NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
I was awake when the phone beeped early this morning. It was Jake Trip calling from Cleveland on an issue that couldn’t wait. He was full of questions. He asked if I knew anything about Juanita’s situation, which I didn’t. Then he asked if I had seen Theo Tinderbrush when he visited Gale and I had, but little was said. “When will you be back?”
“Pretty soon Fred. Say Fred, would you do me a favor?”
“I’m listening.”
“Listen Fred, sorry to have called so early on a Saturday … would you look in on Gale … I mean you … you’re nearby and I know she is comfortable with you … Liberty is out west, and she is alone in the middle of this thing.”
“What thing Jake?”
“This whole thing with Derwent.”
“With Derwent? What do you mean? I thought you were talking about Gale or Liberty or Juanita?”
“Yeah, yeah, that too … but the Derwent thing … I mean you know him a little don’t you?”
“Yes, well enough to know you two have had words.”
“Derwent’s alright, I mean yes, he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s basically alright you know … I mean I am asking you to intercede for me, because right now, there’s no one else I can ask.”
“What is it all about?”
“Would you just tell him that you’ve got it from me that I’ll straighten things out when I get back.”
“What things Jake?”
“Didn’t Gale tell you?”
“No, she told me nothing about Derwent.”
“I must be mixed up … anyway see if you can find him and just tell him that, okay?”
“What’s it all about Jake?”
“Derwent’s got some material I need … anyway this is embarrassing … sorry Fred … forget it … I shouldn’t have said anything … I am in one hell of a jam here.”
Jake hung up. The latest Fauxmont newsletter had fallen on the floor when I picked up the phone. I noticed that Marshall and Gerda Rundstedt and Jakie Guderian need help at the Co-op Saturday afternoon. I went over to see what I could do. The Co-op is a regular Fauxmont house which is used as a preschool for local children, and there is a farmers’ market held on Saturdays in the parking lot. It is mid June with weather in the high seventies, what a change! The sky is like a regatta of majestic billowing white clouds interspersed with infinite blues. I walk out on to the thick grass not yet dried out to summer’s thin dry browns. The hydrangeas are a mass of blue hemispheres and the mulberries are soaring fifteen feet up supporting cardinals, blackbirds, wrens and of course sparrows, and everything else is thick with green including the weeds.
Derwent Sloot greets me from his wheel chair when I get to the co-op’s mulched grounds. He is pulled up to a picnic table in front of several unusual looking sheds fenced off behind chicken wire.
“Hi there … ah …”
“It’s Fred, Derwent. I understand the Rundstedts and Guderians can use some help at the Farmer’s market.”
“Yeah ah … Fred, they’ve got all the help they can use over there. Stick around. This will be interesting.”
Two goldfinches streak past, one overtaking the other in their rising and dipping flight path toward the sheds. They rest every few wing flaps and their bodies fly like momentary bullets until their wings propel them again, birdlike. They land on the replica of a Snaz super store.
The picnic table is covered in glass objects and three yellow and black checkerboards are laid out along its length to accommodate three games.
“Thanks for pushing me along the road the other day! I have some students of the game due here any minute.”
“I thought you played chess … ” A loud cry drowns him out. Hens and two red roosters live behind the wire in a spacious coop designed to look like a town house, only a couple of yards away. His head sticks out of a window with green shutters on either side.
“Yeah, you birds get to work there … we need fresh eggs … and yes, chess is the name of the game.”
“By the way Derwent, I just got a call from Jake.”
“You poor bastard! Did you hang up quick?”
“No, I … ”
“Don’t talk to me about that son of a bitch! I’ve got some important business here.”
“What are those things?”
“Vacuum tubes. These were the things in radios before transistors and printed circuits.” He has a vast number nested in boxes. There are tall curvaceous cylinders and small ones with straight sides. There are a few with metal cladding. I pick up one of those.
“You know where to position the knights?”
“In chess you mean?”
“Yes in chess, this isn’t checkers you know. I have some prodigies coming here too. Well I think they are prodigious.”
“Here” he pointed at the oversize yellow and black board. “Put that thing down where the knight goes.”
I put it down, one square in from the end where the rook would be. It sat on a number of pins sticking out from the bottom like pilings.
“That’s right.”
“You can tell it’s a knight because of the armor, right?”
“Obvious when you get the hang of it.”
He picks up another very tall one with a metal wires sticking out of the top.
“We switched to these last month after the yard sale over at the Intaglios. Herman had a basement full of these things and the kids love them. Where would you put this?”
The circle of metal wires coming up out of the top resemble a crown. I point to the Queen’s square, and get more encouragement.
“How about this?” He picks out another fat tube with complex rings of filament wound inside and a sharp pointed top.
I point to the rook’s square. “Well that’s understandable, but we use this as a bishop around here.”
“See this?” Derwent holds up a broad, fat vacuum glass rook. “We use these as rooks”. It is marked with a GE logo, on a gray metal base, designated 6080 with five white stars. The brown center pin had been ground down to the same length as the surrounding metal ones, and it stands steady.
“Yes.”
I can hear the kids shouting as they scramble out of various vehicles parked up the hill. Derwent points out young Alekhine who is throwing old pine cones at Jeff Petrosian. He has positioned himself among the fir trees, with a vast supply of ammunition close at hand. They are coming to play chess with vacuum tubes at the Co-op, under Derwent’s tutelage. Little Heidi Guderian is first to reach the table in her yellow top and pink jeans.
“Why don’t you use regular chess pieces?”
“Because these are so cool.” She picks up two short cylindrical tubes with brown bases and places them in front of a knight and a rook.
“These are black pawns. The red pawns have this tape around the base.” Heidi explains further as she shows me a cylindrical pawn with its pins up, and red tape around the base. Derwent is grinning.
“And what is the base made of ?”
“Bakelite”
Pam Dirac walks over, Heidi’s opponent for this afternoon’s game. Her pink jeans are topped by a baby blue jacket.
“I can use the regular pieces too”.
