20 May 2021

Trigger: The creator of this trigger noted that she enjoyed the “purple prose” of sports commentaries. She provided a list of favorites. I chose the following: “An edge of deceit drama…”      from a Snooker commentary

The Thrill of Victory

Tamika was not a normal little girl. Everyone thought she was a normal little black girl, from a normal black family, living a normal life in a normal little town in the northern corner of Alabama. That meant of course, what was normal to her was not normal at all compared to white children in town. They all went to the Christian Academy or the Charter school. And as the county government found all sorts of ways to funnel money to those two institutions, it seemed they never had enough to make sure the county public schools had the latest in technology or up to date texts or supplies, or heat in the winter, certainly not enough for air conditioning against the heat and humidity of the spring and fall.

The only whites to go to the public schools were the ones who’s families were too poor or not of the “right” churches or churched at all. And most of those white kids came from families who resented being stuck with the blacks. That’s not how it was supposed to be. And their kids reflected that attitude of belligerence and domination by “right” over the black kids.

The only black children to go to the Academy or the Charter school were of those black families who were not normal. The few Doctors or lawyers or occasional entrepreneur who had enough money to equal status in this poorest corner of one of the poorest states in the country and thus could pay the fees for their children to get the better education and be prepared for University and for better lives, mostly outside Alabama, when they were adults.

And then there were a few of the black kids who were given scholarships to the two schools. They were the athletes. The biggest and the fastest and the tallest of the black boys and girls were plucked from the public school system to improve the squads of the private schools. Football and basketball in the county were almost on the same level as religion. Great pride was taken by the fact that those private schools in this small county could compete every year for league and state championships.

And it proved of course, that the white folks had put prejudice behind them. If you are big enough and strong enough, coordinated enough or rich enough, you can be accepted and achieve as much as any white child. See, you just had to work hard to improve yourself and be the nice, quiet, right kind of black. Certainly not one of those who thought they were better than whites or even as good as. If you were poor or unathletic, it was your own fault and, of course, that of your gene pool as well.

No one knew that Tamika’s gene pool had coalesced in her DNA, to produce a very special person. From the outside, she did not look very special. She was tall and a thin for a black girl in these days. Her hair was a mass of tight black curls. She had a rather wide mouth that was usually fixed in a pleasant smile. She was always sweet in class and rather quiet. She had a few friends but they spent more time reading and sitting together than being personalities among the other students or the teachers.

For that reason of course, that they caused no problems, the teachers were happy to have them in their classes as they did not require special attention. And that is the bane of teachers lives, that the good students have to be left mostly on their own as the problem ones, who cant keep up in school, or who create disruptions in the classroom or who’s family life is so difficult, that any extra time or focus has to be given to those just to help them get by to the next grade, and passed along to the next teacher in the line until they drop out, are thrown out or hopefully, make it out to repeat the story of their generations before them. It’s the way it has always been in the county. Segregation may not be the law any longer, but it was still the reality.

If you really paid attention to Tamika, you would soon realize that it was her eyes that were special. They were far larger than normal with a deep black pupil that filled the eyeball. They weren’t bulging bug eyes, thankfully, as that would have brought down endless teasing from the other kids, especially the bullies. But when looking at her, they seemed to be all seeing, that nothing escaped their field of vision. And that was from the outside.

From the inside, from her side of the eyes, she could see things from a 360 degree perspective. She did not know it was special. She thought everyone could see that way. Her brain and field of vision were connected in such a way that she could visualize what things looked like, toward her…from opposite her. And she could also see what things looked like from the sides. It was like a 360 degree camera, one look and she saw it from every perspective.

Her daddy, Big Jim Lawrence, which differentiated him from his poppa, Little Jim, was a former Sargent in the Army. He had come back to his home town after the service and never left. He met Brianna at church right after his return and they made their life together in the small wooden house on the south side of town. Big Jim, worked construction for Armstrong Builders, a small family firm run by Bill Armstrong. Bill’s white family had been building houses in the county since WWII. And Big Jim could do twice the work of the other workers and was paid comparatively well though there was no pension or healthcare of course. One major accident, and he would have nothing. That’s the way it had always been.

Brianna worked at the AME church day care center as an attendant. The advantage was that she was able to bring Tamika along with her before and after school for no charge. They would walk home together and go into the kitchen and talk and fix dinner and wait for Big Jim to come home and would gather around the table and eat together and bless their life. They were the lucky ones they felt, to have each other, and food on the table and a good roof over their heads Jim had seen to that through constant improvements to the house.

The first thing they noticed about Tamika was her drawings she would make at the day care center. They were far more detailed than those of the other children. Perspectives were amazingly accurate. When the kids played with clay, Tamika’s figures were perfectly rendered, not just lumps and blobs stuck on each other. The parents were thrilled thinking they had a budding artist. But Tamika was not interested in working hard at that. She had one all consuming passion, checkers. Big Jim had taught her the game quite young and they would play every night after dinner while Brianna did the dishes. It was not long before the 5 year old would win most of the matches against her father.

It was her ability to visualize the board and all the pieces and their locations and potential moves and the impact on the other pieces around and where she wanted them to end up that made her so effective. Big Jim used to brag to his colleagues about her and one day brought her to a picnic with his mates where some of the old men played all the time. She beat every one of them without ever being close to losing a match. It was grey haired retired George who said, “Young lady, this is too easy for you. You need to play chess, now that’s a game that will give you a challenge.” The next day, Big Jim brought home a set of plastic pieces and a book with the rules of chess and basic strategy, and they began learning it together.

It was not long before she quit playing checkers altogether (that’s for kids to play she would say to Big Jim) and she spent every spare moment outside of doing her schoolwork and home chores, reading about chess. She talked about chess to her math teacher, Mr. Pemberston and said she thought there was a lot of math involved in figuring out moves. He was astounded at her insight and began spending time after school with her, helping her to understand the books available from the public library about Chess tactics and the various systems. It was the first time a teacher had given her such special attention and she studied even harder.

By the time she was 10 she was entering school tournaments, not really a challenge in her county but there were some in nearby Georgia and down near the university. She quickly began to play against older students and was rarely beaten. One weekend, Big Jim and Brianna drove all the way over to Atlanta and spent the weekend in a motel (a strain on the family’s meager resources) so Tamika could play in a full fledged tournament against much older students and grown ups. She was a sensation, coming in 3^rd only losing in the end to a man who had amassed masters points. He predicted she would become a grand master some day.

Finally, at age 13, she was old enough to enter the State Chess Championship down in Birmingham. After winning her regional tourney, beating the students from the chess clubs of the Academy and Charter schools, she won the right to go to Birmingham and stay in the Hyatt hotel with her mom who had to take off work to be with her. But all the folks at the church were so proud they bought her two new outfits to wear during the matches and gave her a big send off. None of their members, or students from the public school had ever had that chance before.

It came down to the final match for the championship. Tamika had a relatively easy way through the tournament but now faced off against the returning champion. Douglas Jenson had actually won it the two previous years. He was a strong aggressive player, given to boasting and verbal intimidation before the matches and subtle tics and noises and physical distractions during.

Douglas won the toss for the best 3 of 5 matches that decided the championship, and chose white and started attacking Tamika putting her immediately on the defensive. After each move, he would loudly bang the time clock and make a remark to Tamika about how she would soon be beaten. And in truth, he managed to distract and rattle her concentration and she lost the 1^st match rather quickly.

During the break before the 2nd match, she could hear Douglas boasting to his parents and his coach and a group of friends how she was going to be easy to beat. Too bad they had not found any good players this year to oppose him. And in fact, Tamika started out poorly in white and lost her knight rather quickly and then her rook and Douglas took the initiative and won the second match as well.

Match 3 was scheduled for the following day. That evening Big Jim came down along with Mr. Pemberton and they all had dinner together at a small family run restaurant in the black section of Birmingham. At one point during the evening, a woman came over with her two daughters to their table. “Excuse me. My girls seen you on the television news today. You that girl that’s playin’ for the Alabama championship for chess. They think you’re somethin’ special. They never seen a smart girl like that have a chance against no white boy. They wanted to know if they could get yo’ autograph.”

“Oh please said the older of the girls. We know you will win and you will be famous and we’ll have your autograph.” And they handed Tamika a pen and a notebook. Tamika beamed and signed, “To my biggest fans, from a future grand master, Tamika” The girls looked at it and screamed and went away talking excitedly to their mom.

Big Jim looked over at Tamika,” Well girl, looks like you got your work cut out for you tomorrow. You gotta win for those girls.” Brianna added, “You gotta win for all the girls.”

And the next day, though Tamika was again in black, she was relaxed and let herself see the board and all the moves began to appear in her head and Douglas soon found that he had lost his key pieces and checkmate was inevitable and had to resign.

Match 4 began and Tamika never let up, and this time Douglas never had a chance, he lost in only 21 moves. They were given a half hour break before the 5^th and final match for the championship.

As Tamika approached the table she heard Douglas brag to his coach, “Don’t worry, I’m going to show this black girl her place in things. I have a plan to win.”

With the white pieces again, he started aggressively, but Tamika kepi her cool and her defense impenetrable. The tide began to turn as she attacked and Douglas began to run short on time. As Tamika was about to make her first move to mate, Douglas called out to the judges. “She moved her queen. She touched her queen and it moved.’

Tamika was stunned. “I never. I passed my hand over it to get to my rook. It did not move nor did I touch it.”

“She did too.” And he called to his coach, “I know you saw it too.” And he nodded in agreement. It moved slightly he said.

The judges conferred, and one, the chief who had judged Douglas’s win the prior years said he thought he saw it move. The other two were not so sure.’

Douglas said, “She should either be disqualified, or at least lose her queen from the board.”

Tamika sat unbelieving. She had never experience any opponent who so openly tried to cheat her from victory.

The head judge after conferring again with the other judges, came to the table and addressed Tamika. ” As we are not it total agreement, we offer you the following options. We can declare this match void and you will start over. Or, you can forfeit your queen. If you choose neither of those, we will have to disqualify you.”

Tamika looked out over the board and at Douglas’ positions and the time clock and she smiled. “Here Douglas, you may have my queen” she said as she plucked the piece from the board and handed it to him. “I won’t need it.”

Douglas was taken aback. He was sure she would ask for a rematch so he could start over, but now he had to play from where he was and with little time left. He had no choice and began to attack again, making quick decisions after Tamika made her moves. “I’ve got you now” he crowed as he moved his queen into mate with her king.”

And Tamika, with a simple pawn move sprung the trap on Douglas’ Queen leaving his King exposed and took the match and the championship.

Douglas hit the board in disgust splattering the pieces on the table and got up and began complaining again about how unfair it had been.

Tamika looked up at him and smiled. “Well you know what they say in sports, I have the thrill of victory and all you have is the agony of deceit.” And she stood, turned and walked into the arms of Big Jim and Brianna, holding the trophy high above her head.