The Board Amos Never Owned Up To

Nineteen

She came back on Tuesday.

I was in the store at six thirty, because I had not slept. I took the red pieces out of the drawer under the board, set them on her side, and then, finally, I pulled Maynard’s chair out from the table a foot and a half, the way you pull a chair for a woman. Glenda saw it and said nothing. Alvin said “Huh” and sat down.

She came in at ten till seven. “Good morning, Alvin. Good morning, Amos. Good morning, Glenda,” each of us by name. She sat down in the chair and looked at me across the board, and I failed Maynard’s promise on the first morning.

I have lived by one rule, which is that a joint is either square or it is not. You cannot fake a thing to a straight edge. And I found I could not play Vesta Rigby straight. She had been told to go home in front of four men and had gone home and cried, I knew she had, because her eyes were red at the rims, and here she sat picking up a red piece with a trembling hand. I thought: if I take this one from her too, she will not be back Thursday.

So I gave her the game.

You would be surprised how hard it is to lose on purpose to a person who is paying attention. You cannot leave your best piece hanging. You cannot walk into a trap she has plainly set. You sacrifice from the left, where she is looking, and leave the double jump on the right, where she is not, and you keep your face like a barn door. I would play a move I knew was a mistake, my stomach would turn, she would take it, and I would say “Hm.” That was my whole acting.

She won three that Tuesday. Her face did something I had not expected, the pleasure of a girl who finds out she can still ride a bicycle, and she tried to hide it. Three on Wednesday. Three on Thursday. Two on Friday, and Glenda came by with the coffee, glanced at the board and then at me, and set my cup down a little harder than usual. She knew. Alvin knew. It had not occurred to me that a store full of old men could watch a checkerboard so closely.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week she won three, three and two, and every one of those games cost me. Not in pride. In plain arithmetic. Maynard finished his life thirteen games ahead of me on the underside of that board, and I had spent thirty-one years trying to catch him. I could have closed it that month. Nineteen is more than fourteen.

I gave away nineteen games, and I would give them again.