Rolling Thunder Read Online Free PDF Page B

not drool.
    Ceepak smiles. “After you, Danny.”
    I lead the way to the break room and I hear this playful little chuckle behind me.
    Ceepak. I think me and my stomach amuse him.
    â€œYou guys were incredible! I heard the whole thing on the radio, and then Cliff dedicated that Springsteen song, ‘Local Hero,’ to you two, and I said to my friend Kim, ‘I know those two guys, in fact, one’s my boyfriend.’ Here, Danny. This one is the Vanilla Kreme, the kind with the wedding cake white frosting you like in the middle, not the custardy yellow gunk you don’t like because it reminds you of …”
    She almost says snot because I think I said it on one of our Sunday-morning-after-Saturday-night Dunkin’ Donuts runs. The Bavarian Kremes. Who wants to see that much mucus in the morning?
    Sam bubbles on. “You want some coffee, Ceepak? This box is regular, this box is French vanilla.”
    Why do I think there was a third box of hazelnut that Starky has already guzzled? Then again, maybe not. Samantha Starky is a lot like a Colombian coffee bean: naturally caffeinated. She was a part-time summer cop last year, took a bunch of criminology classes at the nearby community college, then decided she’d rather be a district attorney than a police officer, so now she’s cramming for her LSATs.
    Her naturally percolated state? Very conducive to good grades.
    â€œSo, Danny, how’s Skippy holding up?” she asks.
    â€œOkay, I guess.”
    â€œHe looked rather shaken,” adds Ceepak. “I think he blames his brother Kevin for insisting their mother ride the roller coaster this morning. Apparently, she was somewhat reluctant to do so.”
    â€œWow,” says Sam. “The whole family must feel horrible.”
    No, I want to say, not the youngest son. He’s all kinds of happy. And Peter. We haven’t heard from him yet because he’s gay and they wouldn’t let him ride the ride.
    â€œMy mom heard that the funeral will probably be this Friday at Our Lady of the Seas. Poor Skippy.” Sam has met Skip. On one of our dates, we played miniature golf at King Putt, the course he works at for his father. “I bet this is tearing him up.”
    â€œYeah.” I say. “He always gets kind of emotional.”
    Actually, Skippy cries a lot. Has ever since elementary school when he was the kid you’d see bawling his eyes out when he missed the ball in kickball.
    I don’t hang out with Skip O’Malley too much anymore, not since this one time at the Sand Bar when we were all sharing a couple of pitchers of draft and, as a joke, my buddy Jess played that Garth Brooks song on the jukebox, the one about lives left to chance and how he didn’t want to miss the dance, and Skippy couldn’t take it. The guy sobbed through a whole stack of paper napkins.
    â€œHe really wanted to be a cop,” says Starky.
    â€œIndeed,” says Ceepak. “Unfortunately, if I’m honest, he did not display a genuine aptitude for the job.”
    He must be remembering busting Skippy’s chops for yammering on his cell phone in the middle of Ocean Avenue a couple of summers ago when he was supposed to be directing traffic around a sewer excavation.
    â€œYeah,” says Sam. “And then, of course, last fall he cheated.”
    â€œCome again?”
    Okay. Sam’s got Ceepak’s interest. Mine, too.
    â€œOh, jeez. I thought you guys knew. And here I am, blabbing my big mouth. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
    â€œCome on, Sam,” I say. “What happened?”
    â€œYou promise you won’t tell a soul?”
    â€œScout’s honor,” I say.
    â€œYou have my word,” adds Ceepak.
    â€œWell, you know he was in the Alternate Route Program, paid his own way to the Cape May County Police Academy. Anyway, they have this weekly exam every Friday, and I guess the teacher left the answer key on his