Disaster Productions Read online

  “Ah, your ex-grandmother was interested in movies,” Grandpa says. “She was always filming this and that – birthday parties, funerals, you name it.”

  He takes another swig of beer.

  “Come to think of it, she’s still your grandmother, even if we’re not together anymore. How is she, by the way?”

  “Uh, she’s fine, Grandpa,” I say.

  “Glad to hear that.”

  I go back to my sandwich. Grandpa isn’t making things easy, but that’s his style – always considering numerous angles at the same time. He’s made big money in banking and finance where people must be constantly alert, ready to grab onto new things, new Big Ideas.

  Mom once called him a “speculator.” She seemed to think that not all his activities are totally above board. Maybe that’s why he leaves the country so often.

  “How about you, Duals,” Grandpa says, “all ready for summer?”

  “Yes, sir,” Duals says, “I’m hoping to get a big project off the ground.”

  “Oh?” Grandpa says. “Tell me about it.”

  “It concerns documentary video,” Duals says. “You see, reality sort of works on two levels – what’s going on in the limited world before the camera, and what’s going on the wider world ...”

  Just like that, Duals has grabbed full attention. Grandpa puts down his beer mug and shuts off any talk about other subjects. I’d have to admit to feeling annoyed – jealous, maybe?

  I mean, Grandpa blows me off and then listens to Duals as if it’s really important!

  “Think I’ll get some more potato salad,” I say.

  Nobody notices my retreat into the kitchen.

  Get some perspective, I think. Duals is new and interesting, while you’re just familiar old Matthew.

  To tell the truth, even I get fed up with my big talk sometimes. ‘Famous by fourteen’ – how lame can you get?

  Then again, maybe this time things would pan out ...

  Anyway, Grandpa must be disappointed after so many years of not seeing any return on his expensive presents. Perhaps he’d be more impressed if I built a nuclear power plant or discovered a new galaxy. Could I really blame him for not hanging onto my every word? I mean, up to this point I haven’t exactly been the type of person who gets things done.

  I pop open a Bomb Cola.

  Outside the kitchen windows, the world appears uninspiring. I see drab masses of birds perched on sagging power lines, old garages and fences. The house in back needs a new roof. Mrs. Simpson’s flower garden adds the only color.

  My future is going to look better than this – isn’t it?

  When I return to the living room, Grandpa and Duals are raptly studying a photo / video website on the laptop. Duals is throwing around vocabulary that I do not understand, words like: sensor aspect ratio, T stop and chroma.

  There doesn’t seem to be much room for me to squeeze in. I’m feeling a lot like the proverbial third wheel. And, frankly, I feel a bit snubbed.

  “Well, Grandpa ...” I take an indecisive swig of cola. “I’ve got some errands, so maybe I’ll be going.”

  Grandpa glances up. “Sure thing, Matt. See you Monday night.”

  Then he goes back to the website. Duals makes no move to get up, so I figure he’ll be staying behind.

  “See you, Duals,” I say.

  “Yeah, later,” Duals says.

  As I leave the house, he flashes me a secretive thumbs-up.

  4: Send-Off Dinner

  I don’t hear back from Duals the rest of the weekend and don’t catch him during final exams Monday. So, I figure that my latest Big Idea is a no-go. Duals’ thumbs up was more of a poke in the eye, apparently. Maybe he used too much new vocabulary with Grandpa, confused the issue.

  What is the issue, anyway?

  Matt wants to be Director of the World and we’re starting off by filming the local middle school screw-up. After that, it’s reality show fame, and after that ...

  Putting it like this makes everything sound pretty ridiculous. I think of calling Grandpa but feel way too awkward. I mean, he didn’t even listen when I tried to explain things in my own words. Why force him to refuse again?

  Well, I have plenty to do studying for finals. In my free time, I work on my latest model airplane – an F-22 stealth fighter, complete with detailed engines and weapons.

  I’ll just have to think of another Big Idea, that’s all. I’ve got plenty in reserve – somewhere. Maybe I can be a jet fighter ace next.

  ***

  Grandpa comes over Monday night for his send-off dinner. Seems like we’re always having send-offs for him. Maybe that’s why he travels so much, so he can come over for dinner. He lives only two miles away, but Mom doesn’t spend much time with him – as if she has plenty of dads to choose from.

  He doesn’t drive the Beast to our house, but rides his motorbike – the one he says he’ll give me in a few years when I’m old enough, if we can get beyond this “over my dead body!” objection Mom has. I meet him outside to admire the machine. It’s all red and shiny with a faired over front end. It looks fast just standing still.

  “All ready for Central America?” I ask.

  “Sure thing, Matt. I’m taking off first thing tomorrow,” he says. “I hope to reach Mexico on the morning of day three.”

  Wow! In just three days he’ll be in a whole different country. I’ve never been to another country, except Canada, and that hardly seems foreign at all. You just sort of glide over the border to where things are pretty much the same as here, except for those maple leaf flags everywhere.

  Dinner is frosty. Or rather Mom is frosty; me and Dad are always cool with Grandpa. I think Mom has never forgiven him for the divorce with Grandma thing.

  Mom should get past it, in my opinion. After all, Grandpa gave Grandma plenty of money, and he always speaks well of her. They weren’t suited to each other is all. It just took thirty years to figure that out.

  Grandpa doesn’t help the situation much with his dinner conversation.

  “On the way down I’ll stop in Yucatan and Guatemala to see the Mayan ruins,” he says at one point. “Those big pyramid temples where they used to sacrifice people.”

  He shovels some mashed potatoes onto his plate.

  “Have you seen the movie about that?” he asks.

  “No,” Mom replies.

  She’s using the tone of voice which says that she wants the subject dropped. Grandpa plows ahead, though.

  “It’s called Apocalypto, you ought to see it,” he says. “They used to rip out their victims’ beating hearts, then lop off their heads and throw the corpses down the pyramid stairs. Blood spurting everywhere!”

  I look down at my steak. I like it medium rare, but now I wish it was cooked more.

  “They also used to skin people and dress themselves up in their hides,” Grandpa adds. “Or maybe it was the Aztecs who did that.”

  Mom is doing a slow burn. Dad tries to smooth things over.

  “I’ve heard of having ‘skin in the game,’” he says, “but that is ridiculous.”

  He hasn’t helped the situation any, judging by the daggers Mom is staring at him. Grandpa just laughs, though.

  I’m pretty squeamish, but why take it out on Grandpa? At least he’s fun – not like Grandma who is the sourest person you’d ever want to meet. All she does is sit in her fancy house and complain about everything – she was always that way, even before the divorce.

  And my other grandparents are super depressing. If I’m not careful, I’ll be sent to visit them at their cottage up north this summer. Dad is always offering to drive me. I’d much rather go to Central America, but I know that Mom would never allow it.

  The evening finally wraps up. Grandpa gets a hearty handshake from Dad and a little peck on the cheek from Mom. I go with him outside to see the motorbike again.

  He fires up the engine, then he reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws some keys. He drops them into my hand. />
  “What are these for?” I ask.

  “Keys to the house,” Grandpa says. “It’s a go, Matthew, good luck.”

  Before I can ask any more questions, he’s gone. I run back inside and phone Duals.

  “Yes, it’s a go,” Duals verifies, and “No,” he can’t talk right now.

  He’s cramming for an absolutely huge final exam tomorrow. The whole future of humanity seems to depend on it. Shouldn’t I be cramming for finals, too?

  I press on anyway.

  “So, he got us a camera?”

  “Yeah,” Duals says, “and some other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  “I really can’t talk now,” Duals says. “This Chemistry final is the 800 pound gorilla in my life. I’ve got to get rid of him before he strangles me.”

  Duals has a real knack for over dramatization. I realize that it is pointless to press him further. We agree to meet at Grandpa’s house tomorrow after school.

  ***

  That night, visions of fame and adventure play through my dreams – bright lights, cheers, roads leading to exotic destinations. Matt the Man is coming, and I have to be ready for him. He’s making things work his direction, kicking serious butt.

  Come tomorrow, a whole new phase of my life will begin.

  5: Studio Duals

  Okay, so my delusions of grandeur have faded a bit in the daylight, but I am totally unprepared for what I find at Grandpa’s house the next afternoon.

  The first thing I notice is a sign over the mail box. It’s printed on heavy paper with an impressive color font:

  STUDIO DUALS

  When I open the screen, I see another sign on the front door:

  Make the World Duals

  I don’t need my key to get in, Duals is already there. I step through the door and gawk around in amazement. The wall mirror shows this kid with his mouth hanging open.

  “Hey Matt, what’s up?” Duals says.

  “Hi, Duals ...”

  I scarcely recognize the place. Empty boxes are scattered everywhere. A black camera with a big honking lens stands on a massive tripod like some three-legged alien life form. A long pole with a microphone dangling from it sits in the easy chair.

  Big lights on metal stands lurk around the living room. The dining room is cleared out, and one wall is covered in green.

  “What’s all this?” I say.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Duals says.

  “Uh ... yeah,” I say.

  “I’ll give you the grand tour in a minute,” Duals says, “as soon as I wrap up a few things.”

  He’s typing furiously on a laptop computer – a gleaming new machine with a 17 inch monitor. Beside it is a printer and a second, larger, monitor. I think the coffee table might collapse any second.

  I simply can’t grasp the situation. It’s as if I’ve stepped into some alternate reality or something. Think of popping in a DVD, expecting a light drama, and getting something much more Twilight Zone-ish.

  Duals finishes typing with a decisive bang on the Enter key. He sits back and stretches.

  “This computer is great!” he says. “It’s got the latest video and sound editing programs – plus special effects software.”

  “Special effects?”

  “Yeah.” Duals gestures toward the dining room. “For the green screen work and such.”

  Well, sure, the green screen.

  “I thought you’d be here earlier,” Duals says.

  “I had to run some errands for Mom,” I say. “What about your Chemistry final?”

  Duals waves his hand dismissively. “Piece of cake.”

  I don’t really care about Duals’ final exam. Why am I asking about it when there is so much more to discuss?

  “I’m all done with finals now,” Duals says. “What about you?”

  “I’ve got one more tomorrow – World History.”

  “No problem,” Duals says, “go home and study. I’ll hold the fort here.”

  Is he trying to get rid of me, or am I just being paranoid and disoriented?

  I move toward the camera and study it carefully, my hands stuffed in my pockets for safe keeping like some little kid warned not to touch the merchandise. The camera is all gleaming black, the lens mount had some gear type mechanism on it. The whole thing seems way above my pay grade.

  “It’s got professional quality glass,” Duals says, “plus a cinematic type lens barrel for accurate focus pulling.”

  “Focus pulling?”

  “Yeah, we’ll get more into that later,” Duals says.

  He gestures to the microphone pole.

  “That’s for when we’re shooting with sound, otherwise we’ll do Foley and ADR here in the studio.”

  He points toward one of the light units hulking on a metal stand with its Cyclops eye gaping at me.

  “Those are all standard tungsten light units,” he says. “Very hot and old-fashioned, but reliable.”

  “Uh huh,” I say.

  “I would have preferred an LED system with variable RGB balance,” Duals says, “but those are really expensive. I figured your Grandpa was already springing for enough equipment.”

  My head is starting to swim, as if I am going M-A-D.

  “Grandpa bought all this stuff ... for me?” I say.

  “Actually it’s for the production company,” Duals says.

  He whips some papers out of a manila folder.

  “Sign here, Matt.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Incorporation papers for our LLC,” Duals says.

  I look blankly at the official papers for Studio Duals, LLC. They’ve been printed out from the state government website.

  “We’re underage,” I say, “we can’t sign legal documents.”

  “It’s just for practice now,” Duals says. “Later we’ll have adults co-sign for us.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “There’s the matter of the name. It kind of leaves me out, doesn’t it?”

  As long as I’ve known him, Stephan Chrono has been called ‘Duals.’ I think it’s because he wore very thick glasses when we were little. Then he had some corrective surgery and no longer needed the glasses, but the nickname stuck.

  “It’s just a matter of expanding the horizon,” Duals says. “There are two of us right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So ‘Duals’ refers to both of us. Simple.”

  I’m not sure I get the point.

  “It’s okay, Matt, we can take care of this later,” Duals says.

  He takes back the papers and shoves them into the folder with a gesture that says I’m a bit too thick to understand what’s going on. I look around the ‘studio’ again, still dazed by its sparkling high-techness.

  “Why would Grandpa spring for all this stuff, just so we can record Dylan’s screw-ups?” I say.

  “Well ... I didn’t give too many actual specifics about our first project,” Duals says. “I thought he might not understand.”

  “So, you lied to my Grandpa?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” Duals says. “I just sort of glossed over certain aspects of your big idea to fit the occasion.”

  Something doesn’t seem right here, but I’m too overwhelmed to figure it out.

  “This way we have a free hand for our creative efforts,” Duals says. “Who knows where things will end up? Dylan is just a beginning.”

  “Well ... what do we do next?” I ask.

  “We need to be interviewing talent,” Duals says. “Have you talked to Dylan yet?”

  “Uh, no.”

  Things are happening too fast. I came to Grandpa’s house a few days ago to ask for a cheap little video camera, now I’m some sort of movie mogul. I haven’t even given Dylan a thought since I first came up with the Big Idea – he’d been just sort of an abstraction, not a real human being. Heck, until last night I figured we were in no-go land.

  More important, I haven’t bothered to look at things
from Dylan’s perspective. How would I feel if somebody wanted to make a movie about my disastrous life?

  “I’m not sure Dylan will go for any of this,” I say. “I mean, well ... I didn’t really take him into account.”

  “No problem,” Duals says. “I’ve got some ideas on how to get him on board.”

  The doorbell rings.

  “That must be them now,” Duals says.

  He saunters to the front door and opens it. There is a new swagger to his step I’ve never seen before, like he’s king of the universe, or at least of Studio Duals.

  6: The Talent Arrives

  “Come on in,” Duals says.

  Three outstanding girls pass through the front door. A cute little blonde, a tall and elegant one with reddish hair, and a third one who is truly amazing.

  She is beyond beautiful – long dark hair, green eyes, a fantastic shape. And the way she walks, all slinky and poised, like a two-legged cat. How did a guy like Duals meet her, anyway?

  I position myself by the camera, so as to look a bit more impressive. Where’s Matt the Man when I need him?

  “This is my partner, Matt Alpin,” Duals is saying. “This is Kaitlyn Slater, Romina Quandt, and Tamika Boeing.”

  Kaitlyn, the blonde; Romina, the tall one; Tamika, the goddess.

  “Hi,” they say; polite but without excessive interest.

  “Hi,” I say.

  I grip the camera tripod, hard. Later I will learn that you really called it “the sticks,” not a tripod. Camera tripods are for non-filmmaker types.

  Tamika glides around the living room, her hands on hips.

  “So, Stephan ... this is your new studio, huh?”

  “Right,” Duals says.

  She stops by the microphone pole, looks it up an down as if it’s a real person sitting in the easy chair.

  “Awesome,” she says.

  “I’m still setting things up,” Duals says modestly.

  Tamika’s exquisite eyes fix on the dining room.

  “Oh, a green screen!” she says. “I’ve heard about those.”

  She leads the other girls into the dining room to check out the green screen. She’s the dominant one of the group, all right, and the hottest – not that Kaitlyn and Romina aren’t great looking, too. All of them would have been at the top of the social heap at South Middle School.

  And they have this aura that tells me: “Sorry, Matt, you’re just not in our league.”

  Duals starts to follow the girls, but I hold him back.

  “Where’d you meet them?” I say in a low voice.