Leadership 5 – woodworker, camping enthusiast, day trader, lives in Missoula, MT.
12 January 2010, 12 Noon
“Draw!” yelled Edmund Callipeaux.
Panicking, my mind tried to figure out whether he was challenging me to a duel, or commanding me draw a picture of some kind. Reaching to my side, I had neither pistol, nor sword, nor pencil with which to defend myself!
"What the heck is he talking about?" I wondered to myself.
Turning and looking back down the hallway, I saw Edmund peering through a glass window and into an empty room - - his back was to me as we both stood in a shadowy corridor deep within the warehouse that holds his painting studio.
"What the heck is he doing now?” I wondered to myself.
I stood in silence as I watched Edmund raise his right arm to press his index finger against the glass. And after a moment of hesitation, he traced the letter X on the glass. Turning to me, he then said, “That’s another draw…3 stalemates. Dang!”
I walked down the hallway and to the spot where he stood. As I adjusted my gaze to catch the light upon the surface of the window, I saw that there were 3 games of tic-tac-toe drawn out in a thin layer of dust - - each game ending in a draw.
“I came through here about a month ago and found a grid in the dust of this window with a solitary O in the middle square. So, I obliged my challenger by placing an X in the upper right-hand corner,” Edmund explained. “Thus commencing the greatest competition the Earth has ever known!”
“Did you really think that you could win?” I asked.
“Of course I did! What kind of a question is that? And I almost had the bastard cornered several times during each of these three games…but he or she always drew their O in the worst possible spot…blocking me every time!” Edmund said these words as he mashed his clenched fist into the palm of his open hand…then his expression went cold.
“And so here we are…. another draw!” Edmund said without blinking.
He then drew a fourth grid in the dust and placed an X in its center square. “Take that!” he said as he stood back from the windowpane.*
(*Artist's recreation of the game.)
“It could be anyone,” Edmund said the next day as we walked past the window (the game still stood with Edmund’s lone X in the middle square). “I’ll bet that it’s the UPS truck driver! That’s why he or she only makes their moves every once in a while. They don’t have deliveries to this floor very often…and so they can’t constantly monitor the game like I can. This means that I have an advantage! Tic-tac-toe is not just a game of skill…it’s also a game of constant vigilance!”
“What do you mean by that, Edmund?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” replied Edmund.
A week went by and no further marks were made to the game.
However, at the end of the second week, an O appeared in the middle-left square!
Seeing that the next move was his, Edmund excitedly said, “This reminds me of what little I know about Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. I might need a little time with this, L5.” I told him to take his time and that I would be back at the studio working on our latest painting.
After an hour had passed, Edmund walked into the studio with a strut, “That should just about win it for me! All I need is the upper-right corner and it’s three across and the World Championship!”
I ran out into the hallway to see Edmund’s move: an X in the lower-left corner.
Brilliance?
One…
Two…
Three weeks went by and nothing happened with the game.
Then, late on a Thursday night, Edmund called me at home to say that the mystery person had blocked him in the upper-right corner with an O, but that he had placed an X in the lower-right corner - - thus giving him the tic-tac-toe equivalence of a checkmate.
“Huzzah!” he yelled into the phone, “We’ve got them on the run now!”
HUZZAH!
Huzzah indeed…. However, another two weeks passed and nothing happened with the game (the mystery person made no move whatsoever). I worked with Edmund at his studio during this time, and each day as we walked by the window, the game remained unchanged.
“They’re afraid!” Edmund said one afternoon as we studied the window, “They don’t want to admit defeat. I can’t say that I blame them either… you do have to admire how they’re fighting to the bitter end. The poor fools.”
Another week passed and nothing happened with the game. “Do you think that they’ve given up?” I asked as we left the building one evening.
“Cowards!” was Edmund’s reply.
Then, early this morning, Edmund and I arrived early at his studio to find a guy mopping the stairwell.
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Edmund, “They never clean the stairs in the place!”
“This could be bad, L5!” Edmund yelled as he bounded past the guy with the mop and through the doorway leading to the tic-tac-toe-window-hallway on the second floor. Lagging behind him, I could hear Edmund yelling, “No, no, no,” as I opened the stairwell door.
“They never clean this place…” Edmund looked about as sad and heartbroken as I have ever seen him.
“They never clean this place, L5.”
Looking past Edmund and at the glass windows, I saw that someone (probably the guy mopping the stairs) had washed away the tic-tac-toe games - - inadvertently destroying Edmund’s chance at victory.
“I had them on the run!” muttered Edmund through clenched teeth as his sadness turned into rage. “I’ll bet that they paid to have the building cleaned just to get out of having make their final move!”
Bounding back down the stairwell, Edmund went after the guy with the mop.
Finding myself in not so much of a hurry, I caught up with Edmund several minutes later as he stood alone in the building’s parking lot.
“Professor Moriarty couldn’t have played me any better, L5,” said Edmund as he scanned the area for any signs of the cleaning-mop-man. “Those windows probably haven’t been cleaned in ten...maybe twenty years.”
“And now the anonymous-cleaning-man has disappeared,” I said.
“When will it end? When will it end, L5? When will I ever be able to prove to the world that I’m actually good at something? Something like tic-tac-toe?” Edmund asked.
“Probably never, Edmund. I’m sorry to say, but probably never,” I replied as I turned and walked back into the building. – L5
The clean windows
