Marathon Chess

As I grew older, I spent more and more time on activities that separated me from the rest of the neighborhood. I stopped visiting the game room, where we used to hang out by the jukebox and burn each other's butts with lighters. (a variation of a hot-foot, I guess) I ceased going to neighbors' garages, to look vapid while actually learning to fix cars. No longer did I drive my friends around, yelling Wooo at cute guys. Instead, I made some new friends; and we taught each other to play chess.

I had experimented with chess before, of course. All those different pieces, each one having it's own way of moving, fascinated me. But previous forays into the world of chess involved me sitting on some guys lap and moving the pieces wherever he told me to. Sad as it sounds, I felt priveledged to touch those lovely rooks, bishops and knights. (yeah, the pawns get no respect) I believed that if I were well behaved enough, one day someone might actually teach me to play. It didn't happen that way; I remained "the piece mover" until we broke up.

Months later, I spied a chess set at a friends' house. It was sitting in a corner, sandwiched between some other board games. I asked, "You know how to play chess? He said, "Yeah, but I'm not real good." He had barely gotten the "yeah" part out, when I pounced on him saying, "You'll teach me, right?"
He probably would have taught me without me using my feminine wiles on him, but I was a teenager; and I figured it couldn't hurt.
So I learned to play chess, and pretty soon, we were teaching others in our group to play too. One by one, we bought our own chess boards; and pretty soon we had 3 different sets taking up residence in my friend's apartment. That was how marathon chess was born.
We would all meet at Dennis's house and start playing. We didn't have timers or anything, but as long as you were winning, you got to keep your seat. The fun was in the playing, and the challenge was to hold the most comfortable seat for as long as you could. If you lost, you had to get up and wait for another game. The wait was never very long, for we played speed chess. Most games lasted less than 10 minutes.
If a game ran long, everyone would leave their tables and stand around watching us. I say 'us' because the long matches were usually between me and my bestest friend, Jon. Not always, but usually.
People would watch, because it wasn't the normal -stare at the board for 5 minutes, then slowly move your piece- kind of match. It was more like a 30 second pause, move your piece, flash a devilishly triumphant grin, wait for the dawning light of doom to hit them, then cuss loudly as your opponent makes the one move you didn't see.
It wasn't about winning, so much as it was about winning quickly, so you could tackle a fresh opponent. "New victim... fresh meat... gotta play!"
We were chess junkies.