The computer programmer.

Espano, Katherine Sanchez

An empty nest hung precariously from a tree next to the bar, and Juan was aware that simply nudging the branch that offered itself inches from the balcony's railing would tumble the nest into the blackness below. Juan imagined the chaotic fall of the nest, but in his mind the tangled twigs morphed into the smooth plastic of a chess piece. He imagined this because he knew a chess piece, if it were alive, would feel as if it was falling when removed from the board, especially a rook or queen, just under the king in power and therefore aware of its prestige, even if not consciously. In a week, he'd play in the annual company chess match. Last year, he had played twelve people at once, moving from board to board, careful not to beat anyone too quickly. After this year's tournament, he would quit his job.

Juan turned from the railing and let his cigarette die on the concrete. Around him, life throbbed: a woman adjusted her blue beret, a man's elbow edged into a drying circle of beer, the music's bass stampeded through the air, and the wind shuffled hair, squirrels' fur, and leaves into new arrangements. Juan took all of this for granted as he forced his way through the crowd to where his coworkers, fellow programmers, were just ordering another round of beers.

Juan's chair creaked as he sat down, and the table shifted like an arthritic shoulder each time someone smacked the wood for emphasis.

"So," said Bob, "are you looking forward to beating Rick in the tournament?" He set his mug down firmly on the table. Bob's flesh was thick, which caused him to look thinner than he really was, but his jaw was a square peg in the round of his face.

"Rick's playing in the match?"

"You didn't know? Yeah, he signed up yesterday."

Joe, a blonde man with fading acne scars, had been watching a football game on the small television screen suspended near their table, but now he turned to Juan and said, "Hey. I just had an idea. I think we should make the tournament more interesting. You should play drunken chess. You know, like that movie where Jackie Chan's kung fu gets better with wine?"

"I've never seen it," said, Juan, dismissive. He addressed Bob. "I don't get it. Why's Rick going to play? He never plays me."

"Well, he's going to this year," said Bob.

Rick, the head of the computer programming department, was a self-proclaimed "hard-ass." He was a naturally pale man, but after his many hours of golfing on the weekends, his face and arms were almost as dark as Juan's. Damn prick, thought Juan, remembering his last meeting with Rick. Rick the prick.

But this is how Rick saw the meeting:

Rick rubbed his forehead. "How many times do we have to go over this?"

"Does the way I designed the program make sense? Is it easy for customers to use?"

On the opposite wall, the gray-rimmed clock matched the perfect circles in Juan's glasses.

"I know where you're going with this, Juan."

"Then what's the problem?"

"The problem is that it doesn't matter if your program's better. Don't you get it? Your program isn't the center of the universe. You've got to think of the larger picture. Your program's got to fit with the style of this company."

Juan was like a steel refrigerator. Throughout the conversation, he had stood rigidly in front of Ricks desk, but Rick didn't ask Juan to sit down. When Juan got like this, there was nothing anyone could do.

"Come on, Juan. Can't you see what I'm saying?"

"You're saying that it's better to use an old, inefficient style that our customers complain about."

"Hey, think about it like this. What would happen to our customer service department if we did it your way? Think about all the people out of jobs." Rick smiled, but he should have known better than to think Juan would have a sense of humor. Or at least that Juan would have a sense of humor around him. He had heard Juan laughing with the other programmers in the break room.

Unlike some programmers turned administrators, Rick researched current programming trends and, when it came to implementation, was better at using new technology than the people who worked under him--he and they both knew it. But then there was Juan. Why couldn't Juan see that he could achieve his goals by making changes slowly within the constraints of existing protocol? Why did he have to be so goddamned stubborn?

"Rick? You still with me?"

Rick looked up. "Do it my way. It's that simple." It was the only thing that worked with Juan. "Understood?"

"Understood," Juan said, his face taut, and then left Ricks office.

This is how Juan saw it:

"I'm telling you," Juan was saying in the bar, leaning awkwardly over the table, "Rick is stubborn beyond belief. He won't budge. I mean, he even admits our programs aren't user-friendly. He just doesn't care."

"Come on, man. No work tonight," Bob said. "Hey, check it out. Table on the right. That woman's staring at you, Juan."

Juan looked over. A pretty blonde was drinking a glass of wine and staring at her napkin. "Her? I don't think so."

"Not the blonde," said Joe. "You only ever go after blondes, that's your problem. No, the Mexican woman next to her."

Juan grimaced at Joe, but curiosity forced Juan to turn his head to the right. His eyes met the woman's brown eyes, and he instantly shifted his gaze to the table. Bob and Joe were right. She was looking at him. "She's not my type."

"You been to the eye doctor lately?" Bob asked. Bob was always ready with tired lines like that and, when Juan wasn't in a good mood, it irritated him.

"Knock it off."

"Your loss." Bob called for another round of beers.

Feeling the effects of the two previous beers, Juan rose to find the bathroom, but didn't notice that the pretty brunette was following with one of her friends. When he finished, she was leaning against the wall separating the two bathrooms for men and women. Above the woman's head, a sketch showed a flamenco dancer in a frilled red dress with raised arms, the fingers of the dancer's right hand touching her left palm in a permanent but soundless clap.

The woman smiled. She was attractive with light brown skin, black hair, and in the dimness of the bar, even blacker eyes. She asked, "What's your name?"

"Juan," he said.

"Maria. Nice to meet you."

Like his mother, Maria had a Cuban accent, but it was barely detectable. When she gave him her number, he looked around to make sure none of his friends could see.

As a little boy, Juan had been a chess celebrity. After countless wins for Juan, the neighborhood children had refused to play in the makeshift tournaments Juan set up in his backyard. Although he could no longer practice with his friends, he studied chess books late at night until his mother banged on the door and shouted, her voice hoarse from smoking, that he should go to sleep. When he first started winning official tournaments, some of the boys in his neighborhood circled him, but Juan was tall for his age, and his father had taught him to punch correctly, not like the red-headed boy who punched with his thumb wedged under his fingers. Not growing into a tall man despite his early inches was a shock that Juan still wasn't used to.

Stepping out of the shower, he looked at himself in the full-length mirror attached to his door, left over from the last owner of the house. His hair, although bushy, was receding and his chin looked weak under the harsh bathroom lights. He shaved, dressed, splashed on some cologne, and checked on dinner. The chicken was simmering in the Crock-Pot. He had just turned on soft jazz when the doorbell rang.

"You look beautiful," he said after opening the door and examining Maria. She smiled and took off her coat, keeping her chin down so that her hair hung forward, shading her face. Her demureness, so different from her persona at the bar, took him by surprise, and for a moment he stared at her.

"What's wrong?" Her eyes darted at him, suddenly large and doelike.

"Nothing. What would you like to drink? Wine or beer?"

"Wine, please."

He nodded and waited for her to become loud. Most of the Latinas he knew were loud, which didn't particularly bother him, but he had learned to block out their loudness the way someone blocks out the sound of a construction site. What he hadn't realized was that in blocking out their loudness, he often blocked out the women themselves. His own mother was the queen of loud, especially on the telephone, her mouth shouting the latest gossip into the mouthpiece as if the person on the other end were deaf, or the connection was permanently the lousiest in the world.

Pouring the wine in his small kitchen, he watched Maria walk over to his display cabinet and wondered if she watched telenovelas on the Spanish channel or took an hour to put on makeup in front of a lighted mirror with four different settings for day, evening, work, and home lighting conditions. His mother had set up her makeup mirror with four settings in the guest bathroom, which must have surprised some guests, but not Juan when he considered how much bathroom space his mother needed. On his last visit, while bored on the toilet, he had studied the mirror, and then after washing his hands, played with the different settings.

Maria turned around, breaking into his thoughts, and he noticed her hair was carefully coifed. Yes, she must be a four-setting woman.

"These are all yours?" Maria asked in her soft voice, motioning toward the chess trophies in the display cabinet.

"Yes." He handed her a glass of wine. She took it gingerly, as if the glass might break. After she sat down at the kitchenette and he served the chicken, she even ate her dinner gingerly, moving the fork to her mouth in a graceful arc, chewing carefully with her mouth closed before telling him details about her job working as a pianist for a ballet company.

"How did you know you wanted to be a musician?" he asked.

She paused, thinking about it. "I was good at it, I guess. Don't people normally pursue what they're good at?"

"But you enjoy it, don't you?"

"Yeah, I enjoy it. Don't you enjoy playing chess?"

He shifted in his seat. "I used to."

"What changed?"

"I don't know. I got older."

If she noticed his reluctance to talk about his life as a chess player, she didn't let it show. Instead, she leaned forward. "How good are you? What's your ranking?"

"International master." He relaxed. This was familiar territory.

She raised her eyebrows and pursed her rips in a soundless whistle. "That good, huh? Is that the highest you can get?"

"Second highest."

"Wow. You know, I'm a decent player myself. I used to play my brothers."

It was his turn to be surprised. Typically women had one of three responses when they learned about his chess past:

They looked impressed, but if he talked in depth about his chess experiences, their eyes glazed with boredom.

They looked disdainful, as if suddenly realizing he was a herd.

They yawned.

"You really want to play?" Juan asked.

"Why not?"

He nodded, set down his fork and knife, and stood up. He led her into the living room and invited her to sit down at his designated chess table. The board was already set up and ready.

When Juan had visited a friend in Wyoming during college, he saw a restaurant photograph of stags butting heads, competing for females. His friend told him that sometimes the antlers of competing stags become so tangled that the animals are unable to detach themselves. In this case of stalemate, the stags die a slow death, water and food tantalizingly out of reach. Juan had known this feeling of helplessness once in a chess tournament when he was a master, just under international master, and competed with an expert, a man in his twenties. His opponent, however, had found a way to untangle the chess pieces. The man was ranked below Juan, but as Juan had tried to explain to his father later, rankings don't guarantee who will win.

This was not a day, however, for antlers to tangle, this was a day for Juan to beat his coworkers, something he did every year. The only difference was that Rick was seated at the far end of the table on the left side of the room. So far, Rick had been playing well, but, Juan reminded himself, Rick didn't know that the international master would finally be quitting tomorrow. Although everyone else was seated, Juan walked from board to board so that he could play everyone at the same time. He usually needed only a few seconds to make his move before continuing to the next board. When he reached Rick again, he handled the game the same way he always did. He played conservatively and waited for his opponent to make a mistake. That way, the games lasted longer and everyone was happy.

Rick looked up after Juan had made his move and nodded ruefully. "I didn't see that one."

Juan didn't know what to say. Normally Juan would joke with his opponent, but Rick was different. "If I hadn't moved there, you would have been able to put me in a fork."

Rick was incredulous. "Where?'

"Three moves from now."

"Oh."

Juan moved to the next board. From his new vantage point, he could see Maria watching from the audience. With her calm expression and long neck, she looked like the Madonna in Parmigianino's painting. She smiled and it suddenly occurred to him that he could have invited her to play in the tournament. She wasn't a member of the company, but no one would have cared, and it would have been the first time for a woman to join the fray. She had played well on their first date, showing that she obviously knew the basics of the game. The mistakes she made were ones that many men who claimed to play chess regularly often made.

She was smiling at him now with that same closed-mouth smile she displayed last night after they made love for the first time. It had been their third date in so many days. She had smiled and said, "We didn't make love too soon, did we?"

He knew they had, but seeing her vulnerability, he changed his mind. There was something different with her. He had meant it when he said, "No. It was just right."

He moved his knight as if his hand had a will of its own, the same hand that had caressed Maria's neck and inner thigh, amazed at how relaxed she was, so trusting with him when they hardly knew each other. He went from one board, hand moving automatically to the next board, hand moving automatically, and so forth, until he had beaten everyone fair and square, except for one who ran out of time. Juan had offered to let the man from accounting keep playing, but the man simply looked up and said, "Nah. It wouldn't make a difference."

Yes, Juan decided, this year was just like last year and the year before that, but then he saw Bob walking into the room with a large poster.

Juan laughed. "What's that for?"

"You," Bob said and held the poster up for everyone to see. The poster had been designed by the marketing department and was a collage of Juan playing in last year's chess tournament. The most prominent picture was a close-up of Juan lifting one eyebrow while wearing the "chess crown" he had been presented with at the end of the tournament. How appropriate, Juan thought as he accepted the poster and Bob placed last year's crown on his head again. This was what his life amounted to, after all. A crown made of tinfoil

Maria didn't get it, of course. In bed later that night, she rolled on her side to stare at him better.

"You're going to quit? You're kidding, right?"

"I'm not kidding."

"But why?"

"I'm not happy. That's all." As if to illustrate his point, he sighed heavily. Maria rested her head on his shoulder and played with his chest hairs. Looking at her fingers, long and graceful, it wasn't hard to imagine Maria as a pianist.

"You realize that says nothing at all, right? Most people are unhappy with their jobs."

"Are you?"

She considered this:

She saw herself seated at the piano with her back to the dancers, the scuffling of the women's feet doing a pointe tendu or the men softly grunting, something they probably weren't aware of, as they jumped or leapt through the air. With her back turned to the dancers, it was almost as if she were in her own world, which she didn't even know was what she wanted. She had tried moving the piano so that she could play and still see the dancers, but that only lasted a week. It was distracting to see the dancers pirouette, and when she noticed the sweat fly from a jumping man and land in a puddle on the floor, her fingers stumbled and sleek heads with hair in tight buns turned to stare at her. No, it was enough to play with her back turned, and sometimes, but only sometimes, she would immerse herself in the song she was playing, the gentle melancholy of an adagio. Then Judy, the dance instructor, would shout at the dancers, "No, that's not right; do it again from the beginning," and Maria would wait as the dancers shuffled back to their places before playing the song again. And again.

"Maria?"

"I don't always enjoy it. But it's what I chose to do. I feel content."

"Are you saying you never wanted anything more? When you started playing the piano you really knew you wanted to play for a dance studio? Didn't you think about being a concert pianist?"

For a moment she wanted to hit him. But then she looked at his face, at his earnest expression. "Yes, I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that's hard. Very few people get to do that. But what about you? You're an international master. You're one of the best."

"Was one of the best."

"But not anymore?"

"No." He was stating a fact. He rolled on his side and faced her, their noses almost touching.

"But you could be. You know, you could be if you wanted to."

Something about the way she said it reminded him of his father. He heard his father's voice saying the same thing, years after Juan had stopped playing chess.

"I'm a computer programmer. I couldn't make a living as a chess player," Juan said.

She kissed his lips. "Well, then, what's life like as a computer programmer? It doesn't look so bad. You've got your own office with a nice view. What more do you want?"

He lay on his back and was scared to feel a lump in his throat and his eyes tearing up. He fought it back. "When you were a kid, is this how you thought you'd live your life?"

"I don't know."

"I never really thought about it when I was a kid. I didn't think that far ahead. I mean, I had the chess. Everything came easy for me. I never thought about life after thirty. I always thought I'd be in control. I thought a job was just something you did for a living. I didn't know it would become who I am."

"But what about the chess tournament? People don't see you as just a programmer. You can't really believe that."

"Some guys from work came over a few years ago. Saw my trophies. I dropped a few hints. Said wouldn't it be funny to have a company tournament."

"Why?"

Because it was a lifeline. Because it salvaged some part of himself. Let him feel again what it felt like to be himself, but in the end it was hollow because that's not who he was anymore. But he didn't say any of this. He said, 'Tm quitting tomorrow."

She kissed his cheek and hugged him tighter. "You're always cooking for me. Tomorrow I'm going to cook for you. Boliche. And black beans and rice. No more chicken and potatoes." She was going to say no more American food, but instinctively stopped herself.

"Yeah. Why don't you do that? That'll be nice," he said. He thought of his mother's table and himself at sixteen spooning out picadillo. He thought of his father, reeking of beer, accidentally knocking the bowl of rice and beans off the table. "Cono," his father had muttered. He thought of his mother saying, "You need to find yourself a nice wife. Someone to cook for you."

And then Juan thought about the way the guys at work looked at Maria when he introduced her after the chess tournament:

After she left to use the bathroom, Bob said, "You've got yourself a nice lady. You always get the pretty ones."

"Yeah, I can't believe it. You finally got yourself a Hispanic girlfriend," said Joe.

"Okay, Sloppy Joe." Juan had covered one of Joe's projects last month while Joe vacationed in France, and Juan had been shocked by the mess of code. Over coffee with the other programmers, Juan had suggested they start calling him "Sloppy Joe" like the sandwich. Juan immediately regretted the reference, but relaxed when Joe looked puzzled.

"You making fun of the way I eat?"

"Yeah, man. You're a real messy eater," Bob said. "We saw the way you ate your pizza yesterday."

All of this ran through Juan's head, and without realizing what he was doing, he rolled away from Maria so that he faced the ceiling.

"What is it?" asked Maria.

"I'm thirty-two," Juan said. "I'm thirty-two, and I know less about what I want to do with my life than I did when I was sixteen." He stood up and pulled on his pants.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get some water. Want any?"

"Yes, thanks." She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he decided that whatever it was would pass.

With a flick of his finger, the kitchen was uncloaked from darkness. He stood in front of the refrigerator, vulnerable under the fluorescent light. As he stared at an unopened bottle of milk, he realized he hadn't considered the consequences of unemployment. His debts would build, unhindered, like wind across an open plain. As new and delicate as a single shaft of wheat, his relationship with Maria might bend. He had once thought of couples and families the way he thought of mass-made trinkets in souvenir shops. But now, holding open the refrigerator door, he knew that over the years Maria's skin could be a sun-warmed field.

In a chess game, the king is often underestimated, but can play a critical role in the endgame. The king's ability to threaten a piece from any angle becomes important, even though the king's power is limited to the squares immediately adjoining his own. Juan remembered this as he looked at Rick and Rick looked at him. Even Ricks hair was spiky that day, gelled clumps of hair pointing from his scalp like a crown of thorns.

"I'm not accepting your resignation," Rick said.

"You have to accept it."

Dramatically, Rick lifted the sheet of paper into the air and tore it in half. He set the halves down on his desk and looked at Juan. "I always give people one fuckup. This was your fuckup. If you try to resign again tomorrow, I will accept it. But for now, I'm not."

Juan blinked his eyes rapidly. "Why? Why are you doing this?"

"To be honest, I have no idea," Rick said, and paused to sip his coffee. "I ought to accept it. But, I don't know. I mean, what are you thinking? Do you have another job lined up?"

"No."

"We're in a recession, for Christ's sake. How are you planning to pay your bills?"

Juan didn't respond.

"So get out of here. We'll pretend this didn't happen."

Juan continued standing.

Rick suddenly felt very tired. He was wasting his time with Juan. What did he hope to accomplish? People like Juan didn't change, wouldn't suddenly understand the ways of the world. "If you want to resign, just come in again tomorrow and I won't stop you."

Juan looked at Rick, this man whom just yesterday he had easily beaten, and then turned around and walked out.

He walked down the hallway to his office. He shut the door. He sat at his desk. He clenched his fist, but fists, he knew, had a way of seeking something they could never find.

Above his head, the fluorescent light flickered like a candle, and he remembered how the candles lifted their light no higher than his father's chin at the expensive restaurant his father reserved for special occasions. Juan had just lost his first major chess game. Rankings don't always determine who will win, Juan had said. Even now, sitting at his desk, Juan could see the hairs on his father's chin, small in the candle's spotlight. Over the speakers, flutes accepted their own whisper as the song came to a close, but his father continued to stare at his bread before finally looking up. You're a great player, his father had said. I never had your talent in anything. That's all you need. Talent.

Juan turned to the computer screen. The code he would write was rising in his head like the inevitable steam from a train. He didn't know it yet, but in two months he would clear the chess trophies from the display case. He wouldn't throw them out, but he would put them in boxes to store in his garage. He would sell the display case and buy a reclining sofa to fill the empty space. And sitting with Maria on the sofa, the world would feel right whether it was or not. Outside his office window, the clouds stretched their dreams into haze, but in the morning they would be reborn, as they always are, as birds and undiscovered islands for someone lying on a grassy slope.

Katherine Sanchez Espano teaches English and creative writing at the University of North Florida. She has an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Florida. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in such nationally distributed journals as The Massachusetts Review, The Jabberwock Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sycamore Review, Louisiana Literature, The Bitter Oleander, and elsewhere. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.