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chapter 6
Hope You Solve
pattern recognition
I picked up chess in my late twenties. I had thought of chess books as a foreign language, the mystifying notation, but I discovered some with detailed explanations, grandmasters expounding on strategy and tactics. I got hooked. Before long, I had shelves of chess books. Grandmasters were mentors I could hold in my hand or keep on my shelf.
Some chess books have no words. They’re just pages of puzzles. To solve, you have to find checkmate or a winning combination. Occasionally, the best move is something subtle like retreating a piece. I’ve been advised not to spend too long on each puzzle. If you don’t see the answer after a few minutes, take a guess, check the solution in the back of the book, and go on to the next position. You’re not seeking an answer so much as you are seeking to understand patterns. Tactical themes and motifs repeat. The more puzzles you attempt, the more patterns will emerge. To test your knowledge, after you finish the book, return to the beginning. See if you do better this time around.
I’m a low-ranking chess tournament player, but when I have time, I train by using this method, cycling through positions. Even when I don’t solve as many as I would like, I have faith that the patterns will become ingrained in my memory, so that when I play a live game, the traps I stumble upon won’t be unfamiliar.
visit
The summer after we lost Javon, I met Bah Ba at six in the morning in the lobby of his apartment building in a suburb just east of Minneapolis. The building suffered from peeling paint, and the hallways were dingy.
I took my shoes off as I entered his apartment, placing them on a yellowed newspaper, next to his black sneakers, speckled with flour. Stale smoke hung in the air. We walked through the small kitchen. The plastic dish rack was a faded red, filled with mildew. On the counter was a hair dryer, the same bulky orange one my father had when he lived with us. As a child, I’d use it on my action figures, imagining the hair dryer was a flamethrower that roared in my hand.
Bah Ba cleared the coffee table, sliding the ashtray to the side and picking up the red cups, the empty beer bottles, and a bottle of E&J, nestling them against his chest.
E&J had also been my liquor of choice in high school. I shared a locker with Rob and a few other guys, our designated hangout spot. In the locker, we’d keep a bottle of Coke mixed with Erk and Jerk. The first time I drank from the bottle, I gulped it down like I was in a drinking contest. Afterwards, on a whim, I jumped a flight of stairs. I landed on both feet but lost my balance and fell on my ass.
I toned down the drinking after I went over to a girl’s house drunk. Her parents were away. She had curly hair, was Black and white but looked Mexican. I was seventeen, she was fourteen. It didn’t seem like a big deal. We lay together in bed, my naked body next to hers. She was giving me a hickey on my neck when I knocked out, snoring away my opportunity.
Bah Ba took swigs from two cups before tossing them into the garbage. The beer bottles clinked as they landed. “Choh a.” He motioned for me to sit on the purple couch. It had cigarette holes, and when I sat, I could feel the couch springs. I shifted my weight and leaned on the neatly folded blanket and pillow, presumably meant for me.
He turned on the TV and handed me the remote. The buttons were sticky. I rubbed my fingers. “Leih choh.” I motioned him to sit.
“I have got to work.” He stammered as he pronounced each of those one-syllable words, his eyes blinking. His English was worse than I remembered.
“You have Internet?” I pointed to the computer on the kitchen table, the keyboard submerged under stacks of paper.
“It works, but ignore the woman pictures. Things pop up.” He opened the sliding door and turned on the AC, and it began humming. The smell of cigarette smoke was entrenched. It reminded me of a class at Dewey. Half the students would come in after lunch reeking of weed. The scent would cling to my clothes. Days later, I’d grab my jacket from the closest, and I could still smell the marijuana.
“Come to the restaurant for lunch,” Bah Ba said. “No food here. I forgot to ask Joe take me to grocery.” My father had no car, so Joe would help him run errands. He was Bah Ba’s former neighbor, back when my father had a house. He couldn’t keep up the payments. The name of that town: New Hope.
Bah Ba went in his room to change, and I fell asleep, tired from the red-eye flight. When I awoke an hour later, he was gone. I tried turning on the TV but the remote didn’t work. The batteries were dead.
At lunchtime, there were only three tables occupied at Bah Ba’s restaurant, all single diners. Not a complete hole-in-the-wall—they used linen tablecloth—but the tablecloths were stained. Brightening up the dull white walls was colored paper listing the specials. The waiter sat me at the largest table, a round table with a clear rotating tray.
“Leih houh chih leih goh Bah Ba,” he said.
I used to get that a lot, people saying that I looked like my dad. Less so since I’d shaved my head. We had the same eyes, the same thick lips, the same round head. Once as a teenager, I woke my mother up, and she pulled away from me like she was waking from a nightmare. She’d thought my father had returned.
Bah Ba came out of the kitchen wearing a white apron. “Are
