Chris Grabenstein - Rolling Thunder

“Hey-I just want to be close to you.”

I can’t believe this. Dr. Marvin Hausler, DDS-whose face reminds me of the glasses-wearing chimp you’d see on a monkey calendar-is using recycled Carpenters’ lyrics from 1971 to hit on Gail Baker? What do they teach these guys at dental school?

“I told you, Marv-I can’t. Not anymore. Not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because, okay?”

“Because why?”

The dude sounds like he’s two years old.

“Anyway,” says Gail, flashing her dazzling white smile, which, I guess, Dr. Hausler had something to do with, “thanks for the invite. Have a great workout!”

Gail bounces out the door like a jiggling pack of Sugar Babies with only two candies left in the bag.

“Whoa. Wait up, Gail …”

Dr. Hausler storms off after her. Maybe he wants to give her a few flossing tips.

I turn toward the floor-to-ceiling windows and watch their sidewalk scene play out.

Gail, of course, keeps her cool. Keeps on smiling and looking hot as hell.

Dr. Hausler, on the other hand, is fuming. Waving his arms up and down like a sixth grader throwing a temper tantrum when he finds out his gorgeous teacher won’t even consider dating him because, well, he’s a kid and she isn’t.

Rabid spittle is flying out of his mouth now.

I wonder why guys do this.

Do they really think girls will hop in the sack with them if they act like screaming meemies? That they’ll suddenly say, “You know, I find your loud threats and obnoxious antics strangely attractive. Let’s go have sex.”

Ain’t gonna happen.

Gail leans in and gives the dentist a quick peck on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she says, I think. I need to take a class in lip-reading.

“Fuck you,” says Marvin-his lips are much easier to read. Especially because he keeps repeating himself: “Fuck you!” This time he adds “Bitch!”

Then he storms off to his sports car.

Gail bops up the sidewalk. I figure she has an appointment at that nail spa. Probably needs to get the white tips repainted so they keep looking good against her golden-brown tan.

Me?

I need to hit Chunky’s Cheese Steaks.

I earned it.

“So long,” I say to the girl behind the front desk, who’s on her cell phone.

She waves so she doesn’t have to interrupt her phone call.

“I know,” she says to whoever she’s chatting with, “the guy is, like, such a total jerk. No way would I ever let him drill me.”

I smile.

A dirty mind is an eternal picnic.

A little before three, having taken Samantha a Chunky’s Cheese Steak to help her plow through her law books, I head up Ocean Avenue to King Putt Mini Golf.

You can see the T-shaped pylon sign topped with a bright orange ball from half a mile away. At the base of the pole stands the Bob’s Big Boy of Ancient Egyptian Golf: a six-foot-tall resin cartoon of the chubby Boy King himself. Instead of the classic staff of Ra, Tut totes a putting iron.

The miniature golf course itself is actually pretty awesome. Mr. O’Malley spent about a million bucks landscaping its curving hills, water hazards, “Sahara Desert” sand traps, fake palm trees, and carpeted putting greens. You can arc your ball over a sleeping camel’s humps, try to shoot it through the Sphinx’s legs, or see if you can jump it all the way across the bright blue (like Sno-Cone syrup) River Nile, which, in some spots, is two feet wide.

I pull into the parking lot. It’s decorated with hieroglyphics on lampposts to help you remember where you parked. I see Ceepak’s silver Toyota over in the Owl section, so I look for a spot close by.

There are none.

They’re all taken.

Including the slot right next to ol’ dinged-up Silverado.

That’s where Mr. Joseph “Sixpack” Ceepak has parked his red pickup truck.

I race across the asphalt to the King Putt office-this pink stucco building shaped like one of the pyramids: you get your balls and putters in the base; the O’Malleys keep the books and computers up in the peak.

A couple of kids, tears streaking down their cheeks, come running out of the office, screaming, “Mommy! Daddy! Mommy! Daddy!”

I see parents near a minivan.

“Sea Haven Police,” I say, even though I’m wearing baggy shorts, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt. “Please stay in the parking lot. We have a situation inside.”

Hey, if Mr. Ceepak is in there, we probably do.

When I enter the office, the first thing I see is Skippy O’Malley behind the counter, panic in his pie-wide eyes, a terrified cat in his arms. Skippy’s in his official King Putt costume: a fake bronze breastplate, striped skirt, and a Pharaoh hat.

The cat he’s clutching to his chest-a tabby with pointy ears very similar to those on the carved Pharaoh cats propping up the brochure racks-is hissing angrily at Ceepak’s dad, who is standing in front of the cash register, swinging a putter back and forth like he might shatter a display case on his next shot.

Ceepak and Rita have putters, too. They’re standing to the right, in front of a Coke machine.

“You want me to call for backup?” I shout.

Ceepak-the good one-shakes his head. “No need, Danny.”

Mr. Ceepak swivels around. Stares at me with glassy eyes. I have a feeling that this morning he swilled what he could out of all of Big Kahuna’s empty beer bottles before he tossed them in the Dumpster.

“Boyle,” he slurs. “Good name for you, kid, because you’re a goddamn boil on my butt I can’t get rid of no matter how much puss I squeeze out of it!”

Great. Not exactly the kind of description you want to hear so soon after wolfing down a Chunky’s Cheese Steak with extra cheese.

Mr. Ceepak staggers back around and lurches toward his son, gripping his putter under the head so he can hold it like a ball-peen hammer.

Rita retreats half a step.

Ceepak does not. In fact, he nonchalantly hands Rita his putter. He doesn’t need a weapon to face his sorry excuse for a father.

“Where is she, you sanctimonious sack of shit?”

“I’ll ask you once more to refrain from using foul language.”

“Fine. But first-you tell me where the hell your mother is hiding.”

“As I stated previously,” says Ceepak, striding forward, not at all afraid of the golf club quivering in his old man’s hand, “she is where you will never find her.”

“She has my fucking money! Three million dollars!”

“You are mistaken. Aunt Jennifer willed that money, in no uncertain terms, to Mom, and Mom alone.”

“What’s hers is mine.”

“So you keep saying. However, according to the divorce papers-”

“We’re Catholic, Johnny.”

“While you were in prison, she had your marriage annulled by a church tribunal.”

“She can’t do that.”

“She did.” He hands his father a piece of paper.

Mr. Ceepak takes it. “What the fuck is this?”

“A restraining order.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a civil order that provides protection from harm by a family member or a psycho stalker,” I chime in, because Sam chirped it to me the other night while she was cramming for her LSATs.

“You,” Ceepak says to his father, “are not to have any further contact with me or my family, in person, by phone, at home, work or anywhere I or my wife and stepson happen to be.”

“Fuck that-”

“Trust me, sir-if you violate this order, you will be incarcerated.”

“Hey, he’s violating it now!” This from Skippy. “You want me to cuff him? I have handcuffs.”

He does? Did he save a pair as a souvenir when he was an auxiliary cop?

“My guns are at home but I have a wood back here.” Skippy lets go of the cat, who jumps into a fuzzy doughnut-shaped bed as Skippy bends down to grab a driver with a humongous head, which, I guess is what Putt-Putt owners use for self-defense instead of the more traditional mom-and-pop grocery store baseball bat.