Checkmate

I remember being taught how to play chess back in elementary school.  We had flimsy laminated paper “boards” and pieces that we would always seem to lose.  We would always substitute quarters or other pocket change for the knight, which has always been my favorite piece.  It was also the one that always went missing.  I feel like it had something to do with the fact that it looked like a horse, and when you’re seven, you think horses are pretty, so you steal them.  It’s as simple as that.  I just always liked the “L” shaped move it made.  I always quietly said the letter to myself each time I moved it.

If I recall correctly, a whole bunch of the kids were terrified to play against me.  I thought that I was pretty good at the game.  And back then, we equated the ability to play chess with how smart you were, and I was the class nerd.  I wanted to be revered as the best chess player in the class.  Suck it, fellow third graders.  I run this classroom.  Well, so does Mrs. Martinez, but she wasn’t the class chess champion like I was.

As it turns out, I don’t think I necessarily had much strategy at all.  I moved my pieces in all the ways I knew how, and I especially did my “L” shape with my knight as often as possible.  I would beat kids left and right, and they would bow down to my greatness.

Then a new kid moved in and changed everything.  This is before that time when kids get really brutal to the new kid in the class like in middle school when you’re a pre-teen and absolutely everyone’s a prissy little bitch.  This is still the time when you see the new kid and relentlessly ask questions about where he came from and how he ended up in your class and whether or not they have bodegas with 50-cent sodas where he comes from.

We played chess once.  I guess for some reason I thought he would be really lousy at the game, as if the kids in my class were the only ones knew how to play it.  I thought that I was already one step ahead of this kid.  I even let him go first.  He moved his pawn up one square.  I moved my pawn up two.  Just because I could.  And the rest of the game unfolded.

As it progressed, I kept my eye fixated on his king.  Right in the middle of the board all the way at his end.  I would always stare at that piece.  I would try and pay attention to the moves he made, but ultimately, it was that king I was after.  I would try to make stealthy moves, all in the pursuit of that king, but he systematically began knocking down my pieces.  Each time he “ate” one of my own (I don’t even know why we used to say that our pieces were being “eaten”), I saw how I could have avoided my obvious mistake.  And I continued to make obvious mistakes over and over again.  I questioned my ability, as it seemed as if he outsmarted each thing I did.  I would make a move, and he would counteract it as if I never even made a dent at all.

Eventually, all I had left was my lone king and my faithful queen which I frantically moved around the board trying to avoid his legion of remaining pieces.  My queen flew across the board trying to eliminate his king, but he would simply move another one of his pieces to protect it.  I would call “check,” and with a simple, calm gesture, he would move a piece that remedied the situation.  I would respond by finding a new spot where I would be able to call “check” again, and he would do another simple gesture in opposition.

Then he “ate” my queen.

I stopped breathing as he kept moving towards my king.  All I could do was move it back and forth and wait for my impending doom.

“Checkmate,” he called. 

And just like that, I was no longer chess champion of the third grade.  It was pretty devastating.  I had been de-throned, and I was a sore loser.  I thought that he clearly cheated somewhere.  He broke a rule, probably, and I didn’t catch it because I was too fixated on my own moves.  Maybe he switched a piece while I wasn’t looking.  It just didn’t make sense to me.

“Good game,” he told me, and he walked away, unscathed.  He left with a small grin of victory on his face as I sat there paralyzed, staring at what was left of the board.

I lost the game.