Here have some Jack Daniels it’ll make you feel better!
By the time Gary got back to the hotel, Nick was sleeping on the couch we sat on together. He had rested his head on my chest and finally closed his eyes to sleep. We were such good friends, it didn’t bother me, but to everyone else, especially strangers, I’m sure we looked like a pair of lovers.
Kevin had come back and sat on the floor of all places, staring at us both as if we were some kind of movie. Howie and AJ had reluctantly come out of hiding, but both looked surprisingly refreshed.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for saying this but this whole situation is less than believable.” Gary said as he paced frantically over to the bar and opened a bottle of Jack Daniels. The poor guy never drank a day in his life until he met us. At least that is what he always likes to declare.
“I mean, how in the hell have I never heard about this until now?” He poured himself a shot of liquor and gulped it down like water.
“We kept it under wraps, but it’s true…all of it.” Howie remained calm and told Kevin he was going to do the talking since he was sure that my cousin would eventually lose his temper.
Gary laughed under his breath as he poured himself another shot of Jack, “Under fucking wraps…nice.”
“Gary, we made the decision that nobody needed to know this. It happened so long ago, way before we were big enough for people to care. Bringing it all back would just hurt Nick and Brian.”
“I still don’t really believe that all of that crap happened.”
“Jive knows… ask them they’ll tell you.” My cousin said, disdain evident in his voice as he continued, “They agreed it was best to keep it quiet.”
Gary sighed and put his shot glass on the bar. “So what are we supposed to do now? Cancel everything?”
“Truthfully at this point, I think it’s the best idea, yes.”
AJ nodded in agreement, “Howie is right. I know we’d hate to disappoint the fans but I think with the accident and Nick being kind of…well…I think it’s a good idea.”
“Do you have any idea how much money you will lose if we cancel this gig? How many fans and sponsors you will aggravate? Does that mean nothing to you?”
I finally allowed myself to speak. Right before Gary came, the guys said it was best if I stayed quiet; I had enough to worry about. They didn’t even want me to stay in the room, saying it was best if Nick and I just hid in one of the bedrooms. It’s not that I didn’t agree with them, more like I didn’t want to be alone, and right now even with Nick with me, I would have been alone.
“Gary, the reason we agreed to come here in the first place is because we felt we owed it to our fans. We would never want to disappoint them. I don’t care about the money; it’s not even an issue. I care about the fact that for over 5 years now we have screwed over our Philadelphia fans. They deserve better than that. But that’s before all this happened.”
Gary nodded and made his way back towards us, I guess he finally felt liquored up enough to deal with our crap. “Right, I forgot about the next thing. You saw him?”
“I think so yes.”
“SO you think he… POOF! Just suddenly pops up at the hospital just as YOU happen to be there?” He was mocking me, putting his hands up in a David Copperfield way when he said the poof part.
“Nick saw him too.” I hadn’t said that right up until now.
“How do you know that? Did you get him to speak to you?” Kevin said, temporarily ignoring the fact that Gary was even in the room.
I nodded at him, “He said he saw him, that’s pretty much all he said, but yeah…I got him to speak.”
“That’s why…the hair?” One thing I noticed about AJ, when he was upset or scared about something he spoke in incomplete sentences, much the same way Nick tended to on a daily basis.
“Yeah.”
“That’s the other thing, what’s the deal with the hair?”
I looked over at Gary as everyone else stared at the sleeping form of Nick. He seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, but for all I know he was just pretending and listening to every word that we said.
“He went through hell…”
“You both did…you both went through hell.” Kevin was quick to correct.
“Okay yes we both went through hell.”
“He tortured you supposedly?”
“Not supposedly and no not really me, but he did torture Nick.”
I felt my arms tighten around my little brother in a very protective fashion. I hated talking about this, more than anything in the world.
“Did the guy rip his hair out or something?”
“I don’t think we should talk about this while he’s in the room.” Howie said motioning his head over towards Nick.
“It’s too late Howie, see we have a huge problem because in about an hour or so, I have to convince your sponsors, fans and your record company that there’s nothing wrong with you guys while at the same time trying to cover up the fact that he went a little wacky at the hospital and started pulling out his hair! Time for coddling is over.”
“No one knows about the hair.”
“Yes they do Howie. Didn’t Kevin tell you that part?” All eyes went to Kevin as he shook his head, looking ready to pounce on Gary for bringing it up.
There was more to the story.
“What happened Kev?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“Just, when I found him, I wasn’t alone. Of course I had some hospital workers with me. When we lured him out from under the gurney, he at first wouldn’t budge. He kept kicking at everyone who tried to get him out from under there, even me. It’s like he didn’t even recognize me or something. By the time we did manage to get him out of there. They all noticed his hair.”
“Jesus…” I heard AJ whisper under his breath.
“They wanted to keep him, I did tell you that. But they wanted to admit him to the psych ward.”
“Nicky…I’m so sorry.” I said hugging him tightly to me.
“So, you know it’s not like you guys are invisible. Everyone knows who you are now. Everyone loves you and admires you. Especially him…” He said pointing at Nick, “How would these 12 year old girls feel if they found out that their idol was nuts?”
“Take that back or I swear to God I’m going to fucking punch your lights out!” I surprised myself. I stood up in such a flurry that Nick snapped awake in a panic, but I didn’t care, in my rage, I just wanted to get up and strangle this guy. How DARE he say something like that?
Gary took a step back, surprised by my sudden attack.
“You have NO idea what he went through! No fucking idea so I swear to God if you don’t apologize for that remark right now I’m going to break you in half!”
Kevin stood next to me, holding my shoulder but not really holding me back. I think he would have been very happy with me beating the daylights out of our manager. All it took was his hand on my shoulder to calm me down though.
AJ and Howie ventured over to Nick who was now awake and rubbing his sleepy eyes with the palm of his hand as Gary stood there before me dumbfounded. I almost wanted to get the shot glass for him and pour him another round of Jack Daniels, as long as I got to break the damn bottle over his head when I was done.
“Okay…fine, I’m sorry. Maybe that was uncalled for but you guys better get used to it. All it takes is ONE hospital worker to call ONE tabloid and everyone will be saying the same thing.” I turned away from him and walked back over to Nick, who didn’t seem phased by anything that was going on. He was in his own world and that was terrifying me.
“So what is the plan?” Howie asked calmly standing up and letting me take my place next to Nick.
Gary sighed, “I’m not sure. Probably cancel and try to get a plane out of here tonight. Then I’m resigning, I can’t manage a group that’s not honest with me.” Can’t say I was unhappy to hear that. I’m sure that would piss off the Firm but truthfully we were ready to leave them behind anyway.
“I feel like this is all my fault…sorry.” Nick whispered, catching us all by surprise.
“It’s nobody’s fault kiddo, how are you doing?”
Nick shook his head, looking like he regretted speaking in the first place, knowing that those questions would inevitably come. I hated them too, but I’ve said that enough that now you get the idea.
“I just want to sleep…” He said sounding ready to cry. Gary didn’t seem to care about how Nick was doing, rolling his eyes and venturing back to the bar for another shot of liquor. I so wanted to hurt that jackass!
“So then sleep Nicky, we’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.”
“I’m so sorry…” He said again this time allowing a tear to escape. “I keep ruining everything.”
“No worries.”
After drinking down some more alcohol, Gary grimaced as he walked towards the door, “Okay I’m going to go do some major damage control. If press or anyone else happens to call or anything don’t answer the phone. As soon as I book us a flight out of here I’ll let you know.”
“Gary…” Howie said standing up to walk our manager out the door, “I’m sorry about all of this, I know we aren’t making things easy for you.”
“It’ll all be over soon.” He said even trying to smile as he thankfully left the room.
“How can you apologize to that major asshole?” AJ asked as he walked over to the bar, wanting more than anything to pour himself a drink.
“The last thing we need is an angry ex manager on our hands don’t you think? I could care less about the idiot but he does have our future in his hands.”
“Well thank God we are finally leaving this place.” I said once again wrapping my arms around Nick, still worried about him. I’ll always worry about him. We all will.
“You told him everything?” Nick asked finally after a few moments of precious silence.
“Just as much as he needed to know.”
Nick nodded. “This will never go away, ever. Will it?”
“I hope so Nick…I really do.” We all looked at each other, worried and sad. The same looks we frequented so often back then, back when I had convinced myself we’d never have to relive any of this again.
“It stays with you.” My therapist had told me one day, on a day that I was just about ready to call myself cured. I had looked at her in disbelief. Thinking that maybe it was a ploy, a reason to get me to keep coming back to her.
“What do you mean?” I had asked, once again looking at her fish tank.
“The pain you feel, the paranoia, the sadness and the anger, it’ll never go away Brian. It’ll stay with you forever. Its how you handle it, how you manage to deal with it all that will end up helping you in the end.”
“And how do I do that exactly?” I had asked, by this time ready to just walk out of there and never look back. I had had it with therapy by that time. With people telling me how to feel better when all I wanted to do was forget about it all.
“By facing it head on. I know you want to stop therapy Brian, I know you told my secretary that this would be our last session, but I wish you’d stay.”
I remember walking over to the fish tank at that point and tapping it with my fingers. The fish scattered and left a cloud of dust in their wake. That’s how I had felt back then, not like the fish but like the cloud of dust.
I was so lost.
Just like Nick was now.
“Maybe we should alert the police?” Kevin said walking over to AJ and luring him away from the alcohol that I’m sure looked so promising to him. “Let them know you think you saw the guy at the hospital.”
“It won’t do any good. I wouldn’t be able to give them a description accurate enough and than they’ll ask me a thousand questions and make me feel like I’m crazy.” In reality I didn’t want to go to the police because I am pretty sure maybe I was crazy. Maybe it was all in my head, just like it was before. I mean the guy we met at the hospital was real and he gave me the creeps but who’s to say that he wasn’t just an innocent guy who was really looking for his mother?
As far as Nick? Maybe he did the same thing I did. Maybe he was looking at his demons from the past instead of seeing what was really in front of him.
“So you really think not telling the police is a smart choice?” My cousin asked me one final time.
“Yeah I do, besides that also means we’d have to stay here and I know I am ready to leave.”
Kevin nodded, “Okay then…that’s that.”
I looked over at Nick who was once again staring straight ahead; I wish I was able to see what he was seeing. But then again maybe I should be grateful that I wasn’t. I know sometimes when I stared at a wall or a floor for too long I’d see the word MINE written in blood plastered all over it.
I needed this to end; we both did before it killed us.
“That’s that.” I answered staring straight ahead myself, seeing the crazy man I did in the hospital, taunting me as he wrote the word MINE on the wall dipping the paintbrush into Nick’s wounds as he went.
Hey guys! Sorry for the delay. I'll probably be back next Saturday with another chapter unless I get inspired for Wednesday lol Thanks for reading!
