Chapter Seventeen
Nick
Kevin’s dining room table was cleared off except for four canary-yellow legal pads, each accompanied by a perfectly sharpened pencil, and four mugs of steaming water steeping tea. I stood in the doorway as AJ and Howie sat down and Kevin was fetching the contract from upstairs, where he’d been sitting reading it all night. I sat next to AJ because I felt like he needed to feel like a team and for some reason he’d picked me to be on “his side”, plus it was kind of like Kevin and Howie were the businessy guys and me and AJ were the fuck it let’s have some fun guys.
Kevin came back in and put his iPad on the table, the contract pulled up, the actual printed copy of the contract next to it. He settled himself in, “Okay,” he said, clearing his throat. He had a spoon in his hand, too, he must’ve grabbed while he was up and he used it to stir the tea in his cup, then tapped it against the edge of the glass.
“Before we start, I gotta be out of here by noon,” I said, “Lauren and I have a flight to catch.”
Kevin looked at me over the edge of a pair of glasses he’d put on. “Okay,” he said, displeased, “That doesn’t give us very much time.” He looked down at the legal pad and took a sip of his tea as he picked up the pen laying at his place.
“Ground rules,” Howie spoke up, “No yelling. I move if we start yelling we need to get up and take a walk.”
“Seconded,” AJ said, “I fucking hate the yelling.”
Kevin nodded, “Agreed. This is a place of love and respect and we’re going to treat it as such.” He looked at me pointedly.
“I’m not yelling,” I said.
“Yet,” he mumbled and he reached for the contract. “Okay, so… here we go. Brian’s leaving, we agreed yesterday that we’d let him. Howie, did you send in your copy?”
“Not yet, but I will if we all agree on that.” He looked around at me and AJ.
“We already signed,” I pointed out, “Obviously we’re fine with it.”
Kevin cleared his throat, “I think we need to maintain the open door policy that was in place for me when I left,” he said.
“YES,” AJ exploded.
“Well that was enthusiastic,” Kevin said as I rubbed the ear AJ had just yelled into. He wrote the words open door policy for Brian on his legal pad. Like we wouldn’t remember that we’d said that. He laid his pen down across the legal pad. “Real talk guys. Do you all think we can even pull this off without Brian?”
We looked around at each other.
“I’m gonna be straight up here. I was mostly background vocals when I left. We’re talking about losing a lead vocalist here. We’re talking trying to figure out how to remix all of our songs to cover for this. Whole verses.” He looked around at us, “I know nobody else wants to say it so I’ll be the one to say it, that’s a fuck of a lot easier to do when all the person’s doing is backgrounds and a couple verses here and there like I was doing before.”
“Howie could do a lot of Brian’s stuff,” AJ said.
Howie chewed his lip. “Not like Brian can.”
“Well no, fuck no, no offense or nothin’ but nobody can do Brian’s parts like Brian, but you could,” AJ said, shrugging. “You have the range and tone for it.”
“What about the fanbase?” Kevin said.
AJ leaned back in the chair.
“That was worrying me also,” Howie said. “Brian’s like one of the popular ones. The only hit worse to our fan base we could make would be if --” he stopped. Their eyes all went to me.
I raised my eyebrow.
“I think the fans will stick with us,” AJ said. “We still have Nick. And we aren’t unpopular, guys,” he added, smirking at Kevin and Howie.
Howie nodded.
Kevin licked his lips and scratched his chin. “I think we’re probably looking at losing a lot of fans over this.”
Nobody said anything.
“Just being realistic,” he added. “I mean a lot of fans are fans because of Brian and wouldn’t be as interested in the four of us playing without him. Look at sales of our solo albums compared to group albums.”
AJ grabbed his pen and started doodling.
“So are you, like, against us continuing without Brian or something?” I asked point blank.
“Not against it,” Kevin answered, “I just think there are risks. Serious risks.”
“I think we can do it just fine,” I said, leaning forward, “We’ve done it once before, we can do it again. We regroup, change the style to fit the new sound, and we bust our balls on tour. We lower prices on tickets for a little bit, get them coming for the low money, once we build the confidence back up, we can readjust pricing. We get some good designers, good stylists, pay a little upfront for a nice stage. I think we’ll be fine. We have die hard fans, y’all, they ain’t gonna leave us.”
Kevin took a deep breath.
“And we keep the open door in case something changes,” AJ said hopefully.
“And we keep the open door,” I said. Though I didn’t believe for even a moment that we’d ever need it to be open.
Kevin looked around at us. “So we’re in this then?”
Howie nodded. So did AJ. “We’re in this,” I said. Then I paused, “And… I have another ground rule to add.”
“The meeting’s over Nick, we don’t need anymore ground rules now,” Howie laughed.
“Not for the meeting,” I said, “This ground rule’s for us. All of us.” They looked at me expectantly. “No lying,” I said, “No secrets. No grudges. We be honest, up front, truthful. All the time. No more faking it. If we’re pissed at each other, we be pissed at each other. If we can’t stomach the look of each other’s faces… we fucking say so. We don’t say we’re friends if we aren’t. We’re real.”
The guys all agreed.
Brian
I woke up in the morning early and made breakfast before Baylee and Leighanne woke up. Leighanne came down first and we sat in the kitchen eating and sharing the newspaper until Baylee came down and joined us. Baylee talked hurriedly about some video one of his friends had Instagrammed him the night before. I listened intently to his story until the phone rang and Leighanne went to go answer it. When she came back, she said, “Brian, it’s for you.”
“Hold that thought, Bay,” I said getting up. “Who is it?” I asked her.
“Jen,” she replied.
I glanced at Baylee as Leighanne handed me the cordless home phone, “I’m gonna, uh, take this upstairs,” I told her, and I hurried out of the room and up the stairs in the foyer toward the office. I raised the phone to my ear as I jogged up the steps. “Hey Jen.”
“Hey,” she said slowly, “So. You got the contracts.”
“Uh huh.” I pushed the office door open and stepped inside, “We certainly did. What was up with releasing them early? I told you I wanted a chance to talk to Nick first.”
“Brian we gave you like a month to talk to him. You kept putting it off. Then we stuck the two of you into a single hotel room for a week and you still didn’t tell him,” Jen replied with a sigh to her tone, “I couldn’t keep waiting for ever.”
I sighed, “You could’ve told me before you sent it.”
She was quiet.
“I dunno, forget it. The fight was just a matter of time anyway, I guess. It’s not like Nick and I were going to be magically repaired overnight, I don’t know what I ever believed for a moment we could be. I was foolish, I guess.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway. I sent my signed contract out yesterday. Priority. It should be on your desk in a day or two.”
“Okay,” Jen replied, “I was only waiting on yours and one other one, most everyone sent them in already.”
“Eager to get rid of me, I’m sure,” I said.
Jen’s voice was sad, “I don’t know about that Brian. Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I’m sure the guys would be okay with just forgetting the contract was ever sent out.”
“I’m sure, Jen. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that it’s better for the band this way.” I sat down behind the desk and spun the chair to look out the window. “The fellas think I’ve been holding them back.”
“What? Nobody thinks that, Brian.”
“Except they do.”
“Who said that?”
I was quiet for a long moment.
“Nick doesn’t really think that,” she said.
“Jen, it doesn’t matter, okay. Just… let me know when you have all the contracts, okay?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” I started to go to hang up, but before I could Jen spoke up again.
“Brian, there’s an interview I need you to do in Atlanta tomorrow.”
“Jen, I’m not a Backstreet Boy anymore,” I said.
“You are until I get all five contracts,” she reminded me. “And besides, they wanted to talk to you about you leaving and all that anyway. Consider it your last interview. Otherwise your real last interview will be one of those awkward things you did in London with Nick.”
I ran my hand over my forehead. “Okay. Where is it?” I asked.
“I’ll send you the info in an email,” she answered.
“Okay.”
We hung up and I wandered back downstairs. Baylee was in the parlor practicing the piano and Leighanne was cleaning up the kitchen. I came in and put the phone back on it’s cradle. “So what’s up?” she asked, putting the last of the dishes into the washer.
“Jen has an interview lined up for me tomorrow.”
Leighanne raised her eyebrow.
“Last one as a Backstreet Boy,” I said. “They wanna talk about me leaving the band and whatever. She’s sending the info.”
Leighanne poured the soap suds into the little cup and closed the washer. “Are you okay?” she asked gently.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
She looked like she doubted it, but if she did she didn’t press the issue and let me have my moment of denial.
Nick
“I feel better already,” I said, grabbing Lauren’s hand. It was the morning and we were in Nashville at the Farmer’s Market on the north side of the city. She had a whole basket full of vegetables she’d bought already, and now we were wandering through the crafty end of the market, just browsing since it was so relaxing. Somewhere, there was live music and some kids were playing around with a hackie-sack. I pulled Lauren closer. It felt good not to be thinking about the Backstreet Boys or Brian or my mother or any of the bad stuff going on, just being a guy out with his pretty wife on a nice day in the South.
Lauren smiled and squeezed my hand. We were passing the food court and a lot of great smells wafted towards us. I took a deep breath of what smelled like vegan burritos and looked around for the vendor from which that scent was coming. “Ohhh!” Lauren said suddenly, “Kintsugi.”
“We just had sushi yesterday,” I reminded her, “Remember? Naked sushi?”
She laughed, “No, honey, kintsugi isn’t sushi. C’mere.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the food vendors. I looked back longingly as she led me to a table full of vases, plates, bowls, cups, jewelry, and all kinds of other stuff made out of broken glass with big veins of gold. I raised my eyebrow. “These are beautiful,” she breathed, looking over the stuff.
An elderly Japanese woman came around a corner and saw her looking, “Do you like?” she asked, her voice thickly accented. She grinned at Lauren, “Half price.”
Lauren was looking at a big bowl, the ripples of gold and bits of glass like big swirls on the inside. It looked like it was made out of broken pieces of a couple bowls and reconstructed so it had this odd, wonky sort of shape to it. “Isn’t this gorgeous, Nick?”
I blinked at it, “Uh… sure.”
She grinned, then turned back to the woman, and asked her something in Japanese. The woman’s smile broadened and she answered and the two of them talked for a couple minutes. I always felt stupid when Lauren spoke Japanese, like a big dumb dog she was dragging around with her. I chewed my lower lip. Finally, the woman started wrapping the bowl in paper and Lauren pulled out her wallet and handed her a hundred dollar bill. She got a twenty back.
“Eighty fuckin’ bucks? For a broken bowl?” I whispered loudly as the woman put the money in a little lock box and handed Lauren the bowl in a bag.
“It’s not broken,” Lauren replied. She turned to the woman, “Domo arigato,” she said, bowing slightly, hands clasped before her.
“Mr. Roboto,” I whispered as Lauren pulled me away. She whacked my arm playfully. I laughed, “I’m sorry.”
Lauren shook her head. “Be polite,” she said, but I could tell she was amused.
“Yeah polite to the woman that just sold you a bunch of broken glass,” I laughed.
“I told you, it isn’t broken. It’s kintsugi. It’s Japanese art.”
“It sounds like a sushi roll.”
“It’s not a sushi roll.”
“But it sounds like a sushi roll.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “You’re such an ass.”
“I ain’t an ass,” I replied.
“A grammatically incorrect ass.”
I laughed, “Baby, tell me about your broken bowl art.”
Lauren grinned, unable to resist talking about a part of the Japanese culture she loved so much. “When something that is cherished breaks, the Japanese don’t just throw it away, because things like bowls and plates and cups are so important in their culture. A tea cup can hold the spirit of it’s user, it can tell fortunes, things like that. They cherish the spirit of things. So they don’t just throw it away, that would be disrespectful. Especially if it’s something that’s been handed down generations. So they repair it by soldering the pieces together with gold. Pure gold. It’s called kintsugi, which literally means gold joinings.” She grabbed my hand again, “I just think it’s poetic… taking something broken and putting it back together again. And they use gold because the breaks are just as precious as the rejoining of the pieces. They want to preserve the brokenness as much as they want to heal it. The gold shows where it was broken so that they can never forget how it broke.” Lauren looked up at me, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
I nodded, “Yeah, I guess, if you like broken shit.”
Lauren laughed, “Well I like you, don’t I?”
“Touche,” I laughed, leaning in and kissing her forehead.
Brian
Leighanne drove me to the interview the next day after we dropped Baylee off at school. I didn’t have to be there until ten, but we didn’t want to end up stuck in traffic and late so we left early. We were quiet all the way into the city, the music just playing on the stereo like background noise. I stared out the window, thinking about how much everything had changed in so short a time as the skyline came into view.
“Are you nervous?” Leighanne asked.
“Not really,” I answered. “I probably should be.”
She reached her hand over and squeezed my knee comfortingly. “I’m here for you husband,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied, and I took her hand from my knee and held it in my own.
At the station, we went inside to the soundbooth where the deejay was on a commercial break for the show the show. Leighanne took a seat on some folding chairs behind me as I pulled the guest earphones toward myself. “Morning Don,” I said, greeting the deejay as I got them onto my head.
“I’m looking forward to getting to talk to you,” he said, smiling. “So when we get back on air, I’m going to do a quick intro to the segment then I’ll welcome you to the show, I’ve got some questions, you’ve got some answers, we play the Backstreet Boys single, and we’re done. Sound good?” he asked rapidly, Chandelier by Sia coming to an end on air.
“Sounds great,” I nodded.
He smiled and reached for his microphone, pulling it near as the last strains of the song faded out. “That was Sia with Chandelier. Traffic’s doing okay so far out there, looks like there’s a little congestion going south toward the airport and 21, but for the most part the roads are moving at the posted speed… We’ve got a nice weekend on deck here, some warmer weather coming our way, et cetera et cetera. Anyways, on to the show. I have a special guest here with me in the studio, but first let me just get this one thing off my chest real fast… So basically if you haven’t seen Show’Em What You’re Made Of, the Backstreet Boy’s documentary movie, you need to see it ASAP. You missed the in theater premiere last month, but there’s still hope for you yet, the movie is for sale or rent on a bunch of outlets, like iTunes and Amazon and Hulu and Youtube and all that. I’m tellin’ ya, this film isn’t just for the fans of Backstreet Boys, it’s actually a really interesting story.” He paused a moment, looking at notes in front of him on the desk. “Seriously. And to talk about the whole experience here in the studio, I have Brian Littrell, former member of the Backstreet Boys.”
The word former stung like being slapped across the face. It left a foul flavor in my mouth hearing it. I swallowed back a rise of bile that had crawled up my throat at the very sound of it.
“Brian, welcome.” Don turned to me.
“Thanks,” I croaked.
“I gotta tell you, honestly, I was a little skeptical going into the theater last month to see the movie. I wasn’t expecting it to be good, I kind of thought that you guys were your typical run of the mill manufactured music venture, that you were all from privileged backgrounds and the whole nine yards… I was really surprised some of the things we learned about all five of you, about the band itself. Like what a tool Lou Pearlman is, for example.”
I laughed nervously. I mean yeah, we all knew Lou was a tool, but after hearing what he’d tried to do to Nick my opinion of the old prick had only worsened. I’m not the type that wished people negativity, but I honestly hoped that one day Lou Pearlman would find himself in Hell burning with his fellow demons. I didn’t really want to talk about Lou Pearlman. I was likely to say something like that outloud.
“I think the most shocking part was how real you kids were in the film, not a lot was edited out. The good, the bad, and the ugly. For example, the scene on everyone’s mind. The fight at the A&R meeting between you and Nick. I’m sure you’ve answered a lot of questions about this already, but… Nick’s anger was just so strong at that point. Do you agree with the allegations from his mother this week that he needs anger management therapy?”
“No. Absolutely not,” I answered quickly, a protective feeling rising up in my gut, “Nick’s mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Yes, Nick has a temper, but it’s not as bad as she’s made it out to be. She wouldn’t know. She hasn’t talked to him in years. She only uses his name to gain attention for herself.”
“Sounds like a winner,” Don laughed.
I nodded, “Oh you don’t know the half of it.”
“There’s speculation going around, too, that the fight with Nick might be the driving factor behind your choice to leave the band,” he explained. “Did the fight with Nick have anything to do with your choice to leave? Is there anything that might make you stay?”
I looked down at my hands on the desk between us for a moment.
I was about to answer standardly… a way that he and the fans would want to hear… when it occurred to me that just because Nick wouldn’t talk to me did not mean that I couldn’t talk to him here and pray he’d actually hear what I had to say.
So… I took a deep breath.
“Nick’s not the only reason. I’m not saying that fighting with Nick wasn’t part of the choice. It certainly was. We’ve been fighting a lot, for a long time, and it’s not fair to the fans who think we’re something that we haven’t been in years… almost decades. But it’s not entirely the strain of that relationship. In fact, that was only a tip of the iceberg. As you saw in the film, I’ve been suffering from a muscle dysfunction that messes with my vocal chords and that makes it really hard to perform live and live performance is a huge part of who the Backstreet Boys are. The therapy… well, it’s a struggle and I’m not sure that it’s fair to any of us involved to keep me on when I’m holding the band back. There’s a lot of growing that Backstreet Boys can and will do in the future, and all I can do is just pray that maybe one day I’ll get a hold on my vocals enough that I could return to the band. If they’d have me…” I paused. “As for anything that might make me stay… I don’t know.” I shrugged, “I don’t know that I have any hope left to reconsider.”
“Really?” Don sounded surprised by my candor.
Honestly, I was a bit surprised myself..
“Yes,” I answered. “It’s been such a long struggle… sometimes I forget what hope even looks like. Before the press run in Europe, I’d already talked to management about possibly quitting, I just needed to tell Nick before it happened officially. I went to Europe on the press tour thinking it would be somewhat easy to tell him... but it wasn’t.”
Suddenly… a feeling welled up in me, one that I hadn’t even realized I’d been feeling until that very moment… but in that moment, I also knew that it was exactly right: “I felt too ashamed to tell him.”
“Ashamed?” Don probed.
I nodded. “Ashamed of giving up after all this time. Nick always kinda… I dunno. I always felt like I needed to set a good example for Nick, like I needed to be the big brother-slash-father that he never got at home from his real family.” I shook my head, “It sounds stupid, but I - I know Nick looked up to me when we were younger and… I don’t know. He used to - to make me feel like he thought I was a superhero or something, like back in the day. And… I don’t know. It’s hard, telling someone that Superman can’t fly, that underneath it all he’s just an ordinary man. I guess I’ve always been afraid to let Nick see that I’m not the superhero he thought I was when we were younger. I’ve always been afraid to let Nick see me in the broken places.”
My throat felt tight.
“But in Europe, when I - I let my walls down a little bit… I told Nick one night, when he asked me about my vocal issues, I told him, I feel like Superman on a Kryptonite IV… and the look in his eyes…” I sighed. “He looked… so… desperate to help. And he did. He helped me. Nick gave me hope like I hadn’t had in a long, long time…”
Don was nodding as I spoke.
“I -- I was reconsidering leaving the band then. Because of that hope he gave me. That was before the contracts were handed down from management. They didn’t tell me they were ready, didn’t ask me if I’d talked to Nick or any of the guys yet, didn’t have me review the contract privately before telling them… and of course the contracts leaked, too, to the media. It was all very overwhelming.” I paused again, thinking. “I meant to tell Nick first. But honestly before the contracts dropped… I… I wasn’t going to follow through with quitting.”
“What changed?”
“The contracts. When they dropped…” I shook my head. “I realized in the aftermath that the hope I had was… was probably false and that it was all in my head and really, after all, the band will be better without me. The band’s well being, my friends’ careers, that’s what matters in the end. More than how I feel. I - I initially quit out of selfishness, because I couldn’t handle it anymore, but when I signed my contract and sent it in, I was only thinking of the fellas. If they’re better off without me, then I want them to be better off without me. I want the band to be strong and to prosper, and I want each of them to be happy. I want Nick to be happy. That said… I can’t think of a single reason to reconsider.”
There's Us by Pengi
