3. SHAMPOO
Thank the heavens for shampoo, cause if it weren’t for shampoo, God knows what could have happened that day… It was the day our perfect little world stopped turning and changed into a never ending nightmare. It was the day we should have seen coming, but didn’t. The day I transformed from Howie ‘That Underappreciated Backstreet Guy’ Dorough, into Howie ‘Paranoid Sherlock Holmes Detective’ Dorough, if I could trust AJ’s judgement. The day that changed something in all of us. Cause I would never have imagined sitting next to a dying friend in the hospital, writing in this stupid, goddamn journal, just to pass the time, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for a solution that will never come, no matter how hard I try. Don’t you see that I’m just trying to understand, Brian? I just need a reason, closure…
14th of November 2005
I wish it had been a blur. That I didn’t remember half of it. That I had been too much in shock to recall anything clearly. But that’s not true. I remember everything, like a movie in my head, like a broken record. It just repeats itself over and over again.
Finally, after a week of non-stop recording, we had a day off. We had been in New Jersey for three days now and management was urging us to finish the record. Though urging isn’t the correct term to use, in this case forcing seems more accurate. I think they just need to know that it’s not the year 2000 anymore. That we don’t need to bring out an album every year, cause nobody simply cares, and the few that do, have waited long enough to wait another month or so.
The day off came unexpected, but welcome. The studio was closed due to a funeral of one of the owner’s brothers.
Expecting to be working all week, Brian had left his family at home, so it was just the group of four of us in New Jersey. That is, if you don’t count the bodyguards, managers, PR-employees and assistants. I have long since learned not to count them in. They weren’t our friends, and they wouldn’t spend a day off with us.
It had been Nick’s idea to catch a movie together, as it always was Nick’s idea to catch a movie together. I don’t think there has ever been an action movie in theatres that he hasn’t seen. Everyone agreed on his proposal, except Brian. That was the last time I’d see him awake.
He complained vaguely about a headache and went back to the hotel by bus. By bus. I still wonder why he didn’t just call a taxi, or let his driver come up to bring him back, and apparently, I wasn’t the only one wondering.
“Did I just see him leave by bus?” AJ had asked no one in particular, perplexed.
“I think so.’’ I commented back.
“Why?”
“Hell, do I look like I know?” Cause I didn’t care, I just wanted to see the movie by then.
“Doesn’t he seem a bit, I don’t know, withdrawn to you lately?” It was one of those rare times AJ actually did try his best to be serious.
“No idea, maybe he really does have a headache.” I hadn’t wanted to think about it then. But I realize now that AJ had been right. Brian had seemed to be withdrawn those last days in New Jersey. He didn’t talk much and I hadn’t heard him tell a joke or seen him smile since… hell I don’t even remember the last time he smiled. Why didn’t we realize something was wrong with our brother then? Cause we’re a bunch of idiots, that’s why. It was very uncharacteristic for Brian not to wear a grin on his face or to be joking around. I only realize right now that the signs had been clear as daylight, we just chose to ignore them.. GODDAMNIT!!!
Sorry about that, I’m okay, just needed to yell at something. So why not at this stupid, useless notebook that doesn’t do its job?
After the movie, it was still early in the evening. So I dragged AJ and Nick with me to another movie, cause I didn’t want them to end up in a bar somewhere, cause we had to be bright and shining at the crack of dawn the next morning, going back to the studio. I must admit that I couldn’t have chosen a worse movie, and Nick made me promise to always let him pick the movie in future times.
I forced them to go back to the hotel after the trip to the theatre, and they agreed reluctantly. I feel like I’ve turned into a new Kevin since the original Kevin left. We went back together to the hotel that didn’t have room enough to place us all on the same floor. AJ and Nick were put in separate rooms on the 12th, while Brian and I got adjoining rooms on the 16th. I know Brian didn’t like to get up anywhere higher than 2 floors , but I couldn’t have cared less on that day. It was late now and I was still feeling disappointed by the lousy movie we had watched.
Just so you know, you didn’t miss anything, B-Rok.
I had just wanted to take a shower and change into my PJ’s and climb into a somewhat uncomfortable hotel bed to call it quits for that day. That was all, but it clearly had been too much to ask. Cause as I walked into the bathroom to catch my shower I noticed that there was no shampoo in my bathroom. Leave it to Howie D to get the worse out of four hotel rooms.
I remember wondering if maybe Brian would have gotten some shampoo. I remember hoping he wouldn’t be asleep yet. I remember I crossed the hallway on bare feet and in my pyjamas. I remember knocking on Brian’s door, but finding out it was already open. I remember a strange feeling of terror gripping me tight when I stepped into the room. It had been dark in there, I couldn’t see anything, but still I knew that something was terribly wrong.
I remember screaming my lungs out when I turned on the lights… the scene that was laid out before me was horrifying. I remember being rooted to the ground as I took it all in. The bottles of pills next to his hands, the slices on his arms, the blood on the carpet floor and his motionless body lying on his stomach in the middle of it all. I had never seen anything so horrible in my life before, and I couldn’t keep my dinner in my stomach at the sight. I stormed into the bathroom and spilled the entire meal into the toilet. I didn’t want to get back into the bedroom, I was sure he was dead. Panic had never made as much sense as it did at that particular moment. I couldn’t think clearly and the walls seemed to close in on me. The air seemed too thin to breathe properly and I was scared out of my mind. Somehow I got myself back in control, as there was something bugging me at the edge of my thoughts.
After steeling myself, I stepped back into the room and walked in a straight line to where Brian lay. I was so afraid, I had only touched a dead person once before, my sister Caroline. It had made me wish I would never have to do it again.
But Brian wasn’t dead. Yet. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t just pale, he was grey. If I hadn’t felt the extremely weak pulse underneath my fingertips when I checked for an unexpected heartbeat, if I hadn’t noticed him breathing slightly, irregularly against my hand, I would sure have thought him to be dead. I also knew it wouldn’t be long ‘til he actually was. I remember how I tried to gently roll him on his back, while whispering soothing words either to him or to myself. I told him all was gonna be fine, while hoping I was just having a bad dream as a result of the scary movie we had watched. I remember lifting his limp and too light body into my arms and carrying him across the room and laying him down warily on the somewhat uncomfortable bed. But everything was better than seeing him lying lifelessly on the floor.
I needed to get help. Call Kevin, he’ll know what to do!
Was the first thing that popped into my mind. Idiot. I couldn’t call Kevin, he was back in Orlando, hundreds of miles away from me and from his dying cousin. And because I couldn’t call Kevin, I called the second best thing, 911.
“Good evening, what’s your emergency?” Why would they even say ‘good evening’, I wondered in a flash. Nobody that called 911 was usually having a ‘good evening’.
“I think one of my friends has tried to kill himself.” It was the first time I spoke, or even thought that sentence out loud. It made me shudder and I felt a new wave of panic coming up.
“Sir? Sir, is he breathing?” The young woman on the phone snapped me out of my thoughts and I looked at Brian. Was he breathing? I couldn’t remember, so I checked again.
“Only just.”
“Okay, it’s important you stay on the phone and tell me what happened. I’m going to send an ambulance, what’s the address?” Good lord, the address. We never had to remember the address. I looked around feverishly and spotted a folder on the night stand.
“Umm, it’s Westminster Hotel, Livingston, New Jersey,” I told her as fast as I could. A room number would be useful as well, Howard. “Ah, it’s room number 1633.”
“Right, help’s on the way. Can you tell me what happened please?”
“Ummm, I really have no idea, I just got here and found him like this.”
“I understand, but are there any clues in the room that could give away his condition?” She offered. I looked around in the room, the prescription bottles still lay abandoned on the floor, just like the blood. I felt my stomach churning again as I picked up one of the bottles.
It read Valium. Where’d he get these from? There were other pills as well, names I couldn’t pronounce, but I did my best as I cried them through the phone. I knew in the back of my mind that if Brian really had taken this many pills, he was going to die for sure. The woman at the other end of the line kept sickeningly calm, as I told her about the slices on Brian’s arms, which brought me even more on the verge of madness. Tears streaming freely out of my eyes to indicate the fear and helplessness I felt. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to get out, as I waited for the ambulance to arrive, as I watched Brian getting worse by the second. His breathing got more forced and the towels, that I had wrapped around his arms, after I had brought them with me from the bathroom, were still soaking themselves with his blood. It was then that I realized that the ambulance heading our way, would probably come too late. I told the woman on the phone about this and I suppose she could hear the panic in my voice clearly.
“Sir, calm down, it’s important that you stay calm. Now, do you know how to perform CPR?”
Oh my God! my mind screamed.
Was she new or something? Didn’t she know that mentioning the word ‘CPR’, didn’t calm me down in the less? Yes, I know how to do CPR, and I suspect I am the only Backstreet Boy that knows how to. My dad made me take first aid lessons, and have I mentioned that my dad used to be a cop? But I had never done it on anything else than a dummy, and I surely wasn’t ready to do it on one of my band mates.
“Don’t you do that to me, you bastard…”
Fortunately I didn’t have to consider it a minute longer, when an energetic team of paramedics burst through the door. For a moment I thought they were going to throw themselves at me and Brian, the way they wasted no time to dash to the bed, like lions would jump at a helpless prey.
But then I got shoved aside and I released the unnoticed breath I had been holding in for a long time. I felt like there was a huge responsibility taken away from me and sighed in relief.
Relief turned to horror and the world came to an abrupt halt, when Brian neatly chose that moment to decide breathing was too big of an effort and just stopped breathing altogether. The shallow, quick and ragged gasps for air I was able to hear so clearly before, had turned into silence. I found myself crashing to my knees when I saw the fuss around my brother increase.
“We need to intubate and get him to the hospital now, before he crashes!” One yelled in a deep and rushed voice.
I saw them try to cram a tube down Brian’s throat, saw them attach some kind of bag to it, saw his chest move again in sync with the rhythmic squeezes the young intern gave the plastic bag and I knew she held Brian’s life in her hands. I only hoped that she realized that as well.
He’s still not able to breathe on his own. I’m not sure he will ever be able to again. Every time I see his chest rise and fall, I know it’s not him doing it. It’s those goddamn machines doing all the work for him. I don’t know how he feels about being kept alive like this, and I sure as hell do not care. He wanted to die so badly that he tried to kill himself, so we’re keeping him alive. It doesn’t seem fair, but I like to think of it as punishment. Still, something is nagging me. Something tells me this wasn’t the whole story. There are things that don’t fit.
The sharp object he used to slice his arms up, for example, were never found. Maybe he chose to get rid of them in some way, but where did he find the time to do that? The cops had dismissed everything to suicide fairly quickly, said the note on the night drawer was prove enough. Once they didn’t need it anymore, I requested to keep it.
A note. Brian had left a note. He wouldn’t do anything he considered of great importance without planning everything out into the smallest details. Of course there was a note, and it was supposed to explain everything, but all it did was screw things up even worse than they already were.
It didn’t say much, and if Brian had chosen to be cryptic in his final moments, he sure did a good job.
“Dear everyone,
you know I love every single one of you very much, I just couldn’t love myself anymore. Not with everything I’ve done. You know none of this is your fault and you don’t have to feel bad for me. I’ll be okay…
961317 146 (my parent’s new number, just take the one’s before)
Love you, Brian’’
It’s his handwriting, I can’t deny that. I’d recognize it anywhere, cause next to our doctor-like scribbles, Brian has the writing of a little school girl.
But call me an idiot, but even I know that phone numbers don’t consist of 9 digits…
Author's Chapter Notes:
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Chapter End Notes:
on to the next chapter???
