Last summer my imaginary, history-buff friends and I began a Friday night tradition of coming over my house to watch the History Channel together. The dull, thirty minute long History of Garbage and Hitler's Girlfriend: A Love Story episodes didn't spark our interest, but our tongues imediately rolled out of our mouths in excitmnent during a superb program called Most Ugly Historical Figures of All Time: Be Careful, Viewers. You Might Be on it! After learning that members of the European monarchy might be a bit more attractive if they stopped mating with their own sisters, it was time for the next show: Most Attractive Figures of all Time. There weren't too many surprises, but something that peaked my interest was the brief mention of John Wilkes Booth, who came in twelfth.

"Booth?" I said bitterly, turning to Ralph. "He's not attractive. He's a happier version of Edger Allen Poe, is all."

Booth's friend and co-conspirator, Lewis Thorton "Paine" Powell, was much more attractive, or so I discovered when I googled him out of pure curisotiy. I advise all to do the same. Seriously, ladies/questioning teenage boys: Google him. In the picture I had come across, he is leaning his head against the wall of a jail cell as his soft, black eyes glisten out in the distance. His hair is parted in the middle, and he is wearing distorted, slightly cryptic frown. You can just imagine him being surrounded by photographers and flipping his hair back like an Abrecrombie model as he makes, "Woosh! Ahhh! Woosh noises!" in a masculine, scrufy voice. In the google photograph, however, his expression is completely serious, looking forward into the future 2009 women with a face that says, "Hello, ladies. I am a bad, bad man."

Admitedly, though very well-educated and a smooth talker, Paine had a habbit of being on the dim side of things; not to imply in the least that I mind dim guys. He made some pretty stupid errors in judgement during his assignement to assasinate William H. Seward, the 1865 Secretary of State. After repeatedly misfiring just a few feet from Seward's head, Paine became frustrated and began to jump on Seward and hit him with the gun. As in, Whack, whack. Whack. Let's see. Um. Whack. Whackity. Whack.

Definitely not the way to kill people. In fact, William Seward lived. Paine knew enough to flee to the woods behind the Seward mansion.

Meanwhile, Mary Surrat was having trouble of her own. She had owned the house of which Booth, Paine, and the other conspirators met to discuss plans to kill Abraham Lincoln. Therefore, she was wanted as a co-conspirator herself. Just a few blocks from the Surrat house, military investigators were trying to get answers out of her.

"I'm a woman! You can't do this," was her best defense.

"We can see that," one of the officers replied, somewhat annoyed but altogether determined to bring justice to the North.

"What do you MEAN you can see that?" At this point Mary was out of excuses and turned aggressive. "How can you see that I'm a woman? Is my vagina popping out? I don't think so. So you can't see it. I'LL MAKE IT VERY CLEAR TO YOU IN A FEW SECONDS."

And then, like an annoying, unwanted, useless super hero Paine arrived! He stood at the door step of Mary Surrat's home, and as the military investigators opened the door to lead Surrat into her awaiting jail cell a few blocks over, they saw him. With a pick axe in his hands.

"So," the investigator scanned Paine up and down as he stood there with absolutely no signs of emotion on his face. "What's with the pick axe?"

There are many excuses Paine could have used. He could have said he had a date with an attractive young girl and was using it to comb his hair. He could have lowered his voice to a whisper and said, "Well, mister. You just can't be too safe."

Instead he said with his half-dead, half-sparkling eyes: "Mary hired me to dig a gutter."

Mary, who would definitely have been picked on in High School, looked the police officer in the eye and said, "No, I didn't. I've never seen this man before in my life."

And so, because Paine is a moron - an attractive one - he spent several days in jail. While in jail he attempted to kill himself by hitting his head against the cell wall. The pictures I had found on google must have been taken days beforehand. After all, I find it hard to imagine that the camera men in his cell saw this attempt of suicide and flashed their cameras while squealing, "Awwww! How cute! Do it again. This time look FIERCE!"

I later read in a magazine article contributed to the great Abraham Lincoln that Paine's remains were lost and it wasn't until 1991 that an unnamed man found Paine's skull buried somewhere in Washington. I have to wonder where the rest of Paine's skeleton is. I want the other parts; I'm sure the skull isn't even the best part!

I was equally bewildered to read that the skull was found among among a pile of Native American skulls. What was it doing there, of all places? I can't imagine the conversation that went on between the grave diggers. "Let's make a pile of Native American skulls! Throw! Throw! Hmmm, this isn't a Native American skull. It goes with the regular WHITE BOI skulls. Oh well. That's all the way over there. Quite a long walk. Let's just throw it in with the Native American skulls and no one will notice. Throw!"

My love affair with Lewis Thorton Powell is a strange one because, as my imaginary friend reminded me at the end of the program, it is not real. Paine hasn't been alive since 1865, and has a much better excuse compared to all my past boyfriends for not replying to my phone calls. He is able to say, quite honestly, "Well. Honey. I am dead."