CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
2007 – Chess Boxing
My birthday, April 5th, fell on a Thursday. I was thirty-three years old. I’d read somewhere once, that thirty-five is the crossroads. By the time a man is thirty-five, he needed to have a very good idea of where he was heading and where he’d been. So, that meant I had twenty-four months to assess and re-position. And I had no choice but to do it in Brooklyn. Supervised release had me hemmed up. Can’t run away from yourself.
My father and I had gotten in the habit each night of playing at least one game of chess after dinner. When I was a kid, he taught me the basics but I had no interest in the game. But I got really into it while in prison, especially at Fort Dix, where skill level was extremely high. On the night of my birthday, my dad challenged me to a game. My mother told us to go on into the living room, where the board was set up- she’d bring birthday cake and brandy out to us. My dad put on an old Johnny Pacheco album and we got into our game.
My father took his time setting up his strategy- for the most part, he’d be very deliberate but then again, he’d been known to wing it at times. He looked up and saw me intently concentrating on his moves.
“I remember when you were young, and I used to force you to play chess with me,” he reminisced. “You hated it.”
I nodded. He was not lying.
“And, you would hoard all your pieces until the end of the game, and then get mad when I’d sweep you,” he continued. “I’m happy you finally realized that you need to move some of the big men in the beginning to get a win in the end.”
“Pierre!” my mother called from the kitchen. “Mundo is on the phone!”
“Be right back,” I told my father and went to get the phone.
“Feliz cumpleaños, bredda!” Doe greeted me. “We getting old!”
I laughed. “Yeah, I got two years before I’m too old to change.”
“Who told you that?” he asked. “You are never too old to fuck up!”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” I replied.
“How’s work going?” Mundo asked.
“It’s going good,” I replied. “It’s a regular job. Nothing glam. Your dad’s a good boss. My actual supervisor is kinda funny style, but he leaves me alone for the most part.”
“I can’t believe you have a fuckin’ office job, ‘Brón,” Mundo laughed. “You’re finally a civilian!”
“Yeah,” I replied. “A citizen. Thanks to your dad.”
“Well, as soon as you’re free to travel, I expect to see you back in Panama. I have some stuff I need you to help me out with, on the construction side. Bolo is retiring from everything by end of year and I need a partner.”
“Doe, man,” I started, “I still have well over a year until I can do anything. Just let me deal with what I got for now.”
“I got you, Pierre,” he replied. “But just don’t forget that I’m waiting!”
Waiting to get me back into my clean-up role? Not gonna happen.
I could never figure out why Mundo always seemed so hell bent on keeping me up under him. We were both only children, but that couldn’t be it. He wanted me with him but not next to him. It was weird and stressful. But every time I started to take the time to analyze it, I lost interest. The main thing was to recognize the pattern for the game it was.
