A Pawn Opening

He watched. From inside Phuket Thai, a restaurant in Mililani Town Center. It was on a school day afternoon. Groups of high school students wandered past in their cliques. The trades were blowing through the square, occasionally forcing everyone to grab their hats. His attention focused upon two young guys, about sixteen or seventeen, wearing floppy shorts, jerseys, mostly black, and ball caps of one team or another, perched at precarious, but studied, angles on their heads. What attracted his attention was their eyes. He watched as a couple of pretty high school girls walked past the duo. Their heads swiveled and their eyes followed with hard, calculating looks. He sighed; things were not the same as they used to be. He had seen these looks before.

To his mind, it seemed absurd, the shorts, the jerseys, the hats; they were almost comical. But, in reality, they reflected a deadly serious situation. The eyes told the story. His son had once told him that things were difficult for a young hapa in this part of Hawaii. Considering his own past, he didn't give much credence to this statement, but now he had his doubts. He resolved, once again, that his granddaughter would never see his tattoos. How did you explain to a young girl, someone you wanted to love you forever, that you got these in a prison in the Soviet Union because you had to? Maybe when she was a lot older.

He'd been here about an hour. The restaurant itself wasn't that impressive. It was a small square room that had been converted into a Thai restaurant at the center of Mililani Town Center. The kitchen was in the rear; somewhere he had never ventured. The carpets were worn and the décor was unassuming. The walls were painted in beige or maybe tan. The tables were laminated but laid out with aesthetics in mind. There was a folded napkin at each place and a rose in a vase in the middle of every table. The staff was encouraging and helpful, though he couldn't actually identify any as being Thai. The music on the sound system was modern. The windows were frosted with the shape of a wave moving across the glass that partially obscured the Christmas decorations in the center of the plaza. Sometimes, they would eat or play chess on the tables in the center of the plaza but today the trades were too strong. They knew him here. That's why he liked the place. He liked to develop a little sense of community. He finished his lunch and pulled out a vinyl tournament chessboard and made room for it on the table. He set out the plastic chess pieces, the chess clock, and made the first move unattended. PK4. Then he waited, sipping on a Singha, straight from the bottle.

A short time later, the door cracked open and young Asian girl peeked inside. She was about eight, dressed in school clothes, with long black hair. She saw the old man inside and her smile brightened. She swung the door open and marched into the restaurant to his table.

"Grandpa, I want to have cheeseburgers," she announced, but she noticed the chessboard at the same time and stopped, absorbed. When he saw this, he reached out and pointedly started the clock.

She was so like her mother, and painfully, so like her grandmother, small, slender, long dark hair, Asian in almost every way. But, she had those incredible blue eyes. She was almost startling to look at and she was his granddaughter. When he actually stopped to think about that his heart skipped a beat.

Tracy, his daughter-in-law, stood, bisected by the frosted glass, and waved at him. She blew him a kiss, "Have fun Miya, you too Dad," and moved on. This afternoon was his.

"Up to you Miya, we can get cheeseburgers anywhere, Burger King's right around the corner."

She was more concerned with the board, processing series of opening moves in her head. Finally, satisfied with her choice, she reached out and moved her own King's Pawn to E5, directly confronting his opening move, He almost had to smile at her prim composure as she reached over and slapped her clock.

He played in a measured pace, setting his pieces up methodically. He already knew the sequence of moves he wanted. He was pleased to note his granddaughter responded appropriately to all of his development.

Miya tended to hover above the board when it was her turn. He liked to watch her hair dangling onto the board as she assessed the pieces. She took awhile to absorb the moves that had been made and the layout of the board. She moved her head in rhythm with whatever music was playing on the sound system. In this case, it happened to be Suite Judy Blue Eyes, but when she finally made her move, he saw that she was focused, and he played accordingly.

And then, he made a mistake. A well thought out, basic strategic mistake. He made a pin upon Black's Knight before Black had actually castled, and after he had castled. He punched the clock and sitting back, took a sip from his Singha and watched.

She looked at the setup and then paused to look at him curiously. In this instance, he saw his granddaughter's blue eyes light with a particular glint.

That's when he knew. This little girl, his son's child, this roundabout reflection of himself, his progeny, would always be able to take care of herself. But, in the time he had, he would always be there to help her.

And then she commenced her attack.