The first time I tried to interview Steve Stepak, I failed miserably. He was far too deeply involved in a rigorous game of chess to notice a would-be interviewer edging uncomfortably close to the table. Feeling somewhat less than the Barbara Walters (with a dash of street-wise smarts) I’d fashioned myself up to be, I retreated.
I mustered up the courage to return the next day, hoping to do better than the previous night. Luckily, it proved not difficult.
I first introduced myself to Steve Stepak cautiously—after all, what do you expect from someone who plays chess 12 hours a day? Sans his usual cap, but wearing an equally distinctive green sweater jacket and long black trenchcoat, Stepak was more than willing to talk. First, he wanted to set the record straight. There is a major fork in the ideologies of the Au Bon Pain (ABP) chess masters—there are those who play chess as a sport, and those who see chess as something far more. Stepak asserts that, unlike the former “chess hustlers,” he himself was a “chess professional.”
As he speaks, Stepak constantly rearranges the pieces in front of him, playing invisible tetris, deftly sliding them along the chess board he has scotch-taped to the table. He passionately expounds the relationships between chess and the organization of the human mind. It is the educational aspect of chess that Stepak takes most seriously. As I scribble in my notebook he nods approvingly, “Writing things down is important, part of the process of learning is physically writing.” Before he began teaching chess full-time he worked for educational non-profit and volunteer organizations.
At one point, he interrupts our conversation to speak with a passing police officer: “You know the guy with the flute, he was causing trouble. Someone’s going to get hurt, the tourists, they don’t know.” Officer Bonilla agrees, “Yeah, we have had some other complaints about him.” Spending the majority of his days staked out in front of ABP, Stepak has a far more than passing familiarity with the goings on of his corner of Harvard Square.
In many ways, Harvard Square is just another collection of tourist traps and chain restaurants. The Au Bon Pain Chess Café however, which Steve Stepak’s business card proudly announces as his address, lends the Square an element all its own. From sun-up to sun-down, and deep into the night, the grizzled warriors of chess can be found plying their trade on the tables in front of the Holyoke Center ABP. Two bucks buys you a game, and unless you’re Kasparov, a brutal beating.
