CHECKMATE(Michael D. Warner) CHECKMATE
By Michael D. Warner

Copyright 2013 by Michael D. Warner All rights reserved


"So," snarled the larger man, glowering into my face then slamming his fist hard on the wooden table at which I had just seated myself. "You think you're a chess player?"

The chess board lay centered on the table and its pieces were set up awaiting a game. I felt the room grow almost quiet as most everyone stopped talking mid-sentence and turned to check out the encounter.

"I've played the game a few times," I replied.

We were sprawled all about what would have been a day-room in an Army barracks. Just like in the military everyone wore the same garb. But this all took place inside another kind of federal facility.

I steeled myself. I had been a federal prison inmate for only a short time, during which I had spent my first few weeks inside the Leavenworth Kansas Federal Penitentiary, a stop-off enroute to this place, my final facility, the Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institute near Long Beach, California. I had just that morning been released from "the hole", a quaint label describing isolated confinement in which a transferee is initially placed for several days upon entering a new facility.

Why had I been incarcerated? Well, back in 1976 it was actually illegal to fly 5,500 pounds of Colombian marijuana from the Northern Guajira in Colombia up into middle Florida, USA, in a DC-3 (C-47) transport aircraft. I and my copilot, a couple of truckers, and the owner of the aircraft had been caught at it. We were arrested, tried and convicted. After our appeals had run out, we surrendered ourselves to the U.S. Marshals office in Tallahassee, Florida to began serving our respective sentences. To make a long story short: That's why.

The loud-mouthed inmate facing me appeared ominous, his narrow set eyes squinted from either side of a crooked nose. I figured that proboscis had been broken at least twice. A jagged scar divided his right cheekbone into unequal sections. He turned and beckoned to a younger inmate standing not far from the table. As the newcomer pulled up a chair, the older one gestured at me then rasped loudly so all could hear:

"This new guy here thinks he can play chess. You wanna play him right now?" He slammed his fist on the table again. "Easy way to pick up a carton of smokes, Joe." Then he added, "I'll split them with you this time."

The game of chess is well known as the 'sport of kings' being played world-wide from somewhere in the neighborhood of prehistory to present day matches and tournaments.

Chess is a game requiring total mental concentration where opponents study the board trying to imagine as many future moves as possible, answering move for move as far forward as their respective brains are able to perceive.

The game is shown respect by its players and by its onlookers alike, with no disturbing noises allowed. Nothing should interrupt the intense concentration practiced by its players.

"I don't have a carton of cigarettes," I told him. "We'll just have to play for the fun of it."

"No way, Dude!" he shouted. "They'll transfer your commissary money credit from your last place. You can pay out of that."

I shrugged. "I just wanted to play a quiet game of chess."

He brandished a fist. "I'm gonna get a carton of smokes 'cause I'm nearly out, you see. Your choice, Man. You can play and lose or you can just buy me a carton."

"And if I win?"

"You ain't gonna win."

I shrugged again. Then, I picked up a black pawn and a white pawn, put my hands behind my back and shuffled the two pieces back and forth. After I offered my clenched fists to my opponent, he tapped the left one.

Several inmates had gathered closer to the table. I turned the chosen hand over, opening it for all to see. A white pawn stared at the crowd. My opponent had won the opening move.

PAUSE

A half-hour passed. I found myself down by two pieces, one a pawn but the other a noble. Not good, I thought to myself. The incessant pattering and jeering of the obnoxious inmate as he urged his young conspirator to make daringly aggressive moves had unnerved me. I was totally unable to concentrate, to think. I grimaced and shook my head as if to clear it.

Then suddenly I heard, no I felt, his voice: "Just take it easy, Mic." He had used my family nickname, Mic, for Michael (as we're a bit Irish). "We can beat these turkeys. Settle down. Just take a long look at the board. See where he has screwed up, like over there where his knight is totally unprotected."

I saw my Uncle John hovering about ninety degrees to my left and slightly above our heads, looking the same as I had always remembered with his gray fedora full-brimmed hat perched squarely upon his head. He wore glasses and was grinning broadly. I could only make him out from the chest up, as any more of his body was virtually non-existent.

The apparition was that of a man who had passed away nearly twelve years previous. But his image was as clear to me as if he were actually there. I remembered many years ago when I was a small child watching him and my grandfather playing chess after a Sunday dinner down on the farm in Jonesboro, Georgia in the 1940's sometime during the middle of World War II.

I took a deep breath, ignoring the obnoxious fella's demand to: "Get on with it! What's taking you so long to figure out a move, anyway?" Then: "C'mon, you know you're beat. Why don't you just resign and be done with it."

I stared at the board a bit longer. Then, I captured the unprotected knight and waited for the next advance. The obnoxious roar was deafening. "What the hell is this?" the irate hulk spouted. "Move on, get him!"

My opponent stared blankly at the board, obviously having a problem understanding his new position. "Move it!," screamed the big fella. "Just push a piece forward 'cause it don't matter what you do, you've got him beat."

I heard (felt) my uncle's voice again: "Just relax, Mic. We can whip 'em. Take your time. Analyze the board. You'll see it. It's right there ..right in front of you."

I looked carefully at the board. Suddenly, I felt no pressure. I heard nothing and I was totally undistracted. It was like playing in a tournament with set rules.

Yes, I thought. Now. I'll offer him my red bishop. If he bites, then it's all over. I'll nail his other rook and work him down to a checkmate.

"That's it exactly," nodded Uncle John.

Three moves later I declared: "Checkmate!"

Those closest to the table who had been watching with interest exclaimed their appreciation of my game well played.

I looked at the maddened inmate. "I'd rather have six packs of pipe tobacco than a carton of cigs," I told him.

The big fella glowered at me. "You ain't seen the last of this," he promised.

I stood up and got close to his face. My cast off military khakis were somewhat large and made me look a bit skimpy, but underneath was a well muscled thirty-seven year old veteran who had done fifty-five pushups that very morning. Also, a veteran who had had just about enough of this man's bull-shit.

"Well," I told him, "you ain't seen the last of this either."

Quickly bracing myself, I slammed him so hard in that ugly nose with a right hand fist that he dropped without even a defensive move. As I stood there rubbing the knuckles on my right hand, those who had been watching seemed somehow to take my part in the exchange.

One of them pointed his finger at the man laying prone on the floor and said out loud: "Hey, nobody ain't seen nothin', got it?"

The inmates hastened back to positions occupied before the chess game had begun. By the time the unit hack (supervisor) appeared the TV volume had been turned back up. A few sat reading tattered magazines, while the others stared blankly at the TV.

"What's goin' on here?" demanded the hack ...of no one in particular.

A couple inmates twisted around to notice him, shrugged, then turned back to the TV.

The hack moved to stand over the stricken inmate. "What happened to you?" he inquired.

The obnoxious fella shook his head. "Musta tripped over somethin'," he replied, coming slowly to his feet.

"Get down to the infirmary," ordered the hack, staring at the bloody nose. "You won't need a pass. Just go."

The hack turned to me. I stopped rubbing my knuckles. "I suppose you didn't see anything either?"

"See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil." I recited.

PAUSE

Years passed. I never observed the apparition of my Uncle John again. He had been there for me when he felt needed, I guess. Since then, I have wondered off and on over a whole lot of years about such events. Had another told me of such an episode, I'm not sure I would have paid much attention to it. But when it happens to oneself, that's entirely another matter.

Only one other event like this occurred in my life since then and it happened several months later in another federal facility. But, Dear Reader, that story must keep for another time.


THE END

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