Checkmate, p.1
Checkmate, page 1
Checkmate
By A.L. Olson
Text Copyright Ó 2013 A.L. Olson
All Rights Reserved
Note from the Author
It’s very important for me as a writer to do my best to write things that inspire other people in the way that other books inspired me. Yet, I know how difficult it can be growing up and not being able to find someone that looks like you or is like you in any form of media. I do my best to represent a diverse amount of people and represent them in ways that I hope aren’t stereotypical or harmful. But I know that I’m one individual who, while I’ve dealt with my fair share of issues, still has a lot of privilege and, for lack of a better term, blind spots. I appreciate those spots being pointed out to me and I appreciate criticism of my work. I know I’ll make mistakes and I want to learn from them and make sure I don’t make the same ones in the future. Feel free to also contact me if you have a criticism of my work. I’ll do my best to respond and learn. I know it can be really hard to point something out, especially since it we punish people, tell them they’re taking things too seriously, tell them they’re too sensitive or what have you for ever taking issue with any form of media. I don’t have a perfect history of responding to criticism, but I want readers to know that I am genuinely dedicated towards improving myself as a writer and a human being.
Thank you very much for reading my book.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 1
"That's sounds like a name I'd give to my cat," he said.
A boy with a small frame, freckled and grinning at me with a razor haircut that was all the rage in middle school. And he was right. Ambrosia fit a cat perfectly. I'm sure at the time my mom thought she was really clever giving me that name. Nectar of the gods, it means. Maybe she thought she gave me points to score with... whomever I wanted to score them with. In all honesty, I'd prefer not to think about that if I could.
That skinny freckled boy would grow up to pursue a rewarding career in food service at a local Taco Bell chain. But before you don your triumphant grin, you should know that I myself have ne'er escaped the clutches of food service hell myself. I wait tables at small family owned dinner nearly two blocks from the shabby apartment I share with friends.
Well, I say friends but they are friends much in the vein of, "Oh, I seem to have left all of my money nowhere and I'm desperately hungry and you have a spare sandwich. You must be my new friend." It wasn't that I didn't like them or anything. It's just that we both know this is a relationship of necessity than anything else and I rather like the fact that we're not deluding ourselves.
But yes, the point of all of this is that I can't really find myself triumphantly marching away from the skinny, freckled boy because here I am, again, standing in that shabby restaurant and hearing another greased up geezer tell me all about how I really am the nectar of the gods. So waiting may not specifically be Taco Bell, but it I'll bet if you took one member of the restaurant's wait staff, like myself for instance, and someone stocking shelves in Abercrombie and Fitch, twisted us up, and drained us of all of our self-loathing and life purpose, you'd end up with the same sort of green sludge in equal amounts in the buckets. Except I'm betting that I would probably reach the big yellow line at the top first like on those Nickelodeon game shows I used to watch, and then the Abercrombie and Fitch bastard would be left covered in pink slime that I always thought must smell like burnt plastic.
"Um, hello!" the greasy pig man shouted up at me from his table, "Are you even paying attention to my order, Miss Sweet Nectar?"
"No, but I was paying attention to how much money we'd save if we hung you upside down over the deep fat fryer and let you hang all day until we had an endless supply of trucker grease."
I thought that, but I didn't say it. I'd like to say that I'm all class and don't take any sass, but the reality is that I'm just too damn chicken to cop that much of an attitude with a customer, even one as asinine as this.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" I said, forcing a grin on my face.
He made sure to order a small french fry next to his large double beef burger, which made me grin to myself. Personally, I think if you're going to go out you should just go. When I have a huge burger I figure why not add a layer of fries on top of that, a decent layer that is. If I'm going to have a heart attack, I'd like it to just clog my arteries up as quickly as possible. None of this slow death nonsense for me.
I ripped the ticket off, stuck it on the silver peg, and called his order out to the kitchen, who yelled a confirmation back at me. Then I took the time to lean myself against the way properly while management looked away, just like almost every other day. Except today was different entirely. I don't know whether the restaurant management business molds people into a permanent state of panic and rushing or it just attracts those sort of people, but my boss, short of having a fuzzy tail and whiskers, was the white rabbit from Alice and Wonderland. He scooted into the restaurant carrying a large, half beaten box that nearly covered up his face, setting it on the table and looking down at it triumphantly.
"Dare I ask what's in the box?" I said. I could toy around with the management slightly. He always enjoyed my blithe sarcasm and I kept it mostly blithe, for his sake.
"This," he emphasized, pointing at the box's sides with his index fingers, "Is something that's going to kick this restaurant up a few notches in the class department."
"Oh, I didn't know miracles came in boxes." That's what I wanted to say, but I didn't. A perfect example of keeping my not so blithe sarcasm to myself. Short of massive period cramps, there's no bigger pain in your side than a manager with a bruised ego.
"What's that?" I asked, walking towards the box and having a peek over the edge.
"This," he said, pulling out a square wooden board with black and white squares, "Is a chess set."
I let the irony of the moment simmer. "Seriously? A chess set?" I said. I can only store so much of my snappy sarcastic comebacks. And this wasn't even the best one, which only irritated me more when I thought about it.
"Yes," he said, pulling out the shiny, marble looking black and white pieces, "It's a chess set. I'm thinking that some restaurants have a theme and they play up to it, you know? Like those hipster tea shops that open on the corners of the most obnoxious hills in San Francisco. They've all got these little themes. Well, I've found ours. And this is the first of many chess sets."
"Chess sets?" I felt like if I said it more aloud it would sound less ridiculous. It wasn't working.
"Yes," he said slowly, as if I didn't speak English or was incredibly dense or even both, "Every table is going to have a different chess set. I'm going to try and get them in all different styles. And before you know it, we'll have customers coming by to have a meal and snap some Instagram photos of all of the little sets. Maybe we'll even give a free meal to someone who blogs about them!"
"Do you really want to base your entire business and advertising philosophy around Instagram and hipsters?" Yet another thing I was lax to say. I could tell by the way he kept rubbing his hands together and setting the little pieces on their squares that he thought this idea was one of his better ones and I didn't want to deflate his bubble by not only telling him that Instagram was probably, or hopefully, going to die within the next few years and that hipsters rarely ate fast food junk and we'd have to start selling some holistic vegan organic non-fat fair trade anti-capitalist magic liqui-dust in order to attract any of these people in any consistent manner. But in all likelihood, he'd tell me what little I know about the food industry, how he's been in it for years fighting tooth and nail, and how this plan was sure to work.
Just like when he got the idea to cover all of the lamps with red fabrics to create an "ambiance" that none of the customers could read the menus in. Or the time he decided that putting a sand Zen garden and Chinese characters on every table would bring about harmony, a culturally and racially insensitive idea that was a hit with toddlers who enjoyed flinging the sand on each other with tiny rakes. The mothers weren't feeling very "Zen", so they got removed.
He also had the bright idea to fill the restaurant with balloons which seemed fun even to me until the balloons started getting into people's soups and tiny pathetic salads, then floating away to transfer soup everywhere and onto everything. When I had to spend an hour scrubbing carrot and coriander out of one of the upholstered booths because the soup had infected everything faster than a zombie apocalypse, he decided to call it quits.
That was practically the only time I was able to curse him out of anything and I savored those moments. I brought the lost member of ZZ Top his small fry and beef burger and after his grunt of approval I made my way back to the chess set.
Something about the squares stuck out to me. I wanted to count every single one of them again and again. I started counting the squares on the side. The even number clicked in my brain and it felt right. I found myself counting them again until I noticed he was looking at me with a wide grin on his face.
"You like the idea, don't you?"
I seriously h oped my face didn't showcase every ounce of contempt I was feeling at that moment. "It's not a bad idea," I said aloud, but certainly not a very good one. He smiled, carrying away the set and putting it smack dab in the middle of one of our largest and most popular tables, like a really passive aggressively "happy" family member serves the roast at a big holiday dinner. After working here for a decent couple of weeks, I've pretty much learned that sometimes you've just got to give the child candy if you know they're going to scream.
After I'd lobbed enough greasy burgers and fry combinations at passersby sitting in booths and flat tables my lower back ached and I leaned over the front of the table to take some of the edge off. The last tables always took their sweet ass time to leave and it took the owner an incredibly long amount of time to decide if I could start putting chairs up really dramatically and loudly, wiping non-existent sweat from my brow. A guy around my age with someone I could only assume was his girlfriend from the incredibly soppy looks they were giving each other finally got up from their table. The boyfriend approached the till as I tapped in their order and the girlfriend headed outside.
"Do you always close around this time?" he said, slicking back his hair with a hand in manner that suggested he thought he looked particularly cool.
"Yeah. The hours are on the door," I said flatly. I always enjoyed bridging that gap between acting rude towards and customer and being understandably perturbed. It was pretty much the closest thing to surfing that I could actually get.
"Maybe I could come by some time after you get off? And then maybe we could get off?" he winked at me. I almost threw up in my mouth a little.
I handed him his receipt and change and gave my best fake smile. "That sounds nice, but I think your girlfriend, like right now, will probably be waiting for you." I didn't see his face as I headed through the kitchen door, full speed ahead.
And there he was again. Grinning at me like a Cheshire cat. "I'll be stacking the chairs for you and picking up the salt shakers," he said.
"Oh, you don't have to do that but I'd appreciate the help. That'd be really awesome, thanks. Maybe I could get home in time for Murder She Wrote or, whatever's on TV these days." This was my business casual sarcasm.
"I wouldn't say thanks just yet… See, if we're going to go with this chess set thing officially… people are going to be eating their burgers and playing chess and… they're going to get the sets messy with grease so… they'll need to be cleaned at the end of the day."
"Oh what? Seriously?" Whoops. I let that one slip.
"Yes. Seriously," he said, no more grinning, "It could get really nasty if we don't clean them. I mean think about it."
Why should I think about it? He obviously hadn't when he brought up this million dollar business Instagram hipster idea. But I suppose if we're up to our knees in turtlenecks and horn rims, it'll be well worth it. Because I always hear those stories about those city waitresses who work at places that come up with fantastic marketing ploys that make them incredibly rich. And then they can retire from waitressing and write a book about it. Yeah. That happens all of the time. Practically every day.
I marched out of the kitchen door with a bleach bucket of water. After I looked around to make sure I wasn't being monitored like a toddler with a pair of scissors, I grabbed the chess set and titled it over, spilling all of the pieces into the bucket. After I'd done this I'd realized that it might be possible for bleach to actually harm something of value, even though it rarely seemed to take off the permanent greased yellow tinge on any of the plastic seating or floor sideboards. I cursed and reached my hand into the bucket to grab a few out, shaking them off in the air.
The white Queen stared back up at me with a bright smile reminiscent of Avon and Tupperware saleswomen. She didn't melt in my hand or turn a funny color, so it I assumed cleaning them all in bleach wasn't dangerous and tossed her back in secretly hoping the bleach burned her fake stone non-existent eyes, just a little bit. I reached back in and grabbed another piece, the black Queen, whose frown would have turned her mouth into a complete circle if it deepened any further. I frowned when I realized how ridiculous it was that the white Queen smiled so broadly and the black Queen was so ridiculously angry. Typical.
As I dried off the incredibly grumpy Queen's face and set her back on the board I'd polished off with the rag, I thought about the likelihood that the manager didn't see perpetuating that sort of thing as a problem. When I thought about it I realized he didn't see a lot of things as a problem. I guess it doesn't matter if it attracts all of the groovy social types with those ceramic coffee cups that look like wasteful paper coffee cups, not appreciating the irony. But, these were the same people who ate vegetables shaped and molded into meaty textures so…
The Kings matched the Queens in their equally pleasant and unhappy states and luckily the rest of the pieces didn't have faces that glared at me as I dried them off and put them back. Once I'd polished them all, I tipped some of them so that all of the heads faced the same way, breathing a sigh of relief when the last horse head faced the back of the pawn.
When I turned around, he'd finished the tables and chairs, leaning on the side of the counter, texting like he had nothing better to do. And he probably did have nothing better to do. "You're going to have to get faster than that. We can't be here all damn night," he said without looking up. I rolled my eyes safely as I followed him towards the kitchen.
"Don't forget the lights," he said again without breaking eye contact from his phone. I wondered if I could somehow use his unusual vast attention span to my advantage. Maybe if I covered his office wall in phones with texting capabilities, he'd never actually leave. I filed that away as one of the steps in my potential plan for world domination.
There were a lot of steps in that plan.
I gave the chess set one last look over as my hand lingered over the light switch and my heart skipped a beat when I realized the white Queen was facing my exact direction, away from the black pieces where I had originally set her, peering up at me, hoping I'd buy the 45 piece set of quality plastic and lime green lids. I quickly walked back towards the set and shunted her in the correct direction, turned on my heel, and switched off the light so I couldn't see her even if I chose to as I made my way for the door.
Chapter 2
When I'm not waitressing at the most amazing restaurant on my dingy street, I do my best to try and meet the basic requirements in what will eventually become an Associate's Degree from a community college. The idea of course, when my mom had explained to me over a cigarette and a glass of wine at the end of her very long day, was that I would go for two years to a community college, get my Associate's, and then transfer to a state school. It's so much cheaper that way and supposedly community college is supposed to help ease the transition for me into what's known as "the real world".
She failed to mention the whole working the entire time while you're trying to manage studying so that you can afford to pay for it because her salary, as respectable as it may be for a veteran secretary, isn't quite so much enough to afford to pay for all of it. And I'm gathering now that the hope is that I get a magical amount of scholarships and student loans to attend whatever school I can, when I apply for the State school.
Sitting in my apartment on my very lumpy mattress with an Introduction to Western Art textbook staring at me in the face, I realize that this is a seriously poor transition into "the real world", unless "the real world" is filled with as much annoying and trivial knowledge about Corinthian columns and flying buttresses. I shut my book, feeling like the operative word of General Education was, in fact, "general".
