A hush fell over the crowd at the YMCA as they watched the final game in the chess competition. The winner would represent the Y at the Regional Chess Tournament. 

Jason Barnes stared intently at the chessboard as his opponent Mark Hopkins moved his rook and put Jason’s king in check. Jason looked at his king and realized there was no escape. The king was trapped by its own pieces.

“Checkmate!” Mark declared.

After congratulating Mark and wishing him well at the regional match, Jason raced home from the Y on his skateboard. As he sped down the hill near his home, he went over the match in his head. Where had he gone wrong? He thought his king was protected. While he pondered his king’s position, he missed a sharp turn, plowed through his neighbor’s fence, and tumbled into the Garrisons’ vegetable garden. He got up, brushed the bean sprouts off his jeans, and surveyed the damage. He saw broken fence slats strewn all around amid the damaged plants.

After Jason knocked on his neighbor’s front door, he found himself face to face with a pair of gray eyes that appeared to look straight through him. Jason swallowed hard. “Mr. Garrison . . . uh. . . I accidentally knocked down some of your fence and damaged a few of your bean plants.”

Mr. Garrison looked toward his garden. “Don’t you kids have any sense of responsibility these days?”

“But, Sir . . . It was an accident.”

“A likely story,” Mr. Garrison said. “I’ll expect you to repair the damage tomorrow,” he added, closing the door in Jason’s face.

***
The next day Jason used all of his weekly allowance, and bought the fence slats and bean plants at Lambert’s Landscaping. When he got home, he replaced the slats in the neighbor’s garden fence. He dug small holes in the damp soil for the bean plants. After completing the plantings, he picked up several fence slats that were left over. He decided to leave the slats for Mr. Garrison, and took them to the neighbor’s garage. 

As he reached up to put the slats on a shelf, an ivory white knight chess piece tumbled to the floor of the garage. Jason picked up the piece and felt up on the shelf again. His hand grazed a chessboard with other chess pieces and a crumpled piece of paper. He took down the chess set and put it on the workbench. 

He opened the crumpled piece of newspaper. The headline read LOCAL CHESS GRANDMASTER LOSES TO IBM’S DEEP BLUE. The article explained that Mr. Garrison had been a consultant to the development team for the IBM chess playing computer, Deep Blue.

Garrison! Why hadn’t he recognized the name before? Jason had read about Mr. Garrison’s legendary playing ability in Chess Magazine. So that’s why this valuable chess set was on a dusty shelf in the garage! Mr. Garrison had lost to the computer as the IBM developers programmed it to play the World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov.

Just then Mr. Garrison came into the garage and saw Jason with the chess set. “Now you’ve graduated to stealing, have you?” he asked.

“No, Sir, I was just putting some extra fence slats on your shelf and a chess piece fell off. Would you play chess with me? I know I could learn a lot from you.”

“I don’t play chess anymore,” Mr. Garrison said as he put a gnarled finger on a white knight, although his steely gaze seemed to soften.

But the World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, lost to Big Blue, too, Jason remembered before asking, “Just one game? I really need your help.”

“Well, all right.” Mr. Garrison pulled up two stools to the workbench. He then guided Jason through a match. “That will put your king in check from the bishop,” he cautioned as Jason started to make a move. Jason changed tactics.

After Mr. Garrison won the match, Jason started to leave and paused at the door of the garage. “Sir, you’re a good teacher. I hope you’ll play chess with me again.”

Could Jason have been mistaken or was there a smile on the white knight’s face?