Chapter Summary

Let me tell you a tale, let me answer a question, let me bring to light exactly who Benjamin Clawhauser is.


Chapter Notes

Warning: Written quickly, was beta'ed, though personal edits are not in depth. Will continue to edit and refine if I spot problems.


Benjamin Clawhauser, grew up in Savannah Central, near the distract walls in a little gated community called Grassy Fields. His mother worked as a receptionist at a Lemming Brothers branch, and sometimes he had to go to work with her. Father Clawhauser was a express courier who worked for PawEx.

It was nice. Benjamin went to Scrub-Cover High, and he joined the Ham Radio club in his freshman year. He was popular, even given his nerdy hobby. He knew everyone's name, and no one had a bad thing to say to this big lithe Cheetah boy who gushed about the latest Pop Star or sport spats brand. He even got a pair signed by minor league pawball player Jon Dewclaw. He played center forward for the Scrub-Cover Rushers his junior year, and made a game winning penalty kick in his senior year.

And through it all, he loved to help others. He stayed after class to help his teachers clean up. He organized study groups. He helped his fellow student athletes balance their training and their homework.

When he graduated he could still run a thirty for ninety seconds and bench two-ten, and it was no wonder he gravitated towards Officer Pelt during career day. Join the ZPD and help make tomorrow a safer place.

Police Academy was not like high school.

In his youth he found easy success, here he wound up "dead" more often than not. He hated heights, the cold, and years playing pawball made his reflex move when taken to ground was to roll onto his back and evaluate. In sport, that was for safety.

In combatives, it meant being dead.

But he persevered.

He passed 42nd out of a class of 67, the class of 2010. First in radio operations though.

His mother and father were so proud. So proud.

Benjamin Clawhauser was assigned to Precinct 1, and he couldn't complain. His probie year went by without a hitch. His training officer didn't need much to mold him, such an open minded and accepting cheetah would make a fine field officer.

By winter of 2011 he had done himself proud when they took him off probation. Eighty-eight successful safe arrests, with a verity of foot chases, tickets, and rowdy drunks between.

His own squad car, his own cruiser. Rolling down the street, flashing those blues and reds. Though the good times couldn't last forever.

Critical Missing, Leona Redmane, lioness cub snatched by a dead beat dad with delusions of grandeur and a ruined Christmas in his wake.

Officer Benjamin Clawhauser spotted the beat up mini-van. He spotted that missing lion cub.

He doesn't remember much after. Smoke and fire, screaming. He's screaming.

They tell him that the dad caused a four car pileup on the Rainforest 110 Overpass.

They tell him he couldn't stop in time, and flipped his cruiser.

They tell him he is a hero.

Officer Benjamin Clawhauser, hero cop, who pulled himself out of his mangled wreak of a car and saw that beat up mini-van bashed through the concrete guard railing and hanging half off the overpass.

Officer Benjamin Clawhauser who ran to that vehicle and pulled it back onto the road and held it there even as the engine caught fire. Who held on long enough to allow back up to arrive, for the FDZ to get on scene and pull that little cub out of the wreak.

She was going to be fine. She was going to be fine.

Smoke inhalation, a broken wrist

She was safe and back with her mom.

Cracked ribs, torn ACL, and one slipped disk.

All in all, not a great butcher's bill for that horrid day. His ribs would heal, the city would pay for rehab, and the chiropractors.

So it was like that, he spent his Christmas. His folks were glad he was alive...and Mrs. Redmane packed him a savory cricket cake.

It was delicious...

2012 saw Officer Clawhauser do his rehab, and come back to Precinct 1 with a little orange bottle of pills. Chef Bogo put him on desk duty, milked his fifteen minutes for what it was worth. Benjamin didn't mind, the new probies always brought donuts, and the guys were always paying for drinks. It was easy to get comfortable.

It was easy to stay comfortable. His knee always let him know when it was going to rain...but the cruisers were never the same. Always smelt like someone smoked too much in them. Or vaped or whatever.

But it was fine. Fine to get comfy, and be that friendly face that greeted every visitor. Fine to get a second helping, the girls in the secretarial pool always made the best muffins. It was fine to let Clawhauser run the front desk, he was great at it.

It was fine...and when 2013 rolled around, Leona gave him a great big hug when he showed up for a special presentation. She laughs and he laughs, as he lifts her on his shoulders and tells the class what he does, what the ZPD does. She tells him he is such a BIG soft huggy cat.

Little Leona wants to be a cop just like him...he smiles and tells her she can...the kids all laugh...

Maybe it's best he doesn't remember that day too much...His desk is comfortable. And he does something he loves. It doesn't really matter. Every day is a day to smile.

Margy is making muffins this Friday and she making her special icing.

Old Sarge Riverson throwing down his annual Smokehouse steam off.

And every Christmas, Mrs. Redmane sends him a savory cricket cake, just like the first, when he was laying back in that hospital bed...

Just like the first, it is delicious.