Personal Writing – Third Draft

This is the prose draft of the incident. It was presented to my writing group in a slightly different form and I made some changes based on their suggestions. The changes were largely in grammar–fixing some confusing run-ons and misplaced modifiers that made the story difficult to understand in places. One major change I made based on their suggestions was the inclusion of my reason for purchasing a wheelchair. My original opening sentence just read “I’d been on the look out for a good deal on a used wheelchair for some time.” I liked the ambiguity of why I wanted to purchase a wheelchair, and since one of my main goals with this piece was brevity I didn’t want to include too much extraneous background information about what I intended to do with a wheelchair. However, my writing group found this ambiguity distracting. We decided that the issue could be addressed with one sentence and both keep the piece brief and not confuse the reader.

Big Red’s

            I wanted a cheap camera dolly, so I’d been on the look out for a good deal on a used wheelchair for some time. Cruising past Big Red’s Trading Post in Kenova, I noticed one sitting by the side of the road obviously displayed to attract the casual shopper.
            Big Red’s was a semi-permanent yard sale on a prime piece of real estate located across the street from a disused amusement park. The lot was occupied by a house trailer, a shed, and a cornucopia of found items clearly gleaned from estate sales or desperate consignments. They had a stack of VHS tapes warping in the sun, a variety of garden equipment, piles of baby clothes, some stoves and kitchen appliances clearly out of service since the early 70’s, and three wheelchairs.
            I cruised the wares, careful to not show too much interest and overplay my hand. Finally, with calculated casualness, I inquired about the wheelchairs.
            Neither of the men on the lot could help me. To get a quote, Big Red had to be roused from her trailer.
            She strode into the hot June sun with an ice water in hand. She looked all of one hundred pounds and every day of her seventy years. She didn’t seem happy to see me, and I think wheelchair prices ran steep because of it. Forty-five dollars for the show room model by the road. Thirty-five for the model near the shed with a missing arm. She didn’t have a price ready for the one out back—the real honey.
            This is the one I’d had my eye one since my first walk around the grounds. It had rusted axles, a torn seat, and the beginnings of a mud dauber’s nest on the back of it. It’s position in the back, away from the prying eyes of the public with the other destroyed and worthless items, reeked of abandonment. To put a handicapped person in this chair would be inhumane. It seemed like a surefire steal to me.
            I walked Big Red around to the back of the shed and asked her how much she wanted for this junked item. She didn’t seem sure at first, but finally settled on five dollars. I said I wanted to check it out first since I had little interest in a wheelchair that wouldn’t adequately wheel. I sat in it for a few minutes and rolled around. Finally, I figured it was worth the risk.
            I wheeled my prize back around front and fetched my last twenty out of my wallet.
            “Five dollars it is,” I said to Big Red.
            “Oh, I couldn’t let it go for that much,” she back pedaled in a tone tantamount to “I wonder how much I can squeeze out of this kid.”
            I counter offered ten. She reluctantly agreed. I took a tone. She took offense. Her son asked me if I was from New Jersey. I said no. I just didn’t like it when the price of items changed in accordance with how badly I wanted them.
            Negotiations took a sour turn from there.
            What followed is not my proudest moment—yelling at a septuagenarian on her own property about a five dollar difference in price on a piece of used medical equipment.
            She told me to take a walk.
            I demanded my money back.
            Eventually cooler heads prevailed.
            I accepted nine dollars and seventy-five cents as change for my twenty, demurely declining when Big Red started counting out pennies.
            I wedged my wheelchair into the trunk with no assistance.

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