The Phantom Menace

One day in late July 2005, John Guth went for a drive in his red SUV. Five feet 6 inches with sandy blond hair, the slender 36-year-old lived in Maple Valley with his longtime partner on a street of tidy three-bedroom homes—as close to mainstream splendor as a gay man can get in the suburbs. He was popular among his neighbors, a gourmet cook with a taste for good cigars and Scotch whisky. In nearby Seattle, Guth was well-known, too—an obsessed Star Wars fan who'd gotten more than his 15 minutes of fame in 2002 for camping out at Belltown's Cinerama for four months, waiting to be first in line to see the revived franchise's Attack of the Clones and raising money for a children's charity.

Guth had youngsters on his mind that July 2005 day as well. Somewhere in King County, he picked up a boy barely 15 years old, whom he'd met on MySpace. The boy got into Guth's SUV, and Guth took him to a secluded area near the boy's father's home—where he showered the boy with gifts for his 15th birthday: black bikini underwear, a tight-fitting Under Armor T-shirt, and a new pair of jeans. The boy stripped naked in front of Guth and slid into the new duds. Guth then told the boy that he "looked good."

Nine months later, Guth was dead, the victim of a double life and internal conflicts he could not resolve—a fundamentalist Christian with a hankering for young male flesh who'd failed to heed Yoda's warning in Return of the Jedi: "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

Not long ago, in a galaxy not far away, John Guth sat on a sidewalk outside of Belltown's Cinerama movie theater with his pal Jeff Tweiten. They were co-founders of the Seattle Star Wars Society ("The Official Force of the Northwest") and, on New Year's Day 2002, had decided to engage in the ultimate act of fanaticism—one tinged with echoes of Beckett and postmodernist attention seeking. The two would camp outside the theater, in a combined art project and act of holy devotion, for 136 days until Attack of the Clones opened in May. They also wanted to be first in line, and would use their project to raise money for the society's Junior Jedi charity program. But at the time, they didn't know if the new release would debut at Cinerama or somewhere else.

It was cold and rainy, and Guth and Tweiten had blown off home and hearth to do something most people would find crazy. For some reason, the world was very interested in their antics.

Each day, dozens of people stopped by to talk with—or at least heckle—Guth and Tweiten. "Get a life" was a constant refrain, the assumption being that these were pimpled losers better suited to sitting at home playing Dungeons & Dragons or staging Japanese anime marathons. Over 300 radio hosts interviewed them, including Howard Stern, and they were a regular morning feature on CNN. They also appeared on the Today Show and Good Morning America. Women flashed them as they passed in cars and trucks, and there were hundreds of newspaper articles as well.

Even The Wall Street Journal's online opinion page took a swipe at them: "What a tragic waste," wrote James Taranto. "One hundred thirty-five days is almost enough time to get a life."

To the inevitable question—why so obsessed with the fictitious Force?—they had ready answers.

"I don't remember anything else about the third grade except Star Wars," Guth said. "You remain true to that nostalgia of the era you grew up with. That's what this is."

"We love Star Wars," said Tweiten. "And I want to create sort of a life art project out of this that can be displayed once this is over with. We plan on capturing our adventures and experiences on the streets of Seattle with our cameras and journals. What we do with it after it's all done with, ask us then."

People got their act on a gut level because Star Wars is magical and simplistic. Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark, Temptation vs. Resolve. The whole series was as easy to grasp as a Christian morality play. But with the added sci-fi texture, it was something children of all ages could fixate on for a lifetime.

Guth had first encountered the Force when he was a youngster in Maple Shade, N.J., a small town 10 miles east of Philadelphia. Born in 1969, he grew up in an old house with a large maple tree outside his bedroom window. His parents were devout fundamentalist Christians.

Now, he and Tweiten were the center of attention, and as their bit of performance art went on, other Star Wars geeks crafted parody posters of the duo. In one, their faces are superimposed on an image of Anakin Skywalker and Queen Padme Amidala, who are standing back to back. In another, the two are seated on their camping chairs, the Cinerama's distinctive blocky sign behind them. Guth is wearing sunglasses, winter gloves, and an orange jacket, and has a tartan blanket wrapped around his legs. They even had their own Web site, waitingforstarwars.com, which is now defunct, and were such local celebs that some Star nerds had the two sign DVDs for them. They had wireless Internet service at their campsite, and companies donated goods such as soda and digital cameras.