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Chapter Thirty


I woke up the next morning to the sound of Nick puking in the bathroom and Lou knocking on the door. I groaned and rolled out of Leighanne's grasp. She whimpered. "I'll be right back," I said. I glanced in at Nick, who was hugging the toilet and retching, his face deep in the bowl, then opened the door. Lou was red-faced and practically steaming at the head. "Top o' the morning to you," I said in my best false Irish accent.

"I want all five of you downstairs in ten minutes," he growled, "No excuses." He turned and stormed away, the floor practically shook under his pounding footsteps.

I drew a deep breath, closed the door, and turned to the bathroom door, where Nick was still neck-deep in the bowl. "Buddy, we gotta get downstairs."

"Leave me here to die," he groaned into the toilet.

I went back to the main part of the room and Leighanne was sitting up on the bed. She still had on the dress from the night before, her hair mussed and eye make up smeared. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I don't know. Lou obviously knows we went out last night and he's pissed," I shrugged. "He wants us downstairs in ten minutes, no excuses." I pulled open my suitcase and yanked out a t-shirt and a pair of pants. Leighanne watched as I tugged them on, dancing about on one foot to get my pant legs pulled up. Without a word, Nick scurried out of the bathroom and out the door, presumably to go change. Leighanne stayed quiet. When I'd finished getting dressed, I grabbed my wallet and my watch from the nightstand and started for the door.

"Brian?" she called. I ducked back to look at her. "You Boys had every right to be out last night. And don't let him tell you anything different."

"I won't," I nodded and started to duck back to the hallway.

"And Brian?"

I peeked back again, "Yeah?"

Leighanne stood up and crossed the room and kissed me. "I love you," she said, "And I really had fun last night and tell Nick I said I hope he's feeling better, okay?"

I nodded, "I will." I pecked her cheek and left.

In the hallway, Kevin and Nick were just coming out into the hall, AJ and Howie were standing by the elevator, waiting, AJ looked half asleep with a pair of sunglasses slung on his brow. "Hey look, it's Cory Hart," Kevin teased, poking AJ's shoulder.

"Don't," AJ grumbled.

"How long did y'all last after we left?" I asked them.

"I drank'em all cold," Howie replied, grinning.

"I don't know where the alcohol goes," Kevin said, "He's such a tiny, tiny man."

We got on the elevator and rode it down to the lobby. Security was waiting to run us to the van, and we piled in. Lou and Johnny were waiting inside. As soon as security had closed the silding doors and we'd pulled away from the crowd of waving, watching fans, Lou turned around from his perch in the front passanger seat to look at us.

"You Boys wanna shoot the shit and fuck up my schedule every damn chance you get then fine. I'm done playing nice with you," he said, his voice pitched angrily. "I will have security posted at each ends of the hallways we room, and they will be helping me to enforce your new curfew."

"Curfew?" Kevin bleated. "What? We're all adults, every one of us, you can't enforce a curfew."

"As your manager, with your best interest at heart, I can," Lou corrected him. "It's in your contracts."

AJ lowered his sunglasses, his face registering a look of disbelief.

"Furthermore, if any of you sneak out again and I find you missing from your hotel rooms, I swear to Christ I will call the police."

"What the hell are the police gonna do we're grown ups, we're allowed to be out!" Nick said, trying to sound tough.

"And your parents," Lou added.

Nick looked down at his knees.

"This is ridiculous," Kevin snapped. "You're treating us like we're children. It was a fricking holiday and we took one night off to have some fun. Most rock stars go out and go partying every fucking night!"

"You are trying to maintain a clean cut image," Lou responded, his voice rising over Kevin's volume. "You are trying to be good boys, not partying rock stars. You have a very young fan base, most of them are around Nick's age, and you need parents to be on your side, to think you're good role models, to think you're the ideal people for their little girls to be worshipping. Going out and getting shitfaced in pubs in Ireland is not the way to project that image."

"It was one night and we're adults!" Kevin yelled.

Howie's eyes moved between Kevin and Lou like he was watching a tennis match. We all automatically just let Kevin speak for us at this point, none of us joined in.

"I have worked too hard for this!" Lou shouted over Kevin, "I'm not going to let you fuck it up now because you want to go party like you're rock stars."

"Kinda we are," Nick mumbled.

Lou's eyes turned to him, and his voice came out harsh, "You aren't rock stars. You're pathetic little boys playing dress-up and singing on stage to a bunch of hormone-saturated teenagers, and that's the bottom line. You want to know why this works? You want to know? It's not your voices or your talent or your looks. It's not your music. It's ME! It's me and the time and money that I have invested in you, in this band, in this enterprise. I made you, manufactured you. You wouldn't even know each other if it wasn't for me."

Suddenly, Leighanne's words at the hotel room surged to mind, and I shook my head, "Shut up." I snapped. Lou, Kevin, Johnny, Howie, AJ, and Nick all looked at me. Even the driver glanced in the rearview mirror for a moment before turning back to the road. My mouth went dry once I had all their attentions. I took a deep breath, "Just shut up, Lou," I said. "Don't forget, you work for us, we don't work for you."

"Maybe, but where the hell would any of you be without me?" he demanded. "Nick would probably be some washed up Mousketeer by now, and Kevin still slaving away at Disney World. AJ, Howie -- what? Running auditions? Trying to find some two-bit commercial to hire you? And Brian. Brian. You would've been knee deep in some hokey Christian education, serving up coconut shrimp cups at Long John Silvers."

"And where would you be, Lou?" I demanded, "Where would you be if it wasn't for us? Up to your eyeballs in debt over a failed blimp comapny." I shook my head, "Don't give us that bullshit that you're any better, any more important in this than we are," I said.

The van came to a stop in front of the RDS and Lou fought with his seatbelt, his face almost purple with rage, and finally managed to rip the thing off. He struggled out of the van, slamming the door so hard the entire vehicle shook, and stormed into the venue. Johnny got out and waited by the back bumper, looking angry, but not speaking.

Kevin let out a low whistle. "Well damn, Brian," AJ said, "I didn't know you had it in you." He climbed out of the van, followed by Howie and Kev. Nick looked back at me.

"He's wrong," I said, "You wouldn't be a washed up mousketeer if it wasn't for him," I said.

"Thanks," Nick said, and he slid out of the van. I followed.

The rest of the day was so awkward it was painful. For that matter, so were the next couple days. I mean we did our soundchecks and rehearsals, did our meet and greets, TV appearances, radio interviews, photoshoots, and flights without any further arguments erupting, but Lou didn't speak a single word to any of us. Johnny relayed all messages. Leighanne was ecstatic that I'd stood up to Lou, but at the same time I felt guilty because I'd made our work life a living hell. And, true to his word, Lou had two security guys standing in the hallways at each of the hotels, like centuars, guarding the elevator and stairwells, enforcing that we didn't go sneaking off to party.

The good news was that things were a little smoother on the home front as far as the way the five of us were relating to eachother. Even Nick was talking to me again; though things weren't quite what they had been before, we weren't enemies anymore. That was a huge relief to me.

I made an appointment with Dr. Gordon Danielson to have my surgery done on April 20th, five days after the last date of the tour and also the five year anniversary of when I'd first joined the band. I pictured the fellas and my family and Leighanne all gathered around my bedside in Michigan while we talked just before I went into surgery, reminiscing about that day at Tates Creek High school when I got called to the principal's office to talk to Kevin about joining the Backstreet Boys. I pictured being carted off to surgery, calling back with jokes and waking up to find them all still there, smiling and happy to see me alive. I had high hopes and the relief of thinking that everyone would be there for me was so great that I felt happy, despite the drama going on with the fellas and Lou and I and the impending operation.

I gave Johnny a note for Lou, reminding him of his promise to clear me out some time after the tour for the surgery, and telling him I had the appointment for April 20th. I didn't get a response back directly from Lou, but Johnny said that Lou had "made a note of it".

We had some amazing shows, too, during the "verbal cold war" with Lou. For instance, we played at Wembly two nights in a row - which is extremely amazing considering Wembly seats almost 90,000 people. Standing on that stage and looking out at that massive crowd completely took my breath away. At one point during the second show they started singing along with I'll Never Break Your Heart and we all stopped singing and just let the crowd carry the tune. Their voices echoed through the stadium so loudly and beautifully it brought tears to Kevin's eyes. And when they'd finished singing the chorus, they cheered and began chanting "BackSTREET Boys!" over and over again. It reduced us all to tears before the chant had died away.

And that seemed to be the trend from that night on, the rafters shaking in Denmark and Sweden with the same chant. We rode the wave clear through the stress of Lou's anger and Johnny's second-hand anger, and made it to Germany all that much stronger.

The problem was, despite my new pills and the lack of stress amongst us guys, my heart was still bothering me. I found myself spending long moments, my eyes squeezed shut, trying to convince myself I was okay. Just a couple more weeks, I'd tell myself, take a deep breath, and continue on. Once or twice, Leighanne caught me doing this backstage. Once, while Nick was on stage doing his solo, the pain caught me so badly in my chest that I ended up leaning against the wall on my way to the dressing room, trying to get a breath. I felt like my chest was turning inside out. Leighanne had found me all but doubled-over in the hall and helped me to the dressing room, where she fretted over me, making sure I was okay, fear in her eyes. I'd insisted I was fine, and she'd begged me not to go back on stage, but I'd gone all the same.

In Copenhaugen, Germany, we were scheduled to play a set at Viva Unplugged, which we were recording to release as a video for the fans all over the world. A lot of money had been invested in having a film crew on hand and in decorating the set. Our stylists and make-up artists were particularly painstakingly careful that night, making sure we looked as good as we possibly could, and we were attacked with lint rollers every time we moved, keeping our suits in perfect, clean, crisp condition.

"Are ya'll scared?" Nick asked, "A'cos the camera crews I mean?"

Kevin shrugged, "Nawh."

But he looked scared. I think we all were, honestly. We prayed extra fervrently that night during the preshow prayer, asking God to watch over us and the fans and the crew and Nick threw in a plea to let the cameras catch him on his good side. "I don't wanna be down in history as bein' ugly, y'know, God?" he asked.

We took the stage to a smattering of screams. It was teeny-tiny compared to Wembley and the RDS and all the other venues we'd been playing over the last few months, but it was comfortable, and the fans were so close, sitting on the floor, staring up at us with tears and hope and excitement in their eyes. We sat on stools and the music was right there, live, right behind us. It was so fresh and relaxing, and for the first time, my heart wasn't bugging before the first break in the set.

I unscrewed the cap on my water bottle and adjusted the way I was sitting on the stool. The other guys left the stage and I started singing That's What She Said/Where Can We Go From Here. As I sang, I looked around the stage, and my eyes connected with Lou off to the side and I felt my heart tighten in my chest. "Oh how can I make you see," I sang, "Just what you did to me?"

Lou shifted uncomfortably, and ducked away.

I looked away from where he'd been standing, back to the fans, focusing my energy on them, trying to stay upbeat and goofing off as I always did to distract me. After all, I was Batman, right? I found myself doing impressions and making faces more and more as the show progressed, teasing the fans to make them smile and laugh. I pictured every laugh like points in Mario World, like the higher my score got the more little Mario lives I'd have, the longer I could pull this off.

After the show, though, when we were headed backstage, the sharpest pain I'd yet felt went through my chest and I stumbled against the wall, just catching a locked door knob to brace myself on. AJ, who was a couple steps ahead of me, stopped and turned back and caught my elbow quickly, "B-Rok?" he asked, kneeling as we slid to the floor. "Yo, you okay?"

"Yeah," I gasped the word, "Yes, I'm fine." I closed my eyes, wincing deeply.

"You ain't fine," he injected. He stood, pulling me to my feet. "Let's get you to a chair."

I shook my head, and knelt to the floor again. "No," I said.

"Let me get someone to help, I'll get Kevin."

"No," I said through gritted teeth, "Don't get Kevin. I'm fine."

AJ stood there, hovering over me, nervous looking and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, his voice dropping his usual tough-tone.

"Just - not get Kevin," I said, shaking my head.

AJ stayed on the floor until I'd managed to pull myself together, and he helped me to my feet, his eyes wide and freaked out. "You sure you're okay?" he asked, worry coming into his voice.

"I'm sure," I replied. Though I really wasn't. "Please don't tell the guys," I said.

AJ nodded.

"Thanks," I said.

In wardrobe, Kevin looked up as we walked in. "Took you long enough," he said.

AJ shrugged and went to his chair, grabbing his stuff off the table in front of where he'd been sitting during prep time. I snatched my duffle bag from my station, too, and security ushered us all out into the chilly air outside to the van that carried us back to the hotel.

When we were alone in the hotel room, Leighanne looked at me with serious eyes. "What happened?"

"When?"

"You looked - I don't know," she shook her head. "There was this one moment," she said, "During Who Do You Love, when you were holding your face... You looked..." Leighanne frowned, "I don't know. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I replied, forcing a smile. I wondered if anyone else had noticed how much pain I'd been in or if it was just Leighanne because she knew me too well.

Leighanne looked me in the eyes.

"I had a um, another pain," I said quietly, "In my chest."

She put her hand on my chest. "Are you okay?" she asked, nervously.

I nodded.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes. Just tired," I replied, and I stepped away and pulled the blankets down on the bed, kicking off my shoes and jeans and crawled in. "I'm just tired," I repeated, crushing the pillow under my head.

Leighanne nodded, "I'm getting tired myself," she replied, and she went into the bathroom and closed the door. A couple moments later, I could hear her crying, the sound muffled by the wall and the closed door, and I felt guilty. I closed my eyes and bit my lips, but I didn't dare to go in and comfort her. I was too afraid that seeing her tears would bring tears of my own.

And whatever he does, Batman does not cry.