For Steve McCarthy, the reason he became involved with the Union College Chess Club were two-fold. The love of the game was certainly one of them, of course, having been an avid player for most of his 57 years.
The second was that it allowed him to interact with young people, primarily men, and that always made him feel more alive. Having just retired from a life in the public sector, he had a lot of time on his hands and didn't want to become glued to the television.
Getting emotionally involved with any of the club's members was not on the list of expectations when Steve McCarthy signed on to help mentor at the school. Besides, what student would be interested in an old man three times their age?
.........
Chapter One: Child Prodigy.
The first thing that I learned after my initial session with the Union College Chess Club was that young people today are a lot smarter than I was at their age. Either that, or I've regressed over the years. I suspect it might be a combination of the two.
Regardless, after spending a few hours with these young folks, I quickly discovered that there was no way I could waltz in the room and bowl these students over with my skills. There were a couple of these kids I immediately recognized as excellent players after watching them play for only a few minutes.
Several others in the group of about twenty were also very skilled as well, so I wasn't sure how much good I would do in the role as volunteer community mentor. Chances are if I wasn't careful I could find myself getting embarrassed, so I spent most of my time that first day introducing myself and offering advice only when asked.
All but one of the members of the club were males, and many fit that stereotype of the chess playing nerd I had become quite familiar with over the years. I had usually been the oddity in these gatherings, with my 6'2" beefy frame suggesting a lumberjack instead of a chess player.
None of these students fit the stereotype more than Ryan Truman. Even in a room filled with many people that were introspective and aloof, Ryan was obviously a loner. The only person who seemed willing to play with him was the young woman, and after he dispatched her with ease, he sat by himself and immersed himself in a match with a non-existent opponent.
It was at that point I slid into the chair opposite Ryan and asked him if he would like to have a game. His eyes lit up and he jumped at the chess pieces, his hands shaking as he tried to set the game up quickly.
I managed not to lose that game, salvaging a draw against the little fellow, and at the time I suspected that my lackluster showing was due to me trying to figure my adversary out. My eyes spent as much time on Ryan as they did on the board.
By the end of the club session I was able to find out that that Ryan was a senior. That floored me, because he looked younger than all of the other students. As it turned out, at eighteen he probably was. It seems that young Ryan was a gifted student, having graduated from high school at the tender age of 15.
It was also clear why Ryan was a loner. He seemed incapable of making eye contact with me on that first day, despite my every effort to be my usual jovial self. He would only sneak peeks at me when he thought I was looking at the board intensely, and then his eyes would dart away when I would raise my head.
After playing that game with Ryan, I got up and worked the room again, all the while keeping an eye on the little man with the Harry Potter glasses and the pocket protector. No one else sat down to play against him, and after the members of the club left the room, I sidled up to the faculty advisor and asked about Ryan.
"Ryan?" the man said with a sigh. "He's an odd duck alright. Let's just say that there's been a few incidents with him on campus that's made him sort of a pariah."
When I pressed the man for details, he confided in me that Ryan had a reputation of being, as he put it in a way that guys do when they think they're talking to a fellow straight man, "a little light in the shoes".
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," he said with a laugh. "I know he got his ass kicked by some football player for peeking at him in the bathroom, and then there was something to do with a roommate in his dorm. That and his weirdness make him a bit unpopular."
"Maybe the fact that he's the best player in the room has something to do with it," I suggested, not adding that his social skills might be a result of being a fish out of water age-wise.
"That doesn't help," the faculty advisor said with a grin.
I tried to catch up with young Mr. Truman after that, but he had left the building, so I made it a point to seek him out the next time I came to the club's meeting. Ryan wasn't hard to find, as he was sitting by himself playing alone. He seemed happy to see me, and after I managed a draw and moved around the room again, I slid back across from the lad.
"You don't have to do this," Ryan said, looking around the room as I helped him set up the board. "They might think that you're..."
"Playing chess with you?" I asked.
"I appreciate what you're doing, but the others won't like it," Ryan said softly, seeming to think that the students around would take offense at him enjoying competing with someone instead of sitting alone.
After we drew again, I got up from the chair and started to leave, but before I did I whispered to Ryan.
"I'm sorry that I've made you feel awkward," I explained. "If you would like to play me sometime and somewhere else out of sight of your classmates, let me know."
Ryan looked up at me with a dazed expression, and mumbled, "Sure."
"If we do," I added before departing. "I don't want to you to let me get draws with you, because I find that insulting. I much prefer losing outright."
...
Chapter Two: After the meeting.
Ryan was waiting for me after the club meeting was over. He was standing at the end of the hallway, looking around like he was about to commit a crime as I joined him.
"Care to grab a cup of coffee or something?" I suggested, and Ryan agreed. We walked a little ways into town, at Ryan's request bypassing several of the usual student haunts, until we ended up at Dunkin Donuts.
We spent about an hour there, and after I was able to get Ryan to start talking, there was no shutting him up even if I wanted to. It was as if he had been waiting all of his life for somebody to talk to, and once the floodgates were opened it all came out.
After we parted outside and went our separate ways, I reflected on our conversation, or more accurately, Ryan's monologue. This was a tortured young man who so badly needed a friend.
"I wish," he had confided in me. "I wish that instead of doing my best on all those tests during grade school, I had missed some questions. Not enough to make me seem like an idiot, but just enough so that they left me alone."
Being left alone meant not skipping him over first and third grades, and then moving him through high school a year quicker. The result had left him resenting his intelligence and wishing to be able to be like everybody else.
"I should be graduating high school this year," Ryan said sadly. "Instead, I'm graduating college. I feel like I missed everything. I've got no friends and I've messed up my life."
After excusing myself to go to the men's room just before we left, I was busy relieving myself at the urinal when I happened to notice Ryan had entered.
"I'll be done in a second," I told him, since this was a one urinal bathroom.
"No," Ryan said. "Just have to wash my hands. The donut was sticky."
Ryan's hands may indeed have been sticky, but I instantly knew why he had come in there. My peripheral vision wasn't what it used to be, but I could see that while Ryan's hands were busy scrubbing away in the sink, his eyes were fixed on me.
Being a guy who neither flaunted himself or crawled into the urinal to hide myself, I stood there and finished doing my business. By the end I had figured out why Ryan had that "bathroom incident" the faculty advisor had mentioned, because after a lifetime of using public bathrooms I could pick out a pecker checker a mile away and Ryan may have been the most blatant of them all.
Ryan seemed overjoyed when I suggested we spend an evening together to play chess - serious chess, I had warned him.
"That taking pity on your opponent stuff should be left to guys like me," I said with a smile. "I've done it enough to others that I can recognize it pretty easily."
"I didn't want you to not want to play with me," Ryan said. "People seem to get mad at me if I beat them."
"I'd rather be beaten than pitied."
"I wasn't pitying you. You're really good," Ryan assured me.
"We'll find out tomorrow night then, okay?"
After I had offered to let Ryan choose the date and place, he had suggested it be anywhere but his apartment, which he seemed ashamed of. When I told him I lived nearby and would be happy to have him over, he readily accepted.
