The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [91]
“Pretty neat, Pop, but I don’t think he likes me much.”
I talked to Nick about some of the stuff I knew about Morphy. But Nick’s face, per usual, wasn’t giving anything away.
How could I tell the others what was going down? This guy Paul wasn’t on the level. This cat was bad news, like the worst, like awful, awful, awful, like please, please, please. Bustle, bustle, smoke dope and giggle while the fate of the world is going down on a chess board in your own kitchen. And you don’t even see. Helppppppppppppp!
This was to teach me a lesson. “I do warn you well, it is no child’s play.” Was I supposed to learn to hate chess because it was a competitive, violent, no-goodnik, ugly thing? Virginia was looking at me oddly from time to time. This might be her idea of just what the doctor ordered for Mark. Teach me to think I’m so fucking smart.
Mostly I just tried to play as if he weren’t a ringer, as if it were just a friendly game. Like offering to let him take moves back, playing like there was nothing at stake. He wouldn’t take any moves back and his look let me know that if I blew it, there would be no mercy. Mostly I just wanted out, but I have to admit I wanted to show Virginia and Nick and whatever angels happened to be watching that I was no small-time chess player myself. I could almost hear the anti-Mark team gnashing their teeth, amazed again at how they had underestimated little old Mark again.
“Fun, isn’t it?” Nick said again. His face twisted. Red bones showing. All he needed was horns.
I could barely see where the pieces were. I kept slipping away and coming back to a game that looked completely different from before. He never stopped looking at me, even when he was moving. Inexorable, inexorable.
“Your game is hopeless. Concede.”
“What?” I had been off in a fog. He repeated what he had said.
I looked at the board. It kept blurring and twisting.
“It’s a draw,” the voices said. “You can keep him in perpetual check.”
I summoned all my strength to make my words behave better than the chess pieces.
“It’s a draw,” I echoed. “I can keep you in perpetual check.”
“What?” he said, as if this were a new rule I had just made up. I couldn’t argue the point, I just wasn’t up to it.
“Check,” I said. He moved. “Check.” He moved again. “Check.” He moved again, bringing about the same position. “Check.” I started the interminable round again, hoping he’d get the point.
“You can’t do that,” he almost whined. “As soon as you stop checking me you’re mated, the game is over.”
“I have no intention of not checking you,” I stammered thickly. His rage was rising. He was going to expose me. He was going to tell about how the voices from the fire and wind had told me my moves.
“So we can both live to play another day,” I said incoherently. “A draw. Nice game, Nick. Hope we do it again.” I fled upstairs to bed.
Among amateurs, most “touch-move” games are lost on stupid blunders. The game becomes pointless very early: neither player learns anything. I’m capable of playing a good game of touch-move, but I have a hard time enjoying it. I beat players I should lose to and lose to players I should beat. Either way, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Touch-move fans argue with equal fervor that being able to take moves back ruins the game. It’s bad preparation for tournament play, encourages sloppiness. Maybe they’re right. Maybe we should be made to face the consequences of our blunders. Cold hard world and all.
Life is a lot more like touch-move than friendly chess, but maybe that’s because there are so many goddamned touch-move players around.
What I hope is true is that if we go about it the right way, we can take back a lot more than we think we can. If we could all make an effort to let anyone take back anything, if it’s in our power to let them take back instead of jumping so greedily at mistakes, we might be able to make life much more pleasant. We might even be able to find a way