The Role Players Read Free Page A

quite sure what to say, since neither of us had a clue as to what Chris was referring to.
    Chris smiled sweetly at Max and said, “Tell them, Lamb Chop.”
    Max shuddered and gave Chris a quick grin. “I hate it when you call me that!”
    Chris returned the grin. “I know. So tell them before they think we’re on our way to divorce court.”
    Max gave another deep sigh. “Chris walked into the bathroom at rehearsal one night and saw Rod reaching out to grope me at the urinals. It’s not like I’d been standing there for hours just hoping he’d come in and make a pass.”
    “I know,” Chris said. “Rod had the hots for Max from day one. The minute I saw him follow Max into the bathroom that night I knew what he had in mind.”
    “Rod had the hots for everybody from day one,” Max amended. “You, too, if memory serves. Like the Sunday afternoon he showed up here when he thought I was at an A.A. meeting?”
    Chris’s grin grew. “Yeah, that was kind of awkward, wasn’t it? But I’m sure it was just an innocent drop-by visit.” He leaned toward Jonathan and said in a stage whisper, “Actually I gave him the wrong time by accident.”
    “Uh huh,” Max said.
    “Didn’t Dick tell me Rod and the guy who wrote the play were lovers?” Jonathan asked.
    Chris and Max nodded in unison. “Yep,” Chris said, “which just adds to the general merriment.”
    “How so?”
    “Well,” Max explained, “Gene Morrison, the playwright, got his start here in New York, but then got lured away by Hollywood to write for the movies. That’s where he met Rod. I don’t know if you remember him; he went by the name of Rod Pearce? He played the soldier who got killed by that other soldier he made a pass at in…uh…”
    “ War and Destiny ,” I said. “Jesus, I thought I was the only one who remembers that movie. He really was a walking wet dream!”
    Jonathan smiled. “Tell me! On nights when my brother Samuel was away, I used to lie there in bed and think of Rod Pearce and…uh….” He blushed furiously and looked at the table.
    “Yeah,” I said. “Me too.” Max, Chris, and I exchanged smiles.
    “Anyway,” Max continued, “Rod had a short-term contract with one of the studios, but War and Destiny was the closest he ever came to making it big. He was a little too openly gay and refused to play the starlet-dating games the studio insisted on, so his contract wasn’t renewed. He met Gene at a party just before his contract expired, and he recognized a good thing when he saw it. Gene is a great guy, but like a lot of writers, he’s basically pretty insecure and really, really quiet until you get to know him. So here we have a quiet, shy Gene meeting Rod-the-never-shy hunk, and the rest is history.
    “Gene hadn’t written a new stage play in nearly ten years, and he thought…or Rod convinced him…that writing one for Rod would be a way to help Rod’s career and get Gene back to doing what he loved best…theater.”
    “Did Mr. Morrison know Rod was playing around on him?” Jonathan asked.
    Chris got up from the table to get more coffee, pausing behind Max to run one hand casually down under the front of Max’s shirt. Max reached up and held it through the fabric. It was a totally spontaneous gesture on both their parts, but it fairly well erased any possible thought of divorce court.
    “I don’t know how he couldn’t have known,” Chris said. “But from what we can tell, he really loved Rod, and he wrote Impartial Observer for him.”
    “Gee,” Jonathan said, sighing, “what a shame for Mr. Morrison.” He paused, then said, “What’s the play about?”
    “It’s an allegory about society’s increasing loss of humanity and where the world is headed. Neither of the two primary leads…Rod being the primary primary, of course…has a name. It’s that kind of play.”
    “So it doesn’t have a happy ending then?” Jonathan, who loves happy endings, said, trying to hide his