Chris Grabenstein: Rolling Thunder

“Hey, Skippy-remember Mrs. Fabricius?”

Skippy looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “What?”

“Sophomore year. She taught us math.”

“Oh, yeah. Her. She was okay.”

“Okay? Jeez-o, man, Skip-you were her favorite.”

He shrugs. “She made it interesting. Not dry and dull, you know?”

I inch forward.

“You aced every exam.”

“You remember that?”

“Sure. You blew the curve, bro.”

I roll closer.

“Hey, how about Mr. Skaggs?”

“Who?”

“Monkey man. The gym teacher. Remember how he’d hang off the chin-up bars chomping on a banana?”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re wasting my time.”

“I just thought-”

“I’ve got work to do.” He uses his thumb to slide the hammer drop, take off the Beretta’s safety.

“Whoa, easy.”

Now his thumb pulls back the hammer spur. His finger quivers on the trigger.

His hand is trembling.

Where the hell is Ceepak?

“For fuck sake, don’t shoot me, kid!” All of a sudden, Mr. Ceepak is begging. “Come on. I never did shit to you. Cut me a fucking break!”

“Shut up!”

“Come on! You don’t really want to kill me!”

Incredibly, Layla laughs. “Uh, yeah -he does.”

Skippy looks stunned. Lowers his pistol a couple inches. Turns to glare at the girl.

As he turns, she kicks out her foot.

Sends one of the shotguns skittering across the floor to me.

I pounce on it. Flip it up and twirl it over. Aim it at Skippy’s heart.

“Freeze!” I shout.

He swings back, Beretta aimed at me.

“Danny?” His eyes go wide.

Everything shifts to super slo-mo.

Skippy’s trigger finger twitches.

Mine twitches faster.

The shotgun in my hand explodes.

The wad slams Skippy in the shoulder. Shrapnel freckles his face with blood.

Reflexes swing him right.

The muzzle of the Beretta is now aimed at Mr. Ceepak’s gut.

A round goes off.

Mr. Ceepak recoils, clutching his stomach. An artery is spurting.

Skippy wheels around to squeeze off another round.

But I already have his head in my sights.

I have to kill the crazy bastard.

That’s when glass shatters, the whole world explodes, and we all go blind.

Ceepak finally tossed in the flashboom.

My ears are ringing as a battalion of heavily armed ninjas swarms into the control room.

I see four silhouettes of soldiers grab Skippy’s arms and legs and lift him up off the ground. His pistol rattles to the floor.

He’s screaming.

“My arm! Jesus, my fucking arm!”

Through the blinding white burning my retinas I can see a rump roast of raw beef where Skippy’s right shoulder used to be.

The SWAT guys drag his ass out the door. Fast. All around me, it’s smoky bedlam. People screaming. Crying. Wailing. Soldiers shouting, “Out, out. Go, go.”

Mr. Ceepak is somewhere on the floor, wheezing. I smell the metallic scent of blood.

“We need a medic over there!” I stumble toward the door. “There’s a wounded man in the corner.”

“Good work, Officer Danny!” a voice cuts through the panicked din and the alarm clock bells jangling in my eardrums.

It’s the girl. Layla.

“Out, out, out!” Robocop is in the house, hustling Layla and the other hostages out the door.

My temporary blindness finally fades.

“Keep your legs down, Dad!”

It’s Ceepak. In the corner. Working on his father, who is gurgling and rasping and gushing blood.

“Johnny,” the old man groans. “You gotta fucking help me … don’t fuck this up, you stupid shit.”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you see?”

“Yeah.”

“I need more sterile gauze.” He tears off his T-shirt and stuffs it into his father’s abdomen. “Stat. Alert the medics, then grab the AED out of the ticket office. He’s going into v-fib.”

Ceepak starts pumping on his father’s chest.

As I’m running out the trailer door, I hear Ceepak shout, “Don’t die on me, you goddamn son of a bitch! Don’t you dare die!”

I don’t know if anybody’s going to give him another Distinguished Service Cross for it, but Ceepak saved his old man’s life.

Brought him back from the brink, just like he did for that soldier over in Mosul, although I’m guessing the soldier deserved to live more than Joe Sixpack did.

But who am I to judge?

They took him to the hospital in the second ambulance.

Skippy got the first ride. He’s going to live but he’ll never play tennis or badminton. Apparently, my shotgun blast seriously dislocated his shoulder-like into the next county.

I don’t think he’ll be getting many visitors. The O’Malley clan is conveniently forgetting they ever had a boy named Skipper. Maybe Mary will drop by. Maybe they’ll end up in the same psych ward after the trial.

I called Samantha like I promised I would. She was at her mother’s house. After Sam thanked me for saving Richard Heimsack’s life, her mom got on the phone and told me what a hero I was and how she always knew I’d do something heroic because I was such a hero and blah, blah, blah. Then she asked me whether I wanted to come by for Sunday dinner because she wanted to bake me a cake and introduce me to some of her friends who she’d already told what a hero I was.

I said thanks but no thanks, as I had prior commitments for Sunday afternoon.

First, Ceepak and I are going to his father’s apartment and toss his things into a U-Haul so he’s ready to head back to Ohio or wherever he wants to call home when he’s released from the hospital. In grudging gratitude for his son’s lifesaving administration of CPR and expert use of the AED, Joseph Ceepak has promised never to darken his son’s door or life again. He has also taken a solemn vow to leave Ceepak’s mom the hell alone.

After we pack up the old man, we promise Marny Minsky we’d check out her apartment. Make sure none of the sugar daddies booby-trapped it or planted miniature video cameras in her ferns. What can I say? She’s still a little paranoid. But starting Monday, she’s turning over a new leaf. Rita made a few phone calls, got her a job at Santa’s Sea Shanty. Less bling. More jingle bells.

When Marny’s settled, we’ll head back to Ceepak’s place and the little patio behind the Bagel Lagoon.

We’re going to give his stepson T.J. the Farewell to Sea Haven/Hello, Annapolis party he truly deserves. There will be no putt-putt. No roller coaster rides. We’ll simply crack open a couple of beers, toss some meat on the grill, eat some of Rita’s potato salad, and tease T.J. mercilessly. Then we’ll let him know how proud we all are of him.

You see, when Ceepak and I first met T.J. Lapscynski, he was a punk kid with a paintball rifle and a bad attitude causing trouble up and down Ocean Avenue just for the hell of it. But Ceepak saw something in him that maybe nobody else ever did. Talent. Character. The way he looked out for his mom, Rita. Over the years, Ceepak helped turn the kid around, saved his life, probably, the same way he saved his father’s today.

My partner’s pretty good at that.

Hey-look how far he’s come with me.

Oh, by the way, Layla will be at the cookout. We bumped into each other again at the house when I went there to put on some warmer clothes after the medics checked me out. I thanked her for the assist. She said I looked cute in my swim trunks.

Layla Shapiro is her name.

Jen Forbus, the officer who’d been debriefing Layla, said the two of us made a good team.

Who knows. Maybe we do.

Maybe we will.