American River Review 2022 - copy - Flipbook - Page 47
knew shortcuts and commands that
boggled Ernie’s baren grasp of thenew-fangled programming system.
Ern missed the old switchboard and
its comfortable toggles, but he had
to admit that it was pretty snazzy
how the computer could sync up the
ignitions with the music. They used
to have recordings because the symphony was too hard to follow. But the
magical new technology anticipated
the frequencies and followed the
conductor’s wand, throwing switches
and lining everything up.
Well, where was Ben, anyway?
It had been nearly an hour since the
assistant had gone to get water. And,
as he walked across the green grass,
he couldn’t help but grin. He hadn’t
meant to keep Ernie waiting. He was
pretty eager to get back to work. It
had just taken a while to find the tent
that was going to sell water, and when
he did, there wasn’t any water yet.
There was, however, a stunning
young woman with wavy black hair
and deep brown eyes. The two of
them talked, and he helped her
unload the supplies for the beverage
tent. Her eyes somehow made the
cases seem incredibly light as he
shifted them from the van to a blue
cart. Her name was Mila.
Time seemed to have floated away,
and Ben soon realized that if he didn’t
get going quickly, he would spend the
entire afternoon talking with her. He
was already sure he would already
spend the whole night dreaming of
her.
So he excused himself as smoothly
as he could while falling hopelessly for her – which is to say that he
nearly tripped and said goodbye
seven times. He walked towards the
baseball fields at the far corner of
the park. People were stringing up
signs and streamers, flapping down
red and white checkered tablecloths,
hollering for tape. He flowed through
the hustle and bustle as if removed,
like he was underwater, barely aware
of the noise on the surface.
Ben did, however, notice one couple
leaning against a tree. It seemed
that perhaps they were at a pleasant
standoff. She had slightly lighter hair
than the water woman and played
with it, casually revealing and hiding
her neck. She started to reach her
fingers towards his face but then
blushed and pulled away. The two
of them just stood there, grinning,
appraising the situation, and thinking
far too much about the future.
Ernie split a grin that was half pride,
half amusement and then looked
at Ben as if to say, “Well, what now,
starry eyes?”
“The fireworks will change that,”
thought Ben. “Yeah, our lil’ light show
ought to put them in the moment.”
“Nice tah meet ya, miss.”
Upon returning, Ben found Ernie
deep in thought.
“Hey Ern, here’s your water, man.
Sorry, it took so long.”
“What?! Oh! Oh, thanks, Ben. That’ll
hit the spot. You run into a hotdog
stand or a pretty gal or
somethin’?”
Ben laughed. Despite teaching Ernie
about the new emerging technology,
Ben knew he was still just a predictable, young kid in Ern’s eyes.
“Yeah, man...I helped her unload the
water bottles from her van....”
“You helped a hotdog stand unload
water?” Ernie said in mock amazement. “Hah. Hah. Did you
invite her to come to watch in the
control booth?”
“Well, no... I thought there’d be regulations against it...Uhm... that.”
“Heh. Heh. Well, there are, and there
isn’t, son. You go on back there and
tell her you got thebest seat in the
house. If she mosies over here when
the music starts, I’m sure no one will
notice.”
“Cool, Ern! Thanks, I’ll be right back.”
Ben started to turn around and then
noticed a white van pulling up behind
the chain-link fence of the dugout.
“Hmm. Hey, hold on,” said Ernie.
Mila stepped out, waving, she called
out: “Hey there! I brought you fellas
some more water.”
“Mila!” Ben stammered. He walked
over and accepted the case of water
bottles from her.
“Gee. Thanks. Um. This is Ernie.
Ernie – Mila.”
“Hi there Ernie, nice to meet you,
too.”
“I was just going to go ask you if you’d
like to watch the show from the control booth... if you don’t already have
plans later, that is....” Ben trailed off,
becoming self-conscious.
“Boy, I’d love to. The fireworks are
going off around nine, aren’t they?”
“Oh, Uhm, yeah. Nine – right, Ern?”
“Sure are. I thought if you came out
here around sunset when the orchestra’s supposed to start. We won’t get
any hassle from the fire marshal.
You’d have to walk out here, though.”
“That sounds awesome.”
“Awesome,” said Ben. “Well, I guess
we’ll see you then, uh, unless you
needed any more help
setting up your booth.”
“There’s some more water showing
up in a bit. If you could help me unload it in about an hour or
so, that’d sure be a big help.”
“Sure. No problem...er... uh if Ern
doesn’t mind. Ern?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure, no ... no problem.
See you later tonight, Mila.”
Ernie chuckled to himself and rubbed
an eye. He didn’t mind if Ben ran off
for a while as long as he handled all
that programming later.
“Well, Ben, you can put that water on
my truck, and let’s get back to work.
You can keep holdin’ that grin if you
like, though.”
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