Chris Grabenstein - Rolling Thunder

“Hey, Daddy? Big Paddy?”

Skippy doesn’t know his father isn’t watching him on TV anymore.

“This one’s for you, you murdering piece of shit!”

He wades into the clump of hostages.

One guy takes a swing at him. Tries to trip him up.

He misses.

Skippy turns. Squeezes the trigger on his semiautomatic. Pop!

The young guy’s head explodes.

“Does anyone have the shot?” the SWAT Commander shouts into his headpiece’s microphone.

“Negative” crackles back from every sniper up on the coaster track.

Pop! Skippy puts a second bullet in what’s left of the brave kid’s brain.

“Let him know we’re fucking watching!”

A fusillade of gunfire erupts up and down the wooden scaffolding. Steel pings on steel as the snipers nail the train tracks just outside the cover of the shed roof.

Skippy freezes. Pulls back his pistol.

“Cease fire,” shouts the SWAT commander.

Skippy turns slowly to the camera. “That one was for my fucking father! But if any of you assholes shoot at me again, or toss in a flash-boom, or teargas me, I’ll kill as many of these motherfuckers as I can! Do you hear me, Ceepak? I’ll fucking kill them all!”

And then Skippy opens up a pocket on his cargo pants and pulls something out.

He wiggles it over his head.

He brought a gas mask.

“What the hell is he doing now?” says Chief Baines.

On the video monitor, we see Skippy marching up and down in front of his hostages. He looks like a demented insect in his gas mask. His voice comes out nasal and whiny.

“You? What’s your name?”

“Ken Erb.”

“Get up.”

The guy stands. It’s Mr. Erb. The one who used to fly the bird kites on the beach. Neat guy. Artistic. Into adventures. Figures he’d want to be one of the first to ride the Rolling Thunder.

“You?”

A girl stands. Jeez-o, man. It’s Sam.

“What’s your fucking name?”

“Samantha Starky.”

“Do I know you?”

“Maybe. We met once. I was with-”

“Shut up. Sit down.”

“You …”

“Ceepak?” says the chief. “What the hell is he doing?”

“I’m not certain, but it appears as if he is culling the hostages.”

“What?”

“He is picking a handful of his prisoners.”

“I can see that! But why? What for?”

Ceepak shakes his head. “Unclear, sir.”

“How come he knows you’re here, Officer Ceepak?” asks the SWAT commander, shifting his weight, jostling his gear. He’s giving Ceepak the hairy eyeball.

“Skippy O’Malley, at one time, served with the Sea Haven Police Department.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Part-timer,” says Chief Baines. “One summer only. Auxiliary cop.”

“He correctly assumes that I would be here,” adds Ceepak, “given the severity of the situation.”

Yeah-me and Ceepak. We’re always there when the solid waste hits the rotary blades.

“John’s here because he’s my top guy in crisis situations,” says the chief. “We’re gonna make him a detective. Have him head up a new division. A detective bureau here in Sea Haven.”

We are?

“We need one,” said Baines, as if none of this would’ve happened if we all had different titles.

Wow. Ceepak’s getting bumped up to detective. I’d say we should go out and celebrate, grab a beer, but we’re kind of busy.

“I want your name!” Skippy screams at what looks like the sixth victim he’s picked out of the crowd. “I want them to know whose lives they’re fucking with if they fuck with me again!”

“Layla.”

Skippy points his pistol at the girl’s head.

I swear: She does not flinch.

“You’re fucking making that up!”

“No, I’m not. My parents liked the song.”

It’s the sassy girl from the radio.

“It could’ve been worse. They could’ve named me Ruby Tuesday or something.”

Skippy grabs her by the arm, flings her over to the group he is quickly assembling on the loading platform, close to the roller coaster cars and the spot where Mr. Ceepak sits on the ground, hands behind his back, the handcuff chains looped around a pole.

“Fine! They can carve Layla on your fucking tombstone if those SWAT assholes shoot at me again! I want one more. You.”

“No!” The guy on the ground is cowering. Holding up his hands to block the bullets.

“Get up, you fucking pussy! What’s your name?”

The guy mumbles something.

“Louder! So John Ceepak and the snipers climbing the monkey bars and every fucking cop in the goddamn Garden State can hear your name!”

“Richard.”

“Richard what?”

“Heimsack.”

“Heimsack? That’s your fucking last name?”

Sam’s friend from Rutgers just nods.

“Okay, Richard Heimsack, unlock that old fart.” He tosses him the handcuff keys. “His name is Joseph Ceepak. That’s right, everybody listening. It’s Officer John Ceepak’s father. But he’s not the kind of dad who’d be proud to have a son like Officer Ceepak, the biggest fucking Eagle Boy Scout in the goddamn world. The jarhead that jumped in my face for calling my girlfriend on the phone when I was supposed to be directing traffic around a goddamn sewer pipe. He was right. He was right. My bad. But his father? This worthless sack of sleazy shit? He’s no father. He’s a fucking bully and a blowhard. Get him on his feet.”

Two of the hostage guys help Mr. Ceepak stand. He teeters on wobbly legs.

“Yes, Mr. Joseph Ceepak, just like Big Paddy O’Malley, is a disgusting excuse for a father. He’s so awful, his son had to take out a restraining order against him! But that’s okay. That’s okay. We can make the bastard pay even if the State of Ohio couldn’t. Oh, yeah. I read up on you, Joseph Ceepak. I know what you’ve done. I know you ruined both your sons’ lives. See, folks, the Bible got it wrong!”

Man-shy, skinny Skippy sure loves having an audience. He’s ranting and raving like one of those sweaty Sunday morning television preachers.

“The sins of the father should be visited on the fucking father, not his unfortunate son.”

Skippy sidles over to his rifles. Picks up a shotgun with his free hand. Aims it at the main group of hostages. Holsters the Beretta. Picks up the other shotgun. Aims it at the group closer to the train.

“You people with Mr. Ceepak, you and he are coming with me. Walk across the roller coaster cars. Go into that fucking trailer on the other side of the tracks. Move it.”

When they don’t as move quickly as he thinks they should, Skippy fires another shotgun round over their heads. The blast punches a hole through the ceiling. Buckshot rains down. The seven hostages and Mr. Ceepak hurry across the seats of the stationary roller coaster, climb out on the other side, and head for the control room. Except one guy who thinks about running down the exit ramp.

Skippy fires a warning shot two inches in front of his feet.

The guy throws up his arms and shuffles over to the control room.

“Move it, people,” Skippy shouts. They all scramble and bob through the door of the trailer, and I’m reminded of all those horrible images of Nazi soldiers herding Jews onto boxcars bound for Auschwitz.

“We got to do something,” I say to Ceepak. “Where the hell is the hostage negotiator?”

“Five minutes out,” says the SWAT Commander.

“You!” Skippy turns to Cliff Skeete, who’s sitting just in front of the bigger bunch of hostages on the loading dock. He’s still wearing his headphones, still at his dinky little card table with the vinyl WAVY banner flapping off the front. “Skeeter. Your microphone still open?”