Call the Shots (10 page)

I can’t tell if he’s getting ready to blow his stack or if he’s just thinking really hard. The thick scent of smoke and stale pizza and uncomfortable silence chokes the oxygen out of the kitchen.

Uncle Doug crushes out his cigarette. He sniffs, then clears his throat. “Okay,” he finally says. “Let’s do a little role reversal here. If you were
me,
and I came to
you
with this request, what would you do? Be honest, now. Uncle Doug’s got a finely calibrated bullshit meter.”

“He’d give you the five K,” Coop answers. “Because he could see the upside of the whole sitch. The exposure. The advertising. The Doug’s Rugs product placement. The community goodwill. Not to mention the chance to turn a small investment into a mega-fortune.”

Uncle Doug smirks at Coop. “Thanks for the sales pitch, P. T. Barnum.” He turns back to me. “But I want to hear it from Seanie. Would you lend me the money or not?”

“I don’t know.” My gaze drops to the scratched-up wooden kitchen table. “I might.”

“Might? Or
would
?” He leans to the side. “Come on, now. Meet my eyes like you’ve got some huevos rancheros. I want a firm yes or no. Do you lend me the cash?”

“It would depend, I guess.”

“On what?”

“On if I thought you could pull it off.”

“Fair enough.” Uncle Doug nods. “So, now I need you to look me square in the face and tell me if you honestly think that you’ll be able to produce a motion picture decent enough to generate enough money for you to pay me back.”

My eyes slide over to Coop and Matt, who look like they want to bolt.

“Uh-uh.” Uncle Doug beans me with an empty pack of cigarettes. “The answer’s not over there.” He reaches over and pokes my belly. “What’s your gut say? Can you do it or not?”

I want to look over at my friends again, but I force myself to focus on my uncle. “Yes,” I say. “I think we can do it.”

“Wrong!”
Uncle Doug roars, slapping the table, which causes a thin cloud of tobacco-scented dust to rise in the air. “You
want
to think you can do it. But you don’t really believe it. Not deep down in your scrotum, where it counts. I can read you like a hockey stats chart, Seanie.”

“So . . .” My stomach winces. “You won’t help us out, then?”

“I didn’t say that.” Uncle Doug grabs the extinguished joint from his ashtray, straightens it out, and relights it. He takes an epically long toke, then blows the smoke in my face. “
Yet.
I’d like to see your business plan before I make my decision.”

“Business plan?” I blink, my eyes dry and stinging from the smoke. I use it as an excuse to cup my palm over my nose and take a reassuring whiff.

“No business plan, huh?” Uncle Doug says. “How about a list of expenditures?”

“A what?” I ask, sinking down in my chair.

“A budget,
dummkopf.
” Uncle Doug reaches over and swats the side of my head. “The spreadsheet that lays out exactly how you intend to spend my money.”

“Oh. Um.” I look at Matt and Coop, who just stare back at me. “We . . . We know we need at least two hundred dollars for the film festival entrance fee. And then any extra will be used —”

“Right. No budget. Okay, then, what
do
you have for me? Some comparative box-office analysis? A marketing strategy? A film trailer? A script, perchance?
Anything
?”

“Yes, we have the idea,” I say, sitting up. “It’s the story of this guy —”

“All right, just so I’m clear on this.” Uncle Doug hoists himself off the chair and starts to pace the room. “Am I to understand that you would like me to be an investor in your film project? One that has
no
budget?
No
business plan?
No
marketing strategy?
No
script? To be produced by people who have absolutely
no
moviemaking experience?” He bobs his head in the affirmative. “Is that the general gist of things here?”

“Yeah.” I pull my cupped hand away from my nose, the smoky stench of the kitchen having permeated my skin. “I guess so.”

“You
guess
so?” Uncle Doug roars with laughter. “Okay, well, notch a point for stupid honesty.” He makes an imaginary check mark in the air with his smoldering roach. “Right, so. Here we go.” Uncle Doug clears his throat and starts pacing again. “Obviously, investing in your film would be an idiotic colossal gamble. I suppose it could be likened to shoving a fistful of cash up your asshole and expecting you to shit out gold coins.”

“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I never should have ask —”

“Uhp.” Uncle Doug cuts me off with a traffic cop hand. “Let me finish. You
did
ask the question, Seanie boy, and now you’re getting your answer. So sit back and take this like a man.”

I do as I’m told, crossing my arms over my chest to avoid the urge to sniff my palm — unlike a man.

“All right, now,” Uncle Doug continues, “let me just say this right off the bat. There’s no way in hell I’m giving you kids five thousand dollars to piss away on a movie.”

My shoulders slump. My head drops. “Okay, well, I guess we better —”

“As I was
saying.
Five grand is out of the question.
But.
Uncle Doug happens to be a gambler. And he bets on cards. He bet on horses. He once even bet that his tongue was longer than every other guy’s at his Monday night poker game. Which it was. By around half an inch, in case you were wondering.” He brushes this out of the air. “Anyway, back to the terms of our deal.”

I shake my head, not sure if I’ve heard him correctly. “Our deal? Does that mean —?”

“Yes, that
does
mean.” His eyes bug out as he grins. “Crazy Uncle Doug is going to help you out with your movie. With
one
thousand dollars. Are you surprised? Well, you should be. Because it’s one of the stupidest things I think I’ve ever done. But hey, could the odds of me getting rich off your movie be much worse than Powerball? At two hundred million to one, I doubt it. And if I can lay a hundred bucks on that every week, why not bet a cool grand on my bozo nephew?”

“A thousand dollars?” I glance at Coop, who shrugs like it’s better than nothing. “That’s . . . great.”

“You bet your sweet ass it’s great.” Uncle Doug throws back his head, cackling insanely.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Don’t go slickin’ your slacks just yet, mister.” He plops himself back down into his chair and taps out another cigarette. “You boys are going to want to hear the conditions before you agree to the contract.” Uncle Doug grabs his Zippo and lights up his American Spirit.

“Conditions?” Matt asks. “What kind of conditions?”

“First and foremost.” He holds up one chubby tobacco-tanned finger. “If you actually
do
manage a miracle and win this contest, Uncle Doug wants twenty-five percent of the prize money
plus
fifty percent of any subsequent profits thereafter.”

Coop leans forward. “Okay, wait a second —”

“Condition
numero dos.
” Doug holds up his fingers in a pudgy peace sign. “If you do
not
win the contest, you are going to return my initial investment. Somehow. Someway. We can work out the details later, but that cash will end up back in my pocket when this is all over.”

I nod. “Got it.”

“Three. As your new executive producer and partner, I am now going to be intimately involved in all aspects of this production. I want to have full script approval, of course.”

“What?” I grimace. “Why?”

Uncle Doug shrugs. “I’m not about to have my good name associated with a piece-of-crap movie. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“In rugs,” Coop says. “Not in films.”

“This kind of thing could have major repercussions on my business. What if you say something racist in your script? Or sexist? Or just something really, really stupid? I could lose customers that way. Nope. I want to see each and every scene before it’s filmed.”

“All right,” I concede. “Is that everything?”

“Hardly. I also want casting approval, and in-movie advertising for my store.” He nods and smiles at Coop. “
And
. . . a prominent role in the film.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m sure there’s some part we can use you for.”

“The villain.” He points at me. “I want to play the lead villain.”

I meet Coop’s eyes. He gives me a reluctant nod. And he’s right. What other choice do we really have?

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“All right, then.” Uncle Doug rubs his hands together. “I’m glad we’re all so amenable. Now, onto my final stipulation.” He grins. “This one you’re
really
not going to like.”

I
SIT BY MYSELF IN THE CAFETERIA
, waiting for the happy couples to arrive, breathing in the rising sweet fumes of my barbecue riblette on festival rice. I poke at my overnuked food with a plastic fork as I attempt to jot down script notes on a yellow legal pad.

I scribble
ZONKEY!
at the top of the page. Now what? How should the movie start? With our two main characters, Jack and Stacy, hanging out at school? Or maybe at the zoo. With the mad scientist coming up with his humanzee plan — Dr. . . . Somebody-or-other.

A hand suddenly claps me on the shoulder, causing me to jump.

“That better be the script you’re working on there,” Coop says.

I look up and see him and Matt plopping their trays on the opposite side of the table.

“Starting to, yeah.” I put my pen down. “Where’s Helen and Val? I thought we were telling them about the movie today.”

“They’ll be here,” Matt says. “They had to have a girl meeting in the bathroom.”

Coop chin-gestures at my pad. “How much you got so far?”

“Not much,” I say. “I’m just wondering: are we going to be able to pull this off with only a thousand bucks?”

“Have a little faith, dawg,” Coop reassures me. “Didn’t you ever see
Field of Dreams
? ‘If you build it, they will come.’” He swats Matt’s arm. “Go on. Tell Sean what you told me. About the budget.”

Matt teeter-totters his head. “Well, I did a little number crunching, and it looks like our biggest expense is going to be the equipment. A movie-quality camera costs around three grand. So, obviously, we can forget about that. And renting one — assuming we could even get someone with a credit card to do that for us — can run five hundred bucks a week. Which would use up our entire budget fast.”

“Exactly,” Coop says. “So, the linchpin is figuring out the camera sitch. We do that, and we’re golden. But don’t worry, I’ve got a few ideas percolating. What we need to be discussing right now, though, is casting.” As Coop mixes his turkey tetrazzini, the sweaty-clothes smell wafts over and makes me gag.

“What about it?” I ask.

“We have to get on it. Asap. Which is why I put a notice on Craigslist last night. And on the school’s online bulletin board. So, we should have a pretty nice turnout this Saturday.”

“This
Saturday
?” I sputter. “That’s in two days. I can’t have a script by then!”

“Don’t sweat it, boss,” Coop says. “We just need the first few scenes for the auditions. I want to get our main actors set so we can start shooting this pup the second we’re ready to roll.”

I look down at my meager scrawlings. “Okay. I guess I can have
something
by then. Where are we doing it?”

“Your place,” Coop announces.

“
My
place.” I cough. “You didn’t tell me anything about that.”

“I’m the producer here. I have to make a thousand decisions a day. I can’t be expected to run every single one by you. Besides, I mean, I wasn’t about to have a bunch of weirdo actors tromping through
my
house. And Matt’s horny grandpa would just scare away all the hot babes.”

“It’s true.” Matt nods, taking a bite of his sandwich.

“So, really,” Coop continues, “it was a process of elimination.”

“Fine.” My right knee starts jackhammering. “I’ll clear the house somehow.”

“Quoi de neuf?”
Valerie says, her French doing what her French always does to me. She and Helen set their plates of food down and take seats next to their respective boyfriends.

“Casting actors,” Coop says as if he understands what she’s talking about. “We’ve decided we’re going to make a movie. A low-budget horror film. You guys want to help out?”

“A movie?” Helen perks up. “You mean, like, for a school project? That’d be cool.”

Coop shakes his head slowly. “No. Not for school. For reals. A
feature
film.”

“Right.” Valerie chuckles. “What’d they slip into the turkey tetrazzini today?”

Coop ignores Val and turns to Helen. “We’ve already come up with a killer story idea, and we’ve lined up some serious financing. Matt’s been sketching out the business plan, I’m researching potential shooting locations, and Sean’s, like, halfway done with the script.” He gestures toward my legal pad, which I surreptitiously cover with my hand.

“What we don’t have,” Matt adds, “is someone to do the music, the editing, and the special effects. Would you girls maybe want to be in charge of those things?”

“Wait a second,” Helen says. “You’re really serious about this?”