Chapter 36 #2
“You sure can, bud. Remember how I taught you to hold it? It’s got a stabilizer, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Right,” OJ said.
Reeves opened the back door and pulled out the backpack of camera equipment. “See if you can wear this.” He handed it to him, and OJ nearly dropped the whole thing on the ground, catching it with only a couple of inches before it would have clunked against the hard dirt.
“Wow, that’s heavy,” he said. “But I bet if you help me put it on, I can do it.”
“Let’s get the camera out.” Reeves took the pack from OJ and laid it on the back seat. He unzipped it and opened it up to reveal the battery packs, cameras, and mounts he used while camping in a tent. Lars and OJ crowded in close as Reeves handed the GoPro to OJ.
“Remember, you hold it down here on the stick,” he said. “It’s what keeps it stable.”
“Right, yeah,” OJ said, and he adjusted his grip and held it up.
“You can turn it on now,” Reeves said. “And I can do a little intro if you want.”
OJ’s grin filled his whole face. “That would be great.” He glanced over to Lars, and Reeves did the same.
“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw the anxiety plainly written in Lars’s expression.
“My daddy says I can’t be on camera,” Lars said.
OJ nodded. “Mine too, and Uncle Luke never lets his kids get photographed at all.”
Reeves nodded, because while Luke hadn’t answered that specific question, Reeves had assumed. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “You’re just going to put the camera on me, and when we walk, you’ll have to make sure that Lars is out of the frame. Remember, I taught you what the frame is?”
“Yes, sir,” OJ said dutifully.
Reeves grinned at him. “All right, you tell me when you’re ready.” He adjusted his cowboy hat so it felt better on his head.
OJ reached up and gingerly touched the power button, and an affection for the boy spread through Reeves’s whole body.
“You’re a go, Uncle Reeves,” he said.
Reeves froze at the word uncle in front of his name. He’d never had a sibling or a cousin, or anything even remotely close to a family, and being spoken about in such a way made his pulse skittish and his mind blank.
“Reeves?” OJ asked. He probably hadn’t even realized what he’d called Reeves—his uncle, his family. OJ had given Reeves something bigger and greater than himself to belong to, and he hadn’t even known he’d wanted that until the word had come out of the teenager’s mouth.
OJ lowered the camera and met Reeves’s eyes. “Are you all right?”
“Maybe he’s having a seizure or something,” Lars said. “Doesn’t Ana get like that sometimes when she has a seizure?”
OJ crowded in close. “Reeves, are you having a seizure?”
Everything that had dammed up inside Reeves suddenly broke, and he shook his head. “No, sorry, bud. I….” How did he explain to fifteen-year-olds about this profound moment? He couldn’t, so he simply shook his head. “I’m ready now.”
OJ raised the camera again, and Reeves looked directly into it. “Hey there, everyone. This is Reeves from Teton Mountain Man, coming at you from a brand new campground today.”
He paused for a moment because he could stitch things together, and he hadn’t quite prepared his script. “We’re going to be making three meals in the wild, taking a couple hikes, fishing in a legit mountain stream—and bonus, this time I’m camping with teenagers.”
He took a moment to find his next sentence, and thankfully neither Lars nor OJ thought the pauses all that strange.
“But they’re minors, and my channel isn’t really a channel for minors, so they’re not going to be on camera, but I’ve got a brand new cameraman here with me, so I definitely want you to let me know what you think of the cinematography in the comments on this video. ”
He grinned in one of the most natural ways he ever had while narrating the opening of his videos, and he once again felt like who he was as a person was merging with who he played on camera.
“So we’re getting our camera equipment out, we’re going over our supplies, we’re taking a short hike back to our campground, and we’ll show you that every step of the way.
Today, we’ve chosen the Teton Canopy Campground, somewhere I’ve never been, despite living in the Teton Mountains for over five years now.
This valley and this mountain range has more gems than you’ll ever discover, so come with me as we get outside, become one with nature, feel closer to God than ever, and do a little camping. ”
He held his best online personality smile on his face, and then everything dropped away. OJ reached out and tapped the camera power button again, then lowered the device.
“That was so cool,” he said, and he lifted his hand for a high five.
Reeves gave it to him, and then one to Lars as well.
“All right, we really do have to pack everything in, so you can get some footage of that if you want. I could start throwing some bags down on the ground, you can take some film of that. You can take film of me putting a backpack on, walking up the trail, the sign for the campground, anything that you think will look good.”
He’d already had OJ to his house once to go over all of this, and OJ said he’d watched over fifty of Reeves’s videos now, so he wasn’t that surprised when OJ puffed out his chest and said confidently, “I got this, Reeves. This is going to be your best video of the year.”
Reeves laughed, and he zipped up the camera equipment pack. “Let’s get this on you, bud. Remember, you have to pay attention to the battery alert; it can run out fast.”
“I got it,” OJ said, and Reeves managed to get the heavy pack on the skinny boy’s shoulders.
Now all he had to do was transport all of his gear and equipment to the campsite while maybe doing a few segments, keeping the teenagers out of the frame, and preparing to make lunch for six people where four of them were complete strangers.
Reeves didn’t doubt his ability to provide a good meal and a fun camping experience for OJ’s cousins and uncle, but he also wasn’t going to assume he could do it all himself. So he found himself praying as he climbed into the bed of his truck and tossed the tent to the ground.
Dear Lord, I just need the next thirty-six hours to be the best of my life. Bless me and Luke that we can take care of these kids, and that I can be the man they already think I am.