"Why not? My dad has a camcorder."
"Will he let you use it?"
"Um...well, he never uses it."
"That's not what he asked, dumbass!"
"Hey, knock it off!" a loud voice said, interrupting the other two people.
The arguing stopped, and the other two boys waited for their unofficial leader to speak. Like all three of them, Ryan Young was 12 years old. And like the main character on the teen TV show, Dawson's Creek, Dawson Leery, Ryan had big dreams of being a Hollywood director one day. He and his two best friends, Adam Smith and Carlos Lopez, had already made one over the summer break, a cheesy horror movie, and now they had nearly three weeks to shoot, edit, and produce another a second 'film'.
Ryan paused for effect then said, "Arguing doesn't accomplish anything. We need to focus."
No one else said anything as they waited for the wanna-be director to tell them what to do.
"Carlos. Ask your dad if you can use the camcorder."
"I could just take it," the young Latino-American boy said.
"No. That's not the way we do things. Get his permission."
"Okay. Fine. I'll ask. Jeez."
"Adam. You've got money. We need some costumes and props. Can you hit your mom up to make them and maybe help us buy a few things?"
"I got money of my own," the son of one of the wealthiest families in town said.
"Yeah, but same deal. If we get your parents to buy in, we have less problems along the way, right?"
Adam did have money. He just didn't have brains. Or at least not any that he cared to use very often.
"All right. Fine. I'll get her to do it."
"No, you ask her. Nicely."
"Fine! Jeez already," Adam snorted back.
"So what are you gonna do?" Carlos asked their fearless leader.
He smiled then announced his plan.
"I...am going to get the most beautiful girl in Mackenzie Middle School to be our leading lady!"
The other boys looked at each other then started laughing.
"Yeah, right! Like Hannah Summers is gonna be in a movie with us!" Adam declared with certainty.
"She will," Ryan said.
"Yeah? How are you gonna do that? She's 14, in 9th grade, and smokin' hot!" Carlos wanted to know.
"Just leave that to me. I got this," Ryan told him.
The truth was that he was one of the cutest boys in the 7th grade, but even so, Hannah Summers saw him as a little kid—if she even noticed him at all. Besides, she had a boyfriend already, and he was a sophomore in high school. And he was big. Really big. Even so, the boys knew that if anyone could pull this off, Ryan could.
Hannah was beautiful, but she was also really nice. And everyone who knew her was aware that she'd lost her dad almost three years ago in some kind of accident and still felt sorry for her because she was as nice as she was pretty.
"Okay. Good luck with that," Adam said with a shake of his head.
"You get the money, and I'll deliver Hannah, okay?" Ryan told him.
Satisfied with the beginning of their plan, Ryan asked if there were any questions. No one had any, so he told them to meet back at the abandoned warehouse the next afternoon with the camcorder and a buy-in from Adam's mom.
It was mid-December, and school had just let out. But the Three Amigos, as they liked to call themselves, stayed after and hung out on the bleachers by the baseball field to go over the logistics of their next movie. Ryan hadn't thought of a title yet, but it was definitely going to be romantic, and if he could get even a modest amount of funding, it would be as good as The Notebook and a movie Lubbock would talking about for decades.
The truth was that only a handful of people would likely ever even see their production, and they would be the only ones talking about it at all, let alone for years to come. None of them realized yet how they'd look back on it, but there would be plenty of head shaking, laughing, and questions like, "What were we thinking?"
When Ryan got home, he perked up immediately when he saw his Uncle James. Only Ryan's father, Pete, who was James's older brother, still called him Jimmy, and he was the only one James didn't correct for using his boyhood name.
"Uncle James! Whuddup?" Ryan said as he saw his uncle working on his dad's computer.
"New website for your dad. What do you think?"
James turned the iMac computer screen around and showed off his design.
"Awesome! That's Dad's?" the amazed boy asked.
"He has to approve it, but if he likes it, yeah."
"That totally rocks!" his nephew said as he continued to admire the layout and the colors.
Pete Young was 45 and ran a landscaping business, and the website needed a complete overhaul. James felt certain that this was exactly what his big brother wanted, and felt equally confident it would attract new customers.
Pete was actually his half brother, and that was a big part of the reason for their 17-year difference in age. Their father had remarried later in life and James had come along as a consequence of his mother's insistence on having a child of her own.
The brothers had never been close until their father passed away a couple of years ago, but since the funeral, they'd bonded in a way neither of them ever thought possible. And the best part of it all was how Ryan had made a new best friend in the form of his Uncle James who knew everything about computers and designing websites.
"Dad!" Ryan said when his father walked in. "Check it out!"
"Nice!" his father said after a very quick look told him he agree it was good. A closer inspection told him it was fantastic.
"You're a genius, Jimmy!" the older sibling said.
"You're happy with it?"
"Thrilled even. It's perfect. What do I owe you?"
His younger brother laughed then said very seriously, "A favor."
His brother raised an eyebrow but didn't respond.
"I'll let you know what and when," James told him.
"Hmmm. I know it won't be setting you up with some hot chick. Lord knows you've got more of them than you can handle," Pete said with a chuckle.
Ryan laughed because he knew that was true, and he was also now just old enough to realize he might be as good looking as his uncle one day. And were that the case, he couldn't help but think that maybe even Hannah Summers was a possibility. It was a long shot to be sure, but like his Uncle James said, "You gotta dream big."
James laughed then said, "Okay. I'll lock this in and we'll make it active if you're sure it's what you want."
Pete took one more careful look at everything then told his brother to 'do it'.
James showed Pete how to find out how many hits he was getting once it was up and running, then said something precautionary.
"If you want to change something, please don't try and go in and do it yourself, okay?"
James knew computers. Pete knew landscaping. And he knew enough to know not to get involved with things he didn't understand, and computers were one of them, so he promised he wouldn't.
"So? What's up with my favorite nephew?" James asked once he was finished working.
"We're making another movie!"
"Oh. I see. Is it gonna be like the last one?"
James didn't have the heart to tell his buddy his first attempt was bad. Really bad. He and his friends had put the whole thing together on their own, and that was what mattered, so James told them it was great. It was quite possibly the cheesiest horror movie ever made, and the only question was which was worse—the acting or the props and all the fake blood.
"This one's gonna be even better, Uncle James! And it's gonna be so romantic, any girl who sees it is gonna cry!"
James managed not to laugh when he imagined the girls crying due to how awful it was, but he knew Ryan had a passion for this, and if there was any way he could be of assistance, he'd do it.
"Hey. Tell you what. If you want some help with this one, just let me know, okay?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. One of the nice things about being self-employed is being able to set your own hours. So if I can help out, give me a holler, okay?"
"Cool!" Ryan said as they high fived.
"So...are you seein' anyone these days?" his uncle asked, also very seriously, even though Ryan was still a little too young for that.
Ryan smiled in a way that said he liked a girl, so his uncle pressed for information.
"Who is she? Is she hot? Does she like you, too?"
"She's way hot!"
"And?"
"I...I don't know. I haven't exactly told her I like her."
