He Told Me So

We used to play chess together. I knew that he was done for when I was walking past his window early in the morning. It was closed, but I knew that it should have been open. He was a sick man. He couldn't complete a sentence without interrupting himself with a cough or a shriek, spitting all over the place. Whenever he talked, he looked as if he was dying. It was an amusing sight. I was up late (pulled an all-nighter) because of my older brother Jeremy. He had told me that tomorrow, just after the sun rises, there will be a solar eclipse. After that, we will all die, and I didn't want to spare any time. In the end, we didn't; only old Frank did. It was worth it, though: watching the sun awaking from its hide behind our tiny neighboring houses. The town's colors changed; each spot was dyed with the same tinge as the others multiple times. And each house, shop, wall, and plant was adjusting in its unique way. I wondered if old Frank also was watching the sunrise. He wasn't. I couldn't step on my feet, and my eyes were heavy, but I decided to go for a walk. And maybe play a game or two with old frank. But I didn't. His window was shut.

He used to stay up late and wake up early. I thought that this was the reason he died, but it wasn't. He just had a stroke, they said: his children. Not children, you know, but sons and daughters. Two sons and two daughter, as old Frank once told me. One of his sons hated him, he told me so, but he used the word loathed. He lived alone, old Frank, but later that day, all of his family was there. By noon, I could count up to five people while spying through the window. There was a possibility that one or more isn't related to old Frank. But I wished they all were. My uncle James also didn't like Frank. Whenever he was mentioned in front of him, he would say to my mother: "Don't let Duane hang around that man much. I smell something fishy about him." But uncle James worked at the sawmill and was always talking about the dangers of tobacco with a cigarette between his fingers. So not even my mother took him seriously. She never prevented me from going there too. I was sure, though, that if I told uncle James that we were only playing chess, he wouldn't mind. He was that easygoing. Each time before I left, old Frank would say to me in a low voice: "Don't tell anybody about this." It was only those few seconds in my time there that he took me seriously. Every time he said the same sentence, so I never mentioned it. Whenever I was asked, I would say that we talk about baseball or something.

Mom said she would take me there near the evening to visit his family, confirming that old Frank was really dead. He was even dead since the night before. His landlord was collecting the rent but instead found a corpse. Mom was cutting some carrots, had her hair in a tight bun, and mentioned that without even looking or leaving the knife. She then concealed a sigh, and I felt sorry for old Frank. It would be the first time for me to go there at night. I always arrived early in the morning and left before the sunset, before it got too cold. When I arrive, he would be sitting in a large chair, panting and squinting his eyes. He used to call this big comfy chair the throne; I called it like that too. He wasn't too old but looked too old and acted too old. In front of him was a chessboard ready and set and a pendant light on top of the table, focusing light on the Staunton pieces. I sit, and as soon as he catches his breath, we would start to play. I rarely beat him; I only did it a couple of times because he let me win, he told me so.

"Y'know, I'd win if you teach me an opening or something." I once told him out of frustration after losing the third game in a row. Despite his slow shaking hand, he was blitzing each move while I thought for minutes before touching a piece.

"You do know that it ain't about openings, though, right?" His reply was instant and was followed by a big laugh in which he panted after and then coughed for a few seconds. "Ah! I really like how naïve you are." He laughed again, panted again, and coughed again.

"Teach me one, and you'll see!" I said, standing abruptly from my sitting, crossing my arms, and diverting my eyes away from his face in disapproval.

I lost again, and he laughed. He said that this was the beauty of chess: when you learn to play in a certain way, you need to be able to defeat that way. I thought this was stupid, and it was getting cold and late. So I left. The next day I brought some bread with me that mom had made for old Frank. He liked it.

We were starring at his door when his daughter emerged and looked at us questionably but let us in without saying anything. Her name was Hellen, and she wore a dark blue shirtdress and had Frank's funnely nose. One of his sons was sitting on the throne; he seemed to be the oldest of them. In front of him was no chessboard but a kettle and a near-empty cup of tea. The pendant lamp wasn't used for lighting but a fluorescent light hanging from behind the throne. The lamp made brightened the room more than the pendant lamp ever did. It made the milky color of the wall more visible to me, and for the first time, I could notice the worn-out paint on the edges. I stood there, my head tilting in all directions and my eyes scrutinizing the room in a way as if I was here for the first time. A door was closed to my right; it was probably where old Frank lay.

"Little Duane here was a friend of Frank." My mom went, addressing the elephant in the room and trying to remove the confusion.

The other sister stared at me with a pouty face; the rest shared similar looks of pity. She was dressed similar to Hellen and had large eyes. We didn't press further. They gestured us to sit down, and we did.

They talked about old Frank, them and my mother, while I ate some crackers they offered me. They said that they lived in this house long before I was born, and their mother had died a few years ago. She was living with their eldest son when she died, not too far from here. They said that old Frank didn't know that she was dead. It was when my mom asked why they left that the older son joined the conversation. He adjusted himself on the throne, showcasing how stout his body was and how different it was from his father's scrawny figure. He then made brief eye contact with me and said: "Frank used to do sinful things. When we knew, we didn't want to be a part of it no more." It was the first time I heard him talk and the last one too.

Hellen got up and gave me a glass of orange juice; the rest drank wine. The juice was fresh, but I would have preferred coffee, though. What followed was silence for a few minutes until the younger brother broke it: "What did you do with Frank when you were here, Duane?" The younger brother said. He was balding slightly and had thick eyebrows like two hanging mustaches, but the one on the throne remained older than him.

I soon realized that I had been strangely silent for a while and that all eyes were on me, so I decided to tell the truth: "We only played chess." I confessed briefly.

"Is that so?" He said.

"Yeah." I continued excitedly, "Just the other day, I beat him for the first time. He said that this is the only time he didn't let me do it."

Yeah, it really happened. The day before old Frank passed away, we were also playing chess. He was wearing a white polo shirt stained near his neck and was smoking a cigarette before I arrived, but he broke it off as soon as I sat. We played a couple of games, and I won the last of them. After the last game, he lit a cigarette in front of me for the first time. I coughed just like he always did and then laughed dryly about it. He took a few breaths and said it was time for me to go. It was still noon, but I said nothing. His right hand left my skin, and with it, our warmth instantly faded. He gently removed me from his lab. I Put on some clothes and was soon back home.

***