The Green Chairs

by Stella Juliana Bonifazi

The summer I turned ten, I grew out of childhood sitting in those green metal chairs. The ones that sat out in the field at the farm under the big, winding hackberry tree that had the branch real low to the ground, so you’d use those green chairs as a stepping stool to climb all over that tree. The ones that Papaw and Granny sat on every morning with a cup of coffee, not speaking, just looking out towards the pond with their elbows on the armrests next to each other. Those green chairs that had sat under that tree for generations, seeing weddings and funerals and birthdays and Christmases, seating sons and daughters and grandkids and cousins and all that while staying that same seafoam green in our little landlocked world.

That summer, I was sitting there with my aunt drinking grape juice out of her fancy wineglasses—green ones, to match the chairs and the early-summer, storm-threatening sky. It was late May and that last tornado of the season was still trying to hang on. The wind had been whipping the boughs all around the whole day.

Aunt Jenny? I asked.

Aunt Jenny let me sit with her that night because she said I was one of the grown girls now. She could see how mature I’d gotten. It must’ve shown all over me, I could feel it like it was a tangible thing.

Yes, Mary-Anne? she asked back.

She smiled at me through her wine glass filled with real wine. She was quite a bit younger than Mama was but all her boys were older than me. I remembered in that moment how much I used to envy her, how much I wanted to be her when I was truly grown. She was gorgeous: dark auburn hair that waved down to her hips, and she had somehow managed to grow out of the family nose, opting instead for a cute little thing that you’d see on a fairy or Elly May Clampett, but in the pictures of her as a kid she looked just like me. Her boys didn’t look anything like the rest of us, didn’t even hardly look like each other.

Aunt Jenny had told me they even wrote a story about how pretty she was in the local Tribune when she was a teenager. Mama used to talk about how she was the one who actually worked for the Tribune, that she was the one writing the stories, yet all anyone cared about was how Aunt Jenny looked in the photo of her wearing that skimpy little bikini. She’d won the Spring Harvest Beauty Pageant and was a local celebrity from then on.

We sat in the green chairs and watched the weather whipping around. I almost didn’t ask her. Almost just left things be, like Mama always taught me was most polite.

What were you and Mama arguing about earlier? I asked.

I thought you were asleep this morning, when I got here. How come you didn’t come see me?

I heard when Aunt Jenny arrived that morning. Her boys were out in the field causing a stir. I felt they always despised me for not being a boy for them to play with. I felt they always despised Mama for it too.

I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes from the day before. As I started racing down the steps I heard Mama and Aunt Jenny whisper-shouting at each other over the clanging of the kettle and the enamel mugs.

‘Cause I heard you and Mama fighting, I said.

Oh, it wasn’t a fight, she said. Just some silly old sister grudges, is all.

Didn’t sound like something silly. Mama sounded real mad with you.

Well your mama’s always mad at something, I’m just an easy target.

Mama was angry a lot, I thought. She’d yell at me at least once a day, about a stain on my shirt or for running around with my shoes untied or for playing with the ducks instead of doing my homework or for letting our dog Rocko up on the couch. I thought back to that morning while we sat in the green chairs and watched the weather whip its way through the grasses and trees, flower petals flying around in the air and stripping the last remnants of spring from everything.

You can’t just keep showing up like this, Jenny, Mama had said.

Like hell I can’t, Aunt Jenny said. This was my home, too, same as yours.

It was. Not anymore. You’re grown now—in fact, you decided that a long time ago.

They didn’t say anything for a second. I heard the sink running and then the kettle banged against the stovetop.

What happened with this one? Mama asked.

Same old, same old, Aunt Jenny said.

Silence again. The kettle started whistling.

Let me see, Mama said.

It’s not all that bad, Aunt Jenny said.

Show me.

More quiet. Mama hissed.

There’s some rubbing alcohol in the bathroom, behind the—

Behind the detergent, I know. You’re just like Mom.

There were bustling sounds coming from the kitchen. I wanted to go down there and say hi to Aunt Jenny, show her how different I was after the few months since she’d last seen me. Instead I just sat down on the steps and waited to hear more. Aunt Jenny hissed next.

Hold still, Mama chastised. It was the same voice she used when she was pulling my hair too tight on picture-day mornings.

I can do it myself, Aunt Jenny said.

Fine, do it then. But this is the last time, Jen. I don’t wanna see you crawling back here crying ‘cause you made another poor decision.

Don’t worry, I won’t make the mistake of thinking you cared again.

Aunt Jenny made a groaning sound. You got anything stronger than coffee in here? She asked. This burns like hell.

I heard an enamel mug bang down on the tiled kitchen table and I heard Mama’s footsteps coming around the corner. I hid behind the wall of the stairs and watched as she stormed out the side door and strode off to her garden. I watched her angrily pull weeds until I heard the kitchen cupboards open and close several times, then I snuck back up to my room and crawled back in bed with my dirty cut off shorts still on.

Everyone around knew Aunt Jenny, which I guess wasn’t that far-fetched since we all knew everyone who so much as breathed on our little town. But Aunt Jenny was more than just known around town like they’d know the mailman or the grocer. They talked about her even when she wasn’t there, like they were all just awaiting her return. She used to get free cookies at the diner, and the butcher would pile on a little extra meat every time. She even said all the boys from all the high schools within a three-town radius would drive up and down our streets hoping to give her a ride, but she told me she’d never settle for anything less than a sports car and that neither should I. Those boys in those beat-up old trucks won’t do us ladies any good, she’d said. That all they ever did was use us and dump their mistakes on us and then drive off with their tires squealing and their mufflers hanging off like the trash they were.

Just like many celebrities though, I suppose, she became a little less famous and a little more infamous. I used to believe every story she told me, about all the boys that chased after her and the girls who hated her because they could never be her. About how all the little old ladies in town always complimented her dresses and all the little old men would kiss her knuckles when she’d tell them hello.

But that past year or so, when she’d take me into town to get an ice cream or to tag along while she did her shopping, I’d started to notice people didn’t look at her like she was a beauty pageant princess anymore. The old ladies at the makeup counter never wanted to help her. Often when she’d pick up the hot pink lipstick from the display, I heard them whispering words I didn’t know back then and was too afraid to ask about, though I knew they were an insult from the way they dragged out the vowels and said them just over a whisper. They’d call her things like a tramp or a lush. I didn’t know what they meant but I knew Mama would slice the thinnest, greenest switch off the hackberry the second any of those words left my mouth, so I never asked. The boys all still looked at her but they almost looked ashamed to be doing it. Some would stare long and hard with a little crease on their sweaty foreheads. Others would just push their sunglasses up after a second, shake their head, and drive off. Those must have been those nasty boys in the beat-up trucks Aunt Jenny was warning me about, I was sure of it. And she was right, I thought, they wouldn’t ever do us ladies any good.

I would always imagine the way it must’ve been when she’d tell me her stories of her teenage days, being admired by everybody, and how nice it must’ve been. When she’d take me out to town and I’d see everyone sneer at her while she just walked on with her same big, pretty smile and her long, shiny hair blowing in the summer wind, I’d just tell myself she was one of those real-life princesses like from my movies and everyone in town was just like the evil stepmothers.

Aunt Jenny? I asked again.

Yes Mary-Anne, she said and gave a long, quiet sigh. Her eyes were closed and her glass was empty.

What happens if the tornado comes through here? I asked her real nonchalant-like, trying to convince us both I didn’t care whether it did or didn’t.

I could feel the green from the sky and the humidity like a damp wool blanket covering me on a hot beach. It had gotten so still. The new leaves were stagnant, the birds and the squirrels had stowed themselves away deep in the trees, and the clouds had started to turn into a dense wall of grey. We were all outside watching to see how it developed. Aunt Jenny and I were all prim and proper and sophisticated in our metal green thrones while Daddy and her three dumb boys were out playing with our coon dog, Rocko, in the tall grass. They kept antagonizing him, throwing sticks at him and calling him each and every way ’til he’d get mad and start howling and snipping at the air.

Nothing, she said, ’cause there’s no way that tornado’d dare to come through here.

Well, but what if it does?

No way.

How do you know? You’re not the weatherman.

Well, I thought you knew already. I told your daddy to tell you, you’re old enough.

Tell me what? I asked her. I started to get excited and turned around in the chair to face her better, sloshing my grape juice around. Aunt Jenny gave me a sidelong glance and looked down to where the juice had landed on my cut-offs. I turned back around all calm and graceful-like.

This place is magic, she whispered, turning to me with her eyes getting real big and holding the smile that her mouth was hiding. That’s how it’s stood here all these years. Didn’t you wonder how everything here is always a bit brighter than everywhere else? How the flowers always smell a bit sweeter? Nothing bad can ever happen here.

I knew magic wasn’t real. That was kid’s stuff, my teachers had told me as much. I didn’t want to believe her, to show her that I couldn’t be tricked like a little baby anymore, but I did believe her. I believed her with everything I was—at least for all of an hour or so.

I’d drunk the last of my juice and she took my glass without a word and went inside to get some more for the both of us.

Mama was inside cooking dinner with the door open. It was the first day of summer vacation and I’d ended the year with all As and one B, so she was making my favorite to celebrate—fried chicken with cornbread and fruit salad. I think she was even making her double chocolate cake, though she was trying to keep that bit a secret.

Aunt Jenny’s boys were in the field with Daddy and Rocko. I was watching the way they played with that poor dog while I waited for Aunt Jenny to come back. They were pulling on his big floppy ears when he’d get close enough and then one of the others would come up behind him and yank on his tail. I wished more than anything, my whole life, that Aunt Jenny’d had girls instead.

Knock it off, I yelled at them.

They ignored me.

Oh, we’re just having fun Mary-Anne, Daddy said. The boys and Aunt Jenny are our guests, let them indulge a little.

I remember not knowing what “indulge” meant but I wanted nothing to do with it. I did anything Daddy told me back then, though. He was funny and kind and sometimes he’d slip me some leftover cake for breakfast if Mama was still asleep, which I was hoping he’d do the next morning, so I obliged. Though really I just wanted to pull on those boys’ ears real hard and see how they liked it. I’d hoped Rocko would get ahold of one of them and bite real hard ‘til they bled. I watched in anticipation of it.

It was just the three of us here most of the time: me, Mama, and Daddy. Aunt Jenny and her boys lived about an hour away in the bigger city, so they would come over for all the holidays and most summers. Daddy had a job in town and he’d drive me to school each morning during the rest of the year. We’d listen to his music the whole way there and back. I knew all the words to all The Beatles’ songs by the time I was in kindergarten and he’d tell me how smart I was, which pleased me to no end. Mama had always told me girls were smarter than boys, but it was nice to have some proof of it.

The weekends were always for me and Mama, though. She’d teach me how to bake and cook, how to sew, how to look like you were minding your own business when really you were the mastermind behind everything. All the things a growing young woman should know, she’d tell me, just like Granny had told her.

I was still looking out to the boys and Rocko with what I thought was my most menacing scowl when I heard Aunt Jenny and Mama shouting at each other. The chairs were set too far away from the house so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. They were always bickering about things, even in the best of times. Aunt Jenny, as Mama put it, was always too boisterous and devil-may-care and Mama, as Aunt Jenny put it, always had a stick shoved too far up her ass. I thought that had to be uncomfortable, so whenever Mama would get mad at me, I ’tried not to blame her cause I would just imagine having a stick up inside me and thought I’d be mad all the time too.

But Aunt Jenny was the one who would tell me all of her—and everyone else’s—secrets, so I would always take her side. She’d told me about the time she stole a lip gloss from the pharmacy when she was in junior high, or how Mama had about seven boyfriends before she met Daddy. She told me about all the adventurous and daring boyfriends she had. She’d confide in me about how Granny didn’t like her anymore and how she had to do everything on her own. It felt like we were a little team, like she understood me when no one else did, so I had to stick with her. Not in any big way that would certainly get me in trouble, but I’d scoot towards her a little or shoot a quick frown at Mama. It was just enough that everyone knew it but no one could say it out loud ’cause it’d make the fighting worse.

With Aunt Jenny here, though, everything felt untouchable. Like our little world would remain frozen in time and we’d spend eternity sipping grape juice in the green chairs under the full tree and the warm air. But the sky was still too green and the air far too still.

Mama and Aunt Jenny’s fighting didn’t go on for long but they sure were loud. I’d heard some glass shatter and then Aunt Jenny was quickly walking back out towards me. I always had known better, somehow, to not bring up how they’d fought once it stopped. Daddy must’ve known this rule too, ’cause he just kept a steady gaze on the boys and Rocko out in the grass.

Here you go, darling, she said as she started to sit back down in the chair next to me.

Aunt Jenny handed me my wine glass again and I took a big gulp of it. I nearly spat it back out, but she was watching and told me to keep it in. It was bitter and it hurt my throat, but I did as she told me.

I think you’re grown up enough to have some big-girl wine with me, she said. It’ll help rid those fears of yours, about the storm and such.

She looked away from me and out towards the pond past the rough housing, just gazing off at nothing. I hated my fears. I felt stupid when I was afraid. It wasn’t something a grown girl was supposed to be. Daddy was never afraid. Those boys thought they were never afraid and they always teased me when they thought I was, though I saw their faces when they weren’t minding Granny and she would whip out her little pocketknife and search for the thinnest, greenest branch she could find. Even Mama never seemed like she was afraid, always going at everything that came her way with a high chin and a strong voice. So, I drank some more, and it never got to tasting any better but I got this funny feeling like I’d get after playing on the merry-go-round in the school playground for too long, when we’d all have a contest to see who could go the fastest and the longest without throwing up.

I sat there real still, sipping out of my glass ’til it was empty and was still watching the boys mess with our poor dog some more. I thought they’d have to get bored of it sooner or later. Rocko was starting to look like he was getting real tired of it too.

Then one of the boys, the oldest one, shouted, Watch this! and tossed a big rock towards our duck pen.

The ducks were mine and Mama’s. Daddy never saw much of a purpose to them. He always thought chickens were more practical, always saying they tasted better either grown or shelled. The rock hit the door to the pen real hard and scared all the ducks.

Leave them alone, I screamed. They didn’t do nothing to you, quit messing with my animals.

This must have egged them on. It had always been so easy to get me worked up, that wildness always just something that was sitting there ready to be provoked, and they seemed to think that was funnier than anything they could find on the television. I didn’t have the same authority Mama did, though she tried to teach it to me. I was too soft, she’d say, with a squeezing hand on my cheek and a hint of a grin on her face. All three of the boys started tossing every rock they could find at the pen then, each hitting it hard and rattling the screen door on its rickety hinges.

Then it was like all at once things had tilted. The air went wholly still then, not even a hint of a breeze anymore. There weren’t any birds chirping or tree frogs singing, just the sound of the ducks hissing and quacking and Rocko barking. I don’t know which one of them had thrown it, but one rock hit the latch just right and it came undone. The ducks were already riled up so they busted the lightweight door open in a second and ran out at all directions. We didn’t have a lot of them so it wouldn’t take too long to get them back in there, but no one seemed to even be thinking about that. They were all just laughing as those sweet little birds ran around in a frenzy.

Aunt Jenny, Daddy, do something, I screamed at them.

Oh, don’t worry honey, Daddy said, we’ll get ’em back in there before the storm hits.

I tried to get out of the chair but I couldn’t stand right. I stumbled all over myself and fell out of it. My glass fell to the ground and the last sip that was left seeped into the dirt by the leg of the green chair. They were all laughing harder then and I could feel all the heat in me rise to my face. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t get my legs to work like I was some big baby learning to walk all over again and all I could think of was how those stupid boys had invaded my little piece of magic out here and ruined everything. Aunt Jenny had brought them here when it was my celebration. I didn’t want them there in the first place. I knew all they’d do was wreck things and eat all my cornbread.

The wine hadn’t worked like Aunt Jenny said it would. It did not one bit of good to stop my fears. I didn’t think Aunt Jenny would ever lie to me. Not me. Not her special little Mary-Anne. I was the one she’d take with her to get treats without anyone else even though the boys would whine about it for hours afterwards. I was the one that she’d come to every summer night, when everyone else was asleep, and we’d sit under my sheets with a flashlight and tell secrets about ourselves and the family and our friends and the world. Everyone else lied, I knew they did. I certainly did, too. Whenever I wanted to get out of trouble or when I wanted to stay up late on a school night to watch my favorite show, I would lie. But never to Aunt Jenny. Never to her.

No one was watching Rocko anymore, but I saw him as he started to point. Before I could try to call him off, he charged on the smallest duck at breakneck speed. He was always a good hunting dog, coming home with Daddy in the fall with a whole bouquet of quail or rabbits or some other small animal, so it was no wonder he’d been so good at catching ducks, too.

That smallest duck was my favorite one. It was always so much littler than the others, ever since it hatched, and it had grown this real pretty green spot on it as it lost its down feathers. I’d sit out in the yard with them on every afternoon I could. All the others would mostly ignore me unless I was sharing my snack, but I’d read my schoolbooks while that little duck would waddle all around me and come stand on my feet.

Mama and Daddy always told me not to name the ducks ’cause I’d get too attached and they weren’t pets, but I named this one. I called him Bucky and would giggle to myself when I called him Bucky Duck, admiring how clever I was. And now, as he was trying to run away from Rocko, not able to fly, I was screaming his name and crying on the cold grass in front of those chairs. Rocko snatched him up by the neck and shook him around as hard as he could.

I’d always loved Rocko; he was a sweet boy and, in the winter, I’d sneak him up into bed with me at night. But I forgot all that as I ran out there best I could and whacked Rocko over and over with the nearest stick I could find. I tried to conjure every power I saw in Mama and Granny when they’d get that switch out for me or the boys. I thought if it worked half as well as it did on us, it’d have to work on Rocko. He wouldn’t let go though. He had that duck in his grasp now.

Aunt Jenny came up behind me and picked me up by the waist, wine glass still in her other hand. I was kicking and screaming and crying and telling her how much I hated her, how much I hated all of them. All I could hear was the rush of the blood and the wine in my head and everyone’s laughter, including Aunt Jenny’s.

Mary-Anne, now, stop all this fussing, she said in my ear. They’re just being boys; they’re just having some fun.

I broke out of her arms and ran back to the house, swerving left and right and barely able to keep myself up. I ran straight past Mama and the usually delicious smelling food that now just turned my stomach and locked myself in my room for the rest of the night. No one came after me for a while, though I heard Mama and Aunt Jenny yelling at each other again. I didn’t care what they were saying to each other, and my thoughts were too fuzzy anyway from grief and the wine for me to remember it. Mama did come up after dinner to check on me, but I’d shoved my chair up under the doorknob like I’d seen all the crying girls on the television do when they didn’t have a lock. I spent the rest of the night listening to everyone eating my celebratory dinner and laughing with each other and thinking how I’d never be able to trust a one of them again.

The next morning, I went outside real early, before anyone else got up and the sun was just barely lighting up the clear sky. I went out to sit on those chairs. Branches were scattered all over the lawn but those chairs were still upright and sturdy as ever. It was still a little chilly and I sat down in the rainwater that had collected from the storm the night before. It had raged on long and hard, pounding against my windows and shaking them in their frames. I hadn’t slept a wink, just knowing there was something terrible happening out there but going crazy not being able to tell what exactly it was.

As the sun came up more and started lighting up the farm, I could see that the tornado had wiped out the old barn to the west. It was the one where Mama and Daddy got married, and Granny and Papaw before them. I had birthday parties in there, I’d play hide and seek with Daddy or Aunt Jenny behind the old, unused stables. I was supposed to get married in there one day to some handsome prince and it would be like a fairy tale. That’s what everyone promised me. But Aunt Jenny had lied to me, just like the rest of them. There wasn’t an ounce of magic in this place.

 

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Stella Juliana Bonifazi is a queer photographer and emerging author. She has received an MFA in creative writing and is pursuing an MA in English, both at Arcadia University. She is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma and is now living in Philadelphia. She attended the Kansas City Art Institute and received a BFA in creative writing and a BFA in photography. Her work has been featured in issues 15 and 16 of Sprung Formal, the April 2024 issue of Nowhere Girl Collective, and issue 46 of Fabula Argentea.