categorical

Categorical
by Molly
irreelle@mac.com
March 2001

***

"Who is Imre Nagy?" Joey said. Calm; he knew he was right.

***

Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea. It had seemed like it, certainly, what with time off, and Justin with Britney and Lance going home. And yeah, it was a gimmick, but it was one that people liked. People would watch. Celebrity Jeopardy! was fun.

Or it was supposed to be. $300 in the hole, JC had started wondering if his buzzer were cursed. Or if he was.

***

"What is purple?" Chris smirked when he said it and Alex nodded. He passed the $5,000 mark.

***

So Joey had a previously unknown history quirk and knew the who's who of Hungary in 1956, and it just figured that Chris would know what color Phoenicians had dyed their hair.

JC got the 13-letter crossword clue right. But really, he hadn't even known; chrysanthemum was the longest flower name he could think of, so he guessed. He should probably be counting his blessings that he hadn't been asked to spell it, but instead, he pondered the condition of his buzzer and discovered that Joey knew South American literature, too, and Chris, fucking Chris bouncing on the balls of his feet every time he got one right, knew just about every oddball fact on earth. How the hell had he known that the Daily Double picture was of something called a bush baby?

Maybe he should be wondering about them: their sanity, their quirks of what to do with free time. Gee, nothing to do, let's learn odd facts.

But he wondered about himself. Sure, some of the questions were hard. But Jeopardy! geared things. The teen questions weren't like the college questions, and the college questions weren't quite the regular adult questions. And how was he supposed to know this random shit, what with life being more about work and the precious moments of play, and not so much about absorbing tidbits of facts?

How did Joey know where Westphalia was? How the fuck?

***

"No, I'm afraid not, JC. Sorry. Chris, Joe?"

Chris shot him a strange sideways glance, almost apologetic but not quite, borderline hesitant, and his thumb came down. On the buzzer. The buzzer that worked, with the pressure off, but then, Chris's buzzer had been working all along. And Chris said, "What is onomatopoeia?"

"Right for four hundred," Alex said, and JC suddenly wanted to throw up.

***

Trebek was nice in a patronizing sort of way. It must be easy for him, JC thought later, having the answers right in front of him, getting to act like he knew all along, having only to learn how to pronounce the bigger words.

He'd known the onomatopoeia one. He'd said alliteration by accident.

Dammit.

***

When it came right down to it, it was about charity. He tried to remember that. After the ten grand was credited to his charity; after the cameras were off; backstage; three weeks later when they were watching some random episode of Jeopardy! on the bus and Lance looked up from his laptop and said, "the Six Day War" before Trebek had even finished reading the question.

Chris hooted and Joey cheered, reaching over to sock Lance on the arm. Justin called them all dorks and told Lance that hadn't been in the form of a question and went to lie down, and JC ducked his head quietly and stared blankly at the scribbled lyrics in his notebook.

***

Joey knocked softly on the door of his hotel room that night, and stood awkwardly after being called in. "It's still bugging you."

"What are you talking about?" JC asked, digging through his duffel for a clean shirt.

"The Jeopardy thing. You know, JC, none of it meant anything, so--"

"I know that. Right. It doesnąt mean anything. That I was guessing at everything while Chris proved himself, somehow, to be one of the smart ones."

"Josh--"

He scrubbed a fist through his hair. "Has management thanked you yet? I mean, they must be gleeful, finally showing that we're not just pretty boys with voices. Not all of us, anyway."

And Joey stopped standing around and came over to him and pushed him back a little, grabbing his upper arms and gripping them. "Cut it out, will you? You have no reason to keep wallowing in self-pity."

"I'm not."

"You are. And it's stupid."

"Thanks, Joe. That's just what I need to hear now." He could feel it getting out of control, feel himself cracking as Joey stared at him with eyes that were looking, lately, like they had all this secret intelligence lurking behind them, like were hiding all these things he didn't know. About Joey, and about the world, about history, and art, and literature, and himself, and he was getting angry. "Fucking let me go, okay?"

"No." Joey frowned thoughtfully, seeming vaguely surprised, like he wasn't all that sure what was going on anymore. "I thought, uh. I thought you were ticked off for having, I don't know, a bad day at the wrong time, or something."

"Bad day everyday," JC muttered. Joey's hands were too warm on his biceps and he wanted to tug away, go turn the air-conditioning on.

"Oh, fuck, JC," and Joey scowled at him. "You're not thinking you're dumb, or whatever, are you?"

"You were there," he said wearily. "Then, today. It doesn't matter, okay, I know that. I mean, who really cares about cold war history. Or any of that shit."

"You don't." Joey's voice was sort of flat, unquestioning; he stepped a little closer and his hands rubbed a little on JC's arms. "See, thing is, they didn't ask what you care about."

"Wha-- what?" He was a little distracted, yeah.

And Joey leaned in and he'd brushed his teeth lately, because it smelled like this weird slightly fruity toothpaste JC had known Joey used after he borrowed it once and nearly gagged. He usually only liked mint. Right now, it smelled really good. "Born 1915, started singing in a Brooklyn club."

"That's fucking easy, Joey. You're not making any points by asking me Billie Holiday bio questions that you obviously know, too."

"Fuck you. I wouldn't know shit about Billie if you didn't spout off about her all the time. And the point was not that nobody else would know, you dipshit." Joey was smiling a little, and his fingers flexed, squeezing, and he leaned even closer, almost whispered, "they just didn't ask," right in JC's ear, and JC closed his eyes at the warm gust of breath against his suddenly clammy skin.

Joey let him go suddenly and ruffled his hair, grinning. "Get some sleep. And quit wallowing."

JC watched him go. Then he turned on the air-conditioner and stood in front of it for a long time.

*end*