Carter's Big Break (2 page)

Abby and I walk into the drama department holding hands. She’s telling me about the French final she just “bombed,” but I know she probably missed three questions and might have to suffer the humiliation of an A-.

I space off for a second and think about my dad’s grand plan for ruining my summer. I was going to be a junior lifeguard at the pool, but I guess you have to be fifteen to wade around the baby pool and tell kids when to use the slide. Since I don’t turn until the end of July, they rejected my application. My dad thought I was upset about not having a job, so he decided to take some time off of work and tear out our old deck to build a new one . . . with me. But I didn’t want just any job; I wanted to be a lifeguard! I wanted to twirl a whistle, jump off the diving boards, and check out bikinis all day. He offered to pay me ten bucks an hour, which is twice as much as a junior lifeguard, but the work is going to be twenty times harder.

Abby says something in French and laughs at herself, but I don’t speak French, and all I can think about is how to get out of this stupid deck venture. I tried to explain that I couldn’t possibly help him because there’s nothing wrong with the old deck, and deforestation is a very big problem for our planet. He didn’t seem to buy it and told me that the old wood was totally rotten and that we were going to use recycled products on the new one. He was so proud of his arguments, but I shut him down. “I’m just too busy, Dad! I’ve still got to go to the pool every afternoon. And my boys and I are planning to work out at the Merrian High gym every morning so that we look swollen when we take off our shirts.”

But he wouldn’t listen to reason and kept yammering on about how much he’s looking forward to hanging out with me, and how Lynn and I will be going off to college in a few years, and how fast we’ve grown up, and something slipping by us. . . .

Abby interrupts my thoughts by asking, “Can you believe that?”

“Nope,” I instinctively reply as we walk into the classroom.

Ms. McDougle is standing in front of her desk, smiling from ear to ear. She bum-rushes us as we walk in the door. It’s okay to hug this teacher because we’re in the drama department and that’s how they roll down here. She’s crazy cool and obviously as fired up for this summer as we are.

She asks, “Do you guys remember that writer friend of mine who came to school in December?”

“C. B. Down?” I reply like a guy who knows writers, but I only know this one. His book,
Down Gets Out
, is my all-time favorite. Yes, it’s the only one I’ve ever read, but Abby’s read a million of them, and she thought it was awesome, too.

Ms. McDougle continues, “Yes, well, he’s also a film director—”

Abby interrupts, “Yeah, his first movie just won the Cannes Film Festival!”

I ask, “It did?”

Abby adds, “Carter and I are seeing it this weekend.”

“We are?”

She gives me a look and says, “Yeah, I sent you that article; did you not read it?”

“Oh yeah, that!” I exclaim as if I just finished it.

McDougle continues her story. “Well, the film rights to his novel sold, and he’s going to direct the movie . . . right here in Merrian, this summer!”

Abby and I are giggling like idiots as McDougle fills us in on the movie details. “C. B. saw our production of
Guys and Dolls
and was so blown away by both of your performances that he wants you to audition for the lead parts!”

Everything after that sounded like she’d jumped in a pool and was talking to us from underwater. I love movies more than I can possibly explain. I believe she’s describing the audition process and what a “producer” is, but I’m way too busy writing my acceptance speech for next year’s Academy Awards. I’ll have to ask Abby for the information later. I’ll be sure to thank her in my speech.

McDougle hands us each a thick stack of paper that’s bound with a black clip. I assume it’s the screenplay, and I’d like to ask if I really need to read it, because I’ve already read the book, but I’m smiling so wide that my lips won’t work. She tells us a few more things and then asks, “You got it?”

“Sure,” I reply with Abby (whom I hope actually does).

I hug them both good-bye, because we’re still in the drama department, and grade school kids are starting to trickle in and things are about to get LOUD! I’m supposed to ride out to Grey Goose Lake with my boys, but I need to go freak out for a while.

I duck into the auditorium and bound onto the stage screaming, “HuuuuWHAAAA!!!” There’s something about a theater that just gives you permission to lose your mind. I yell, “YEEESSSSS!!!” and “OH MY GOD!!!” to no one.

Playing Sky Masterson in
Guys and Dolls
was probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done, but I never dreamed that acting in the spring musical would change my life the way it has. And not just because my “raw talent” has been discovered by a film director. Doing that play ripped me out of my comfort zone and showed me that although my friends are awesome, I don’t need their approval if I want to do something. Plus, they’re going to make fun of me no matter what I do, so I might as well enjoy it.

I’m standing in about the same spot where C. B. Down read to us from his book. I totally remember the haunted look in his eyes that sent a chill down my spine and shut five hundred kids up instantly. It didn’t hurt that he was a total bad-ass, like a UFC fighter blended with a rock star. He had full-sleeve tattoos and more ink on his neck and hands. His dreadlocks were pulled back into a ponytail, and a thick beard covered his chiseled face. His voice was soft and sounded like he’d been smoking a pack a day since birth.

I totally remember him reading to us from the first chapter. “The first time my parents left me alone, I was fifteen years old.”

At the time, I chuckled, but then realized I’d never been left alone either. My older sister, Lynn, is always there to bitch at me when my parents are unavailable. Then he got into the point of his story, how he (Chris in the book) hadn’t really been “left alone.” His parents drove off of a bridge on their way home from a party. He’s not sure if they did it on purpose, until the end of the book. Chris has to go live in a foster home, but he’s a spoiled little bitch at this point in the story and can’t handle it. He gets into a fight with his foster father and is told that he has to go live in a group home. His guidance counselor had warned him that he’d have to go to this tough-ass boys’ home if he couldn’t get along with the foster family and that he was too big of a pussy to live there. So, Chris takes off and comes to Merrian and squats in the basement of the scary old Saur mansion. This chick Maggie (Ms. McDougle, we assume) helps him out all the time, and he enrolls at Merrian High, gets a job at the Hy-Vee, makes friends, falls in love, starts writing for fun, and eventually wins a writing contest but gets busted as a result. I can’t remember all of the details, but it’s really good (way better than I just made it sound). It’s funny because the kid on the cover of the book kind of looks like me, and when I was reading it, I always saw myself as Chris.

Abby told me that it’s very common to cast yourself as the lead character in the book you’re reading, and because she’s a smart-ass, she added, “If you’d read more, you’d know that.”
I wonder how common it is to actually get to audition for the film version of your favorite book, smarty-pants?
Abby also used to say that the story was “very Dickens.” So that’s how I would describe it to people who didn’t know that I had no idea what or who “Dickens” was. Abby got me three of Charles Dickens’s novels as punishment. I started to read all of them, but they weren’t as good as
Down Gets Out
, so I didn’t finish. I did find out that “what the dickens?” and “you little dickens” have nothing to do with that writer.

I’m rudely sprung from my daydream when my boys rush into the auditorium. Bag says, “I told you he’d be in here . . . drama fag!”

I snottily tell them about the benefits of being a “drama fag.” “Have any of you jackasses been asked to star in a movie today?”

They may not love theater the way I do, but we all dig movies, so proper jealously flows my way.

On the ride out to Grey Goose, I’m spacing off, polishing up that acceptance speech when EJ crashes into my rear wheel, and I almost wreck. He keeps riding like nothing happened, so I ask, “S’up, dude?!”

He looks at me, still lost in thought, and asks, “Yo, does Bitchy Nicky have a boyfriend?”

In unison, everybody yells, “NO, and there’s a reason!”

We approach the ditch-jump behind Pizza Barn, and my friend Bag’s about to turn into it so he can bust a cool trick like he always does, but I accelerate ahead and cut him off.

“What the hell, Carter?” he asks, as I angle into the yard and zip down into the ditch before anyone can say anything else or I chicken out. I’m known for being a bit of a wuss. Typically, I would go last off of a jump and only get a few inches of air, but I’m feeling like a million bucks today . . . and perhaps a bit overconfident. I pump the pedals hard as I make the approach. I hit the lip going ten times faster than usual, rock my weight back, and rip the handlebars toward my chest.

EJ and Hormone cheer, “YEEEAAAAHHHH!” as I launch into the air. So high. Way higher than Bag has ever soared. Way, way, WAY too damn high! This is the spot where a guy in the X Games would bust a tail whip, or go for the backflip, but I decide not to. I’ve got other things to worry about. Flying through the air is probably more enjoyable when you have some idea how you’re going to land, but I don’t. I simply start screaming, “HUUUAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

Intellectually, I know I should kick the bike away and try to land on my feet, but the signals are not getting below my neck, so I simply death grip the handlebars and watch the blacktop get closer and closer to my fragile, helmetless skull, and listen to the front tire violently
POP
and the metal frame
CRUNCH
beneath my weight. Then all sounds are drowned out by the
WHAAAAM
of my head hitting the pavement, and the chorus of ringing bells.

I’m fairly certain that I slid on my face for a few feet . . . but not a hundred percent. The rest of the bike wreck is pure conjecture, because my lights went out when the first bells started to chime, and I don’t remember a damn thing.

A foghorn blasting inside of my head rudely wakes me a moment later. My body is twitching as my central nervous system tries to reboot itself. My eyes are fluttering inside their lids and I can barely hear Doc yelling, “Call 911!!!”

I’m trying to tell them that I’m fine, but I’m just moaning “Muggggeddiiii” instead.

“He’s awake!” EJ gasps, and starts slapping me.

I try to block his shots and figure out what possible good could come from beating me as I roll around the dirty street. The ringing does get quieter as his slaps get stronger. He cries, “Stay with us, Carter!”

Finally my mouth works, and I yell, “Quit it!”

“He’s fine,” Nutt says, holding up his hand and demanding, “How many fingers am I holdin’ up, Carter?”

I’m slightly annoyed because he’s moving them all around, so I snap, “Four, dumbass!”

They all look at each other with concern before EJ adds, “That doesn’t mean anything. Carter’s always sucked at math.”

After a half hour of playing, “How many fingers?!” and getting most of the answers right, we start walking our bikes toward Hormone’s house.

Bag still wants me to go to the hospital, but nobody else wants to sit in a smelly waiting room on the last day of school, and Hormone thinks he can use me to get his car back.

They show his dad my mangled bike and face as exhibits A and B in the case of why we shouldn’t have to ride our bikes anymore. He looks at me suspiciously because I’m leaning on EJ, and my left eye is blinking like I’m flirting with him. He asks, “Are you sure we shouldn’t take him to the ER?”

“No, no, he’s fine,” Hormone assures him. “Show ’em, Carter . . . how many fingers?!”

“Three!” I declare.

I must have gotten it right because Doc adds, “See?”

Hormone’s dad accepts the diagnosis as if the surgeon general had made it. He hands over the keys and tells us, “Stay out of trouble.” Either that or he said, “Learn how to juggle.”

We abandon our bikes, and Nutt calls “Shotgun” as we pile into the little car.

We’re barreling down the street when I ask EJ, “Hmmm?” as if he asked me a question.

He looks over at me with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

For the hundredth time I say, “Yes.”

Nutt turns around suspiciously and asks, “How many fingers?!”

“Shut up,” I reply. “Where are we going?”

Hormone yells back, “Grey Goose Lake!”

“Why?”

Nutt answers, “There’s a party.”

“How come?”

EJ snidely replies, “We just wanted to do something nice for you.”

I flip them off before taking a quick nap.

Twice more I wake and ask where we’re going. EJ reminds them how forgetful I am even when I haven’t hit my head. We pull off of the main road and park beside the Grey Goose Golf Course so that we can sneak into the lake area undetected by the security guard.

The next thing I know, it’s dark outside and the CRX’s dome light flickers on. My face isn’t working right, and I’ve got a terrible HEADACHE. I hear EJ whispering to someone, “No, baby, it’s cool. Carter’s passed out . . . he won’t mind.” My left eye won’t open, but my right one cracks just wide enough to observe Bitchy Nicky climbing on top of EJ in the passenger seat. I’m trying to shake away the cobwebs and figure out why I would be imagining such a horrific thing, as he shuts the door and starts sucking her face.

“Duuude!” I protest.

Nicky yells, “Get the hell out of here, Carter!”

I try to tell EJ he’s making a big mistake, but nothing comes out when I open my mouth, so I just pop the hatchback and stumble across the golf course toward my party.

I’m headed for the lake to go for a swim, but my sister spots me fighting to peel off my T-shirt. I hear her laughing at my painful struggle. “Carter, are you drunk?!”

The neckline of the shirt scrapes my mangled face and causes me to gasp. Her eyes fly open as she barks, “Oh my God! Who did this to you?”

I point to myself, because I am, as usual, my own worst enemy.

I think that she dragged me through the party and showed her friends how jacked up I was. I bet she hunted down my boys and yelled at them for bringing me out here in this condition, but I’m not sure. I know that her boyfriend, Nick, gave me a ride home, because he carried me into my house and I was drooling/bleeding on his shoulder when my mom’s screaming woke me up. He’s, like, six-five, two-hundred-and-fifty pounds. He’s going to play college football next year and he’s really cool, so when my eye snapped open and I found myself in his massive arms like a little papoose, I had no idea how to handle the situation, so I just pretended to go back to sleep.