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Continuing…
“Well, if that doesn’t throw the damper on things.” Dax remarks on our trip back down to the ground floor.
“Yeah. How rude. Up and deceasing your own self without bothering to tell anyone beforehand.” I noted.
“This is going to be a bloody balls-up. Trust me. This is going to be inordinately messy. A bog-standard botch job. A total dog’s dinner, just wait and see.” Cliffs adds.
“First, we have to contact IUPGS. Then what? Does Bulgaria have a consulate or embassy here? I wouldn’t think so…Then what?” I grieved. For once, I was rather low; both emotionally and on ideas.
“Let’s go back to the conference room and let everyone know. We’ll pull a brain session together. We should be able to sort out what needs to be done. The hotel already knows, so the state security forces also do as well. Be prepared for lengthy interrogation sessions, Gentlemen”, Cliff advised.
Back in the conference room, we relayed the sad information. All were taken aback and there were general notes of commiseration. However, since no one knew Iskren too well personally, it was more detached professionalism rather than overt weeping and wailing.
“Let us toast to our fallen comrade!” was accepted as both entirely appropriate and a damn good idea.
I got on the conference room phone and ordered up some more sandwiches, mixers, and bottles of booze. The moment was obviously structured that way, I reasoned.
We made our toasts to our fallen comrade and we had half a chalkboard filled with suggestions of what to do next.
The main consensus was: “Nothing.”
As in there was not much we could do. We were foreign nationals in a strangely foreign land. Our comrade was the sole member of his country, that is, Bulgaria, and the closest geographically we had aboard was Dr. Academician Ivan. No one wanted to loose Ivan on the DPRK security forces and have to deal with all that international fallout.
After some number of hours, after I suggested we all remain in the conference room as we’d (A.) be together, as in unity there is strength, (2.) we’d have each other’s backs when and if it came to interrogations, and, (iii.) this is where the free booze was.
Then there was a polite knock on the door.
I, as the den mother of this special education class, slowly got up and answered the knock.
It was a cadre of DPRK internal security forces, kitted out in their spiffy, tailor-made, and actually, quite smart-looking uniforms. Shoes and buttons polished to mirror-finishes, pants creases that could cut flesh, and enough polished brass to construct a spittoon.
“Hello? Yes?” I said through the semi-opened door.
“May we please come in? If the time is convenient.”, the head military type, very treacly asked.
“Of course”, I replied, “Please, do come in.”
Four of them entered as one. They did a quick-step, tight-march formation together and went to the head of the conference table.
“Good day, gentlemen. I am Colonel Hwangbo Dong-Hyeon of Internal State Security. First, we must offer condolences on the loss of your comrade. It must have come as a shock.” He intones.
There are mutters of “Thanks.” and “Damn right it was.”
“I have been entrusted to update you on the, ah, ‘situation’. First, Dr. Iskren Dragomirov Dinev, recently deceased, has been examined by the best medical practitioners in the country. He was obviously a foreign national and state guest, and we do not wish this to be a cause of suspicion or mistrust, especially during this auspicious Festival season.” He asserted.
We listened with rapt attention.
“I am authorized to tell you that it does not appear that the late Dr. Dinev expired of any untoward circumstances; or ‘foul play’, I believe is the western term. It has been ascertained that he expired due to wholly natural causes; namely massive myocardial infarction. Given his age, apparent health, and, ah, mass, this does seem a most reasonable explanation. This has been verified by no less than three DPRK medical professionals; one of which is the Emeritus teaching professor of Cardiology at Pyongyang Medical University. Again, you have our deepest condolences on the loss of your comrade.” He continued.
“I do remember Iskren complaining of gas pains the other night at the bar,” Joon agreed. “Thought nothing of it, given the change in all our diets.”
Colonel Hwangbo studied Joon like an entomologist examining a particularly fascinating new species of beetle.
“Which has been fine! Just rather rich compared to our usual food!” Joon hastily added.
Satisfied that Joon wasn’t making light of the ‘fine’ North Korean cuisine, Colonel Hwangbo continued, “As such, the Bulgarian Embassy here in Pyongyang has been contacted and apprised of the situation. They have taken over the case, as well as recovered the mortal remains and possessions of Dr. Dinev; all of which were conserved and authenticated by his Bulgarian national counterparts.”
“Ah, that’s good”, I said, “I’m pleased that there actually is a Bulgarian embassy here.”
“Ah. So.”, Col. Hwangbo continued, “Yes. They have already taken possession of Dr. Dinev’s mortal remains and possessions as I had noted, and will handle their repatriation to his country and family. As you can see, we have acted in the best of faith and with the utmost respect for your lately departed. Again, our condolences.”
There were some “Harrumphs”, and “Yeah, rights”, from the crowd, but since I was the team leader, it fell to me to handle this situation from here on out.
“Yes, indeed”, I replied, “We see that and do so deeply appreciate your efficiency and your keeping open the lines of communication. We have absolutely no room to complain. You, your team, your country, and your services have acted to the highest degree of professionalism and decorum. Let me extend, for the team, our heartiest appreciations in this most unfortunate matter.”
That seemed to please the Korean security forces. So much so they didn’t see the rolling eyes and smirks of grudging compliance from the crowd. I gave the evil-eye to several who were twittering quietly at my delivery of a load of over-the-top twaddle in the name of international goodwill.
“Thank you, Doctor…? Doctor…?”, he asked.
“Doctor Rocknocker.” I replied, “It’s spelled just as it sounds,”, I chuckled a knowing chuckle.
Colonel Hwangbo cracked a small smile for the first time since we met.
“As long as our orders of business are concluded, “ I inquired, “Might we offer you and your men a drink or sandwich or…”
“Cigar?” he suddenly brightened.
I smiled the sly, smirking smile of one of those used to the old duplicitous game of international diplomacy.
“Why”, I replied smilingly, “Of course.”
Col Hwangbo gratefully accepted a brace of fine Oscuro cigars. Probably more tobacco he’s seen in one place at one time since the last he rousted a snozzeled Western journalist or hammered European tourist with an overage of custom’s tobacco allowances.
His team eschewed cigars, but gladly accepted a pack each of pastel-colored Sobranie cocktail cigarettes.
It still slays me to see these battle-hardened, armed-to-the-teeth, unsmiling servants of the great state of Best Korea mincing about the courtyard smoking avocado, baby-blue, and peach-colored pastel cigarettes.
The Colonel and his team left after a couple of quick smokes, sandwiches, and surreptitious beers. I even enticed the Colonel into a couple of convivial vodka toasts when his team was otherwise occupied.
“Well, gang”, I said, closing the door, “Looks like that situation has been handled, most appropriately at that. We’ll miss ol’ Iskren, but at least he went fast and hopefully painlessly.”
I knew that last one was but a load of old dingo’s kidneys as I’ve had run-ins with cardiac disorders in the past and they are anything but painless. In any case, that was, as I noted, in the past. What was done is done. It was as it was. It is as it is.
“So, gentlemen”, I say, “Let us get back to work. Reality calls. Now, we’ve given you landlubbers the lowdown on our seismic pleasure cruise. Now we’d like to hear what you who had stayed onshore have come up with.”
Erlan, Graco, and Viv fill us in on the regional geology of Best Korea and lay out a plan to examine the sedimentary piles closest to the few paved roads in the north and east of the country.
We’ll be traveling by bus, as my request for four or five off-road vehicles was denied due to timing and lack of availability.
Yeah. Right. What a massive pile of bovine biogenic colluvium. A country with a military as huge as Best Korea’s and they can’t spare a few jeeps or Hummer reproductions?
Truth be told, they still don’t trust us and don’t want to let us out of their sight.
However, we did manage to snag some internal publications from the Central Geological Survey of Mineral Resources, which we figured as a major coup. Never before were Westerners allowed to even know of the existence of these materials, much less be able to research (read: slyly copy) them.
That ‘personal shaver’ I carried was actually a sneaky personal copier, a Vupoint ST470 Magic Wand Portable Scanner with all the external stickers peeled off, and any serial numbers abraded away.
Hey, they photograph us from every angle on the sly, listen in on our conversations, record our phone calls…hell, turnabout isn’t just fair play, it’s almost expected.
It’d be rude to refuse to play along.
Anyways, we learned that The Korean Peninsula (KP) occupies a junction area of three large tectonic domains that are the Paleo-Central Asian Orogenic Belt, Paleo-Tethyan Orogenic Belt, and the Western Pacific Orogenic Belt.
Tectono-fascinating.
To summarize:

1. The Archean Rangrim massif is divided into the Rangrim and Kwanmo submassifs, high-grade region and greenstone belt, respectively.
   
2. Early Paleoproterozoic rocks underwent metamorphism up to granulite facies, which may be correlated to the Jiao-Liao-Ji mobile belt in the North China Craton (NCC).
   
3. Proterozoic rift sequences in North Korea are similar to those in the NCC with rare late Paleoproterozoic strata and more Neoproterozoic strata.
   
4. Mesozoic igneous rocks are extensively distributed in the KP.
   
5. The main Paleozoic basin, the Phyongnam basin in NK, have a similar Paleozoic tectono-stratigraphy to the NCC.
   

Of most interest is item #5. The Phyongnam basin is the only sedimentary and depositional basin of mention in the north of the Korean peninsula; and therefore the center of our attention as it pertains to oil and gas.
The potential source rocks, and possible reservoirs, include the Paleozoic Late Ordovician Miru Series was identified as the Koksan Series and subsequently renamed. The 170-meter thick limestone and siltstone centered around the P'yongnam Basin have extensive crinoid, coral, and gastropod fossils. Paleogeography researchers have suggested that corals formed in the Miru Sea-a branch of the South Yangtze Sea. At the base of the Taedong Synthem is the P'yong'an Supergroup, which lies disconformably atop older Paleozoic rocks.
In the Pyongyang Coalfield it is divided into the 650-meter sandstone, shale, and conglomerate of the Nogam Formation, the 500-meter Kobangsan Formation, 350-meter coal-bearing Sadong Formation and 250-meter chert-bearing Hongjom Formation, all typically assigned to an Upper Permian shallow marine environment.
In the Mesozoic, north of Pyongyang, Precambrian basement rocks are unconformably overlain by a Jurassic limestone conglomerate ascending to layers of siltstone and mudstone. The Upper Jurassic Shinuiju Formation northwest of Shinuiju has sandstone, conglomerate, and mudstone up to two kilometers thick.
Offshore drilling in the West Korea Bay Basin indicates these rocks are the onshore extension of offshore units. It is subdivided into fluvial rocks and Upper Jurassic black shale, limestone, conglomerate and sandstone formed in a lake environment.
There are very few Cenozoic sediments are known in North Korea, likely as a result of erosion due to uplift of the peninsula. Submarine normal faults along the eastern coastline may have driven crustal tilting. The 350-meter thick Bongsan Coalfield in Hwanghae Province on the west coast preserves and coal-bearing layers dating to the Eocene.
Further to the north, in the West Korea Bay Basin Eocene and Oligocene sedimentary rocks up to three kilometers thick unconformably overlie Mesozoic rocks, formed in lakes and coal swamps during the Paleogene.
What this meant is that we’d need to travel mostly northeast and/or southwest. This was fortuitous as the paved roads in the country were created in structural valleys formed by the primary fault trends in the country. The main trans-tensional set trended NE:SW and the conjugate set trends approximately 90⁰ to the main set at NW:SE.
The topography was heavily dissected by drainages and the terrain consists mostly of hills and mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys. The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east.
The plan was to take the bus north to Sunchon, then hang a right off towards Unsan and Yongha. There were outcrops between the last two towns and they appear to be upper Paleozoic to Lower Mesozoic clastics. Ideal oil and gas hunting grounds.
From there, we’d head north-northeast towards Yangwon. There appeared to be some fair to excellent outcrops of rocks that are as of yet, unidentified as to age. From there, we’d continue to follow the outcrop belts either to their termination at the basin’s edges or at international borders with China or Russia.
But, once we hit the field, time goes into relative warp. Put a bunch of geologists out on some relatively virgin outcrops and just stand back as they spend hour after hour after hour first looking for evidence of the formation’s provenance, it’s age and field relations. Then begin the heartfelt, stalwart, and sometimes vicious, arguments between all concerned about each and every one of those salient points.
We were all looking forward to it and wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s our intellectual and scientific equivalent of meat and potatoes.
We all agreed on a way forward and generated a document to deliver to those in charge of our logistics on this trip. There would be a total of 11 Western geoscientists, four guides, perhaps a couple of national geologists or geophysicists, and whatever cadre the shiny suit squad wanted to include.
There would also be a driver, his relief, and a couple of extra translators. Good thing it was a large bus, as it’s going to be a huge crew.
We needed to allow our handlers a full day to arrange room and board for us while in the field, as we had to be bivouacked somewhere outside our fine hotel. It needed to be secure, pass sanctuary muster, and be ‘controllable’, referring to both Western scientists and nosy locals.
One thing we found odd was the lack of concern for long-term logistics, not to mention the end of our self-ordained indentured servitude. When this trip and all the Western geoscientists were contacted, we were all assured of an opportunity to meet with the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-Un once our trip was completed.
We were to personally deliver one hell of an international photo-op. A ‘hey look how progressive we are’ meeting and our findings in this wonderful and progressive country.
But lately, with what we thought was the fallout of the Festival washing out all the usual propaganda, we’ve heard nothing about Herr Comrade Leader Supremo, K1J1-Un. Nor had we heard one iota about our intended final meeting with him before we left for China.
Since there are “absolutely no” COVID-19 cases in Best Korea, it seemed, well, odd that Beijing was our only possible current exit port of call, and onward to our individual homes.
There were all flavors of rumors flying all throughout the basement bars and casinos of the hotel. One claimed that Kim was now receiving treatment at a villa in the Mount Myohyang resort north of the capital Pyongyang after cardiovascular surgery. That he was near death and that his sister, Kim Yo Jong, is already warming up in the North Korean political bullpen if her brother kacks it.
Others said Kim is believed to be staying at an unspecified location outside of Pyongyang, with some close confidants. It was said that Kim appeared to be normally engaged with state affairs and there has not been any unusual movement or emergency reaction from North Korea's governing party, military, or cabinet.
There was also one other that tries to cover up any conspiracy rumors by shouting over a raspy bullhorn: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"; but most ignored that little crank.
We all thought that rather odd, but of fairly low concern. In the final analysis, it would have little impact on our studies and their outcome. In other words, it wouldn’t affect our pay one way or the other. We all felt like we’ve given more than what was called for on missions such as this.
And we still haven’t a clue as to when this will all come to an end.
However, we all agreed to the consultation, it would have been fun to meet with him and have our pictures taken with the Supreme Leader. Dr. Academician Ivan Ivanovich Khimik. was especially cheesed that he might miss the opportunity to make finger-vee bunny ears behind the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the DPRK during one of our photo sessions.
We all agree if we do somehow find ourselves in the same room with Ivan and Kim Jong-Un, we’ll form a human shield around the latter. We want to get back home; as we’ve all heard the rumors of the horrors of ‘political realignment’ camps here in Best Korea.
So the meeting breaks up and I’m left with Dax to take the final inventory. Two loads of sandwiches gone, piles of used napkins, ketchup-y table linens, bacon rinds and chicken bones, drippy ends of ice cream cones, prune pits, peach pits, orange peel, gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal, pizza crusts, and withered greens, soggy beans and tangerines, crusts of black burned buttered toast, gristly bits of beefy roasts…
“The hell with this”, I say, I grab the last nearly full bottle of vodka and hand Dax a bottle of Royal Navy dark Rum.
“Tally’s good”, I say, not really giving two tiny shits at this point. “At least, I think it is. Let’s make like horseshit and hit the trail.”
“I’m headed back to our floor and going to zone out in front of some old, looped BBC for the next few hours with a cold drink and hot cigar.” I proclaim.
“Oh, hell”, Dax says, “I agree. It’s been a weird couple of days. Let’s go.”
And so we do.
On the way, I leave the logistics concerns and itinerary for the upcoming field trips with the front desk clerk. I slip her 1000 won as its Festival! and I had a bulgy pocketful of same. She smiled and quietly said there’s be a surprise waiting for me in my room when I got there.
“Rock, you fucking old hound!”, Dax exclaimed as he punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Taking a dip in the hotel secretarial pool?”
“Dax, you surprise me”, I said in my defense, “I have been, and continue to be, happily married for the last 38 years to the most loving, most intelligent, most well-connected, and most accurate snap-shot with a Glock .380 Automatic I know of.”
“Well, me ol’ mucker”, Dax smiles slyly, “If one has been happily married for 38 years, one must have a little something on the side. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge, ‘eh, Squire?”
“Oh, nothing like that”, I replied, while waiting the obligatory 30 minutes for the fucking elevator to arrive. “I couldn't break my word to Esme, and not because I don’t believe in a God that will send me to Hell without an electric fan or because it's not the right thing to do. I simply don't want to. A man is only as good as his word; and if he loses that, he loses too much. I couldn’t function without people thinking that I’m square and on the level. My business would crumble to dust. As would my marriage.”
“Yeah, there is that”, Dax agrees, “You say something is going to happen and God damn, it fucking happens. That’s what makes you honest and honestly scary.”
I stare intently at the annunciator that tells me the fucking elevator is stuck on 4 again.
“You’re not mob, are you?” Dax harshly whispers, snickeringly.
I turn to face Dax and smile wistfully.
“Я с уважением отказываюсь отвечать, потому что я искренне верю, что мой ответ может обвинить меня”, I reply quietly.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dax demands.
“I respectfully decline to answer because I honestly believe my answer might tend to incriminate me”, I calmly reply.
“Oh, look. Bloody elevator’s finally here.” I note and stride aboard.
Dax gets caught up in the tsunami of the crowd and is carried bodily inside. It was so remorseless, he almost lost his grip on his bottle of Dark Rum.
Up on ‘our’ floor, I go to key open my room. Dax is just down the hall and looking around to see what special surprise might show up. I was too tired to wait so I just push in, and see all my field clothes fully laundered, pressed, and either folded or hanging.
Someone broke into my room during the day and committed a compound neatness.
“POUND! Pound! POUND!” Hmm, appears to be someone at my door.
“Yes, Dax?” I said.
“You too?” he fumed, “Everything, cleaned to within an inch if its life. They even polished my bloody field boots.”
“Oh, fuck”, I said and ran to find mine re-pristinized.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCKITYFUCKFUCK!” I swore. They had polished my field boots and removed the fine years-of-work-to-acquire near-subsurface of the leather’s oil layer. They polished the water-proofing and conditioning out of the leather of our boots.
“OK. OK.”, I said, “Minor emergency. Cool out. I have the solution.”
I toss Dax a small can. It was brown, oily, and claimed to be “Neatsfoot oil”. It was the SPF- 500 of field leathers.
“Go ahead and oil them up with that”, I told Dax, “I’ve got another can, so don’t worry. Use what you need, don’t be shy, but if there’s any left, let me know. I’ll combine ours and offer it to anyone else in the team who had their boots steam-cleaned.”
So, a bit later, I’m sitting on my hotel room’s floor, on several sheets of newspaper, rubbing Neatsfoot Oil into my ancient, multinational size 16 EEE Vasque™ Tracker field boots.
Then there’s a knock at the door.
“It’s open. Enter carefully”, I say aloud.
It’s a bell clerk with a room service cart. On the cart are a bucket of ice, a bowl of sliced limes, I think, several gimlet glasses, some Best Korean ‘Air Koryo’ carbonated citrus drink, and a fresh bottle of “Kaesong” vodka.
“Compliments of the front desk”, the bellman says.
I stand up, tip him a few thousand won, and set a new record in mixology; a fresh brace of drinks in less than 7.3 seconds.
I offer the bellman the lighter one and he accepts with a wide smile.
I say “건배” (geonbae) literally means 'empty glass', which is similar to the expression 'bottom's up'. For you see, my Korean’s coming along a treat.
We clink glasses and send those drinks to the places that they’ll do the best.
The bellman smiles offloads the cart onto the table in my room, shakes my hand, and departs.
I finish my boots, my drink, and my cigar. After another drink or seven, I crater early. Dax was right; it had been a long, weird day.
The next day, Festival! is still going strong, but still no word on the whereabouts of El Líder Supremo. I find that odd, only slightly interesting, and since it will impact the day’s events zero, I file it away for maybe later use.
I go to the hotel pool around 0530 and there’s no one there. I’m able to get in a good 100 laps, unburdened with either small talk or by yammering kids blocking my lanes. I go early as I don’t wear gloves in the water, obviously. Statistically, there is less chance there will be others, adults and kids included, that would get freaked out by my gnarly left hand. I really don’t feel like recounting the old Russian Rig Accident story again.
After a brisk shower and double shower-scotch back in my room, I dress casually and wander down to the casino and bar level. It’s essentially breakfast time, but with the revelers not giving two hoots to AM vs. PM, it’s surprisingly busy. I find a perch up on Mahogany Ridge and order a classical breakfast cocktail of one liter of beer and 100 milliliters of chilled vodka.
I see Mr. Ho is manning the bar. I ask him to ring the massage parlor down the hall and see if Ms. Nang Bo-Hee is free sometime this morning.
He does and reports that she has an open hour and a half at 0900. Would I like it or any portion of that time?
“I’ll take the lot”, I said. “Tell them I’ll be there spot on 0900.”
“That’s great.”, Mr. Ho says, hanging up the phone, “Doctor Rock, they tell me that with the Festival discount and you taking the full 90 minutes, they can cut you a very special deal.”
“I’ll bet”, I replied, “Like what?”
“Oh, I cannot say for they did not tell me”, he smiled, “They will tell you when you arrive.”
“Marvelous”, I exhaled tiredly. “Another, Mr. Ho; make it a double, if you would please.”
The massage center here is run by a group not employed directly by the hotel. It’s a separate entity altogether. They run specials and have different discount programs that are not only not controlled nor advertised by the hotel, but they’re also not in any way beholden to the hotel, except for rent, I suppose and run it like their own little fiefdom.
Ms. Nang, my preferred masseuse, is a little, tiny Korean lassie about 5 feet tall and probably all of 90 pounds soaking wet. However, she is amazingly well trained and could probably put me in the hospital for a lengthy visit with her wiles and methods of flesh, bone, and muscle manipulation.
She offers a whole suite of different massage genres: Swedish, hot stone, aromatherapy, deep tissue, sport, trigger point, reflexology, shiatsu, Thai, and Rolfing.
Oh, fuck. I know Rolfing. I tried that nonsense back in grad school with an old east Indian lady that could have linebackered for the Minnesota Vikings. That shit fucking hurt. Today, it’d incapacitate me permanently. That’s a definite no-go.
I decide that it’s going to be the Hot Stone-treatment today. A geological-manipulation inquiry.
At 0900 I’m the only client at the massage ‘store’. It’s early, day two of the festival, and people are either sleeping off the previous night’s festivities or too wobbly to even think of partaking in a massage.
I’ve had several major back surgeries over the years, including one bilateral laminectomy about seven years ago that removed 7.5 kilos of overgrown bone and muscle from my lumbar region, so I’ve been very cautious about soliciting a massage. The masseuse has to know that area is strictly verboten and will do everything to avoid annoying that particular piece of bodily real-estate.
I’ve walked or limped out of massages before where the practitioner said they understood my reticence, but went ahead and kneaded and provoked that land of keloids and deep-body scar tissue.
However, based on past experience, Ms. Nang knows full well my reluctance as well as my desires. That’s the reason I’m returning. She’s very, very good; a consummate professional and has a never-ending series of jokes and observations while she’s pummeling you into submission.
Today, we retire to a private cubicle and she hands me a small robe or napkin, not sure which, of Korean manufacture.
She tells me to get au natural and to wear the robe while she prepares the tools of her trade.
OK, I’m not a small person; not by a long shot. This robe, however, is made for a sprite, not even for a small person.
She returns to our massage cubicle as I’m sitting there, at the end of the massage table, sipping my drink clad only in my dapper red-and-white checkered boxers.
“You need to be unclothed, Doctor. Use the robe. OK, sir Rock?” she says.
“Ms. Nang,”, I said, shaking my head, “It’s one or the other.” I show her how laughable the robe is as I can’t even get it over my upper arm. It’s not even as a tea towel when it comes to covering my expansive acres of exposed epidermis.
“I can close door.”, she says, “I’m used to it. I am professional. Does not bother me if it does not bother you.”
I lost all forms of bashfulness, timidity, or prudery long, long ago. After years and years of Russian banya, Swedish massage, Turkish baths, and surgery; well, if it don’t bother you, it don’t bother me.
“OK”, I say, using the robe as a small two-dimensional breechcloth. She tells me to ‘hop’ up on the massage table and lie down, facing the floor.
After chuckling about the fact that I haven’t hopped for decades, I wander over to the nicely padded and extremely clean massage table and lie down. She rearranges the ‘robe’ to cover my backside and tells me to relax. She’ll be right back with the stones.
I’ve never tried this type of massage before, but as a geologist, I must; if for nothing else, progress in the name of science.
Ms. Nang returns with a large parcel consisting of many sizes of steamed stones. They were river-washed and tumbled basalt from the looks of them, all wrapped in a large fuzzy towel.
Now she finds the large towels…
She selects them one by one and places them in ‘special, strategic’ spots on my exposed back. From the lower 2/3rds of the nape of the neck, down the spine, over the fundus mountains, and down the back of each leg.
It’s a warm, almost hot in some places, but not an uncomfortable feeling. She returns to adjust them, grind them in a bit in places, and flip them to extract all that igneous lithological thermal goodness.
I have to admit, at that point, it was feeling quite delightful. Relaxed; I had my drink and was being kneaded My dorsal musculature was being de-lithified by the application of hot rocks and expert point massage.
All was going quite well as Ms. Nang was building a huge tip in her ‘job well done’ bank.
Then the rocks had all attained room temperature. She excused herself to reload with another minor outcrop’s-worth and told me to flip over for round two of the process.
“In for a dime, in for a dollar”, I said, as I flipped over and use the robe as a laughable forward-facing breechcloth.
Ms. Nang mentioned that she was always fascinated by Westerners and their surplus of bodily fuzz. With my long, shoulder-length silver hair, full Grizzly Adams beard that drooped down to my sternum, and torso that picked up where my beard left off; she was quite unprepared to see the beached silver-gray panda that awaited upon her return.
“Dr. Rock!’, she exclaimed, “You are as a bear! So much hair. And silver color!”
“Yeah, sorry”, I replied, “Just the hand genetics dealt me. I guess it’s an adaptation for ethanol-fueled organisms that never feel cold.”
“I will soon return.” She titters excitedly and almost runs out of the room.
“Hmmm. I wonder what that’s all about?” I muse as I lie largely undraped in the massage cubicle.
Suddenly, the door bursts open and every female massage practitioner there herded into the room. They simply had to see the specimen upon which the delightful Ms. Nang was working.
OK, truth be told, I was a bit taken aback. Here I am lying on an elevated, and heavily padded, massage table. I’m ‘wearing’ only a crooked, worried grin and a sheet of a cotton washcloth that measures about 12x12 inches.
They Oohed! and Ahhhed!
I did feel like some form of an alien animal suddenly thrust out into public view. It was a bit disconcerting, but as usual, I just tried to deflect any unease with jokes and idiot remarks. At my age, not much is going to bother me, and this I found all the more laughable than troubling.
Suddenly, I was fielding their barrage of questions:
“You are American? All American men so…hairy?”
“Yes and no”, I replied. I also mentioned I hadn’t undertaken a study in that particular subject.
“Why you so big?” one tiny lass asked, eyes as big as dinner plates.
“Genetics”. I replied. “Just a corn-fed Baja Canadian doofus. We grow ‘em big back home.”
“Can we touch?” one particularly brave little lass asks.
“Touch what?” I asked. Look, I might be over 6 decades old, but there are still some areas reserved for my one and only betrothed.
I did tell Esme of this whole event later that evening during our nightly call. She laughed herself silly.
“Your beard! Oriental men never have such beard. We touch maybe?” she implored.
I was going to say “Go nuts”, but I decided that a simple “Sure” would be more fitting.
So they did. They were enthralled. They had never before, from what I was told, seen such a large silver-gray ZZ Top-style beard, especially here at the hotel. That part was weird enough, but when they started in on working their way south toward the equator, I had to say something to dissuade them.
“Where were you girls 45 years ago?” I laughed.
I don’t think they got the joke. They became somewhat bolder in their austral exploratory activities.
“OK! Time out! Ms. Nang! We have an appointment to keep”, I said as I shooed the rest of the lassies away, “We need to finish what we started.”
By the time that the third syllable of that last sentence came into being, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to say.
They all laughed and tittered as Ms. Nang ushered them out of the room. I could have sworn I heard the door lock behind them.
Ms. Nang reprieved her earlier stone placement therapy, with a couple of strategic detours.
She wasn’t that type of masseuse, and I wasn’t looking for that type of massage. She did, however, knead and pummel me mercilessly.
I’ve been bruised less from barroom brawls.
Finally, she announces that she’s finished. She’ll leave while I shower, as she used essential aromatic oils, and would await me out in the lobby.
After showering, I felt like a large bowl of pummeled Jello. I felt relaxed, and for the first time in weeks, my back was silent. My head was clear as a spring Sunday morn in Reykjavik.
The full 90 minutes, plus sideshow, was 4,500 won.
I paid the owner the required sum and handed Ms. Nang an additional 15,000 for a job well done. And for another anecdote that goes into the hopper.
I left the massage parlor feeling quite fine, thank you. I wandered over to the bar to see if I could augment and prolong this feeling of harmony with the universe. The mental picture even now of all those cooing Korean lassies in the massage room never fails to elicit a laugh and head shake.
A few hours later, I’m back in my room, tidying up my field notes and making certain all my paperwork was heavily encoded and up to date. It was, so I placed a number of expensive overseas calls to catch up with everyone on the outside.
I’m thinking of calling room service to have my mini-bar repaired when my room phone rings.
“Now who would be calling me at this hour?” I wondered.
It was the tour group leader. He informed me that the itinerary had been worked out and we’d be leaving tomorrow for the field at 0600. We were to arrive with all our luggage and be prepared to check out. We would spend at least a week in the field, if not two, depending on our results, and be bivouacking in different places in the interior of the country.
I thanked him for the information and said I’d inform the rest of the team. He told me that wouldn’t be necessary as they would come up to or floor, deliver the notice verbally, or by note if they were out of their rooms. If I wanted to later call each participant and ensure they were apprised of the situation, that would be most appreciated.
I assured him I would do so and that we’d be ready, to a man, at 0600 the next day.
I whip up 10 Post-it™ notes and stick one on each member’s door.
“Leaving for the field. Check out 0530. Wheels up 0600. Bring all luggage. Road trip!”
To be continued…

Hello mama, it’s June Bug.
I got no real idea how this might come to you, but by post or freight or law man’s hand, you should know it’s me this time. I read in the paper that folks been writin’ you on occasion saying they’re me and apologizing for all the mischief I got up to. I ain’t written to you but once since I left home and that’s right now. That reminds me of the sign up at Busser’s, one that hanged over the stationary? “If you’re going to write, write right!” Were they selling Bics, or what? I can’t remember.
Busser’s is where this all started but of course you know that. In fact, I presume you might know a whole lot more of this than when I left back in spring. Delilah is like to have told you how I met Todd — Mr. Lightnin’ T Daniels of national infamy — when he drove that fine Cadillac up to Busser’s for some ice cream. Maybe you’ve talked to the others, and they’ll have lied if they said I didn’t want to go with him.
I guess that’s all true, but what they didn’t tell you, couldn’t tell you, is that I saw Todd for the first time a week earlier. He was working up at the Targrady pits when we went up there on a field trip so the boys could see how they were going to make their money one day and the girls would know how hard their men were going to be worked. He smiled at Carla Weathers, not me, when we walked past him in a group, even tossed her a lump of furnace coal and told here there was more where that came from. She blushed, but so did I. I wanted a man like that to look at me.
Since I left Arson County, I’ve found that there are a lot of men like Todd, especially in the big cities. But just six long months ago I thought there couldn’t be a second man like him on earth. He was tall, bristling with muscle and sweaty charm, and polished smooth and clean looking despite the grime on his coveralls. He didn’t look like the fat, broken coal miners or their simple, soon-to-be-broken sons. He didn’t look either like the bloated, soft-handed bankers or turned-out souses that came up from the railyard for church some Sundays.
No, he was a man of his own making. He was smoking that first time, cloistered in a little taped-off area and leaning against a broken rail cart. He’d tied his coverall shoulders around his waist and his grimy undershirt clung to his torso like cellophane. Maybe every girl saw him. Maybe it was only me. I committed him to memory the way I had started doing with certain men, certain I’d never see him again. I was wrong, of course.
He came up to Busser’s a week later in a casual sort of hurry. Nonchalant but rushed, sauntering into the place and ordering an ice cream milkshake with a cherry on top. Mr. Pushkin gave him a mean look, but started smiling all the same when he dropped cash on the counter. Real hard currency, big bills like I’d never seen a man his age carrying before. He rested his back on the bar to drink and look around, his legs splayed out before him.
He had thick heels on the black leather boots that left dark scuffs on the floor. His jeans were tight, very tight for a man, and ended in a broad black belt at his hips. He had a white t-shirt on above that, also tight, and black leather jacket. He looked like an absolute criminal, and when he ran his hands through his hair, my God mother. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.
He doesn’t look like that now, as you might guess. By the time you get this letter, I suppose what beauty Todd had known on this earth will have all but fled him. But at that moment he looked like an angel. One of the kind that wasn’t afraid to tell God what he thought then and again, and I wanted him to fall into my arms.
He finished his drink and I followed him outside. The other girls, Delilah, Ethel, Mary, they squealed and urged me to come sit back down. None of them would have ever had the courage to follow him out that door, none of them did. They’ll live long lives, I suppose, telling their children about me as a cautionary tale. But I didn’t care what they had to say then and I certainly don’t now.
We talked by his car. I fixed my blue eyes on him they way I’d been practicing in the mirror, trying my best to look like one of them girls in the cigarette ads. It must have worked, cause he stopped telling me to get lost and got lost himself, running his hand through that hair and leaning against the car. I told him he had bad posture, and asked him real slow that if that car wasn’t there, what else would he like to lean against? You should have seen the look on his face.
Todd likes to try looking like a wolf. He licks his teeth, is the most noticeable thing, and I’d never seen a wolf before he took me to the zoo. That’s where I first made that connection. He could almost bristle that big jacket of his like a pelt, and he made himself stand on his toes, like he might spring at any minute. But he was a puppy on the worst of days. You and me, mama, we know about real wolves, don’t we?
He told me he liked the way I talked to him and I asked what he meant. He told me I shouldn’t play with fire and I told him I didn’t play with fire, but that my daddy let me use matches sometimes. He laughed and asked me what it was I was after and I told him he had a nice car. He asked if I wanted a ride. I said yes.
We drove out by the high school and he tried to put the moves on me. I said no and we drove some more. Up north into Carbones County, up past Gun Cotton and to the highway, then back down through roads I’d never seen before. Past little hamlets and nowhere towns full of staring black or white faces and the occasional house set into hillside where nobody could possibly get to it. He got quiet as we drove.
I asked him if he was mad I turned him down and he laughed and said that wasn’t it. He told me he wasn’t from West Virginia and had to be leaving soon. Real soon. I asked him how soon and he said tomorrow. Then he told me I might not want to be around Busser’s around noon and I asked why, though it’s obvious to anybody now what he meant by that. Then he dropped me off.
You were awful mad at me when I got home. Slapped me on the face as I recall, and hard too. I cried for you the way you like and ran in to daddy. He shushed me and patted me on the head. How is he now? Are you done with him? Is it time to move on again or are your wings too old to catch the wind? I’ll never know the answers to those questions, but I have my suspicions and they help me sleep nights.
I went to sleep and you woke me up in the middle of the night. I remember what you told me, though I won’t commit that hatefulness to paper. And you squeezed me where it hurts, twisted and pinched the way you do and told me not to ruin things the way I always did. You reminded me of what daddy had to lose for us to live there, what my life meant to the people around me.
And the second you left that room I packed what I thought I’d need in my backpack. I hid my school things under the bed, where I’m sure you eventually found them. I ate breakfast full knowing I was about to leave Blunt, West Virginia for the last time. To leave you for good. We had eggs. I told you they were delicious.
You rode me to school that day. I thought you’d figured me out, having done that same shuffle and ride a dozen or more times just in my lifetime. But you didn’t suspect a thing, not from your dear little June Bug. You sat there in the Packard, gripping the steering wheel with your prim white driving gloves, hair up underneath one of those silk headwraps you started wearing in Cincinnati.
You could have told me you loved me, any number of nice motherly things I see women say to their children in the movies Todd eventually took me to. But you just gave me your typical sermon, the one I always got after one of your late night visits. And you told me I was old now, old enough to be a threat if I didn’t watch myself. You reminded me I could be replaced. You warned me I better behave myself.
I watched you drive off down the dirt road that led to that dismal one-room learning shack they called a school and that was the last I ever saw of you. In person at least. I saw you in the news a few weeks later, crying on the front page of the Charleston Independent-Star and asking me to come home. Then a couple months after that on the New York Times, crying and telling me you better never see me again. That headline read, “Mother mourns recalcitrant daughter.” It made me smile.
I didn’t even go inside the school. Some of the other girls would eventually tell the police they saw me walking “with determination” toward some other destination. I actually stopped and talked with Debby Marks, and asked her to cover for me until the afternoon, just in case. I’ve never seen that detail in any newspapers so I guess she kept that little tidbit to herself. Smart girl.
I sat alone in Busser’s until noon, and he showed like clockwork. The shiny red Cadillac pulled up at the far end of the corner lot and he sat there alone, his eyes blocked by square black sunglasses. The armored truck pulled up a second later and I figured out the score right then and there.
The truck had the big Walther Hi-Sec Transportation Inc. logo down the side. Any kid in the valley could tell you that was the payroll wagon, here to bring cash down to the pit bank for payday. You take into account all the money they needed to pay the workers and make purchases, and there was maybe $20,000 in there. At least that’s what Todd thought.
A paunchy old man came in wearing a Walther Security uniform and Todd came in behind him. Now, things have been changed up a bit in the papers. Those newspapermen like to make a lot of interesting additions to the stories about us, particularly this one, painting Todd as some smooth Lothario who just talked people out of their money. Once we were famous, sure, that actually happened a couple times. But this time he was nervous. Scared even.
He smiled under those beetle-shell glasses and put the gun against the security man’s head. Told him to open up the back of the truck. And you know what that security man did? He said no! Honestly and truthfully, that old man, with his moustache and bent back, told big Lightnin’ T Daniels no and went back to his coffee. Todd might have just turned and walked out if not for me.
I screamed and ran to him, getting the attention of the few old men sitting around taking their coffee. Even Mr. Pushkin dropped his skillet in the kitchen and ran out. I wasn’t letting anybody ruin this for me. I jumped between Todd and the old man, pressing against the big automatic pistol with my chest so my breasts showed full and large to either side of it. He swallowed. I felt his insecurity.
I begged him not to hurt the old man, I’d do anything, just drop the gun and walk away. He recognized me and asked under his breath what I thought I was doing, and I yelled for him to take me instead at the top of his lungs. He grinned and pulled me close to him. I twirled into his arms like a dancer, relishing the warmth of his forearm against my cheek even as he pressed the automatic to my temple.
That display made short work of the Busser’s patrons. They begged Todd not to hurt me and I worked up some tears and hollered about how he was just confused. The old security guard looked at the other patrons like they’d lost their minds. I suppose they had. They almost tore the man’s clothes off trying to get at his keys so the big, bad man in the leather jacket wouldn’t hurt the pretty blonde.
It was like a dream how fast we went from the inside of that diner to driving down I-64 at nearly twice the speed limit, laughing like crazy. He didn’t even want to let me in the car with him at first, but I convinced him the locals were all heavily armed and would shoot him to pieces the second I left him. By the time we reached Charleston he didn’t even care. We counted the money from the heist in a filthy motel on the edge of town. Then we had sex.
It wasn’t wonderful, but I loved it all the same. The ecstasy of my escape from Blunt clouded over the meager pain of his entrance. I loved the smell of him, his sweat covering my chest and stomach. The way his arms crushed my body against his. It ended almost as quickly as it had began, and I let him finish where I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t care. I was free.
I slept in his arms on a pile of ill-gotten money. More cash than I’d seen in my whole life, $10,500. That was the first night of honest sleep I’d had in maybe my whole life, and the first time I hadn’t dreamed of little Trixie since that night by the old woodshed last fall. Little Trixie not-my-sister, as you might say.
Of course I don’t have to remind you of that, you were there. Or do I? I certainly haven’t seen you mention it all those wonderful little stories you’re in. I cut each one I find out of whatever paper and keep them in a small card box Todd bought me in Arizona. It has a turquoise June bug on the lid, which he thought was adorable. He’d bought himself one just like it that holds a bent, blackened spoon, some rubber tubing, and an oversized eye-dropper with a needle tied to the end.
My big, beautiful man had a bad habit. I was surprised how fast we could go through all that money, money you could live off for a year gone in just a few weeks. But he spent it on me too, buying me books and clothes and nice dinners at places where people spent big cash on little plates. He made new friends and lost them every week, even tried to lose me a couple times, but after a while he knew that I was his and, more importantly, that he was mine.
We traveled across the states, pulling that exact same heist we’d thrown together on the spot a Busser’s at every stop. I change my hair color after the papers started reporting on me, going from blonde to red and finally to black. I tried brown for a second but it reminded Todd of his mother and he wouldn’t touch me until I changed it. He talked about her, his mother, quite often.
I lied about you. I said you were great, real decent. I convinced him on that first sweaty night in Charleston that he’d left those nasty bruises on my nipples. I was just a fragile thing. He was too big and too rough. I also convinced him I wasn’t a virgin, because I couldn’t tell him that you’d broken me when I was twelve, kicking me between the legs because I wouldn’t stop crying. Because Brian not-my-brother and Pauline not-my-sister had kept calling my name as the car slipped beneath the waves at Glass Shard.
I never told him about any of that. About Kevin, or Julienne, or Matthew, or Ronald, or Victor, or Samuel, or Michelle, or Rebekah. The not-my-sisters and not-my-brothers I wasn’t allowed to mourn, and the parade of daddies who were only ever to be called daddy and not Mr. Kelso, or Mr. Valentine, or father, or papa, or dad. When we traveled through Cincinnati, Gary, Decatur, Chicago, and Pierre, I told him I’d never been to any of those places. All the while I glanced out the windows of our stolen cars, looking for that riverbank, that ash pile, that abandoned lot. I never told him how those road trips made me feel like my mother, a sparrow on the wing, looking for a new nest. And I never told him about Trixie.
Our heists worked the way we’d been doing them until we reached a little bank on the outskirts of Fresno. I’d always gone inside first, scouting the place out on the pretense of opening a checking account. Then I’d be the hostage when Todd stormed in and demanded the money. But this time someone was waiting for us.
The counter girl acted strangely when she saw me, and I didn’t notice anything off about the way she looked down at her lap. Now I know she was looking at my picture. She must have pressed a button or something, because a man swept up behind me and whispered in my ear that I better behave. He told me I needed to tell Mr. Daniels to surrender as soon as he walked in the door. I started crying real loud.
Customers walked over and started asking the man what he was doing, then he cuffed me on the back of the head and told me to shut up. Some Dudley Do Right took that chance to run up and deck him one, knocked the big man out cold. I thanked him and ran off in hysterics.
I found Todd in the same alley where we’d parked. There was a man at the head of the alley where Todd couldn’t see, facing away from me with a gun sticking out of his sport coat. Clean and simple, I walked up, slipped his gun out of its holster, and shot that man to death. Then I put his gun in my purse and walked into the alley, where Todd was standing with his own gun out. We hopped in the car and I explained things as we drove like mad out of California and across the Rockies.
That was at the height of summer, though I’m sure you know all about that. “Dragnet: Federal agent shot dead by Lightning T Daniels and the June Bug.” That’s what the papers started calling us around that time. The first time I ever saw those names was in the Des Moines Register. I clipped the article out and put it in the box with the little turquoise June bug on the lid. The fame and the pressure got to Todd and he started getting rough in bed, doing all those awful things to me that you used to do, the poking and prodding and twisting. But it felt so good when he did it.
He would get sullen afterward sometimes and tell me I was too beautiful for things like that. He said he was debasing me, that I was a flower and if he plucked me I’d wilt. I told him I was his June Bug and the only thing he had to do was keep me from flying away. He liked that.
And he was a good man, despite how we made our living. He didn’t yell or cheat or hit me, with a single exception on each account. The cheating I wouldn’t even call cheating. You see, pickings got slim after the botched job in Fresno. Cops were looking for us like never before, and we couldn’t stay in the same place long, much less cause a stink with a big heist. So we did little things, robbing underground casinos and junk dealers.
I carried a gun then. The agent’s mean little .38 special, in fact. I don’t know what such a big man had needed with such a tiny gun, but it fit my tiny hands perfectly. I killed three men with that gun, the agent, another, and one I’ll tell you about right here. His name was Buggy and he was something of a hot shot, for South Dakota.
Buggy knew Todd from a stint in a Minnesota prison Todd didn’t talk about much, and apparently they owed each other a host of favors. Buggy had everything Todd needed that wasn’t me, most of which came folded up in little paper squares and dollar bills. Todd started doing small jobs for Buggy, enforcing, running packages, and he’d leave me cooped up in a dingy motel for days at a time. I got sick of that real fast. It reminded me of Blunt, and all the little cages you kept me in before Blunt.
I went out on the streets and found Buggy’s place by dropping his name here and there. By the time I found the dive he operated out of, a converted speakeasy with big steel shutters over the door, Buggy knew I was coming. Buggy was a nasty guy, as his name suggests, and he had a bad habit of spectacle. He was the biggest show, the only show, in town and he made sure people knew he was important. He dressed like a mobster and let on that he knew a few made guys, though he never quite had the courage to call any by name. His suits were new and as nicely tailored as you could get out there in the sticks, but they did nothing to shape up the nasty little man. He had a sloppy gut and breasts that disturbed the spread of his lapels, along with a stringy black comb-over and a thick, warty nose.
He intercepted me just inside the door and told me where to find Todd. I had figured he wanted to keep Todd around in town, to fold him into the crew for the respect Lightning T Daniels’ name would bring. But I hated South Dakota, and that nasty little town and I wanted to leave. When I left, Todd would go with me, but only if we were still together. Buggy didn’t want that to happen.
He led me to the main room, where Todd lay back on a couch almost completely off his mind from the stuff. A pretty girl, red-haired and about my age, was on her knees in front of him, her mouth where you’d expect. I sighed as Buggy started on some rant about men these days and how he never expected he’d walk in on something this shocking. Todd’s eyes took a few seconds to focus on me, and he started trying to push the girl off him.
I think Buggy expected me to start crying and run out of that grungy hole in the ground, or maybe to just fall apart right then and there. The only thing I’m sure of is that the greasy little pusher man had a low opinion of woman. I saw his point and made him a counter-argument.
The girl, undoubtedly in on the whole thing, looked up at me with smirk on her face, almost daring me to do something. I went over to Todd, still so beautiful in his sweating delirium, and pulled his switchblade out of the interior pocket of his leather jacket. Dull recognition dawned on the redheaded girl’s face just a second too late, as I grabbed a fistful of that hair and sprang the blade open. I cut her just twice, long strokes that made an X on her pretty young face.
They didn’t bleed until I pushed her away, then they wouldn’t stop bleeding. She blindly ran from the room, screaming for somebody to help her. Buggy jumped to his feet and started toward me, cursing. I pulled the federal agent’s snug little .38 out of my purse and shot him through his ugly nose. The bullet pulled off the back part of his skull and everything inside spilled out when he hit the ground.
I remembered Trixie right then, her skull coming apart in the dark of the woodshed. Her beautiful face, so like a tiny angel’s, ghastly and malformed in the smoky light of your kerosene lantern. Dirt on my hands. Blood underneath my nails. Dogs in the woods and your harsh whisper telling me they couldn’t smell her, they wouldn’t smell her. Keep digging June. Keep digging.
I’m still digging that hole now, gonna’ keep digging until I hit bottom. Until I get down low enough to pull the sides in over me like a blanket. There may be blood and heat at the end, I know, the smell of pistol smoke and burning flesh. But before I go to hell I’ll smell that rich West Virginia earth, and I’ll feel splintered wood in my hands as I work, work, work that shovel.
She called me Sissy, God damn you. She called me Sissy.
The security man from the front came down with a pump action shotgun in his hand. I didn’t kill him, just asked him if he’d ever been shot before, and pointed at what was left of Buggy. I told him neither of us were going to miss at this distance and he agreed, dropping the shotgun. I promised not to shoot him or anybody else if they filled a tablecloth with money and drugs and didn’t try anything funny. Nobody did, so I kept my promise.
Todd never apologized for the way I found him down there. He refused to even talk to me even until we were in St. Louis. He had another friend down there, Luther, who was a much better friend than Buggy. Luther took half of what we had off our hands in exchange for the keys to a room in a northside tenement. Todd got drunk the first night and slapped me when I wasn’t expecting it.
I fell on the ground and started crying in earnest. I’d never been hit by anybody I cared about before. And it hurt so much worse than when you hit me.
He told me I was crazy and who did I think I was? He told me he didn’t know who I was anymore and asked what right I had to be involving myself in his personal matters. He told me that just because we slept together — he used a different phrase — that didn’t mean I had any right to pry into his affairs. I told him I was pregnant and he took a seat on the edge of the bed. His fine dark hair was in disarray. He apologized to me and told me he’d do whatever he could, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sounded tired, wrung out. I knew then he was probably going to leave me, and started concocting ways to keep him. Then I thought of you, and all my daddies across this great, God-fearing nation and I stopped. I really was, still am, pregnant. Rest assured, you’ll never see the child.
Todd got himself shot a couple weeks later. He burned through all the rest of our money and the drugs we’d stolen from Buggy in the days after I told him I was carrying his child. Luther set him up with a crew knocking over drug dealers in town. None of them knew he was the famous Lightnin’ T Daniels from the paper, and none of them would have cared if they did.
I don’t know the specifics of how he got hurt. I do know he showed up to the job almost too high to stand on his own. I know they relied on him to do something and he failed to do it. And I know it took some special intervention from Luther to keep the crew from putting a bullet in Todd’s head right then and there.
He was shot by a small caliber handgun. The bullet went in his thigh and bounced around inside his pelvis, leaving a half a dozen tiny tunnels. The insides of his hips now looked just like the insides of the bituminous coal mine where I first saw him, lean and pretty and leaning up against that ruined old mine cart. I had him take his pants off to show me. Blood trickled from the tiny entry wound, but everything from the bottom of his thighs to the top of his stomach was swollen and purple.
He told me he needed to go to a doctor and begged for me to get him some stuff, anything to take the edge off. I told him that wasn’t possible, we were near out of money and he’d be arrested if I took him to a hospital. He told me to do anything I could, he didn’t care what, he just needed another hit. It hurt too bad. It was killing him. Then he looked at me and told me I was killing him.
I pawned the turquoise boxes he’d bought us, most of our clothes, and the two pistols he’d acquired since we left West Virginia. Blunt felt so far away then, sitting in the dark with him dying beside me in the stale autumn heat. I spent all the money on drugs, a bit of food, and a straight razor so I could shave him, which I did. Luther stopped by about a week after Todd had been shot.
He stood in the door, repulsed by some smell I hadn’t noticed. He asked me what I was going to do, what I expected to happen. I told him I didn’t know. Todd wasn’t going to get better, and if he did he’d just leave me anyway. In the depths of his eyes, behind the drugs and the pain, I saw fear when he looked at me. No hint of love or longing, no apology for how he’d treated me, just fear, and a dull sort of hate.
Luther reached out and took my hand then, and I knew what options I had. I knew Luther wanted me, my body, terribly. I was still young and beautiful, and my pregnancy was little more than a slight bump that any dress could hide. Would he accept a child as part of my being there? I knew he would. I knew I could make him want that child as much as me, that I could sell him the Golden Gate Bridge with that hot piece of hellfire between my legs.
And I thought of you. I thought of you and a long line of daddies, stretching out across the Midwest and back into my history to the first one, the real daddy who put me on you like a curse. I thought of raising a pretty little version of myself with Todd’s hair and big blue eyes, and all the daddies I could give her. All the not-her-sisters and not-her-brothers who’d have to make way once we entered the nest. Luther kept talking while I thought of that line of violence and tainted love that had brought me to Blunt, that had shot me out of West Virginia like a cannon. That had torn my heart and soul to blackened pieces before I ever became a woman. And I thought of Trixie, who’d told me how much she’d wanted a sister. Who read so well despite how young she was, and who trusted you when you took her to play hide and seek in the woods around midnight. Who cried and called me Sissy when you told me to take that ax and “earn your keep you ungrateful little bitch.”
Luther told me he’d treat me right and ran his hand over my cheek. I looked up at him like I’d looked at Todd all those many months ago, and I asked him, yeah? Would he. And I kissed him. And he told me the cops already knew where we were, that he’d tipped them off to get a friend of his out of a bind over the trouble Todd had caused. That I really didn’t have a choice anyway.
I told him that was fine by me, because Todd was weak and a junkie to boot, and he didn’t know how to treat a lady. And I asked Luther did he? Did he know how to treat a lady? Could he show me? He asked if Todd was still there and I said yeah, he was, but he was junked out and wouldn’t wake up for hours. I told him we had a little space atop the table just inside the door, that I didn’t care about being comfortable ‘cause it’d been so long since I had a real man.
Luther smiled at me and shut the door behind him. I pulled him over to the table and sat and wrapped my legs around him, pulling him close. Our tongues met in my mouth and then his. He didn’t notice me slide the federal agent’s tiny little pistol out of my purse and put it behind his ear. He squeezed my breast and then bit my lip so hard it bled when I shot him, tearing away a thin piece of skin when he fell away.
My ears rang. Todd lay in a daze on the mattress. I went over to him anyway and lay down beside him. I told him I loved him and I meant it. And I told him he was the best thing that’d ever happened to me, and that was true too. I curled up beside him and slept one last time, never smelling the rot setting into the wounds on his stomach or the filth he was leaving behind in the bed.
I woke and started writing this. I started this morning and now it’s almost midnight. The moon is up outside and the windows are open. The breeze feels nice. Warm, despite the brown and gold leaves on the trees outside. There aren’t many of them in this neighborhood, but the ones I can see are so very beautiful.
There are men down on the street, and I know they aren’t from the neighborhood because they’re mostly white and have good posture and comfortable shoes. If they arrested me, I bet I could talk my way out of a life sentence. The papers have blamed everything on Todd, because he’s a man and nobody believes women can do evil things, not really. That if they do evil things, they’re trite and pointless. Crimes of passion, neglect, or stupidity.
Understand that everybody that has died on our sojourn across America is dead because I was sick of getting ice cream at Busser’s. Because I wanted more than the quiet security the men you preyed on provided. Because I couldn’t handle the guilt of what I did to Trixie, or face the consequences like an honest human being.
I could have ended this thing whenever I wanted to, and I didn’t.
I hate you, mama. I hate you like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you do. You never mention your mama and I can only imagine she was just like us, or at least bad enough you turned out the way you did. I’m not writing you to say goodbye, I’m writing you so that you know I did this all on my own. I did it for me, because I’m my own bad person, not because you corrupted me or because Todd drove me crazy. I did this. All of this. And I did it for me.
And if anybody else happens to read this, you should understand that Todd was the innocent bystander. Tell his mama or papa or whoever is still around that he got wrapped up with a bad woman who twisted him around her finger like a piece of taffy. That he could have walked away from that armored car or me or this life at any time if I’d have let him. And he wanted to. But I didn’t.
And, if anybody else happens to read this, Trixie Macintosh is buried in a busted old woodshed off Rural Route 5 outside of Blunt, West Virginia. She was the most wonderful little girl and I killed her with an ax because I’m a coward.
I’m going to finish this letter now, and leave it up here on this table. Then I’m going to take Todd down off the bed and bring him by the window. The breeze is nice and I want him to feel that before I take that straight razor I bought and send us both to hell. And God I hope there is a hell, ‘cause if there is then there is a heaven. And if there is, that Trixie will be up there with her mama, living some sort of happiness.
And that when you die, you’ll be down here with me.
-June Bug
westsidefairytales.com

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Date: 2012-12-07
Link to submission (Has self-text)
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Questions	Answers
Any chance of you taking over as the host of Jeopardy if/when Alex Trebek retires. Any discussions to that effect happening?	We need to get that rumor started. I'd say there's virtually no chance, since they would probably interview people WITH ACTUAL TV HOSTING EXPERIENCE.
	But that said, what a dream job. I would take it in a heartbeat. Trebek works on-set like 4-5 days a month, and I'm sure a big Sony truck full of cash backs up to his house once or twice a week. I just need to work on my French pronunciation and my transparently false sympathy at wrong answers.
Do you still talk to Alex Trebek ever? Are you guys friends?	Contestants don't get to fraternize with Alex very much. This is partially due to federal laws that (still, 50+ years after the quiz show scandals) make it a felony to rig a game show. It's probably also due to the fact that Alex doesn't WANT to hang out with the contestants that much.
	Still, I feel like we bonded. I remember he came back on stage and got a little teary-eyed after I lost my last game, which surprised me and then choked me up a bit. It was just like Brian's Song only we are both white and instead of getting cancer I just got kicked off a game show.
Follow-up: have you ever randomly encountered Watson in the streets or social function, and given him an icy stare?	It's so awkward. "Hello, Ken." "Oh...hello, Watson." Long pause, neither of us blinks. Room gets really quiet. Finally the nervous hostess takes my arm, leads me away from the buffet table telling me there are other people I simply MUST meet. Watson goes back to shoving bacon-wrapped shrimp in his stupid mouth because he's all old and stupid and fat now.
Do you ever watch Jeopardy and scream at your TV. HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT!?	Ha, my son is 10 and he wants to watch Jeopardy EVERY NIGHT NOW. I always beg him to turn it off. It's my favorite show but nowadays when I hear the music and the smooth Canadian tones of Alex Trebek I find myself getting all nervous and keyed-up. Like I'm back in 'Nam all of the sudden.
When you were on Jeopardy, what was the housing situation? Did they provide a hotel, or did you live in the area?	A lot of people are surprised to hear that Jeopardy doesn't normally pick up contestants' travel costs. You fly out, get a hotel, rent a car, all on your own dime.
	In my case, I always stayed in this DISGUSTING little motel right by the 405 in Culver City. At first I chose it because (a) it was right next to the studio and (b) the marquee out front still said "COLOR TV! PHONES!" like I'm sure it had in 1965. This place was a craphole, but I kept on staying there with the hookers and whatnot during my entire 75-game streak. Didn't want to mess with my routine.
I did Kids Jeopardy back in '02 and they paid for a roundtrip flight to LA for me and my family, 4 nights in the Beverly Hilton, and $600 in spending money for the trip. Guess the adults get a raw deal.	Yup. Tournaments are all-expenses paid. The regular joes get bupkis.
	YOU ARE THE 1%!!!
Care to speak about the "hoe" incident? How much did Alex Trebeck bust your balls about that afterwards?	Here's the clip] ([Link to www.youtube.com.)
	The only thing I remember happening during the next break is that "Al" guy on the end saying he was glad I beat him to the buzzer. He was also going to say "What is a ho?" and he was some kind of Lutheran pastor from Minnesota, he thought his congregation would never let him live it down.
	I also wanted to ask the Jeopardy writers if that was a set-up, like that question was specifically phrased to get someone to say "What is a ho?" I suspect so.
So did you actually know the right answer and just want to say 'ho' on national television?	CORRECT YOU HAVE CONTROL OF THE BOARD.
How many blunts do you smoke per day neff?	Um no offense to /trees but there's a reason why you never saw Snoop on Jeopardy 75 times in a row.
If you could play any two historical figures in Jeopardy, who would they be and why?	Warren G. Harding and Caligula, because I hear they were dumb as posts and I'M THERE TO WIN BABY.
What was the must surprising myth you debunked in "Because I Said So!"	I guess there are over a dozen good studies now showing no link between sugar and hyperactivity in children. Weird, right? Parents are so invested in this "sugar rush" idea because no one wants to believe "Ugh, my kids are being a terror at this birthday party." They want to say, "Hey, that's what you get for filling my kid up on soda and cake."
Have you read "Under the Banner of Heaven," and if so, what was your reaction to Krakauer's portrayal of the Mormon faith?	I have read it. Pretty simplistic view of how Mormonism's (occasionally) violent past affects the community today. I'm Mormon and virtually nothing in it felt familiar to me.
Have you seen "Book of Mormon", and if so, your reaction?	Saw it on Broadway last year! Paid through the nose and it was worth every penny. I laughed until all my sphincters gave out. There's your blurb for Playbill.
	Obviously it's in terrible taste, but it's in SUCH terrible taste that it seems almost beside the point to complain about that.
In regards to the question on Under the Banner of Heaven: You are a pretty skeptical, wry person. I find it hard to believe that you can accept Joseph Smith's version of events and prophecies. How do you reconcile your innate rational mindset with the fact that your religion, like many belief systems, may be founded on the words and ideas of a charlatan?	Yeah, it's always weird when Mormons and not-Mormons talk about Joseph Smith. BY DEFINITION, Mormons will think Smith had some kind of connection to the divine. BY DEFINITION, anyone else will assume he was a con man. Hard to bridge that gap.
Thanks for the AMA. You're the man.	His story is weird, sure, what with the angels and the plates and all. No question. I don't think it's fundamentally any weirder than the founding myth of any other religion, though. But more to the point, I like that it seems mysterious and weird. It's very compelling to me, this idea of a 19th-century farm boy seeing God and then spending the rest of his life trying to build "Zion," a holy city, where his people can live and worship together and help one another. The whitewashed Mormon idea of a saintly, no-warts Joseph Smith is bogus, of course, but so is the assumption that he was just a creepy Jim Jones type.
Any words of wisdom for a high school trivia team? We admire you. Edit: SURPRISE! i am female.	If you get the chance, talk to a girl sometime so you can tell your teammates what it was like.
Will you name my new cat?	"Callipygian." It means "possessing beautiful buttocks."
Is this how English linguists flirt?	With each other's pets. :(
Anything cool behind the contestant podium that I should know about?	Some boxes of raisins in case you get hungry and a catheter thing if you have a nervous bladder. A lot of times when it looks like somebody is pondering an answer or a wager, he's just peeing.
	No, not really. They're mostly hollow, each one has some kind of PC under it running the buzzer and touch-screen. One time the side case panel fell off my opponents' computer with a loud CLANG! They had to stop tape and the producer came running onstage shouting "The wheels are coming off the wagon!" in mock horror.
	I told this story on-line one time and got an email from a disappointed Jeopardy publicist saying I "didn't have to tell EVERYTHING." So now I'm nervously waiting for my phone to ring.
You're obviously a very intelligent man, why does religion still hold resonance in your life?	No idea, but "resonance" is definitely the right word. I can't rationally defend believing in God, but the idea has some essential rightness to me that I can't imagine living without. Atheists are free to read that as "Aha, he needs the comforting crutch!" but that's sort of reductive. It's not how it FEELS to believe. The miracles of my own consciousness and the existence of the universe seem to naturally imply the existence of God to me in exactly the same obvious way it precludes it for others.
	I always think about the mathematician and writer Martin Gardner, who was one of the most famous skeptics of his time, always hanging out with James Randi and those guys. And yet, to his dying breath, he held on to some weird kind of deism from his youth. He at least HOPED, he said, that there could be another, better world beyond this one. That's how I feel, I guess.
Will you be a reference on my next job application? It's competitive as fuck out there.	Sure. "I first met ologies wasting time during the middle of the work day on Reddit, a practice I'm sure he'd continue at your company..."
I have to say, the inscription you put in my copy of Braniac is far and away my favorite ever, so thanks for that.	You're welcome! I'm not sure that Rush Holt joke has aged all that well.
I guess that's not a question so... how'd you get so awesome and stuff?	If I'm awesome at all it's only because I was bitten by a radioactive game show contestant as a child. (It was that weirdo with the beard who figured out how to cheat at Press Your Luck.)
You are open about your Mormon faith as well as pretty openly and visibly progressive in your viewpoints. At least in terms of how the Mormon church is portrayed in the media, this comes off as unusual. I'm wondering if you can talk at all about that. I know you've been vocally critical of a lot of media depictions of your religion, and I'm wondering if this is a part of it. Is there a larger current of progressive Mormonism that just gets ignored?	By the numbers, there are certainly more conservative than progressive Mormons in the US, but plenty of Mormons are lefties like me. Famously, Harry Reid, one of the most powerful Democrats in the country, is Mormon.
	The easy link between Mormons and conservative politics is really intensified by the fact that Mormons in mountain west states like Utah really ARE the nuttiest nuts on the nut tree. That's where you get the little towns mandating gun ownership or banning U.N. helicopters over their airspace or whatever. But I feel like that has more to do with frontier isolationist thinking in general than anything specific about Mormon belief. Over half of LDS church members live outside the US now, for example, and my experience is that Mormons in places like Europe and South America are social progressives by and large.
What is one advantage you have over Watson?	Pretty much my only advantage over Watson is my Jimmy Stewart impression. Watson's is shit.
Where did the Kennections quiz idea come from? I love it	"Kennections" is a weekly quiz] ([Link to www.parade.com I do in Parade magazine, aka that awesome section in the middle of the Sunday paper where they have like fajita recipes and interviews with Kurt Russell. Parade proposed the HILARIOUSLY punny name, which I put up with because at least this way they can't fire me. Or if they do, they have to replace me with someone else named Ken. Ken Burns, maybe? The concept comes from any number of game shows from my childhood where solving each round would give you one clue to some uber-puzzle, which is how Kennections works. There was even a 80s trivia board game with a similar gimmick, which you can still find at garage sales sometimes: Stage II.
Initially I had a hard time believing your twitter account was you and not an imposter because the humor wasn't very PG (not that I have a problem with that), that said: you're damn funny! Ever thought about doing stand up? Or is writing the only way you want to approach humor?	I don't really think I'm a good fit for stand-up. Those guys are legitimately FUNNY funny. Twitter mostly rewards clever, not funny. As the great Simpsons writer George Meyer once said, "Clever is the eunuch version of funny." Truer words were never spoken.
	Plus all the travel, the heckling, the flop-sweats when you do a bad set, plus can you imagine being the guy who tries to go from being a Jeopardy contestant to doing stand-up? "HA HA CAN YOU DO FIVE MINUTES IN THE FORM OF A QUESTION?" "I'LL TAKE YOU'RE NOT FUNNY FOR $400 ALEX LOL!!!"
	Maybe someday I'll write a book about funniness and have to try it out in George Plimpton "Paper Lion" fashion. But don't hold your breath for the Comedy Central special.
What's your favorite palindrome?	Here's one I made up on Twitter a while back. It's a little poem.
	Pee with gin. Night. I weep.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to be on JEOPARDY?	WATCH THE SHOW. Every day, without fail. Watch it standing up. Pretend to click a ballpoint pen when you know the answer and try to match the timing of whoever's doing well that day.
	BRUSH UP. If there are lists of things you sort of know, get them down pat. Don't take up studying a whole new area (baseball, physics, opera) you know nothing about. But if you could know all the presidents with their dates in office, for example, or all world countries with their capitals, that would be awesome.
	JUST HAVE FUN. Look, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and most people will last less than half an hour. So don't hang everything on the outcome. Just try to enjoy the ride. You'll probably relax and play better today.
	Also, don't wear a sweater, you will look like a douche. Make sure your story doesn't mention your cats.
You're still the Jeopardy King in my eyes, Ken!!! Are there any plans to get you back on the show at all?	I only got the call in 2011 because IBM had a computer that could play Jeopardy. So maybe if somebody ever teaches like a chimp or a dolphin to play? I would totally come back for that.
Ken plays against a chimp and a dolphin.	That's cool that Trebek grew the mustache back just for this special TV event.
Ken what's your favourite kind of ice cream? I like all flavours pretty much.	Cool story bro.
What subjects do you feel are under-represented on Jeopardy?	Proportional to their importance in the grand scheme of the universe: science, especially physics, engineering, and math.
	Proportional to my interest and expertise in them: Marvel Comics of the mid-1980s
Serious question: During your first run on the show, did you lose on purpose because you were tired of the game, made enough money, were homesick, etc?	People always ask if I took a dive. Ugh. Look, I had a summer job where I was making like $35K PER HALF HOUR. No way was I quitting. I just got a question I didn't know.
	A while ago I looked at the old episodes and I found at least 12 during my run where if just one question goes the other way, I lose. So it was really stretching the laws of probability for me to be on that long. The odds are on even a really good player losing MUCH sooner, what with the Daily Doubles and random categories and all.
What is a subject you would fail miserably at if it were a jeopardy category?	VIDEO GAMES POST-1995.
What is your favorite breakfast cereal?	Marshmallow Mateys. Nautically-themed Lucky Charms clone that poor people and college students buy in the big plastic bags at Grocery Outlet. So, so good.
Once at Mall of America, i remember seeing a cereal that was entirely the marshmallows from Marshmallow Mateys.	Yeah but think of the sad inner-city kids who have to eat the all-oat-piece leftovers. :(
Why don't you go on Wheel of Fortune?	I'm blackballed from game shows now, like the card-counters who get kicked out of casinos. I'd need an awesome disguise to go on Wheel, like maybe a big handlebar mustache and a Texas accent.
If you could have any superpowers what would they be?* Who is your favorite musician?	The answer to both is "Flaming Lips."
What was your first purchase after receiving all of your Jeopardy! moneys?	I think we got our first widescreen TV (we were sort of poor before that) and that fall my wife and I took a trip to France and Spain. Those were sort of the big blow-outs. Pretty boring, sorry. If you want to picture me in a rap video with a jacuzzi full of Cristal, feel free.
What does Trebek smell like?	He smells like Canada. Pine needles and maple syrup and a thick, beaver-y musk.
Have people you go to church with ever been offended by your tweets?	I don't think anyone at church reads my Twitter PLEASE DON'T TELL THEM ABOUT IT.
Ken, a lot of people see you as very smart. What is one thing that you've done in your life that wasn't that smart? Possible something in your teenage years?	I majored in computer science even though I really loved English literature. I thought CS seemed more practical/lucrative than writing or teaching.
	Fast-forward ten years and I'm a crappy programmer and, through the weirdest of longshots, Jeopardy gives me a chance to quit my job and become a writer like I always wanted to.
	Bottom line: the thing you like/are good at IS A SACRED THING. Don't screw around with it. Don't sell out too young. Not everybody gets Trebek-delivered redemption from that dreary office job like I did.
How did the Howard Stern appearance come about? That was a great segment, loved it.	I guess somebody at Sirius saw the book and thought it would be a fun twist on "Win Fred's Money." I was pretty nervous...I've heard that segment a bunch of times and Fred NEVER loses.
Congrats on beating Fred!	Beating Fred, $5,000. Meeting George Takei] ([Link to ken-jennings.com) PRICELESS.
Enjoyed you on Stern this week. Btw, good on you not to push the 'silicon' and 'silicone' difference.	Ha, yeah. Trivia people are my people, but "BUT BUT BUT YOU'RE WRONG" is about my least favorite of their personality traits.
What's the oddest thing a fan of yours has done?	Somebody wanted me to sign their baby with Sharpie once. OMG WE'RE NEVER WASHING THIS BABY AGAIN!!!
Having a twitter account with nearly 100,000 followers, how do you deal with the no doubt thousands of insufferable idiots you must have tweeting bile at you? Any memorable trolls?	There's a Darwinist process that's gotten rid of most of the trolls or the easily offended, either me blocking or (more likely) them unfollowing.
Personally I think you're one of the greatest at the twitter game, long may you continue :)	I still get stern lectures sometimes about how THAT'S NOT FUNNY BECAUSE... but that's just part of Twitter. Somehow it always seems so just and deserved when you get the ego-boost of the stars and retweets, but such a terrible, Rwanda-level injustice when someone DOESN'T like a joke and is a dick.
What is the least intelligent thing you've ever done?	I'm totally absent-minded. Always losing my keys and stuff. A couple months ago I flew to the Midwest and back and managed to leave one of my carry-ons in the overhead BOTH OUT AND BACK. Had to go running back to the gate both times. So I have Alzheimer's at 38 basically.
What is your favorite Simpsons quote?	It's not the biggest laugh, but the one I find myself saying most is probably "as was the style at the time!" which Grandpa Simpson appends to crazy wrong facts about the past. When you think about it, it's pretty useful in conversation, especially when people are telling boring stories.
Do you prefer Trebek with or without his mustache?	His "FREE MUSTACHE RIDES" shirt is way less funny now.
If you were to write the perfect Jeopardy question, what would it be?	It would be one of those circular-logic ones that Captain Kirk uses to make computers freak out and explode. Suck on THAT, Watson.
I loved the Book of Lists as a kid, do they still make that? do you remember those? what other trivia books are awesome? why is every sentence of mine a question? and are you reading it like my voice is rising annoyingly at the end of each one?	Ha, I loved The Book of Lists! I'm writing a series of "amazing facts for kids" books now and a childhood friend said, "Make sure you get all the facts right!" Because we both remembered facts from trivia books we read as kids that turned out to be not to be true but then we believed them for decades anyway.
Have you ever hung out with John Hodgman? Do you two just have trivia-offs? You with actual trivia and he with fake trivia?	I've met Hodgman a couple times. What a nice guy. We definitely talked about he's the fake-trivia version of me. Like I can name 900 REAL hoboes off the top of my head right now.
	He's actually my real-trivia hero too because he's been on QI, the British quiz show with Stephen Fry, and I never have.
Hi Ken. Favorite Twilight Zone episode?	The famous, popular ones are famous and popular for a reason. But I also like "The Midnight Sun," the one with the heat wave. I saw it as a kid and had nightmares for years.
What advice do you have for young Mormon people?	The same advice I have for any young people: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME YOUR YOUTH AND VITALITY JUST REMIND ME OF MY OWN EVER-APPROACHING DEATH.
	Also, I know you can't smell it but some of you should take a shower.
Look: I don't want you to get offended, and I mean this in the most platonic, non-inflammatory manner possible, but may I make sweet, obscene monkey love with your brain? I'll be very respectful.	Okay but Pretty Woman rules. No kissing the brain.
What is Halo?	I don't know why you say goodbye, I say Halo.
I listened to you on Doug Loves Movies and you were very funny. Any chance you'll do more in comedy/podcasting?	DLM was so fun! I want people to invite me on podcasts. But only the big, prestigious ones. Not your little sleazy one. Sorry.
You're quite hilarious on twitter. What was your take on the whole Chris Brown/Jenny Johnson debacle?	Team JennyJohnsonHi5. She and I used to play Draw Something back when that was a thing.
Aha! In on the ground floor; looks like following you on twitter is finally paying off! Which was your favourite book to write so far and why?	I hate it when bands say "the new record" but the new book, with all the parenting myths, was a joy start to finish. I'm sort of a worry-wart as a parent, and now I feel a lot more confident about letting the kids run around without hovering and obsessing over every little thing.
	Plus I now know exactly how many times I got lied to as a kid. (A lot.)
Since there was no Slate news quiz today, will you refund my Slate subscription money? I believe I paid...uh...let's say $299.00.	Yeah, sorry. I write a news quiz for Slate.com every Friday, what I hope is a fun multiple-choice affair along the lines of Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! But the problem is the news just keeps happening 24/7, so I have to right the quiz at the very last minute every week. And this week I had the book launch so it didn't happen.
How much do you hate the guys from Symantec? This was supposed to be their moment, man.	Those guys know what they did.
Fuck, marry, kill. Alex Trebek, Rob Delaney, Watson. Go.	Uh, I'm here to talk about Rampart.
Astro or Deano's probably.	One of you is correct but I don't want to get too specific. (I left all my cash winnings in an AV duct there just like Josh Brolin does in No Country for Old Men.)
I sincerely hope Ken Jennings upvoted this.	BEEP BOOP BEEP MERRY--CHRISTMAS--YOU--OLD--BUILDING--AND--LOAN.
This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker.	What is your mom! WOOH RAISES HAND FOR HIGH-FIVE.
	(oops forgot to mention that for the purposes of this joke your mom's name is "Mrs. Shovel" or "Mrs. Weedwhacker" or something)
Opinions on Star Wars VII, go.	Retell Phantom Menace from the POV of those guys with the terrible, offensive Asian accents. I bet they have a story to tell!

Last updated: 2012-12-12 02:26 UTC
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