CHAPTER 12
’m going to fix that brat, that lousy little cheater, that eight-year-old swindler!” bellowed Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse when he got home after the poker game. “If it’s the last thing I do!”
He was speaking to his eighty-five-year-old mother, with whom he lived in the basement of an apartment building they owned in the old neighborhood. The sign outside read:
Old Mrs. Louse was seated in her rocking chair in the furnace room, the only well-heated room in the entire building. “How much money did you win tonight, my sweetie-poo?” she demanded eagerly.
“I lost ninety-seven of our hard-earned dollars,” said Perfectly Loathsome Leo, tears rolling down his cheeks, and he explained how Jacob Two-Two, that boy criminal, that unspeakable stinker, had so upset him with his trickery, that he had been unable to concentrate on his cards.
“Why, that’s terrible,” said Mrs. Louse, even as her fifty-two-year-old son climbed onto her lap, sniffling and sucking his thumb. “My poor uggams,” she said, stroking his shiny bald head.
It was just about impossible to move within the crowded furnace room. There was a mound of their tenants’ green garbage bags, which they hadn’t had time to go through yet, searching for treasures. All the magazines they found, for instance, were stacked in a special pile until they were at least a month old, by which time they became acceptable to doctors and dentists, who bought them for a few pennies each to be placed in their waiting rooms. There were also ceiling-high stacks of old newspapers waiting to be sold, and empty Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and beer bottles lined up here, there, and everywhere.
Once a year, Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse and his mother went on their annual Spring Harvest Holiday. After the snows had melted, they rode through the neighboring mountain country to search the roadside ditches for empty deposit bottles that skiers had flung from their speeding cars the previous winter. They would ride in Perfectly Loathsome Leo’s truck, remembering to switch off the ignition and coast down all the hills, saving gas. It was the panel truck with the sign printed on both sides:
PERFECTLY ADORABLE LEO LOUSE’S SCHOOL MEALS GUARANTEED YUMMY BEYOND COMPARE
The secret of Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse’s popularity with private schools was his discovery, early on, of their golden rule: the more expensive the school fees, the worse the food they served to the children. On Monday morning, Perfectly Loathsome Leo was still brooding about his losses at the poker table, which he blamed on Jacob Two-Two. That child swindler, that under-age cheat. But he found some comfort flitting about his enormous kitchen, preparing the day’s school lunches, with the help of his mother. Testing a spoonful of soup, spitting it out, he said, “This won’t do, Mumsy. It’s almost tolerable. Let’s fill a pail with stagnant dishwater, pour it in, and bring the broth to the boil again.”
“Oh, what a wonderful idea, my sweetums,” she said.
Dipping a finger into a tub of mashed potatoes, he growled, “Why, this tastes almost decent. Our reputation could be ruined!”
“Think of something,” she said.
“I’ve got it,” said Perfectly Loathsome Leo, and he fetched an emergency bucket of gray, almost raw potato lumps that he kept in the refrigerator, and emptied it into the tub. “Stir it well, Mumsy.”
“Hee hee hee,” she said, “you are a genius, my truly loathsome one.”
Ever watchful, Perfectly Loathsome Leo moved on to a stack of sausages. “Just as I feared,” he said, “these aren’t sufficiently greasy. Let’s drown these sausages in hot bacon fat, and cool the pile before delivery.”
“You know something, Perfectly Loathsome,” his mother cooed, “sometimes I wonder if I really deserve to have been blessed with such an enchanting son.”
Perfectly Loathsome Leo was delighted with his mother’s five-foot-long meat loaf. “One hundred and ten per cent terrific, Mumsy. You can actually taste the sawdust in it. Where’s it going?”
It was going to Privilege House, Jacob Two-Two’s school.
“Good-o!” exclaimed Perfectly Loathsome Leo. “Wonderful!” And he danced his mother round the kitchen.
But Perfectly Loathsome Leo’s joy was short-lived. That evening as he and his mother sat in the furnace room, counting their rent money for the umpteenth time, he again recalled his hard-earned ninety-seven-dollar loss at the card table, all because of Jacob Two-Two, and he began to moan and groan.
“Whatever can be the matter, precious one?” asked his mother.
“That Jacob Two-Two humiliated me. He made me look like a monkey in front of my friends. I lost all that money only because of him. How am I going to get my revenge?”
“You’ll think of something, my heart’s delight. Something mean mean mean. Mummykins is counting on you,” she cooed.
It was beginning to grow dark.
“But now we had better go tucky-byes, my snookums. Or else,” she said, her eyes filled with horror at the thought, “it will be time to switch on the lights. Burning electricity! WASTING MONEY!”