Call the Shots

by Don Calame

  “Private stuff you write in a diary.” Nick leans forward, staring at me. “Crib notes you write on your hand.”

  “I wasn’t cheating on a test,” I say, clenching my left fist. “If you really want to know, this is . . . advice my friends gave to me on how to deal with a very personal situation. Okay?”

  The silence stretches on for eternity, my eyes darting around for an escape route. I am seriously debating bolting from the table and taking my chances out on the streets. Surely one of their neighbors would call the cops and report the sounds of a scrawny tenth-grader being beaten to death by a jacked Navy SEAL?

  Nick suddenly bursts out in a loud cackle. “Buddy. Guy. Relax. I’m just yankin’ your chain. No need to get all bent out of shape. I don’t care what you’ve got scribbled on your hand.”

  Now Evelyn’s cracking up too. “Sorry, sweetie. It’s Nick’s sense of humor. He likes to make people uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t even know when he’s kidding.”

  “Oh,” I say, my hunched-up shoulders relaxing a bit. “Yeah. Okay. Funny.”

  Nick points his knife at me. “Seriously, though. I meant what I said about liars and cheats. We don’t tolerate that in this family.”

  “Jeez, Nick,” Evelyn says. “Leave him alone already.”

  “What?” Nick shrugs. “This is important. You don’t want to date a guy and then find out he’s just like Dad.”

  “Nicky, please,” Mrs. Moss says. “Can we have one meal where we don’t bring up your deadbeat father?”

  Oh, thank Gandalf, the spotlight’s off me. I grab my cup of water with my left hand, hoping the beads of sweat on the glass will smear the ink on my palm.

  “I didn’t bring him up,” Nick barks. “I was just making an analogy.” He eviscerates one of the gigantic raviolis with his knife, spilling the spinach and cheese filling like entrails. “But since we’re already talking about him, I might as well tell you, I think I’ve found a lead.”

  A lead? What the heck is he talking about?

  Evelyn must be picking up on my confusion, because she reaches out and touches my forearm. “It’s like I told you. Our dad walked out on us three years ago.”

  “He didn’t walk out,” Nick spits. “He left us for another family. A Post-it note on the fridge and that was that. Never heard from him again. No cards at Christmas, not a penny of child support.” He leans over his plate, gesturing wildly with his fork. “How the hell is my mother supposed to support a family on a cashier’s salary? You want to tell me that?”

  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer this question or not, so I just gulp.

  “She can’t. That’s how,” Nick continues. “So she gets a second job. And she goes with less so that Evelyn and me can have more.” He turns to Mrs. Moss and motions toward her plate. “Eat, Ma. Eat. You’re wasting away.”

  “Okay, Nick.” Mrs. Moss twists her lips into a partial smile. “I’ll eat. But can we just drop it now?”

  “No! We can’t drop it. I’ll never drop it. Not until I find him.”

  Evelyn looks at me. “Nick’s been trying to track down our dad for the last five months.”

  “Asshole’s hiding out somewhere.” Nick shakes his head. “Every time I think I’ve got him, the trail goes cold. But I’ll smoke him out eventually.”

  “Smo — Smoke him out?” I blink. “Wha — What for?”

  “Pfff.” Nick lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe jog his memory a little.” He makes a gun with his finger and shoots me with it. “Remind him of his responsibilities.”

  Mrs. Moss sighs. “Now, Nicky. Let’s not get crazy.”

  Nick slams his hand down on the table, sending all of our plates and utensils jumping. “Don’t you stand up for him! He broke your heart and tossed it out like a used Kleenex. And I’m supposed to stand by and let him get away with it? No. He owes us. Family sticks up for family!”

  “Okay, okay.” A weary Mrs. Moss holds up her hands. “It’s just that I don’t think Sean needs to hear about all of our dirty laundry.”

  “Yeah, well.” Nick wafts his utensils in the air. “He’s going to hear about it eventually. I mean”— he stares at me across the table —“if he’s planning on sticking around. You are planning on sticking around, aren’t you? You’re not the love-’em-and-leave type, are you, Sean?”

  I grip the edge of the table, feeling a little woozy. “I . . . uh . . . I . . . uh —”

  “Of course he’s going to stick around.” Evelyn beams at me. “Right, Sean?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Absolutely.”

  Nick winks at me. “Good answer. Anything else and I might have had to kill you.”

  I think I might hurl.

  Nick laughs. “Look at that face! This guy’s too easy. I’m just tuggin’ your tamale.”

  “Yeah. No. I knew that,” I say, trying to force air into my constricted lungs.

  Nick laughs again as he shoves a big forkful of ravioli into his mouth. “I like this guy,” he says, chewing. “He’s a good sport. Hey, how about after dinner you come up to my room and I’ll show you some of my SEAL stuff? If you’re good, I’ll even let you hold my heater. You ever handle a real gun before? Nothing in the world like it, I’m telling you.”

  “I’M TOTALLY SERIOUS,” I say to Matt and Coop. “Her brother is tracking down their deadbeat dad using his Navy SEAL skills. He’s got an entire WarGames setup in his bedroom. Files, maps, video monitors. He showed me the whole thing. It’s insane.”

  The three of us are setting up my family room for our casting session. We’ve corralled all of my pets into the other rooms, and now we’re busy putting out snacks and drinks, picking up stray tufts of dog, cat, and ferret hair, and moving furniture around to create an audition space. Luckily, the house is all ours today. Cathy’s working this afternoon, and I managed to convince Mom and Dad to go baby-clothes shopping by telling them we needed privacy to rehearse some stuff for Drama.

  “That’s fucked up, dawg,” Coop says, unwrapping Twinkies and Ding Dongs and laying them out neatly on a plate. “The SEALS are like the ninjas of the military.”

  Matt lines up cans of soda on the coffee table. “What’s he gonna do when he finds him?”

  “He’s a Navy SEAL, Matt,” Coop says. “They’re trained in torture. They like to hook guys’ meats up to car batteries and then douse them with water.” He grabs a Twinkie at one end and shakes it until it crumbles apart.

  “Oh, God,” I say, my own junk turtling up inside me.

  “And that’s not even the worst part,” Coop continues. “They’ll also tie a dude’s hands to the arms of a chair and drive bamboo splints under his fingernails. Then they’ll punch holes in his eyelids so he can never really close them. After that, they’ll put a scorpion-filled potato sack over his head so that the bugs can sting the shit out of his eyeballs.”

  “Jesus Christ, would you shut the hell up?” My stomach bucks and lurches.

  “What?” Coop shrugs. “I’m just trying to let you know what you’re up against.”

  “I know what I’m up against, thank you very much.” I pour some Cool Ranch Doritos into a plastic bowl. “The guy’s a complete psycho. He showed me his gun, for shit’s sake.”

  “Really?” Coop waggles his eyebrows. “Flashed you the old pants pistol, did he?”

  “A real gun, douche bag. He took the clip out, handed it to me, and made me aim it at the eighty-by-ten of his father that he has tacked up on a dartboard.”

  “Sweet,” Coop says. “I’ve always wanted to hold a real gun. How’d it feel?”

  “How did it feel?” I can still sense the heft of the pistol in the palm of my hand. “Like he was sending me a message: ‘Stay with Evelyn and we’re bosom brothers. But break up with her and all bets are off.’”

  Coop shrugs. “Personally, I think everything happens for a reason.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I say.

  “It means that if you broke up with Eve
lyn, then we wouldn’t have use of her super-chillicious video camera. And then we’d have to blow Unc’s entire grand on equipment instead of splashing all that cash up on the screen. Think of it as an opportunity presented. You play house with Evelyn for a couple of months while we make a kick-ass movie. Then, when we’re all done, we figure out a way to get her to break up with you. It shouldn’t be too hard. What’d you do to make Tianna dump your sorry ass?”

  I glare at him but otherwise ignore his comment. “There’s one other thing,” I confess. “She wants to be in the film. And not just a cameo. She wants to be the lead.”

  Coop lip-farts. “Fine with me. If girlie wants to run around all topless, her chesticles splattered in fake blood, being chased everywhere by vampanzees, far be it from me to stop her. It’s one less warm body we need to recruit.”

  “I seriously doubt she’s going to agree to do nudity,” I say.

  “Please.” Coop smirks. “Leave the directing to me.” He turns the soda cans around, reading the labels. “Hey, didn’t you get anything diet?”

  Matt shrugs. “The girls’ll just have to make do.”

  “Not for the babes, doinkle,” Coop says. “For me.”

  Matt laughs. “Since when do you drink diet?”

  “Since we decided to become multimillionaire moviemakers. Cameras add ten pounds, dawg. Everyone knows that. I don’t want be on the cover of the National Enquirer as a ‘Cellulite Nightmare’ or a ‘Sloppy Celebrity.’” Coop reaches into his backpack and takes out a pink bottle of something. “Good thing I brought along my own sensible shake.”

  “So, what, you’ve joined”— Matt tilts his head to read the label —“Sally Gregg? A little girly don’tcha think?”

  “This from the talking vagina,” Coop says. “If you must know, I borrowed this from Angela.” He waves the shake in Matt’s face. “She’s paying for the diet program. I’m just benefiting from it.” He turns and narrows his eyes at me. “Because I know how to take advantage of an opportunity when I see it. Which is what all the most successful people do.” He uncaps the drink with a loud pop.

  “Enjoy that.” Matt stifles a laugh before grabbing a handful of chips.

  “Chuckle away, dawgs,” Coop says. “Just wait until you catch sight of the sleeker, sexier Coopmeister on the cover of Details.” He runs his hands down his rounded body. “Then we’ll see who’s all green and grudging.” For emphasis, Coop takes a sip of his shake — leaving a decidedly unsexy pink mustache on his upper lip.

  “Hello?” a female voice calls from the front door. “Is this where the casting session is?”

  “In here, honey,” Coop responds.

  I look over at Matt and point at my lip but he shakes his head in response to my silent question.

  A moment later, Prudence Nash rounds the corner, looking hotter than any girl should legally be allowed to. She’s wearing high heels and a form-fitting charcoal-gray sweater dress that expertly hugs every curve of her bodacious body, magically highlighting her world-class, perfectly pert pooters.

  “Oh . . . my,” I hear myself mutter, my heart skipping a beat.

  Matt’s jaw hangs open as he backs himself into the couch and flops down onto it.

  If it were actually true that excessive masturbation can lead to madness, then Prudence Nash would have sent me over the edge years ago. But as that’s just a myth, all I can blame her for is the occasional sore wrist.

  Well, that and being our toughest competition at the Battle of the Bands.

  Oh, right, and single-handedly trying to destroy Helen’s reputation at school.

  It’s odd how she can manage to make you forget how truly evil she is simply by flipping her long hair and canting her totem-pole-inducing hips.

  Prudence’s lusciously made-up face scrunches up in disgust. Clearly she’s not quite as pleased by the sight of us. “Are you fucking kidding me? You wankjobs?”

  “Nice to see you too, Prudence,” Coop says.

  Prudence narrows her eyes. “I thought this was a movie audition, not a retard convention.”

  “It is a movie audition,” Coop says, checking his phone. “You’re a little early, babe, but I suppose we can squeeze you in.” He’s acting all confident and producery, but his bravado is completely undermined by the strawberry milk shake mustache he’s sporting.

  “Thanks, but no, thanks.” Prudence turns on her heel and starts to leave.

  “Hey, hey, come on, now,” Coop says. “No need to let the past get in the way of our possible future. You’ve come all this way. Why not show us what you’ve got?”

  I can’t believe Coop thinks this is a good idea. Prudence is Helen’s mortal nemesis. The girl who started all the hot-dog rumors back in eighth grade. Matt and I look at him like he’s nuts, but he doesn’t even acknowledge us.

  Prudence whips around and smirks, like she’s just read my mind. “Audition? For you? Really? And how’s your little girlfriend going to feel about that?”

  Coop sits in the armchair and leans back, acting oh-so-chill. “Business is business, sweetheart. I think we can agree that we want to do what’s best for the movie.” He glances at us, the streak of pink pastel drying and cracking under his nose. “We’re all professionals here.”

  Prudence laughs. “Yeah, you’re looking like a real pro there, Milkstache.” She taps her lip.

  Coop quickly swipes at his mouth and stares down at the pink smear on his hand. He turns and glares at me and Matt accusingly. “Nice,” he mutters. “I’ll remember this.” Coop’s pissed-off expression shifts like smoke as he turns back and smiles at Prudence. “So, you’ve done some acting before?”

  “Oh, sure.” She gives him the slow burn. “In fact, I’m acting right now. Like I don’t want to scratch your eyes out.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m buying your performance.” Coop leans forward, pressing his palms together. “Still, we might be able to use you. Tell me this. What are your thoughts on nudity?”

  “I wouldn’t get naked for you for a million dollars,” Prudence snaps.

  “Fair enough.” Coop nods. “How about for free, then?”

  “Die, reject.” Prudence flips us off and storms out of the room.

  A second later, I hear my front door slam.

  “That went well,” Coop says.

  I shake my head. “I can’t believe you were actually considering giving her a part.”

  He laughs. “I wasn’t, asscup. I was just playing with her.” He shrugs. “Still, if she was willing to give us a little show before I turned her down, I wasn’t going to stop her.”

  Matt rolls his eyes. “Real classy, there, Coop.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Coop stares at Matt. “I’ll show you classy.” He dives on Matt and pins him to the couch. Before Matt can squirm away, Coop sits right on his head. “Payback is a dirty little whore, Matthew.”

  Matt’s face is all squished up and red, his lips puckered like a fish. “Get the hell off me,” he gripes, his voice muffled by Coop’s ass.

  “Just one second.” Coop scrunches up his eyes, then lets go with a surprisingly loud sputtering pants blaster, which makes me totally lose it.

  “Goddamn it!” Matt heaves Coop off of him and leaps up, rubbing at his face like crazy. “You’re such a dick. You’re going to pay for that.”

  “Umm,” Coop says, stumbling away, “I may have already paid for it.” He grabs the back of his jeans. “I think there might have been some fudge in that fart.” He laughs hysterically. “Which means you may have gotten a little extra sumpin’-sumpin’, there, Mattie.”

  Matt looks totally pissed. He shoots Coop a sky-high finger salute, which just makes me crack up even more.

  “Hold that thought,” Coop says. “I’ll be right back.” He quickly shuffles off toward the bathroom, his hand clenching the back of his pants.

  My stomach hurts, I’m laughing so hard. Tears trickle out of my squeezed-shut eyes.

  Even Matt can’t help himself as he starts busting up too.r />
  A minute later, Coop emerges from the bathroom smiling. “False alarm, dawgs.” He gives us two thumbs-up. “We’re all clear on the launchpad.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  The three of us whip our heads around to see Helen and Valerie standing there, both of them looking seriously pissed, their arms crossed over their chests.

  “Just getting ready for the casting session,” Coop says, back in producer mode.

  “Really?” Helen narrows her eyes. “So why did we just pass Prudence Nash in the driveway?”

  Valerie glowers at Matt. “Was she helping you guys ‘get ready’?”

  There have been many times over the years when I have been seriously jealous of Coop and Matt.

  But this is definitely not one of those times.

  COOP HAS TO DO SOME MAJOR verbal gymnastics to convince the girls that we had no idea Prudence was going to show up, that we had no intention of ever casting her in the movie, and that we didn’t even let her audition but ushered her right to the door as soon as she arrived.

  “Okay,” Helen finally says, her face relaxing. “But I’m watching you, Cooper Redmond.”

  “Watch away.” Coop grins, gesturing down at his body. “It’s why God made me.”

  “Hey, hey! Is this the home of the world-famous filmmaker Seanie O’Spielberg?” Uncle Doug, wearing a blue TEAM DOUG hockey jersey, steps into the family room. He has a cigar-size joint in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other.

  “Val, Helen,” I introduce. “This is my uncle Doug.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the girls say.

  “The pleasure’s all mine.” He flashes a smile then spins around. “Where’s that filthy-mouthed parrot of yours?” He wafts his joint around, leaving long gray wisps in the air like a stoned skywriter.

  “You asked me to put all of the animals away because of your ‘allergies.’ Remember?”

  “I know, I know. But she’s in a cage, right? I just want to say hello. It’s been so long since Uncle Doug’s had anyone talk dirty to him.”

  “Ingrid’s sleeping,” I say, the harsh sticky-sweet smell of the pot smoke clawing at my sinuses. “Can you please get rid of that thing? You’re going to get me in trouble.”