Chapter Five
Nick
The grass was fresh cut in the neighborhood, you could still smell it, even though the sun had gone down. I hurried across the yard, my feet aching, lungs tight in my chest. I’d run clear across Orlando to get there. Digging through my pockets, I found the key and opened the door, careful not to do it too loud so I didn’t wake the other guys up.
I snuck through the living room to the hallway without a light - I knew this house better than I knew my own family’s home by then. My mother had just moved us kids into an apartment that month and it was still strange and foreign, not as familiar as this place. I made my way down the hall to Brian’s room and pushed the door open. “Brian,” I said as I stepped inside, “Brian, I need to talk to you.”
There was a thud and a squeak and Brian’s voice, “Nick? What the hell?”
”I’m sorry I’m wakin’ you up. I tried calling, but --” I turned the light on.
Leighanne was in Brian’s bed, clutching the sheets up to cover her chest, her eyes wide. Brian was on the floor, the comforter wrapped around his waist. “This ain’t the best time, Frack,” he said pointedly.
I stared at Leighanne, her hair all messy. At the time, I only knew her as the model from the music video, though. She looked mortified that I was there. “But, Brian, it’s important,” I whined.
“I’m kinda busy,” Brian replied. “Whatever it is can wait ‘til the morning.”
I’d never been rejected by Brian before. Not for a woman. Not like this. Not when it was important. I mean sure he’d had girls in the hotel rooms and the tour bus or whatever when we were off doing our tours and stuff... and sure they’d kept him from, like, playing basketball a couple times, too, but this was different. This wasn’t basketball or something stupid like wanting to watch Baywatch or whatever, this was actually important.
“No, Brian, please, it’s important, I --”
Brian pushed me out his bedroom door and into the hallway. “Nick seriously, we’ll talk in the morning, I’m busy.”
I woke up with a start as the door slammed shut in my dream. I stared up at the ceiling, my palms sweat-drenched and my heart racing. The room smelled like eggs and bacon. I sat up slowly, looking around. The window was uncovered, sunlight pouring in, and there was a tray with two covered plates on it sitting between the beds, Brian was at the door tipping room service. When he came back and saw me sitting up he said, “I was just about to wake you up.”
“You ordered food?”
“Yeah,” Brian nodded. “We have a radio appearance in about an hour.” He pulled the lid off the food and the smell became stronger. I rolled over to the edge of the bed and breathed it in.
“Actual bacon,” I mused. “Shit. It’s like food sex.” I grabbed a piece.
“Wait, wait, the blessing,” Brian said. I dropped the bacon back to the plate and swept my greasy hand across the bedding as Brian settled himself down on the edge of his bed and muted the TV set. He held out his hand and, reluctantly, I dropped mine into it as he bowed his head to pray. “Father thank you for this food we’re about to eat and bless it for the nourishment of our bodies and minds ---”
I tuned out as Brian kept on about God blessin’ the food and whatever.
“Amen,” he finally finished.
I grabbed my bacon again and stuck it in my mouth. “Yes that is good,” I said, nodding.
Brian started eating, too.
We sat there, once again chewing breakfast in silence. I thought about how there’d been a time, and it seemed like it hadn’t been so long ago (though in reality it’d been almost a decade), when Brian and I could’ve easily filled that silence. Like it was nothin’. We would’ve talked about everything in the world, and the crew would’ve had to come get us to go to our interviews and shows and whatever because we would’ve lost track of time completely. We’d have chosen to have the same hotel room, instead of being forced to by stubborn managers and an opportunity to go on a whole promotional run just the two of us would’ve seemed like an adventure instead of a death sentence.
I would give anything, I thought, to be able to undo the damage that’d been done between us. If could just turn back time I wouldn’t have let him slam the door on me that night. Actually, there was a lot more that I wouldn’t have done that night if I’d known where it would get me in the end, but that’s a whole other thing.
I wondered if he remembered that night and, if he did, if he knew it’s significance.
Probably not.
I don’t think that anyone, besides me, knew about what happened that night, since it’s among my darkest secrets… the ones you never tell or think about.
In fact, I felt sick thinking too much about it and I stopped eating, pushing my plate away.
Brian looked up, “You’re full already?”
I nodded.
He kept eating.
I stared out past him, at the city below our window, willing my mind to stop thinking about the Whys.
Brian
When Nick has nightmares, he makes this sound in his sleep. Like a hum or a whimper, almost. I remember it from back in the early days, when he and I shared a bus and hotel rooms a lot. Back when his family was breaking apart, during the divorce, he used to have nightmares almost every night. He’d wake up in a cold sweat, crying, and we’d end up in the same bed because he was afraid of having the nightmares again if he was alone. I hadn’t heard that sound since he was like sixteen.
I woke up only a couple hours after having arrived to the hotel, the early morning sunlight peeking around the edges of the curtains. I laid there staring up at the ceiling, wondering what had woken me up -- and then he made the sound again. I sat up and looked over at him, concerned. He was so much bigger than he’d been last time we’d been through this, but his flared nostrils and slightly trembling lower lip gave him the appearance of being much younger again. I chewed my lip, unsure if I should wake him or not. Nick is a beast when he’s woken up, though, so I finally decided that I’d just open the curtains and order breakfast and hopefully the light and the smell would wake him up.
The smell of bacon has a certain magic about it that way.
As we sat there, after he’d woken up and everything, I wondered what he’d been dreaming about and if he’d maybe wanna talk about it the way he always had when he was a kid. I stayed silent, leaving the space between us open just incase he wanted to volunteer the information, figuring that if he wanted to bring it up, he would. I didn’t want to pry and have him hate me for probing into his personal stuff too much. Or worse, embarrass him by telling him that I’d heard him whimpering in his sleep.
He stayed quiet, though, and the moments slipped away and soon we were climbing into the back of a car to head to the radio station, Mike and Drew alongside us. Drew had gone to get coffee for the four of us before we’d left the hotel and we rode through the Paris streets, drinking the lattes and watching the morning traffic weave its way through all the iconic architecture.
One of the strangest things about traveling, I’ve always thought, was the way that something can be so monumental and important but seem so small and insignificant in the experience of it. I’d felt that way about most of the major landmarks that people talk about. Big Ben was just a clock tower, the Alamo a part of a shopping mall in Texas, the Eiffel Tower just a big metal structure at the end of the road. Even the equator was nothing more than a yellow line painted on a sidewalk; without the signs there you’d never know that you were straddling the place where the world came together.
But a lot of things in life are like that, I guess.
I glanced at Nick as we rode. “Frack,” I said.
He looked over in surprise to hear me use the old nickname. “Huh?”
I opened my mouth, the words on the edge of my lips about wanting to quit the band, when the car came to a stop and the driver announced, “We’re here.”
Nick looked at me, question in his eyes, and I knew that right then wasn’t the right time to breach the topic. After all, it was a lot more involved than something you just blurt out in the backseat of a car, I realized, and it would take time to talk through all the reasons and whatever. So I shook my head and he shrugged and climbed out of the car.
Drew and Mike leaped into action, helping us through a little crowd of fans that were clamoring for our attention on either side of short barricades that led from the curb to the door. “Nick!! Nick! Brian!” they called us and Nick and I spun side to side, scrawling our names on album booklets and tickets and whatever else they held up for us to sign. One girl gave Nick a big two-foot Valentine card and a teddy bear, and then we were ushered into the radio station. Nick gave the gifts to Mike to hold onto and we were led upstairs to the deejay’s soundbooth.
The funny thing about promo is that there’s this shift in dynamic the moment we’re in the public eye. Anything that’s going on behind closed doors in our lives is shut off, like being “on the clock” makes the fights and tension fade until we’re alone again. It’s always been like that. I remember back in the day we’d all be on the tour bus ready to kill each other over whatever stupid things we were fighting about and then we’d unload to go on some morning talk show and be instantly best friends, only to go back to telling each other to F-off the moment we got back to our privacy. Just like in the 90s, when there was pressure to be the clean-cut, good boys that the world believed us to be. We had to be that or there was this fear that we’d lose our jobs or something. It’s because there’s certain things that fans expect about us and there’s this pressure to deliver it.
Anyway, what the fans expected was for me and Nick to be best friends. So the instant we walked into the deejay’s booth it was as though the past decade of drifting had never happened and Nick flung his arm over my shoulders once we’d settled into the seats across the soundboard and the mics were pushed our way.
And you know, it didn’t even feel weird because I, too, was on the clock now and I’d melted from this state of seriousness and worrying what Nick would think when I quit to being the clown I always am in interviews.
“Nous sommes ici avec Brian et Nick des Backstreet Boys à parler de leur nouveau documentaire Show’em What You’re Made Of.” He turned to Nick and I. “Tell us about the movie.” It’s hard, too, when you’re in a foreign country and the deejay speaks the native language for several moments, then suddenly switches over to English.
“It’s just real,” Nick said, leaning forward. I looked over at him as he talked. “Like raw, you know, like we didn’t hold nothin’ back. It’s just our story.”
I looked back at the deejay as he translated that to the audience.
“So there was no script, no acting?”
“No script,” Nick said, shaking his head.
“Some of us are terrible actors,” I chimed in, “You’d know if we were acting ‘cos we’d suck.” I laughed.
Nick glanced at me and laughed. Then he added, “We just wanted to let the fans see kinda where we’re from, you know, show’em all the stuff we’ve been through and whatever.”
He’d almost said shit instead of stuff.
“So le documentaire, it covers things from your beginnings to now,” said the deejay. He looked at his notes, “You speak of getting together and the things you’ve been through as a band, yes?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Gets down to the nitty gritty of the Backstreet Boys.”
“The nitty gritty, yes,” the deejay laughed, “I hear there was some nitty gritty Backstreet Boys moments this week in Los Angeles.” He looked at Nick. “What happened with the photographer?”
I looked at Nick.
Nick looked down at his hands, “There was a lot more to that than the video that was posted online that everyone’s seen by now.”
“Do you have a temper problem?” chuckled the deejay.
“Nawh, no.” Nick shook his head, “Just he was harassing me and my wife, Lauren. Really, it looked a lot worse in the video.” I could tell Nick just really wanted the topic to be dropped.
I grinned, “Nick just knows how to defend the ladies,” I chirped.
The deejay laughed, “A regular knight in the shimmering armor, yes?”
“Yeah,” Nick laughed.
“So in the veedeo the photographer was asking you about Lou Pearlman,” the deejay said, “And do you speak of Lou Pearlman in this documentaire?”
Nick looked at me.
“Yeah,” I replied, “A bit.”
The deejay said, “See, not so hard, answering the question about Monsieur Pearlman, oui?” He looked at Nick, “We can get through this without a fist fight.”
Nick leaned back in the seat he was in and I had a feeling that he’d have given anything at that moment to be off the clock.
Nick
“Do you fuckin’ see what they do?” I grumbled when the door closed on the car, “Do you see? They find something that they know triggers me, obviously, then they fuckin’ ask it every five seconds. It’s like that guy wanted me to haul off and kick his fuckin’ ass. Little French bastard.”
Brian sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Fuckin’ baiting me.”
“He wasn’t baiting you. They found a topic that is of interest and now it’s in demand just because of your reaction. They wanna know why you reacted like you did, that’s all.” Brian closed his eyes, resting against the window of the car.
“I told you why. They were harassing me and Lauren and I was sick of it. I told’em to go fuck off and they didn’t listen.” I ran my hands over my knees. Brian didn’t say anything in response, just sat there breathing. I stared out the window.
Back at the hotel, we ordered lunch and Brian went over our itinerary for the next couple days. We had a couple TV shows to do, then we were off to Germany, where we had three stops, nine interviews, and a flight to Amsterdam for more of the same, then London and Dublin the following week before heading home. I laid down on the bed while he read all this and played Trivia Crack on my phone.
“What kind of continent is Antarctica considered?” I asked, looking up from my phone.
“What?”
“What kind of continent is Antarctica considered?” I asked again, “An ice cap, a polar shard, a… yeah I can’t pronounce that… or is it not a continent?”
Brian gave me a funny look, “An ice cap, I guess.”
I pressed the button. He was right. He’s always right. The next question was easy, it was about golf. I liked the sports questions.
I didn’t even notice what he was doing until I heard the Skype ringing sound. I looked over at his bed. He’d pulled his laptop out and was sitting on the bed cross-legged, calling Leighanne. I turned back to my phone, kind of hoping she wouldn’t answer just because I didn’t much feel like hearing the sound of her voice.
“Husband!” she crooned.
I closed my eyes and counted to three. I got the question wrong on my game and the turn defaulted to my opponent. I sighed and clicked out of Trivia Crack and started scrolling around in my phone.
“Hey Leigh-Leigh,” Brian said, grinning down at the computer. “How’s Bay?”
“Great! He had a great practice today. How’s Paris?”
I rolled onto my back, letting my ears sink into the pillows, hoping that might muffle their conversation.
“Good so far. We got here a few hours ago, took a nap, went and did our first interview.”
“How’s Nick?” Leighanne asked.
Brian held up his computer and turned so I was in the background of the shot. “There he is!” Brian’s voice was chirpy and cheerful as hell. “Nick, say hi to Leighanne,” he grinned.
“Hi,” I replied flatly.
“Hi Nick!” she sing-songed.
I waved absently, never looking up from my phone.
“You boys staying out of trouble?” she asked with a chuckle.
“Of course!” Brian laughed.
“Yeah,” I called out, “We’re waiting to let the hookers out of the bathroom ‘til after y’all hang up.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence followed by an uncomfortable, nervous chuckle from Brian, “He’s kidding, of course.”
“Yeah, I am,” I nodded, still staring at my phone, “You can’t fit that many bitches in a bathroom. They ain’t like clowns in a Volkswagon.”
Brian took a deep breath and settled himself back down, effectively taking me out of the frame of his call. I smirked to myself, amused by his discomfort. I was partly surprised Brian hadn’t carried the damn computer in there just to show her. Like Leighanne would ever actually think there were friggin’ hookers in the bathroom. If she did then she needed to get a damn reality check and learn how to take a joke.
Lauren would’ve laughed her ass off at that joke, I was willing to bet.
For the hell of it, I closed out of the game I’d pulled up and went to my text messages to tell her. Would you think a joke about hookers in the bathroom is funny? I asked.
She took a second to respond.
What’s the punch line?
Brian’s on Skype and I told Leighanne there were hookers in the bathroom. After a pause, I added, I think she kinda believed me for a second.
Lauren’s response was exactly as I expected: LMAO!
Brian
Later that night, Nick was flipping through the channels on the TV, trying to find anything in English, which in France is like trying to find something in French on TV in the States, and finally settled on some sports channel that was replaying a soccer game. He muted it and watched it in silence while eating.
Meanwhile, I was laying on the floor on the opposite side of the bed, stretching, about to do my vocal therapy exercises. I stretched my neck to one side, then the other and from my knees stretched down ‘til my face was on the floor, letting out a very guttural hum as I did so, warming my vocal chords. I sat back up and leaned as far back as my spine would allow me, feeling the stretching of my vertebrae from the small of my back all the way into my neck. I took a deep breath and continued humming.
Nick was staring at me over the bed.
I went back down into the first position, my nose to the floor almost, braced on my elbows to keep from actually face-planting, and started singing scales in my lowest register.
“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Nick asked, “Yoga? Jesus.”
“This is part of my therapy for my vocals,” I sang in a monotone of the same register, still warming that part of my lower voice.
Nick continued watching as I sat back up and opened my jaw as wide as it could, closed it, opened it, closed it, then started wagging my tongue,la la la la-ing, each time I opened it.
I felt weird doing it with an audience. Leighanne had done the exercises with me at home, not that she needed it but it felt better if someone was going to be in the room that they did it with me, not just staring at me. I closed my eyes, trying to block out his gaze. If it wasn’t so important that I do it every night, I would’ve skipped it until I got home just to avoid this awkwardness. But that wasn’t an option.
Part of me wished that he had succeeded in talking Jen into the separate rooms after all.
“How the fuck is this helping your vocals?” he asked, “All you’re doing is gurgling and flailing around.”
“It helps awaken the nerve endings,” I explained. I rubbed my neck and bobbed my Adam’s apple up and down, humming.
“It sounds like a friggin’ ritual to awaken the dead,” he replied.
“Aarrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” I stretched my neck out as far as it would go, letting sound come out as I did.
“Jesus,” Nick shook his head, “How much money do you pay the therapist that told you to do that? You sound like a fuckin’ llama.”
I stopped. “Will you please not make fun of this? It’s hard enough doing it without you comparing me to barnyard animals.” I glowered at him. “It’s the only thing I can do to try to help it, okay? Sorry if it’s bothering you or whatever.”
Nick rolled his eyes and stood up, “I’m gonna go for a walk. You do your therapy. I’ll be back.” He turned off the soccer game and grabbed his jacket as he went for the door, leaving me laying on the floor, alone.
There's Us by Pengi
