The Men and Tio: Even if you Forget Him
“Oh, come on!” My king was wedged between two white rooks against the side of the board. One rook took the comer of the board while the other rook took the tile next to it. With nothing to block the comer piece, I was forced into checkmate. “That’s so stupid! How was I supposed to beat that?”
“It’s not about how you beat it,” my great uncle chuckled under his breath as he began resetting the board. “It’s about how you prepare for it. You used your pawns aggressively at the start and you were overconfident with your queen. Chess isn’t about taking every piece you can, Ryan. It’s about taking the right pieces at the right time.”
I huffed in frustration. Overconfident? He was just afraid of me, I thought, afraid I would beat him eventually. I’d show him! “Again!”
My great uncle Gary was undoubtedly the best chess player I’d ever seen. His visits to my grandma’s house during Christmas were a test of everything I practiced throughout the year. I was fueled with determination to beat him just once. I would practice with friends at school, against computers at home, and against my family when they had the time and patience for my insistence. I could beat them just fine, so why couldn’t I beat him?
In December of 2009, I finally had my chance. I was eleven yearsold with a lot of experience under my belt. As we set up the checkered board, Gary decided to make things a little more interesting: “If you beat me, I’ll give you all the money in my wallet.”
My face mimicked his white chess pieces. I reached into my pockets and pulled out lint and a Jolly Rancher wrapper. My voice shook with trepidation, “I don’t have anything to bet with, Uncle Gary.”
He simply chuckled and reached into his wallet, handing me three crisp $100 bills. “There you go, it’ll be an even fifty-fifty. If I win, you simply give it back. If you win, I give you the rest. Sound fair?”
The stakes had never been so high. The most cash I had ever held at this point was a $20 bill. I was the wealthiest kid on the block with those three $100 bills alone. Our battle of wits commenced, and at last I triumphed over him using his own strategy against him. I chased his king into a comer using my queen and a rook, and that was the end of it. The smile that spread across his face betrayed a sense of pride in me, and part of me believes he let me win just to see me happy. From then on, he taught me directly everything he knew about chess, which progressed to everything he knew about writing, shooting, fishing, and anything he saw I had an interest for. In some ways, he became like a second father to me. Lord knows I needed one……
After the divorce, my dad and I moved into a small apartment in my hometown. Craig had lost his job teaching high school drama after nearly twenty years, and there were no postings anywhere for a similar position at any nearby schools. As I grew into my teens, his search became broader and more desperate to get us back on our feet. After three years of that miniscule living space, he finally found an opportunity five hours away from everything we knew. I said goodbye to my friends, he said goodbye to his family, and we were on our way into the unknown with uncertainty and dread. I didn’t last long at the new school and eventually moved in with my mother back upstate, and my dad has lived alone ever since.
My dad takes medication for bipolar disorder and chronic depression. A large part of why my parents divorced was due to his own self-destructive habits. He didn’t beat me often, but when he did I knew it was because he wasn’t himself. I never had it in my heart to hold it against him, but my mother was a different story. She gave him too many chances to improve, but he only got worse. She could tell she wasn’t enough to satisfy him, and there were times I would see him with other women when he thought we weren’t around. I’ll never understand what my dad was going through to cause him to throw away the family he worked so hard to build, but despite paying the price for it he’s been working to improve himself. It’s hard not to worry about him.
Technology was surprisingly exhausting to be around as I grew into my teens, so my mom, grandma, Gary and I decided to take a trip to Lake Tahoe to escape it briefly at a dude ranch called Greenhorn. This is where Gary taught me how to fish, and the ranchers had great game in their ponds! One day, he and I went to our usual spot and he began adjusting his line. I was hooking a worm when I felt something sharp tear into my hand. It felt like someone’s hook snagged into my skin and was trying to pull it out. When I looked down, I realized it was a wasp biting me like I was the last piece of meat it would ever eat. I screamed and jumped onto my feet and ran as fast as I could to the hotel lobby. It only took me about a minute to get there, and they took good care of my bite. About fifteen minutes passed, and the stinging was at last subsiding when the front door opened.
“Ryan? You okay?” my uncle called out to me. His summer shades and already failing vision were a poor combination that didn’t help with locating me in the room.
“I’m okay, Uncle Gary!” I called out from the couch as I tried to keep my voice steady. “I got bit by a wasp!
“Oh!” he responded. There was a beat, and finally he said, “Okay!” And with that, he walked back to the pond.
I know it seems like a silly moment to remember so fondly, but I really appreciate the effort he put into checking on me. Remember that it took me a minute to get to the hotel lobby, but it took him fifteen minutes to cover that same distance on his own. This is not a testament to my speed, but how frail he was at this point in his life. He stumbled over rocky pathways and wooden bridges just to check on me.
A few years later, my mother met a man named Daniel. He was a biker, a trucker, and an all around ass-kicker. He had a beard thicker than the smoke clouds puffed from his cigars, and his hands were the size of dinner plates. His bodacious laugh shook the walls, and his glare could pierce a grassfield rat while freezing a river solid. Needless to say, I was intimidated to even look his way. By this point I had recently turned fourteen and was preparing for high school, and my body had gone through changes that left me looking like a twig lost from its tree. He knew I needed guidance, but wasn’t sure if he was the man I needed it from. He had never been a dad before, and helping raise two teenagers during the hardest time of our lives wasn’t exactly what he signed up for when he began dating my mom. Nevertheless, he gave it his best shot, and looking back on it now makes me laugh at just how nervous he was!
The second time I met him, I think he wanted to try and break the ice with me a little and shake off his intimidating image. He took me for a walk around the neighborhood and gave me my first cigar, and as he passed it off to me he said, “Don’t tell your mother.” From that day forward, I could trust him with anything. He helped me with my homework, taught me how to deal with bullies at school, and even helped pay for my JROTC training. He knew he could come to me, too, as there were several instances when he would show me something he was considering buying for my mom and he’d ask me if she’d like it. This isn’t to say he wasn’t strict, though. He would put me to work in his yard, tending to his flower garden in searing 100 degree weather when his back bothered him. When I was done, however, I would come inside to a pitcher of fresh lemonade and the sight of him dancing with my mom in the living room to classics on their record player.
It dawned on me just how well I was getting along with him after they married, and I woke up crying one morning completely overridden with guilt. They both came in, asking “Ryan, what’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?” I was sobbing as my mother rubbed my back, and I looked up at Daniel as he stood in the doorway with an expression of pure uncertainty. He knew he wasn’t my father, that he could never fill the void leaving my dad created in me. I looked at him through tear-struck eyes and said, “You’ve done better.”
The year was 2015. I was seventeen years old and starting my senior year at the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad. I was feeling much more confident in my studies, and elected to try out two AP classes for my final year before college. Unfortunately, I missed my summer assignment for AP English when my uncle started dying. I can’t remember the last time I saw him healthy, but I do remember the last time I saw him. My mom, grandma and I drove Gary from the hospital to a senior home where they could take care of him. I saw him being wheeled out to meet us outside and I ran to meet with him. My great uncle, prozio, tio abuelo… He looked up at me through darkened lenses and could barely speak the sentence that breaks me.
“Where’s Ryan?”
Masculinity is too often associated with toxicity these days. We think of masculine men as these big, burly dudes with muscles and cocky attitudes. Thankfully I never grew up with masculine role models that exhibited permanent toxic traits. They could be self-destructive or intimidating, but they ultimately realized their faults and strove to improve themselves for the sake of others. A man doesn’t harp on what’s right, but focuses on what can be better. Craig taught me that even if you believe you’re irredeemable, there’s always someone to improve for. Daniel taught me that looks can be deceiving, and even the loudest voice can come from the softest spoken. And Gary taught me the most valuable lesson…
Nothing is forgotten. Memories live on. What we do dictates who we are, and how we are remembered dictates what we did. Teach a boy to play chess, he will conquer the minds of his adversaries. Teach him to stand up for himself, and he will stand up for you. Teach him how to fish and…well, you know the rest. Teach the boy well and as a man he will never forget you…
Even if you forget him.