When he first introduced himself, she nearly laughed out loud.
What kind of a name is Leech? Like
Ora, he wasn’t very tall, and he had crooked teeth and thinning hair with several
uncontrollable wisps that floated in the air in spite of a healthy dose of
Brylcream. His face and hands were so pale that they had a kind of yellow sheen
to them, and she wondered if he wasn’t suffering from jaundice. What appealed
to her, however, was what she called his cockeyed smile. When he smiled, his
large, oval head seemed to shift more on one side than the other. One eye would
open wider, the mouth would turn crooked and he would raise one eyebrow. He
even tilted his head a little bit.
The first time he smiled in that way, he also tipped his hat
to her, and she thought of her thirteen-year-old son Dale. He, too, had a
slightly large oval head, which he cocked to the left when he smiled. And Leta
was at a disadvantage. Dale’s needs were weighing heavily on her mind that
evening. Her husband Ora was between house painting jobs, the weather was
unpleasant which kept him from his usual wanderings, and Dale was having a
particular difficult time with a larger classmate at school. That afternoon Ora
had been after the boy from the time that he arrived home from school. Dale was
in a poor mood and slammed the door, which awoke his stepfather, who had been
napping on the couch. Waking Ora in such a way, Leta and both of her children
had learned, always resulted in raised voices and some sort of punishment. In
this case, Dale initially suffered through having to go back and forth through
the door over two dozen times before appeasing Ora’s demand that he do it
properly. However, Dale was not satisfied with the repetition or the result and
slammed his bedroom door right after. This caused Ora to rise from the couch
and charge to the bedroom.
While Leta could not be considered a lenient mother, she did
allow her children to have interior locks on their bedroom doors. Having had
their lives disrupted several times in their young lives, she wanted them to
have some sense of safety. When they moved in with Ora after the marriage, she
had locks installed on all three bedroom doors. Ora hated it, mostly because she
hid the spare keys to the children’s bedrooms from him.
After the door slamming altercation, Dale had stormed into his
bedroom and locked the door behind him. Ora twisted the handle several times
and yelled for the boy to open it, but Dale refused to respond. Unsatisfied,
Ora stomped into the kitchen where Leta was cooking their supper and demanded
that she give him the key.
“I’ll take care of it,” Leta said calmly, as she stirred the
simmering stew.
“This is my house, Leta,” Ora declared, “and I won’t have that
kind of behavior in it.”
“I’ll take care if it,” Leta repeated.
“You spoil them kids,” her husband charged. “You let them get
away with everything.”
“Ora,” she said, “I’m sure there’s an explanation. You know
he’s having trouble with some other boy at school.” Then she changed the
subject. “The rain’s stopped. Why don’t you take a little walk, about fifteen
minutes, and when you come home I’ll have supper on the table?”
Ora grunted. He was too lazy to remain for long at a high
energy level, and was beginning to calm down.
“Fine,” he said, and then added, “But he gets no supper
tonight. Do you hear me?”
Finally she faced him. “Yes, I hear you.”
While she registered calm and certainty, she wanted to slap
her husband across his contorted face. She simply wanted him away from her.
Four hours later, she was sitting at her usual table in the
speakeasy and talking to Mr. Leech Hoose.
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