the cat’s example

I’ve promised Tabby, my next-door neighbor, that I would teach her how to play chess.  Not that I’m any kind of chess whiz.  I’ve made that clear to her.  But I know the rules and I know the moves each piece can make.  By that I am able to navigate the checkered playing field, lose my king’s men sensibly and, in the end, lose my king.

Toby, my cat, is in the kitchen, sitting on the counter.  I tell him, “I’m going to go clean up before our guest arrives.” 

He gives me a deadpan face, his head cocked curiously at a thirty-degree angle. 

Five minutes later, I return to kitchen to ask him if he’s seen my Godzilla tee-shirt.  Mind you, five minutes have passed, and he is still sitting on the counter, still cocking his head curiously at about thirty degrees.  Still deadpan. 

Five minutes and you haven’t found your shirt, he says before I can get a word out. 

I forget what I was going to ask him and leave to find my shirt.

Twenty minutes later, I’m wearing the shirt, and Toby is still on the counter, still cocking his head, still at about thirty degrees, still wearing the same curiously deadpan expression.

“How do you do that?” I ask him.  “I can’t hold the same position or expression for more than sixty seconds without leaning or cramping up.”

The cat shrugs.

But I’m being rhetorical.  How he can hold his body in one position so long, I don’t know.  But the deadpan expression?  That I know.

Until recently, I had assumed cats were not as facially expressive as people—or dogs, for that matter—because they considered themselves above such displays, or maybe they didn’t get it, the whole feeling thing.  Or maybe they were just bored by everything that is not a red laser dot.

But such is not the case.

Those facial muscles in a person or a dog used to register emotion are simply absent in cats. 

“I wonder what puzzlement or wistfulness would look like on you,” I say to him.

Toby points to his face.  Like this, he answers.

“But that’s the same look.”  I shake my head.  “If only you had the right muscles.”

Excuse me, he says

“Your facial musculature is not as evolved as a human’s.  So you can’t do this.”  Quickly, I run through my pallet of key facial expressions.

He says that all but one of the looks I just sampled for him suggest some unsettledness on my part, perhaps an accident of over-evolvement.  The one exception is my home expression, what I think of as my non-expression.

Toby says he doesn’t need my larger repertoire of expressions.  One or two will do.  For he is not as easily pushed out of his center of calm. 

“What does that mean?” I ask him.

Basically, he says, he sees no reason to stress as much as I do.

You stress.  I stress.  We all stress.

He shakes his head and points to his face.  No lines.  Then he points at me.

“Don’t say it!” I cry, well aware of my lines.  “But you’ve got lines.  They’re just covered with fur so nobody can see them.” 

He tells me I’m confusing wrinkles for lines.  My face, he explains, is as expressive as an open diary and as sensitive to bumps in the road as an electrocardiogram.

“You’re mixing analogies,” I point out.

My face, he points out, is currently mixing embarrassment and incredulity, with a dash of indignation.  And we haven’t even hit a bump.  He suggests that I follow his example, unplug the sensing equipment and just enjoy the ride.  Perhaps, if I do, I will be able to see my journey’s destination before I begin.

“WAIT?  What does that mean?”

No sooner does Toby drop that Time bomb on me, than he points out the window.

There is a knock.  She’s here.

“We will definitely continue this conversation later,” I tell him.  “Hey there, Tabby,” I greet our neighbor and unlatch the screen door.  “The cat in the window was telling me he can see through Time.  And then he took a peek and told me you were coming.”

The eight-year-old scowls.  “I told you yesterday I was coming over.”

“And here you are, just in time for chess school.”  I show her into the kitchen.  “Why don’t we do this at the table.  Toby, can you get the chess pieces?”   

“I should be pretty good at chess,” the eight-year-old says while I set up the board.  “I’m good at most things.”

“It’s good to be a confident chess player,” I tell her.  “And a confident chess player is more likely to be a good chess player if she knows the rules of the game.  So.” I start from the top.  “The object of chess is to capture the other player’s king.”

“That’s it?” she asks with a sharp laugh.  “That’s easy.  What about the queen?  Or the horsey?”

“You can capture them.  But the person who captures the other person’s king first wins.  You want to protect the king at all costs.”

She rolls her eyes.  “Guys,” she intones with a verdict a little early for her age.

“If you want to switch it up and play last-queen-standing, we can do that.”

“No,” she says.  “I guess I need to learn to play the same way everyone else plays.”

“Thank you for that big concession.”  I smile.  Tabby doesn’t.  The kid is all business.  

“Let’s meet some of the chess pieces you will be playing with.  Each one brings their own fancy footwork to the game.”  I bring each of the six types forward to demonstrate.  “Pawns promenade straight ahead, one space at a time.  The king also moves one space at a time, but he can move in any direction.  The queen can do everything the king can do, except better.  If no one is standing her way, she can sashay all the way across the board.

“Now let’s look at the king’s men.  The rook can rock forward and back and side to side.  The sly bishop can boogie in a diagonal direction.”

“So, one queen is worth a king, a pawn, a rook plus a bishop?”

“More or less.  The horsey, on the other hand, takes two steps in any direction and then one step to the side.”

“Huh.  Can the queen do that?”

“The queen still hasn’t learned the sidestep.”

Tabby mulls this over.  “Everyone should move the same way.  This is stupid.”   

“Tell me again why it is you want to learn to play a game that is so stupid.”

“Margorie Hicks,” she answers.  “She brought her dad’s chess set for show-and-tell and asked if anyone wanted to play her.  Well, nobody else knows how to play.  Margorie smiled like we’re all dummies and asked if she should bring the game Candy Land instead.”

“I love Candy Land.”

She glares at me like the future woman she will be one day.

“Got it,” I say agreeably.  “This is a story of revenge.”

“Yeah.”  The kid sounds pleased to be understood at last.

“Well, chess is the civilized way to get your revenge by showing you’re a better strategist.”
“What is that?”

“A strategist is someone who prepares for any move the other person could make.”

At once, the girl’s enthusiasm deflates.  “How do I know what they’re going to do?”

I look to my Time-divining cat.  “Would you like to field that one?”

Toby stares right through me to a time when I will not be in my present chair.

“Allow me,” I say.  “You know how it is said the end is in the beginning?”

“No,” Tabby says flatly.

“Well, they say the end is in the beginning.  Meaning that clues for what is to come may already be here in the present.”

“Where?”

“On the board, in the history of moves made so far, even in the other person’s face.”

“In their face?”

“If a player is worried and stressed about what is going to happen next, it could show in their face.  Plus, it could prevent them from seeing the next best move to make.”

“What if I don’t stress?” Tabby asks.  “What if I’m playing chess with Margorie and I don’t worry about what’s going to happen.  Then can I see what’s next so I know whether to move the bishop or the horsey?”

“This is where Toby’s idea may get a little fuzzy for me.  I’m comfortable saying that stress and worry can prevent you from being ready for the unexpected move.  Toby suggests that if a player doesn’t stress, they can see the end of the game in the beginning.”

The kid turns to Toby with a mix of puzzlement and admiration.  “Show me,” she says to the cat. 

“Hold on,” I tell her and laugh.  “You don’t think that’s stupid, too?”

She shakes her head vehemently.  “I want to learn to see the future.”

The kid’s willingness to believe the unbelievable is classic cute.

Toby, however, hears something different.  He hears a genuine request worthy of his respect.  And respecting the youth at the table who wants what any vengeful eight-year-old wants, he steps up to the chess board opposite me as though to challenge me to a game.

Tabby believes what she is seeing and looks at me to get onboard.

“Really?”  I look at the two deadpan faces at the table with me.  “Okay…okay.”  I humor her by moving one of my pawns one space forward.  “Let’s see if Toby is serious about his challenge.”  

And darned if Toby doesn’t copy me by pushing the corresponding pawn on his side of the board forward one space.

As amusing and as mystifying as this is, I decide to complicate things by moving my knight (horsey, for those of just eight years) forward two spaces and one left. 

Toby studies the board.  He leans over and bites the head of the knight opposite me, picks it up and moves it forward two spaces and one left.

Tabby laughs and claps her hands.  “He’s really good,” she says.  For a fleeting second, I feel a stab of jealousy and want to ask her just how good she thinks the cat in the room would be without someone to copy.  I suspect this registers on my face, loud and clear, when she tells me, “But you’re pretty good too.”

Watching the cat duplicate my moves is fun and darling, until the first man is captured.

“Ah!” Tabby cries with alarm.  “You took his horsey.”

“I did,” I tell her.  “This is not Cinderella’s ballroom.  It’s war.  And if you were paying attention, you saw that my furry opponent established a pattern of copying each of my moves.  I simply used my knowledge of that short history to anticipate his next move.”

“Is that fair?”

“That’s life on a chessboard.  Do you want to win when you challenge Margorie to a game?”  This quiets the girl so the slaughter can continue. 

More than once, I do look the other way when Toby innocently puts a high-ranking piece in harm’s way.  But when he puts his queen in the open like a doe in a sunny glade, I can’t just let that go.

“Loch!  You took his queen!”  Tabby is outraged.  “She is the only girl on his side.  And she’s the best.  You said so.”  She looks to Toby to see what he is going to do about it.  But the little guy doesn’t seem to recognize there is a problem. 

“If Toby can perceive the next move before it plays, then he knew that was coming.”

With perfect cat calm, Toby clarifies for me that he is unable to see my next move before I make it; but he can perceive the whole game at once and both our places in the game.

“What does that mean?” I ask him.

He tells me, simply, he is not worried about losing another rook or bishop.

“Of course, you aren’t,” I gloat.  “I’ve already captured those pieces.”

The game runs its inevitable course, and Tabby is just devastated to see her champion’s army so swiftly dismantled.  Eventually, he is down to his king and one pawn.  Surrounding his two pieces is my full army.   

“Check,” I say.

“Check what?” Tabby asks, sticking her nose in her armpit.

“The game, Tabby.  My last move put his king at risk of being captured.  So, I’m supposed to say check.”

“Now you’re going to capture his king, too?”  It is almost too much for the poor kid.  “What if someone can’t say check?” she asks, looking ahead and recognizing a certain logistical hurdle.  “Can Toby just say meow?”

“I don’t know.  Toby says meow to a lot of things.  How would I know he isn’t just asking for treats?” 

“Maybe he could wink.”

“We are here to learn the rules, and there is no meow in the rules.” 

A few tears appear strategically on Tabby’s cheeks.

Alas, I have no defense against a woman’s tears, even if she isn’t quite a woman yet. 

“I’ll tell you what…  If Toby should need to express to me something along the lines of your defeat is imminent, he can just wink at me.”  This seems to satisfy her.

Toby studies the board.  I assume he is ready to concede when, instead, he steps onto the board.  He raises his paw and holds it in the air like a student with a question.  He looks at me, still expressing no stress, no doubt or question in his face. 

And he gives me a little wink. 

Before I can consider what that might mean, he brings his paw down on the game and swipes my king onto its side.

“Whoa,” Tabby says, much impressed.  “What does that mean?”

I study the board where Toby left off, after putting himself directly in the game as one of the king’s men—or the king’s cat—and taking the immediate future into his own paws.

“Is that in the rules?” the girl asks.

When I don’t answer right away, she asks me if swiping the king is like spiking a football.  “Or did you do something wrong?  Is that like time-out?”  She looks at the board again.  And then she looks at me.  “Does it mean Toby wins?”

Toby is standing over my fallen king like a cat with its prey.  Or like any number of things he is wont to knock off a shelf, off a counter, off the mantel.  Just off.  And down.  It’s what cats do.  And I know this!  I should have seen this in the beginning when I realized the competition was a cat.

“I think Toby is trying to make a point,” I tell her.  “I’m not certain what it is—maybe something along the lines of stress and time—but insofar as he is making a point…(I sigh)…I guess Toby wins.”  The kid pumps her fist and gives the cat a high-five.  “But don’t try that with Margorie,” I warn her.

“HA!” Tabby practically barks.  “I am so going to do that with Margorie.  Did you see?  Toby made the future happen.”

“That’s kind of true.  But Tabby, if you want the satisfaction of beating Margorie fair and square—by the rules—then you don’t want to follow the cat’s example.”

I don’t believe Tabby thinks for a second that she can see through Time.  But now that she has seen first-hand how to cheat the causal nature of time, she is prepared to use it in her strategy against her classmate.  “Winning would be nice,” she says and winks.  “But I think it will be more satisfying to make a point.” 

Toby’s win was in the beginning.