When I Stop Talking You by Jerry Weintraub & Rich Cohen

Author:Jerry Weintraub & Rich Cohen [Weintraub, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose_contemporary

The Grand Master

Okay, here's my favorite of the crazy, why-the-hell-not-try-it stories of those years. In the summer of 1972, I got hooked on the World Championship of Chess, which was being shown on PBS and ABC Wide World of Sports, with Bobby Fischer, the American, playing Boris Spassky, the Russian, in Reykjavik, Iceland. The men crouched over the chessboard in utter silence for hours on end. I do not know a thing about chess, have never played it and don't want to-I was relying on the PBS commentator, who moved pieces around a board to explain the game-but I was transfixed by Fischer. He was tall, with blue eyes and wild hair and the slow, graceful motions of a hypnotist or magician. He sat stone still, radiating a weird charisma. It came right through the set. I rushed home every night to have dinner in front of the TV. You could not get me out of the house. I was mesmerized.

Jane finally confronted me.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked. "Have you gone nuts?"

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"You. You sit in front of the TV for hours every night, watching a chess match. You don't know anything about chess, not even the rules."

"I'm not watching a chess match," I told her. "I'm watching this guy Bobby Fischer."

"Why?"

"Because he's a star."

"You're insane."

"Oh, really," I said. "I will show you how insane I am."

I picked up the phone and called Icelandic Airways. I asked when they would next fly to Reykjavik.

Nine o'clock tonight.

"Good," I said. "I want a seat."

I got on a plane to Reykjavik. There was a young guy in the next seat. We started talking. He was a priest and also a grand master at chess. He knew everyone in that world, and had actually played Fischer and Spassky. He asked why I was going to Iceland. I told him I was going to meet Bobby Fischer.

"You're going to meet Bobby Fischer?" he said, surprised. "Do you have an appointment with him?"

"No," I said. "I'm just going to track him down."

"Oh, no," he said. "You can't just track down Bobby Fischer. He doesn't talk to anyone, doesn't go anywhere. He is locked off from the world."

"What? Why?"

"Because he's crazy."

It was the first indication that the goal I had set for myself-get in touch with Fischer, talk to him, pitch him, sign him, make him rich, and take a percentage-would be more difficult to achieve than I had thought.

I reserved a room in the hotel where most of the chess people were staying. The lobby was filled with tables, each with a chessboard, where grand masters were locked in combat. After each move, they hit a button to freeze the clock. Click. Click. Click. It made a kind of rhythm. A group of reporters, mostly Americans, were taking notes in the corner, searching for a new angle on the story. Spassky wouldn't talk to them because the KGB had forbidden it. Fischer wouldn't talk to them because he was nuts.

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