Adam
ADAM
“ W ell, that line was a tad homophobic,” I tell Roland, taking a sip of the whiskey sour I mixed for this viewing. I even garnished it with a maraschino cherry from his pantry—a Luxardo, a brand I’ve never bought at home because a jar costs thirty dollars at the Vauxhall Whole Foods.
We’re in the private screening room in Roland’s wing, midway through Crash 6 when we reach the infamous Tad Dynamite death scene that Roland hyped up in our last interview. He and Nick Nolte both seem to be tripping over the ham-fisted dialogue, but Roland’s performance has somehow managed to imbue the scene with genuine emotion. Even I’m getting a little misty-eyed as Crag watches Tad steer his tank straight into the titanium wall. As promised, Roland doesn’t cry, but he convincingly twists his face in agony as Nick Nolte becomes a mushroom cloud.
“Homophobic?” Roland asks. “The part about shoving it up General Firestorm’s ass?”
I’m still getting used to his voice emanating from my chest. But there’s a comfort to being able to crane my neck down and ask, “You there?” It’s like having a Tamagotchi that can think and feel and talk back to me—the dream of every lonely nineties kid.
“Yeah,” I confirm. “What year is this one from again? It feels like a line straight out of 2009.”
“I mean it’s not like he doesn’t deserve to have a bomb shoved inside him,” Roland rebuts. “He’s trying to inject a tasteless, odorless poison into Europe’s water supply, remember?”
Speaking of poison, these films go down a lot easier when you’re sitting in a plush leather armchair with a drink in your hand. Yes, it’s movies like Crash Street that are destroying the written word, turning my craft into a mere afterthought for special effects–driven rubbish, but sometimes it can be fun to empty your head and watch things explode. Smooth-brained entertainment, indeed. But even after a long day of writing, I’m trying to parse the plot mechanics.
“How did he tap into all of Europe’s water again?” I ask him. “It’s not like every country is using the same reservoir.”
“Don’t think about this shit too hard, Adam,” Roland says. “What you need to know is that Firestorm is a bad, bad dude.”
“Yes, I think that was clear when he ran over a child’s lemonade stand in his Hummer.”
Laughter comes crackling through the speaker. But Roland’s laughter is more than just laughter. It might as well be a drug. As soon as it stops, you would do anything in your power to bring it back. Vexing though he may be—and he has truly tested my patience—his charms are as undeniable as they are ineffable. I never thought a Hollywood megastar would be the first person I’d tell the donut story to, but he was, and not just because he’s a captive audience. There’s something about him that opens me up, like the moon shining on a night-blooming flower. If he were still alive, body and all, I wonder if I would feel the same way. Would I be too intimidated by his looks? Would his charisma be too powerful? But this is the form I have him in, and it’s the right shape for me. I take a long pull from my whiskey sour and set the glass back down on the custom-built wooden console in the armrest.
When the movie resumes, Crag Dynamite is hurling a javelin—where did he even get a javelin?—into the spokes of an enemy dirt bike, muscles bulging with every movement.
“These movies are ridiculous, Roland,” I tell him, and then, almost unwittingly, I add, “But you look incredible in them.”
Roland falls quiet, and I wonder if I’ve overstepped. The alcohol could be making me braver than usual; this stuff is higher proof than the cheap liquor I’m used to. Anxiously, I slide the maraschino cherry off the toothpick into my drink.
“Well, thank you, Adam. Lucas would be proud to hear you say that.”
I should stop there. But I don’t. “Yeah, I noticed that money shot of your bicep gripping the tank hatch.”
“I worked harder on perfecting that single-arm pull-up than I did on any of my lines.”
“It shows.” I chuckle. “On both counts.”
Roland laughs that euphoric laugh of his again, but when he speaks next there’s a different tenor to his voice. He sounds almost sheepish. “Adam?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
“Would you mind taking another sip of your drink for me?”
It’s the first time he’s asked for something like this so directly. I had chalked up his interest to some kind of secondhand enjoyment borne out of limitation, like watching the Food Network from a hospital bed. The way he’s asking now makes it sound deeper, and much less innocent. Flirtatious, even. Like he’s also nervous about crossing a line. I find the thought thrilling. But in case I’m misreading him, I don’t want to say too much.
“I don’t mind,” I tell him, picking up the whiskey sour again.
“It’s just …”
I stop with the glass halfway to my mouth. “What is it?”
“I’ve been embarrassed to tell you this, but—” I look down to check the battery notification light on the speaker; it’s still green, Roland’s just taking a moment to respond. “—I can feel joy again when you eat or drink. My day-to-day is pretty humdrum, but when you do that, it sets off … something incredible in me. Fireworks, I guess I’d call them. It feels amazing. And when you’re dead, amazing is hard to come by.”
Is he saying it … turns him on? He didn’t use those exact words, but that seems to be what he’s hinting at. On one hand, I can’t believe my luck: People ’s Sexiest Man Alive several times over gets aroused when I eat a cheeseburger. Where was that luck in my dating life up to now? On the other hand, it does recontextualize much of what’s happened between us so far. Roland sending me to get food whenever he gets frustrated in an interview suddenly makes a lot more sense. Was he masturbating through me to blow off steam? Hell, I should have been gratifying myself more, in that case, instead of spending every free second working. An orgasm every now and then would have made his recalcitrance a lot more tolerable. But I don’t feel retroactively violated. If I’m honest, it actually turns me on to think of Roland as a silent voyeur all this time, with me as his unwitting accomplice, him getting off while I lick the last bit of ice cream off a spoon. It’s enough to make me wish it could still be a secret.
“Adam? Please say something, man,” Roland says, awaiting my reaction. “I’m dying here. Well, you know what I mean.”
“You feel … joy ?” I ask suggestively.
“C’mon, don’t make me say it,” Roland says, sounding antsy now. “This is new for me.”
That confirms it’s sexual for him. But his phrasing also opens more questions: Has Roland Rogers, one of the most desired men in the world, had sex? I was certain he must have at some point, given his status, but I’m realizing now he’s never outright told me about any encounters. His relationship with Zoya was apparently entirely platonic, he claimed the other day, after some prodding, which only made me even more curious about why it lasted so long. And he’s been insistent that he never actually did anything with a guy, despite harboring plenty of crushes. This might not be new for Roland just in the sense that he’s disembodied, it may be new for him altogether. And then there’s the mechanics of how any of this even works.
“I mean, I guess it makes sense—as much as any of this makes sense,” I tell him, piecing together my initial theory out loud. “The brain has electrical impulses, right? So maybe when I eat, it—”
But Roland’s not interested in my armchair physiology.
“I don’t really care how it works, Adam,” he interrupts. “Can you just sip the fucking drink? Please?”
I look at the screen. A shirtless Crag Dynamite is punching a hole through the hood of a moving car so he can rip out its engine by hand. Roland’s chiseled abs are glistening under the Latvian sun. His ice-blue eyes are filled with steely determination. And yet as hot as he is, you can take his looks away and he’s still him, with all his magnetism and his vanities. I don’t know how this will change things. Are we having some tipsy fun? Does Roland like me? How much, or how little, should I read into his request, which only seems to grow more urgent the longer I spend thinking about it? I don’t have answers right now, but I don’t need them. Only a few times in my life have I stopped analyzing everything and simply acted; I want so badly for this to be one of them. I want to give Roland the joy he’s looking for—the joy he’s maybe never had.
“Oh, I’ll sip my drink,” I tell him. “But first …”
I tilt my glass to the side so I can retrieve the liquor-soaked cherry with my free hand. Its smooth lacquered surface catches a stray beam of light from the projector behind us. Smiling, I lift it to my lips.