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By Bob Allen
Check.
And checkmate.
The members of Cockeysville Middle School's chess club love to play chess, even under normal circumstances.
But add a trip to South Baltimore in the face of an impending blizzard to share cookies, soft drinks and a few life stories with recovering addicts, and it enhances the sense of adventure and the thrill of the game.
"I've just liked talking with them and meeting them and playing chess with them," said Cockeysville resident Melissa McGucken, a member of the chess club who, along with a dozen or so other club members, spent the afternoon of Feb. 11 at The Baltimore Station, a live-in, therapeutic addiction-recovery facility for men.
"They're really nice," Melissa said of the residents of The Baltimore Station, which is only a few blocks from Federal Hill's popular Cross Street Market, and also only a few blocks from a thriving South Baltimore open-air drug market.
"They asked about me and what I did, and they told me what they did when they were my age," said Melissa, who was accompanied by her dad, John McGucken, a retired state employee who now works for the federal government.
"And, yeah, some of them are pretty good chess players."
Chess club member Jesse Ginsburg, 13, a seventh-grader from Phoenix, came away with similar impressions. "I liked all the people, and most of them are pretty good players," he said. "We mainly just talked about chess, and we had a good time. The atmosphere here is kind of different."
At first glance, recovering addicts, some with criminal records, and clean-cut suburban middle schoolers doesn't sound like a natural cultural or social match.
But to Alaric Phillips, The Baltimore Station's coordinator of volunteer and outreach activities, and to Robert Vogelsang, an architect and Phoenix resident who organized the chess expedition, it made a lot of sense.
Phillips said the chess meeting, like other outreach programs that bring volunteer groups to the shelter from the suburbs and secondary schools, is intended to be a two-way learning experience - in this case, revolving around the grandfather of all strategy games.
Phillips, who himself was once a resident at The Baltimore Station, said that if the kids traveled just two blocks, they'd see older kids from the suburbs in SUVs buying drugs.
"A lot of these kids have heard slogans like 'just say no' so often that it's become meaningless," Phillips said. "But they can come here and listen firsthand to these guys' stories."
Vogelsang, whose son Drew is a chess club member, said the group's visit evolved from volunteer work that he and other members of Chestnut Grove Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville have been doing at The Baltimore Station for several years.
One evening a month, Vogelsang and other church members prepare and serve a meal to the center's residents. Often, Drew goes along. Vogelsang said the idea for the chess get-together grew out of casual conversations with Phillips.
Vogelsang said Phillips loved the idea because a lot of the men are trying to reconnect with their families, and "it would be great for them to talk with these kids."
But Vogelsang said at first he had mild reservations.
"I didn't know about bringing 9- or 10-year-old kids down here," he said. "But it's perfectly fine. They treat everybody with respect here."
Vogelsang said he also was inspired by the recent television movie "Knights of South Bronx," about a group of inner-city kids who use chess to build self-esteem and help focus their lives. They end up winning a national championship.
"Here, the kids are interacting with people, not addicts," added Clare Gorman, executive director of The Baltimore Station. "They get to know these people on a human level, not just as a label."
Even so, most of Saturday's interactions centered on the game itself, as middle schoolers and their adult hosts faced off with furrowed brows across nine chess boards lined up along a row of folding cafeteria tables.
While everyone seemed to be playing to win, the men often slipped into the role of mentors. They offered the youngsters advice on strategy and occasionally warned them before they blundered into an ill-advised move with their rooks or bishops. As snow started falling outside, the games frequently were punctuated with playful cheers of triumph, like:
"Rook takes a rook." " Check!" "Checkmate!"
Or groans: "Oh, I just made a bad mistake!"... "Oops, I just got killed!"
"Really, today I was impressed by these young players' ability and how they play the game," said Jeff Brown-Bey, 48, a lifelong Baltimorean who has spent three years in The Baltimore Station's recovery programs and is training to become a counselor for the organization.
"They are really bright and open-minded, and they're all exceptional," said Bey, who was taught chess by his father and has been playing off and on for about 25 years. "I admire everybody who came down here to play."
Troy Taylor, 47, who learned the game in prison and has been a resident at the facility since August, joined in. "Oh man, just to sit down and play with these kids and teach them a little at the same time was great," said Taylor, who has a granddaughter he wants to play. "These kids have got good game."
"I also like talking to kids about not making the same mistakes I did," he added. Taylor, a Miami native, says he spent three decades working in concrete construction before getting waylaid by addiction a few years ago.
"I was kind of surprised they didn't ask me much about my life," said Taylor, who hopes to enroll in Baltimore City Community College and earn an associate degree in construction management. "But I just enjoyed sitting down with them."