[ Fiction ] Friday July06/07

Fiction Friday Challenge for July 6, 2007:

Here’s this week’s challenge:

Choose one of the following odd character names and create a character sketch to go along with it. The genre, if any, is up to you. I leave it up to you to decide exactly what the sketch includes, but don’t just give us a physical description and a career, tell us about the character. Some common features of a character sketch: physical description, job, hobbies, education, family, habits, fears, dreams, history and anything else that helps you understand the character better. Make it an interesting character because we’re going to use them in a future [Fiction] Friday.

Ebenezer Benjamin Brown, Ebb to his co-workers but also known as the "British bulldog" because of his striking resemblance to this pugnacious beast. He was short, barrel chested, ham fist ed tank, that balanced precariously on a pair of spindly bow legs.
Ebb's early years as an amateur wrestler helped shape a face that only a mother and people who liked bulldogs could love, with his squarish head with thrice broken nose, that no longer had the will or the way to stand out from his face, and cauliflower ears.
The flattened nose burdens him with another comparison to his canine twin in that whenever Ebb exerts himself he has the tendency to snuff and snort like he is under great duress to take a breath.
There is a story that goes around the station that in all likelihood has been embellished over the years. Once when Ebb was a junior officer, he and his partner were about to make an arrest of a very drunk belligerent offender who was carrying a baseball bat. On seeing Ebb coming at him the criminal shouted to stand back or he would beat him until he was handsome. This caused his partner to howl with laughter which in turn gave the assailant the giggles rendering him helpless to Ebb. Ebb couldn't understand what was so funny, the man was drunk and didn't know what he was saying.

Ebb worked thirty years for the Vancouver Police and was set to retire in one week. As a detective in the major crimes unit, he had been shot twice, stabbed once. He had three commendations for bravery and was the most respected officer in the department. Every man knew that Ebb would lay his life on the line to protect his partner.
Until recently he feared no man and no thing. At the age of fifty-five, fear presented itself to him in a most unexpected way. He was to retire in one week and he did not know what he would do with himself. All his friends worked within the Department and he had vowed long ago that he would not be one of those retirees that came back and hung around the station getting in everybody's way. He had acquired no hobbies or interests over the years . His work was everything to him and soon it would be no more. Ebb feared lonliness more then death itself.