Leah and Her Stuffed House
Earl and me, we been alone for a long time. I don’t mean we ain’t got no friends, sure we do. We got quite a few, really. Like the guys at Ernie’s Bar and the folks at Bingo every Saturday down at the VFW hall. What I mean by us bein alone is that we ain’t got no kids. Earl says that’s why I am the way I am – why I’m so intrested in other people’s affairs. He says maybe if I coulda got pregnant, had me a baby or two, I’d be livin my own life and not tryin to live other people’s. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know. All I know is that when Earl got the job at the flower shop, my life became a whole lot more intrestin.
That job was just about perfect, for both of us. The guy that owned the shop gave Earl a regular paycheck every two weeks and let him keep all the money he got for tips. And me, well, I got to hear all Earl’s stories about the pretty ladies he delivered to, and the fancy houses, and the intrestin places he got to see. Cuz you see, Earl found out pretty quick that a man carryin flowers can go just about anywhere. People just let you right in their door. Don’t matter if you look kinda scruffy or your clothes ain’t too clean. Only thing people look at is them flowers you’re carryin.
So things were goin pretty good for Earl and me for a while there. The steady paycheck kept the landlord off our back and food on the table regular, and the tip money let us buy some extras, like eatin out wunst in a while, or extra games at the Bingo hall. The best part of it for me, of course, was listenin to Earl’s stories when he got home. I looked forward all day to hearin them stories. We had a whole routine worked out around them.
One night, about five months ago I guess it was, Earl came home all excited like. His face was all lit up and I could tell he was just bustin at the seams to tell me a story. But he said I had wait till supper was ready so you can bet I hustled around gettin it on the table quick. Now Earl ain’t got too much learnin. He can’t write too good or spell or stuff like that. But he can spin a great story. And I could tell by the way he started out that this was gonna be one of the good ones, one I could daydream about the next day after he left for work.
We had pork chops that night, I member, the night I first heard about Leah. I didn’t know her yet, of course, but Earl described her so good it was like I could see her sittin right there with us.
“There was this one house I went to this morning,” he began while he was dishin food onto his plate, “that was totally unbelievable.”
“Unbelievable, like unbelievable pretty?” I ast him. I was hopin he would describe one of them fancy mansions on the other side a town, the kind I really liked to daydream about.
But Earl shook his head. “No, I mean, like unbelievably stuffed.”
I put my knife down and stared at him. “The house was stuffed?” I said the last word like maybe I had understood him wrong and was waitin for him to correct me.
But Earl nodded. “Stuffed,” he said. “That house was stuffed.”
“With what?” I ast him.
Earl chewed on a big piece a pork chop and then pointed his fork at me. “With junk. Purdee junk. Wasn’t one thing in that house worth a plug nickel.”
Earl then shoved a hunka bread in his mouth and I had to wait for him to chew. Like any good storyteller, he knew the pauses in the story were as important as the story itself. I could tell this weren’t gonna be a story about no fancy mansion, but Earl had my intrest anyway. What kind a person would live in a stuffed house? I waited till he swallowed good before I said anything.
“Did you get to go in or did she just take the flowers at the door?” I held my breath as I waited for the answer. The stories were always more intrestin if Earl got to go in.
Earl cut another pork chop into small pieces before answerin.
“Oh, I got in the front door this time. Course, it took me ten minutes to get to the front door. The yard was stuffed, too.”
“With junk,” I said.
Earl nodded. “Purdee junk. Banana crates, old furniture, car parts, stacks and stacks of magazines and newspapers. Some of it piled up as high as my waist. You could barely see the yard for the junk.”
“But she let you in,” I said.
“Yeah, she was a real nice lady, in fact. Was real happy to get the flowers. Said it was the first time in years her son had remembered her birthday. Told me to follow her while she got her purse. I tell you, we could hardly walk through that house. There were just a few little aisles in each room, just barely room enough for a person to walk through. The house looked like the front yard, only the piles were even higher. Some of them almost touched the ceiling.”
Earl stopped talkin for a moment. He knew I liked to pitcher things in my mind while he told the stories and that this particular story took a lot of magination to pitcher. Piles of junk as high as the ceiling, that’s hard to magine, you know.
“But she got her purse,” I said.
“Yeah, it was in the kitchen, at least I think it was the kitchen. There was junk in there, too, but I could sorta see a refrigerator and some of the stuff was piled on what looked like countertops.” Earl shook his head sadly. “Didn’t see no stove, though. Probly magazines were stacked in front of it. Mystery to me how that lady eats. She sure couldna cooked in that house.”
“My goodness,” I said.
Of all Earl’s stories, this was turnin out to be the best one. I pitchered the lady walkin through her house every day, weavin her way through the piles of junk, just a few little aisles to walk through.
“What did that lady look like?” I ast him when I got through with the picturin.
“Pretty lady,” Earl said. “Sorta short, had long curly black hair. Pretty eyes.”
There was another pause as I did some more picturin in my mind. I tried to see this pretty, curly haired lady livin in a house full of junk piled almost to the ceiling.
“Name was Leah.” Earl said. “Signed her name Leah Mitchell. Real pretty handwriting, too. I tell you, if you saw that lady on the street you’d never believe what her house looked like.”
Earl kept eatin, but I pushed my plate away. I weren’t hungry no more. I was thinkin of ways to see Leah and her stuffed house.
I got her address from Earl that night. He was half asleep when I ast and didn’t even question me why I wanted to know. She lived bout eight blocks away in one of those little houses behind the Winn Dixie on Tenth Street. The next mornin I waited till Earl left for work and then I set off walkin.
I knew which house it was the minute I turned the corner. It had a rickety old wire fence around the front yard and it looked like that fence was the only thing keepin the junk from spillin out into the street. The houses around it were sorta shabby looking, but they looked good compared to hers, I’m here to tell ya. I wondered what it would be like to live next door to this Leah.
That first day I didn’t stay too long. I just sorta walked by her house real slow like, checkin out the junk. It would take years to look at all the stuff she had, but I noticed quite a bit of it that first day. I wondered how some of the things got there. Like the car engine or the three couches. No woman could carry those things; they were just too heavy. This mystery gave me a lot to think about when I got home. The Leah story was definitely turnin out to be the best one ever.
I got into the habit of walking to Leah’s house every day after Earl left for work, even the days it rained. There was a bus shelter on the corner – you know, the kind that sorta looks like a little house with a bench inside. I could see Leah’s yard when I sat in it. Now, some days I didn’t see nothing at all – just piles of junk sittin there. But some days I got to see Leah. Sometimes when I would see her, she would be walkin to her house. I guess she had gone to the store or sumthin before I got there. Other days she would already be home but would come outside to her front yard. Every time I saw her she had sumthin in her arms. More junk. If she was comin from the store, she’d leave the junk in the front yard. She wouldn’t just drop it any old place, though. She’d arrange it, takin time to think before she put it down. If she came outside from her house, she’d lay the junk down and pick up sumthin from the yard and carry it into the house. A couple minutes later she’d come outside and arrange the junk she had just brought outside. Some days she’d spend almost an hour in that yard, movin stuff from one place to the other.
I’d been watchin Leah about three weeks when the man from the City drove up. I was just bout ready to leave, figurin I’d seen enough for the day, when I saw his white pickup slow down and park at the curb in front a Leah’s house. Now I know this City guy. His name is Dennis, and he’s a mean one. Acts like he ain’t got nothin better to do than drive around town pesterin folks about things that ain’t none a his business. Couple years ago him and Earl almost got into a fist fight about an old car we had parked in our yard. Few days later a big tow truck came and took that car away, weren’t nothin me and Earl could do about it.
So you see I weren’t too happy to see ole Dennis’s truck pull up in front a Leah’s house. This could mean nothin but trouble for her. Sure nuff, Dennis got out and started takin pitchers with a camera he had on a strap around his neck. One pitcher after another, from every angle you could think of. I was getting pretty mad. Leah weren’t botherin nobody, what right did the City have to come pickin on her like this?
Dennis’d only been there a couple a minutes before Leah came outa her house. Only she wasn’t carryin junk this time. She had a broom in her hand, and she was runnin down the sidewalk waving it at Dennis. Dennis backed up a little and let the camera fall to his chest. Leah stopped at the fence and started yellin at him. I got up from the bench to get closer. Figgered they were so wrapped up in talkin to each other that they wouldn’t notice me.
“You’ve bothered me for the last time,” Leah was screamin. “Next time I see you around my property, I’m buying a gun.”
I gotta hand it to Dennis; he didn’t back off any, like I woulda if someone had threatened to shoot me. He talked real quiet, like he was tryin calm her down.
“Miss Mitchell, we’ve given you plenty of warning. The backhoe’s coming tomorrow. There’ll be a policeman with it to see that you don’t cause any problems.”
I don’t know if it was mention of the backhoe or the policeman, but sumthin in Dennis’s little speech really set Leah off. She let out a yell that would’ve curdled milk and started runnin around the yard. Problem was, it was fulla junk. She kept half-trippin over stuff, then catchin herself before she fell, all the time screamin like a wild woman. Now, up to now, I’d pretty much considered Leah a friend, someone like me, only messier. But watchin her stumblin around the yard like that, half-fallin over stuff, well, it was quite obvious that Leah was plumb crazy. I spect Dennis was beginning to feel the same way. He quickly ran to his truck, started it, and drove off, leavin me standin there watchin this wild woman throw her fit.
Leah ventually calmed down, picked up her broom and went into the house. I don’t think she ever even saw me. I thought about her all that day, wondrin what I could do to help her. Earl had drove a backhoe wunst, and I knew what they were used for. You picked up things with them. Like a shovel, only bigger. I knew they was gonna pick up Leah’s junk, and I also knew that stuff wasn’t junk to her. It was important, maybe not to me, maybe not to Dennis, but to her. I knew I had to do sumthin or Leah’s whole life would be ruined.
I perplexed over it the whole day. Didn’t seem like much I could do, though, specially if a policeman was gonna be there. An old woman like me wouldn’t stand a chance against some big cop. I was sure Dennis would be there, too, plus the guy drivin the backhoe. That would mean three big guys against me and Leah, not what you’d zackly call a fair fight. I thought of the gun Earl kept in the bottom dresser drawer, but I wasn’t much of a shot, and I knew I couldn’t hit nobody from any kind of distance at all. I figgered Dennis and the policeman would probably be keeping people away, not lettin them get too close, so it didn’t look like that gun was gonna be of any use. Not unless I could walk right up to the yard, and I just couldn’t pitcher that happnin. I kept thinkin and thinkin of some way to rescue my friend from the horrible thing that was gonna happen to her in the mornin, but every plan I came up with had some kind of hole in it.
It wasn’t until Earl brought the flowers home that I knew what I was gonna do. Now you see, ever wunst in a while, some guy’ll order flowers and the lady they’re meant for don’t want them. She’ll just slam the door in Earl’s face, like he was the one she was mad at, not the guy that sent the flowers. Now them flowers have already been paid for, so does Earl take them back to the shop? No, he brings them home to me, which I always thought was a right sweet thing to do. But when he brought me that big bookay that afternoon, I wasn’t thinking about how sweet he was. No, I was thinkin about how he had told me that he could go most anywhere as long as he had flowers in his hand. And I was thinkin that big ole bookay would be a really good hidin place for a gun.
Next mornin when I got to Leah’s, the backhoe was already there. From the looks of things, it hadn’t picked up nuttin yet, but I knew it was just a matter of time. Leah was sittin on her front porch, hands behind her back, bawlin to beat the band. The policeman was standin over her, and when Leah turned a little I saw why her hands were behind her – that mean man had handcuffed her. Dennis was standin by the backhoe guy, both of them talkin real portant like, like they was savin the city from some big crime wave or sumthin by clearin the junk from some lady’s yard. I got madder and madder as I walked toward them, holdin that big bookay in front of me.
Dennis and the backhoe guy stopped talkin and turned to stare at me.
“Ma’am,” Dennis said all polite like, but not foolin me a bit. “You can’t stay here. We’re getting ready to do some work that might be dangerous.”
I purtended to look at the card attached to the bookay. “Is one of you Dennis?” I ast, as if I didn’t already know. That man had took away our car and he didn’t even recognize me.
Dennis gave a coupla slow blinks, looked at the flowers, and then at me. You could tell he didn’t quite know what to make of the situation, I mean a lady bringin him flowers while he was at work and all.
“I’m Dennis,” he finally said. Earl was right. If I hadna had that bookay in my hand, I woulda never got that close to him. But you could tell that I had Dennis’s intrest, wonderin who coulda sent him flowers.
“I have sumthin for you,” I said and then I pulled out the gun and shot him.
The backhoe guy’s eyes got wide, and he tried to duck, but I shot him, too. The policeman came runnin down the sidewalk, tryin to pull out his gun, but he kept trippin over all the stuff and I shot him, too. Poor Leah was tryin to stand up with those handcuffs on, and she looked really scared, thinkin she was next. But I didn’t shoot her, of course. It was her junk I was trying to save.
Now, I don’t rightly know what happened to Earl after that. Thirty years of marriage and he won’t even talk to me now. Hasn’t even come to visit me wunst. But I bet he lost his job. I figger that guy that owned the shop fired him. It was his flowers I hid the gun in.
– Deborah L. Reed currently resides in a small bedroom community in Central Texas with her daughter, grandson, and two dogs. She is a retired Science teacher who now works in Code Enforcement. She is currently working on a science fiction novel.
