Benjaumin is a very small town northeast of Conway Corners. The name of the town is assumed to be the result of a misspelling, but there are differing accounts of how the misspelling came about. As the number of farmers has declined and the mobility of those left has increased, Benjaumin has dwindled to little more than a gas station with an attached convenience store, and a grain elevator. There isn’t even a post office any longer.
Les Sabin operates the convenience store. He is in his forties and married Linda, to his high school sweetheart who supplements the family income by working as a part time bookkeeper for two beauty salons, one in
It was Saturday afternoon, two days after N-Day. Les and Linda had not talked much about the Bear decision or N-Day, either with each other or with Tracee. They each had reasons for avoiding the subject and Les had really thought that N-Day would not happen and specific personal reasons to not broach the subject. Besides, as Les had noted to himself, Tracee did not seem the exhibitionist type. She dressed conservatively, having no short skirts or shorts and always wore very conservative one-piece swimsuits when swimming. Her boyfriend Jason seemed very conservative in his life style too. Jason was from
Les had not seen a naked person in the forty-eight hours since clothing had become optional. He had heard some about things on radio and television but had not really had time to watch or listen and had not been thinking about the subject much since it was his thought that the practice of public nudity would not happen often enough to make it a matter of much concern anyway. So he was a bit surprised when a tall, heavyset man walked in totally naked. Les had seen the man come in before. He had previously always worn the same red flannel shirt and overalls, usually buying some coffee and a sandwich and once in a while putting gas into an old Ford pickup truck. Les knew most of his customers, but this man did not live in the immediate area and always paid cash so Les was not sure of his name.
Les was momentarily stunned by the man’s nakedness. Although he almost found the man’s nakedness preferable to what he usually wore, he did not think he wanted naked customers in his store.
“Get dressed or get out,” he told the man.
“Don’t have to. You ain’t got not sign saying so. And I got rights.”
Les really did not know where he stood legally. He was pretty sure he was right, but didn’t know how far he could push the matter. (Actually, had he asked them, some of the best legal minds in the state would have given him differing answers.) So he told the man, “Well, make your purchase quick and get out then.”
“Sure ain’t got no sense of business hospitality, do you? I think I’ll just take my business elsewhere.”
The man walked out, but as he walked out he saw his daughter’s boyfriend Jason coming in. He noted that Jason exchanged brief greetings with the man, but more immediately noticed that Jason was naked too. And before he could digest this, he saw Tracee walking in behind Jason, also naked. Les had not seen Tracee naked since she was a little girl. He thought that that was the way things should be and her appearing naked here made him uncomfortable and, not surprisingly, angry.
“What the hell you doing, running around here naked?” he asked her. “That guy get you into this?” He glared menacingly at Jason.
“Calm down, Dad,” Tracee answered. “It’s legal and it feels nice. I wish we had thought of it sooner.”
Les really did not have words at his disposal right then and the three of them just looked at each other for a while. Finally Les composed his thoughts.
“It may be legal but it isn’t right. And you’re still a minor. Get dressed right now. You got something to put on with you?”
“My clothes are in Jason’s car.”
Les turned to Jason. “You go out and get my daughter’s clothes and bring them here. And then put some on yourself and get out of here and don’t come back, dressed or naked. Got it?”
Jason understood what he was being told well, but he was a young man with more backbone than Les might have appreciated and he knew his audience.
“We have done nothing either illegal or wrong. Maybe the timing and taste are not the best, but everybody has a body and there is nothing wrong with a body. They’re like guns. Guns don’t kill people. People do. Bodies don’t do crimes or antisocial things. It’s the people who have the bodies who do. But you are right that Tracee is a minor and I will go get her clothes, but you are not able to keep us apart permanently. She’ll be eighteen in October. And before that, you’ll realize that you are on the wrong side of history, anyway.”
He returned to his truck, gathered up Tracee’s clothes and brought them in to her. He whispered good-bye to her and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Tracee had been silent, standing still. Her gaze had not left the potato chip display on the far rack. She was second-guessing herself for broaching the matter of public nudity to her father in so sudden and bold a way, but she also wondered why if it was all so bad, neither of her parents had brought the matter up. She now assumed that they would be talking about the matter later, but did not want to go at it with her father right then. She quickly slipped on the panties and slacks that Jason had brought in and slipped her t-shirt on. She slipped her bra into her purse.
Les had looked away while Tracee dressed. Somehow it did not seem right to see his daughter dress. He had been surprised at how good his daughter looked. Her previous style of conservative dressing had not really done her well, he thought, but he figured that if he noticed this that others who might not love her or care about her best interests would too. He appreciated Jason’s comparison of bodies with guns, but nakedness was still not right. He was sure of this. And a parent was the last one who should see an almost grown child naked. He hardly noticed when Tracee walked out of the store and when he did notice, he assumed that she was probably walking home, a trip of just under a mile that they had both made many times, sometimes together.
He picked up his cell phone and called Linda to tell her what had happened. Linda agreed that this was an important thing to discuss, but wondered whether it was as serious a matter as Les was thinking and also wondered how much control she and Les might have over the matter anyway.
Linda was waiting for Tracee when she arrived home. They both had tears in their eyes and embraced each other as they entered the house. They both sat on a couch crying on each other’s shirts for several minutes,
Finally, Linda told her daughter, “I know what happened. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I might have done the same thing.”
Tracee continued to sob and grabbed her mother more tightly.
Linda went on, “Let me tell you a secret. Well, it’s not really a secret. Your father has known about it all along, but we haven’t discussed it since the day after it happened and I don’t want to talk about it again. When I was about your age, your father and I had a relationship something like you and Jason do, except that neither of us was thinking of college and so we were thinking we might get married some time. A bunch of us who were all friends and all about the same age decided to go swimming one night at
“You did? Dad sure seemed awful up tight about me and Jason.”
“Well, your father wouldn’t go with us. I went without him. There were ten or eleven of us as I remember who went. Your Uncle Lou went too, with his girlfriend. I figured I was safe enough with my big brother there. It was fun really. But I never did it again.”
“Why not? Get caught?”
“No, but it bothered your father terribly. He didn’t think it was right. I didn’t think, I still don’t, that there was anything wrong with our all swimming naked by itself, but it was wrong of me to do it because it bothered somebody I loved dearly and it was really selfish of me to do that for just a few minutes of fun. We talked about it for quite a while the next day and neither of us has said anything about it since. Not to each other and I don’t think to anybody else. So don’t tell anybody I told you this. We all should have talked about this N-Day stuff first, but I guess maybe we both wanted to avoid the subject.”
Tracee was still sobbing. “Oh, Mother. I really appreciate your telling me this story. It must have been hard. I won’t say anything to anybody.”
”Well, what do you say that you just stay dressed until we get a chance to digest some of what is going on with all these new things that are happening? And I’ll figure out how I can get you over to
Tracee sobbed agreement and hugged her mother again.
When Les got home, Linda told him that something had come up and
Tracee kept Jason away for several days and did not have a date with him for two weeks. They both stayed dressed when together. She had still stayed dressed by her eighteenth birthday. She still had not heard more from her father on the matter and her mother had only given her a couple of strategic winks.
