Chapter Eighteen
Day Two of the Backstreet Boys' tour brought us to Chicago. When the bus stopped in the arena parking lot, the guys were still asleep (well the three that had drank the night before were, AJ was just hiding out in the bunk - I could smell the smoke), so I climbed off board and went in search of Rick. I assumed I'd find him by the eighteen wheelers that were unloading bits and pieces of staging at the far side of the lot and I jogged over.
"Excuse me," I nudgd a guy rolling a big black case on wheels across the lot, "Do you know where I can find Rick?" He pointed and I thanked him and approached a rail-thin bald guy wearing a neon orange t-shirt and holding a clipboard. "Rick?" I said when I was close enough and he turned around. I extended my hand, "I'm Ben Spencer, Brian brought me along and I guess Jenn talked to you about me?"
"Where were you last night?" Rick asked.
"Nick and the guys kind of dragged me along with them," I answered. I figured blaming Nick was the most convincing. He seemed like the one who would be A) the most likely to try to talk me into going, and B) the one that would be least likely to accpet no as an answer. Also, this was C) the truth.
"Right." Rick pointed in the general direction of some stagehands that were unloading the far truck, "Go help out Larry and the lighting crew. We're gonna have you helping to set up the lamps."
"Okay, thanks." I headed over to Larry and the Lighting Crew - a phrase which, by the way, would make a really cool bandname. That is, of course, if there are any people in the world named Larry who are in bands who need names. Larry wasn't a very musically inclined name in my experience.
It wasn't hard work, and it turned out that I wasn't afraid of heights. Quite the opposite, the rafters of the arena were amazing. I liked being able to look down at the seats far below, the stage as it got assembled, coming to life like the bones of the valley in the book of Ezekiel in the Bible. It was intensely interesting. It took a few hours getting all the lights up into the rafters, where the professional light crew got to work on actually hooking them up and testing them and stuff. After I'd gotten the lights up there, I was asked to help set up the stage itself, running wires and wiping down microphones and doing small prep work all around.
By the time the Boys themselves showed up in the arena, nearly everything was done. Nick was considerably calmer than he had been the day before. Today, he wore his sweatshirt zipped to his neck and the hood pulled up. The guys mulled around on the stage while me and the rest of the roadies got things set up. I was assembling folding chairs for the floor seating when a guy with dark brown hair yelled, "Okay, we've got the VIP girls lined up outside and they're getting antsy... You boys ready? Where are we coming on those chairs?" I was almost done assembling the ones they'd given me. "Hurry up with the chairs." Someone carried the five stools out onto the stage and Nick sat on one, resting a guitar on his thigh whlie AJ played with the height of his microphone stand. Brian and Howie were talking at the far end of the stage. Brian kept shooting glances my way.
When I was done with the chairs, the brown haired guy was told to bring the girls in and they came in like a flood from one of the entrances. I went around the other side of the stage where I was given more chairs to assemble. The arena echoed with the sound of the girls talking and Nick's guitar strumming just below the microphone. He was tuning it.
Looking down stage at the girls filing in, Howie and Brian broke up their conversation and Brian showed off by flipping over and walking on his hands back to the cluster of the Boys microphones and stools. The girls laughed and cameras flashed as they took pictures.
I continued working on my task as the Boys sang and goofed off and conversed with the fans. I'd managed to ignore them until the brown haired guy sing-songed, "Anyone got any questions for the Boys?"
The first girl that got the microphone's voice shook as she introduced herself as Michaela and proceeded to ask Howie a question about the latest BSB album (Howie answered that the Boys planned to go into the studio when they got off tour in 2 months). The second one was named Hillary and wanted to ask Nick boxers or briefs (Nick laughed, played the bashful card, then announced he was going commando). The third girl's name was Sarah, and it was her question that caught my attention.
"My brother was killed in a car accident last month," she started.
"I'm so sorry," Brian said, and the concern in his voice sounded genuine.
"It's been really hard on my family because he was like my best friend and my dad's a wreck." Her voice shook as she spoke. I stopped mid-row where I was still assembling the chairs and looked back at the stage. The brown haired guy was taking pictures, Nick was looking down at his guitar like he didn't quite know where else to look. AJ was in the process of climbing off the stage, while Brian and Howie both looked at her with care-worn eyes. "It's just so hard," her voice broke and she started crying. AJ found her in the crowd and wrapped his arms around her.
I lowered myself into one of the chairs I'd unfolded, watching.
"I just wanted to know, how you guys are - are dealing with - loss," she squeaked, clutching AJ. "I just wanted to know if it gets easier."
The Boys all kind of glanced at each other. "It doesn't," Nick answered after a long pause. He put his hand on the microphone in front of him. "I'm sorry," he said, "But it really doesn't get easier, it just gets more usual. I mean, it doesn't get easier to think about the people we love being like dead and stuff, but --" he shrugged, "It gets more normal not to see them around and you think about them less because you have more things to think about that they aren't really a part of. Like right now he's in every memory and he probably had a part in every plan you've got and stuff, right? But in another month or two you're gonna have a couple memories he's not in, and you're gonna have some plans he's not a part of, and you'll think about that stuff. Then in a year, you'll have almost no plans he was a part of, and a lot of memories and so on and eventually your memories of him will be like treasures."
A heavy silence fell over everyone in the room.
Finally, the brown haired guy said, "Well Jesus, Nick, who knew you had all that in ya?"
Nick looked down at his guitar, "He did," he muttered. But nobody heard him, I don't think, except me.
I meant to ask Brian what Nick had been talking about, but I didn't get a chance to see the Boys again that night. After I'd finished up with the chairs, Rick had sent me off to help control the lines of fans outside waiting to get in, and once the girls were in the arena the Boys were buzzing around like crazy backstage getting hair and make-up done. I ended up off stage again with Jenn, watching the performance, and was risked away afterwards by Rick to help undo everything I'd done all day and get it all packed away into the eighteen wheelers. He showed me to a big white van that the roadies were travelling in and I ended up in the back seat between two guys names Ron and Harry (who did not appreciate the Potter joke that I attempted to crack).
Long and short, by the time I saw the Boy next, it was in Indianapolis the next day. The hotel that the Boys and their crew were staying at was serving breakfast and I happened to be in the lobby eating when Brian and AJ came downstairs and joined me with their waffles and tiny boxes of cereal.
"I didn't see you yesterday," Brian commented as he lowered into the chair.
"I think we were all busy," I said.
"Told you he wasn't pissed about the drinking," AJ said to Brian. Evidently this was a discussion that had been had between them. Brian's cheeks turned pink. AJ took a swig of orange juice, then turned to me. "So where you from?"
"Atlanta," I answered.
"How'd you meet 'Rok?"
"Leighanne hired him," Brian piped up, "To help with making the Wylee trailer the purple monster that it is now."
"Yeah dude, who the hell picked at color?"
"Leighanne," Brian and I both said at the same time.
"It looks like fucking shit man," AJ replied. He took his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. "I'm gonna go for a smoke. If Nick comes down, don't let him eat my food. Make him get his own." He walked across the lobby and out the door.
I sipped my coffee - coffee which was so not the same when Kim didn't make it - and let my eyes skim the newspaper I'd picked up off the table. "You enjoying it so far?" Brian asked.
"Yeah, it's cool."
"I heard they had you up on the rigs helping with the lights."
"That was kind of awesome," I said with a nod.
"I would freak out up there," Brian said, "I can't stand heights. Even flying bugs the crap out of me."
I laughed, "But you travel all the time, how can you possibly have an aversion to flying?"
Brian shrugged, "I just do."
Nick suddenly slid into the seat AJ had been occupying moments before. "Hey guys," he said. He grabbed one of AJ's waffles off the plate and started eating it dry. Neither Brian nor I bothered protecting AJ's waffles.
After Self by Pengi
