Gwenny June's Tommy Crown Affair

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 27 – Spectator Sport

  Gale asked the dog, “It’s 8:30am. Where is she?”

  “With him.”

  “Was she with him last night?”

  “No, thank god. She was here. Left early.”

  “What are they doing together this time of day?”

  The dog looked at Gwendy, said, “You tell ‘em.”

  “They’re playing chess. At least that’s what she said they were going to do. Personally I think she’s gone to accommodate him. That’s what I’d have done.”

  Jinny said, “What do you mean accommodate him?”

  Gale said, “The guy morning thing, you dimwit.”

  “What morning thing?”

  Gale looked at Gwendy, then back at Jinny and said, “You’re a guy. You know what morning thing. The libido thing. Guys feel it in the morning.” She looked back at Gwendy, said, “He’s from Russia. Not sure about those boys.”

  Jinny said, “Oh, that. Got ya.”

  The dog said, “She’s a morning person, that’s when her brain works best. She said she’s going to play chess with him, and I think that’s what they’re doing.”

  Gale asked, “Where?”

  “At the museum.”

  Gale said, “That’s weird. You sure?” The dog nodded, and she looked at Jinny. “We better go check on her. We pretty much gotta keep tabs on her while she’s in this zone. Let’s go.”

  They were the first people through the doors when the museum opened at nine, and Gale asked the woman at the information desk if there were people playing chess here today. She said yeah, it was something special, up in the Bedgewood gallery. They went up there, past the case with the Gershwin piano it in, past the silver exhibit, and found me and Tommy sitting at the table under the rectangle on the wall. Tommy looked up, then looked back down at the board, not saying anything. I looked up, said, “Good morning. Don’t mind him, he’s a little grumpy. We’ve only been playing forty-five minutes and I’ve got him on the ropes already.”

  Now he looked at Gale and Jinny and said, “She’s never heard of ‘rope a dope’.”

  Jinny said, “What’s that?”

  “That’s what Muhammad Ali used to do to the guys he fought in the ring. He’d lean against the ropes and play like he was defenseless, let them whale away on his arms for a few rounds, tire themselves out, them thinking they were winning. Then he’d come alive off the ropes and beat their heads in.”

  I said, “What are you two doing here? How’d you find us?”

  Jinny said, “Gwendy told us. We’re here to make sure you’re not accommodating him.”

  Both of us looked at Gale, who said, “Don’t listen to him. They do things different in Russia. We’re just here to watch the chess.”

  Tommy looked at me and said, “You got nosy friends.”

  I smiled and said, “Nosy but good. They’re watching out for me, making sure you’re not taking advantage of me.”

  “Yeah,” he said, "and who’s watching out for me? I’m the one in the lion’s den, here.”

  I smiled at him, said, “Gale, you look out for him. Jinny, you look out for me. That’ll make it fair. And Gale, that means look out for his needs, not yours.”

  Gale said, “Yes, boss.”

  Jinny said, “That table looks old. Looks like ones we had in the Hermitage.”

  I said, “It’s the Faberge. These guys insure it for twelve million.”

  Jinny looked at Tommy, then back at me, said, “That little thing is worth twelve million dollars, and it was here, and we didn’t....” Gale THWAPPED him on the back of the head with her hand, shutting him up, him of loose lips persuasion.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Tommy processed this, then went back to his rope a dope tactic. At this point a small group of visitors came into the gallery, walked around for a minute and then gravitated to the chess match, the women mysteriously drawn by Tommy and the men by me (and Gale). Both the men and the women stayed away from Jinny, the little Russian fireplug, and one of them asked another about the faded rectangle of paint on the wall. Jinny didn’t mind getting thwapped by Gale any more than he minded earlier when she tried to hit him in the face with the copper-bottomed saucepan at home; he loved Gale; and now he mouthed right off again, saying, “That’s where the famous painting used to hang, the most famous painting in all of Charleston, before some people stole it a week ago.”

  The visitor said, “Why would anyone want to do that? Steal something from a museum, something that belongs here, belongs to everyone?”

  Gale THWAPPED Jinny again, knowing he would have answered, “Ask her,” and would have pointed at me.

  Again I said, “Thank you.”

  Tommy stopped rope a doping with his knight and looked first at the visitor and then at me, saying, “That’s a very good question, don’t you think? Why would anyone want to steal a painting from here? Something that didn’t belong to them?” He sat back in his Chippendale, hearing it crack a little, and smiled.

  I picked up a rook and took one of Tommy’s pawns, removing it from the board, then sat back in my Chippendale, this one not creaking too much, looked at the woman who had asked the question, and said, “You have family, Ma’am? Close family?”

  “Oh my, yes.”

  “Your family go back, ancestors and all?”

  “Yes. We’re from Boston. Go back to the Revolution.”

  “Yankees from way back, yes Ma’am, that’s nice. Feels good having those roots, doesn’t it? Knowing your people?”

  “It does. It makes a person feel solid, grounded, sense of place and sense of time. You’re right.”

  “Nice having things from the past, too. From your family, handed down the generations, to children. Sense of history. You have anything old from your family?”

  The woman held up her hand and said, “I do. This was my great great great grandmother’s ring, and I never take it off.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said. “Having something from the past makes you feel like you knew the person from way back. Makes you feel your roots, like you’re still in touch with the person and the time period, doesn’t it? Makes you feel like you have connections, and that’s a good feeling isn’t it? Comforting.”

  As the woman nodded, Gale gave Jinny a look, warning him not to ask the woman if she was able to talk with her great great great grandmother, the way they talk with Gwendy. Jinny wanted to ask the woman, but he obeyed Gale.

  I went on, “How would you feel if someone took your ring and stuck it in a case in a museum, up in Boston; made you go there to look at it?”

  “Why, why would anyone do that? It’s mine. I wouldn’t like that at all. Would you?”

  “No, Ma’am, I understand, I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me, either.”

  The woman looked at her ring and said, “But if that did happen somehow, if they did take my ring and put it in a museum, I’d just have to live with that. If they did that to you, you’d just have to live with it too, right?”

  I looked at Tommy as I answered, “Ma’am, down here in Carolina, in Charleston, sometimes we do things a little different. Boston is Boston, and New York is New York, and Saint Petersburg is Saint Petersburg, but here, well....”

  The woman’s husband said, “You started the Civil War, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir, that we did. Articles of Secession. First shot of the war at Fort Sumter. Siege of Charleston. First combat submarine in world history. We had some right ornery boys down here back then.”

  The woman said, “My, you did, didn’t you? And now, someone has stolen this painting.”

  I looked at Tommy when I said, “Traditions die hard in these parts, Ma’am.”