“Why thank you, Mr. Brown.”
“Just Brown. That’s what everybody calls me. You play chess?”
“I have played,” I admitted, “from time to time.”
Brown held out two fists and smiled. I tapped the left one and he turned over a black pawn.
“My favorite color,” I declared.
Brown led us to the gaming table that had an inlaid checker and chess board. There he started setting up the board eagerly.
“Nobody around here really play chess too much,” he said. “Mostly it’s just checkers and bid whist. Cards can be kinda fun, but you know chess is pure brain.”
I felt a feathery touch on my forearm. Before I turned I knew it was Charlotta returning my earlier caress.
“Can I talk to you a minute?” she asked me.
She walked me to a small doorway that led into what can only be called an alcove.
“You wanna have a drink with me?” she asked.
“Yeah but I just started the game with Brown.”
“That’s okay. I got to go buy a li’l bottle first anyway.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good, I mean, I’d love to have a drink with you.”
“I need two dollars for that and some pork rinds.”
I forked over my last three singles and said, “Get yourself somethin’ sweet too, baby.”
She smiled and brushed my lips with hers.
I had to walk carefully back to the chess table to conceal the erection that Charlotta raised.
22
BROWN KNEW HIS CHESS. He beat me the first game because I underestimated him, gazing around the room and trying to overhear conversations as we played.
That game was fast, us taking no more than thirty seconds for each move. But I got serious in the second go- round. I took my time at strategic moments and outmaneuvered him so that he had to give up when half the men were still in play.
He won the third game. It was rare that anyone beat me twice in a night.
Brown had worker’s hands and a hard look when he concentrated. At first glance I thought he was in his twenties, but then I could see where he was at least ten years older than that.
“Where you from, Brown?”
“Illinois originally,” he said. “But they tell me I was born in Mississippi.”
“Jackson?”
“Greenwood.”
“Delta boy.”
“I got the blues in my spit,” he agreed.
“How long you been in L.A.?”
“Two years. Most’a that time I lived down at Redondo Beach, workin’ on this mackerel fishin’ boat they got down there.”
“How come you left?”
“When I realized that I was gettin’ seasick on dry land, I knew it was time to leave fishin’ behind.” He had a nice, friendly laugh. “So I moved here to Miss Moore’s just a few days ago and got a job cleanin’ tuxedos and silk dresses.”
Charlotta had returned from the store and was sitting next to Brenda Frail. They were working on a quilt together.
Deciding to play with Brown turned out to be a mistake because of my pride. We traded wins back and forth for two hours, until the late news came on.
