Those orange-robed Hare Krishnas are chanting again beneath the Japanese Pagoda tree like the hum in a bad light.

Kaplan barely hears them anymore as he gets to his usual spot in the park. He unfolds the legs of his table and plastic chairs and rolls out his chess board and lines up his pieces.

He sits down and scans the people in his corner of Union Square.

Lounging to his right, Ellery comes down from the Bronx and slouches in the shade of his yellow/white beach umbrella, drinking a coke and watching videos on his phone. He doesn’t give a shit if he plays does he? Wasting time, eh.

There’s Marquez across the path staring down pedestrians under his black dew rag and black-on-black Yankees hat. A teenage kid sits down with him and the Dominican pulls his hustling fingers across his thick mustache, moves his pawn, slaps the timer.

Kaplan calls out to a man strutting in a leather jacket. “Play?” The man ignores him and Kaplan flicks his hand at the air. He pulls his backpack into his lap, pouring his vodka and ginger ale into a paper cup.

By the crosswalk, Foster is up two pieces on Banks who leans on his hand, tapping his grey goatee. With one eye on the board, Foster hands his burning cigarette to Fraelich, his old ally, who watches cross-legged on the ground.

Captain Malley walks through the crowd with a two-officer escort as Kaplan sips his vodka, showing his failing teeth to the shiny cops until they disappear into the subway.

A casual husband and wife walk by and stop at Kaplan’s table. The casual man pulls out the chair and sits down. He picks up the queen. This is the queen, you know. What the hell are you doing with the queen? The man turns to his wife with the queen in his hand and she snaps a nice picture, and the casual man winks at Kaplan before getting up.

Kaplan flicks his hand. The wind blows his empty paper cup off the folding table. His eyes are back on the square.