"I don't need help," I repeated. "You guys sound like you're the ones who need the help. Why don't you talk to Father Franklin?"

"We can all talk to him together if you'd like."

That was all I needed. Three against one!

"No, that's okay," I said.

"So you'll talk to him?" my dad asked me.

At that point, it seemed like there was only one thing I could say to get my parents to shut up. Besides, they were my parents. What could I do?

"Yeah," I said. "I'll talk to the d.a.m.n priest." 45 CHAPTER FOUR.

That Sat.u.r.day, we had our first day of extra work on Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies. We had a 46 wardrobe-and-makeup call at eight in the morning, so Gunnar and Em picked me up at seven-thirty. Min wasn't with us-she had her own car and lived on the opposite side of town anyway.

I felt like c.r.a.p on a cracker. I am so not a morning person. As we drove to the shoot, Gunnar enlightened us on another aspect of moviemaking.

"That board they knock together before every scene?" he said. "That's called a clapper board. They use it to keep track of each take in postproduction. They record the sound and the film image on two different machines, you know? So they need some way to make sure that the image matches up with the right sound track."

"I thought they rerecorded all the dialogue anyway," Em said.

"Not always," he said. "Sometimes they try to keep the on-set dialogue, because it looks and sounds more natural."

We drove into the school parking lot, and I spotted Min and Kevin over by his car. It looked like they were talking. I wondered what they were talking about.

We pulled up next to them, and I climbed out of the car.

"Hey," I said.

"Morning!" Kevin said.

Min just rolled her eyes. I wasn't sure what that was about. Had they been talking about me? 47 We walked toward the school as a group.

"Why do we need makeup anyway?" Kevin said, a little too loudly. "They're not turning us into zombies yet. Aren't we just normal teenagers today?"

"It's so our faces don't shine in the movie lights," Gunnar said. "It won't be full makeup."

"Well, what about wardrobe?" Kevin said. "Don't we already dress like normal teenagers? We are normal teenagers."

Even Gunnar didn't have an answer for that one.

Soon I found myself walking side by side with Kevin. "Isn't it funny?" he said, talking too loudly again. "We get up this early every morning. But today it seems early. Is it just because it's Sat.u.r.day?"

"Probably," I said. But to myself, I was wondering why I hadn't ever noticed before how Kevin's voice got louder when he got nervous. What exactly was he nervous about?

Just inside the school, there were a couple of production a.s.sistants waiting for us at a table. They took our parental release forms (I had told my dad it was "a school project," which it sort of was). Then they gave us each a plastic number, and said they'd call when it was our turn to be made pretty. I was number two.

Finally, a production a.s.sistant led us to the school cafe 48 teria, which she referred to as the "hospitality suite." There was only one other person waiting inside, a girl. Min immediately dropped her plastic number. I bent down to pick it up for her. "Oops," I said, giving it back. "You dropped this."

She didn't answer.

The producers had set out some food-doughnuts, bagels, fruit, and juice-on one of the cafeteria tables. Min headed over to check it out. Maybe it was early morning hunger that was distracting her.

Meanwhile, Gunnar was still talking. "I bet they storyboarded this whole movie," he said. "That's when they ill.u.s.trate the film, like in a giant comic book. They show all the angles, and how the camera is going to move. It's especially important on a film like this one, one with lots of action."

"I made a comic book once," Kevin said. "In the sixth grade. Problem was, my teacher wanted it to be about Jamestown, and I wanted it to be about Batman."

"Sometimes they storyboard the whole movie," Gunnar was saying. "And sometimes they only do it for the action scenes. It depends on the director."

"I did the whole story of Jamestown," Kevin said. "But if you look in the background in some of the panels, you can see Batman in the distance."

My head throbbed. It was only eight fifteen in the morning, but between Kevin's nervous prattle and 49 Gunnar's ongoing film seminar, I was almost ready to call it a day. It was true what they say about making movies: it's mostly just a lot of sitting around. But for a newbie like me, just watching them arrange the lights and position the cameras was interesting.

For Gunnar, meanwhile, it was like a s.p.a.ceship had descended from the sky in the shape of a gigantic electric birthday cake, and aliens had emerged in the form of naked women with enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

They had made us extras up as members of various high school cliques (which is why we couldn't just wear our own clothes). They'd dressed Gunnar and me as computer nerds, and Kevin as a jock-both arguably decent casting choices. They'd also given us all green socks. I wondered what the socks were about, but being a lowly extra, mine was not to question why. . . .

As for the girls, they'd pegged Em as a goth girl and Min as a cheerleader. (And for the record, just seeing Min dressed up as a cheerleader made this whole moviemaking experience worthwhile, no matter what happened next. She looked completely stunned by her costume a.s.signment, like a cat who'd just fallen into the bathtub!) 50 According to Gunnar, the scenes of most movies are not shot in the order in which you watch them. But in our case, the first scene they shot really was one of the very first scenes in the movie. It was the scene where the main character, a new kid in a small town, comes to his new high school for the first time.

We extras were just supposed to mill around in the hallway, acting like members of our various cliques. Meanwhile, to play the jocks and cheerleaders in the foreground, the ones with speaking parts, the producers had hired real actors (who, incidentally, looked nothing whatsoever like real high school students; I doubt any of them were under the age of twenty-five or had even a single zit).

The production a.s.sistants got everything set up for the scene, with all the extras and "real" actors in place.

Then the star of the movie walked onto the set.

Declan McDonnell.

Yes, that Declan McDonnell! The one who played the womanizing best friend of the star of that big sitcom a few years back? He'd also done a few movies, but nothing breakout.

He was totally dreamy. He had straight black hair that he parted in the middle, a crooked smile, and blue-green eyes that were supposedly the color of the ocean. (Full disclosure: I had a picture of him, shirtless, in My Pictures.) 51 I desperately wanted to meet him. Thing is, I knew that could never happen, even if he wasn't an internationally famous movie star and I wasn't a complete n.o.body. After all, they had specifically told us that we couldn't talk to the stars.

I pulled Gunnar aside. "That's Declan McDonnell!" I said breathlessly.

"Who?" he said.

It figured he would know nothing about movies that had anything to do with actual human beings.

"He's famous," I said, deliberately dialing it down. "He's been in movies."

"Oh," Gunnar said. "Huh."

Right then, the director called "Rolling!", which meant that we extras were supposed to start doing our "extra" thing, acting like high school students. The "jocks" started strutting around like jocks, the "cheerleaders" twirled and flitted like cheerleaders, and the "nerds" like Gunnar and me crept back and forth like antisocial computer nerds.

The director called "Action!", which meant the real actors were supposed to start acting.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the scene in the foreground unfold. Declan McDonnell entered through the front doors. The "real" jocks and cheerleaders, the ones 52 played by actors, all laughed at him for wearing white socks, not green ones.

A few minutes later, the director yelled, "Cut!" Then we had to do it all over again.

But this time, one of the "extra" jocks, probably taking a cue from what was going on in the foreground, decided it would be more realistic if he started picking on the nerds-namely, Gunnar and me.

He deliberately b.u.mped up against me in the hallway-roughly, I might add. "Outta my way, nerd!" he said.

Kevin, who was standing with him, hesitated a second. Then he added, "Yeah, outta our way, nerds."

I couldn't help but remember the time that Kevin had done almost this exact same thing to me for real, joining in with his jock friends and teasing me, not because I was a nerd, but because I was gay. I'd learned then what was obviously still true now: Kevin just did what those around him did. Despite his muscles, he was fundamentally weak.

"Good!" the director called to us. "Jock extras? Keep teasing the nerds! That's perfect!"

After the first couple of takes, the camera jammed (or something), and we were told it would be a few minutes before filming resumed.

Kevin immediately stepped up next to me. "Can you believe that's really Declan McDonnell ?" he said, as breath less as I had been before. "d.a.m.n, he's hot!" 53 Of course it took another gay boy to see the obviousness of such things. But I wasn't breathless anymore. I was irritated that Kevin had been so quick to tease me just because someone else had first. Frankly, I was annoyed that Kevin was even at this movie shoot at all.

I turned to face him. "Kevin, why are you doing this?" "What?" he said. "You mean the teasing? Sorry about that. But it's what the director wanted."

Yeah, I wanted to point out, but you started teasing us before the director had said he liked it!

"It's not about the teasing," I said, because it mostly wasn't. "Why are you here at all? This isn't your thing. You're a jock-for real, I mean. You should be out doing jumping jacks somewhere."

"Whaddaya mean? I wanted to be in a movie."

"Admit it, Kevin. You're here because of me."

"That's not true!" But I could tell I was right because he was suddenly talking louder than before.

"Kevin," I said. "I'm really flattered that you want to get back together with me, but it can't work. I have a boyfriend. So that's that. We're not getting back together, okay?"

There, I thought. I had nipped this thing in the bud. I'd stopped him in his tracks and cut him off at the pa.s.s. How much clearer could I be?

54 "Sure," he said. The weird thing is, suddenly he wasn't talking loudly anymore. And then he flashed me a grin that was even more impish than usual. Sunday night was when I had to go see Father Franklin- specifically, to the rectory, which is what they call the place where the priest lives. His housekeeper met me and led me to his office, where he was working at his desk. Father Franklin was an old man with a rotund body and a boyish face. Imagine a gigantic baby, and you won't be far off.

His office smelled like incense-but not just any incense. The funeral kind, thick and serious. It made the whole office smell like a crypt.

He stood up when he saw me. He was dressed all in black with the white collar and everything. "Russel!" he said. "Come in, come in! It's good to see you again."

"Ah," I said. It wasn't good to see him again, and I wasn't going to lie and say it was.

We shook hands, which still made me feel like an idiot whenever I did it with an adult.

"Your parents said we should talk," he said.

"Yeah, they did," I said.

By now, the housekeeper had left, but she hadn't closed the door behind us. Neither did Father Franklin. My first thought was, Is this church policy? Could priests no longer be alone with teenage boys? But then I felt bad for think55 ing this. How tough would it be to have the whole world wondering if you're a child molester?

"Have a seat!" Father Franklin said. "Have a seat."

I sat in the leather chair across from his desk.

"I can't believe how you've grown," he said. "Seems like just last week you were a boy."

This, of course, is just what every teenager loves to hear.

"So." The priest cleared his throat. "Your parents said you're having some questions about your s.e.xuality."

I shook my head. "No, I don't have any questions. I've known that I'm gay for a long time. But my parents just found out about it, so they sent me here."

"I see." Father Franklin looked thoughtful. "Why do you think you're gay?"

"Why does anyone think they're anything? I just do."

Father Franklin nodded. "Right. But Russel, adolescence is a very confusing time. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. It's common for boys to go through different phases."

Oh, G.o.d, not Father Franklin too. Had every adult gone through a "gay" phase? Or were they just telling me this so I'd think they had some "street cred" on the issue?

"I'm not confused," I said. "This is actually one of the things in my life that I'm least confused about. That and 56 the fact that there are too many superhero movies."

Father Franklin stared at me.

"That was a joke," I said.

He completely ignored my attempt at humor, which kind of sucked. "Russel, your parents are just concerned about you. Once you go public with something like this, there can be real consequences."

"All my friends already know," I said. "My whole school knows. I started a gay-straight-bis.e.xual alliance. My parents were the last to know. And there were consequences. But the way I see it, the only way things are ever going to change is if people take a stand for what they believe. I actually think that's kind of the moral thing to do. Don't you?"

Father Franklin shifted in his seat. I was making him nervous. I hate to admit it, but I was enjoying this.

"Well, you may be right," he went on. I think he knew he needed to try a different approach. "You probably think that the Catholic Church doesn't have any guidance to offer someone in a situation like yours."

That was exactly what I thought. But I didn't say it out loud.

"But the Catholic Church is two thousand years old," he said. "It's lasted that long for a reason. I'm not saying the church hasn't made mistakes. It has. But I believe that the reason it's lasted as long as it has is because it's been charged with certain unchanging truths." 57 "Like what?" I said.

"Like on the subject of human s.e.xuality. That s.e.x is a gift from G.o.d. But one that comes with certain responsibilities. We can't just go around having s.e.x with whoever we want. Actions have consequences. That's the basis for all morality."

"I totally agree with that," I said. "s.e.x is a big deal. Most people take it way too lightly."

Father Franklin smiled and sat up in his seat. He was relieved. He had found common ground with me at last.

"G.o.d gave us s.e.x," the priest said, "but he put limits on it too. First and foremost, he asks that we save s.e.x for the sacrament of marriage."

Here we go, I thought to myself. At the same time, it seemed like the incense was growing thicker. Sickly sweet too. Suddenly I could hardly breathe.

"But gay people can't get married," I said. "Where does that leave us?"

He coughed quietly. "Well, gay people have a special calling from G.o.d. The Church teaches that G.o.d calls gay people to be celibate. That means to refrain from s.e.xual activity."

I knew what it meant. Yes, that was a "special" calling, wasn't it? Sort of like G.o.d calling houseflies to eat dog c.r.a.p.