Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! (55 page)

CHAPTER
26

WHERE ALL KNOWLEDGE IS KEPT

Also, Eleven More Sentences That Are Actually True

These are the last six categories I will see on the
Jeopardy!
stage.

Dan and Dara are standing together at the center contestant podium.

Strangely, I’m the man standing on the host’s mark, greeting a room full of family, old friends, and people I’m not allowed to consider old friends for security reasons. I have crossed briefly to the other side of the river-blue stage. It is quiet. It is calm. There are warm smiles as far as the lights let me see.

Alex is watching. From the audience. This is a very odd sight.

The impossible does happen in Trebekistan, it seems.

As you’ve gathered, the producers said yes to Dan and Dara.

And the state of California said yes to me being holy and all. For a strictly limited twenty-four-hour interval, required to use specific verbiage in several parts of the ceremony, and explicitly restricted to civil actions divested of all trace of the transcendent, I have the power to perform sacred rites.

It’s the first marriage I’ve performed in my life.

This would have been strange enough. But the place, on this stage, pushes the day into reverie.

There is Dara, looking lovely in a silk Mandarin cheongsam. Dan is as dapper as always. They are signed in together with the electronic pen.

To Dan’s right, at the champ’s spot, is his brother John, the best man. On Dara’s left, at the far podium, is the matron of honor, Dara’s sister Carrie.

The two families are gathered at the edge of the stage. Jane’s silently
GWEEEP
ing and perhaps slightly weeping with glee.

Besides Alex, the entire show is pitching in, showing Dan and Dara this kindness. The tech guys have rigged the game board with the vows. The soundman is up in the booth with the Think Music. Someone has even adorned the podium with fresh flowers.

It’s the end of a long taping day. They are all staying late, with goofy smiles on their faces. There may be rationales—there
must
be, given the strictness of security and lawyers—so of course there’s no friendship involved.

It’s my role here, as vow-giver, to be a serene and comforting force. Consider what you’ve read, and see just how likely that seems.

But many years have gone by since I first took that one sharp breath in the green room. This is easy. It’s a hillside. It’s a temple. It’s the Snow Belt. This is Ironwood. It’s a cave in Malaysia. It’s Trebekistan. I know my way here.

So as Dan and Dara have requested, the opening theme plays. I stride out in a suit and an old pair of shoes, which I will now choose to remember as my wedding shoes, and begin to relax. Welcome, everyone. It feels just like a chapel should feel.

I walk to Alex’s podium and read a few simple wise words from the Book of Common Prayer. John reads a psalm. Carrie reads from Romans. Dan and Dara quote
Star Trek
and Francis Ford Coppola’s version of
Dracula.
They are happy and loving and a little bit loopy. And they mean every word to each other.

We begin the Ceremony Round. Dan has control of the board. He selects
WEDDINGS
for $200. The clue reads as follows:

A MAN CUSTOMARILY SAYS THIS IF HE SHOULD CONSENT TO HAVE THIS WOMAN TO BE HIS WEDDED WIFE…

followed by the rest of the vow.

The Think Music plays. Dan buzzes in with a smile. It is softer than the one I first saw on this very spot. “What is ‘I do,’ Bob?” he responds, and Dan has $200 and a bride.

Dara takes her turn, choosing the $400 clue.

A WOMAN CUSTOMARILY SAYS THIS IF SHE SHOULD CONSENT TO HAVE THIS MAN TO BE HER WEDDED HUSBAND…

The Think Music plays again. Dara knows the correct response, as she has since the day she met Dan. “What is ‘I do,’ Bob?” and Dara has $400 and a husband. She also takes a $200 lead.

An exchange of rings later, that’s how the scores end. So technically, Dara has won in a runaway. But we all call it even.

You can see some of the game as an extra on the
Jeopardy!
DVD. It’s an excellent match between two very close equals. Dan and Dara are now husband and wife. A last win on
Jeopardy!
is the first thing they’ll share.

It is exactly the wedding they wanted, and the happiest one I could hope to see. I stride over to shake Dan’s hand, and then bring the marriage certificate. Alex signs this, as the wedding’s official witness. Using his podium to write on, he looks completely delighted.

People often ask me what Alex is like.

I think now you know.

I notice, while he’s writing, a small drawer on the podium. It’s hidden from the camera and players. Few people realize it’s there.

This is where
Jeopardy!
keeps all knowledge in the universe.

I am told, and you must believe, this is where they still keep the ancient coconuts handed down by the Merv. Not to mention everything learned since, through the ages.

It seems remarkably tiny, to hold so much information. But this is Sony, after all. They’re pretty good with the small stuff.

For a moment, while everyone’s taking pictures, I can peek if I want to. I can see how the rest turns out, and much time is left for us all in the round.

But no.

That would be getting ahead of the story.

So there’s Susanne, now retired. It is so good to see her. And here’s Maggie, the new head wrangler, and Glenn, Grant, and the rest. There are at least a dozen more folks whom I wish you could have met along with me. Harry, the man in charge. Rocky, a former player, now a senior producer. And Rebecca and June and Lisa and Kevin and Cole and Renee and Ayesha and Luci and a whole slew of people I will never admit the slightest affection for, out of respect for the show’s security.

Jane and I stand to one side, near the giant game board. We are sharing a slow glass of champagne.

Center stage, Dan and Dara are dancing together, their first dance now as husband and wife.

This very stage, you should know, was used not long ago to film MGM musicals, before Sony and
Jeopardy!
moved in. Jane and I didn’t know this when we sang in the car, but (in a Trebekistan turn we were both pleased to learn) Judy Garland herself once danced to a familiar old tune not far at all from this very same spot.

Sing Hallelujah, come on, get happy, we’re gonna chase all our cares away…

Dan and Dara are dancing in a way Jane and I never quite have.

Perhaps someday soon we will dance this way, too.

So at last this is the end, the real end, of my
Jeopardy!
career, the part where Morgan Freeman begins to narrate, and you know it’s time to get your coat.

I think it is, anyway. I assume. But I admit I don’t know.

But I’m still, and will remain, gladly trapped in Trebekistan. I am eager to see more of its farthest fields.

Soon I will go off to find the wild pudu on a small Chilean island. I want to glimpse these tiny fragile deer with my own eyes. I would like to see Bhutan while I and it are both still here.

Jane might come with me. Or not. I hope and believe. But I admit I don’t know.

I’ll keep traveling, until the future comes, hoping to be a good passerby. With budget tickets, simple needs, and just one backpack to carry, it’s amazing what it’s possible to find. Leslie Shannon, now happily married in Finland, wants to meet next in Beijing. Chuck Forrest, now in Rome, tells me to not to miss Sarajevo. I’ve promised a full report when I see him next time. He’ll choose the restaurant. I’ll buy dinner. I’ll let him choose the wine.

I have, in a way my father could have only dreamed for me, high hopes.

I don’t remember what year it was the first time I failed the
Jeopardy!
test. I don’t need to. They’ve given me much greater things to wonder.

Eleven more sentences, all true, and with deep appreciation to you for reading, as we stop twisting the timeline and at last slip back into the moment where I’m sitting right now:

I am not in a coffee shop, but at a bright blue kitchen table, where Trebekistan smells of fresh spices, wet paint, and a light ocean breeze.

In the spare bedroom, there remains a large mound of old boxes and plastic bags, my possessions still stacked in a quiet scared pile.

But the mountain is shrinking. The boxes are opening. Small items are gently climbing onto new shelves.

Jane is in the next room, rearranging books, merging collections, as I write this. She is singing, in fact, although I don’t know the song.

This book itself has made me see connections I had not quite appreciated, subjects I should have learned long ago.

I realized at last it was time to unpack when I was writing the chapter where we scored the big touchdown. We are both finally home.

That’s the real happy ending, so I’m telling you now.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many people to thank for their kindness that I could write an entire book for precisely that purpose. Fortunately, I just did, and you’re reading it. However, above and beyond:

Shana Drehs, this book’s editor, took a chance on me, embraced my habit of treating language like Tunisian crochet, and braved long hours as a result, while remaining so playful that I hope she’ll continue to tell me I’m not making any sense yet many times in the years to come.

Marly Rusoff is the literary agent who realized that this book was more than just a possible magazine article. She took a chance on me, too, and then found Shana. This book wouldn’t exist without her.