Pushing Parks - Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Leslie Knope, or The Waffle Maker she was known as, had never strayed away from the town of Coeur de Pawnee because of her love for the town. Yet because of her dislike of her power, she had always run far away from the scenes of bringing parks to life with the dead in them along. That was until the night when she brought the Harvest Festival back to life and realized the consequences.
Ron Swanson had cried only twice in his life. Once when he was nine years old and was hit by his school bus. The second time was when Leslie Knope inadvertently killed Li’l Sebastian while trying to bring the Harvest Festival back to its glory.
Leslie Knope’s power was one that gave and also took. For every park and recreational activity she brought back to life, along with the dead in them, her power randomly took one life away, unless she sent the dead she brought to life back to death in a couple of minutes. The day of the Harvest Festival was the day Leslie Knope realized that she had also inadvertently killed her father when she was a little girl and guilt consumed her.
As she got lonelier and more of an introvert in her guilt, she made a promise to herself that she would never let the dead she had brought to life live beyond the two minutes they were given so as not to take anyone else’s life inadvertently ever again. She broke that promise for Teen Mayor Ben Wyatt.
“So let me get this straight. You hug things and bring dead parks back to life along with other dead things in them and help the Parks and Recreation department?” Ben asked as he sat opposite to Leslie at the booth at the back in the closed JJ’s Waffle Haus.
“That is it in a nutshell.” Leslie replied as she put more whipped cream in her coffee.
“What about the death avenger thing?”
“The what?”
Ben took a sip from his coffee that was too sweet for him. “You asked me who killed me so you could avenge my death.” he explained.
“That was a first for me.” Leslie replied. “I never brought a murdered person back to life before.”
Ben gave her his widest smile. “I feel special.”
Leslie smiled back, lowering her head. “I don’t make a living out of it, I promise. I live a simple life. I just make parks and help waffles. No, that sounded wrong, I make waffles and help parks, that’s all I do.”
They sat down in silence for a minute while Ben tried to process his thoughts. “So if I knew who killed me I wouldn’t be alive now? You would send me back to death?”
“Um, yes.” Leslie admitted. “It is not what I want though, it is just how it works. If something or someone I bring back to life stays alive in the park more than a couple of minutes, something or someone else dies.”
Ben Wyatt’s eyes grew large. “Somebody died because of me?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t see anything different.” Leslie said. She took a sip from her coffee. She had forgotten that part of her strange power during the rush of the moment of letting her first celebrity crush live.
“So do you do this often? How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Like thinking about bringing you back to life thinking? It wasn’t premeditated, I was musing on the idea. I didn’t consider it before I did it, more like not did it.” Leslie mumbled. “I only help parks only when Ron asks me to do.”
“Isn’t Ron supposed to help parks himself since he is the director of the parks department and all?”
“He hates the government and all the work related to it and this is more convenient for him.” she answered. “I basically do his work for him.”
“So let me ask you something, one final thing.” Ben looked at her. “When you do it, when you are supposed to send someone you brought back to life back to death, how do you do it?”
Leslie looked down. She never thought she would have to tell another soul about that. “I hug them.”
“To death?”
“Essentially. That is why I’m not keen on hugs.”
Ben was surprised. He started laughing. “How can you be not keen on hugs? A hug can be an emotional Heimlich, it can bring your mood around.”
“My hugs are basically Heimlichs, they stop parks and people from being dead.” Leslie disagreed. “They just bring my mood down. “
“You haven’t been hugged properly before then.” he shrugged and took another sip from his coffee. “What is your stance on kissing then?” he asked with a smirk.
Leslie looked at him, trying not to believe her ears. “I’m sorry, I just started hearing really loud circus music in my head.”
They sat in silence for a while until Leslie suggested closing up shop for the night and going to her house for Ben to get cleaned up.
“What do you mean I can’t go back to my place? All my favorite plaid shirts are at my place.” Ben protested as Leslie drove.
“We can’t let anyone else know you aren’t dead. You were killed and you are supposed to remain dead, you don’t want your murderer to find out you aren’t dead and strangle you to death once again, right?”
“You used too many death-words in one sentence.” Ben said. “What about my roommates, how are they supposed to function as adults without me?”
“The Dwyer-Ludgate Ludgate-Dwyer unsynchronized swimming duo? I’m sure they’ll go back to eating turkey chili from empty litter boxes without you.”
Ben Wyatt’s roommates Andy Dwyer and April Ludgate were a young married couple who had decided to get married after a month of dating when Andy asked if April wanted to get married the next day and April shrugged and accepted. They were famous in Coeur de Pawnee as the Dwyer-Ludgate Ludgate-Dwyer unsynchronized swimming duo. Their personal swimming styles were completely different but when they were swimming together, even unsynchronized, they had brought a unique sense of style to the sport.
The couple was known to be immature and childish whereas they were admittedly being immature and avoiding responsibilities because adults were boring with boring jobs and boring lives and boring responsibilities. Ben Wyatt had agreed to move in with them because he was looking for a place to stay in Coeur de Pawnee and the Dwyer-Ludgate duo seemed harmless. Soon, more precisely the night he moved in, Ben made them buy cutlery and plates and stopped them eating food from containers that were not to be used by humans for eating.
“How do you know about that?” Ben raised an eyebrow upon Leslie’s suggestion.
“I don’t, I was just guessing.” Leslie said and was a little grossed at her prediction being the truth.
“So I can’t go back to my auditing job?”
“I suppose you can’t go back to your old boring auditing job, yes.” Leslie confirmed as she parked her car in her driveway. “You are going to stay with me here until we solve your murder.”
She led him out of the car and through the backyard where she put some carrots into an empty container. “Come here Li’l Sebastian.”
“Li’l Sebastian?” Ben asked as an animal made its way towards them, albeit a little too slow. “Wasn’t the pony from Harvest Festival that died also named Li’l Sebastian?”
“For your information, it’s a mini horse, not a pony, and yes, he died and I brought him back to life. Ron was devastated without him.” Leslie explained. “He lives with me here.”
“I thought you didn’t bring things and people back to life that often.”
“I don’t, it’s just the two of you.” Leslie offered and they walked into her house.
“This is like a hoarder’s nightmare.” Ben commented as they made their way through the boxes and stacks of newspapers into the living room.
“I tend to attach myself to things because of my… of my talent.” Leslie tried to explain. “And it isn’t a nice thing to say for my house considering that you are wearing a ripped shirt and muddy pants yourself now.”
“You have a point there.”
“You use my bedroom and bathroom, there are clean towels. I’ll try to find something for you to wear. I’ll sleep here on the couch. And I’m sorry to be a bad host but I’m exhausted, reviving a park and a person and all. My eyes are rolling back to my head.”
“It’s okay, thank you for today.” Ben said and then watched as Leslie lay down on the couch and was asleep within a minute. “I’d kiss you if you weren’t scared of it.” he whispered and made his way to the said bathroom.
Clean and in his boxers, Ben lay down on Leslie’s bed, in the unfamiliar room and contemplated how he came to lie down on Leslie’s bed in the unfamiliar room.
The facts were these: Ben Wyatt, born in Porkridge, Minnesota, was 34 years, 354 days, 10 hours and 22 minutes old when he moved to Coeur de Pawnee as an auditor. Ben Wyatt had run for mayor when he was 17 years, 49 weeks old and was elected mayor when he was 18 years, 3 weeks old. And he was impeached when he was 18 years, 16 weeks old when he had bankrupted his town. Young Ben Wyatt had lost respect from his family and friends and promised to himself that he would work hard every day to gain that respect back and hopefully run for another high-level government position again. He had arrived to Pawnee with the hope of helping the government by auditing its budget and finding the source of its corruption. 1 year, and 3 months later he had found the source of the corruption.
“I found the source of corruption.” he exclaimed as he looked up from his screen the moment he found the source of corruption. He only needed solid, tangible proof so he started looking.
Ben had made some friends in the government and also outside from the government. He knew Leslie Knope’s partner Ron Swanson and had looked into his department while his search for corruption. There wasn’t anything suggesting corruption and his department was surprisingly was actually one of the few successful departments in the government. His search for solid, tangible proof was what had made him go to Ramsett Park.
When he woke up in the morning, Ben Wyatt found a post-it attached to his bedside lamp that said “Please don’t leave the house.” He smiled to himself and put on the outfit the Waffle Maker had placed in the bathroom, happy that she had given him a plaid shirt albeit a size too large. Just when he opened the door to leave the house, he found someone standing on the other side of the door.
“You are not Leslie.” the woman exclaimed.
“I’m a friend of Leslie’s.” he uttered.
The woman sounded surprised. “I didn’t know she would bring men home. Does she hug you?”
Ben didn’t know how to answer that. “I just met her.”
“Hey, aren’t you that guy who would come to the Waffle Haus?” she asked. “I work there, I’m Ann Perkins. I wanted to check up on Leslie. She didn’t come back to work yesterday.”
“She was helping me.” Ben said. “She must be at work now, I was going there to see her.”
Sitting next to Ann in the car as she drove them to JJ’s Waffle Haus, Ben tried his best to avoid any questions to raise suspicion. When they entered, he immediately sat down in Leslie’s section for the first time ever, only to find Ron Swanson standing next to him the next moment.
“You look like I saw a ghost.” he muttered under his mustache.
“What?” was Ben’s only reaction.
“Leslie, is this the dead guy?” Ron asked.
“Let me explain.” Leslie came next to them and the three of them sat at the booth, Ben and Leslie looking uncomfortable while Ron looked at their discomfort with annoyance. “I asked him who killed him and he didn’t know who killed him.”
“She asked me but I didn’t know, I didn’t see the guy, he came from behind me.” Ben added.
“Do you know how stupid is this thing you did? You could get fired.” Ron shouted, then lowered his voice when he noticed people staring at him.
“You can’t fire me, you don’t even pay me.” Leslie tried to reason.
Ron took a deep breath. “This is a scandal waiting to happen. You can get caught, which you clearly will.”
“We are being really careful. He promised he’ll wear a wig when we are in public.”
“When did I promise that?” Ben asked back.
“So if he is alive now, who died then?” Ron cut them both.
Leslie looked away. “I don’t know, it’s a random, proximity thing.”
“Bitch, I was in the proximity.” Ron raised his voice.
Before anyone could realize what was going on, Ben Wyatt punched Ron Swanson square in the jaw.
“What did you do?” Leslie shouted as she looked at Ron Swanson on the ground and at Ben Wyatt with a mix of surprise and disgust on his face.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Ben apologized honestly, trying to help Ron to his feet.
“That was so hot.” Ann Perkins said as she stood by the bar, her hands covering her mouth. “I mean, that was horrible, what is happening here?”
Ron Swanson got to his feet, looked at Ben but did not say a thing. He gave Leslie a look that spoke a million words.
“Ron, I’m so sorry, I’ll talk to you later.” Leslie said as she grabbed Ben Wyatt’s covered arm and pulled him away from the booth, back to the kitchen. “Why did you do that? He is my partner.”
“He called you a bitch.” Ben tried to explain.
“I’m trying to keep you away to avoid raising any questions and you go and punch Ron Swanson and raise all the questions. I asked you not to leave the house.” Leslie Knope raised her voice even though she did not like raising her voice. “He called me my second least favorite word but you didn’t really have to punch him.”
“It was like a gag reflex, I’m sorry, I promise I won’t punch anyone else for you in public.” Ben Wyatt rationalized his action.“Do you happen to have any ice for my hand?” he asked.
Leslie Knope handed an ice bag to Ben Wyatt while Ann Perkins and Tom Haverford watched them with smirks on their faces.