Leon

Leon
by Margi Washburn

He must have been all of three feet tall. Blond, shoulder-length curly hair, chubby cheeks and wide blue eyes - a small boy with bare feet who was our neighbor in Tucson for too short a time.

Leon was his name and he was a corker. We met the little guy shortly after moving into our first apartment in Arizona. I always use the state motto about this far into the story: “It’s a dry heat” but this time around I’ll just say, “Ick.” I’m sorry, but if you think the desert, rock landscaping and cactus are cool then, well, ick.

Our first home away from Kewanee was an apartment complex with at least a hundred units that looked exactly the same. (We misplaced our black cat Spike there once and it was a hoot trying to find him). Trick-or-treating was fun, too; we couldn’t remember where we’d been so we tapped some nice people more than once.

Leon and his parents moved in across from us one day. It was impossible to miss their arrival because we all had sliding glass doors that faced each other. The odd thing about Leon and his family was that they had no furniture. In fact, he seemed quite impressed when he found there was something to sit on besides the floor.

He invited his little self inside our place one early afternoon. Not a bit shy, this boy of four, and he had the cutest dimples. “I live over there,” he said with a smile, and he pointed to his place.

“What’s that?”

Hubby and I grinned at each other. “It’s a couch,” I said. He pointed at a chair and asked the same question. This was a bit of a puzzle, but we went along. Leon stood for a minute, his thumbs hooked into his bib overalls.

“Would you like to sit down?” I asked. That was all it took, and it sure made him happy. His little bare feet swung back and forth as he squirmed around, seemingly amazed that we had furniture.

It was hard to ignore the fact that the family across the way had an empty home. At night, when the lights were on it was easy to see that they had only blankets and pillows on their floors. We found Leon at our door, hands cupped around his eyes as he stared into our apartment several times a week.

There were days when he would pad barefoot over to our place, knock loudly and wait with his face pressed to the screen. He would ask for the boys first, and I would tell him they were in school. That’s when he’d ask for hubby to come out and play. Well, he was at work. The next request would be to come in and sit on the furniture. In he would come and as he sat and we talked, I could see the delight in his eyes at the most simple of things - Leon had a place to sit.

Then, an amazing thing happened. Leon and his family got furniture late one afternoon. They moved in beds, tables, chairs, a couch and more. If only we had some clue what would happen next.

Morning came and the apartment manager came riding up on her golf cart. She knocked on our door and pointed a thumb over her shoulder at Leon’s place. “Have you seen ‘em?” she asked.

Hubby and I looked over and were astounded to find the place completely empty. No furniture, no people, no blankets and pillows. No little barefoot boy.

Turned out that the family picked up and moved in the night, and they must have been quiet about it. We didn’t hear a thing.

A few weeks later, I was walking with one of the boys when we saw a familiar little figure coming toward us. Leon! He was alone, and walking along the sidewalk. The sun was starting to set and it would be dark soon. When we met, he smiled up at me.

“Leon, where have you been? Do you live in a different apartment now?”

I can’t forget how he looked down at his feet, hands in his pockets as he shook his head. “We live in storage now,” he said.

Storage? I tried to find out more, but the little guy said he had to go. He walked away, and he never looked back.

Leon must be a tad over 20 years old now and one wonders how much he remembers of his younger years in the desert. If he ever stops by, we’ll look straight into those wondrous blue eyes and invite him in to sit down and catch up on old times.