Free Fall

10

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.

The “brand new” StratosFEAR Free Fall?

Not so much.

The owner is Sinclair Enterprises.

As in Mayor Hugh Sinclair.

And as we approach the recycled ride, I see that the mayor’s son, Ben, is the guy sitting in the control booth, his hand poised over the big green GO button.

Apparently, his dad’s lawyers were working extra-hard today. They got him sprung in record time.