Pushing Parks - Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Long after her father’s funeral, young Leslie Knope was lying on the green grass of her backyard, looking up at the sun. The weather was cold but she was not feeling it. Fall was finally in the air though not in her backyard as the garden was green and alive while just next door the trees were barren and dark. She sat in the same position, not hearing the person coming to her direction.
“Hi.” That was the first time Leslie Knope ever heard Ann Perkins.
“Hi.” Leslie said, not mirroring the enthusiasm in Ann’s voice.
“If it is any consolation, my dad died as well.” Ann commented and she sat down next to young Leslie. “We moved next door, I’m Ann Perkins.”
And that was how Leslie Knope met her first and best friend. The unique ethnic blend of her next door neighbor made young Leslie think that Ann Perkins came ready-made from the playdough factory of life where she was molded into being by mixing different colors of dough together. In their wildest imaginations, Leslie and Ann were the most powerful women in the world, bringing peace to it. Leslie was the President of the Universe while Ann was the most amazing and beautiful doctor, finding cure for illnesses and taking care of humans and animals not by pulling out weird objects from their butts but by singing to them.
Through countless playdates, slumber parties, first kiss stories and first heartbreaks, Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins were inseparable, until one day the Perkins family moved out in the middle of the night without telling anyone or leaving any messages behind. Leslie Knope did not hear from Ann Perkins again until after they were both adult women who went through other dates, slumbers, kisses and heartbreaks without the knowledge of the other and who were yet to achieve their dreams.
The day Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins met again was also the day Leslie Knope used her power for the second time. She was walking around in the wonderful town of Coeur de Pawnee when she happened by a site that was not so wonderful. It was a park she knew from her childhood, a place where her father would bring her to play, and then she would come to with Ann Perkins years later as teenagers. Tucker Park was empty and abandoned now. The sight broke Leslie Knope’s heart. It had been 21 days, 24 weeks since the day she had hugged a park and lost a father and she had not thought about the bringing a park back thing ever since even though she was constantly asked about how her backyard was still lively and green even during the worst leaf-shedding times of trees.
Leslie attentively entered the rundown site where used to be Tucker Park in its glory, carefully stepped over the construction remains and pieces of broken glass and arrived next to the only remaining tree in the park where a tire swing used to be. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around the tree. She felt a faint breeze brush past her. When she opened her eyes the very next second, she was looking into the past in present time. The fountain was functional again, the trees were green, the benches were clean and steady. She stared at the sight with a smile on her face until she saw something from the corner of her eye. A guy dressed in a heavy, ripped coat despite the warm weather was up and running. Leslie Knope immediately ran after the guy, trying to stop him, trying to understand what was happening until she heard tires screeching and a loud crash sound.
“Oh my, oh my, I swear I didn’t see him, he just jumped before the car.” That was the first time Leslie Knope heard Ann Perkins after not hearing from her for more than a decade. “Leslie?”
“Oh hey, Ann.” Leslie replied like it was the most normal thing in the world, to see her best friend again after a decade just after she had hit a homeless guy. “Let me call an ambulance.”
“I’m a nurse.” Ann said as she fell down on her knees next to the motionless guy and tried to help, to no avail. It was also the last time Ann Perkins ever practiced as a nurse.
After giving her confession to Officer Dave Sanderson who kept trying to flirt with her long lost best friend, Ann Perkins gave up being a nurse and accepted to help Leslie with her newly opened JJ’s Waffle Haus and moved in next door to her just like old days.
During their adult slumber parties where they would go to one another’s apartment in pajamas and eat ice-cream while watching romantic comedies, Ann told about how her mother woke her up middle of the night and asked her to pack years ago, about how they moved from one town to another until they finally settled down in one town where her mother met a man with whom they moved in and who turned to be abusive. Leslie listened as Ann told about taking her mother and moving to a little town only a couple hours away from Coeur de Pawnee, away from the abusive boyfriend, about how she wanted to pursue a medical degree but could not afford, about how she started nursing school. Leslie kept listening to Ann as she cried while she told about falling in love with a patient and losing him and deciding to move back to Coeur de Pawnee. Leslie was crying too as she realized that her new beginning had started with hitting a homeless guy and killing him inadvertently.
Now years later, Ann Perkins was a partner and a waitress at JJ’s Waffle Haus with Leslie, still trying to learn more about the life of her best friend who was being elusive about some details of her life, such as the appearances of Ron Swanson and Leslie’s disappearances with him. She watched from the kitchen where she was avoiding Tom the cook as Leslie put on her blazer and left the diner after Ron.
Leslie Knope drove, following Ron’s truck. When they arrived at Ramsett Park, there was a raccoon party going on. Leslie walked side by side with Ron past the broken fluorescent tubes, dead leaves and broken swing sets. Among the trash bags on the muddy ground, a body was lying face down with something that appeared to a pink plastic bag wrapped around its head. Leslie could see it was a man.
“The police don’t know about this yet and I don’t want them to find out until we figure out what has happened before I get into jeopardy for having a dead guy in one of my parks.”
“What happened here?” Leslie asked as she started moving around the body, carefully avoiding the mud. Leslie Knope looked intently, unaware that she had stopped breathing. She was haunted by the body of the anonymous man lying before her. But she didn’t know why.
“We are going to find that out.” Ron said under his mustache.
She hit something with her foot and found the object she hit among the trash. It was a calculator. “Calc-you-later.” she exclaimed, only to have Ron grunt. “Sorry, force of habit.”
“Somebody murdered this guy. I was supposed to work on this park to get it back to its glory but you know how much I hate working, especially on government projects. So now you will bring the park back to life and ask the guy who killed him and do your thing. We will find his murderer, let the authorities know and still have a park. It’s a win-win.”
Leslie let out an uneasy breath. “Alright, I’ll do it.” she nodded. “There is still the slightest chance that I might bring the dead love you have for government back to life when I bring the park back to life with you in it.”
Ron touched his mustache, nodded and ran away and got in his car.
Leslie adjusted her blazer, and took a deep breath as she looked at the dead body. His green and blue plaid shirt was ripped in places, his pants were muddy and in garbage and he was missing a shoe. She had the urge to find his missing shoe and put it to his foot á la Cinderella but decided against it. She knelt down and removed the plastic bag around his head.
The Waffle Maker found herself looking at the dead body, specifically at the dead face, of Ben Wyatt. The longer she looked at him, the worse she felt about standing in an empty, dead park staring at the dead body of Ben Wyatt who used to be the Teen Mayor from Porkridge who moved to Coeur de Pawnee a few years ago. There he was, lying in mud and thrash, his face pale, his lips purple and his thick brown hair covered in dust.
She heard a honk from the distance and remembered what to do. She ran to the nearest tree that was long dead. She looked down at her watch, waited for the hand that showed seconds to get to 12. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around the trunk and held tightly. When she opened them seconds later, the sun was shining brighter, birds were chirping, the leaves of the dead tree were all green, the swing set was colored in bright red, the grass was green and there were blooming daisies everywhere. Ramsett Park before her seemed to be the perfect park back when she was a kid. Among the daisies, she saw a figure moving.
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AN: Here is another chapter. Apologies for the delay, I moved places and my new apartment does not have internet so i could not upload the chapter. Hope you guys like it and Happy Holidays!!
By the way, I also managed to place another favorite show of mine, Dead Like Me, into the mix by using 'Waffle Haus'.