Roland
ROLAND
I don’t sleep, so I wasn’t expecting to dream, much less have a nightmare about doing Shakespeare in middle school. But I’ve never used that much energy before in one go without letting myself recover. Still, I’ve bounced back from worse, like those back-to-back stunt days on the Crash set. They can use my double for most things, but sometimes the cameras actually need to see my face as I leap from the top of one car to another. Or from the top of a semi onto a tank. Or a motorcycle onto a submarine. The configurations are endless.
When the nightmare ended, I “woke up” in the kitchen and groggily pieced together the evidence that I had blacked out. As he squirreled through my drawers looking for food, Adam looked better than when I last saw him: still disheveled, but he had clearly slept for hours, his blond hair scattered in a thousand different directions. His clothes had changed, too: a T-shirt with the word Pavement on it underneath a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows. If he was going for “overgrown English graduate student,” it was working for him. Kind of. If only he didn’t shuffle around my kitchen like a tired old man, he could be almost … cute? I never had time to develop a type, but “former Gen X hipster” might have worked for me in another life.
There was another feeling, though, that surprised me even more than finding Adam mildly attractive: something akin to hunger. A deep, welling need at the core of whatever the fuck I am. For the most part, my post-death existence has been monotonous: sight and sound are well and fine, but without taste and touch, my perception seems so … two-dimensional, like watching a movie on a screen. The intensity of this sensation, new and familiar all at once, cut through the flatness, weighing me down in an almost physical way. I couldn’t eat—and yet I had to eat.
It was like I had the kind of hangover that could only be solved with an omelet—and not the rubbery egg-white-and-spinach concoction Lucas used to feed me after the day’s first workout, but an actual breakfast. It was hard to focus on making small talk with Adam because of how badly I wanted food. I at least needed something delicious to look at, not any of that disgusting green swill Adam was eyeing in the fridge. No, it had to be the kind of meal I would dream about in the middle of a cutting phase: potatoes, chocolate, meat. Without thinking, overcome by the urgency of the desire, I was rattling off my In-N-Out order.
And now, Adam is out there driving my knock-around Benz up Mulholland Highway, through all the twists and bends, to fetch my favorite cheat-day indulgence, multiplied by two because it would have been weird to ask him to only buy lunch for one. Meanwhile, I’m alone again, getting worked up over something I can’t even have.
I can tell Adam’s losing patience. He can apparently think of nothing else but getting to work, and while I admire the ethic, you’d think he’d at least want to take advantage of the amenities after a long travel day. He could have gone for a morning swim or used the infrared sauna, but no, he just wanted to write.
Which means I need a new plan for telling Adam I’m dead. The monologue I meant to deliver yesterday isn’t going to cut it anymore. The moment has passed and anyway, I’ll need something more persuasive. Feeling almost loopy from my craving, I try out a new appliance, slipping inside the touch screen on the smart fridge. I need to do something to distract myself. Concentrating, I send some energy through the screen and discover I’ve scratched out a line on the surface. Crag Dynamite is now a glorified Etch A Sketch. I might be able to use this, though I’m guessing Adam won’t be impressed that I can draw stick figures.
Even if this does work, and I get Adam to write my book, I may still need his help afterward. I was going to send a check-in message to my team once the draft was finished saying that I was going to Alta to celebrate being done with the project by taking advantage of the last few days of the season. Matt would freak out, but I’d assure him I’d be back in time for Crash 10 , and that we could talk more about my contract when I got home. I won’t be sad to miss this entry in the franchise. They’re subtitling it The Dynamite Dynasty , and I haven’t even read the script, but I know it’s probably the worst one yet, and that it will still bring in the entire GDP of an island nation at the box office.
The silence would do the rest of the work. My people would assume the worst. I’d watch the panicked emails pile up at home, and eventually I’d be able to turn on news coverage of my own death, which is as close as I’m going to get to attending my own funeral. If it takes me as long as it does to go to the end of my driveway, I doubt I’d be able to get to a memorial service. My name and Crash Street would appear together on all the cable news chyrons, and frankly, that makes me want to die all over again. I may actually wail and gnash my teeth at that. My only comfort will be knowing that the book will force a reevaluation of my career. People won’t see me as the movie star who bulked up for an action franchise, they’ll see me as the lifelong talent I could have been, if I had only had more time. They’ll mourn the legacy I didn’t get to set in stone.
There’s only one missing piece to the plan, I realize, as I scratch out more lines on the touch screen: the chalet. I’ve drawn the letter Y now, it looks like, which is exactly the question the authorities will ask if they do too much digging around my place in Alta: Why are there groceries there that were bought in January? Why aren’t there more recent tire tracks near my car? In my faintness, I can’t tell if it’s a terrible idea but I can probably send Adam to stage the scene for me. He could dust off my suitcase. Replace the rotting produce in the fridge. Run my car for an hour. This can still work. But that’s step five. Step one is getting Adam fully on board—and soon.
If I still had my body, I could just turn on some of that old Roland charm. With most people, I’ve found, I just have to smile and they’ll swear loyalty to me. Or I can just lock eyes with them, use their first name, and they’re done for. All it takes is a simple “Let’s finish this scene after lunch, David,” and even the most tyrannical director will thank me for suggesting a break. It was surefire before I got famous, too. During my brief stint at Marie Callender’s, I was legendary for being able to upsell women on take-home pies with hokey lines like, “I always like to have a good coconut cream in case of emergency.” Another waiter tried that one once, and the ladies just blinked at him and asked for the check.
Should I have asked Adam to pick up a pie while he was out, too? What would I even do with a pie? What am I going to do with the French fries that are about to be in my kitchen, for that matter? All I know is I need them. Now. Where the hell is he? Nevada?
I draw a letter, then another. Before I know it, I’ve spelled out YUM . A full word! Should I write the book myself?