Ode to Leo’s Couch

Leo’s couch is, without a doubt, the 1973 Cadillac of couches.

A marvel of 1970s construction covered in green and gold fabric, the couch is large. Very large. It’s also beginning to cave in on itself, and it’s very lowest dipping point—where the left-end cushion and the middle cushion meet—is where Leo struggles to climb aboard and settle himself into sweet lounging oblivion.

It was the fiance’s furniture showpiece before I moved in and brought my couch along with me. But Leo claimed it as his own long before that.

When the fiancé and I were first dating, we spent weeknights at my little apartment and weekends at his house. I told Leo it was our country house and he made himself right at home. On the couch.

On Saturday nights, the fiancé and I would settle in to watch a movie and he would try to coax Leo off the couch. I, however, was happy to squeeze into whatever small space Leo left for us. It was surprising to me then how absolutely fulfilling I found this simple act: squeezing onto the couch with my man and my dog made me feel downright giddy.

Maybe it was because I had been single for so long, with the couch all to myself. It also brought to mind a photo of my mom’s family in the 1950s.

It was New Year’s Eve and my grandmother (who died when my mom was only two years old), my grandfather and six kids (my mom the baby on an older sister’s lap) are all crammed together on one couch (and a pulled-up chair). All tousled hair and party hats and noisemakers. I can almost feel the body warmth in that photo, smell the smells of kids and old slippers, feel the elbows and hips of the bodies seated next to each other, on top of each other. Isn’t this the intimacy of home and family life that we all desire?

Funny to think that our furniture plays a part in this intimacy. Silent, reliable, mere props on the stage of our daily productions. Barely noticed and taken for granted. Until years later, that is, when we see them in pictures and ridicule them for falling out of fashion. An orange velvet chair? A purple flowered couch? We point and laugh. “What was I thinking?” we ask.

Perhaps children understand the true essence of furniture best. A child’s world is such a small world—usually the confines of a house. So much time is spent on the floor, climbing on the furniture, jumping off the furniture, building blanket forts with the furniture. It’s children who come to be familiar with the undersides of tables and chairs and beds, the thrilling discoveries that lurk beneath couch cushions, the peculiarities of patterns in upholstery.

When my parents divorced, my father moved out and left behind his Lazy Boy recliner. It was green with armrests of wood and a wood lever on the lower right side that kicked up the footrest. I was six years old, my brother was three years old, and the recliner became Ours. It was big enough for both of us to snuggle in and watch “Little House on the Prairie” or “Happy Days.” It often served as the main pillar of a blanket fort. And the armrests were perfect as pretend motorcycles that we could race, side by side (though we often fought over who got the right side with the lever, because it made a perfect kick start).

The recliner is long gone from my mom’s house but it’s still clear in my mind’s eye. I can see where the green fabric was wearing thin, where the wood armrests were beginning to splinter, where cookie crumbs were likely to gather. I can still sense its bulk, still see the gouges we made in the wood floor every time we moved it, still remember how it smelled when I buried my face in it to do a headstand.

The fiancé says we need to get rid of Leo’s couch, that it’s stinking up the house. I tell him no way, that Leo will be buried on that couch. I picture Leo resting in peace on the couch, being lowered by a crane into his grave.

Or maybe a burial at sea would be nicer. I’ll launch Leo and his couch into the Pacific Ocean and watch as they float away into the sunset. Leo Mosquito Burrito riding the Cadillac of couches to the Other Side.

This might be a fitting way for them both to go.