Hidden Wheel. Michael T. Fournier

was only a matter of time before people began making suggestions about the space.

      In storage he had lumber, paint, and the PA he bought when Lounge Ax3 closed.

      He waited.

      * * *

      Lewis Brinkman: O’Keefe and Schwartz were very good players. But Luna and Sven were exceptional.

      Lou Schwartz: I lost right away. Luna took longer. A year?

      Ralph O’Keefe: I have a hard time remembering dates. She seemed a lot bigger when she beat Luna. Her tits were getting big.

      Luna Vallejo: I think it was around her twelfth birthday. I remember trying to talk to her about woman issues. She didn’t want to talk to me.

      Lou Schwartz: Towards the end she’d try ‘The Grand Slam’: beat each of us, in order. Rubbing our faces in it. She was almost done with high school by the time she could get all the way up to Brinkman.

      Ralph O’Keefe: She did the Grand Slam a few times, before she quit. What a bitch. Thinking she was so much better than us.

      Rhonda Barrett: I didn’t beat Brinkman until I was in high school.

      Luna Vallejo: By the end, she took almost as long per game as Sven.I could’ve told her how to play fast and precise.

      Sven Gunsen: When I learned to play, I found that I could see the possibilities unfold for each piece. My mind conjures up a film of the game being played and presents all the options, like a slow-motion shot in a sporting event. The options move quickly, but there are many.

      Lewis Brinkman: Her early games were fast, win or lose. I helped her develop strategies as she worked through O’Keefe and Schwartz. Her pacing was largely dependent on distinguishing the near future from the endgame.

      Sven Gunsen: Each piece that she moved revealed more latent possibilities—what Brinkman referred to as nexus points. As a young girl, she did not have the patience to wade through all the options. Later, as he worked more closely with her, she developed separation techniques.

      Stan Barrett: Lewis told me to take her to the EyeWizard cart at the mall.

      Lewis Brinkman: EyeWizard posters appeared to be fields of visual noise. When looked at in a certain relaxed way, 3D images appeared from the mist.

      Stan Barrett: I thought the idea seemed silly, but we tried it.

      Lou Schwartz: Her game changed right away. She made sure to tell us all about it.

      Lewis Brinkman: The posters invite a certain relaxation of the eyes. Trying too hard to see what’s hidden inside always yields the same negligible result.

      Stan Barrett: We went to the kiosk at the mall. Rhonda stared for ten or fifteen minutes, then started crying.

      Lewis Brinkman: She was staring at the posters. The trick is to stare through them.

      Rhonda Barrett: My father told me to pretend the poster wasn’t there. I didn’t understand what he meant.

      Stan Barrett: I told her to pretend the poster was a window.

      Lou Schwartz: The night they bought the poster they came back to Le Petit Chapeau. I wasn’t there, thank God.

      Lewis Brinkman: It was past eight.

      Luna Vallejo: All she could talk about was Mighty Ike.

      Rhonda Barrett: When I looked through the poster like it was a window I saw a smiling gorilla holding a banana floating in front of me.

      Lewis Brinkman: When she looked at the board in that same way, the near future and the later part of the game separated into two components.

      Lou Schwartz: I heard the game that night took forever. Her talking through the whole thing.

      Lewis Brinkman: She learned a new skill, and was happy about it, so she used it too often at first.

      Sven Gunsen: The games took as long as mine did.

      Rhonda Barrett: Brinkman introduced a timer into our games. I used (the sight) less after that.

      * * *

      After the Dingo depressed walked down to the river mist mixing with fog buildings on the other side in and out of focus Louis called vibration in my pocket did I want to go out I’ll be home in a while I said maybe we can sing Korean together he laughed hung up I stood there holding my phone. Clearings windows through fog bending the light mist haloes wait a minute I thought this is the next thing this and the bag in the basement.

      * * *

      I squeezed behind my kit.

      THWACKzzzzzzzzzzz.

      THWACKzzzzzzzzzzzz.

      THWACKzzzzzzzzzzzz.

      It wasn’t so bad.

      Yes it was.

      If we ever record the flaws will be evident, the way the snare rattles with each hit, the crack in my ride humming. But we have no plans to record any time soon. We can’t afford it.

      I couldn’t concentrate during reading time. I walked down to Sheik. The kit I wanted was in the window.

      My hand went to my nose, where the break healed badly.

      I stood and looked in.

      * * *

      Lewis Brinkman: She stopped playing for about six months when her mother died. Over the years I wondered what would take her away from us—learning to drive, maybe. Or sports. When she lost her mother I thought she was finished. We were all so happy to see her return.

      Luna Vallejo: When she came back it seemed that she had aged ten years. I told her she could confide in me. She never did.

      Sven Gunsen: She always looked tired.

      Lou Schwartz: She did a lot of growing during that time, too.

      Ralph O’Keefe: She filled out. Tits, ass.

      Luna Vallejo: Rhonda used to turns heads when she played, but because she was little. That changed. I don’t think she handled it well. I could’ve told her how to cope with the change better.

      Lou Schwartz: Her father stopped coming at just the wrong time.

      Stan Barrett: I thought she could use the space.

      Lewis Brinkman: She was always very determined, but when she returned there was an edge to her play that hadn’t been there before.

      Ralph O’Keefe: She stopped talking so much when she played.

      Rhonda Barrett: I tried to use (chess) as therapy after my mother died. But it was becoming joyless.

      * * *

      Stonecipher’s PalCorral page boasted two horribly recorded songs and eight thousand hits. The traffic surprised Ben until he read the biographical information: Amy Czjdeki had been the bass player for Dead Trend during their reunion tour, eschewing the Buddhist rap-metal material of their last iteration in favor of their hardcore hits.

      He listened to the demos over and over again, alternately intrigued and disgusted. The recordings were consistent with his live experience: growls punctuated by random utterances, a low bass rumble, sloppy drumming around the beat.

      Pee Valves, their page said, split. He followed links to new pages and understood the schizophrenia of their Dingo show: half of the act had morphed into a lurching, off-time marathon playing songs about sharks and sailors. The other played straight-ahead pop celebrating summer and youth behind a wave of feedback. But both bands were playing at Kensington. Festival of Hamburgers, the pop band, were driving to Chicago after the show to record a demo.

      Ben felt a bemused inevitability upon entering the Kensington’s basement. The showgoers were largely the same people who had attended the Dingo Concert Series. He had been