RALEIGH -- After four years in lonely exile, Raleigh's apostle of chess was back on Fayetteville Street on Thursday, stringing golden tinsel between the stone chess tables, expounding on the game's deep meaning, hollering at passers-by, begging for a challenger.
"Next!" he shouted, pointing at a business-suited lawyer. "Chess! If you can think, you can play! Think you can play? All right, all right. I'll be here tomorrow."
As downtown Raleigh shows off its newest makeover, a $14.8 million art-studded plaza, Sherman Leathers is celebrating the return of six blocks of granite with checkered black-and-white patterns chiseled on the tops. Outside the Sir Walter Apartments and the Chick-fil-A, he plans to bring downtown Raleigh a half-block of Greenwich Village -- minus Bobby Fischer.
"I was so excited I couldn't get to sleep last night," said Leathers, 73. "This is where the culture is. Chess adds culture. It comes from you. Every game is never the same. You're the one who gives the pieces character."
Two decades ago, Leathers led a group of loud-talking, clock-slapping, pawn-shifting players in a daily speed match that pulled chess contestants out of the high-rises and onto the sidewalk. Leathers would proudly announce, "There's a new sheriff in town" and take all comers.
"We had engineers on their lunch breaks," Leathers said. "Lawyers. Students from Shaw University. It's a mental, spiritual thing. Once you let go of the physical aspect, the pieces just seem to move themselves."
Back then, Fayetteville Street was a pedestrian mall packed at lunchtime, empty of all but koi and homeless people after dark. But Raleigh tore out its pedestrian mall in 2005, blew up the old convention center and prayed for new life. In those years, Leathers and his chess nuts migrated to Kiwanis Park for Friday night games.
Now, as the city completes its revival, attention returns to the humble chessboards -- out of storage at last.
Heads turned and cell phone cameras snapped Thursday as Leathers and Luis Guzman, president of the Raleigh Chess Club, sat down for the first five-minute game in a new downtown.
A teenager in a Scarface T-shirt asked, "What's it cost to play?" A man in a Yankees hat and suspenders lingered over the board, watching time tick off a wooden clock. A parking enforcement officer, Chuck Meek, stopped his bicycle and grabbed a quick match on his break.
"I'll play you," Meek told Leathers. "You're the master."
"I'm not the master," Leathers returned. "I'm the monster."
While Meek and Guzman faced off, Leathers passed out the "Introduction to Chess" manual he gives to children at his church. He showed off the copyright he earned for a set made of nuts, screws and other hardware -- the knight fashioned from a toggle bolt with its head bent.
And most important, he invited anyone to a lunchtime game any weekday. He comes equipped each day with wooden, plastic and glass pieces in a cardboard box.
He promises to be gentle.
