Chess

When I was...

...seven...

I beat Vladimir Pechenko
A fifty-eight year old
Grand Master

In a special match
In New York City
In front of about seven hundred
Invited guests

When we reached Checkmate
All seven hundred people
Jumped to their feet
And applauded for ten solid minutes
Until I was carried off
On my father's shoulders

I still have the distinction
Of being the only person
To beat Pechenko
In a match

Let me repeat:

The man had NEVER lost a match
In his entire LIFE

And I, at the age of seven
Beat him

I walloped him

That's not polite to say
But that's what I did

I walloped that old man

Now

When I destroyed Pechenko
The first thing Chess magazine asked me
Was what I wanted
Now that I was the most famous little girl
In the world

And I told them
That I wanted to meet
Sertin Liberty

At first they thought
I was saying something profound
Something about freedom
That I wanted to meet with freedom
Or something

But then I explained
That Sertin Liberty
Was the star
Of my favorite Nickelodeon tv show

'Ginger and the Giant Grapefruit'

That was what I wanted
I wanted to meet you

And do you know
What they told me?

Or rather, what they told Chess magazine
Your people, what they said
When the magazine asked them
If you could meet me?

They said--quote--because I have NEVER
NEVER forgotten this

'Why would Sertin Liberty want to meet a chess player?'

Now...

I know
That you weren't the one
Who said that

I know
That you have people
And that your PEOPLE said that

But all the same
I was really
REALLY pissed at you
For a VERY long time

You pretty much
Destroyed a little girl's heart
Granted, a little girl
Who had just destroyed the legacy
Of a fifty-eight year old genius
But all the same--

My heart? Eradicated

Cut to this week

When I'm in town to give a lecture at Brown
On the very match that catapulted me into chess stardom
And WHO is filming a movie
In Providence
At the same time?

Ginger's Little Brother

And I'll admit
That even after you killed my dreams
Of us one day getting married
And moving into my tree house

I still saw your movies
I still felt sort of happy
When you transitioned into an actual movie star
I still watch 'Ginger and the Grapefruit Go to Hawaii'
Whenever I'm sick in bed with a cold
And I still feel some sort of weird connection with you
After all these years

Maybe because we were both famous
When we were too young to understand
What that meant

I was too young to understand
That fame is a relative thing

And that if you don't understand that
It reminds you
In very cruel ways

You can be the star of the chess world
And be absolutely nothing
To some kid whose sister talks to a grapefruit
Just because he's on television
And you're not

So when I find out we're going to be in the same town
The same week
I call Rachel
Who works at Brown
Who booked me to come speak
Because Rachel works for a man
Who knows everybody and everything
And sure enough, this man
I think his name is Chris
Knows exactly where you're staying
And what restaurants have offered to give you and your co-workers
Unlimited bar tabs if you show up there
And sure enough, here you are
Wearing a baseball cap
As if that's any kind of a disguise

The only reason you're not being mobbed by fans right now
Is because it's a Monday night
And the place is dead

Thanks for the drink, by the way

You know, I'm sort of glad
We never got married

I'm not sure this would be the life for me

I've managed to have a pretty normal existence

I continue to play chess
Which I love
And I lecture
And I travel
And occasionally I act my age
And most of the time
I sit at home
And knit

I like to knit
Isn't that ridiculous?

But I'm happy
I really am
And you, clearly
Are not, all that happy

You're doing what you supposedly love to do
And you're miserable
I can't imagine a fate worse than that

It must be like living inside a paradox

But you know
We have another thing in common

Both of us
Don't deserve what we have

You were cute
And on an awful television show
That stupid girls like me watched

And I was a genius
Who could look at a chess board
And know how to win
In as few moves as possible

But we didn't work for what we have
We didn't earn it

We're both famous
In certain circles
And meanwhile, somewhere
There's a guy out on a construction site everyday
Busting his ass
So his kids can have better
And he's not going to be on the cover
Of any magazine ever

He's never going to be you
And he's never going to be me
And yet, HE might still be happy

And I have what he has, or could have
And I have what you have, to a smaller extent

So does that make me the worst of the bunch?

...I don't know

I feel like I knew more
When I was seven

When all I had to do
Was look at chessboards

I could figure out chessboards
I never could figure out people

No matter how hard I looked at them

I can't figure out you, for example

You're smiling
But you're slightly drunk

You've been laughing when I've been funny
But you're slightly drunk

You look like perhaps you're enjoying yourself
But you're...probably more than slightly drunk

So, Mr. Movie Star...

I believe it's your move