Two: Leotardo Da Vinci
* * *
Happy.
That's a dog's name, you know. Not that that has anything to do with anything, except that Ben saw Happy when he got back to the Casa Camden, which was located in the dead geographic center of Glenoak, a fact that never seemed to change even when new buildings were added to the town. More importantly for our story, though, was the fact that Ben saw his brother Kevin and the Camdens when he returned, even as he made happy exclamations throughout the large Camden household.
"I don't love her! What am I, an idiot?"
The Camdens, who included the reluctant reverend, Eric, the enthusiastic reverend's wife Annie, the reverend in training despite her obsession with marriage daughter Lucy, the formerly interesting and angsty son Simon, and the scheming, sneaky daughter Ruthie, as well as two little boys who doubled as lawn gnomes named Sam and David (or was it David and Sam?), all refrained from answering Ben's latest outbursts, since they were all preoccupied with other, more important things like something else. Ben's brother Kevin, who was a policeman with a nervous disorder that kept him from forming normal facial expressions, simply laughed at his brother, as he always did, his self-esteem being based on that sort of thing.
Happy barked. Woof!
#
Ben spent the day, and the next day, wandering about the Casa Camden congratulating himself on how he wasn't an idiot, until he realized that he was supposed to be at work, being a fireman on loan from Buffalo, and he hurried off to help keep the town of Glenoak safe from having its cats trapped in trees, which is, with the exception of periodic church arsons by bigots, most of what the fire department is called upon to do in Glenoak, after all. Fortunately for Ben, no cats had become so trapped in the past few days, and the bigots were all off at a convention in nearby Iamaloserville, and so the fire chief hadn't noticed he was gone. The only one who did notice was the rescue dog that Ben was supposed to be training, who expressed his displeasure at being abandoned by biting Ben on a place that the rating of this story will not allow me describe in detail.
"Good boy!" Ben said, not quite noticing.
After cleaning up the mess that naturally occurs when you ignore a dog in a firehouse for several days, Ben took the dog for a walk. This walk in turn took them both down main street, where, as with every main street in every proper American city, there was of course a dance studio.
And there he saw her.
Ah, how to describe her? There, inside, with all sorts of other women, prancing about in a blue leotard and tights, her body just flowing in rhythm with the music, her dark hair bouncing with its slight curl, feminine, slender, lovely.
Ah!
And there Ben stood, transfixed, unmoving, until the rescue dog he was walking ran off, returning to the firehouse and bringing help. It was late by then, and the dance studio was long since closed, and had it not been perpetually 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Glenoak the firemen who rescued Ben would have had to treat him for hypothermia, which would have involved crawling into sleeping bag with him in their underwear, the picture of which has now scarred your humble narrator's brain forever.
The firemen were relieved too.
#
He knew her name, Ben did. She had a name, too, a real one, with letters and everything. He knew it. Four letters; which did it start with? He struggled with this as one of his fellow firemen gave him a cup of hot cocoa.
A-B-C-D-E-F....
Drat! What came after F? Four letters. Did her name start with F? Did it have four letters? F is so familiar to me, he thought; I wonder why?
As you can well imagine, this approach wasn't terribly helpful for our plucky protagonist. Fortunately, although he had forgotten the woman's name, he did remember something far more important: she was pretty. Real pretty.
More than this, he had met her once. That's how he knew her name. He knew lots of other stuff about her too, like the fact that she was pretty, and she was pretty, and she had been in the dance studio today. Dancing. There was other stuff too, that he knew, so he decided that tomorrow, when he had the day off, he would go and ask his friend Ruthie about this girl. He could trust Ruthie, because she was smart.
It's a good thing I'm not an idiot, Ben concluded.
* * *
Happy.
That's a dog's name, you know. Not that that has anything to do with anything, except that Ben saw Happy when he got back to the Casa Camden, which was located in the dead geographic center of Glenoak, a fact that never seemed to change even when new buildings were added to the town. More importantly for our story, though, was the fact that Ben saw his brother Kevin and the Camdens when he returned, even as he made happy exclamations throughout the large Camden household.
"I don't love her! What am I, an idiot?"
The Camdens, who included the reluctant reverend, Eric, the enthusiastic reverend's wife Annie, the reverend in training despite her obsession with marriage daughter Lucy, the formerly interesting and angsty son Simon, and the scheming, sneaky daughter Ruthie, as well as two little boys who doubled as lawn gnomes named Sam and David (or was it David and Sam?), all refrained from answering Ben's latest outbursts, since they were all preoccupied with other, more important things like something else. Ben's brother Kevin, who was a policeman with a nervous disorder that kept him from forming normal facial expressions, simply laughed at his brother, as he always did, his self-esteem being based on that sort of thing.
Happy barked. Woof!
#
Ben spent the day, and the next day, wandering about the Casa Camden congratulating himself on how he wasn't an idiot, until he realized that he was supposed to be at work, being a fireman on loan from Buffalo, and he hurried off to help keep the town of Glenoak safe from having its cats trapped in trees, which is, with the exception of periodic church arsons by bigots, most of what the fire department is called upon to do in Glenoak, after all. Fortunately for Ben, no cats had become so trapped in the past few days, and the bigots were all off at a convention in nearby Iamaloserville, and so the fire chief hadn't noticed he was gone. The only one who did notice was the rescue dog that Ben was supposed to be training, who expressed his displeasure at being abandoned by biting Ben on a place that the rating of this story will not allow me describe in detail.
"Good boy!" Ben said, not quite noticing.
After cleaning up the mess that naturally occurs when you ignore a dog in a firehouse for several days, Ben took the dog for a walk. This walk in turn took them both down main street, where, as with every main street in every proper American city, there was of course a dance studio.
And there he saw her.
Ah, how to describe her? There, inside, with all sorts of other women, prancing about in a blue leotard and tights, her body just flowing in rhythm with the music, her dark hair bouncing with its slight curl, feminine, slender, lovely.
Ah!
And there Ben stood, transfixed, unmoving, until the rescue dog he was walking ran off, returning to the firehouse and bringing help. It was late by then, and the dance studio was long since closed, and had it not been perpetually 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Glenoak the firemen who rescued Ben would have had to treat him for hypothermia, which would have involved crawling into sleeping bag with him in their underwear, the picture of which has now scarred your humble narrator's brain forever.
The firemen were relieved too.
#
He knew her name, Ben did. She had a name, too, a real one, with letters and everything. He knew it. Four letters; which did it start with? He struggled with this as one of his fellow firemen gave him a cup of hot cocoa.
A-B-C-D-E-F....
Drat! What came after F? Four letters. Did her name start with F? Did it have four letters? F is so familiar to me, he thought; I wonder why?
As you can well imagine, this approach wasn't terribly helpful for our plucky protagonist. Fortunately, although he had forgotten the woman's name, he did remember something far more important: she was pretty. Real pretty.
More than this, he had met her once. That's how he knew her name. He knew lots of other stuff about her too, like the fact that she was pretty, and she was pretty, and she had been in the dance studio today. Dancing. There was other stuff too, that he knew, so he decided that tomorrow, when he had the day off, he would go and ask his friend Ruthie about this girl. He could trust Ruthie, because she was smart.
It's a good thing I'm not an idiot, Ben concluded.
