The Manny

On an Indian summer day a week later and no further in my search, I walked across the park to my office after a business lunch on the East Side. I was in the middle of a call with Abby who was mortified by Goodman’s latest request.

‘I’m going to kill Goodman!’ she was screaming into my earpiece. ‘Literally I was daydreaming about it this morning on the subway.’

‘Oh, Abby. What now?’

‘You know Ariel LaBomba? The hot Latina weather girl from Good Morning New York?’

‘I guess. Maybe. Not sure.’

‘I promise you. She’s nothing great. But she does these adventure-travel-type pieces and Goodman wants to close the show with them, thinks she’s ready to jump from local to network.’

‘OK, so that’s not unusual. I’m sure she’s pretty.’

‘No. It gets worse. Listen to this: he’s meeting with her this afternoon and he wants to make sure I go down and wait for her outside the building.’

‘Not in the lobby? And his assistant can’t do this?’

‘Nope, he trusts me more. Then he wants me to take her down the block to the wrong entrance …’

I laughed. ‘I so know what’s coming next.’

‘Yes! Just so we can pass the bus stop ad with him anchoring on top of the World Trade Center rubble.’

‘Abby, wait …’

‘I hate that ad. He thinks it looks like Iwo Jima.’

Just then I happened upon a kind of Alice in Wonderland scene on the Great Lawn: about thirty kids were laying a huge chequerboard piece of fabric out on the grass. They were dressed in strange outfits too: A horse’s head, kings and queens, soldiers … was this some kind of performance piece? The director – a nice-looking guy in khakis, a Cassius Clay T-shirt and a baseball cap – was ushering each of them into position. Maybe he was running a rehearsal for an outdoor festival. This being New York, and the heart of Central Park where all the eccentrics come, I wasn’t surprised.

And then I realized: a human chess game. I couldn’t wait to get closer.

‘… Jamie, can you believe the Windex thing?’ Abby’s voice pierced through my headset.

‘What Windex thing?’

‘Are you listening? He gave an intern, of course that bitchy leggy one, five bucks and asked her to go get some Windex and clean the bus stop ad.’

I watched the kids.

‘Hello?’ Abby yelled. ‘Windexing a bus stop? Get angry with me! You’re so distracted!’

‘Honestly, Abby, I am. I’m going to have to call you back.’

I watched the director. ‘I guess you should first move the pawns out.’

Two kids at either end took two steps forward on the chequerboard.

‘No, no, no!’ he called through cupped hands. ‘You can’t have two kids go at once! Didn’t Charlie go over that?’

He could have been about twenty-six to thirty-two, tall and solid. He walked with his back very straight, a sense of confident poise about him. Longish brown curly hair pulled behind his ears framed his square, open face. His blue eyes were alert and warm. I wouldn’t have called him classically handsome, but he was definitely attractive.

‘Didn’t Charlie tell you any key strategies? Can’t believe he calls himself a teacher! First the pawns in front of the queen, not the ones at the ends.’ The kids, laughing and joking now, moved back into their lines and the soldiers in front of each queen took two steps forward.

Two giggly teenage girls standing nearby, but not on the chequerboard, sidestepped closer to him. I noticed one of them patting her chest and secretly batting her eyes at Directorman. One leaned over and whispered in the other’s ear, then pushed her towards him. This guy was radiating light and they wanted some of it.

‘What’s next, kids?’

A tiny boy with a huge papier mâché horse head covering his entire upper body raised his hand. ‘Me, me!’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

The other horse shot up his arm.

‘You! In the red hat. Alex, right?’

‘I know! Because you want your knights out early to control the centre and attack the other team.’

‘Yessssss!’ the director yelled. He reached into his pocket and threw a tiny chocolate bar at the kid. ‘And do you only want the knights out early?’

Four kids screamed, ‘No!’

‘Then who else?!’

‘Bishops!’ shrieked an eager kid. ‘Get the knights and bishops out of the way so you can castle early and protect the king!’ Mr Director took a handful of candy from a bag and threw it in the air at the boy. The kids piled on each other trying to grab the pieces from the ground.

‘OK,’ I thought. ‘This guy is obviously knowledgeable about the game. I’m not crazy about all the candy, but he’s tough without being a prick, just maybe …’ I stepped up beside him and waited for a momentary break, when I could get his attention. Finally, he stopped issuing orders to give the kids a moment to figure out the next move on their own.

‘May I ask you a question?’

‘Sure.’ He turned to me and smiled briefly, but his eyes instantly went back to the game.

‘What are you doing?’

‘It’s a chess game. A human chess game.’

‘I got that far …’

‘Excuse me. What ARE you thinking, dude?’

He trotted over to a kid and picked him up by his shoulders and placed him in an adjacent square. ‘No candy for you!’ He yanked the lolly out of the kid’s mouth and threw it high over his shoulder. The others all hooted and laughed.

‘Soooo …’ I began again when he returned ‘… are you part of a school?’

He ignored me. ‘Jason, is that your name, kid? What are you doing over there?’

‘I mean, are these kids …?’