dashing in and out of royal doorways (Inigo Jones). A German pole vaulter gropes a small dog (Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school). A hundred dancing corpses shout “Yay!” while poking the holes in a block of Swiss cheese (Swiss architect Le Corbusier). The greatest trophy in the field is shaped like a building wearing a pretty skirt (the Pritzker Prize).
On the tape, as Alex moves through the contestant chats, I’m staring intently at the board, still trying to sort out which Finnish guy—Saarinen or Salonen—designed the JFK airport and the arch in St. Louis. Ah, wait—it was Saarinen, because he was soarin’ in.
I am also trying not to notice that my hands are becoming sweaty. I am wiping them on my suit, attempting to keep my buzzer dry.
We begin again. I blast through two in a row, then Dan rips off four in a row. I fight back with two more:
What is Rococo?
Who is Le Corbusier?
The latter, of course, is an ARCHITECTURE response I’ve called up just moments before.
This last clue—
THIS SWISS MAN WHO USED A PSEUDONYM WAS KNOWN FOR HOUSES ON STILTS LIKE THE SAVOIE HOUSE IN POISSY
shows you how little I really know at this point. I do not know that “Le Corbusier” was a pseudonym, I have never heard of the Savoie House nor Poissy, and I have no idea why you’d put houses on stilts. Instead, I see only this, in the category ARCHITECTS:
BLAH SWISSBLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
Thanks to months spent with notebooks, I find the correct response, barely reading it off the image of the word in my head, stumbling through the pronunciation of “core-booze-yay” as if I’ve never seen it before in my life. This is not far from reality. And yet the game against the Berkeley professor with a Harvard education is still a virtual tie.
PEOPLE OF THE MONTH turns out to be a category asking for people with names matching calendar months. Asked for a Swedish playwright, the only one I can think of is “Strindberg,” a name in my notebooks connected to Sweden and little else. I don’t see any link to a calendar month. Instants later, Dan replies:
“Who is August Strindberg?”
I am left only shaking my head. Still, on the very next clue, in MOVIE DEBUTS, I respond with
Who is Johnny Depp?
HA! Take that, guy who actually knows
Swedish playwrights’ full names! But I’m starting to realize that Dan has actually read all the books whose titles I have merely memorized. This is not going to make my life easy.
In the remainder of MOVIE DEBUTS, Dan gets Valerie Harper. Kim gets Kiefer Sutherland. I get Jennifer Beals. So I get the best end of that deal. And finally, on the last clue of the round, I take an unusual risk:
STACY KEACH & SONDRA LOCKE DEBUTED IN THIS 1968 FILM BASED ON A CARSON MCCULLERS NOVEL
I ring in, naming the only Carson McCullers novel I can remember, knowing there are others on my list. But sure enough,
What is The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter?
—puts me back in the lead at the end of the round.
I still feel outclassed, however. I begin to believe I will have to continue gambling where I can in order to win in the end. You may notice that this is a departure from the Enlightened Path. Ahem.
As soon as the round ends, Dan and Kim and I are having so much fun in the competition that we immediately turn to chat, not realizing that we’re barely paying attention to Alex doing the outro for the folks at home. It’s both the hardest I’ve ever played and the most fun I’ve ever had in a game. The feeling seems entirely mutual.
During the break, I make a point of saying out loud to the others that my temperature is still down and I’m still feeling much better. More than once.
