Joy Sutton a/k/a "The Shuttle", what ever happened to her?

Every now and then, but far less often than it should, a woman enters chess, sleeps with almost all the strong players, and then leaves, never to be heard from again.

One such chess player was Joy Sutton. Few chess players ever knew her real name. Instead, she was known as "The Shuttle".

This unkind term was coined by Steve Brandwein, not to reflect her sleeping habits, but because of the fact that she had her own car and would offer to transport the chess players to wherever they wanted to go. The name stuck.

So, when chess players were sitting around Charlie Hidalgo's Chess House on 72nd Street and wanted to go say to the Marshall Chess Club, rather than take the subway, Brandwein would say: "Let's call the Shuttle".

The shuttle would be called and soon she would show up at the chess club in her car and transport all the players to their new location.

The Shuttle hung around chess for about one year, from 1973 until early 1974. When she disappeared, it was said that she had married a 1500 player. Everyone was astounded. She had slept with just about every master or could have, so why would she marry a 1500 player?

I think the answer was that she did not know that he was a weakie. Her dream and ambition was to become a Class C player. She could not distinguish a strong player from a weak one. I met the guy briefly. He told me that he had defeated Joe Tamargo with a Fried Liver Attack. Tamargo was a master and I asked him about this. Tamargo said it was not true. He did not know the guy and he had never played a two-knights defense against anybody and certainly would remember if he had lost such a game.

The reason I knew her real name is that I lived with her briefly for about two months starting in January 1974. She lived on about 12th Street between Second and Third Avenue, just a few blocks from the Marshall Chess Club. When she invited me to move in with her, there was another man living with her named Richard Campbell, "as in soup" he would always say. However, she told him to get out only three days after I moved in.

She was a teacher at an Elementary School in Harlem located on 122nd Street and about Seventh Avenue. She also ran the chess class and chess club there. One day, she invited me to teach the chess class. I readily agreed. I took the subway to 125th Street and then walked down to 122nd. A boy came up to me and asked me for a cigarette. Just as I was saying "I don't smoke", another boy grabbed me in a strangle hold from behind. The three boys then went through my pockets and took all my money. They could just as easily have killed me. This all happened in broad daylight, just across the street from a school.

After they let me go and ran, I went over to the school. The officers there knew exactly who the boys were. They had previously been expelled from the school. They had just come there but had not been allowed in the door. It was just after leaving the school that they had grabbed me.

The police were called. The names of the boys were given and the police went out to find and arrest them.

I never got to teach the chess class.

A few weeks later, I was called down to the police station for a lineup. There were five people in the lineup. Four were mature adult men and one was a 15-year-old boy. I knew of course that the perpetrator was the 15 year old boy. It bothered me that the lineup was rigged, but I was happy to see the boy in jail, as he was obviously very dangerous.

A few weeks later, I moved out of the Shuttle's apartment. She was too slutty for even my very low standards. Her habit of bringing home men she had just met in bars caused me concern. I called my friend, John Karmondy, to come pick me and my things up in his car. This was just after my stock brokerage firm had collapsed, although I was still legally in business. He took me to stay in his house in Howard Beach, Queens.

I hoped to leave on good terms with the Shuttle, but she was obviously angry that I was moving out. I guess she wanted me to stay.

It was not long after that she moved out herself. One friend said he saw her in the subway with that guy a few months later, but nobody has reported seeing her since.

Does anybody know what ever happened to the Shuttle?

Sam Sloan

On Fri, 05 Jan 2001 10:31:19 GMT, Ofergneezy wrote:

>That's a good place for you to look, Sam. If you can't find her, there's plenty of nubile teenage girls you can try to talk into bed.

In the first place, I have no plans to look for her. I lived with her for two months and then moved out. I could have had her any time I wanted, provided that I used her vibrator, of course. She was so terrible that, once I knew what she was really like, I could not get it up with her, a problem I have never had with any woman since.

I saw no indication that she was embarrassed by her exploits. Indeed, she seemed to be proud of them. Many girls would like to do this if they were brave enough and felt they could get away with it. Why should she be ashamed of it now, 26 years later?

Also note that that time period was near the peak of sexual promiscuity. Sleeping with lots of men was the in-thing to do. It was the fashion of those times. Things have changed.

On the other hand, if I published a list of chess masters she slept with, I can understand that there would be objections. However, I will give you a hint: Just about everybody at the Marshall Chess Club.

She is just one of many girls who have gotten involved in chess and done this. Most have disappeared. One went to prison. One is active in the chess world now, or so I am told.

Sam Sloan


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