If you’ve ever seen bratty kids running around a restaurant while their parents sip their third umbrella drink, you have a pretty good idea of what awaited Ceepak and me when we made it into the back room of Morgan’s Surf amp; Turf. Every sugar packet had been torn open and emptied. Dinner rolls were flying. Globs of world famous crab pie were being spoon-catapulted.
And then there were the watermelons.
Like I said, I’ve never been to a real college, but I’m told, in certain circles, the ceremonial smashing of a watermelon is considered the traditional way to open a frat house barbecue bash. Mike Tomasino had a ball-peen hammer and was making a squishy mess in the middle of his table. Morgan’s nice white tablecloths were turning pink.
“Taser ’em!” shouted Gus Davis, who was in a corner, pawing mashed potatoes out of his eyes. “Taser ’em all!”
“Cease and desist,” Ceepak said to the rowdy drunks. “Cease and desist!”
They weren’t listening.
Paulie had quickly caught up with his inebriated housemates. He was swilling vodka straight from a gallon jug he must’ve snatched from behind the bar. It still had the silver shot spout in its neck.
I saw Layla. Huddled behind one of the roving camera crews capturing all the action.
She, like everybody else working behind the scenes, was wearing a bright yellow rain poncho so her clothes wouldn’t get splattered. She was also laughing her ass off.
Probably at me.
I was wrestling with tattooed Jenny Mortadella, trying to persuade her not to smash Morgan’s lobster tank with her ball-peen hammer.
Ceepak’s wife, Rita, the former Morgan’s waitress who had come down to catch a whiff of Hollywood glamour, was in the kitchen. Weeping.
We didn’t Taser anybody, but we did shout a lot.
“Put down the corn cob. Step away from the clam chowder. Leave those lobsters alone!”
Maybe you’ve seen the T-shirts.
Because now I’m a TV star too.
Here’s how that happened:
The parking lot buy-and-bust went bust on Friday night.
Our SHPD mobile units and the New Jersey State Police didn’t catch Skeletor or a single member of his motorcycle gang. Once they roared across the causeway bridge (six abreast, we were told by startled eyewitnesses), they apparently split up and headed for what the guys in the state’s Narcotics and Organized Crime Bureau call “safe garages.” They’re like safe houses for motorcycles. Places where a badass biker and his hog can lie low until the heat blows over.
Friday night and all day Saturday, Ceepak and I worked the obvious Sea Haven leads. Paulie gave us the number he had used to contact Skeletor.
Disposable cell phone. They sell them at Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, Target.
We interviewed Mike Charzuk, this trainer at Beach Bods, the local gym where the Fun House cast works out. That’s where Paulie said he’d first bumped into Skeletor. Charzuk remembers seeing the walking cadaver but can’t give us anything we don’t know, like Skeletor’s real name or his address. Apparently he isn’t a dues-paying member. He just scares the girl at the front desk so creepily, she never asks for his I.D. tag.
Sunday, we more or less took the day off, stayed home and licked our wounds. I did not respond when Layla texted me. Six different times. She had Sunday off, too. Wanted to hook up.
Not gonna happen anytime soon.
In fact, the one time it had almost happened, I think there had been what they call an ulterior motive. Ms. Shapiro wanted me and Ceepak nowhere near Morgan’s Surf amp; Turf during that early-evening break so her prop crew could set the stage to transform the restaurant’s party room into the cafeteria scene from Animal House. She knew Ceepak would be busy organizing the buy-and-bust. Me? Let’s just say she tried her best to keep me distracted.
Anyway, let me cut to the chase, as they say in Hollywood. All week, we get nowhere on the Skeletor case. Then Thursday night, at ten, nine Central, I see him again.
On TV.
I’m watching Fun House.
“America, you’ve heard about it all day,” says Chip Dale, the wannabe Ryan Seacrest who hosts the show.
He has very bright chompers.
His dentist must be proud.
“Well, tonight you’ll meet the crazed stalker who threatened to take the fun out of the house.”
Okay. I didn’t have time today to watch Access Hollywood, E.T., Extra, or any of those other shows where they plug the shows their networks need plugged that day, so I had no idea what America had heard all day.
They cut to Soozy K sitting somewhere, doing an interview. She doesn’t look directly at the camera, they never do. Cheesily dramatic reality show music, the same soundtrack they use in all these shows, makes what she’s saying sound important.
“We were all like, you know, freaked out. That skinny dude was BLEEPING scar-ee. I’m glad the undercover cops were there to protect Paulie, even if we’re not, you know, on this journey together anymore.”
Next, they went to some of the footage they shot last Friday. In the parking lot. The buy-and-bust.
Yep. They’re showing everything they promised they wouldn’t.
“Welcome to Morgan’s Surf and Turf,” Chip the deejay continues in a voice-over as we watch Paulie Braciole strut out the front door and into the parking lot. “Home of the world’s best crab pie and creepiest parking-lot stalkers.”
They cut to Skeletor in his Boonie hat, talking to Paulie. His Harley gleams in the background.
“I’m pulling’ for you, bro,” says Skeletor, who looks even skinnier on TV. “Big fan of The Thing. Want The Thing to take the whole thing, know what I mean?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Paulie actually sounds humble. I think they looped the line. That means they recorded it later, when he could be coached, matched it with the picture.
They cut from modest Paulie to Skeletor yanking up his T-shirt to flash his bony ribcage.
“Check it out. This is The Thing you wish you had. The Thing you wish you could be.”
Quick reaction shot from Paulie looking disgusted. The light seems different. Like maybe they shot this last Saturday-right before we had all those nasty thunderstorms.
The sequence of events? It isn’t the order it actually happened in.
“Where’s Soozy K?” asks Skeletor, going on tippy-toe. Behind him, in this shot, the sky is clear again.
“I need to get back to work,” says Paulie, sounding like an honest day laborer unpacking fruit trucks somewhere.
“Work?” scoffs Skeletor. “BLEEP, man, all you people do is get drunk, play Skee-Ball, and BLEEP each other. You call that BLEEPING work, bro?”
Paulie shakes his head and laughs good-naturedly. The sky is, once again, partly cloudy.
“Fortunately,” said Chip the narrator, “some undercover law enforcement officers had been trailing the psycho known to local authorities only as Skeletor.”
Ceepak and I make our big entrance.
Ceepak flashes his badge. “We’re with the Sea Haven Police Department.”
And they cut to a grateful Paulie throwing up his hands. “I am so out of here. Thanks, guys.” He heads toward the restaurant-before all those dark clouds in his Saturday sky can open up and drench him.
Back to Ceepak, Skeletor, and me. Three different angles. None of them very flattering. Except for the sky. It looks clear again.
“Where is your helmet, sir?” says Ceepak.