Chess Players: Atlantis and the Mockingbird

by DeVaughn, A. P.

  “So, what’s new, guys?” I ask.

  “Well, there’s this nice piece of ass in my English class,” Ron says, leaning in closer to whisper to us from across the table. He’s been digging this girl in his history class. Steve interrupts and tells us of how he can get his hands on a stash of candy—and more money for him, as candy is scarce. Anything someone wants, they can get it from Steve. Kim, on the other hand, tells us that two guys in Mrs. Biel’s class are teasing him. I asked him to describe what the culprits look like, and his description was that of the two new kids that came to the Rose last night. Just what we need, some new troublemakers.

  Ron continues to talk about the girl he has a crush on. He brings up the notion that none of us have ever been with a girl before.

  “The lot of you are all wet behind the ears, man,” Ron says in a haughty tone. “A bunch of greenhorn virgins, you are. I bet you’ve got a few petrified socks lying about in your rooms at the home. And what’s wrong with your hand?” he asks me, pointing at my scarred knuckles “Must have been some really wild jerking off, eh?”

  “No,” I say with an embarrassed smile, hiding my hand beneath the table. “Uh, I fell in the shower.”

  “Well,” Ron says, laughing, “you must have been tugging pretty hard to fall.”

  The conversation about who’s the hottest girl in school continues, and when it’s my turn, I step outside the box and throw everyone for a loop.

  “Well, in my opinion,” I say, “if she wasn’t so damned mean, it would be Mrs. Biel.”

  Everyone looks at each other and laughs, with Ron laughing a little harder.

  “Are you mad?” says Ron, throwing his hands up in absurdity. “Do you have a fever? I’m happy I won’t be here tomorrow to deal with this nonsense. Kim, check his head. This guy has lost his noodle. That harpy bitch is the devil’s spawn, man. Hey Steve, you may want to rustle up some medication instead of candy bars next time.” The guys laugh and I give Ron the finger.

  The bell rings and we’re off to the second half of the day. Before Kim leaves, I give him a vote of confidence saying that his Buddha will protect him and not to worry about the two harassing him. I hate that I can’t be there with my buddy when he needs me. After hearing about what happened to him when he was younger, I took it upon myself to protect his life, just as his family had sworn to do.

  Kim’s grandfather was selected to be a kamikaze bomber back in World War II. However, when faced with the grief of his family not having a provider anymore, Kim’s grandfather deserted the military. Shamed and hunted by the military after he deserted, he fled with his family to a town outside of Nagasaki to seek shelter from the pursuing military officials. They were forced to beg and live on the streets for weeks. Then the month of August came, and a cloud of hell burned through the city of Nagasaki, just twenty or so miles from where Kim’s grandfather and family were. After the bomb hit, things got incredibly worse. Kim’s grandfather had an only child, a son, Kim’s dad. The devastation of the city of Nagasaki soon spread to the neighboring towns and villages, as famine, disease, and crime plagued the cities. The refugees from Nagasaki were forced to survive like animals. After Kim’s grandfather died, of diphtheria, he left Kim’s dad alone at a very young age along with his aging grandmother. His father became a crook at his young age and did what he had to do to keep his family fed. The years passed, and his father, now a late teenager, met a woman and began to drop the criminal lifestyle and live his life legit, getting a job shipping goods into the recovering city of Nagasaki. The city of Nagasaki had been overrun with a ruthless warring crime syndicate, the Yakuza. They were at the throats of other smaller syndicates for the new real estate of the rebuilding city of Nagasaki. The area had become prime breeding grounds for vice, and Kim’s father was not immune. Kim’s father got into a serious gambling debt with the Yakuza. In desperation to save his family, he pawned Kim off to the Yakuza to settle his debt. Once Kim was in the Yakuza’s possession, they began to groom him, making him watch horrible beatings, maimings, and executions of people who had broken rules. Then, finally, they put their mark on him so that he was theirs forever. The mark is a vivid tattoo, which covers his entire back. It shows a pale colored horse being devoured head first by a red dragon with white eyes that has its coils wrapped around the horse. Kim kept it a secret from me for months when he first got to the Rose. The first time I saw it, I just stared at it in awe. The amount of pain that he endured to finish that thing must have been awful.

  Kim’s mother kidnapped him from the Yakuza and fled to the United States with him and his younger brother and sister in an attempt to start over. She changed his name to Kim and claimed they were immigrants from Korea. However, the Yakuza tracked her down. They kidnapped his younger brother and sister and took his mother’s life. But, before she was killed, she fended off Kim’s pursuers long enough for him to get away. He survived on the streets for months before being picked up by the authorities. That tattoo is what we showed Ron and his crew to get them from kicking our ass when we first met them at the basketball court. Ron was belittling Kim, mocking his culture, and saying that Kim’s name was that of a girl and that he had tits under his shirt. Once I told Kim to show him the tattoo, Ron, Kim, and I have been friends ever since.

  The day is done, and there is no good news from my buddy. He says the two blonds continued to torment him, and Steve has been getting harassed as well. Just as soon as things smooth out, it seems another tidal wave comes to kill the newly grown vegetation yet again.

  Two and a half months into the school year, and my sleepless nights continue. The doctor visits haven’t fixed anything at all, even though I now have appointments once a week instead of once a month. The doctor’s words just give me a slight peace of mind that the headaches will get better. No medication is given to me since they said I am allergic and the reaction could cause severe complications. So instead of me heeding the words of the doctor, I swiped a few bottles of pills from his bag when he wasn’t looking. One of the bottles was for menstrual cramping, one was an anti-inflammatory, and the third was an antipsychotic. Of course I can’t use the cramp medication, but I stash it anyway. However, the other two will suit me well.

  On restless nights I mix those pills, and each time I shake the bottle and hear the rattle of what I’ve named my magic pills, anxiousness fills my stomach because I know that the nightmares will be absent that night. I named them my magic pills because when I couldn’t sleep at night when I was with my father, he would come in the room sometimes and act like he put a sleeping spell on me. He even had a little incantation he used to say: “It’s time to rest, start counting sheep. My magic hand puts you in a deep, deep, sleep.” He’d say the spell, dropping it into a slow whisper at the end and placing his hand on my forehead. I’d call to him at night. He’d come in my room and I’d be sitting up and he’d already know. “Need me to say the magic words, buddy?” And I’d just nod my head.

  During dinner after I saw the doctor, I ask Steve if he could get me some important materials that I’ve needed: a screwdriver, penlight, egg timer, and leather gloves. He asked what it was for, and I told him to fix his mother’s bed. He said he’d do it for a small nominal fee of ten dollars, which is as hard to come by as a glass of ice water in the Sahara, but I agreed to his terms.

  Steve’s eyes are always looking for the next hustle. Just like my books and chess game, the hustle is his distraction, his method of staying sane, his motivation to keep going. The same for Kim with his Buddha and Ron with his silver tongue and shenanigans.

  From what Steve told me, it’s just short of a miracle that he’s still here. Steve’s parents were a collage of things that didn’t add up. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic, and a slew of criminal escapades fueled their rebellious love bond back in the ‘60s counterculture. His parents were recreational drug dealers, often using their own stash, and in the midst of their intoxicated lives they bore one child in the ‘70s. Growing up with druggies
for parents gave Steve experiences that no child needs, like watching someone overdose on dope, how to manufacture narcotics, and what a murder crime scene looks like. After years of run-ins with the law, jail, and drug abuse, his parents ran into a man named Jim Jones. They believed that they could have a clean slate again, and they followed Jim Jones and his cult to South America where a promise of a fresh start was sold to them. But the new settlement, called Jonestown, proved to be a hellhole. Their dictator ordered everyone dead, either willingly or unwillingly. Steve’s parents hid Steve in the jungle. While the soldiers of Jonestown searched for stragglers, his parents drew off the guards long enough for Steve to escape. But he was maimed in the process by a bullet that grazed his cheek. When the authorities came, they found Steve a few days later hiding out in the jungle, dehydrated, and within hours of death. He was the lone survivor, but he was pronounced dead for his protection of being hunted down. The name “Steven” was on a shirt he took off of a corpse to clothe himself, and it’s what he has gone by ever since. He was only about ten years old when it happened, but six years later his face shows more scars than the one that bullet left on his cheek. I think he doesn’t trust anyone now, not even me. He only cares about himself.

  Winter is coming, and the frost begins to coat the grass each morning. I admire the frost glistening a brilliant white on the blades of grass as it reflects the rising sun’s rays before the light burns it away. I chat with my buddies to break the somber mood while we wait for the bus.

  We arrive at Shady Oaks, and, again, I hear that strange music when I get off of the bus. It sounds like the same music my father used to play in our house and in his car: Harlem renaissance brass and base, with a raspy-voiced woman vocalist.

  The sounds become louder and it twists my head. I fixate on a weathered wooden house about 200 yards down the dirt road across from the academy. The music must be coming from this house. I hear the scratchy tone of the recording and then I hear nothing. A door swings open and a figure appears through the steel mesh of the covered porch. He slowly hobbles out onto the porch and cracks the rusty screen-mesh door of the porch. He kneels down and reaches out of the door, his arm coated in white hair. He snatches in the morning post off of the top stair. Before reentering the house, the man pauses for a moment, as if he knows he’s being watched, then he hobbles back into the house and slams the door. Then I hear those trumpets, sax, and base again.

  “D,” Steve shouts, nudging me in my back. “We’re gonna be late.” My focus breaks from the house down the street and back onto surviving the day of school.

  Lunchtime comes fast. My mind has been on everything but school, and every time I blink, my train of thought switches back and forth: that music, my father’s notes, my mother’s grave—I need to know.

  Lies are usually a woman’s weapon, but when your back is against the wall and you have friends that need a thrill, dangling a golden carrot in front of their face may not be the death of them. I don’t have a plan yet, but I’ll need one soon enough.

  For some strange reason, I’m drawn to this house and its contents. I can hear that music playing in my head over and over again. Maybe it’s the trauma that has me chasing white rabbits, looking for a way out. Environment can do that to one’s psyche, just like a man stranded on a raft at sea, dying of thirst when there’s water right underneath him, but that water is poison and the overwhelming urge to drink makes him drink it anyway.

  The next day in school we’re out by the ball court just messing around as usual, and I sense trouble coming our way in the form of blond-headed boys.

  “Don’t look now, guys, but I think we may have some trouble coming our way,” I say, alerting my friends to the approaching horde.

  “Shit, D,” Steve says, “what are we gonna do?”

  “Just act normal. We don’t need a fight on our hands.”

  “Well, look what we have here,” the youngest looking of the blonds says, pointing at us in a smug tone. “A rat, a black, and a Jap. Seems like shit begets shit.” His buddies laugh.

  “Hey, what’s begets mean?” another of the blonds asks.

  “Shut up, stupid,” the younger one says.

  “That’s a big word,” I say. “Don’t hurt yourself with all of that heavy lifting.”

  “My dad told me that niggers were always disrespectful,” says the youngest.

  I sure wish Ron were here. He and his crew of thugs would do just nicely right now.

  “Now, you stay out of our way and be good animals. Know how to be seen and not heard. Now we’re going to sit here, scurry along now,” he says.

  “C’mon guys. Let’s go,” I say, staring the young one down as we head off to another part of the grounds.

  “What the hell are we gonna do about them?” asks Steve. “Two of them look like they’re thirty years old, and there are five of them and four of us.”

  I reassure them not to worry. “As long as we stay out of their way, we should be okay.”

  However, in the back of my mind, trying to avoid trouble has only put us in deeper shit. I have to figure something else out. My plan is off course due to these new intruders. But I won’t let them get in the way of getting out of this place and saving my friends. I’ll do what I have to do to stop them. I’ve already thought of something. It’s unconventional, but it just might work. I hear their names are the Dead End.

  Here goes nothing.

  Chapter 6: The Past. The Briggs Report, Part 1

  “Sir, the boats are back with reports from Rainbow,” a cadet says while stumbling into a naval officer.

  “Good, what was the observation?” Lord Bui says.

  “Sir, the ship was intact and all equipment was operational.”

  “Okay, what of the men on board?” Lord Lued sternly says. “What did they have to say? Have they been debriefed yet?”

  “Well, sir.” The cadet pauses. “They said, well, you have to see for yourself.”

  “Very well then. Take me to them.”

  The cadet and Lord Lued hurry to a jeep. It takes them to the dock where a small outboard motorboat is waiting with the red-haired man already inside the boat.

  “What’s going on, Lord Lued?” Bui asks.

  “I don’t know, Lord Bui. Seems like we’re going to find out,” says Lued.

  The boat speeds off into the thick fog with the two men aboard and their cadet at the back steering the outboard motor.

  “There it is!” the cadet says, pointing to the frigate appearing in the fog. “I’ll pull around to the ladder.” He speaks loudly, talking over the wail of the outboard engine and the crashing waves beneath the boat.

  The frigate lists gently in the calm ocean. Seabirds perch on the edges of the vessel and fly around the ship, scared off by the loud approach of the boat.

  The boat slows and ties off to a side ladder where the men start to climb up to the deck. “Time to find out how our legacy has fared,” Lued says, hoisting himself over the last rung of the ladder.

  They reach the deck, where there is a strong smell of burning metal. Two naval cadets and one scientist are waiting.

  “So, speak,” Lued commands the scientist.

  “Please, come this way,” says the jittery scientist, clutching his clipboard with a thumbless hand. “It’s through here.”

  They follow the scientist to the middle of the frigate where a cluster of four large dynamos sits in the middle of the ship.

  “Here is where the energy field was strongest,” the scientist says, pointing at chalk marks of bodies and numbers of calculations and measurements written in red paint next to them. “And where four of the original six men were ordered to maintain the machines,” says the scientist, pushing his eyeglasses back on the bridge of his nose. “Two of the men can’t be found. They may have been thrown from the boat or completely vaporized. However, the other two . . . ,” dropping his head and speaking in a concerned tone, he adjusts his glasses and presses his clipboard to his chest with that thumbless hand, �
��follow me.”

  The scientist walks over to a white tarp that covers a large section of the deck of the frigate. He signals the cadets to roll the tarp back, showing a section of the ship where something awful was hidden underneath.

  There were the remains of two men whose bodies were fused into the hull of the ship. Half of their bodies are visible and half are stuck into the metal like dead seals stuck into ice. Their eyes were frozen wide open, bulging out of their sockets. The pupils are whited out. Streaks of dried blood run from their ghostly gaze to their nose, mouth, and chin. Their mouths were stuck agape like a snake’s yawn, and their lips were peeled back, showing their blackened gums. They obviously had been screaming in agony as the experiment took place. The men stood there with expressionless faces looking at the poor corpses.

  “Where are the two remaining subjects?” asks Bui.

  “They survived,” answers the scientist, adjusting his spectacles once more. “We have them quarantined back at the base.”

  “Take us to them immediately. Good job, cadets,” Lued says, turning to the young men as they stand at attention and salute. “You are sworn to silence, understand.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” they say in unison.

  “Good. You are relieved of duty,” Lued says as he pulls out his sidearm and guns them both down, terrifying the scientist as he adjusts his glasses with his shaking thumbless hand.

  “Send a cleanup crew here immediately when we return. I don’t want a trace of anything left. And sink this ship in the deepest trench in the Atlantic,” Lued says to Bui.

  The scientist, Lord Lued, and Lord Bui head to the boat. Twenty minutes later, the men reach the quarantine lab where the two surviving subjects are being held.

  In separate cells the two subjects cry and moan.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Bui says, looking through a thick glass viewing portal at one of the cells.