I was losing at chess against Jerome when the buzz of my cell phone distorted a digitized clip from the Fifth. I’d been using the ringtone for about a week because I’d heard that listening to Beethoven improved your memory. Or was that supposed to be Bach?
Either way, I wasn’t sure I liked either the ringtone or the buzzing. The combination made old Ludwig sound like an industrial band from the late eighties. It sounded like chainsaw teeth biting into something wet as an unseen demon spurred my cellphone’s microscopic engine. But the obnoxious noise kept blaring at me because for reasons I didn’t like thinking about, I kept forgetting to change it.
I finalized my move and picked up the phone. “Sorry, buddy. I’ve got to get this. Pawn takes your Bishop.”
The sudden tilt of Jerome’s head reminded me of how much he disliked it when I didn’t speak his preferred language. But my hand had already released the pawn and the words were out of my mouth. Jerome’s frown deepened as Beethoven buzzed his saws again.
“I’m still not good enough to come up with your code on the fly,” I apologized, my finger poised over the connect option as I stared with regret at the phone. The idiot box was about to take the morning away from us and I hated it for that.
“I think I mean f takes e5,” I added.
Jerome raised his face to the sky as he pondered the move I’d described. One of his hands fell to scratch the ears of the black lab sitting alert on the ground beside him, always ready to serve. Unlike the other, disobedient dogs barking and wreaking havoc in the park, Bones was always a paragon of civility.
“Detective Williams,” I said into the phone.
I noted dark clouds circling in overhead as I listened to Central’s coordinator, Deb, describe what was currently known about a fresh kill as officers waited for me at the crime scene.
My mind wandered when it should have been paying attention to Deb. A part of my imagination churned through the gruesome details, but the self-interested part groaned at the loss of our nice weather. It had rained hard until almost noon before the clouds moved on long enough for the sun to dry the table where Jerome and I were playing our game. Now it looked like the storm would be back again within minutes.
When it came to the victim, instead of imagining the body Deb described, I retreated into my usual escape fantasy. I’d had enough rain to last several lifetimes and couldn’t wait to retire, get somewhere permanently hot and free from crime. I preferred my dream of a little house looking onto a beach longer and quieter than reality had ever cooked up to the soundless scream of another corpse.
But the word “wait” was the key term that drove a nail through my heart. I was masochistic during those years with “only twenty three more years to go” as my slowly descending mantra. And with my cognitive health issues on the table, I had no idea if I’d even have the income needed to make my dream come true.
“David? Did I lose you?”
I studied Jerome’s odd face as I struggled my way back to Deb’s voice on the phone.
“Just processing,” I answered.
I brought my eyes up to the sky again and back down to Jerome. It was hard to model his focus, but I tried my best as I listened. He often said that modeling successful people was one of the best ways to achieve success of your own, provided you actually did what they did instead of daydreaming about the outcomes. He was my best friend and the most accomplished person I’d ever known, but I struggled to understand the how and why of his many abilities, let alone copy them.
Even if I could improve my mind enough to best him at chess during just one of our cognitive training sessions, losing is against his code. Sure, I’m his best friend too, but I’m confident he would find a way to make sure I was never sharp enough to actually win, even if it meant losing an incredible success story for his memory and cognitive training business.
After a few moments, I disconnected the call and scooped up the paperback beside the chessboard. It was a challenging book of poems Jerome had given me to read, part of his program for stimulating my mind and memory.
“Sorry again, buddy. Warren’s waiting for me at a scene downtown. I have to go.”
“Are you using the techniques I taught you? Correctly?”
“Absolutely.”
I wasn’t lying, but knew by the tilt of his head that Jerome had detected the forced enthusiasm in my voice.
“Give me your images,” Jerome demanded. His tone was suddenly curt, not friendly. His head rotated, looking at nothing, waiting.
Jerome’s a Grandmaster of Memory, and the world’s only blind one at that. The accomplishment sometimes gave him a “holier than thou” quality, but he deserved to enjoy his laurels. And I was blessed to have his help with my concentration and memory issues, especially because he was willing to be so tough despite our lifelong friendship.
Even if I didn’t practice as much as I should, I had learned to associate striking images with information like the street address and victim I.D. I’d just been given on the phone. Much more was possible, but back then, I was still a bloody beginner compared to him.
“535 Main Street,” I said. “I used a lamb attacking a seahorse, the same images you taught me. A simple number, I know. I’d tell you everything Deb just told me about Alison Dane and the images I used to remember that name, but I have to jet. I’ll fill you in on all the details later.”
”As you must,” Jerome said. “Keep practicing with focus on the fundamentals. Assuming what you just told me is accurate, your short-term decoding is not terrible. But don’t forget Recall Rehearsal to get it all into long-term memory as quickly as possible while you’re out there playing Sherlock.”
“You know I appreciate it,” I said as I walked away from the table. “But I still hate Sherlock Holmes. Even if these memory techniques are pretty cool.”
“We still have to do something about your hate problem,” Jerome said. “And your understanding of Sherlock –”
I stopped in my tracks.
“I have good reason to hate whatever I want,” I said.
“It was a long time ago, David. It’s time to let go.”
“Time?” I demanded. “This is not like losing one of your dogs to old age.”
Although Jerome couldn’t see my finger pointing at Bones, he turned his head to follow its trajectory. His hand fell and found Bones to lightly tussle his ears, as if to create a sound barrier against what was coming next.
“David, I –”
“No, Jerome. Think about it. Think how you’d feel if someone violently murdered Bones. Or has all your high-falutin’ philosophy completely ground out your emotions?”
Jerome said nothing, but I could tell he was trying to calculate the best possible response. It sometimes seemed like everything was a chess move for him.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I don’t know what I would feel like, but you are aware of my wish that things had played out differently. For all of you.”
“Yeah well, they didn’t,” I said. “But maybe if I did have the mind of Sherlock Holmes, I could have seen it coming. Or at least been able to respond better.”
I watched as Jerome processed another attempt at the perfect thing to say, and decided to let him off the hook. With an injection of fake cheer into my voice, I said,
“Anyway, I don’t like Holmes and that’s that. I’m a detective myself and just can’t make the connection.”
Jerome almost smiled, as if he’d trapped me in a maze I could not see and didn’t want me to note his satisfaction. “Maybe one day you’ll give the books another chance. There’s a difference between the rubbish on TV and the original, after all. Not that there’s any such thing as original.”
I declined the invitation to ask what he meant because I was sure he had an episode on his podcast all about the complex meaning of the word “original.” Instead, I watched in silence as Jerome patted the table for the chess bag. He reached for the pieces and paused when his hands started reading the configuration on the board.
“That was not my Bishop,” he said. “And pawns can’t move like that.”
I looked down at the board and tried to study the pieces as he shuttled them into the black velvet bag. I couldn’t remember where they’d been, nor any of the rules with any precision. And not merely because thinking about my past had derailed me.
“Damn,” I said, continuing to act in good humor despite a bleating feeling in my heart. “Remember to teach me the fundamentals again next time.”
Jerome shook his head. The movement made dark shadows dance in his empty eye sockets.
“I won’t forget,” he said. “Again, I’m sorry. I know it must be hard, especially given the risk of memory training bringing stuff up. Whatever you do, keep safe out there.”
“Always,” I said. I pocketed my phone and tapped the book down on the table. “Thanks for this. I’ll be reading it.”
I ran to the grey Caprice waiting for me on the cracked asphalt lot bordering the park. I’d hung onto the car long after my colleagues had upgraded to more modern cruisers. It was the same make and model I’d driven since making detective, a sameness I needed in a world that always seemed to be changing. I patted its hood fondly and looked back when I heard a noise fall in echo.
It was Bones stretching at Jerome’s feet, a satisfied yawn erupting from his black jaws as he prepared to bring his master home. Bones, for all his discipline, it turned out, was only human too. But within seconds of letting his guard down, he was back to his militant self as he prepared to lead Jerome out of the park.
I sat in my old car and watched Jerome for a moment as he finished packing the chessboard into his backpack. We had been meeting at that table since we were kids. It had served as a surface for testing our first rolled cigarettes. It had witnessed our earliest flirtations with alcohol and been the target for games of smash-the-bottle. Its wood surface had been replaced many times, but not as often as the breakups we’d moaned over, or the number of birthdays and celebration parties for our career milestones we’d shared over the years.
We had mourned his guide dogs too – but never my family. I’m much better about it now, thanks to Jerome. He helped me finally start taking action against the cognitive decline I’d been ignoring for years. It was the consequence of what Doctor Gorkin had called my “dark clouds of malignant PTSD,” the price she felt I was paying for never properly addressing the death of my family. The technical term she gave it was “early onset dementia,” but I hated that. “Decline” at least sounds reversible.
Struggling to revive the vague silhouettes of Jerome’s dogs was one thing. The memory I needed for my profession was slipping, pressed upon by what felt more like acidic shadows than malignant clouds. I worried that turning our park into a training gym would bring back more shadows than silhouettes, but as Jerome never tired of reminding me, “tentanda via.” It was the motto of his university and meant, the way must be tried.
I waved to Jerome and Bones as I drove off. Even though he couldn’t see me, he seemed to telepathically pick up on my gesture and waved goodbye in response. Jerome sees more things than five sighted people combined. And that is why he is much more than my best friend. Jerome is also my secret weapon.
