Thomas Wictor

My favorite TV show of all time was The X-Files. There were episodes that were so brilliant that I hesitate to watch them again, for fear that they won’t be as great as I remember.

The best episode is titled “All Souls.” It’s perfect because it has everything that moves me: pain, indescribable loss, letting go, protecting the defenseless, defeating evil, ambiguous figures who hide their intentions, terrible misunderstandings, and a person whose faith is tested to the limit.

This isn’t a monster.

Plenty of people would think so, but not me.

The series is very uneven; the writers often lost their way, but who could blame them? They were grinding out the equivalent of a movie a week. What usually saved the weaker episodes was the brilliant Gillian Anderson.

I’m attracted to intelligent, funny, tragic women. Nobody could suffer like Anderson. She went all bananas with the stardom thing and debauched her greatest quality, which was her inscrutability. You didn’t quite know what was going on in Special Agent Dana Scully’s head.

Anderson is a self-saboteur. As soon as the show was a hit, she got pregnant. It didn’t kill her career, but it was a giant, raised middle finger to everyone who had worked so hard to get her where she was.

My attraction is to Dana Scully, not Gillian Anderson.

There’s no mystery in, “Hey! Look at my side-boob!” She just reminds me of Madonna now.

Too-long hair, weirded-up face, and boobs out in the open for everyone to gawk at and yell, “Wow! Boobs! Cool!” Women are getting more and more generic.

Ladies, if you really want to stand out, go for the prune-faced, toothless, noseless, earless, head-tentacled, boob-eyed look.

All conversation will cease when you walk into a room.

Deep Throat

The early X-Files had a character named Deep Throat, played by Jerry Hardin.

The name comes from the Watergate scandal; Deep Throat was the FBI’s second-ranking official, W. Mark Felt. He was given his code name by Washington Post Managing Editor Howard Simons.

Are you surprised that this guy had the title of the first mainstream porn film on his mind when the discussion was about bringing down the president of the United States? He looks exactly like the man who destroyed my career in music journalism. I’m sure he had pornographic films on his mind all the time too.

“Everybody but me is getting some!”

Well, you need a little work, that’s all. Start by jumping off the Empire State Building. I promise you that after you do that, every passing girl will notice you.

In the book and movie All the President’s Men and in the X-Files, both Deep Throats refused to come right out and say things. I never read the book by or saw the move about Woodward and Bernstein, but I hate the way Bob speaks.

He emphasizes syllables in such a plodding, contrived, pedantic, deeply irritating way, and his regional accent makes my teeth hurt.

“Sigh-ting this You-Tube vi-dee-oh I guess hyaf a duh-zen times.”

Whenever he talks, I find myself thinking of things like this.

What I found infuriating about Deep Throat in The X-Files was that he was totally elliptical. He made Mulder find the answer himself instead of just telling him. Why did he do that? It seemed like such unnecessary hugger-mugger, cloak-and-dagger, hush-whisper playacting. We’re all secret agents! Aren’t we hot?

But it just hit me today why it can’t be done any other way.

Let’s say that Hamas or the Islamic State breaks down my door, hauls me to Death Valley, and chops off my fingers, toes, and dangly bits until I talk. There’s nothing I can tell them. Everything I’ve gotten from “David,” “Ben,” Avi,” and the others has been in the form of questions.

“Are you sure you have that place name right?”

“Have you thought of looking here?”

“Do you think this argument is really that convincing?”

So if I fall into the wrong hands, I can’t implicate anyone. Also, these questions have forced me to make my cases airtight. Have forced ME. Nobody’s giving me anything, except sometimes after the fact.

“You know, when you said this sort of weapon must exist? Well, one does. It’s called the _________. It’s declassified now, so I just thought you’d like to know.

Another aspect is that I can’t be trusted. I could let everything go to my head, like Gillian Anderson did, and start running off at the mouth.

“Hello? Is that Jon Snow of Channel 4 News? Have I got a story for you!”

I would never do that, because I despise Jon Snow and all other journalists, but nobody in their right mind—playing at the stakes they’re playing—can afford to make any assumptions about me. The prudent thing to do is to leave no paper trail and have plausible deniability.

By making me do all the work, it becomes something I conceived, so if it all blows up in my face, I’m the only one who’ll end up faceless. I’m working on something that might get me sued. It has to do with the French news footage of the boys running on the beach at Gaza. All I need is photos or videos of two interiors, and I’ll have an airtight case. It’s already pretty airtight, but I’m going for airtightest.

I’m betting that in a couple of days, I’ll have what I need.