Uncle Otto’s Chair.
By Dick
Morgan
When we moved the ancient square-backed chair into the
living room, I had to acknowledge a new member in the family. It was my Old Uncle Otto’s chair, the only
one in which he could sit upright enough to talk in spite of his last-stage
emphysema. He was old when I was still
in the primary grades and still bedazzled by his sea stories. I remember looking up and seeing the lamplight
reflecting off his shiny bald head as he spoke in short sentences of the adventures
of his youth.
He passed away in that chair. Well, not actually died in it, but hunkered
down in it until his last upright moments.
I can still hear him clearing his throat and exhaling the noisy,
rumbling, emphysematic basso that
shook the floorboards in his San Francisco living room, telling us kids about his time as
captain of the four-masted square-rigger Patosie,
at sea for months at a time. I was in
awe of him, even though he’d shriveled up like a prune by then. I vowed to have
such adventures myself when I grew up.
At the very least, I’ve tried to live my life so as to be worthy to
carry on the family name.
But occasionally, as I sit in his old chair, I realize
I’ve fallen short. Like today.
After an entire day of satisfying my
gluttonous appetites, I became disappointed in my daily performance, and
started praying that God didn’t come and take me off the planet to make room
for someone who would make better use of His clean air. I’d frittered away my karma eating pizza and
washing it down with sparkling White Zinfandel, and now I’d breathed in a piece
of crust, and laryngeospasmed myself into a coughing fit. Then I realized I was sitting in Uncle Otto’s
chair and making the same noises as he did those decades ago. Now I was the old, bald, fat guy with the
whitened goatee and noisy lung sounds.
It was like I’d turned into the old geezer. Even my middle name was Otto, although that
was not my choosing. But here we were, joined together across six decades, our
foul old-man smells infusing and mixing within this chair.
The memory of the old man, courageous
even in his dying, sharpened in my mind as I realized I was sitting exactly as
I remembered him sitting, bolt upright, gasping for a clean breath. It was like a spectral connection. I marveled at the altered perspective, and
wondered what he’d have to say to me, were his ghost actually in the room,
emanating from the chair. And I imagined
him saying, Ahummmm, wish I could breathe
better. It’s sad when the lungs go. Take better care of yourself than I did. That’s what the chair said to me in my hour
of contrition.
I wondered then how it was that I
should proceed on living this better life.
I was out of practice. My diet
was junk food, my exercise laughably sporadic, my writing mostly sucked. I was failing. I’d have to strive harder to live up to my
potential. I’d have to make decisions, make changes. I’d have to toe the line, tighten my belt,
grit my teeth. There was only one thing
I could do.
I burned that chair.
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