clean and neat. No object lacked its special place. A hardware chest, consisting of small drawers, was converted to a multi-level garage for his Matchbox cars. There were several boxes to organize different shapes of his wooden blocks, and coffee cans separated the colors of his Legos. In his clothes closet, an arrangement of shelves on the inner door provided room for Monopoly, Risk, and other board games, including, of course, Joseph’s impressive chess set. Not the plastic pieces and flimsy folded board that belonged to most kids. Joseph owned an expensive Staunton design: classic black and white weighted wood and a thick maple board.
Usually the chessmen were set up, waiting for my arrival in the morning. A folding table and chairs for playing board games (this seemed to me the most remarkable of his room’s organizations) was under the standing lamp. So that we could continue our competitions while eating, his mother would bring into his room a metal tray with adjustable legs and there serve us our late morning snack of fruit, our lunch and our afternoon milk and Oreos. “Want to play?” Joseph would say instead of a greeting, and incline his head seductively at the chess pieces.
I didn’t, because I was going to lose. And I did, because I wanted to improve and beat him. Once or twice, I insisted we do something else. No matter how satisfying the other choice, however, Joseph would tempt me to play at least one chess game a day.
The contests followed a distinct pattern. Within the first few moves I would unaccountably find myself in trouble: due to the outright loss of a piece; or a congestion of pawns that choked my position; or defending an awkward configuration surrounding my King. No matter what I tried, at the start I always suffered a disadvantage. The first few times we played I lost quickly. But I am willful, if nothing else (sometimes I think that’s the only talent I possess) and I struggled hard, refusing to concede.
We settled into a new pattern. I learned to avoid the more disastrous moves and stave off quick defeat, thereby forcing Joseph to prove his advantage was a winning one. Half the time he would give back his early gains, or I would liberate myself from the confusion of my pieces. But then, seemingly exhausted by my long struggle up the hill to equality, I would blunder again in what is called the endgame of chess—positions with only a few pieces on board. Joseph’s confidence, high at the beginning, strained in the middle, would soar at the end. His quick decisions about what and where to move—typical of his play at the beginning—would return and he would smash me. Our games became marathons with thrilling reversals of superiority, although the final result was always the same. We played every day until school started and I never won, although I came closer—it seemed—each time.
My arm healed by the beginning of school and that interrupted our new intimacy. I preferred, with my arm working again, to play handball against the side of our apartment building with my other friends or to go with them and their fathers (mine had still not returned from Cuba) to Fort Washington Park to play touch football or softball. I invite Joseph to join us; unfortunately the neighborhood lacked a domed stadium to protect him from the elements.
I didn’t reject Joseph because of this impediment. I tried to continue our friendship at P.S. 173. It is a measure of Mrs. Stein’s belief in education that she allowed her boy to wander its halls. True, he brought his own lunches and there was no carpeting. But even I believed the school’s atmosphere was poisonous; at once dusty and scented by ammonia, the rarely ventilated air could choke healthy lungs. I remember well Mrs. Fleisher’s daily struggle with the painted-shut windows; the metal-reinforced glass cast prison shadows of gloomy webs across her face as she worked to force them open.
When I was elected captain of the class softball team,
Usually the chessmen were set up, waiting for my arrival in the morning. A folding table and chairs for playing board games (this seemed to me the most remarkable of his room’s organizations) was under the standing lamp. So that we could continue our competitions while eating, his mother would bring into his room a metal tray with adjustable legs and there serve us our late morning snack of fruit, our lunch and our afternoon milk and Oreos. “Want to play?” Joseph would say instead of a greeting, and incline his head seductively at the chess pieces.
I didn’t, because I was going to lose. And I did, because I wanted to improve and beat him. Once or twice, I insisted we do something else. No matter how satisfying the other choice, however, Joseph would tempt me to play at least one chess game a day.
The contests followed a distinct pattern. Within the first few moves I would unaccountably find myself in trouble: due to the outright loss of a piece; or a congestion of pawns that choked my position; or defending an awkward configuration surrounding my King. No matter what I tried, at the start I always suffered a disadvantage. The first few times we played I lost quickly. But I am willful, if nothing else (sometimes I think that’s the only talent I possess) and I struggled hard, refusing to concede.
We settled into a new pattern. I learned to avoid the more disastrous moves and stave off quick defeat, thereby forcing Joseph to prove his advantage was a winning one. Half the time he would give back his early gains, or I would liberate myself from the confusion of my pieces. But then, seemingly exhausted by my long struggle up the hill to equality, I would blunder again in what is called the endgame of chess—positions with only a few pieces on board. Joseph’s confidence, high at the beginning, strained in the middle, would soar at the end. His quick decisions about what and where to move—typical of his play at the beginning—would return and he would smash me. Our games became marathons with thrilling reversals of superiority, although the final result was always the same. We played every day until school started and I never won, although I came closer—it seemed—each time.
My arm healed by the beginning of school and that interrupted our new intimacy. I preferred, with my arm working again, to play handball against the side of our apartment building with my other friends or to go with them and their fathers (mine had still not returned from Cuba) to Fort Washington Park to play touch football or softball. I invite Joseph to join us; unfortunately the neighborhood lacked a domed stadium to protect him from the elements.
I didn’t reject Joseph because of this impediment. I tried to continue our friendship at P.S. 173. It is a measure of Mrs. Stein’s belief in education that she allowed her boy to wander its halls. True, he brought his own lunches and there was no carpeting. But even I believed the school’s atmosphere was poisonous; at once dusty and scented by ammonia, the rarely ventilated air could choke healthy lungs. I remember well Mrs. Fleisher’s daily struggle with the painted-shut windows; the metal-reinforced glass cast prison shadows of gloomy webs across her face as she worked to force them open.
When I was elected captain of the class softball team,
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