CHAPTER

26

As we approached Adam’s building, I thought I saw Si Strauss walking in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t be sure it was him, and besides, it wasn’t as though I was going to flag him down for a chat. Adam did not answer when we buzzed apartment 7; that should have provided me with the excuse I was looking for, but I felt compelled to do this now, and it’s difficult not to open a door when you have the key.

When we arrived upstairs, Adam was sitting on the floor, his eyes closed and his white-haired belly bursting out of his shirt buttons. I thought he looked like the Buddha, and though I chastised myself for this bit of cultural appropriation like the dutiful liberal arts student I was, nonetheless he looked so beatific I could not understand how I had ever doubted his peculiar divine inspiration.

“Is it okay that we’re here?” Ismail asked. Adam opened his eyes and saw me before he saw anyone else.

“Is it okay that I’m here?” I asked.

He was always terrible at hiding his delight. “I’m glad Venter’s here to see the show,” Adam said. “And I’m glad to see you all brought a new friend. Thank you for visiting my humble apartment. Let’s see if Leah can do something I’ve never been able to: do a convincing job of being me.”

Leah repeated this, simultaneously charming Adam and beginning the show. Immediately, she was Adam again, so much so that the Adam who laughed and gasped seemed an intrusive Adam impersonator begging for attention. Ismail scribbled notes. I don’t want to give the impression that I had placed him under any kind of informal surveillance, but I was standing right next to him, so I snuck some glances at what he was writing.

—L. thinks faster than you do, cut mercilessly and she will carry your meaning.

—Is this whole play a forced gimmick?

—Looking at her own breasts when talking about breastfucking—too easy a joke?

—Are you letting American capitalism off the hook?

—Revisit idea of prop arm? Maybe a whiteboard with erasable marker. We can use (velvet?) curtains to make it look like an arm.

—Only so far you can go with one character.

Midway through the performance, which Adam was without question loving, Leah-as-Adam did an impromptu version of “Your Mother Should Know,” inviting Adam to get up and dance with her, which he did eagerly. If he was perturbed at the prospect of dancing with himself—and Leah stayed unquestionably in character—he didn’t show it. Leah was dancing like Adam and Adam was dancing like Leah. This thought struck me so strongly that I was torn between the impulse to stop the dance so we could all talk about how brilliant my insight was, and the impulse to join in the dancing and not think at all.

While I was debating which of these to try, Ismail dropped his notebook on the bar and started dancing, too, removing his button-down shirt to reveal his WANTS TO BLOW THINGS UP tattoo. Now I wanted to start dancing, but I was afraid that doing so would make me look like a follower. So I just watched until Rebecca pulled me away and toward the purple velvet curtain.

The thought that Rebecca intended to use the machine dawned on me only very slowly—only as we were actually passing through the curtain—and to my great horror. When she took off her sweater I looked at her forearm and pictured the OFFSPRING WILL NOT LEAD HAPPY LIVES tattoo that she was walking toward, and I told her, as calmly as I could, that she should not be doing this.

“What? It’s not like you’ve never seen me in a bra before.”

I had been so focused on her forearm that I hadn’t registered that her torso was bare except for her bra.

“That’s the machine? It doesn’t look as impressive as I’d hoped,” she said.

“A lot of people say it’s not the machine that’s impressive, it’s Adam.”

“Adam? He seems okay. Funny, kind of like how my uncle is funny. I’m not sure what the big deal is, honestly.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment, and then we started kissing. I started fantasizing about fucking her on top of the machine, and as our hands moved that seemed to be what she wanted, too.

Adam opened the velvet curtain. “About to have sex on my machine!” he said, laughing heartily. “That would be a first. Sorry I interrupted.”

I hadn’t fully taken off my jeans or underwear, but my embarrassment was probably as visible as my erection.

Rebecca was not embarrassed. “I’d like to use the machine now,” she said.

“Is that a euphemism?” Adam asked.

“No. My name is Rebecca Hart and I would like to use the machine.”

Adam looked to me for some indication she was joking. I looked at Rebecca for some indication of whether she had told Adam her last name out of defiance, or as a way of getting out of using the machine.

“It’s just a name,” Leah said, appearing through the velvet curtain.

Adam looked to Leah and then to me again, and as soon as he realized that Rebecca Hart was in fact Rebecca Hart, his face melted into a rage I had never seen before.

“You let a girl named Rebecca Hart get this close to my machine? Is this some kind of revenge you’re trying to take on me, Venter?”

“If I’m going to kill my kids, shouldn’t I know that?” Rebecca asked.

“If you’re going to kill your kids, I don’t want you within ten miles of my machine.”

“That’s all just silliness,” Leah said, putting her chin on Adam’s shoulder. “You should let her use the machine so she can see that she has artistic aspirations—obligations—that she’s not fulfilling.”

“I asked for the machine’s opinion, not yours,” Rebecca said. “And I wouldn’t talk about not fulfilling artistic obligations if I were you.”

“Excuse me? You just saw me give me the performance of my life, twice.”

“Playing an irrelevant windbag,” Rebecca said. “A total waste of your energy.”

“This irrelevant windbag wants all of you out of his apartment,” Adam said. “Now.”

“Adam,” I said, “we were all just fucking around.”

“Exactly. And this is not a place for that. If you haven’t noticed that no matter what the appearances might be I am above all always serious, you haven’t noticed anything. You were right to cut off contact, Venter. Let’s stay estranged this time.”

Angry at Adam and each other, Rebecca, Leah, and I made our way glumly through the apartment. At the doorway we were joined by Ismail, who had been in the bathroom. I told him that Adam was an asshole, and he agreed, though when I tried to elaborate both Rebecca and Leah disputed my version of events. I could tell Ismail was taking notes in his head, workshopping his play, and it made me hate him.

“Writing makes you a bad person,” I said to Rebecca in the cab uptown. “It stops you from actually being in the world.”

“I think that’s bullshit,” she said. “It’s bullshit if you have talent. And you do. Listen, Venter. A friend of my dad’s is letting me have his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen this summer, while I intern at the UN. I want you to live with me and write a novel. I want you to do nothing but write a novel. I’ll cover rent, groceries, whatever. Don’t argue. You’re DEPENDENT ON THE OPINION OF OTHERS, and my opinion is that you can and should do this.”

Now that she mentioned it, this seemed like exactly what I should do.