Chess Players: Atlantis and the Mockingbird

by DeVaughn, A. P.

  Westward I tread, retracing the two miles of frigid air and dark dirt roads until I am back near the violated section of wrought iron gate from where I made my escape. Crawling back underneath the bent bars, I kick the bar back in place. I notice the other side of the gate feels totally different from the freedom that has left me and has been replaced by a feeling of helplessness.

  Back through the oaks and pines, I stop for a second and peel off some tree bark from a few of the junipers and oaks, using the screwdriver to shave the bark from the trunk. I stick the few slivers into my sack. My buddy David might like this.

  Watching from the cover of the trees, I finally reach the lawn.

  I kneel at the base of a fallen oak and wait for the guard to pass on his scheduled beat. As soon as he passes, I bolt through the shadows of the grove, slide underneath the camera and into the back door that I rigged to stay open before I left. Sitting inside the utility closet, seconds away from another nosebleed, the second guard passes by and I head upstairs.

  Tiptoeing past the snoozing guard, I hear chatter from an abandoned room and then whimpering. Holding my ear to the door, I notice three different voices. Cautiously opening the door, what I saw I want to wipe from my mind. What they were doing to this kid was appalling and demonic. Some poor scrawny kid that I’ve seen around who walks alone here at the Rose and Shady Oaks, showing up with bruises every now and then, now has a witness to where the bruises come from—that kid was David.

  It was the guard whose footsteps disappeared sometimes late at night, the head priest here at the Rose, and George of the Dead End. Knowing that if I was spotted I was probably dead, I hurl a broken piece of concrete at the door, making a loud bang. The whimpering stops. “Who’s there?” a man shouts from behind the door, yet I slip away unnoticed.

  Back in bed, Kim is still sound asleep, cradling his charm around his neck. I huddle up with the unknown book and penlight underneath the covers and the thoughts of what I saw from that room in my head. Those fiends—criminals—deviants. Raping and beating that kid for sport. I’m wondering how long it’s been going on. Is that the only kid? What else goes on in this place? I wish the guards, priests, and nuns were all dead.

  Distracting myself from the atrocity I witnessed, I pick up the book. It’s filled with names with two sets of numbers. One set of numbers looks like dates, and all of the dates are years in the future. The other set of numbers I could not figure out, but they were two different numbers grouped together with a dash in the middle, some with hundreds and others were in single digits, with no real pattern. This is beyond strange to me, and even stranger is that I have a strong feeling of déjà vu that I continue to disregard, figuring they are symptoms of getting no sleep. Maybe rest will cure my confusion. I rattle the bottle of dreams and take a few pills to quiet my mind.

  “Dwight.”

  “Dad?”

  “Dwight, run, Son!”

  “Dad!”

  I awaken petrified from what I just saw. That dark figure with fire for eyes, laughing that horrible laugh, runs my father down, chuckling the entire time while he’s taking my father’s life, and I’m powerless to do anything. The harder I run toward my father to help, the further away he becomes.

  When will the nightmares end? Am I cursed, or just sick? The pills used to help and give me rest without the nightmares, but now the pills have no effect. Only my father knew how to treat my symptoms, and he’s gone. My protector, my best friend—gone.

  Then I remember the music that he would always listen to that calmed his nerves when things got bad. It was a waltz. He used to play it in his bunk when he was deployed in Vietnam.

  The notes dance on the back of my eyelids. I watch them skip and prance to the melody I play in my head while I rest my eyes until I fall asleep.

  Chapter 9: The Golden Carrot

  Weeks pass and the tension lightens as we get deeper into the school year. Harassment gets stale, the routine gets dry, and the bricks from Mrs. Biel get redundant and tolerable.

  The guys and I do a great job of lightening the load of redundancy by finding a bit of mischief to pass the time. Humor also lightens the stress of the hole we’ve been cast into through heartless acts of coincidence. Ron takes care of that part. I guess laughter is a good medicine that we try and swallow each chance we get. However, the medicine that I swallow is much different from theirs. The rattle of that bottle is the only thing that calms me, yet, it has taken its toll. It used to be days or even weeks before I needed to shake a few pills into my hand. Now I can’t even go a few hours without one. I’m taking ten pills a day just to hold myself together.

  When I try and force myself to not swallow my magic pills, the chills start first, followed by the even colder sweats. Then my hands begin to shake. My stomach twists in the most intricate of fisherman’s knots, and then the headaches come back with the fury of a scorned woman. Nothing else I’ve tried has worked. I’m now a slave to a few milligrams of a chemical concoction.

  I continue to hear that same music each day when we arrive at school. It’s just me who hears it, not Kim or Steve, not any of the other kids getting off of the bus. It feels like I’m losing my mind when those notes carry across the wind and do their dance that seduces me into insanity, hearing the deep-voiced woman played on that supposed vinyl record on that supposed record player. My perception and reality are becoming more and more separated by a gray area of skepticism of me hearing what I think isn’t real. A smell becomes a sight, a sound becomes a taste, and a touch becomes a hazy cloud in my imagination.

  During lunch the crew was getting along just fine as I walked up to sit down with my tray. I hear Ron and Steve talking and being their usual bickering selves.

  “Hey, guys,” says Ron, “Steve’s so ugly that when he looks in the mirror, his reflection ducks.”

  “You’re real funny, you black turd,” replies Steve, throwing a French fry at him.

  “Fellas,” I say, interrupting their immaturity, “I know a way that we can make some money.” Here comes that golden carrot.

  Looks of focus replace the smiles that have fallen from their faces as they stare at me with silent, attentive eyes.

  “Wait,” Ron says, “what the hell are you talking about, man? Money, as in greenbacks? Or money as in extra packs of the dry and disgusting cookies that they give us?”

  “I’m talking real money, Ron.” Leaning in closer. “Tomorrow morning, a house down the street that I’ve noticed has an old man living in it that gets the paper delivered to his house.”

  “Wow!” says Ron, slapping the table, “what an amazing observation. It goes right in between Halley’s Comet and the world not being flat.”

  “Would you shut up,” I say, flicking his shoulder. “He gets papers delivered. That means he pays the paperboy. I noticed that he pays him the third Thursday of every month. He also pays the milkman on the same day, and tomorrow is Thursday. He gets up early to get the paper and then takes a nap. The paperboy comes back in about an hour along with the milkman, and he pays them both. There has to be at least eighty bucks that he sticks in the mailbox for them to come and pick up. That’s twenty for each of us.”

  “Wait, let me check my math,” Ron says, writing imaginary numbers on the palm of his hand, whispering to himself. “Let’s see, eighty divided by four, hmmm, carry the one, remainder of zero, equals bullshit!” he says, showing the palm of his hand to me. “Tell me, why should I risk my neck for twenty freaking dollars?”

  “You know that present you wanted for your mom’s birthday and how you couldn’t afford it?”

  “Well played, you weird-eye-colored charlatan,” he says, backing off. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Let’s do it.”

  “Good. I’ve worked out a plan. We make the move tomorrow morning, right when lunch starts.”

  Every word that came out of my mouth was all a lie, and I didn’t even flinch when speaking. The fact is, I didn’t like using my friends for a wild goose chase for my selfish
needs, but I needed to give the mules a golden carrot to chase.

  The next morning, I could hear the music through the bus window as it pulled up in front of Shady Oaks. My heart was jumping out of my chest and my mouth was pasty all day in class, not out of fear, but from the anxiousness of the intended hunt.

  Each class seems longer than usual. The bells that end and begin class sound muffled, like they are buried beneath piles of goose down. My mind has made everything else today unimportant and diluted. Finally lunchtime comes, yet when the lunch bell rang, I swear it felt as if my eardrums were about to explode, it sounded so loud. Maybe my friends are just as scared as I am.

  I rushed into the cafeteria to meet up with the guys. As I’m in line to receive my food, I look over at the table in the corner of the cafeteria, and, to my surprise, everyone is there. No one chickened out. This group of misfits really would stick by me at the drop of a dime, and I’d do the same for them as well.

  After I make my way over to the table and sit, there was total silence. Not a peep from Ron or Steve or Kim. No jokes, no complaints about the food, nothing. All of their faces were blank and placid as they ate their lunch. All I heard was the mixed seas of conversations of the other kids in the cafeteria, chairs scrubbing the floor, and the faint sound of plasticware scraping the plastic food tray.

  The tight feeling in my throat must have been shared among my buddies. I saw them chewing their food a few seconds too long. I slowly gnawed each sporkful until it was a liquefied glob in my mouth to make it easier to swallow, as the tightness in my throat made it hard to choke down solid food.

  Whatever came out of my mouth was what we we’re going to do. It felt like the guys wanted me to say never mind and forget about the whole thing and have lunch as usual, then go about our day status quo. But today wasn’t that day. Today we were getting out of the dark and getting into some forbidden and much-needed mischief.

  As I sit there and eat with them for a few minutes, I pause with a sporkful of food inches from my face. I muster up the courage to speak to break the few minutes of silence.

  “We leave in five minutes,” I say, looking down at my tray, then looking up to see if there’s a reaction from my friends.

  Everyone pauses eating for a few seconds, as if chewing got in the way of their thinking and coming to terms with what I just said. Then, simultaneously, they nod their heads and begin eating again.

  “Good,” I say. “Let’s hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  Chapter 10: Military Waltz, Part 1

  Quickly finishing our meal, it gives us about thirty minutes of leeway.

  We head out to the yard, and they all follow my lead. Sneaking out of the chain-link fence that borders the yard where a section could be lifted up, we assemble at the edge of the school grounds near a stack of hedges where the bus drops us off in the morning.

  Two at a time we make our move. I tell Ron and Steve to go first. The little bit of impromptu direction that I gave them was said with the utmost confidence to make them feel like this is all planned out. Kim and I quickly follow behind Steve and Ron.

  Darting across the street, we hop a whitewashed wooden fence, tread through thick grass and miniature bushes, and duck behind willows. Looking past a small line of immature willows, I can see Steve and Ron at the side of the house, kneeling underneath a window, softly arguing, probably about something petty as usual. A few seconds later, Kim and I reach them on the side of the house. Seems that those two were arguing about who could run faster.

  They all look in my direction. ”What now, genius?” whispers an impatient Ron, waiting for me to give the next order. What they didn’t know was that I didn’t think past getting to the house.

  “Let’s split up and see what room he’s sleeping in. The mailbox is inside the porch. We need to keep a lookout, though,” I said. “Peak into the windows, and let’s meet back here in a few seconds.”

  Everyone scatters, shuffling around like ducks, trying to keep a low profile while we case the house. Scuttling around to the front of the house around the old rickety porch, I try and see inside the picture window, but a light film of crud surrounding the window prohibits a clear view. Desperate and fed up, I attempt to open the window to see inside by lightly tugging on the frame, but it won’t budge.

  Now everyone has returned back to where we started.

  “What did you guys see?” I softly ask.

  “Not too much,” whispers Steve. “A few things that might look expensive, but that’s it.”

  “Man,” says Ron. “I didn’t see shit.” And just as I expected, they didn’t see anything as well. An angered and frustrated Ron suggests we go back, pleading that this is stupid. Then he and Steve start an argument, whispering obscenities to each other back and forth with Steve saying he doesn’t want to leave empty-handed. Then the bickering stops as we hear something moving around inside of the house. The sound moves toward the front door, and we hear locks clicking. I scurry toward the front of the house and stop at the edge of the porch, knowing that I would definitely be spotted running back across the street to the school grounds. Squeaks of dry metal and wood begin grinding together as I hear the rusty hinges of the front door of the house begin to open. With no time to think, I make a hasty decision. There are a few vertical boards missing from where the ground meets the porch, just wide enough for me to squeeze my way in between the boards and under the porch into the crawl space. Steve, Kim, and Ron follow behind me, forcing themselves through, pushing me so hard that I fall face first in the cold, hardened dirt. Ron and Steve are elbowing each other, trying to make room, whispering curses at each other. Then we hear the door open. Everyone falls silent as we hear feet dragging above us across the wooden planks of the old porch.

  Looking up through the small gaps of the boards, watching the dust fall where each labored step lands, the light flickers in and out of the spaces between the planks by the old man’s shadow. Then as the man sits down with an exhaling thud, a suffocating plume of dust is knocked from the bottom of the planks, choking us all. We all cover our noses and mouths to shield ourselves from the clouds of grime and use the other hand to fan the air in front of us.

  “Can you see anything?” Ron whispers from under his hand.

  We all shake our heads no, eyes watering, trying desperately not to cough.

  There’s a knot hole in one of the planks where I can see glimpses of an old man’s face, half covered by an open newspaper as he silently reads. Then we hear two clicks followed by a deep raspy voice.

  “I don’t know who the hell you are, or why you’re under my porch, but if you don’t get off of my property in three seconds, I’m going to blast your asses! One, two—”

  We all look at each other with wide eyes of panic and dash from underneath the porch, climbing over one another, all of us trying to fit through the small opening, bursting through and breaking a couple of boards as we exit and run full speed back to the school grounds.

  We’re out of breath and doubled over, grabbing our pants at the knees and leaning on the brick wall of the school. Ron, completely out of breath, fixes his mouth to speak.

  “Man,” Ron says, gasping for air. “You are all bitches!”

  “Guys, keep it down,” I say, trying to calm down from my panic. “You forgot that we’re not supposed to be out here right now. If we get caught, they might send us to the pit for a week. C’mon, let’s get back inside.”

  We sneak back through the fence and back into the cafeteria to catch the tail end of lunchtime. Grabbing a tray and then another serving of food, we head for a table trying to make things seem as normal as possible. As we walk through the cafeteria, many sets of eyes follow us. Not just because of the rainbow of our ethnicities, but because of our appearance.

  “Guys. Our heads,” I whisper.

  With our mischief painted all over us—our neatly pressed khaki pants now wrinkled and dusty, dirt on the seats of our pants and knees, and our shirts looking like cactus from a
ll of the wooden splinters from the porch sticking out of our shirts, and cucka-bugs clinging to our socks from running through the fields. The smudges of dirt on our faces with a shallow coat of dust clinging to our hair was kind of hard to hide and was easily forgotten by us when we walked into school. Right before we sat down, we quickly freshened up, using our hands like whiskbrooms, frantically patting the dust off of our clothing, faces, and heads.

  Ron is all but impressed, and his eyebrows are touching each other as his face wrinkles in anger.

  “Man, you said we would get some money,” Ron angrily whispers. “All we got was scared shitless.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Ron,” Steve butts in. “I don’t work for free. You owe us some money, D.”

  “Guys, I didn’t know that shit would happen.” I softly speak with authority. “When you make business decisions, there are risks.”

  Ron and Steve are truly pissed off at me. I could tell, not just because of their tone, but because that was the first time I ever heard them agree on something. Kim is upset with me as well but doesn’t voice his opinion. I promise the guys that they would be compensated in the near future. They’ll be angry with me for a while, but the trip was slightly worth it.

  The last bell of school rings and I walk out of class feeling relief, knowing I’d soon be in my bed planning my escape.

  “Hey, fuzz head.” I hear behind me, turning around to the all-too-familiar sound of George the Queer’s weaselly voice.

  “What in the hell do you want?” I say, walking away in annoyance down the hall to the receiving door.

  “Oh, nothing,” he says, following behind me. It sounds like he’s hiding something.

  “If it’s nothing, then leave me alone and go pester someone else.”

  “Well, I was thinking. Joppy is the head of security at the boy’s home,” he says.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “He’s second cousin to the Swelchz family,” he confidently replies.

  “Yeah, and? So what?” I shrug, trying to hide my anxiety.