Chris Grabenstein - Tilt-a-Whirl

Some guys have a code they live by, some guys don't.

John Ceepak? He has a code.

Me? No code. Not unless you count my ZIP code or something.

I took this job because I'm twenty-four and Sea Haven is, as you might've guessed, a sunny haven situated by the side of the sea-an eighteen-mile-long barrier island crammed with motels and beach houses and bait shacks and ice cream shops called stuff like Do Me A Flavor and the Scoop Sloop.

Tourists come here to soak up the sun, lick down orange-and-white swirl cones, and bury each other neck-deep in hot sand. My hometown is best pictured on one of those perky placemat maps dotted with squiggly cartoons of buildings like The Shore Store, Santa's Sea Shanty, and King Putt Golf.

It's Saturday in Sea Haven.

I pull into the parking lot outside The Pancake Palace at 7:30 A.M. When I was in high school, I worked here as a busboy. Now I'm what they call a summer cop. I help out during the muggy months when the population of Sea Haven, New Jersey, quadruples and then quintuples and then you need a plastic pass pinned to your swim trunks to even think about walking on the beach.

I swing the customized Ford Explorer into a parking spot near the newspaper dispensers at the side door. The Ford is white with tropical turquoise and hot pink lettering to let everybody know we're cops with a beachy kind of tude.

Inside, the restaurant isn't very crowded. Saturday is changeover day. People who rented last week are leaving, people renting this week will show up later, after the maid brigades have vacuumed the sandy floors and tossed out the abandoned seashell collections. This morning, I see mostly locals eating sensible stuff like eggs and toast, cereal and muffins. It's the tourists and day-trippers who go for the specials-chocolate chip French toast, Coco-Loco Pancakes, and a little something I like to call The Heart Stopper: a waffle, with crispy bits of bacon baked right into the batter, topped with two scoops of butter and a fluffy igloo of whipped cream.

Like the T-shirt says: My diet's on vacation, too!

Ceepak meets me here at The Pancake Palace every morning at 0730. He likes to use that Army clock lingo. We've met here every morning since he joined the force back in May.

John Ceepak doesn't like to drive.

Apparently, something happened while he was soldiering with the 101st Airborne over in Iraq that put him off driving for good. I'm not sure what, because he's never told me about the sandbox. Usually he just tells me where to turn left, where to park, stuff like that.

Sometimes, we talk Springsteen. Ceepak digs The Boss and knows all the lyrics to all his songs, even the ones nobody else listens to like that Ghost of Tom Joad song. Ceepak can quote Tom Joad.

We hook up here in The Pancake Palace because it's close to Ceepak's apartment-a one-bedroom job situated over The Bagel Lagoon, a block up the street at 102 Ocean Avenue. Ceepak never orders bagels for breakfast. Guess he sees enough at home. He usually orders bran flakes and, if he's feeling frisky, some kind of fruit to plop on top. I'm not sure, but I think bran is part of The Code.

I've only known Ceepak a couple months, but I know one thing for sure: He's basically been a good guy all his life.

He just finished a thirteen-year stint with the Army, ending with Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was Military Police, the guys with the MP patches on their shoulders. That's where Ceepak met our boss, Chief Cosgrove. They served together in Germany seven or eight years back and that's how Ceepak swung this cushy no-driving deal. His old army buddy gave him a new job and a personal chauffeur. Me. I may be part-time, but I know which side of the Ford the gas tank is on.

Before the Army, Ceepak told me he studied criminology. Before that, he was an Eagle Scout. Before that? I'm not sure, but I'll bet he was one helluva hall monitor in kindergarten. This is his first civilian cop job. He told the local newspaper he loves being on the job in Sea Haven because he can help visiting children safely enjoy wholesome family fun.

Okay. Fine.

I like working here too. Mostly because we get to wear cargo shorts and baseball caps and a polo shirt with the police patch sewn on the chest. Ceepak carries a gun; I don't, which is fine by me-as long as I get the baseball cap. Chicks dig the cop cap.

Don't get me wrong-I want kids to have fun, too, but I'm more interested in the college kids who hang out on the boardwalk and the young babes I meet over oysters and brewskis down at The Sand Bar.

Ceepak is a cop 24/7. He spends his spare time reading about forensics and what he calls interesting cases. I know he has cable TV because he's always telling me about these shows he watches where blood-splatter patterns and grass clippings and DNA solve crimes. Last weekend, some friends and me were heading down to The Sand Bar and I invited Ceepak to come along.

Can't, he said.

Turns out, The FBI Files comes on the Discovery Channel Saturdays at 9 P.M.

It's an episode called Shattered Shield, Ceepak said. Sure, it's a summer rerun, but I'd like to catch it again. I missed a few details the first time.

I don't think I'll be asking Ceepak out for a bucket of beers again any time soon.

Ceepak is sitting in a booth near the big glass windows up front in The Pancake Palace. He likes to feel the sun warm his face while he eats breakfast and that's where the sun likes to sit at 7:30.

He waves at me, like I don't know it's him or where he might be sitting. He sits at the same table every morning.

Ceepak is hard to miss. He's big-about six-two. I figure he must be thirty or thirty-five, but he has this baby face and a big boyish grin. He even has dimples. When he's not on duty or watching the tube, he's down at the gym. I don't think he's taking yoga or Pilates classes. He's probably flinging hundred-pound dumbbells up over his head- pumping up his biceps and triceps and all those other cep muscles I don't even know if I have. The police shirt clings and bulges on his chest. It just sort of hangs on me.

Ceepak keeps his hair looking pretty military. It's razor-tight around the ears, but he lets it go hog-wild on top: it's at least an inch or two long up there with a cowlick flip in the front that adds to his whole Baby Huey look.

He doesn't wear the uniform shorts, prefers the cargo pants. More pockets to carry stuff in. And he likes the official navy blue wind-breaker: it has SEA HAVEN POLICE stenciled across the back in big yellow letters, just like the FBI or the DEA or the cops on Cops.

Morning, Danny, he says, as sunny as the booth he's sitting in. How's it going this fine day?

Fine.

Awesome. I ordered your coffee. Black, per usual.

Thanks.

I don't have much besides coffee at breakfast. I'm usually lugging around the chicken wings or mozzarella sticks or raw oysters I ate the night before.

Most of the booths and tables near us are filled with local shopkeepers fueling up for another day of selling trinkets and taffy. But there are a few tourist families scattered here and there-the ones with hyper kids who'd never let mom and dad sleep in on a Saturday, changeover day or not. The ones who fling their forks at each other and topple sippy cups and steal their sister's crayons so they can color in the maze on the Kidz Menu and help Princess Griddlecakes escape from Margarine Mountain.

At least that's who's sitting in the booth next to ours.

Behind Ceepak's head, I see two monsters bouncing up and down on the banquette, a boy and girl standing so they can pour syrup out of sticky bottles and soak their plates three feet below. I think they're playing airplane.

I anticipate a sugar-rush hurricane will hit the table in under five.