The Orange Chair

NYC, family heirlooms, conforming

One can furnish a New York City apartment from the furniture left on the street. At least, when one was a struggling actor in 1988.  Anything was game that didn’t smell and could be carried down the street or stuffed into a subway car or taxi—if the driver stopped for you and that table.

Jeffrey and I moved in together. It was 1988ish and we were in love.

“We need furniture,” I said.

“I have a couch and a chair my dad shipped to me a few years ago. And there’s this lamp.”

“We could always use a lamp. Wait. Your Brooklyn roommates left vomit stains on the couch and that chair is well, ugly.

“It’s a chair.”

“It’s orange, tweed, and itchy. The chair designer from 1972 was on mushrooms.”

Jeffrey nodded hesitantly and revealed that the upholstered chair reminded him of his mom who had passed away just a few years prior. (I should probably mention the irony that said chair was in his childhood home, in the living room where the children were forbidden to enter let alone sit on the furniture – so Jeffrey never sat in the orange chair until New York.)

The plaid stained couch stayed in Brooklyn with his former roommates. The orange chair relocated with us. So did the brass lamp that looked like a train whistle. We needed lighting in our prewar apartment and I made excuses for it. “I guess it’s chic-ish, sort of.”

I found this one on 1stDibs for $5400. Huh?

We still have the lamp! I think it looks like an old train whistle. Jeff believes the design is based on centuries old oil lamps.

Our apartment was a mish mash of anything we could afford even if it was “uncool-vintage™.”  We splurged on a refectory table that wobbled. Jeffrey folded a piece of paper and tucked it under the base; voila. The mission bench needed a new seat cushion and A LOT of carpenter’s glue to hold it together. An actor friend who sewed as a side job surprised us with a cushion.

The apartment was livable, except for that orange chair. It looked like it could have been on the set of All in the Family. But even Archie Bunker would squirm on the sticky wool fabric in need of cleaning and Edith would require an extra pillow for back support.

Archie Bunker’s chair from the hit TV show, All In The Family; 1971-1979.

There are times in life when something disgusting happens to you that you can then take advantage and tell your partner you’d feel so much better if say, an orange chair was discarded.

*****

A new bagel place opened across the street from our apartment building. Every Sunday morning either Jeffrey or I would run out for the New York Times and bagels. It was one of our first rituals as a couple.

We spread out the newspaper (back when actual news came out in actual print) all over the bed as though we had a new puppy. But instead of paper training we read sections.

“Are you done with the Book Reviews?”

“Where’s the Art section?”

“Paul Goldberger really hates that new building on 57th.”

The bagels were toasted, and half eaten. Crumbs strewn on the paper plates. As I picked up the other half of my bagel, something underneath caught my eye. I flipped it over. Baked into my onion bagel was a tuft of hair. It was a handful, like something you’d pull from a brush belonging to a Newfoundland.

No words needed; Jeffrey saw the expression on my sickened face.

“What?” he said.

I showed him.

“What the--?”

I bolted to the bathroom and spit out any lingering crumbs in my mouth. Luckily, no hair. I brushed my teeth. Jeffrey already threw on his coat, the half hairy bagel in one hand.

“I’m going over there.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll say, ‘This is unacceptable.’”

“Yes. Unacceptable.”

Jeffrey left. The heavy door slammed behind him. I went into the living area. Every disgusting thing that had happened to me flooded my head.

Last summer I lived in 11 different apartments. One was above a Chinese restaurant and had a mouse problem. I slept on a fold out couch (probably found on the street) and heard a crinkling noise coming from the kitchenette. In the morning, I noticed my loaf of bread was broken into. Holes made from chewed plastic and chunks of dough gone.

The orange chair mocked me. If it could talk it would have said, “Welcome to New York City.”

Jeffrey returned.

“Well?”

“The guy took the bagel and threw it in the garbage.”

“Bagel man didn’t say anything?”

“Yeah. He said, ’Want another bagel?’”

“No apology?”

“Nothing.”

That was that.

(20-somethings still don’t know much about “self-advocating”.)

Jeffrey saw me eyeing the orange chair. I wondered why it bothered me so much. It was a piece of furniture that didn’t quite fit in anywhere. I realized the chair was me. I never conformed. My friends were usually outsiders too. As a teen, I didn’t fit in with my broken family. It wasn’t until I moved to New York City that I felt I belonged, at home. And I wanted a chair that represented this feeling.

“Jeffrey? Do you think if we got rid of that chair, I would feel whole?”

He knew. He always knew what I was thinking.

“No. But it’s fucking ugly. Let’s get rid of it.”

“Okay.”

“Plus, you almost ate a clump of hair. We need to de-louse this day.”

We borrowed a rolling pallet from the building Super, Manny. We didn’t ask for further help because we didn’t have money for a tip.

“Manny, any chance you want this chair?”

Manny the Super took one look, swallowed a gasp, and kindly said, “No, thank you.”

We rolled the chair out of our apartment, down the long hallway and into the elevator. Panting and sweating, we rested for the three flights.

“What the hell is this chair made of? Cement?” I said.

As we tugged and towed through the lobby a neighbor flattened himself against the wall as we passed. I wanted to reassure him that it wasn’t a bomb just an ugly chair.

Once outside we decided to leave it on the corner. After all, it was 1988. Everyone left their old, used, discarded, even broken furniture on the sidewalk. And it would all be gone within a few hours as though the NY furniture fairy scooped up all the pieces. (The fairies were usually struggling actors like us.)

Monday… Tuesday… Wednesday…

Jeffrey and I went about our days, temping, cater-waitering, standing on an “Open Call” line for four hours in the hopes of being chosen to audition for one line in a new musical at Playwright’s Horizons, waiting on another line at the post office so we could mail out our pictures and resumes to producers of non-union horror films... And every day, as we turned the corner of 24^th and 9th, there it was: the orange chair. No one took it.

We placed bets. We made up conversations between homeless people passing by the chair and determining it was just too horrible for their cardboard box. No one even wanted the parts: springs, cushion innards, nothing.

Thursday night Jeffrey came home.

“So?

“It’s gone.”

“Really? It found a home?”

“Or a big ass garbage truck.”

“You okay?” I asked him, remembering his initial attachment.

“My mom was cheap but even she would have approved of our decision.”

Decades and several houses later, we still have inherited items. Jeffrey’s sister and father passed away (1990 and 2002) and without any of his original family left, he’s afflicted with object-attachment issues. I feel beyond blessed that my sisters and parents are still in my life so I can’t claim to understand how he feels. Still, there are some items that I gently inquire about:

“Honey? Do you still want all these tombstone awards given to your dad for his Real Estate work in San Francisco? And why are they called ‘tombstones?’”

“It’s ironic. Yeah, we can get rid of those. And, I know I’ve still got those twenty boxes of slides from his photography. I’ll scan them this week.”

Some items are downright cool, heirlooms for the kids. Jeffrey’s sister worked at NASA in the High Energy Astro Physics department. These awards were presented to Jeff and his dad, posthumously. (We miss you, Laura.)

Meanwhile, I’m also guilty of hoarding stuff I think our kids may want someday. Kindergarten art, a collection of all the t-shirts from every school and sport team, a random coffee mug and yes, even a favorite chair. But it’s not orange.

1.        Did you grow up in a home with a living room that was off limits?

2.        Any orange chair equivalents in your life?

3.        Do you hoard or purge?