I forget when it was that my roommate’s brother J crashed with us. To use an unconventional unit of time, it was all of my friends getting married ago. I remember that J’s girlfriend had kicked him out, “and I deserve it,” he said but those were all the details he would supply. The rest I got from my roommate. J had just completed a month long rehab for cocaine. He needed a little time to get back on his feet.

In my memory, this occurs in the afternoon though the details are fuzzy. I believe J was just getting up either for the day or from a nap. I was getting home from somewhere. Or maybe I was unemployed at the time. I know that it was a weekday and my roommate was at work which is how J and I found ourselves in the apartment.

I’m not sure how one is supposed to look after completing rehab and finding that he had no place to stay but he seemed alright to me. A little worn out with bedhead and a few days of stubble but he was a bartender and kept bartender hours. So, any time I had met him, that’s just how he looked.

We had the conversation of two people who are connected by a third person. Thanks for letting me stay, no problem, if you need me to get out of here, let me know, no, man, it’s cool, you’re fine, you sure, yeah, cool, et cetera, et cetera.

There was one thing I needed to do, though. “Hey,” I said, “Do you mind if I watch TV?”

“Oh, yeah, man, go for it. What are you watching?”

“Uh, my friend is on Jeopardy.”

So, let’s take a moment to talk about Jeff.

Jeff was always just smart. I always got good grades but Jeff’s intelligence was different. I learned by rote what the teachers taught me. I knew what we happened to be studying at any particular time but nothing more. I didn’t take my proficiency for math and science out of the classroom and I only read the assigned books.

Jeff was smart in a, “how did you know that?” kind of way. He had a breadth of knowledge in history and politics that just kind of came naturally to him.

He was smart in high school, smart in college, and smart in law school. So, when he auditioned for and was accepted to be a contestant on Jeopardy,* none of us was surprised.

Jeff ended up being a three time Jeopardy champion. I went home to Rochester to celebrate with him and watch the first episode but I still had to see the next three. Jeff didn’t tell me everything but he did tell me one thing. “Watch out for episode three, there’s something… well, look, it’s just kind of cool… you’ll know it when you see it.”

So, I had the episodes recorded on VHS. Yes, this was VHS tapes ago.*

As I put the tape in, J asks, “So, you know a dude on Jeopardy?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, it is, I already watched his first episode. He won.”

“Can I watch with you?”

“Yeah, man, totally.”

So, we watch the episode and there’s Jeff in that first position of the returning champion. He’s taller than they other contestants and his suit, like all his suits, looks slightly too big on him because he’s always been so damn skinny. Though maybe my memory is clouded by knowing Jeff in the eighth grade. But I digress.

He’s a Jeopardy champion and he’s playing like one. It was cool to watch my friend do well but the person who’s digging it the most is J. He’s getting more and more into it as Jeff keeps answering the questions. “Yo, how did he know that?!”

“Your guess is as good as mine, man.”

Jeff wins and we go on to episode three. I know Jeff wins this one. J does not know that Jeff wins this one. So, he was nervous. Jeff wasn’t on his game. The other two contestants are buzzing in faster. At the halfway point, Jeff is in last place. J isn’t too concerned but his spirits are dampened. Hell, so are mine. I knew that he was going to win but I didn’t know how.

Then I remembered. “… it’s just kind of cool… you’ll know it when you see it.”

And so it came to pass that Jeff, sitting in last place, answered a question and got control of the board. What came up? A Daily Double. The contestant can wager as much as he or she wants on this one question. Jeff doesn’t need to think. He knows what place he’s in. He knows his opponents are sharp. He knows how much time is left in the game. He knows he has to act.

So, with a look of determination I hadn’t seen on his face before or since, Jeff said something that I will never forget.

“Alex, let’s make it a true Daily Double.”

Jeff was risking it all on this one question.

J, beside me on the couch, was locked in.

I don’t know what the question was, only that he got it right and J started cheering like he just watched John Starks dunk on Jordan. “Yo! Holy shit!”

The Daily Double took Jeff from last place into first, where he remained to capture his third Jeopardy win.

Jeff was right. It was cool and we knew it when we saw it.