Chess Players: Atlantis and the Mockingbird

by DeVaughn, A. P.

  “My husband is always traveling, and this is a centralized location. Plus, he said he’d give me anything I want if I go with him. I just teach to stay active. I used to love it, but you heathens make it tough. It’s hard to teach a bunch of idiots.”

  “Nice to know. Well, if you have everything already and you’re happy, why are you such a bitch?”

  “Excuse me?” she says, jumping back in her chair as her eyebrows push into her nose.

  “You heard me. Why be such a bitch all of the time? I mean, what did I ever do to you? That’s not a healthy lifestyle, ya know. Stress is the leading cause of heart attack, cancer, and stroke, or so I’ve read.”

  Her lips tighten and she makes a beeline toward me. Before I know it, my face snaps to the left from the sting of a woman scorned.

  “Seems like you’re an abusive bitch as well,” I say while rubbing the welt she left across my face.

  She rears back to sting me again, and, before her hand connects, I catch her arm at the wrist. Struggling from my tight grasp to free her hand, she tears away from my grip and, in the process, falls back into the wall with great force. I guess my strength and anger got the best of me.

  “You little shit. You hit me!” she screams, holding her shoulder as her eyes begin to well up with tears.

  I must have really hurt her.

  “Mrs. Biel, I, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you that hard, but you slapped me,” I say as I walk toward her. I can see the bruise on her arm from my grip. She looks as if she is about to start crying, and I start to feel like shit. My attempts to console her don’t seem to be working. This woman hates me, and she can explode at any moment. This is not good for me. One word from her saying that I hit her and it’s over. I see the twinkling of tears forming in the corner of her eyes, and then she starts sobbing, but I don’t think it’s from the pain that I inflicted.

  “I never wanted this life,” she says. She starts telling me about how neglected she was in her life and how her husband never pays her any attention, how her life has been that of a mail-order bride and her family used to be wealthy but fell on hard times and pawned her off to a middle-aged man to once again secure the family’s financial security. I kind of felt bad for her.

  The stream of tears slows to a trickle and she starts apologizing for being so mean to me all of the time. She hugs me, sniffling, then apologizes for slapping me. Then she kisses me on the forehead and then kisses me on the cheek. Petrified with confusion, my body develops rigor mortis as I try and sift through what’s happening. Using all of the strength in my body, I fix my mouth to say something, then I call out her name. “Mrs. Biel?” But she continues to kiss me, next to my ear, on my neck, and then my lips. She puts both of her hands on the sides of my face and kisses my lips, yet strangely, instead of having feelings of this being wrong, it felt right. Ever since the first day of school, I’ve had an impulsive crush on her, drawn to her like bees to honey. I then place my hand behind her head and I slowly start to kiss her back. This is the first time I have ever kissed a girl. But this wasn’t a girl; it was a woman.

  My hands shake and my pants bulge with intent. She steadies my quivering hands as she gently squeezes my wrists and places them on her hips. She then begins to unbutton her blouse. My eyes look down into her eyes and slowly trace the lines of her face, down to her chin, to that little crease in her neck in between her collar bones and then at her bosom, where my eyes jump out of their sockets and then back up at her eyes. She smiles, the traces of tears still on her face. I wipe them away with my thumb. She then unfastens my belt and unbuttons my pants, reaches inside my underwear and touches me. The fear that encased my body in an invisible pair of shackles soon breaks free with the tickle of her fingertips on my crotch as my lips dove back onto hers. She takes my hands and guides them down the sides of her thighs and up her skirt, slides my thumbs along either side of her panties and gently guides my hands down, removing her black-laced panties as she steps out of them. The pheromones of ecstasy from between her legs fill my nose. Her hand guides my hand back up her thighs and under her skirt and she presses it to her pelvis. She lets out a slow and seductive breath. My hand feels the wetness as she slides my fingers up and down. She then takes my hand out as my fingers glisten and she takes them to my mouth and I taste her. She walks me to her desk, lies on her back, and pulls me on top of her and clasps her legs around my waist.

  I enter her and feel nothing but the intense warmth of her moist innards as she exhales with a heavenly moan. My eyelids shudder, the ceiling rolls back, the walls melt away, and the floor dives underneath itself into nothingness. And for the next two minutes, on top of her desk, I don’t care about anything or anyone. The feeling that I felt, my first time, felt like nothing I had felt before as my body is paralyzed and I make a sound that only wounded squirrels make. A thunderbolt shoots through my body and into hers.

  After the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me is over, we lay on top of her desk. Her skirt is still flung up over her belly, and my pants are still bunched up below my knees. We share a silence between us. All that I can hear in that quiet classroom is her breathing as if relieved of some sort of pain. I can feel her heartbeat as she lies underneath my arm. Coming back to reality from my quixotic moment, I break the silence.

  “So, will I have detention again next week?” I say.

  “Of course, Mr. Jones,” she says, giggling.

  While we dress, my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the situation that has just happened. No equation I could conjure up in my head could make it real. Not that it didn’t happen, but it feels like this has happened before. On the other end, how in the hell am I going to tell the guys without them thinking I’m a complete liar? Or should I just keep it a secret that I’m not a virgin anymore?

  “By the way, Mrs. Biel,” I say, tucking my shirt into my pants. “I’ve never known your first name.”

  She smiles while fastening the last button atop her blouse. She walks up to me and kisses me on the lips, then whispers in my ear,

  “It’s Lara.”

  Chapter 18: Virgin Blood

  Back at the Rose, things begin to look different. Those wrought iron gates seemed to turn pearly white and inviting. I could hear birds and the sounds of nature while we rode through the oaks. Even the Rose itself looked different. Everything that looked wrong with it became invisible to me. There was only one thing I could think about: Is this what love feels like? The clouds looked fluffier, and the sun had a different type of warmth to it.

  My room was empty when I returned. Kim and Steve must be somewhere goofing off. I lie on the bed and close my eyes and those sweet smells come back to me along with the taste of her lips and the softness of her skin.

  “Hey D!” Kim says, bursting into the room. “How was detention?”

  “Yeah, you were gone a long time,” says Steve. “We thought she killed you.”

  “No, I’m not dead, fellas. In fact, I’ve never felt more alive,” I say, smirking.

  “What does that mean?” asks Steve.

  “Nothing,” I say, exhaling in a deep sigh. “Anyway, I heard there’s a surprise for us.”

  “Yeah, there are supposed to be fireworks later. At least that’s what they say. You know how promises go around here,” says Steve.

  The sky begins to darken and the six o’clock bell sounds for dinner as we all head back into the Rose for the holiday feast. All of the kids have been gossiping and parading around happy. They say that there will be a small fireworks display at nine. I ask the cafeteria lady about the alleged fireworks and she confirms it to be true. Last time we got some excitement around here was when we didn’t have meatloaf Monday a year ago. I tell the guys that I have something to tell them as we finish the holiday meal of corn bread, smothered chicken, and grits, which wasn’t that bad at all. I guess the head director was in a good mood today.

  We’re soon interrupted before I can muster up the courage to tell them of my unbeli
evable encounter with the woman we’ve all come to know as the devil’s mistress.

  “All right, there’s a little something going on outside in about ten minutes,” Joppy yells from the cafeteria doorway. “You’re more than welcome to attend. Be in the courtyard at nine if ya wanna see it. I thank you.” He tips his hat and grins, clenching that saliva-soaked toothpick in between those coffee- and tobacco-stained brown tinted tiles before he leaves the cafeteria.

  Looking over to Kim, I can see that he is doing his best to hold back his excitement from this evening’s upcoming event. He remembers fireworks when he was a very small child in Japan, so it’s been a long time for him. Last time I saw fireworks was with my father when we left town for a business meeting he had and I came along with him to a city near the Great Lakes.

  After dinner we head up to my room and hang out until it’s time to go to the courtyard. Kim is scrounging around the room for his lucky charm, while Steve is busy trying to con me into a bet on what’s going to be for breakfast in the morning. “Hey Kim, hurry up,” I say. We are about five minutes late, and I hear the first of the fireworks go off as I see flashes of light out of my window.

  “Found it!” Kim cheers, thrusting his hand and holding the paper charm in it above his head like a trophy.

  We make our way down the stairs in a hurry toward the courtyard. “I’ll race you,” says Kim, pushing me to get a head start and running ahead of me in his eagerness to see the show. He opens the doorway to the stairwell going down to the first floor and he stops. I’m racing down the stairs with Steve behind me. “I’m about to win if you don’t run fa—” Reality sets in. The joy that I was feeling all day is quickly flushed out of my body and stapled to my chest as my heart skips a beat.

  “Well, well. Where are you headed to so fast?” says one of the cousins as he walks into the stairwell. I start backing up the stairs and I yell at Kim to run. Kim is so stricken with fear he lashes out at one the cousins and takes a swing that connects square with his jaw. The cousin falls to the ground and Kim strikes him a few more times with a punch and a kick. I look at Kim in disbelief, searching in my mind from where the courage came from inside of this docile teenager. We dart up the stairs and the door swings open. “Whoa now, where’s the fire?” Harold Jr. says, with his brother Tom next to him. I hear pounding footsteps coming up the stairs fast as Cleo, who Kim hit, makes his way up, mad as a bull seeing red, along with his other cousin Jeb.

  “You’re gonna pay for that, you Jap piece of shit,” Cleo says, holding his jaw. Blood trickles from the side of his mouth.

  “Guys, we didn’t do nothing to you!” I say.

  “He laid hands on my blood. That’s doing something. Get ’em.” Jeb and Cleo grab Kim and Steve and throw them against the wall while Tom grabs me in a chokehold.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be all right,” Harold Jr. says to me. “You’re gonna watch.” The two cousins begin pummeling Steve and Kim as Harold Jr. jumps in. Steve is quickly knocked down after a few seconds, yet Kim starts to fight back and gives them a run for their money. I never knew Kim could be such a ferocious fighter. All of a sudden they can’t land a hand on him. My buddy is holding his own against them. Then they grab him out of frustration and put him in a restraining hold, pinning his arms behind his back.

  “Stand aside!” Harold Jr. says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his butterfly knife and flips it open. “Don’t ever touch my blood again,” he says. Then he turns to me. “This little bird is about to get carved. We need you, Kim. So I won’t kill you. What do you say, boys?” he says, turning to his other three kin. “Light or dark meat?”

  “No! Leave him alone!” I cry. But my pleas for mercy go unheard. As Steve and I watch, Harold takes the knife and puts it to Kim’s face and slowly cuts his cheek. Kim endures the pain without a flinch.

  I lunge at Harold after I break the grasps of the cousins and strike him. Then a wall hits me and I’m dragged away as Harold’s intent is unwavered by my poor effort to save my buddy.

  “Blood,” Harold says, dragging the edge of his knife from Kim’s bottom eyelid, past his neck and down his shirt. “For blood.” Then without compassion, he plunges the knife into Kim’s belly, and Kim’s body goes limp and his eyes glass over. Kim, trying to bear the pain, yells through his gritted teeth, yet his groan is silenced and muffled by the stairwell’s concrete walls and the exploding fireworks outside. Harold then pulls his blood-soaked knife out of Kim, wipes the blade off on Kim’s shirt, throws him to the ground and then flicks his knife closed as he and his gang leave, laughing at the evil that they have done.

  Steve is able to scrape himself from the floor from the beating he took, but Kim is laying there in agony, silent, not a whimper, just like when he is sleeping. We pick him up and make our way down the stairs with his arms draped over our shoulders. We cradle him on both sides, and his legs dangle like a dead octopus from the weakening pain of the stab wound. We hurry down the hallway that seems longer than it’s supposed to. Bright red, white, and blue flashes of bombs light the way every few seconds through the row of tall windows that line the wall. A crawling pain starts in my head and makes it down to my stomach. This is what war must feel like. Your comrade injured and on his deathbed, unable to move, and the living dragging him to a medic to ease his passing, but wishing that they were him. The living wishing that they were wounded out of guilt and out of the frustration of fighting a never-ending fight. This is how I feel right now. They should be carrying me. I had sworn to protect them, and look at what happened.

  We make it to the front door. “Mr. Joppy!” I scream.

  “What the hell is going on here?” He turns around and the kids turn around to see what’s going on. “What in the hell happened to him?” Joppy says.

  “I don’t know, sir. We found him like this,” I say, but Steve looks at me in disagreement with my answer. If I had told Joppy what had really happened, it would have made things worse.

  Joppy grabs Kim by the feet while Steve and I have his arms. “C’mon, let’s get him to the nurse’s office,” he says. We scramble back inside the Rose. The blood is dripping from his shirt and from his face and mixes with sweat and tears and turns a silky red and stains our clothes as Steve and I carry him through the hall. The flashes of the fireworks brighten the dimly lit hall through the tall windows. I see the faces that Kim makes between bursts of light. Each jolting step we take aggravates his wound “Almost there, buddy,” I say to him. Squinting in pain, he peels one eye open and looks at me, reassuring that he hears my voice, letting me know he’ll be okay.

  We make it to the nurse’s office, but it’s locked, and Joppy opens it with his ring of keys. The nurse shows up a few moments later, and her less-than-panicked state helps the situation. Joppy radios for his guards to call EMS, but they say it will be over ten minutes. Joppy goes back outside to help corral the kids scrambled about the courtyard and the fields taking advantage of the void of authoritative figures. In doing so, he leaves his keys on the table inside of the nurse’s office. “You’re going to be just fine. The pain is worse than the wound,” the nurse says. Joppy returns with two paramedics and a gurney.

  “All right, let’s get him up. One two three, lift,” the paramedic says as they hoist Kim on the gurney and examine him. “He’s going to be okay. The wound isn’t that deep. One more inch down though and it would have hit his liver. Could have bled out before we got here,” he says.

  “Well, looks like you’re in luck,” Joppy says, laughing. “We’ll get to the bottom of this when you return from the hospital.” Steve and I give our supporting gestures, and they haul Kim off to the ambulance. “All right now, you two go and get cleaned up and get ready for lights out. It’s time for me to make my rounds,” says Joppy.

  “Hey, Mr. Joppy,” I say and he stops in annoyance.

  “What now?” he says, turning around.

  “Your keys,” I say as I hand them to him.

  “Oh. Now get washed up. Yo
u two look like stuck hogs.”

  Steve and I depart the nurse’s office and make our way up the stairs, talking about what had just happened.

  “What in the hell are you smiling about?” Steve asks. “Kim might die!”

  “I have my reasons,” I say. “Besides, Kim will be all right, and so will we.”

  Washing Kim’s blood from my body and hands, seeing it swirl down the forgetful drain, doesn’t take away my memories of what had just happened.

  As I lay in bed, the image of my best friend helpless and begging and me powerless to help him replays in my mind over and over again. The blood, the look on the cousins’ and brothers’ faces, Steve on the ground—I felt like I was going to go crazy.

  I wonder how Kim is doing alone in that hospital bed, probably sandwiched between some old guy asking him questions and a post-op appendicitis patient nagging about how bad the food is. Or he could be giggling at everything, so doped up on morphine he doesn’t know his name anymore. This is the first time we haven’t slept in the same room together in four years. However he’s doing, I hope he’s okay. Ironically, he had his lucky charm with him that was supposed to protect him and us from harm. But now we have a new lucky charm. Now I needed only one more item to deploy my plan.

  Chapter 19: Exodus, Part 1

  The next day, I decide to give Bill a visit for some much-needed advice after my recent episodes at school and at the Rose. Maybe he can settle my conflict between self-preservation and saving my friends, too. Plus, I’ll get detention for skipping a few classes, which isn’t so bad anymore.

  “Ah, Dwight. How’s it going?” he says as he opens the door. We make small talk as I enter and sit in our usual spots.

  “Have you ever been in love?” I ask him.

  “Yes,” he replies. “I’ve been in love a few times. Each time was different. No love is the same, you know. The love you have for your mother is not the same as for a woman you fall in love with, or the next woman you fall in love with after that. Love will make you do things you’ve never done before. It turns you into a different man. I remember my first time. Turned me into a walking idiot,” he says, laughing.