Call the Shots

by Don Calame

  I stumble to my feet, my paw pressed into the bruise on my back. I turn around, and there’s Ulf — all two hundred muscly pounds of him — barreling straight toward me.

  Oh, shit.

  Every atom of me wants to bolt, but I am frozen to this spot, feeling the trickle of fake blood dribbling down my throat, watching Ulf charge me like the Rhino in a Spider-Man comic.

  And then it’s too late.

  Ulf’s powerful hands are on me. Clenching my shoulders. Shaking me violently.

  Jostling my already queasy stomach.

  “Just hold your handbag right there, mister!” Spittle flies from his thin lips. “You are in some very hot potatoes! The authorities have been summoned and you are —”

  YAAAAAAARRRRRK!

  A ferocious scarlet stew of half-digested sausage, chili, Cheez Whiz, and tropical punch Kool-Aid spews straight from my monkey-mouth right into Ulf’s face and streams down the front of his expensive suit, covering his torso like a vomit vest.

  Part of me is mortified by the sudden uncontrollable blast of sick that is shooting out of me, while another part of me is completely fascinated by the sheer amount of hurl I am producing. I just hope that Coop and Val are getting this all on tape.

  When the discharge is finally over, my stomach feels a million times better.

  The same can’t be said of Ulf, who staggers backward, coughing, sputtering, and wiping the thick scarlet chum from his eyes.

  And while it’s not usually polite to barf and bail, I take this opportunity to hightail it.

  If I’d been thinking at all, I would have beelined it straight for the doors leading to the hallway. But instead I’m leaping over capsized tables and chairs, following the mob toward the exits at the back of the Amethyst Room.

  And here’s Cauliflower Nose wading through the mob scene, trying to get his hands on one of us. He lunges for me and I barely dodge his grasp as I hop over another upturned chair.

  By the time I’m halfway to the exits, I’m huffing and puffing, my vomitty mask smelling like a terrible casserole of spoiled milk and rancid Fancy Feast cat food.

  But I don’t let that stop me. I just breathe through my mouth and charge on.

  Finally there’s a clearing and I jam it toward the exit. I can hardly believe it when I’m outside, sucking in the sweet scent of fresh air. There are people everywhere — some laughing, some crying, some just shaking their heads.

  But I don’t stick around to take in the scene. I pound it down the concrete path toward Uncle Doug’s van in the parking lot.

  Helen and me are the first ones to make it to the getaway vehicle, but for some reason the engine isn’t running.

  I leap into the front passenger seat and see Uncle Doug with his head tipped back, snoring away as a string of drool hangs precariously from the corner of his mouth.

  “Oh, my God,” Helen shouts from the backseat. “Is he sleeping?”

  I reach out and shake Uncle Doug’s shoulder. “Wake up! Wake up! Start the van!”

  “What? Huh?” Uncle Doug jolts upright. “What’s going on? Where am I?” He looks around, blinking like crazy. “Goddamn it. I was just having bacon cheeseburgers with the Dalai Lama at the Beefery, and he was about to tell me the meaning of life. Nice going, Seanie.”

  I glare at him. “There isn’t going to be a life to have any meaning if we don’t get the hell out of here right now!”

  “Okay, okay,” Uncle Doug says. “Don’t get your dander up — we’re going.” He reaches down toward the ignition but finds no keys. “Hmm. That’s odd. Where’d my keys go?”

  Oh, crap.

  I glance out the window and see Matt and Nick barreling toward the van, a lynch mob of guests closing in on them. “Oh, man, we are totally screwed,” I say.

  “We’re fine,” Uncle Doug scoffs as he runs the tips of his fingers all over the gritty floor mat. “They have to be here somewhere. Keys don’t just up and walk off on their own.”

  Then, all of a sudden, there’s the wail of a police siren in the distance. And it’s getting louder. Very quickly.

  Uncle Doug bolts upright. “Oh, shit. Okay. Um. You two get out. And, uh . . . check the surrounding area for the keys. Hurry! Before it’s too late.”

  Without thinking, Helen and I obey, leaping outside to search the ground.

  Suddenly, and without warning, Uncle Doug’s van roars to life and tears out of the parking lot.

  Leaving Helen and me standing there. Completely dumbstruck.

  “Holy crap!” Coop shouts as he, Val, and Evelyn skid up to us. “Did Uncle Doug just bail on us? What the hell?”

  We all watch as the van pulls an illegal U-turn and takes off down the street.

  “It was the pillowcase full of pot,” I say.

  “Goddamn it!” Coop yells. “Everything was going so well.”

  And just as Matt and Nick arrive at our side — the pursuing partygoers clopping toward us in their fancy dress shoes — a cop car screams into the parking lot and skids to a halt right by the curb.

  “POLICE!” ONE OF THE COPS shouts as he bounds from the car. “Nobody move!”

  Everyone freezes, including the posse that was chasing Nick and Matt.

  “We got a call of a possible disturbance,” the second officer says, staring at the seven of us huddled together. He looks like a chubbier, angrier Will Smith. “Something about people dressed up in ape suits and causing havoc?” He points at Nick, Matt, and me. “I’m assuming that’s you three.”

  “Oh, crap,” Nick mutters, his voice low and hollow in the monkey mask. “There goes my probation.”

  I turn to him. “Your what?”

  “Just clamp it,” Nick spits. “Play it cool. Don’t take off your mask until they make us.”

  “All right.” The first cop circles us. He’s got acne-scarred cheeks that make him look like a James Bond villain. “Who wants to do the talking?”

  “We’re shooting a movie,” Coop leaps in. “We were told we could film here.”

  “Is that so?” the bloated Will Smith says.

  “That is not so.” Ulf tromps over to us, still wiping at his bepuked face with a napkin. “No permission was given. That is a bald-headed lie.”

  “May I?” The first cop motions to the video camera in Val’s hand. She hands it over, and the officer examines it. “Hey, Trent. Didn’t we get a report of a bunch of stolen camera equipment recently?”

  “Sure did, Jay. I think it was Leo’s Cameras.” Trent steps up to Helen and holds his hand out to her. She passes off the DSLR to him and he turns it over, inspecting the bottom. “We better run the serial numbers on these.”

  “That’s not stolen.” Helen turns to Evelyn. “Tell them where you got it.”

  “You tell them,” Evelyn snaps. “It’s your camera.”

  Helen jerks back. “No, it isn’t. You said —”

  “I didn’t say anything.” Evelyn stares daggers into Helen. “Just shut your mouth.”

  “Okay, okay.” Officer Trent holds up his hands. “Let’s take this down to the station, and we’ll get everyone’s statements.” He turns to his partner. “Better get the wagon down here. We’ve got a horde to transport.”

  “Oh, my God! What the hell is she doing here?” Evelyn’s arm shoots out like a switchblade.

  Everyone turns to see what she’s pointing at. And there’s Leyna and Hunter standing on the periphery of the crowd.

  Oh, shit. As if things weren’t bad enough.

  I give them a quick shake of my head, psychically telling them to leave.

  Evelyn spins on me. “You! You invited that tramp? To our movie set? I knew it. You cheating bastard. I never should have trusted you.”

  “Just hold on a second,” Officer Jay says. “Are those two somehow involved in this?”

  “No,” I say. “They’re not. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve never seen those people in my life.”

  “You lying sack of crap!” Evelyn pounces on me like a
possessed puma, knocking me to the ground. She tries — but thankfully fails — to rip the mask from my face. So she goes to town on the mask itself, hitting and scratching it while cursing at me, all of the crazy bursting out of her like a volcano. “You toasted to trust, you jerk! How could you toast to that when it wasn’t true? I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

  The police officers try to pull her off of me, but Evelyn is raging.

  “Holy Jesus, she’s strong,” one of the cops says.

  She is screaming and crying and flipping out. The monkey mask absorbs most of the blows, though my eyes are sprayed with the occasional fleck of flying spittle. I turn my head to try to catch my breath.

  “I can’t believe I stole that equipment for you. For you! So that you would love me. You used me like a piece of meat. All this time. Lying and sneaking around. How dare you? How dare you?”

  She takes another swipe at my face, just as I turn toward her, and her fist connects with my nose. Hard. The police officers finally manage to pull her off of me. But it’s too late for my nose.

  Matt and Coop are at my side in an instant, hoisting me to my feet and asking if I’m okay.

  “Fine, fine,” I say, grabbing my nose, the pain shooting through my head. I think it might be broken.

  And maybe I deserve at least that. Because as nutty as Evelyn is, she isn’t completely off base. I was sneaking around and lying. And I was using her. It just . . . seemed like I didn’t really have a choice. But of course I did. I just didn’t want to do what was hard. What was right.

  I shake my head, feeling like a royal tool for letting things get this far out of control.

  And then Officer Jay stands and looks around. “Hey,” he calls out, “I thought there were three monkeys. Where the hell did the other one go?”

  I FLIP OVER ON MY BED, lying on my left shoulder, turned away from Cathy’s side of the room, where her snoring has kicked into high gear. I’ve tried everything to block out the sound: balled-up tissue, earplugs, my iPod earbuds. But nothing can match Cathy’s vicious log sawing.

  I pull the pillow up over my head, but I can still hear her rasping and wheezing.

  In. Zzzzzzzzzz! Out. Zaaaaaaaah! In. Zzzzzzzzzz! And out. Zaaaaaaaah!

  Ugh. It’s no use. I let the pillow flop back onto the bed. It’s too claustrophobic to sleep like that anyway. What I can’t understand is how Cathy isn’t waking herself up. I mean, if I shouted as loud as she’s snoring, she’d be awake in a second.

  I close my eyes. Try to imagine her breathing as the loud hum of a boat engine. Which might actually lull me into a slumber . . . if the stupid engine didn’t backfire every five seconds.

  BRRRRRUCKUCKUCK!

  I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. Four weeks I’ve been grounded. Twenty-eight days to think about my actions at the country club. Six hundred and seventy-two interminable hours with no computer, no television, no video games, and no guests.

  One solid month of sleepless nights to curse my miserable life and anguish over the fact that there is absolutely no way we’ll be able to finish the movie in time now.

  No way I’ll ever escape this room.

  Or this torture.

  Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah! Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah!

  Ultimately, Rico decided not to press charges. And he convinced the country club to do the same. He said he hadn’t had that much fun for a long time. That it made his sixtieth birthday “a celebration that people won’t soon forget.” And that his guests thoroughly deserved to have the crap scared out of them.

  Of course, it would have been nice to have found this out before my parents came down to the station and begged the police for leniency. Saying how I was under enormous stress after having just come out of the closet.

  Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah! Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah!

  I swear I’m going to go insane if I can’t get some sleep soon. Yesterday I spent half an hour looking all over the house for my coat when I was wearing the stupid thing the whole time. The day before that, I got into the shower wearing my pajamas.

  Speaking of insane, since Evelyn confessed to stealing the camera equipment, we were off the hook on that one. She tried to convince the cops that this was a one-time offense, that she’d only taken the electronics because she was trying to help out the love of her life. And that she fully intended to return everything when the movie was done shooting. She even tried pinning that on me, saying I coerced her into jacking the equipment by telling her I’d break up with her if she didn’t. She put on a pretty good act, I have to say, and I could see some of the cops softening toward her. But that all changed when her mom showed up at the precinct with two duffel bags full of stolen merchandise she’d found in her daughter’s closet — clothing, jewelry, perfume. None of it remotely related to our movie.

  No one’s seen her since her meltdown. There was talk that she was put on probation. And that she has to go to a special school now with therapists who deal with things like kleptomania. But nobody knows for sure.

  If it is true, that’d make two Moss kids on probation. Although it seems like Nick has broken his by disappearing — along with our humanzee suit. Coop says he’s probably using it to his advantage. Going undercover at the zoo. Or hiding out in some South American rain forest. I’ve heard all sorts of rumors about why he was in trouble to begin with — from illegal surveillance to assault to DUI — but whatever the reason, he’s not likely to be coming back anytime soon. Which works out just fine for me.

  Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah! Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah!

  I flip over to my other side. When you lie in bed too long without sleeping, your whole body starts to ache. I never knew that until now. That you could actually get sore just lying down. Also, you start hallucinating. There have been several nights where I swear I saw General Grievous’s face on the ceiling. Or Uncle Doug’s giant hairy beard crawling up the walls.

  He apologized. My uncle. For bailing on us. He came by when the dust finally settled, said he was sorry for hanging us out to dry but that a pillowcase full of marijuana trumps a disturbing-the-peace charge every time.

  Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah!

  The one saving grace in all of this is that Leyna’s asked me over to her house to “examine her little muffin” once I’m not grounded anymore. Which is this Saturday. She actually seemed pretty upset that I wouldn’t be able to come over any sooner, which is both thrilling and terrifying. I feel like all this extra time has only heightened her expectations. Still, the thought of actually seeing her — seeing that — is the one thing that’s kept me going. The carrot I dangle in front of myself every day.

  Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaa —

  Oh, my God. It’s stopped. Cathy must have rolled over onto her side or something. Here’s my opportunity. If I can fall asleep before she starts up again, I might be able to coast through the rest of the night.

  I shut my eyes tight. Sleep. Sleep. Must sleep.

  I count Angry Birds being slingshot through the air. One red bird. Two blue birds. Three black birds. Four yellow birds. Five toucans. One red bird. Two blue birds. Three black birds . . .

  Damn it! It’s not working. I lift my head and smack it back down into the pillow. Take a deep breath and try to nestle my body deeper into the bed.

  The room is eerily quiet. Too quiet, maybe.

  I strain to try and hear Cathy breathing at all. But there’s nothing.

  A thought, both scary and slightly satisfying, occurs to me.

  What if she suddenly died? Choking on her own flapping tonsils? Sure, I’d be upset. I mean, Cathy is my twin sister after all. But haven’t I — in my most desperate, panicky, sleep-deprived hours — silently prayed for this very thing?

  It’s true. I’ve wished my sister dead. But I didn’t really mean it. Not really really. It’s just that extreme sleepiness can make you antsy and frustrated and desperate — did I mention desperate? — and —

  Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah! Zzzzzzzzzz! Zaaaaaaaah!

  Well, the
re you go. Apparently she’s still alive. That’s a . . . relief.

  I sigh loudly and try to adjust to the rhythm of her snores. But it’s no use. My mind is too wide-awake. I can’t shut it off. It just wants to keep thinking and thinking and thinking.

  About Evelyn, of all things. And how I finally got thrown a bone in that whole hurricane of heinousness. Except my brain refuses to let go of how dumb-lucky I got.

  You don’t deserve this, it keeps whispering to me. You aren’t blameless here, buddy. You could have stopped it all before it got out of control. If you’d had any balls.

  Yeah, yeah, brain, whatever. It’s not like I got off entirely scot-free. I got a busted nose out of the deal, remember? And my movie is an epic fail. Besides that, I haven’t been able to see Leyna outside the confines of drama class. And maybe worst of all, I’m going to spend the rest of my high school life sharing a bedroom with Darth Vader until eventually I graduate or I totally crack and start cackling like the Joker and begin plotting world domination.

  These little arguments have become part of my nightly ritual, which makes me worry that the Joker scenario is the likelier of the two.

  There is only one thing I’ve found that gets me through these dark and troubling times. I only use it when things are really bad, because to be honest, I feel a tiny bit guilty about it.

  But tonight is definitely one of those nights.

  I slip out from under the covers, grab my phone, and tiptoe into the bathroom.

  “WE HAVE NO MONEY. We have no camera equipment. We have no time. I thought we already discussed all this.” I’m talking to Coop on my cell phone as I pedal like crazy toward Leyna’s house — finally free to roam the world outside of school again.

  “Just hear me out, dawg,” Coop insists. “It came to me in a flash last night. I don’t know why the hell I didn’t think of this sooner. We shoot the rest of the film on our cell phones.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “That’ll look real professional.”

  “No, it won’t. That’s the point. We don’t want it to look professional. It’ll make it seem more realistic. Like the outbreak is actually happening and Rogart and Nashira are capturing some of it on their phones. It’s totally brill. And it’s never been done before.”