Instead of a train of connected cars like a bigger roller coaster, it has tiny, individual cars shaped like mice. The undercarriage of each one is designed to make you feel like you hit the turns before the wheels do and every time you fly into a curve, you think you're going to rocket off the edge and die. Just when you recover, the little mouse car whips into another turn, throws you another curve, and you think you're about to die all over again.
It's a blast.
Near the north end of the boardwalk is another wicked ride: the Tower of Terror. You can see it no matter where you are because it's twenty stories tall. Basically, it's an open-air elevator that hauls you up, then drops you like somebody snipped the cable. The one time I took the plunge my stomach ended up somewhere behind my eyeballs.
It's Thursday. August 31st. A practically perfect end-of-summer day. Not too muggy, especially for the last day of August. It rained Tuesday night, but I don't think it will today. Maybe we'll get a thunderstorm later. We usually do. The clouds are towering up on top of each other like puffy popcorn balls. I can even smell the popcorn. Hot. Buttery. They sell tons of it on the boardwalk.
As we march up the steps, I'm hit with a cool breeze and the wafting aromas of not only fresh popcorn but sausage-and-pepper sandwiches, curly-cut fries, onion rings, charbroiled burgers, fried clam strips, cotton candy. I figure this is what heaven must smell like. At least the boys’ side.
“Have you any idea who this young man Grace mentioned might be?” Ceepak asks.
“Don't think so.”
“Well, he should be easy to spot,” Ceepak says. “What with the large tattoo ringing his forearm.”
I just smile.
We join the crowd walking the boards, and just about everybody has a tattoo somewhere. This is a great place to show them off because the idea at the beach is to be buck naked except for your underwear. That's what swimsuits are. Drip-dry underwear.
Some guys have your classic scary tats up on their shoulders. Spider webs and skulls and angry ladies biting knives. Others have Thai tribal etchings scrolled around their biceps. Then there are the girls with naughty little drawings or Chinese letters peeking out from under their bikini bottoms, front and back.
Scanning the inked-up passersby, Ceepak decides its time to narrow our search.
“Where's the paintball arcade?” he asks.
Paintball Blasters is a politically incorrect shooting gallery right across from the Mad Mouse pier.
The gimmick is the targets. You get to splatter life-size photographs of folks like Osama Bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, O. J. Simpson, Saddam Hussein, and, of course, Britney Spears. Or Michael Jackson. They're all strung up on a clothesline about twenty feet back on the firing range
When you get tired of defacing America's current crop of evildoers, you can take a shot or two at this garbage can lid that pops open to reveal a red, white, and blue bull's-eye target. Then, when that gets boring, you can blast away at a rusty old Pontiac down in the sand underneath the dangling targets. Looks like the windshield is a popular spot to splatter.
“Ten balls for five bucks,” the burly guy running the place says when Ceepak and I step up to his counter. He's reading a newspaper and doesn't look up. “Thirty for ten.”
“Are these Trippman 98s?” Ceepak asks.
I can tell Ceepak did his paintball homework last night on the Internet. The burly guy puts down his newspaper.
“What?” He snuffles his nose and sounds like he might hock a loogie. “Am I supposed to be impressed here or something? You know the name of a gun?”
“I was merely inquiring.”
“Huh.” The paintball proprietor turns back to his paper.
“Who's your best?” Ceepak now asks.
“What?”
“Who's your top gun?”
“Me.” He proudly snorts some more wet stuff back into his throat.
“Who besides you?”
“Depends. What category? Kid? Adult? Local? Tourist?”
“Juvenile. Boy. Spiky blond hair. Tattoos on his forearm. Sound familiar?”
“Why should I tell you?”
Ceepak smiles.
“Because I'm a better shot than you.”
“What?”
“I believe you heard me the first time.”
“You sayin’ you're better than me, slick?”
“That's right.”
“Bullshit.”
“My friend never lies,” I say.
Ceepak pulls out a ten-dollar bill.
“That's for my first thirty shots.”
“You challenging me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don't give away prizes or nothing. You want prizes, go over there, grab a squirt gun, and pop a clown's balloon.”
“I don't want a prize. I want information. About the boy.”
“T. J.?”
“Is that his name?”
“Maybe.”
Ceepak picks up a rifle.
“Let's shoot. If I win, you tell me where I find T. J.”
“And if I win?”
“You keep the ten bucks.”
“What? No fucking way. I get the ten bucks for renting you my fucking gun.”
“Right you are.” Ceepak pulls out his wager-a crisp fifty-dollar bill he tucks under the barrel of the rifle to his left so it won't blow away.
I turn around and see we're drawing a small crowd.
Ceepak's rival hops up on the counter and swings his feet over.
“You're on, ace.”
Ceepak takes up his rifle and checks out the sighting down the barrel.
“You want Saddam?”
“Fine.” Ceepak's cool with Saddam. They've tangled before.
“I'll take Osama. We both fire thirty rounds. Most headshots wins. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Hey, Joey?” The arcade guy is yelling down to some old geezer I hadn't seen before. He's off to the side of the range, dressed in a sleeveless Italian-grandpa undershirt, chewing on the stub of an unlit cigar. He sits on a stool behind a plywood partition. Must be the target master.
“What?” Grandpa grumbles.
“Hang me a clean Osama and Saddam.”
“Why?”
“Because I fucking told you to is why.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He spits out the cigar stub and drags some clean cardboard targets out to the clothesline.
“You ever use glow-in-the-dark paintballs?” Ceepak asks while they wait.
“Nah. Too expensive.”
“What about T. J.?”
“Maybe. I don't know. I'm not his fucking mother.”
