52stories

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John Wayne gulped down his scrambled eggs, shoveling the steaming rubbery mass into his mouth with a wedge of whole wheat toast, salting every other bite. Every ten seconds or so, he checked his watch. Instead of the time, which currently stood somewhere in between infomercials and the early early morning shows, halfway between the crack of dawn and the break of dawn, the cheap digital watch was in its stopwatch mode, one of the seven modes advertised on the box. John had only ever found three of the modes, but took it for granted that there must be four more, after all, around the face of the watch it said “Precision Digital Watch 7 Modes”. They couldn’t write that on there if there weren’t at least six modes. At the very minimum, five.

The last bite of toast carried the last bite of egg to John’s mouth. As he methodically chewed it, he smiled - he loved when he synchronized his toast intake to his egg intake. With his last sip of coffee - a triple threat synchronicity day! - he washed it all down and hit the stop button on the watch. The time stood at two minutes and one second. “Dammit!” John cursed under his breath.

“What is it, dear?” asked John Wayne’s mother, Lian Chung. She looked up from the want ads from the day’s paper, concern radiating from her wrinkled, homely face.

“Nothing, Mom. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, Wang. Always it is nothing. Someday you will tell me.”

John grimaced. “Mom, it was nothing. And I’ve told you a million times, I changed my name. Call me John now.”

“What would your poor dear father think, not even three years in the ground and you change your name! You’ll always be my little Wang.”

John’s grimace deepened. For twenty years, ever since the family had immigrated to America and he suffered through a humiliating first day of fourth grade, he had been waiting to change his name. And now, what good was it doing him? He had gone through all of school, all of college, as Wang Chung for godssakes, and now he finally had a normal name, and the only person who even really talked to him still called him Wang. And “little Wang”, at that! He hadn’t taken twenty years of pointing and laughter, and having to run out of the room anytime anyone played that damn song, to have to deal with this now. He stood up with authority, accidentally knocking his chair over.

“Oh, Wang, you didn’t!”

John quickly scrabbled to the floor and picked the chair up. The back of the chair fell off in his hands, leaving the seat and four legs lying on their side on the ground. John looked at the piece in his hand, and carefully set it on the kitchen table. “Well-” he said, but was interrupted by a leg falling off the seat with a thud.

“Well,” he started again, but then the chair fell entirely apart in a heap. John looked at it, waited ten seconds to make sure it was completely finished interrupting him, and continued. “Well, I should head to work now.”

John picked up his bag, on which was embroidered “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. He had gotten it free with the book at an author signing. He had considered getting in line to get his book signed, but his mom was waiting for him out at the car, and the line looked pretty long, so he had skipped it. John still looked back at that day with regret.

As he walked to the door, his mother rushed after him, thrusting the paper at him. “Wang!” she cried, “Wang, you should check out some of these jobs! They are much more suited for you, Wang!”

John’s shoulders tightened as he turned the door knob and tried to turn his face away from the newsprint being shoved under it. With the door six inches open, he sneaked through, tossing back over his shoulder to the closing door, “I already have a great job at the office, mother!”

Driving his car to the park, John briefly considered feeling sorry for his most recent lie. It was true, up until two months ago he did have a pretty good job at the office, until they had found him, through no fault of his own, entirely incompetent at the job, and he was asked to leave. But now he was making just as much money playing chess for money in the park as he ever did at the office, and the best part was that it was all cash, tax free. Well, except for the unemployment check that made up most of his income. But he was getting better at being a chess shark. Of course, he didn’t have benefits anymore, but he countered that by planning to never become sick. Reminded, he popped a vitamin pill from the bottle in his 7 Habits bag, and crunched it dry between his teeth.

Upon arrival at the park, John took his favorite spot at the concrete picnic benches, and removed the chess board and pieces from his bag. Next to them, he put his water bottle, and quickly started setting up the pieces, with the white pieces on the side opposite him, black pieces closer. This, John found, made him look less like a chess shark, more like a friendly bettor, as what shark would let his opponent make the first move? Pieces all in their rows, John stretched, sipped from his water bottle, and considered the park. Ten minutes after sunrise, and the jogging path was full of fools battering their knees in rhythm with their iPods. Ducks were paddling in the pond, doing whatever it was that they did inbetween getting their dole of bread crusts from lunching office workers. John considered calling out to one of the joggers, get them to stop their sweaty masochism and to play a quick game, but discarded the thought. Besides their iPods and Nikes, they probably had nothing to bet, and they would give up their Nikes before betting their iPods. He would have better luck betting crusts with a mallard.

Five hours later, John’s luck still hadn’t changed. He hadn’t won a single bet yet. He had won a game with an old man, but the old man had declined to wager. He had played a game with a police officer, which he definitely didn’t bet upon. However, when the police officer won, he became quite glad of that fact. But for the last two hours, nothing had happened. John considered getting his lunch out of his bag, but he liked to save that for as late in the day as possible. It helped to think that he could go home soon after lunch, so he tried to eat after noon if possible. Plus, if the ducks had already been fed that day, they didn’t flock around him quite as aggressively as he ate his peanut butter and jelly. He decided to leave the saran wrapped square in his bag for the time being.

Seven minutes later, having been unable to think of anything but the sandwich, he darted a hand into his 7 Habits bag, whipped out the crinkly plastic package, and started trying to find a corner in the plastic wrap. Concentrating hard, he didn’t even hear the man sit down across from him.

“We playing, Pops, or what?”

Startled, John dropped his sandwich, knocking over half his pieces.

“Whoa, there, Chief, didn’t mean to startle ya.”

“I wasn’t startled,” John lied, “I was just…” Here words failed him, as he tried to figure out what plausible reason he could give for dropping his sandwich if he wasn’t startled. Finding no reason, his mouth hung open as his right hand rotated in a circle, as if he was trying to churn the words out. The man across from him stared for a second, then dropped his head down to stare at John out from over his aviator shades. His long, oiled hair caught the sun, reflecting it into John’s eyes. John blinked.

The man took John’s hand in his own, stopping its rotating motion and turning it into a shake. “The name’s Steve, but I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s no way I’m a Steve, I’m probably a Mohammed, a Karim, an al-Jamil. Well, I’m a Steve, y’see? Now you, you look like a Ching Chang Badda Bing Bang, but I’m betting you go by Joe or Jim or John, right?”

John nodded, and began to reply, “Righ-” Probably-Steve cut him off.

“Of course you do, Chief, of course you do. Now what do I see here, I see a man here, hustling chess, don’t bother to tell me that I’m wrong. Now I’ll play a game here, right, but in return, after you hustle me outta my five bucks- whoamIkiddin, whoamIkiddin, ten bucks, ten bucks, right Chief, you do me a favor, see? You do me the favor of listening to my little proposal, right? You listen, maybe you nod yes, maybe you shake no, but I’m hopin you nod yes, right Chief?”

John nodded yes.

“You got that right, sure as my name is Steve,” said Most-Assuredly-Steve. As he had talked, he had set up John’s chess pieces and made his first move, a strong move of his queen’s pawn two spaces forward. John looked at the board, and slowly made his move. The-Man-Who-Called-Himself-Steve quickly moved forward another pawn, not really paying attention to the board. John pondered as Possibly-Steve’s patter continued.

“Alright, see, we’re having fun here, good times good times. Now, Chief, it’s John right, I saw your eyes, it’s John, now John, what I need from you is some sort of commitment, I know you’re a practical man, like to make a little money, a little moolah, as they used to say, a few Benjamins as they say now, except you know what you like more than making a little money? More than a little?” Maybe-Steve waved a knight he was moving under John’s nose. John was about to nod, but then he realized that he didn’t know what he liked more than making a little money.

“John, you like making a lot of money better than making a little money, amIright amIright? Course so, course so. So I tell you what you’re going to do. You are going… are you ready for this?” After a pause, John looked up. Steve(?) was apparently waiting for a reaction. Cautiously, John nodded. After a small pause, Alleged-Steve beamed. John released a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. He supposed he was fortunate to have found the right answer.

“You are going to be… an Amway distributer. Amiright, or have I been barking up the wrong tree here? Here, take my card.”

John looked at the card, then down at the chessboard. “Umm, I think I’m in checkmate?”

The card had indeed said “Steve Al-Filistini, Amway Rep.”