Diane Payne’s most recent publications include: Cutleaf Journal, Mukoli, Miracle Monacle, Hairstreak Butterfly, Invisible City,  Best of Microfiction 2022, Another Chicago Magazine, Whale Road Review, Fourth River, Tiny Spoon, Bending Genres, Your Impossible Voice, Superstition Review, Windmill Review, Quarterly West, Spry, Split Lip Review, and The Offing. More can be found here: dianepayne.wordpress.com

The Heavy Lawn Chair

 For ten bucks, the Marketplace Bass Pro anti-gravity lawn chair sounded like a steal, whatever anti-gravity meant. The family were coming for a long visit the next week, and a new comfy lawn chair seemed like the hospitable thing to do since the guests grumbled about the rickety metal chairs, and the two lawn chairs that I picked up for free at a curb. This Bass Pro chair would prove to be a winner.

The weather was pleasant for walking, and I thought it’d be about a five-block walk to retrieve this Marketplace bargain. After I walked five blocks, the clouds disappeared, and it felt increasingly warmer. I wondered how I gauged the distance to this house so incorrectly. I walked past a fellow with a can of beer in his hand, the rest of the six-pack sitting by the curb, as he worked on his car. “Hey, I know you,” he hollered.  I walked a bit closer and gave him a good look. I didn’t recognize him.  “Yeah, you do. I live in the hood.”

He laughed. “I know that.”

Once I finally arrived at the lawn chair house, the woman selling the chair stepped outside, snagged my ten bucks, then said, “I hope you live nearby. This chair is heavy.”

Not wanting this woman to think I was an idiot, I lied and said I didn’t live that far.

Hauling this beastly chair home, I realized the misnomer with calling it anti-gravity, because I was feeling the bulky weight dragging me to the road. Every few steps, I’d switch hands, then trod slowly toward home, hoping this damn chair would prove to be so damn comfortable I’d forget I ever took this long Marketplace bargain walk. There was a brief moment when I thought about sticking out my thumb and hitching a ride. Who would see my thumb beneath this heavy chair? Who would want this massive chair in their car?

Then, lo and behold, a youngish dude veered my way, stopped his car, and leaned out his window to say, “Get in, lady. I’ve been watching you carry that damn chair for blocks. I won’t rape you.”

That was reassuring.

Back in the day, fifty years ago, when I was a young hitchhiker, I don’t remember people pulling over to assure me that they weren’t going to rape me before I climbed into their car, which is the moment I instantly feared that they may rape me.

While I shoved my beastly chair into his backseat, he said, “Hey, sit up front. I ain’t gonna hurt you. Unless you’re more comfortable back there.”

“I was just shoving this chair back there,” I said when I climbed into the front seat.

“Why you carrying that chair around town?”

“I just bought it on Marketplace and thought it wouldn’t be such a long walk to pick it up.”

“That’s a heavy chair. At least now you gotta lawn chair,” he laughed. Then he proceeded to tell me how this was his dad’s car, how he was recently divorced and quite happy about that, but he missed his kids.

I nodded my head. Sighed. Mumbled useless affirmations.

“Ain’t often you see an older, no offense, you ain’t old, you look fit and all, but you look like my dad’s age, and he wouldn’t be carrying no heavy chair to the end of the driveway, and here you are carrying it to, where do you live?” After I told him my address, he added, “Lady, that’s a fucking long walk. You must really like this chair.”

I imagined that he figured I didn’t have a car, or maybe a license, and lived in some tiny hovel, then felt a bit embarrassed when he dropped me off to a house that looked like a relatively normal house, all things considered for this neighborhood, but he didn’t seem to pay any concern to the surroundings. I thanked him for the ride, which I truly did appreciate, and he said, “I can’t wait to tell my dad how I gave a white lady a ride today,” which reminded me of a time hitching out West when a retired couple, who were probably my age now, picked me up, and had me sign their travel journal so their grandkids would believe they had picked up a young woman hitchhiker. “Oh, they’ll get a hoot over this!”