Percy and Eli get together on a regular basis to play chess in the park. Of course, chess is the excuse; Getting away is the goal. Away from homes, away from the stale routine of life. And when one gets up in age, which both men are, the staleness of the day to day is ever more brittle and sheds more crumbs.
Neither one know chess very well. They both know the rules well enough but don’t care enough about the game, nor winning for that matter. No, the strategies of chess escape them altogether. However there is a third in their little cadre – Jesse. Now Jesse knows chess fairly well – and plays to win most certainly. So good is he that Percy and Eli loath to let him play. You might think Jesse would find another game, as there are many going on at any one time in this park. But Jesse is the younger of the three, and the three are brothers and these days like to stick together.
Percy, Eli and Jesse Rowe. Known around the area as ‘the Rowe brothers’ – not surprisingly of course. The Rowe brothers grew up in a quite decent setting – nice home, loving parents and an array of characters in their extended family. As with most young boys – especially those each four years apart – they got into their fair share of scrapes and trouble. Each got married, each had a couple or few children and nowadays spend time as they can with grandchildren at their feet. Over the years their respective careers took them in three different directions, geographically speaking as well as professionally. Now, however, as fate would have it, they live in the same little town not far from one another. Their wives are still with them – and thank goodness for that! For if they did not have wives to nag, as they called it, they would perhaps never leave this little park.
Several times a week the three congregate in the same place in the park. There is a fairly large oak tree along the path that meanders through the park. At its base is a bench – a typical park bench of old painted and fading wood. Just aside the bench is a concrete molded table and two like-molded cement chairs. Not the most comfortable of accommodations for three old men who spend an entire day sitting in the same spot. But, nevertheless, each brings a soft something or other upon which to sit for those extended hours.
So if the Rowe brothers do not come to the park to sit for long hours on hard surfaces in order to sharpen their chess skills, then what, you might ask, do they come here for? There is no simple answer to that question, for they sometimes laugh, sometimes cry, sometimes bark at each other and, sometimes, even move a piece or two around the board. What they come for, at the root of it, is each other’s company. And that is where this story begins. Percy and Eli have arrived before Jesse and started a game. Jesse has shown up a bit later than usual and sits himself down upon the bench, hat on his head, and simply stares off into the distance, waiting – baiting really. He has a thought, a question he has been pondering and desires that one of his older brothers might show an interest in his lateness and distracted demeanor.