“The rook is your only chance.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. You’ve just lost your queen, you must capture the knight or you fall 16 points behind.”
“I don’t like to be told what to do.”
I advanced my pawn. It was now just one move away from Dietrich’s start line.
“Foolishness. Now I’ll capture your pawn with my rook and you are now 17 points behind and only three moves from checkmate.”
“You’re wrong. It’s only two moves until checkmate.”
He looked over the board, carefully examining his two move-winning option.
“I think you are mistaken. There is only a victory in three moves that I can see.”
“That’s because you’re looking at your options and not mine.”
In sacrificing my queen I had taken his attention away from my minor pieces. In doing so, I advanced my pawn for sacrifice, which at the time was protected by my bishop and prevented his rook from taking the piece. Now that the pawn had been moved to an unprotected space, Dietrich advanced his rook one line forward to capture the pawn. This allowed me to advance the other pawn to A-8 that had been sitting so patiently in the A-7 position. I selected my queen as the piece to be returned to the board. It was check but not mate. He had to return the rook that had captured my pawn to its previous position, a move that only briefly stalled the inevitable. I slid the queen forward and captured the rook.
“Checkmate.”
“A gambit! Well played. You had me so wrapped up in capturing your significant pieces I forgot about that damn pawn.”
“It happens.”
He slid back into his chair and looked around. I did the same. The airport was busy and we watched the crowds of people come and go. Dietrich reset the pieces on the board.
“Shall we play another?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh?”
I smiled at him. “Play like a champion and leave as one.”
I took a sip of my coffee and watched a fresh batch of arrivals emerge from the sliding doors into the arms of their loved ones. I thought of the meeting that Arnie had called for that night and shook my head.
“Something wrong?”
Dietrich put his hand on my shoulder.
“You can give this up. It’s no life, you know?”
“No I can’t. It’s all I know.”
“No, it’s not.”
Dietrich’s eyes pierced into my soul and I saw him change to his Form.
“Should I quit what I’m good at? Work in a hardware store, pull a 9-to-5, pay taxes, become a contributing citizen after all this time?”
“I can see I’m not going to change your mind.”
Then there was a silence between us for some time as we watched the tide of crowds come and go.
“Why a hardware store? Seems a little arbitrary.”
“I don’t know, I was spouting off. It was the first thing that came to mind!”
He knitted his eyebrows a little in confusion and then started to laugh. So did I. Dietrich laughed louder and harder and I joined him. People walking by turned to stare but neither of us cared, not even a little.