G. Franklin David stares at his opponent with such intensity, you’d think he was trying to levitate him – or maybe get him to confess to murder or something. He plows his black rook up the center of the chess board like a tank, complete with soundtrack: “RRRRRRRrrrrrrrr,” roars Robert Norfleet sitting next to him, a fan maybe, a friend, just another guy hanging out at the Jazz’n’Java at 35th and King on a Monday night. Everybody laughs.
“Keep the pressure on!” a guy in a red sweatshirt says.
“Back into it! Back into it!” shouts Norfleet.
“Now he’s got problems, man!”
These are refugees from Harper Court and North Avenue Beach, two hangouts where chess rules in the summer months and revenge stretches play into autumn. It’s still too chilly to wander back out, so they’re here, waiting like hibernating bears, yawning, still sleepy, all curled up at the Jazz’n’Java on the cushy couches, watching a still hopeful Cubs team on a little TV in the back.
At the Jazz’n’Java, the competition’s intense, but there’s no room for revenge, no room for anything that upsets the careful balance of top-notch playing, manly camaraderie and comfort. A basement room with exposed brick. There are bookshelves with Grisham, Ludlum and Wambaugh, Mary McCarthy’s “The Group” and a manual on methadone maintenance. Two large collages. Floors spotless, plenty of lighting, but soft. Smokey Robinson floating on the stereo, later a splash of John Coltrane; on Tuesdays, a stream of airy, New Agey stuff played by an old man named Donald “Scatman” Brown at the keys. On Sundays, a “relationship chat” draws about 75 people, all men, ranging from high school students to retirees.
Every night: No smoking, no alcohol. No betting or gambling. Lightning-fast blitz chess.
Right now, David’s black rook levels the white queen. He brings him up, comes down hard and grabs her with gusto. Holding both pieces in his fist, David slams the clock’s timer. Took him 12 seconds, including the strutting. But he can afford it. He’s still up a whole minute and the game grants only five to each player.
“You weren’t looking,” he says to his opponent, just some kid who has wandered into this humiliation because of some misplaced bravado.
“I don’t care about winning, man, I’m just not gonna give up, hear?” retorts the opponent, Steve Monton, the one guy in the room who doesn’t look like he works in an office. He’s got blond-tipped dreds, heavy silver on his wrists and fingers, a shirt with cutoff sleeves that’s so big and loose it could pass for a sleeping gown.
A few moves later, David traps Monton’s king.
“Cheeeeeeeeckmate,” David sings, not so much triumphant as disgusted.
His lot is having to play with these slowpokes, these patzers (chess-speak for amateurs, easy marks). When he gets annoyed, he hands out a card that reads, “Death Notice!!!! The holder of this card has been vanquished, throttled and thrashed by the PERMANENT SUPREME.” (That’s David’s own chess champ alter-ego.)
When he gets really, really disgusted, David has another card, this one the size of a Valentine: “The Spectator Demanded the Vicious Smackdown You Encountered Because Watching You Try to Play Chess is Insufferable. Your Game is Devoid of Comprehension. Maybe With Much Time and Effort You Could Learn to Play Jacks.” David’s a lawyer in private practice, with a degree from the University of Chicago.
Monton gets up, dazed. Norfleet slips into his chair; another sucker.
“This is not a chess club, it’s a coffeehouse,” says Roosevelt Davis. Barrel-chested, thick arms with muscles like ropes.
Davis is 44, has a degree in psychology. Here, he’s all courtesy, a gentle bear daintily offering luxuriously thick banana smoothies, salads crowned by an avalanche of croutons.
“Hey, hey — keep it down, c’mon,” he says to a rambunctious bunch circling a table in the back. Bid whist players on break from chess. “They get excited,” he says, chuckling. He was last year’s bid whist champ at the Jazz’n’Java.
Davis owns the place, hung out here playing blitz chess for two years before he closed a retail store in the suburbs and bought it in March.
It’s jammed now, chess games at every table. Teachers, social workers, a mail carrier or two. Lawyers, accountants.
“See that guy? Living black history,” says David, jutting his chin at a massive wall of a man — a tall, robust man — his head shaved like Michael Jordan, his smart brown jacket as debonair as Babyface or Denzel.
Though Marvin Dandridge comes to the Jazz’n’Java three, four times a week, it’s not just about chess.
“It’s about being with other black men, talking to them about whatever — work stuff, relationship stuff,” he says with a shrug. “Besides, you know, I come down here . . . I don’t even play that much.”
But Dandridge is a national master, certified by the U.S. Chess Federation. Less than one quarter of 1 percent of all certified players are masters.
“Only about 400 masters in the world,” David says with awe. “Only 46 black masters.”
In other words, if and when and with whom Dandridge does eventually play is a very anticipated and much-watched event here.
“If Gary Kasparov is Michael Jordan then I’m like a . . . Kendall Gill, you understand?” Dandridge says patiently.
When Maurice Ashley, an African-American grandmaster, came to town last year, the only guy he’d play was Dandridge. “He beat me three times. I won one. He wanted to give me five to his three minutes. I said, no, I don’t believe in that,” the big guy remembers.
Dandridge is a certified addictions counselor and talks with the patient air of a therapist.
Like Davis and David, he’s a former college football player; he was also a varsity wrestler in high school but, prowess aside, his coach ultimately benched him.
“Yeah,” he says, chortling. “See, I qualified for city finals in wrestling, but it was the same weekend as the chess state meet. I mean, that was an easy call.”
He carries his own board in the trunk of his car. At home, there are 30 more, lots of chess books, though he only studies when he sees a new move.
The reason he doesn’t play that much is, well . . . there just aren’t that many players up to snuff. David’s just about his only challenge. David, it turns out, is a certified chess expert, a ranking just below master.
“Occasionally, I lose a game, usually to Marvin,” David admits. He looks out at the crowd hovering. “They get great solace from that.”
Like Dandridge, David doesn’t play everybody, although today he’s loose, he’s freaky.
“I’m warming up,” he says. “Contrary to what just about everybody else says, I think blitz chess helps tournament play. In blitz chess, when somebody beats you three times in one day, you see patterns that repeat themselves in a way you wouldn’t see in days or weeks. And either you’re an idiot and let it keep happening or you learn.
“It’s also a way to avoid what they call chess blindness, which is what happens when you’re studying a game for so long you can’t see — you lose your queen, you miss mate.”
This weekend, he’s competing in the ninth annual Chicago Open, in Oak Brook (www.chesstour.com). He has won four-digit prize checks before — he carries a copy to show doubters. But he won’t be able to trash talk at the tournament, and that’s a bit of torture.
Yet when Dandridge lumbers over to his table for a quick game, David becomes subdued. There’s a hush all around. A young girl leans up on her toes to see the big man, quiet as Buddha, quietly stalk, then kill his prey. At the end, Dandridge stands up, shakes David’s hand, says a humble thanks. A quiet David reciprocates.
“Can’t really trash talk with him,” David says as he watches Dandridge join the bid whist players. “I mean, respect, you know?”
