Chris Grabenstein - Free Fall

“Yo, dude!” The kid shouts. “You gotta be in a boat. Insurance rules. No walking in the river. Yo? Dude?”

I slosh forward and duck my head under the arched opening cut into the plywood scene of Bavaria or wherever.

The tunnel is pitch-dark. Nice if you’re on a romantic ride with your girlfriend. Not so much when you’re on foot.

If I were Ceepak, I’d whip out my pocket flashlight.

But I’m not.

So I use my iPhone. Flick on the flashlight app that uses the tiny camera light to approximate a ten-watt bulb. It’s better than nothing.

I pass a scene of cutout elves in pointy caps painting toadstools. Girls probably think it’s cute. Guys don’t care. At this point, early in the ride, they’re just nervous, wondering when they should make their first move.

Up ahead is another dark stretch.

And a gently rocking boat.

I slog up the shallow trough, glad I wore cargo shorts to work today. Until the water splashing up my legs soaks through the thigh pockets and turns them into drooping water balloons.

With the current switched off, I’m moving faster than the boat in front of me. As I get closer, I hear smooching. And moans. And a playful “Slow down, Kevin,” giggled by a girl.

Whose voice I recognize. Heidi Noroozy. We dated. Once.

“Excuse me, guys,” I say, when I reach the stern.

The startled lovers spring apart. Nearly capsize their boat.

“Danny?”

“Hey, Heidi.”

“Uh, hi.” She starts buttoning stuff.

“Hey, Kevin.” I recognize her new man. Kevin Tipple. He works at Boardwalk Books. Guess he’s on his morning break.

I find that, if I squeeze along the starboard side of the little red dinghy, I can actually creep my way downstream. When I reach the boat’s bow, I turn around. “Stay here, you two. There could be trouble up ahead.”

“Is this a new part of the ride?” asks Kevin. “Like when the robbers stop the train in Wild West World?”

I think Kevin spends a little too much time in the fiction section of his store.

“Just stay here.”

Kevin and Heidi nod. Their eyes go so wide they could both play Bambi in one of the ride’s cheesy scenes.

“Halt!” I hear Ceepak’s voice ringing off the walls in the tunnel up ahead of me.

“Forget it, po-po,” shouts the purse-snatcher, who sounds like he could definitely use an attitude adjustment.

I hurry down the river. Make my way up to the next painted display. Geese. Talking to Little Red Riding Hood, a wart-nosed witch, and Pepe Lepew. What the diorama’s story is supposed to be, I haven’t a clue. I guess the plywood jigsaw cutouts were on sale, maybe in one of those yards where they sell bent-over-gardeners-flashing-their-bloomers as lawn decorations.

I round a bend.

And here comes the kid in the A amp;F jersey, a lady’s purse slung over his shoulder. The bag does not match his shiny basketball shorts.

“Stop,” I say, flashing my iPhone light in his face. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

(Ever since I became a cop, I’ve always wanted to say that.)

“Hands over your head,” adds Ceepak, splashing up behind the kid with a Maglite locked in one fist, his other hand clasping his wrist to steady the light.

The kid squints. Stares at me hard.

He swings around to check out Ceepak then turns back to me.

“Wassup, braw?”

Of course he looked familiar. It’s Ben Sinclair. Our honorable mayor’s dishonorable son. We’ve dealt with him before. Several times, actually.

“Why you two always be harassing me?” he whines. “I didn’t do nothing wrong, dawg.”

Ben Sinclair is not a gangsta rapper. He’s a rich white kid who once tried to strap a big subwoofer to the back of his scooter so he could cruise around Sea Haven pretending to be ghetto.

“You were resisting arrest,” says Ceepak.

“Cuffs?” I ask.

“That’ll work,” says Ceepak, sliding the purse off Ben’s shoulder while I work the kid’s hands behind his back.

“Yo! That be police brutality, po-po.”

“No, Benjamin,” says Ceepak. “Those be handcuffs.”

I can’t help but crack up. Ceepak made a funny.

The three of us wade down Ye Olde Mill stream.

Ceepak even starts whistling.

It’s a Springsteen tune, of course. “Tunnel Of Love.”

Mrs. Ceepak is waiting with the lady whose purse ben snatched when we come out of Ye Olde Mill.

“See, dear?” she says. “I told you my son and his friend would get you your bag back. I’m so proud of you, Johnny. You, too, Daniel.”

“Thanks,” we both say. For an instant, I feel like Ceepak and I are two years old and we both just made a good boom-boom on our potty training seats.

The Murray brothers, Dylan and Jeremy, swing by the boardwalk in their patrol car to process Ben Sinclair.

“He’ll be out in under an hour,” mutters Jeremy.

“Forty-five minutes,” seconds his brother.

“We appreciate you guys handling this,” says Ceepak.

Dylan Murray smirks at my soaked shorts and Ceepak’s soggy pants.

“So what’s with you two? Your adult diapers leaking again?”

“Something like that,” says Ceepak with a grin.

“We took a turn in the dunk booth,” I say. “Over on Pier Two.”

“Wish I had known,” says Dylan. “Would’ve bought a dozen balls.”

“Yeah, it would’ve taken you a dozen to finally hit the target.”

Yes, this is what we do. We bust each other’s chops. It makes knowing that the mayor’s bratty kid is going to skate free, no matter what he did, a little easier to stomach.

Ceepak and I follow the Murrays back to the house in my Jeep and hit the locker room where, fortunately, we each have a dry pair of pants. And socks. When I take my wet ones off, my toes look like yogurt-covered raisins. They’re curdled worse than cottage cheese.

We grab a quick bite at the Yellow Submarine, this sandwich shop on Ocean Avenue (where you can get Mean Mister Mustard and Glass Onions on anything), then head back to the boardwalk and Pier Two.

On the drive over, Ceepak fills me in on the Free Fall ride’s criminal background.

“The Sea Haven operators are calling their ride ‘The StratosFEAR.’ In Michigan, it was known as ‘Terminal Velocity,’ a name that, unfortunately, it soon lived up to. A fourteen-year-old girl was killed after falling one hundred and forty feet from her seat as it plummeted down the drop tower at a rate of descent approaching fifty miles per hour.”

“What happened?”

“According to witnesses, the girl pitched forward while the ride was in free fall. She landed face-down on the pavement at the base of the tower; died on the way to the hospital.”

“Was there an investigation?”

“Quite an extensive one. Officials at the amusement park stated that the victim’s seat should not have been occupied because it did not have a functioning restraint system.”

“What? The seat belt was broken?”

“Actually, it was the shoulder restraint. She was sitting in an open-air car. The only thing holding her in was the padded chest harness over her head and shoulders. The victim’s restraint did not lock properly. The force of the drop caused it to flip up. The final report faulted maintenance workers for failing to designate that particular seat as being ‘out of service’ on the day of the accident.”

“That’s it? Some guy forgot to tape a sign on the girl’s seat?”

“Management at the Michigan amusement park also conceded that all the restraints on the ride should have been checked manually by ride operators before the cars were hoisted skyward.”

Well, duh , I think.

In Sea Haven, high school and college kids get summer jobs on the boardwalk running the rides. There are always a few whose only job is to walk around and jiggle everybody’s safety bars before they signal the operator to hit the GO button. Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to work, if the ride is owned and operated by people who care about safety and doing the right thing.