I am with Nono, it reads. We’re coming for you. Let’s play a Manhattan-size game of chess. Black or white?
The child pains increase inside Darling. I am filled to the brim with love for our forthcoming family. History is unfolding under our feet. Chasing us. A new Christ for Yankees and Rebels.
We’ve got to mount a worthy defense, Eli.
Are we going to have to get the crew back together, I say.
I’m afraid so.
The Holy Ghost rises from bed and brushes her hair. The light of heaven is heavy in her eyes. She is all the women I have ever loved. She is my Darling, too. There is hunger in the bellies of babes in the arms of refugees. There is sand in my toes from the beaches of Babylon.
The planes look like they’re floating, says Eli, but they are moving with incredible speed.
I tell the skywriter to spell out, WE’LL PLAY THE BLACK PIECES. YOUR MOVE.
Nono plays his queen, Darling is ours. Tuesday and Finger are rooks. Al and Hal are black knights. We are playing a human-sized game of chess throughout this island. We pay the local weirdos to be pawns.
The Aztecs believe St. Thomas is their God. I shrug at the coming apocalypse, he says.
12
e4 e5
At dawn they send a Haitian man in a dashiki to Central Park and we counter with a girl in cornrows to greet him. They are young and understand only their hormones. Our first pawns into battle.
What’s Cataract doing here, Eli. Walk me through it.
Control the center.
The seasons are spiraling. The calendar pages are flying away.
What’s the plan?
We wait, you say. It’s his move.
f4 exf4
He moves a pawn, a crust punk, to Lincoln Square. We capture, make him make our beds. My teeth are falling out. I lose control. I can’t find a bathroom. I have just learned to fly and I am falling falling falling and never hit the ground.
Wake up, says Eli.
I was never asleep.
Bc4 Qh4+
They send a Texas runaway to Murray Hill.
We have to send Darling to Hell’s Kitchen, you say, Eli.
Unsafe, I say.
Darling is dog-tired on the bench and her cheeks are pink with cold. There is a brutal innocence to her. She’s a pugilist against signs and shadows.
I am not weeks, she says. I am days away.
I love you, I say. I love you till dust.
I hail a cab and put my whole world inside it. Pat the trunk twice as it drives away. She smiles through the window, her eyes are a pale pale blue.
Kf1 b5
Cataract shifts himself over a block in Harlem. We put an Oxy addict up to block the crust punk in Murray Hill. My mind is of a mind to mind you, Eli. There are fighters in the streets of eerie cities tonight. Spacemen look down on earth. I am amazed by constant human error, the drop of blood spilled on the map to redemption. The deafening death rattle of those dying alone.
We’re playing for our lives here, you say, Eli.
No mercy, I say.
Bxb5 Nf6
The crust punk takes our runaway and ravages her sexually in Gramercy Park. I dispatch Al Malchow to the West Village. A sun-shower looms. The devil beats his wife. A fox’s wedding. Naked rain. A witch brushes her hair. Orphan’s tears.
Nf3 Qh6
Cataract sends a Cuban drug dealer to threaten my Darling.
I will destroy the boy, I say.
Calm down, you say, Eli. They’ll capture you.
She retreats. Her eyes, throughout the earth — they run to and fro.
We’re running out of time, I say. I feel the new Lord crying out.
d3 Nh5
Cataract brings another Harlem girl on the sly to the Upper East Side. I dispatch Al to Hell’s Kitchen. The winds of favor and grace. A couple cries at Papa John’s. There is an accident, child and car. A dog births puppies in the gutter and the man who sells lemons dries his eyes. A girl in a jean jacket smokes and cries. The wind has started blowing at our backs.
Nh4 Qg5
A heroin addict ex-model to Hell’s Kitchen. Her hair in tangles. Her lipstick all wrong.
Send Darling our Queen to threaten them, says you, Eli.
Why must we always use her as bait, I say.
You got a better idea, amateur?
Do it, I say.
Nf5 c6
Cataract moves the runaway down to the Garment District. We dispatch a hustler to block the crust punk in Gramercy.
He’s bringing the fight to us, you say, Eli.
I wait beside the fading bus stop.
Coke for a smoke, says a man in dark clothes.
I keep to the downers, I say.
I got those, too.
He loads me up and I spiral down and return baptized on the side of Judas.
But he betrayed your Lord, you say, Eli. Thirty pieces of silver and a kiss.
Without him nothing happens, I say. We remain unforgiven.
The Holy Ghost blows me on the sun.
1g4 Nf6
A juvenile delinquent to Midtown. Al Malchow retreats. Millions of humans small talk through their day. I’m in the corner watching the paralyzed man roll through the street with his family. Boom and all the dead. He was a soldier once in a war against the domino effect. I remember his tattoo. A naked lady on his chest he made dance when he flexed pecs. Molly, your sister, is here with us, Eli. Her face covered in freckles, cutting herself and posing nude for the man in a three-piece suit.
Rg1 cxb5
A runaway to Morningside Heights and we take the crust punk. The air feels like Amsterdam, where they play chess with all white pieces. Bike weather with Mercury in retrograde. In the ocean somewhere baby tiger sharks cannibalize their siblings in the womb. I ache for God, Eli. Simply put.
h4 Qg6
He sends a tenderfoot to Times Square and Darling moves back to Tribeca. Darling my comfort, my home. Her hair is shaggy in a seventies way. She wears a summer dress and a leather jacket, reads a worn copy of Light in August. Blows me a kiss. The dying sun is so often the color of blood. We would drink milkshakes if we were not at war.
h5 Qg5
A blind Rastafarian threatens Darling, we move her away quickly.
Eli, the children’s hospital is on fire.
Keep focus, you say.
A girl with golden flowers is going cross-eyed.
Cataract smells blood, he knows my child is about to arrive.
Blessed are the meek, says Eli. No mercy.
Qf3 Ng8
Nono moves to Midtown. Al Halchow retreats. There is a siren constant in the distance. Always some emergency in Manhattan. The hipsters sip gourmet whiskey out in Brooklyn. Let them live their ironic lives in peace. Sunny day. Man plays trumpet in the park. A drunk kid dry heaves. His dog nuzzles his arm.
Bxf4 Qf6
A runaway from Ohio comes crashing down to Hell’s Kitchen and captures the Haitian. He threatens my Darling.