Disaster Productions

by Brian Bakos

  One of the chaperone parents drives me home. People in red ‘Staff’ shirts are just bringing out the free pizza, but I don’t care to wait for any. All the girls, including Lauren, are too busy skating to witness my inglorious departure. That’s something, at least.

  “Hang in there, Matt,” Duals says as I limp out of the Roll-O-Center.

  Mom hits the ceiling when she sees my black eye.

  “It’s okay,” I say, “just put something cold on it.”

  But she insists on rushing me to the emergency room. Will the humiliation never end? The doctor examines me, shines his light, pokes and prods, then he says:

  “It’s okay, just put something cold on it.”

  ***

  I spend the whole next day in my room ‘resting.’ Actually, I’m not tired and could have gone out, but I just don’t have the spirit for it. Duals calls early afternoon.

  “Hey, you up for the North skating party tonight?” he asks.

  “No!”

  Awkward silence.

  Then Duals says: “Yeah, I can understand after what happened last night. How are you feeling, by the way?”

  “Just wonderful,” I say.

  “Good, glad to hear it,” Duals says. “Listen, Matt, there’s something else I want to talk to you about – ”

  “I really don’t want to talk about anything, okay?”

  “Okay ... sure ...” Duals says.

  I end the call. That might not be the most polite thing I ever did, but I’m mad. I don’t know exactly who I’m mad at, but Duals is handy.

  I need to sort things out.

  Somehow, everything has gone horribly wrong. I mean, I go to the skating party hoping to have some fun and make a connection with Romina, maybe find out what’s behind her charming accent. I come away with a black eye, a carpet burned face, and a destroyed ego. Romina still doesn’t know I exist, and Lauren is mad at me, too, for some reason. Quite a night’s work.

  Wouldn’t you know the local TV news carries some of our footage – how had Duals pulled that off? The spot includes remarks from a few of the kids we interviewed, a shot of Kaitlyn working the slate, and a final shot of “aspiring young filmmaker” Stephan Chrono modestly taking credit for the whole thing. Kaitlyn probably handled the camera for that last one.

  But nothing on Tamika. How does she feel about not getting any screen time? My unburned cheek still tingles from where she kissed it. Maybe I was making some headway with her after all, but why didn’t she stick around after I got off the floor?

  She’s so popular that she must have to ration her affections, I figure. There just isn’t enough of her to go around. Besides, she could see that I was basically all right. It was a start, anyway.

  I feel like calling Duals to congratulate him on the news coverage and also to complain that I was not included. Of course, if I hadn’t done the carpet dive thing I might have been around long enough to get myself filmed. I decide not to call. Let things ride for a while until I feel better.

  Then, come Saturday, the bomb shell hits.

  13: Online Celebrity

  I’m just starting to feel halfway human again when Gerry’s text message arrives.

  “Love the video!” it says.

  I text back: “On TV?”

  “No,” Gerry texts, “check it out.”

  He includes a URL for a video posting website. I start to get this sinking feeling in my stomach as I go to the site and search on Studio Duals.

  There it is, a complete video / audio record of my crack up at the Roll-O-Center – my terrified face, the brutal collision against the barrier, my mid-air flip and crash. And finally, the kiss from Tamika as I sprawl on the floor like a total idiot.

  So, the light I saw wasn’t part of a near-death experience, but Duals’ LED flicking on.

  The audio from the on-camera mic isn’t as good as what I got with the boom pole, but no matter. Duals has included a track of comic sound effects, including a resounding Crash! when I hit the floor.

  Then he repeats the clip several times, mixing it with scenes of kids skating and of the post-crash pile up. I go through the catastrophe again and again – in slow motion, in reverse, with different sound and visual effects. BOING! CRUNCH!

  One scenario has an atomic mushroom cloud rising when I hit the floor. The video ends with a shot of me limping out the door and Duals saying, “Hang in there, Matt.”

  I can scarcely believe what I’m seeing. It’s like a nightmare spider reaching out for me from the Web. There are already thousands of views, the comments say it all:

  “This kid is the new definition of dork,” one says.

  Others take up the theme:

  “This kid is the new definition of pinhead ... dipstick ... idiot.”

  “Who’s the hot girl?” another one says. “Man, I’d brain myself, too, for a kiss.”

  “He’s got great style – loser chic.”

  “He reminds me of my old boyfriend,” a female viewer wrote. “I wish he’d throw himself over like that.”

  Everyone on Duals’ contact list must have seen it by now, and everybody on their contact lists and ... I fire off a text to Duals.

  “Grandpa’s house – NOW.”

  “Already there,” Duals texts.

  “Take down that video!!!!” I shoot back.

  Gerry and Bill are waiting for me outside my house.

  “Hi, Matt,” Bill says, “we thought we’d come over to see how you feel.”

  “I feel great,” I snap. “How could it be otherwise?”

  Gerry has his hands behind his back and a sheepish look on his face.

  “What have you got there?” I say.

  “Oh ... nothing.”

  I try to step around him, he backs away.

  “All right, you win,” he says, producing a little video camera.

  “Why have you got that thing?” I say.

  “Well, you know, in case something else happens,” Gerry says. “It’s best to be prepared.”

  “I’ll give you guys two seconds to get out of here,” I say, “then I’m going for my baseball bat.”

  “Hey, don’t get violent, man,” Bill says. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

  “One ...”

  “Okay, we’re going!”

  They take off on their bikes. Once they are well away, I leave for Grandpa’s house on my own bike. The two miles burn away in record time.

  ***

  Duals is busy on the computer when I storm in.

  “I already took down the video,” he says by way of greeting.

  I am not satisfied, though.

  “This was so wrong, Duals!”

  “It did get a bit out of hand,” Duals admits. “But I wouldn’t say it was ‘wrong’ by any means.”

  “I’m, like, the laughing stock of the whole world!” I say. “Couldn’t you even ask my permission before putting me out there?”

  “I tried to,” Duals says, “but you hung up on me. So, I figured I’d have to use my own judgment.”

  This is true. I did cut him off on the phone. Some of the rage goes out of me.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Duals says, “but wasn’t that the whole point of this production – showing disasters online?”

  “Yeah, but not about me ... about somebody else.”

  “It was the luck of the draw,” Duals says. “It could just as well have been me on the floor.”

  “Yeah, but nobody would have seen it because you had the camera.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Duals says. “But look on the bright side, Matt. You’re famous! A lot of people would kill to get so much attention.”

  I feel like I’ve been slugged in the gut. Was it only last week that I wrote the Matt Manifesto stating that I planned to be famous by fourteen?

  What’s that old saying? Be careful what you wish for ...

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” I say. “It was supposed to be about ‘Disaster Dylan�
�� not ‘Maniac Mattie.’”

  Duals strokes his chin thoughtfully.

  “Maniac Mattie – you know, that has a ring to it,” he says. “We could build on that.”

  “No way Duals!”

  “Just hear me out,” Duals says. “We can take some shots of you in front of the green screen. Then, on the computer, we add any background we want. We could make it look like you’re tumbling over Niagara Falls or hurtling into outer space. Then we add the clip to the original video and re-release it as the ‘new and improved’ version.”

  I am too outraged to say anything, but my expression must be deadly.

  “Not a good idea, huh?” Duals says.

  I plop down on the couch.

  “I’m the first to admit,” Duals says, “some of the viewer comments were over the top. But try to see the big picture ...”

  I’m not listening to him any longer; my own selfish complaints are echoing in my mind taking up the available space. Yeah, disasters are great fun, aren’t they? When they happen to somebody else, that is. When they happen to you, it’s a whole different ball game.

  I’m not feeling particularly proud of myself.

  “Okay, I shouldn’t have hung up on you,” I say, “and I know it wasn’t your fault that I wiped out. But something’s wrong here, we need to rethink this whole project.”

  “Yeah, how?” Duals sounds apprehensive.

  I stand up. Suddenly the living room feels very confined, like a prison cell. My face is hot and prickly, and not just from the carpet burn.

  “I can’t talk right now,” I say, “my brain’s not working too well.”

  I need to get out of here right away – out of this whole town. Suddenly a vision of Grandma & Grandpa Alpin’s cottage up north rises in my mind. It’s all shiny and bright, like the Emerald City. I need to get there.

  “I’m going up north for the week,” I say, “When I get back, we’ll start over.”

  “Okay, take some time to thrash things out,” Duals says. “But we have a good thing going here, even if it may not seem like it now. Once we get our website up – ”

  “Fine, work on the website,” I say, “practice with that Merlin thing, whatever. But no more shock video postings before I get back. Okay?”

  “Sure, Matt.”

  Duals looks kind of small and deflated on the couch, all sunk into the cushions like he expects me to hit him, or something. Do I seem that wacko?

  “I’ll see you next week,” I say.

  And I’m out of there.

  ***

  At dinner, I ask Dad to drive me up north the next day.

  “I thought you didn’t want to go,” he says.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I say, “but I only want to stay a week.”

  Dad looks over at Mom, and she gives one of her decisive nods.

  “Okay, Matt,” he says. “Tomorrow morning it is.”

  14: Retreat North

  The drive up north Sunday is pretty quiet. I think Dad keeps hoping for this father-son bonding thing to kick in; I’m not in the mood for conversation, though. My black eye has faded, but I am still able to milk it and my other injuries. I need rest, supposedly, and ‘nap’ most of the way.

  Lunch at one of those country type chain restaurants is pretty noisy, so I can avoid talking much there, too. A big chattering crowd fills the place, and a baby at the next table is making a lot of racket, which works to my advantage.

  I mean, he’s my dad, he’s a great guy and I love him. But he just isn’t who I need right now. His work at the insurance company is all tied up with actuarial tables, statistical calculations of risk factors. To set their premiums, they gamble on how long people are expected to live. What are the odds that Costumer X will be around long enough for them to earn a profit on him?

  I have different concerns. What are the odds that my whole life is going down the drain? I’d say pretty high. My existence is dominated by D’s – Dylan, Duals, disaster, depression, defeat ... If school was still in session, I’d have D’s on my grade report. I need Grandpa to help me sort things out, but he’s off in Central America.

  My other grandparents are lurking somewhere up the road on the shore of their big, cold lake. I’m not saying they’re evil or dangerous, or anything, but ... It’s like those little hamburgers you can buy by the sack full. Every now and then I’ll actually eat one, thinking that they can’t possibly be as bad as I remembered – but they are.

  Still, I am hopeful that maybe this time it will be different. Maybe I’ll actually enjoy visiting Grandma and Grandpa Alpin. But my hopes start fading soon after we arrive.

  ***

  The last quarter mile of dirt road runs through forest, then we are at their driveway with the giant pickup truck, even bigger than my other Grandpa’s beast vehicle. It has a Texas license plate, since they are official residents there now. Apparently they left their huge trailer behind, rather than haul it back as they’ve done before.

  Their nasty little dog, Smokey, comes running out to see us. His shrill barking hurts my ears. You get the impression that he’d love to bite you, if he wasn’t afraid of getting stomped.

  “Come on in!” Grandpa Alpin yells from the screened-in back porch.

  We enter the porch, then the house. Smokey, thank heaven, stays outside.

  There is the usual brief moment of attention given to me. Grandpa says how good-looking I am, how big I’m getting, do I like school? etc. Then Dad put his foot in it.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks Grandpa.

  “Oh, not too bad,” Grandpa replies, “my arthritis has been acting up, though. Your mother’s been under the weather, too. Doctor says she might need surgery soon ...”

  And so forth. A non-stop complaint about absolutely everything – mostly health issues but also the weather and politics, especially the “idiot” governor we have who is cutting benefit programs for our neediest citizens. Of course, since Grandma and Grandpa Alpin are now official Texas residents, they no longer have to pay our state income tax which funds these very programs.

  It doesn’t seem wise to mention this fact, however. I’ve already learned that it’s very easy to make somebody else pay for the stuff you think is worthwhile.

  Not that I can get a word in edgewise. Grandma appears and adds her voice to the general despair. It’s like this super depressing TV melodrama – which switched off the last time I left here – is now playing full blast again. I try to tune it out as much as possible.

  The living room looks pretty much the same, except for the fireplace. It used to be this nice open area with chain link curtains and glass doors. Summer nights can be cold this far north, and it’s good to have a cheery fire crackling away when you need it. But now the fireplace is occupied by this horrible, cast-iron box with a door that looks like it came off a cremation oven.

  It’s the ‘green alternative’ to a standard energy-wasting fireplace I am to learn later. Funny, I would never associate the word green with that monstrosity.

  The talk drones on. At least I’m not the only one in pain, judging by the glazed-over look in Dad’s eyes.

  “Well, I’d better get going,” he says. “Have to be at work first thing in the morning, you know.”

  Dad is super conscientious about work. He almost never takes an extra day off, even when he isn’t feeling well. He must have a whole stack of unused personal days.

  I certainly can’t blame him for wanting to make a quick escape. I follow him outside to the car, the yapping dog in tow.

  “Smokey, get in here!” Grandpa yells from the porch.

  The little pest runs back to the house, giving me a few quiet moments with Dad. We unload my stuff from the trunk, including the net bag with my snorkeling gear.

  “You will be back Saturday, right Dad?” I say.

  “Sure thing, Matt, count on it.”

  Then he’s driving away down the forested road. I turn back toward the cottage. Whose brilliant idea was it to come her
e, anyway?

  15: Rethinking My Life

  The week goes by surprisingly quick. The weather is nice, so I can go outdoors by myself a lot. I spend time floating around the lake with my snorkel gear, getting my thoughts together, trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I get back home.

  The water is cold, but I have my wet suit. The neoprene outfit makes me bob like a cork, and I wear a few pounds on my weight belt so that I can submerge a bit now and then.

  In some places, there are huge logs lying on the bottom. Back in the old clear-cutting days, logs floated through this lake in gigantic rafts headed for the saw mills. Some of them sank, and here they are, useless and forgotten. They’re like my life – going nowhere.

  I’m still obsessed with what my kids are going to say about me at my funeral. I don’t want to be just a dead log.

  Another thing that occupies by thoughts is my rich Grandpa’s motivations. Why did he fork out so much money on the movie studio? And why didn’t he include me in the discussion? He just went ahead and purchased whatever Duals wanted, except for the big LED lights, maybe. Then he took off. He’s incognito somewhere in Central America now.

  Actually, to be fair, I took myself out of the discussion and left everything up to Duals. I simply abandoned the field to him and went off to dream up more stupid Big Ideas.

  Here is a mistake that I am not going to repeat!

  As far as the money, well, Grandpa likes to live large, and throwing money around is part of his style. That crappy little house sure didn’t cost him much, and he probably felt the urge to go on a spending spree.

  Also, I can’t help thinking that he’s using the whole thing as a way to get back into our family – to get through to Mom, somehow. He’s trying to buy acceptance so that he’ll be welcome for more than just the occasional send-off dinner. He probably thinks that Mom is hoping he’ll never return from his travels.

  This makes me feel terribly sad. Grandpa belongs in our family. Mom is his only child, and I’m the only grandchild; his brothers have both died. He must be very lonely.

  While I’m busy thrashing things out, Grandma and Grandpa Alpin are in the house socializing and playing cards with their friends, or else visiting their friends’ places and doing the same things there. No disrespect, but this kind of life is not for me!

  I spot a huge snapping turtle stomping through the underwater weeds like some ancient dinosaur, and I decide that snorkeling time is over.