The Boy Asked Me Not To Sit In The Green Chair Because It Was Occupied

The green chair was in the corner of the living room and it was hideous and I loved it.

The first night I sat in it. The boy — four, blond, obsessed with dinosaurs — came in, stopped, and said, "You can't sit there. It's occupied."

Occupied.

I laughed and asked who by, and he said, "The gentleman."

I moved. I am not brave and I was seventeen and I moved, and I told myself I moved because it was easier.

Over the next year I sat for them maybe forty times. The rules of the green chair were absolute and were enforced entirely by a four-year-old boy with the manner of a small, tired concierge.

You could put things on it. You could not sit on it.

His parents thought it was hilarious. His father used to sit in it deliberately, to wind him up, and the boy would not scream or cry — he would simply stand there, and wait, and after about forty seconds his father would get up, every single time, and afterwards he would be strange for about ten minutes, and he never once explained why.