Free Property of the State by Bill Cameron

game to Colin Botha and was happily eating beans-’n-franks and reading A Game of Thrones when Duncan went Joffrey on us.
    â€œGetchie, you’re against Philip.”
    â€œI played my game.”
    â€œAnd you’ll play another, or move your dead ass out of here.”
    Lunches at Katz are long. Not like my other schools, where they ram you through in twenty minutes, barely enough time to inhale a gummy slice of pizza and spill your milk. At Katz, lunch is a full period. I live for the hour of peace. Lose a game of chess, then relax amid the tip-tap of pieces moving on boards and the occasional murmur. “Good move.” “You really want to do that?” “Check.” Even an ejaculation of chess-thusiasm was no more disruptive than wind scattering leaves. It was like living inside the Golf Channel.
    So I had no interest in Duncan’s decrees. But when I hesitated, he added the coup de grace . “Your choice, Getchie. Play Philip, or go eat with the plebs.”
    Classy.
    I put my book down and sat at one of the empty seats Duncan indicated next to the window. It was an April afternoon, two months after my arrival at Katz. Outside, drizzle fell with its usual resolve. Inside, Philip paced in the cross-shaped space between four tables, chewing carrots and spitting vegetable matter as he studied the boards before him. I hid a pawn in each hand, black and white, and held them out for Philip to choose, but he brushed me off. “Shut up. Just play white.”
    Everyone was being an asshole that day.
    Courtney, Mrs. An’s daughter, got drafted as well, but unlike me, she actually gave a damn. I pushed a pawn at random, then another the instant Philip responded. Each time he moved I moved. With four games going, it would take him a minute to get back to me, but I moved again before he could turn away.
    I could tell he was getting annoyed, but too bad. Him and me both. Fucking Duncan. I threw pieces around the board, barely aware if the moves were even legal. Philip wasn’t used to opponents who cared so little about the outcome. His breath whistled past his teeth every time I moved. Across from me, Colin Botha—club noob but with a strong U.S. Chess Federation rating and my bet for first to knock Philip off his throne—was putting up a serious fight. Courtney and Duncan were holding their own and keeping Philip from giving me his full attention.
    Which could explain what happened.
    I might not have noticed if I wasn’t in particular need of quiet at that moment. Every sound rattled in my ears, from the tap of the felt-footed pieces to the muted chatter trickling in from the Commons. Annoyed, I tossed a knight into Philip’s back row, which made no sense even to me. Philip responded with the irritation of a man who’d discovered a pubic hair in his hamburger. He killed the knight with his queen. In the second after he lifted his hand, even as I was reaching for another piece to push, he sucked in a quick breath, barely audible. But I heard it. And I paused.
    He’d made a mistake.
    Philip didn’t make mistakes. Not on the chessboard. I looked up at him but he was already turning away, munching carrots and trying to cover. Maybe he thought it didn’t matter, that I would never see what he’d given me. Whatever he thought, I felt something new and different: a tickle behind my eyes, a sudden need. I gazed at Duncan, intent on his own board. Light reflected off the sheen of sweat on his upper lip—so desperate to have what Philip had given me. A chance . I sat back and, for the first time since Mad Maddie, tried to win a game of chess.
    I studied the board for fifteen minutes to be absolutely sure. Long enough for Philip to knock off the other three, first Duncan, then Botha. When Courtney resigned, Philip turned to me. “Well?” His attitude was impatient, but I sensed concern behind it. He knew I knew—the long delay since my last move