Checkmate

Credit goes to Gone Away, for the idea.

I am a chess fanatic. I love everything about chess-- the game, the simple elegance of the pieces, the history, the aura. I am in love with the very idea of chess.

My father was a chess player when he was young, and one year, Mom made him a ceramic chess set. The pieces were beautiful-- blue and silver on one side, and purple and gold on the other. The board was exquisite. Mom outlined each of the squares with gold paint, and the effect was astonishing. One rule that was never voiced, but Joe and I knew instinctively-- to touch the chess set was to die. We admired the thing from afar (through the glass in the curio cabinet), but never, ever touched it.

When we were old enough, Dad took us each aside one afternoon, and taught us to play-- on the GOOD chess set, not the plastic $1.00 set they'd bought us at a yard sale. To be given the opportunity to play a game with my (normally very reserved) dad-- a game that he loved as much as chess-- well, it was magic. I was 7 years old, with a torn t-shirt and ragged shorts, and I felt as though I were a Lady in the King's court. My glass of milk magically transformed into a cup of tea; my clothes were transformed into a gown, and for the first time in my life, I felt how I imagined a grown-up must feel. Somewhere in my child's brain, the beginnings of an obsession was born. An obsession that stemmed from the love and acceptance Dad showed us on the day he taught us how to play, but very seldom showed us otherwise.

I can't remember ever using Dad's chess set by myself or with Joe. I can't even remember ever considering the idea. If Joe and I decided to play together (a rare occasion, due to his disturbance), we used the cheap plastic set, which I had grown to hate as much as I loved the ceramic one. Deep in my head and heart was the knowledge that only adults could be trusted with nice things. Plastic was for children. Where this idea came from, I'm not sure, but I expect it was due to the Germanic culture in which I was raised. However it might be, as I grew older, I cared less and less for that plastic chess set, and lost my interest in the game.

When I moved out of the parental nest for the first time, I was alone in the city, with very few friends left over from high school. I needed an interest. While out shopping one day, I saw a relatively nice, though still plastic, chess set at a local store. The pieces were brown and beige, and more care had been put into their making. They were weighted, and actually looked almost as though they had been made of wood. I couldn't possibly afford a real set, and the ceramic one was still in the curio cabinet. I paid $12.95 for the chess set, and it came with a free one-year subscription to Chess Life magazine.

Reading the magazine taught me how much I didn't know about the game of chess. Dad (apparently) decided we were having enough trouble with the basic moves, and didn't teach us about castling (the switching of rook and king in one move) or en passant (the capturing of a pawn under specific circumstances). I didn't know chess notation-- had never even HEARD of chess notation. Somewhere in the vague corners of my mind was a small bit of history (at one time, the Persians had used elephant pieces). Chess Life was the key I needed to open the door to a world I had only glimpsed from afar.

Within a week, I knew how to record a game, and could pass off names like Morphy and Nimzowitsch as though I were a pro. I had a serious problem though-- this was before the advent of the internet, and shy, overweight people often have trouble making friends. I had no one to play with. I read my magazine religiously, studied the moves of the masters, and even picked up some chess books at a yard sale. But I was never able to use that chess set for anything other than study. As time went on, I began losing my interest again, for lack of someone to share it with.

You may be wondering why I never played with Dad. I honestly have no idea. Perhaps it was the physical distance, perhaps it was reluctance on my part to return (even for an evening) to a house that held so many painful memories. Joe was home from the Navy, and that, too, may have had something to do with it. Until I sat down and started writing this piece, the idea that I should have sought Dad out never even occurred to me.

While working at Kindercare, for several summers, I was in the school-age room. School-agers are a particular challenge. When I was a child, kids their age were often left alone, with a neighbor to call on in case of trouble. In society as it is now, that's seldom a viable option. These kids, old enough to fend for themselves for a few hours, were stuck in a place with rules and regulations meant for much younger children. Ten year olds rebel when they feel they are being unfairly treated, and in my mind, they had every right to do so. However, the discipline problems they created were enormous.

One afternoon, I grabbed one of the older boys, sat him in front of me, and pulled out the old, battered chess set that had sat on a shelf so long it was actually dusty. Within 2 days, every child over the age of 7 would rush to greet me as I came in, ready to (finally) beat the pants off me. I never threw a game. I taught the kids as we played. I'd show them the lines of battle, suggest ways to throw off my attacks, and show them what would happen in subsequent moves, but I never made the game easy for them. This gave them the stimulation they needed to, not only behave, but to thrive in my classroom. Soon we had 5 chess sets (oh, the hated plastic of my youth), and they were constantly in use. Some of the kids were very talented, and a few of them, by the end of the first summer, were beating me regularly.

My half-decent chess set had long since gone missing, and I ended up buying a glass one for $64 dollars that can now be had online for $10. I loved that set. It had classic pieces, in clear and shadowed glass, and was seriously beautiful. The only trouble was, with a house full of cats, I couldn't leave it out. I needed a set I could use around my pets. Fortunately, I still had my Chess Life magazines, complete with advertisements for everything chess-related. I decided I needed a magnetic or a peg board, somewhat smaller than the glass one, so I would have room on the table for my books, my tablet, and the four colored pens I used when writing down a game.

"The Hunt for Red October" (a Tom Clancy book, made into a film) was nothing compared to the hunt for the perfect chess set. I immediately bought the first travel chessboard I could find. The pieces didn't stick well, and there was no place to store the captured pieces. I kept looking. I ordered a 2 dimensional set from an ad off of Chess Life, but the pieces were little more than squashed jellybeans with a drawing of what they were supposed to be emblazoned on the back. I bought 2 different pegboard chess sets. The first one was far too small-- I couldn't tell the bishops from the pawns. This was a serious flaw. Also, again there was noplace to store the captured pieces. The second pegboard had slightly bigger pieces, and a row of holes for storage on each side of the board itself. I still have this board, and use it when I get the urge to study. It was still too small for a real game, however.

By this time, I was an internet addict. Somehow, I got the idea of looking online for chessboards, and found the absolute perfect board for me. The board was large enough to play against an opponet, the pieces were beautifully carved, with strong enough magnets that the board could be turned upside down without any pieces falling off. Best of all, it had 2 drawers that held the pieces while not in use. Forty dollars and 3 weeks later, I was the saddest chess player in the world-- one of the pieces was missing. The company sent me out a replacement piece, but the paint was far darker than the original, and this seriously bothered me. I wrote to the company again, and they sent me an entirely new set, board and all. The first set, I used with the children, and it eventually got ruined. The second set, I put away with my chess books, and never used.

Upon moving to this house last year, I came across the chess books and the good chess set. Due to my internet addiction, I hadn't used them in years, and had, in fact, forgotten their existance. I played online, now. Opening the box that had the chess set was like seeing an old friend, long missed. I touched each piece, giving them the honor they were due. I keep the set in a cabinet in my own house, ready and waiting for that next game. Unlike Dad's chess set, this one is used, by whomever I can cajole into playing with me.

Whatever happened to Dad's chess set, you ask? After Joe died, I mentioned that we had been arguing over who would inherit the ceramic set. Mom said it was in the closet upstairs, if I wanted it. I went though years of accumulated junk, and finally pulled out an old, dusty shoebox. Knowing this couldn't possibly be that magical chess set, I opened the box.

That elegant board, with the gold-trimmed squares was nothing more than a slab of ceramic clay baked onto a piece of cardboard. Bendable cardboard. Those glorious pieces were filthy with dust. As I cleaned each one off, I saw the chips and scrapes, the places where the paint had worn off. One knight had no tail. The bishop's miters were broken off. I came as close to tears for that chess set as I had when my brother passed away. I closed the box, and put it back in the closet, older and wiser now.