Chapter 10: Enter the Geeks

Chapter 10: Enter the Geeks
Chapter 10: Enter the Geeks It appeared that fate was very insulted Barry had involuntarily attempted to cheat it and it wasn’t going to let him escape that easily. Upon seeing the headline Barry quickly grabbed the newspaper from the road, shaking out the ruined food. He was no longer concerned with his hunger as that could wait. He read the article feverishly.
Regional Chess Championships set to take place at Town Hall. 1 st place prize
money £5000.
This year’s regional Chess championship welcomes players of all ages. Entry for
children under the age of sixteen is free. Adult entry: £20.00. All entrants must be at
the Town Hall on the 19th of February at 8:00am sharp to register themselves and
pay the entrance fee.
Any queries, contact Mrs Butler on 0137 657 2319 Barry’s heart which momentarily had lifted sank back down into his stomach with a thump: where on Earth was he going to get twenty pounds? Twenty pounds for Barry was like asking a normal man for a million. Walking down the road, he knew it was going to be extremely difficult to get that sort of money as he no longer had a bank account, he had a number of credit card debts, phone debts, and he still hadn’t paid last months rent. He hadn’t actually racked up this debt since leaving prison: he had managed to acquire it before he went. So, all things considered, he was pretty much screwed. Now sitting in his tiny flat Barry racked his brains to find a solution to his problem.
134 ‘Twenty pounds… twenty pounds…twenty pounds…’ Barry spoke the words as if that would somehow help an easy answer materialise before his very eyes. It didn’t. There in fact were five solutions that he could think of, but none of them were really ideal. The at-first-glance most attractive one was to attempt to fob himself off as under sixteen years of age so he could enter the tournament for free. This solution though carried with it a high probability of failure for Barry was thirty-four, balding and certainly not baby-faced. The second solution was to hit the streets begging and looking for spare pennies on the floor. This already was one of his current pastimes that he had used to supplement his meagre income. Lamentably it was unlikely he’d be able to raise such a large amount of money in the short time period. The third solution was to go over to his Mum’s house and ask her to loan him the cash, but he was sure her answer would be something along the lines of this. ‘To play chess! Have you gone mad? You want me to give you twenty pounds to play chess? You need to get your priorities right son. Get down the Jobcentre and get a real job.’ Barry couldn’t face his Mum anyway and ask her for money as his pride was getting in the way, making him prefer re-homelessness over asking her for help. The fourth solution was to gamble, taking all his worldly possessions down to the pawnshop to trade them for cash. Alas, looking around his little bedsit, Barry wasn’t sure if all his worldly possessions would actually amount to twenty pounds. And then what if he lost? He’d only played a handful of bedraggled convicts inside Weirdways, so the thought that they’d have real players at this tournament that might
135 casually destroy him was daunting. Another daunting thought was that if he did play and lose he’d end up with nothing and in an even worse situation than he was now. The fifth solution was to kill himself. Going to his Mum Maggie was almost unthinkable, trying to blag he was under sixteen was simply ludicrous, and not being able to afford a coffin made killing himself unfeasible as well. The only solutions that seemed the most appealing and viable were the second and the fourth. Barry decided in cheesy game show style he was going to gamble, only he wasn’t gambling with a load of crappy prizes he didn’t need: he was gambling with his future existence. If he came up short with the pawned possessions, he believed he’d be able to obtain the rest through begging and scanning the pavement for discarded coppers. The pawnshop was run by a rodent of a man whose business thrived on desperation, and this man had developed an astute ability at assessing a person’s level of anxiety when they walked through his shop doors. He instantly ascertained that the pale, drawn, unshaven face and watery eyes of Barry, who’d just walked into his lair, was beyond desperate and could be easily exploited. Barry had bundled all his belongings into an abandoned shopping trolley to allow easier transportation of his things to the pawnshop. Outside his block of flats, along with an assortment of burnt-out cars, there just so happened to be many of these conveniently abandoned trolleys. ‘I want to pawn some of these items.’ ‘Bring them up here then,’ replied the shop owner in a quiet, rasping voice. The worthless junk of Barry’s life was brought up to the counter to be inspected. The man’s rodent eyes shiftily scanned over the items.
136 ‘This is just crap, it isn’t worth anything.’ ‘Come on, something must be worth at least—’ ‘Wait. This, I’ll give you fifteen pounds for this.’ The man was holding a priceless Broomfield family heirloom: Barry’s dead Grandma’s gold wristwatch, pried off her still-warm arm after she’d snuffed it. Even though he’d brought it down with him in the trolley, Barry had been hoping he wouldn’t have to sell it. ‘Twenty,’ said Barry. ‘It’s not worth twenty brand new.’ ‘It’s worth a lot more than twenty. It’s an antique.’ ‘I’m not buying it for twenty.’ ‘Fine, I’ll go somewhere else then.’ Turning to walk out of the shop, taking his trolley with him, Barry was taking a big risk because he didn’t have anywhere else to go, he didn’t know where there were any other pawnshops and even if he did, he didn’t have any means of transport to get to them. ‘Okay, okay hold your horses. Alright twenty,’ said the pawnbroker begrudgingly. The rat of a man had a look of pain etched on his face because he never liked parting with his money, so his customer almost had to tear the twenty pound note out of his crusty hand. The same could be said though for Barry as he passed over the watch. He resolved that if did manage to win the five grand he would pay to buy it back. He guessed that he would have to pay a ridiculously exorbitant price and endure an extremely self-satisfied grin from this weasel he had just done business with, but even so, it would be worth it.
137 For the next few days Barry sat in his flat, checking and rechecking when he had to be at the Town Hall for his judgement day just on the off chance he’d misread when he was supposed to be there. He also got some books on chess tactics out from the local library where he was now a regular, reading them with a scholarly passion. He wanted to be prepared for everything his opposition could throw at him, and while it’s true it would have helped if he actually had access to a real chess set to practice his moves, he was so skint the thought of being able to buy one was nothing but a childish dream. The night before the Chess Tournament that would decide his future, Barry tried with great difficulty to get to sleep on his swimming pool lilo bed. This was always a tricky task: the police sirens outside, loud expletives emanating from rowdy neighbours, the freezing cold of the unheated flat, and the general shoddiness of his makeshift mattress were all contributory factors, but tonight it was mostly because he was nervous. He thought about successful people and how they seemed to have the ability to focus only on triumph, defeat never entering their mind. This wasn’t the case in Barry’s mind though as the thought of failure was extremely prevalent. When he did eventually drift into an uneasy sleep he experienced terrible nightmares, dreaming that Petrov had taught him a load of bogus rules because he never knew how to really play chess at all. Instead of being both a talented chess player and a mad axe-wielding murderer, he was merely just the latter. As it dawned on everybody in the Town Hall that Barry didn’t know the actual real rules of chess, he was laughed and pointed at before being arrested. Now standing in a courtroom with many smartly dressed people whose faces were obscured in darkness, Barry realised he was on trial. ‘What’s my crime?’ asked Barry to the Judge in a terrified voice.
138 ‘You’re being tried for not knowing the rules of chess.’ For some unknown reason Petrov was in the jury covered in blood, laughing manically. ‘It was him; it was him who taught me. I didn’t know.’ Sent back to Weirdways Barry met back up with all his old pals, the people who’d humiliated and beaten him. They weren’t what you would call the best type of friends a boy could have but then beggers like Barry can’t be choosers. Mr Merryweather was there, so was Grizzly, Crazy Craig was brandishing a shiv, and Sammy Nammy was pacing his cell back and forth. Mr Merryweather showed Barry to his cell with Sammy and said in a sadistic voice: ‘Welcome home,’ before pushing him inside and locking the door. An odd and alarming noise then began to ring in the Barry’s ears, to which Sammy looked at Barry curiously and said: ‘Shouldn’t you be getting up now?’ Almost jumping off his lilo, Barry remembered today was his day of judgement. He was covered in a cold sweat, but that didn’t matter for he had graver concerns. After eating a light breakfast, light not because he wanted it to be but because he was running seriously low on food stocks—things were getting Ethiopiastyle desperate now—he got dressed and lifted the precious twenty-pound note from out under his pillow. If all went according to plan he’d be turning this twenty into five grand. Paying for a bus fare to get to the Town Hall was obviously out of the question, so instead Barry would have the pleasure of some exercise, and the tournament venue being a considerable distance from his tower block meant he had to set out in the dark. Looking up at the stars that were still out, he thought back to the time he’d gotten kicked out of Euphoria Nightclub. Even though at the time he’d felt
139 miserable, the passage of time had mutated his perception of this memory into the belief that those had been the glory days. There was only one other person up at this time, the milkman, and Barry made sure to avoid eye contact, recollecting he owed the milk merchant money, although the same could be said for about half of the population in his hometown. Over the course of the long walk he saw the world awake before him and its inhabitants go about their daily business. He saw mankind rushing to work stressed, fatigued, annoyed and longing for answers or escape. It dawned on him they looked just as pathetic as he was, only they didn’t know it. They sat in traffic jams, mere rats in a race all chasing the crumbs swept off life’s table, wasting away their expendable existences. This eye-opening moment cheered Barry slightly and he no longer felt as nervous as he had before: he understood that nothing really mattered, that he was just another conglomeration of molecules living on a speck of dirt drifting through infinity. Comforted by his and everyone else’s worthlessness, he felt a little less pressure being exerted on him. Arriving early at his destination, he was surprised to see there was a long queue populated by spotty-faced teenagers wearing Star Trek shirts. There was a heartstopping moment where he felt as if he might have somehow read the date or time wrong on the newspaper because this surely was a geek convention, not a chess tournament. So, it was with considerable relief when he saw another geeky teenager wearing a t-shirt that read: Chess Rules excitedly talking to a friend about the upcoming tournament.
140 ‘I really fancy my chances this year against Honeysuckle. I’ve been reading up on some new moves. You watch; I’ll be checkmating my way to five grand in record time.’ In accordance with the prospect of winning five thousand pounds for simply moving a few small lumps of plastic around on a piece of cardboard, there’d been a large turn out. The tiny drop of optimism Barry previously might have had rapidly evaporated. How can I be the best out of all these? I bet they’ve played this game for
years! He pulled out his crisp twenty-pound note and looked at it with an utter sense of despondency, feeling beaten before he’d even begun. The registration process was a straightforward affair. You first handed in your entrance fee, where upon you’d then be given a form to fill out asking for contact details and other personal information. Barry managed to encounter some difficulty with his form though, having to leave the space for a contact telephone number blank on account of his not possessing the means to afford such a luxury. Once everybody had been put through the registration process the draw for the first round commenced. Every person entered into the tournament got their name placed in a box where they were then drawn out at random. The person who appeared to be in charge of the day’s proceedings was a Mrs Butler, and she was the one who read out in an annoyingly shrill voice the results of the draw. ‘D’Souza will be facing Gibbons. Jenkins will be facing Hutchinson.’ Barry nervously waited for his name to be called out, biting his fingernails in apprehension, fast gnawing his way to the quick. ‘Broomfield will be facing Jones.’
141 Scanning the room, trying to spot his opponent as if they might have Jones scrawled across their forehead, Barry needn’t have bothered because right behind him he heard the voice of his foe. ‘Broomfield… Never heard of him before, must be a newbie.’ Another voice then chuckled. ‘You’ll destroy him then, the newbie’s never get past the first round.’ Furtively Barry glanced over his shoulder to see what his opponent looked like. To his horror it was the acne-faced teenager wearing the Chess Rules t-shirt. This was a crushing blow because in the first round he was going to face a seasoned veteran, a person who had undoubtedly years more chess experience under his belt than he had. What chance do I have against such an opponent? he thought lugubriously, wishing instead for a couple of easy matches first to get him warmed up and shake off any rust. Since leaving prison he hadn’t actually played chess once. Yep
that’s it, I’m done for. I might as well end it all right now in front of everyone. Barry looked around, hoping to see a loaded shotgun lying nearby. At this time, just minutes before the onset of his match against Jones, Barry needed a mental pick-me-up, an emotional lift. He wasn’t going to get it. As he sat on his chair still biting his fingernails, a man sitting next to him noticed the crippling nerves that had beset Barry and the now nauseous green colour of his face. ‘Hey cheer up mate, it’s only chess, if you lose you lose.’ ‘You don’t understand,’ said Barry. I’ve got a lot riding on this.’ ‘What do you mean a lot riding on it? You don’t actually think you’re going to win do you?’ ‘Well…it’s possible.’ ‘Yeah it’s possible—if you think pigs can fly.’
142 ‘Why can’t I win?’ said Barry, offended by this stranger’s know-it-all attitude. ‘Because there’s only ever two people who get to the final, Matthew Jones and Grace Honeysuckle.’ ‘Jones?’ said Barry with a hint of trepidation. ‘Yeah, but he never wins. Honeysuckle beats him in the final every time. I’m surprised he keeps coming. He must reckon he’s going to beat her one of these days. She got to the national semis last year. She’s over there, look.’ The man gestured to a small girl who appeared to be aged only ten or eleven. ‘She’s just a kid!’ said Barry incredulously. ‘Yeah maybe, but she plays a mean game of chess.’ There was a silence before the man thought of something more to say. ‘So, who’re you playing then?’ ‘Jones…’ The man roared with laughter and patted his new acquaintance on the back. ‘Hey it could have been worse: you could’ve been drawn against Honeysuckle.’ Matthew Jones had a fireball of energy flowing through him upon taking his seat opposite Barry. He gave one the impression he was about to engage in a bout of fisticuffs as opposed to partaking in the civilised game of chess. What was different though about this particular game compared to any games of chess Barry had participated in before was that it was being played under a tournament format, and so hence the chess clock situated on his desk. ‘What do I do with this?’ asked Barry pointing to the double-faced clock. Some onlookers laughed thinking it was a joke, but Jones realised the newbie wasn’t joking and answered Barry’s question with a mocking air of contempt.
143 ‘You press it after you make a move. You have thirty minutes and I have thirty minutes. You have to make forty moves in that time, which means you should try to make a move about every forty-five seconds. All this was a new concept for Barry: he’d expected to simply play regular chess. In fact it was foolish of him to think this because a chess match can go on for hours, and in a tournament that has to be completed in a day this’d be impossible. The longest he’d ever played chess before was about fifty minutes but his best opponent— Petrov—usually lost in quicker time, so he didn’t realise this. ‘What if you don’t make forty moves in thirty minutes?’ asked Barry, feeling embarrassed by his naivety. ‘Then you lose, unless I don’t have enough material left on the board to checkmate you,’ replied the overcome-with-boredom Jones. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that anyway since I expect I’ll checkmate you in under my thirty minutes.’ ‘Oh, well that’s reassuring,’ said Barry, beginning to feel a distinct dislike for his opponent. Once Barry had been told everything he needed to know, the first round of the tournament began. Nobody gave Barry even the remotest chance of progressing to the second round because of the thirty-one other, highly-skilled competitors. The vast majority of people in the hall were there just as spectators, aware that mere mortals wouldn’t have stood a chance against the unforgiving quality of the opposition. Jones began his game with a smug, I’m-going-to-trounce-you-into-the-ground look on his face, so it was remarkable how quickly it was replaced by a, Dear-GodI’m-getting-my-arse-handed-to-me-on-a-plate one. Under Barry’s unrelenting
144 pressure attack Jones began to look around to his friends for help, who in response could only shrug and display a mixture of shock and surprise. Barry had a peculiar style of playing the game of chess: he’d hunch his shoulders over the table and keep his head unusually close to the board. Playing in this what might be considered odd way, allowed him to more successfully shutout the outside distractions that might disrupt his laser focus. And it was this strategy, combined with Barry’s raw genius that would prove invaluable. The presence of the chess clock to keep the pace moving actually played into Barry’s hands: forty-five seconds seemed like an unheard amount of time to make a move for Barry, and he needed instead just five to ten before placing Jones back under the cosh. Every brain cell, every ounce of his intellect was focused on the devastation of his opponent because this was no friendly chess game, but rather a war. The war was a short one, with Jones getting dispatched within twenty minutes to the utter disbelief of onlookers. Barry hadn’t forgotten Jones’s nasty demeanour before their match and he felt like saying, still think chess rules do you, in reference to his absurdly geeky t-shirt, but instead decided to be the cordial gentlemen. ‘Good game mate, better luck next year.’ Jones had the look of a man who’d just seen a ghost. The man that said pigs had a better chance of flying than Barry had of beating Jones earlier, whispered in Barry’s ear: ‘I don’t think he knows what’s hit him.’ Jones had to be helped out of his seat and escorted home by his friends who kindly supported his weight with their arms. Feeling ecstatic not only because he’d made it into the second round against all the odds, but also down to the manner of his victory, Barry leaned back in his chair
145 and couldn’t wipe away the self-satisfied grin. He had beaten one of the tournament favourites in twenty minutes of perfectly executed chess. He didn’t have too long to bask in his glory though because the tournament was moving along at a frenetic pace, with a lot of chess having to be crammed into a single day. The next opponent on Barry’s hit list was Mary Hutchinson, at first glance a far more likeable character than Jones. Be that as it may, first glances can be deceiving. Hutchinson, the mother of three who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, had a devious tactic to improve her chances of success: she used guilt to great effect. Upon meeting each other Mary said to Barry: ‘Go easy on me will you, I’m only a woman.’ Smiling genially, Barry thought this might be a tactic to put him off his game in view of the fact that Mary had wiped the floor with her previous opponent, and hadn’t shown any of the mercy that she seemed to expect in return. He was then made to feel even more uncomfortable when Mary informed him the only reason she’d turned up was because she was a single mother, who’d recently got laid off and was struggling to support her three kids. The cherry on this trifle of tragedy was that her ex-husband was described as a deadbeat alcoholic, who’d beaten her, the children, and some old people for a cheap laugh. While having this guilt trip laid upon him Barry just wanted her to shut up seeing how he needed the money as desperately as anyone. He nodded politely but tried as best he could to block out the remorse that pulled at his heart strings. As many parents will know children have a very annoying habit of saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people, but in this case it served to help Barry.
146 ‘Mummy, are you telling lies again so that you can win?’ The brutal truth of this comment gave Barry a valuable insight into his opponents mind and he no longer felt any shame in savagely beating her (at chess). What really shocked Barry was Mary’s reaction to her child’s five-grand clanger. A stern look, a few choice words, or even a smack on the backside may be expected punishments for the child’s tactlessness. Although granted, asking a child to think before they speak in delicate social situations is like asking a tiger politely not to kill and eat you, even though you’re so tasty. Instead Mary futilely attempted to pretend this pint-sized person wasn’t hers at all. ‘It’s not my kid. I’ve never seen this disgraceful excuse for a youngster before in my life.’ The child looked very confused. Another nipper who was a few years older came over to the table. ‘Mum can I have some money for some sweets. There’s a shop outside across the road.’ The smallest child spoke. ‘Can I have some too Mummy.’ ‘Come on Mum, Lauren wants some too. 50p each would be enough,’ said the eldest child. Mary was not giving up, turning back to Barry to say: ‘I’m telling you, I’ve never seen these kids before. They must be crazies escaped from the local mental asylum.’ The oldest child looked momentarily puzzled until realisation dawned on him upon glancing into his mother’s dangerous eyes. ‘Come on sis lets go. I think we got the wrong person, you’re not our mother at all, you er—just sort of look like her…’
147 Feeling abhorred at how some people were willing to casually sacrifice their morality for victory and a roll of banknotes, Barry showed no mercy at quickly finishing off Mary Hutchinson. The only thing he regretted was the punishment the two innocent children might have to endure for scuppering their mother’s deceitful scheme. He needn’t have worried too much though since the children were only given fifty lashes each with a cat o’ nine tails. Barry continued to blitz through the opposition until he found himself in the final, it appearing, just maybe, that pigs could indeed fly. It had been a long tiresome day, this was to only be Barry’s fourth game of chess in the tournament, but he’d spent a lot of time waiting around doing nothing other than scoping out his adversaries. It was now eight o’clock in the evening and he’d been in the Town Hall for twelve hours. The adrenaline that had pumped all day through his veins had successfully kept him going so far, but by now he was desperately hungry. He hadn’t eaten properly for three days because of his dire financial situation, and his body, weakened by this nutritional deficit made a feeling of wooziness overcome him. The chance to save his existence was being placed in serious jeopardy. It didn’t matter that he had all the raw cognitive power in the world because without a healthy body for that mind to live inside, it all meant nothing. The person Barry had to face in the final was the favourite, Grace Honeysuckle, the adorable little girl who had the crowd wrapped around her finger. She had blonde hair styled into pigtails, sapphire eyes set into her cute face, and brilliant white teeth locked behind shiny metal braces. And despite these shiny metal
148 braces she wasn’t afraid to show a beautiful smile that simply melted the hearts of the onlookers. The crowd on the other hand didn’t know what to make of Barry. Here was this skeletal, sickly, ugly, balding middle-aged man that looked like he belonged in cardboard box under a motorway overpass. It was very clear to Barry that he had absolutely everybody rooting for him to lose, and who could blame them as it had been that way since he could remember. As the two unlikely combatants took their place on their battleground, the crowd cheered its appreciation. ‘Come on Honeysuckle, do him over.’ ‘KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM.’ Now sitting in his seat, Barry’s mind was having a hard time concentrating on its task. He glanced around at the faces in the crowd and everywhere he looked his eyes were greeted with people stuffing their chubby faces. A young boy enthusiastically tore into a two pound roll of salami like a starved Yorkshire terrier, while his father standing beside him deep-throated a foot long hotdog. The obscenely long sausage, which had vibrant yellow mustard sitting along the top caused Barry’s mouth to slaver and his eyes burn with desire because it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He ripped his gaze away to rid himself of the cravings that drove him to the edge. The gallant attempt to regain control over his faculties was in vain, for he now saw an obese woman wearing a greasy t-shirt that paralleled her greasy, soaked in chip-fat hair, completely oblivious to where she was, deliriously devouring a giant slice of pizza.
149 It was mayhem inside Barry’s head as his nose, more acutely sensitive to the smell of food that lingered in the air because his stomach hadn’t touched solid sustenance in more than three days, tempted him to do something silly. Crazy thoughts began to enter his mind, like unloading a titanic uppercut on the small boy with the salami and robbing him of his meat treat, or rugby tackling the man with the hotdog, and like a rabid beast pulling the foot long out of his mouth with his gnashers. Although even in Barry’s famished state, he wasn’t willing to take on the extremely large woman with the pizza as she looked like she’d fight tooth and nail to rescue her meal. The game of chess commenced, but with Barry’s mind on his stomach rather than his opponents play he very quickly began to lose pieces. He just couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing, simply focusing was impossible, basic moves and problems he could normally overcome with ease now posed immense difficulty. Little Grace Honeysuckle wasted no time in exploiting her opponent’s weakness. It looked very much like Barry wasn’t going to win the five grand after all. He began to lose hope. He uttered under his breath, recounting some Shakespeare he’d read in prison: ‘A hotdog, a hotdog, my existence for a hotdog.’ As you can see from this ridiculous remark, he really was suffering. The first significant blow dealt to Barry was when he lost his queen. The loss of Barry’s most powerful piece made him audibly sigh in resignation. Honeysuckle, along with the rest of the crowd noticed this sign of weakening and could see before them a beaten man, it only being a matter of time before he’d succumb to the onslaught. The onlookers were joyous. ‘Finish him Grace, he’s had it.’
150 Grace smiled broadly, her braced teeth glinted and her eyes sparkled at the smell of blood. Barry was so weak now his hands began to shake as he moved his pieces upon the board. Intermittently he’d rub his forehead with his quivering fingertips, hardly even looking at the game anymore that was deciding his future. The crowd in its excitement and desire for their heroine to win hadn’t noticed Barry’s sorry physical state, and even if they had of they wouldn’t have cared less: Honeysuckle was their darling and they all wanted was the ugly man to fade away into the night, hopefully to never show his face again. One person that did notice Barry’s distress though was Mrs Butler, the event organiser. Despite secretly hoping Grace would be triumphant, she was doing her job well by remaining impartial. ‘Do you need to take a short break Mr Broomfield?’ The crowd instantly expressed its disapproval at this question on account of it being late, and everyone wanting to finish watching Grace’s success so they could all go home to soak in a nice bloodbath. At first Barry didn’t really see the point in prolonging the inevitable any longer either, as he was almost 100 percent certain he was going to fail and lose the match. But after a couple of moments to consider Mrs Butler’s offer, he decided to take it: Feeling like he might pass out at any moment and sweating profusely due to stress, taking a break to visit the toilet where he could wash his face and get an interlude from the stuffy, suffocating atmosphere in the hall might help him feel a little better. It would at least let him go out with a shred of dignity intact because at the present moment he looked like a crumbled wreck of a man. ‘Okay I will take a short break, thank you.’
151 The crowd let out a loud groan and Barry was sure he could hear one person say: ‘What’s the point? He’s lost anyway.’ Standing in the Town Hall’s deserted toilet, his weight leaning against a wash basin, Barry stared into the mirror, examining the drawn, sallow face that looked back at him. Dark rings hung under his eyes, he was exhausted, and having only been granted a five minute break in accordance with chess tournament rules, he felt that what he really needed was a week. There was a small window in the toilet wall and Barry looked at it nervously: a cowardly voice in his head urged him to escape out of it and to never look back. He consciously silenced the voice, knowing that he was a man and had to face the music like one. Even though he foresaw an extremely bleak future for himself, he had to stand and except that he’d come up short in the game of life. Grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser he mopped his brow, attempted to straighten out his dishevelled hair, held his head high and proceeded to stroll out to his destiny. Throwing the paper towel in the toilet waste paper basket, Barry noticed something, a divinely beautiful thing, an exquisite, superb item, the presence of which a remarkable stroke of luck that surely couldn’t be coincidence: inside the bin were the half-eaten remains of a beef burger. To the average person this wouldn’t evoke such powerfully positive feelings, but then Barry isn’t an average person.
There’s nobody here. No one would be any the wiser. He quickly grabbed the half-eaten burger and devoured it, not stopping to think for a second about hygiene as that seemed at this present time insignificant. To any well-fed observer looking on, they might have believed Barry’s life had reached a new all-time low. Even during his stay in the Hickeys he’d never had to
152 resort to eating out of a bin. On the contrary though, his life was now about to take a sharp turn for the better. The half-eaten, slightly funky-smelling burger had given Barry the little burst of energy he’d needed, not enough to stem his hunger pangs but just sufficient to allow his mind to focus back on the chess match. Whether it had been sent by the Gods to aid his quest, or some bloke who’d thought it tasted like crap and threw it away didn’t matter: the discarded beef burger rejuvenated him and breathed new life into his body. Sitting back down on his chair opposite little Grace Honeysuckle, Barry looked back down at the board with a fresh eye.
Bollocks. The situation was dire; he needed something nigh on a miracle if he was going to salvage his future. To everyone in the room it appeared Mr Broomfield was hopelessly outmatched because he had hardly any pieces left. That was it appeared hopeless to everyone apart from Barry’s supercomputer mind. Almost without consciously thinking he began to see the solutions to his problems, hardly being able to believe it himself. ‘Okay, are you both ready to resume?’ asked Mrs Butler. To the crowd this all seemed like a pointless formality since the ugly man was surely beaten. People rudely even began congratulating Miss Honeysuckle. ‘Well done Graciekins. Can I have an autograph? A strand of hair? A vial of your blood?’ Grace politely nodded and beamed a broad, annoying smile. Her concentration was no longer on the game but what she was going to buy with the money, assuming, along with the rest of the room that she’d already won.
153 Amongst all this assuming that was going on, Barry’s head was close to the board scanning for all the endless possibilities. As the crowd cheered oafishly for their princess, his mind was working. These were precious moments. The chess clock was restarted from the position it had been left in before the break and the game commenced. Barry quickly took a rook and a couple of pawns, yet nobody really saw any danger to Miss Honeysuckle’s title. Barry knew better, but there was one problem: he was running out of time. Nervously glancing at the clock he was agitated by what he considered stalling tactics on his opponent’s behalf. In truth Grace wasn’t stalling at all because she was still unaware of her peril, it was merely the copious amount of adrenaline flowing through Barry’s system as to why time had seemed to slow down. Barry executed his moves with as much stealth as he could muster under the time constraints, not wanting to alert Miss Honeysuckle to his newfound form and put her on the defensive. Nevertheless, Barry couldn’t take a too-sly approach because time was fast running out. Starting to sweat again he looked at the clock. There were five minutes left to win the match and it had to be a checkmate because there was no way he could capture enough of his opponent’s pieces in time to win on the most material left rule. Despite her chess set beginning to sustain casualties, Grace Honeysuckle was hardly even looking at the board anymore; she was busy signing autographs and chatting with her fans, even having the audacity to pose for a few photos. Barry was astonished at this level of impudence and disrespect, but also secretly prayed his opponent continued to be distracted by her minions. Under these concealing circumstances he set his trap and watched with wide eyes to see what Miss Honeysuckle would do. He never looked up once from the
154 board because he thought she might see through his poor attempt at a poker face, that she might comprehend from the desperate expression he was sure he’d convey, that he now was one move away from an unbelievable comeback. Grace yawned, glanced at the board and had to be prompted that it was her turn to move. ‘Erm—there, that’ll do.’ She asked Mrs Butler, apparently too lazy to turn her head towards the clock to look for herself: ‘How much time is left anyway?’ ‘About ten seconds, just enough for Mr Broomfield to make one last move. I don’t suppose it matters anyway.’ Ten seconds was all the time Barry needed. As Mrs Butler began to hand a large novelty cheque over to a smiling little girl, Barry uttered a word that silenced the crowd and wiped away Grace’s angelic smile. In fact it was not only her smile that sagged, as everyone’s in the hall hung slack except one. The solitary smile left emanated from Barry’s face and he found it to be quite an unusual sensation after nearly forgetting what smiling felt like. Having been through so much heartbreak in his life, here was something he could be proud of, a real success, his only success, and of course the five grand was a pleasurable bonus too. The word that had created this impact: checkmate.