The King of Marble (Draft 3)

It’s that marble. That shiny, rock hard marble. In those Brooklyn summers humidity sticks to you like a roll of tape, sweat empties outta those pores like Niagara Falls. It’d be magic when I’d touch that marble; a chill’d go down my spine as if I’d swallowed a Dreamsicle in one bite. Under the shade of my favorite Central Park maple I’d try to pass the interminable afternoons, whittling away time by moving my characters back and forth across my checkered world. See here’s the thing: my childhood was me and my marble. With giraffe necks for legs and a raven’s beak for a nose I was the city reject, the untouchable of all untouchables. It was the beginning of that third grade summer when I gave up all hope of ascending to the back row next to the queens, kings and rooks of the world. I came to the realization that I was and would forever be a lowly pawn.

I took it upon myself that summer to begin a quest through Central Park for the other pawns of New York. For days I trekked through the paths of the park, chess set along for the ride safely enclosed in its black leather case. I boundlessly walked through the checkers of green and blue only stopping at the carousel to longingly watch the kings and queens of my piers turn round and round screaming with delight, bouncing up and down on their noble steeds. It was that moment, staring jealously into the lives of New York’s elite when I saw him. The first true pawn. A tank-top clung to his dark skin that glistened with Brooklyn sweat like dew of an April morning. His feet were bare and his hair wild. It was those eyes though that cut straight to my soul. They were the same ebony eyes that came alive and jumped from the shadowy marble squares instructing me when I was lost in a match. They’d never failed me; I’d never lost a game. My stomach flipped as I looked down and saw what lay at his feet, his own marble board tarnished with dirt.

I bewilderingly walked towards him and sat down facing him and his board. Without a word spoken the first pawn had been moved forward and the rest of the world was shut, all doors closed at the first sound of wood against marble. Not even those ebony eyes could distract me then, I was in my element, I was a king for once. But he was good, real good. He moved pieces forward like wind brining in its tide, with such power and grace. Confidence, but not arrogance radiated from him and before I knew it he had me in checkmate. I sat there blandly staring as if I was a mute. Never before had I been defeated. Abruptly all the doors opened the sound and color came rushing back: the screams and laughs from the carousel, the bright blue sky, that gleaming marble. I stared into those espresso beans and he looked back at me, past the giraffe necks and the raven beak. His eyes seared straight through me and his mouth curved into a smile. “You my boy, you are the king of marble.”

I never forgot those words. Years later when the world’s eyes watched me in the Cold War match against Boris Spassky they propelled me. Anytime when I was in doubt the pawn’s words would come back to me and somehow I’d always pull out a win. For it is not I that it is a king, I’m a lonely, old pawn. It is the man of ebony eyes, of quick wit, of wise words. It is he who is the king of marble.