numb. So he removed his clothes and got into bed. He pulled the covers up to his neck
and reached for a bottle of strong sleeping pills on the nightstand. The vodka and the
dudes were working, but he wanted reassurance. He had trouble opening the pill bottle. It
slipped from his hand and sleeping pills fell out all over the top of the nightstand. He
grabbed a few pills and laughed. All he needed was a good night’s sleep and everything
would be better in the morning. He put the pills into his mouth and took a hard swallow
of vodka to wash them down.
By the time the phone started to ring, his head was on the pillow and his arm felt
like it weighed two hundred pounds. He fumbled for the phone, knocking the vodka and
the sleeping pills off the nightstand. He lifted the receiver and said, “Who is it?” His
voice was soft and slurred and cottony.
Someone shouted into the receiver. It sounded like Lance Sharp, but Cody
couldn’t be sure. His eyes were heavy by then and he didn’t want to waste good sleeping
time talking on the phone. So he said, “I need sleep. I’m so tired.” Then he dropped the
phone on the floor beside the bed, rested his head on the soft pillow, and closed his eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
When Cody opened his eyes again, bright sunlight was streaming through the
room. Lance and Roy were standing at the foot of his bed. Rush was sitting on the edge
of the bed next to him. Cody tried to sit up, but it felt as if there was a one-thousand
pound weight resting on his head. His mouth was dry and had a sour taste in his mouth.
He rubbed his eyes with both hands and looked around the room. When Rush saw he was
awake, he grabbed Cody’s hand and smiled.
Cody tipped his head to the side and asked, “What are you all doing here?” It took
him a moment to realize he was in his own bed, in his own house. At first he thought he
was dreaming.
Rush gave Lance and Roy a look. Lance raised his eyebrows and Roy frowned
and looked down at the floor. “You had a slight accident last night,” Rush said. “You
overdosed on sleeping pills. We had to have your stomach pumped. The doctor just left.
He said it wasn’t a large amount and that you’re going to be fine.” Rush squeezed Cody’s
hand and lowered his voice. “It
was
an accident, wasn’t it, Cody?”
Cody sat up higher and rubbed his eyes again. “Of course it was an accident,” he
said. “I took a few extra pills to be sure I’d sleep.” His voice was hoarse and wrecked,
and the sour taste made him nauseous. “I had my stomach pumped and there was a doctor
here?” The last thing he remembered was dropping the sleeping pills all over the floor.
“When I called you last night,” Lance said, “to ask how the last day of shooting
went with the music video, you sounded bad. So I called Roy and he told me what
happened with Grayer. After that, I called my doctor and we came over here as soon as we could.” He tapped Roy on the back. “We called Roy, too. We figured he still had a
key to the front door.”
Roy shook his head. “I can’t believe you did this, Cody.”
Cody shrugged his shoulders and forced a smile. He didn’t want them to think
he’d done it on purpose. He
hadn’t
done it on purpose. He’d just lost track of what he’d
been taking that night. “It was an accident. I had a stressful day and all I wanted to do
was sleep. Trust me, I’d never kill myself over a man like Grayer Crowley.” He looked at
Rush and sighed. He didn’t want this in the tabloids. “Who else knows about this?”
Rush shrugged. “Just us and the doctor. And the doctor won’t way a word to
anyone. He’s been Lance’s doctor since he moved out here. That’s why we called him
first instead of calling 911. We wanted to keep this out of the press for your sake.”
Cody squeezed Rush’s hand with both of his hands. “Thanks, guys,” he said, “I
really appreciate this. If something like this got out, it wouldn’t be good for my career. I
can just see how the vultures would love reading about it. Radcliff Benson would hang
the headlines over his mantel and light candles.”
Roy folded his arms across his chest and said, “I’m still not sure we did the right
thing.”
Cody stared at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Why would you say something like
that?”
“Because we’re not sure if you have a serious drug problem or not,” Roy said. “If
you’re addicted to these pills, we need to take care of it fast before something like this
happens again.” He reached down and held Cody’s foot in his hand. “I know we’re not a
couple anymore. But I can’t stand the thought of losing you.” Cody sat up straighter and smiled, then waved his arm and said, “I’m fine. I don’t
have a problem with pills. I don’t have an addictive personality. I can stop taking them
whenever I want.”
Roy looked at Lance and rolled his eyes.
Rush reached forward and grabbed Cody’s shoulders. He looked into Cody’s eyes
and asked calmly, “Are you sure? If you need help, and you do have a problem, we’ll be
there for you.” He sighed and hesitated for a moment. “I also know that if you’re not
willing to admit there is a problem, nothing we do is going to help you.”
Cody leaned forward and hugged him. “I’m sure, guys. I just lost track of what I
was doing last night, is all. I can stop taking the dudes anytime I want. I’ll be just fine. I
promise.”
Cody truly believed it.
* * * *
In the months to come, however, nothing changed. Cody continued taking a
combination of stimulants during the day and depressants at night. He did take them with
care, always counting the pills so he wouldn’t overdose again. But his life started slipping
down and he didn’t know how to hold onto anything. He missed important appointments
and he was quick to lose his temper. He even backed into his own garage one night and
ruined his car. Though his drug problem wasn’t public knowledge yet, people in
Hollywood started to avoid him. Those who had dealt with their own drug problems
looked at him and sighed. Cody shrugged it off as jealousy. His new video was a huge hit,
and the song had gone platinum almost overnight. People with drug problems couldn’t be
that successful. Then one night, after an embarrassing scene in a restaurant where Cody threw a
basket of rolls at a waiter because they weren’t warm enough, Rush pulled him aside and
said, “We have to talk. I’ve spoken to Lance and Roy and we all think you have a serious
problem. We want you to check into the substance abuse program at The Harvey Milk
Clinic as soon as possible and get help. We’ll support you all the way.” Then he looked
into Cody’s eyes. “But you have to work with us. You have to admit there is a problem.”
Cody’s eyes grew wide. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was in the
restaurant alone with Rush. Lance was having dinner with a client and Cody didn’t know
where Roy was. Cody smoothed out his napkin and said, “I don’t have a problem. I’m
fine. I just lost my temper with a waiter. It’s no big thing. I’ll apologize and leave him a
huge tip. Besides, I don’t have time for a problem. I’m starting to gear up for another
concert tour soon. This is an international tour and I have a lot to prepare.”
Rush smoothed out his napkin and said, “I’m just not sure, Cody. We all want to
come over and talk to you tomorrow night. We’re bringing a professional counselor with
us.”
Cody laughed. “It sounds like an intervention,” he said. He’d heard about
interventions, but he didn’t know how it applied to him. He was a successful celebrity
with plenty of money, and he wasn’t a drug addict or a drug dealer. His pills came from
real doctors with real prescriptions. “It’s just a waste of time. I don’t have a problem.” He
wanted to crack a plate over Rush’s head for talking to him this way. There he was,
perfect Rush, dressed in a tasteful outfit with his perfect body and his perfect hair. Rush
had done the impossible; he’d made tacky underwear modeling look dignified.
Everything Rush did looked simple and easy. He even had the perfect relationship with Lance. In Rush’s world of absolute perfection, he couldn’t even begin to understand what
Cody’s life was like. He’d never know how hard Cody had worked to get where he was
and how hard he’d worked to please his fans and his critics. But Cody didn’t want Rush
to think he was mad. So he forced his voice to remain calm and he chose his words with
care.
Rush closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he said, “Cody, I just
can’t stand by and watch you ruin your life. I love you too much. We’ve known each
other too long. What kind of a friend would I be if I ignored the fact that you might have
a problem?”
Cody smiled. “Let’s have a nice quiet dinner together and talk about this later. It’s
been months since we’ve seen each other. I promise, I’ll take good care of the waiter. I
shouldn’t have gone after him like I did.”
Rush agreed not to discuss the matter any more that evening, but on the way to
their cars, he said, “We’ll be over around seven tomorrow night. Roy’s coming, too. He’s
very worried about you. We just want to talk this out with a professional to see if there
really is a problem. And if the counselor thinks there isn’t, no big deal.”
Cody laughed and said, “You’ll be wasting your time. I’ve never been better in
my life.”
On his way home from the restaurant, Cody thought about what Rush had said.
He gripped the steering wheel and took a few more dudes to calm his nerves. How dare
Rush assume there was something wrong with him? He knew for a fact that Rush took
dudes himself when he wanted to relax. He had no right to point the finger at Cody, with his sainted, condescending voice. If Rush and Lance and Roy wanted to corner him and
make him believe he had a problem, they were going to do it by themselves.
Cody turned the car around and headed to the airport. While he drove, he called
the airlines and booked the next flight to San Francisco. He smiled and took another dude.
They could have all the interventions they wanted. But he wasn’t going to be around to
suffer through them. There was nothing wrong with him, and he was going to prove it to
everyone.
* * * *
By the time the plane landed in San Francisco, it was after midnight. Cody’s
fingers were numb and his toes were tingling. In addition to the dudes, he’d had a few
martinis on the plane. He laughed and joked around when he stumbled out the door and
fell into a flight attendant. He apologized with a slurred voice and made an excuse about
how tired he was because he’d been working all day. He wasn’t sure if the attendant
recognized him or not. He’d put on a black baseball cap back in L.A. that he’d found in
the back seat of his car. It covered almost half of his head. He thought he was fooling
everyone; he didn’t have a problem. But he didn’t see the way the flight attendant
scowled and rolled his eyes as he stumbled out of the plane.
He found a taxi outside the airport and told the driver to take him to the Castro.
He was feeling free and detached and he wanted to walk around and check out the hot
guys in a gay neighborhood. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he wanted to be
around other gay men just like himself—real gay men. He’d been portraying a public
image for so long, he wasn’t sure who he was anymore. He was openly gay; his entire life
had been defined by his gayness. But there was a catch: he was the gay man the public wanted him to be. He was the nice, quiet gay guy who wasn’t political and looked like a
straight guy. He’d once overheard a woman say, “Why can’t the rest of
them
be just like
Cody Atkins?” In public, Cody Atkins didn’t cruise gay bars and didn’t even think about
having sex with other men. Cody had always been aware of his public image. He knew
they wanted him to be sexless, and that’s what he gave them. It was okay to be gay as
long as he fit into the mold they wanted to see. It was cool to be gay, it was trendy to be
gay—as long as he didn’t French kiss another man in public. But he’d paid a price, too.
There were times when he felt more like an image of a gay man than an actual human
being.
The taxi dropped him off at 19th and Castro. He was carrying five one-hundred
dollar bills in his wallet and he didn’t want to pay with a credit card because he didn’t
want the driver to see his name. So he handed the driver a one-hundred-dollar bill and
said, “Keep the change.”