Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (21 page)

In simple fact, most Eastern philosophies descend directly from
Jeopardy!
(n., uncert., prob. deriv. from ancient Pali
Djeh-paa-deh,
ca. 550
BCE,
lit. “buzz of life”), a Tibetan Zen-like tradition of students providing answers in the form of more questions, leading them on a path toward wisdom, liberation from suffering, and a new Chevrolet. In each generation, one master—the Merv—reincarnates to spread the teachings, which are written on fig leaves and preserved in a set of hollowed-out coconuts. The Merv, it is said, will announce himself to the world in song.

You know the rest of the story from there.

You may choose not to believe this. But it’s more fun if you do.

The legend also speaks of a trickster-mentor who will stand at a Podium of Judgment. About this figure, little else is written, but according to tradition (and I quote):

“You will know him by his Oooh.”

The Oooh came soon for the law student, who received her own Zen-like clue requiring close observation of her surroundings.

FROM THE GERMAN FOR “WING,” THIS HORN, HEARD HERE, WAS POPULARIZED BY CHUCK MANGIONE

This was followed by the familiar Think Music itself, played on a trumpetlike instrument with a fatter, mellower sound. I’d heard this horn many times while doing all-night jazz shows at a college radio station back in the Snow Belt.

The librarian, however, had probably been doing productive work or enjoying functional relationships on those many cold nights. “What is the flugelhorn?” eluded her. And for the second time, I had won.

A total of $3300 worth of responses—the margin that clinched the runaway win, in fact—were the direct result of speed-cramming my head full of horny philosophers, popes on rampages, and every one involved being eaten.

For the second time, I was standing with Alex and the other contestants at the center of the stage, letting the some-contestants-receive list roll by.

Bruce’s Yams! and Phazyme gas medicine! and Breath-A-Sure endorsed by George Kennedy! and a Honeysuckle Roast Turkey! caressed in a disturbingly sensual massage by undulating female hands! later, it was over.

Two down, three to go.

When this game was broadcast, it was preceded by a commercial for the Anthony Hopkins film
Amistad,
which I never saw because I was too busy studying.

This may seem like a stray and unnecessary fact at this point.

On the other hand, maybe there’s no such thing as trivia; maybe there’s only knowledge we have yet to fully grasp.

Either way, I’ve never seen
Amistad.
Just saying.

Back to the green room.

Ten pairs of eyes watching now.

I knew that the waiting contestants would be even more curious and worried now than I had been. Matt, on my first day, had won only one game. Now I had won two games, and everyone knew it. This was an edge I could press. But any bravado would now play as insecurity, so I just smiled and laughed as before.

Still, stuck in the green room, they had no way of knowing I had just racked up my second runaway. I would have a more commanding position if they knew. I tried simply to let a confident walk tell the story so far, and hoped that one of the departing players might share the full outcome.

One did.

Everyone in the green room would now think I was a dominant player. I considered this insane. But they had no way of knowing that.

Change the shirt. Comb the hair. Put on a different sport jacket, this time a ratty green corduroy mess. Pee.

Get ready to do it all again.

But first, make sure the other players can see you smile on the way to the stage.

And remind them, in the spirit of kind fairness, that they should absolutely
not
be nervous.

Enlightenment, my ass. I wanted more.

My third game of
Jeopardy!

Now batting: a jury consultant from Chicago and a grad student from Columbus.

What is Uranus?
for $400.

What is the Sunflower State?
for $500.

What is bioluminescence?
for $500.

Before the first commercial, three of my eight correct responses came as a direct result of study. By the end of the first round, my total was as much as the two other players’ combined. It almost seemed easy.

I came across
bioluminescence,
incidentally, while flipping through a dictionary, the sort of thing I had taken to doing as a rest break from Chuck-a-palooza at home. Bioluminescence, you will begin telling friends, is the phenomenon where meat becomes so rotten that it actually starts to
glow.

Wow. You barely even need a mnemonic. Glowing meat? Are you serious? Bright red, rotten meat, glowing with blue and green light? I’m less worried about remembering it than not having a camera when I see it someday.

Halfway through the Double Jeopardy round was this clue:

THE HUGO AWARD FOR THIS TYPE OF LITERATURE HONORS HUGO GERNSBACK, WHO COINED THE TERM

Annika never came to a
Jeopardy!
taping. Other players had friends and family in the audience for support. I didn’t. It didn’t even seem strange at the time, which tells you how alienated Annika and I had become.

What I couldn’t have known was that one day, years later, I would return to the stage with someone at my side who had actually won a Hugo award.

What is science fiction?
could describe how this felt.

This Hugo Award winner would meet Alex, and she would be slightly starstruck, enough that when I mentioned her award, she would explain what a Hugo Award was to Alex, modestly thinking it was too small a trophy for anyone to know. Alex would know, of course, but he would smile and nod, a congenial host even when the cameras are off.

Jane would be a lot of fun to be with that day.

This game was my third runaway. Entering Final Jeopardy, I had three times the score of the nearest competitor.

Center stage with Alex. The Remington Dual Microscreen Shaver! DeWitt’s Pills, the affordable back remedy trusted by millions! And (as every day now) a Honeysuckle White Turkey brought near physical climax by two lascivious hands!

Green room. Eight pairs of eyes watching. Shirt, jacket, pee, all smiles.

I wanted more.

Game four.

A management consultant from Virginia and a vice president of marketing from Pennsylvania.

What are barrels?

What is polo?

What is a carpenter?

Who are the fishmongers?

What is a scrivener?

I have just locked up my fourth straight game by running an entire category called
LONDON CITY GUILDS,
something I never once studied or thought might come up on the show.

To this day, I am not exactly sure how this happened. Honest.

I saw the word
fishmongers
in
Mad
magazine once. I know that for sure.

During the third commercial break in this game, wrangler Glenn made a friendly remark about how I was doing, using Frank Spangenberg’s name as a touchstone.

Frank, you recall, was the New York transit cop with the walrus mustache and the efficiency of a Borg-like computer, the highest-scoring five-time winner in the show’s history.

Glenn’s remark was something like: “You’re doing well. Not quite
Frank Spangenberg
well. But not a bad run so far.”

Years later, Frank’s name, like Chuck’s, is still a gold standard. In
Jeopardy!
terms, this is like being told as a writer, “You’re pretty decent. Not Mark Twain, but not incoherent.”

I was glad not to face Frank Spangenberg on this day. Even as well as I was doing, I knew I would have been stomped.

Center stage. Mrs. Butterworth’s Syrup! Caltrate Pills (because it’s never too late for Caltrate)! The Libman Wonder Mop!

Green room. Six pairs of eyes now greeting me, looking more downcast by the hour.

I wanted more.

But I was starting to tire. So I was starting to get nervous.

Nervous is not what I was prepared to be.

After the third game of each taping date,
Jeopardy!
breaks for lunch. This does not, however, mean that you get to relax.

For security reasons,
Jeopardy!
must quarantine the surviving contestants from all human contact. Otherwise, an audience member from an earlier game could theoretically tip off the challengers, passing along notes on the categories already played or the champion’s propensity for shoving things up his nose.

We were therefore marched to a commissary across the Sony lot, escorted by a watchful Glenn and Grant, who set a light and airy tone, roughly ninety percent Cub Scout parade, ten percent Luftstalag. This was delightful, given the stress involved. We sat at tables carefully placed away from all other living things, and munched on our sandwiches and salads in nervous silence.

The remaining contestants continued to scrutinize me slyly. I had to maintain the act of cool, quiet, confident reserve.

This was more difficult with each passing minute.

The next game was for more than just cash. After five wins,
Jeopardy!
awarded the retiring champion a new car and a guaranteed spot in the annual $100,000 Tournament of Champions.

I
so
didn’t want to screw this up. I was starting to stress, fearing my own anger at myself if I did.

At the same time, I was looking forward beyond the final game to come. I suddenly had over $43000. While this was modest compared with the prizes now routinely handed out, it was more money than I had ever seen in my life.
Screw
cool reserve: I wanted to turn cartwheels across the restaurant floor. I was out of debt again. I could pay the rent for a while, no worries. I could call Mom and Connie and tell them I done good. I wanted to dance and sing and scream in fear and run around in circles shouting
boogety-boogety woop-woop-woop yah GAAAH!

Instead, I just nodded when spoken to, and listened, and smiled, and tried not to show my nerves, fatigue, and excitement.

Under the table, where no one could see, I was snapping my fingers back and forth, over and over and over.

I knew that if I let the stress take over, I would lose my fifth game. While extreme stress can jump your memory into high-speed Record mode as a survival skill, it also kills your recall. Imagine your brain as a bit like a VCR, which can’t both record and play back at the same time.

Think back to any moment of real, genuine,
I’m-gonna-die
danger: a car wreck, or an earthquake, or tripping headlong down a marble staircase toward a pack of hungry weasels. Would remembering that Franklin Pierce was associated with Valentine’s Day through a hail of arrows, and was thus the fourteenth president, have been any help whatsoever? Probably not.

Your body knows that. And so in those
I’m-an-entrée!
moments, while it’s busy paying close attention to everything that’s going on
right this freakin’ second,
it ditches your ability to remember anything that isn’t.

This is why even the brightest and most talented people can still sometimes choke under pressure. It’s just biochemistry. Believe it or not, your body reacts to stress—virtually any stress—with almost exactly the same biochemical changes it would use to evade a horny ocelot. The differences are pretty much a matter of degree.