And Sometimes I Win

Not every weekend is a loss; some, indeed, are triumphs.  One such began with a phone call.

Even through my laughter I could hear Lanstein's teeth grating over the wire.  He'd called to ask me what his phone number was, and the thought of a burly army sergeant asking a kindergartner's helpless question had set me off.  His plaintive tone had done little for my self control either.

"My mother moved while I was overseas and got an unlisted number.  She said in her letter last month she'd let you and John know what it was."  Irritation vied with patience in his tone.  He was still miffed after I found the information and gave it to him.

I was surprised, therefore, to find him on our doorstep three hours later.  "Did your mommy send you over to play?" I cooed, just this side of babytalk.

"No," he fumed, slamming the door behind him.  "She's away for the day.  And chess is no child's game."

My husband agreed as they sat down to play.  For them it wasn't a game at all so much as an excuse to insult each other.  I set about adding extra vegetables to the stew, certain their game would last well past the dinner hour.  The baby, I reasoned, would probably not eat the stew.  (Our two-year-old was on a raisin binge that week and had decided he could survive on iron alone.)  Hoping thus that additional peas and carrots would stretch the meal to three, I emptied a can into the gravy.  A pea rolled to the floor, and conscious of the need for frugality, I replaced it in the pot.

"You didn't really do what I just saw you do, did you?" demanded Lanstein, horrified, his fingers clutching a knight.

"The pea?"  Relax, you have only one chance in three of getting it."  The expression of horror was undiminished.  "I'll sterilize it along with the rest of the vegetables," I assured him.  "I won't serve them till they're shriveled and germ free."  Unmollified, Lanstein turned back to the chess game.

Over the dinner table the banter begun at chess continued.  "Even my wife thinks faster than you," twitted Johnny.  He was thinking, I felt sure, of that day two weeks earlier when I'd had a severe cold.  He had ordered me to remain in bed but had returned to find me scrubbing the kitchen floor.

"What are you doing!" he had bellowed.

"Er...ah...reading?" I had suggested hopefully.  It was days before he could decide on a response, and by then both the spring cold and spring cleaning were done.

"Her?" scoffed Lanstein.  "Think faster than me?  Ha!"  Lanstein, I knew, was recalling his last visit, when he'd presented me with the equation SEND + MORE = MONEY.  My task, he'd explained, was to determine what number each letter stood for.  It had taken me forty-five minutes of higher algebra and sheer inspiration to work a thoroughgoing, conclusive proof that R = R.  It took all evening to solve the puzzle.

Their argument continued, Johnny maintaining that my thinking made up in speed what it lacked in logic, and Lanstein holding steadfastly that he thought faster than either of the Browns, particularly the distaff side.  I sat back, listening delightedly.  I'd always wanted men to fight over me.

But it was the black queen they fought over most of the night.  They were chagrined, when the game concluded at 1:00 A.M., to discover that I was in no playful mood.  In contrition if not abject fear, they sought to make up for the hours I'd spent abandoned.

"I'll do the week's shopping tomorrow," promised Johnny.  "And I'll babysit.  You can have the whole day off."

"And I'll take you to the Museum of Modern Art," offered Lanstein, benevolent after having won the final game.

Neither Lanstein nor I knew anything about modern art, but he wanted to become an intellectual, and I'm not the sort to be intimidated by a mere museum.  Its exhibit, I decided, couldn't be more esoteric than the grocery displays I wandered each week.  Art was a discipline, but market arrangements were subject to whim. 

Matches were found not with the cigarettes nor even the light bulbs, but at the drug counter.  Grated cheese didn't nestle cozily in the dairy section but had formed a licentious relation with the Italian food, and could be seen making lascivious eyes at the macaroni.  Whom the graham cracker crumbs were attracted to I hadn't yet discovered.  They were certainly not dallying with either the baking goods or the saltines.  I envisioned John trying to find the items on my shopping list and accepted the penance he offered.

The first painting Lanstein and I saw when we entered was a water color.  A foot and a half of pastel blue covered the top third of the canvas; under it was a pale but equally wide stripe of yellow.  The bottom third of the art work was an undecided green.  "You're supposed to let your mind go, follow whatever thoughts the painting suggests," explained Lanstein helpfully.

"It suggests the flag of some obscure Asian country," I replied, having let my mind go as far as it cared to.  "What's it called?"

Lanstein stooped and read the small brass placard.  "It's called 'Number Seven,'" he reported dutifully.

"Of course ‑-what else?"  The grocery shelves began to take on a grim logic I'd never noticed before.

The second floor displayed a thirty-foot-wide opus.  Across that span and approaching a derelict wooden house were painted a line of women.  We decided they were women although all had the faces of cats.  Our conclusion was based on their nude bodies, which sported no more than a large red bow on the chest.  We were less successful in figuring out any means, other than the artist's skill, by which the bows were attached.

Leading this mysterious line was a man dressed in the costume, entirely black, of an 1890's medicine show man.  This huge masterpiece was entitled "Phases of the Moon."  Lanstein wondered if the splotch of white in the upper right corner could be a crescent orb.  I wondered if the graham cracker crumbs were flirting with the bread.

Dazed by our afternoon, we were shocked to discover how late it was by the time we left the museum.  "You'd better have supper with us," I offered.  "You can't take me home and get back to your own house till way past dinner time.  Call your mother and tell her."

Lanstein agreed, and paused at the first phone booth we found. 

"782-6131," I advised in demure helpfulness.  With a furious slam of the door Lanstein called home.

I was searching for a dime when he emerged.  "I'll call Johnny and let him know you're coming," I explained.  He proffered the money and smiled patronizingly. 

"614-4539," he volunteered, reciting my number with smug satisfaction.

I clucked sympathetically as I entered the booth.  "Still thinking two minutes behind me, eh?"

Again he slammed the door between us.

Shriven by their penance of the day, Lanstein and John settled down to chess once more.  At 1:30 A.M. they decided to finish the last game in the morning ‑-Lanstein would sleep over.

We trudged into the living room.  It would take all three of us to convert its recalcitrant hideabed from sofa to sleeping quarters.  Daintily I removed a half-eaten salami from the cushions.  The two-year-old, I noted, had sated his iron needs and rediscovered either the pleasure of protein or the joys of fat.

As we lifted the first cushion, something rolled to the floor.  It was black, dusty, and desiccated.  In a happier day it had been a raisin, but now it lay a beady, black eye staring up at us.  Lanstein sat down on the remaining cushion and stared back.  He shot a despairing glance at me.  Then, with a helpless shrug of resignation, he scooped it into his mouth.

"Oh, no!" cried Johnny, appalled.  "You didn't!"

"Now, John," I said, anxious to soothe him, "I cleaned the couch two weeks ago.  I cleaned the whole house, remember?"

But cleaned or otherwise, it was a long while before Lanstein slept over again.  Whatever the raisin.