‘Consider ‘The Pawn Shop’ if you are missing a piece from your chess board. Located just outside Kansas City in a small building next to a massive, plaster pawn in white, it’s easy to spot and draws a dozen or so happenstance chess-loving travelers into its parking lot where roughly half as many travelers see fit to enter the store proper.
And it is a store, though the items inside bear no price tags.
The inventory of ‘The Pawn Shop’ consists entirely of pawns and they have them in every shape, size, material, and theme. It isn’t uncommon that reviews for ‘The Pawn Shop’ contain an amount of awe that they, for instance and despite the odds, had a specimen from the decades-old and wood-carved Biblical chess set, where each pawn is a different follower and Jesus is king and Mary, mother of Jesus, is uncomfortably queen. It isn’t uncommon either for those glowing, five-star reviews to be edited down months, or even years later when payment is due.
Pawns are not sold for money at ‘The Pawn Shop;’ they are traded for favors. And these favors have a tendency for putting innocent people in positions to be unwitting accessories to devious, sometimes criminal plots. Unlike the pawns, those favors can be bought and, for favors, ‘The Pawn Shop’ gladly accepts cash.’
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
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