A young, black, female clerk was sitting off to one side with a typing type machine. Glancing around the room, Nick felt relieved when he saw the face of his attorney standing over at a table by the judge's bench.
The policeman guided Nick to the table where his attorney was at and pushed him down on his left shoulder to force him to sit.
"State of Florida versus Carter, docket number F-L 00-367592436," the judge rattled off the information based on the paper he held in front of him.
The attorney stood up and nodded at Nick to follow his lead. He leaned over and whispered in his ear to just remain quiet and let him speak for him.
Nick felt his stomach bunch up in knots. This was the worst feeling he had ever had in his life. Performing in front of 30,000 screaming girls was a piece of cake compared to what he was facing at this very moment.
"Mr. Carter, you have been informed of the charges against you?" The judge peered down at Nick over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses.
Nick's attorney spoke up. "Yes, your honor, he has."
"Is there anything you would like to say upon your behalf before I impose bail?"
"Yes, your honor. Nick Carter is a very well known celebrity. Based on his status in the entertaiment field and based on his good clean record, I plead that you take this into consideration and impose the lowest possible bail and to have Mr. Carter released on personal recognisance bond," the attorney spoke in a slow, calculated, precise manner.
"Thank you," the judge replied as he shuffled the papers on his desk. "Due to the severity of the charges against Mr. Carter, I feel it is my obligation to deny bail. The prisioner is to be remanded to jail until his trial is started. Trial date is set for Monday, September 11, 2000."
Nick felt as if a blow to his stomach had been delivered and knocked the air out of him. He stared at the wall, afraid to look at anyone or anything, fearing the tears that were stinging his eyes would spill over.
September 11th was over four months away. He couldn't possibly sit in jail for four months!
Nick was led from the court room to a smaller room off to the side. It was his attorney, a guard and himself in the room. The attorney pulled a pack of cigarettes out.
"Smoke?"
Nick shook his head no. He knew his hands were shaking, he pulled them down onto his lap. The guard immediately yelled for Nick to place his hands back up onto the table.
"Nick, I need you to tell me everything you know about what happened, from the beginning, okay?"
Taking a deep breath, Nick nodded.
"Kev? You around?" AJ poked his head into the bedroom where Brian had spent a majority of his time recovering.
Kevin poked his head out of the walk-in closet door. "Yeah, come on in."
AJ was carrying a white pharmacy bag. "I got those meds Brian's doctor ordered, plus something new for him."
Brian's eyes widened when he heard what AJ was describing.
"Got a snag in the situation there though, Nick was the only one that knew how to give these to Brian, unless you want to give it a go," AJ remarked, his low.
"Not me, I hate needles," Kevin replied, walking out with clothes, evidentally for Brian.
Brian was getting a little annoyed at how AJ and Kevin talked about him as if he weren't in the same room. Taking a deep breath in, Brian yelled, "NO!"
AJ whipped around and faced Brian, sitting propped up in the bed. "Whoa, a little attitude in the a.m."
"NO. NO. NO. NO-O-O-O-O-O!" Brian shouted as if his life depended on it.
Kevin frowned at his cousin's instance on something. "No what, Brian?"
Okay, this is where I always mess up, come on, Littrell, you gotta do this and let it be known, Brian coached himself.
He licked his lips, "No........m-medsss."
Oh my god, I did it! I did it! Brian thought, pleased with being able add another word to his vocabulary.
Kevin and AJ stared at Brian.
"No meds? Don't you want to get better, Brian?" Kevin was puzzled at Brian's reaction to medication.
Brian shook his head "yes." "NO MEDS," he shouted.
"Okay, so it's no meds for Brian. I'll put these up ontop of the fridge in case he changes his mind," AJ stated as he turned to leave the room.
As AJ was returning to the bedroom, the doorbell rang.
"I'll get it!" AJ called out.
A man dressed in a dark navy suit and a young woman stood on the porch. The man wasted no time in offering his hand out towards AJ.
"Preston Walker, Mr. Carter's attorney and this is Sara Fox, legal medical advisor."
AJ shook the man's hand and nodded slightly at the woman. "Um, yeah, come in." AJ stood back from the door, allow them to enter the house. "Um, Kevin, need you out here."
Kevin was in the middle of putting a shirt on Brian. "Could you hold on a minute, I'm a little busy here."
"Um, hurry!" AJ was feeling a bit nervous around legal people.
Exasperated, Kevin pulled the shirt over Brian's head quickly and rushed Brian's arms through the sleeves. "I'll be back in a minute, okay?"
Kevin walked out into the living room to find the man and woman standing next to AJ. "Yes?"
"Preston Walker, Mr. Carter's attorney," the man offered his hand to Kevin.
"Oh yeah, you called yesterday, I'm sorry," Kevin remarked as he shook the man's hand.
"Someone want to fill me in on this?" AJ asked, feeling excluded.
"Oh, sorry AJ. These people are going to investigate to get Nick off on the charges," Kevin replied.
"Ok, is Mr. Littrell here?" The attorney asked.
"Yeah, I was just finishing getting him dressed. He's laying in bed, give me a minute and I'll bring him out," Kevin stated, matter-of-factly.
"If he's decent, I would like to do some of the medical assesment with Mr. Littrell laying down, if that's okay?" The young woman asked Kevin.
"Sure, follow me."
Kevin led them into the bedroom where Brian lay. After the formalities were exchanged again, the legal medical accessor went about her chore of listening to Brian's heart, lungs, checking reflexes, feeling his stomach and neck. She took a few vials out of her bag and a syringe and latex gloves.
Brian's eyes widened when he saw the syringe.
"I'm sorry, I'm just going to draw some blood from you. We need to run some toxiology tests on you, to determine where you are and to see if your liver has been damaged from the mercury poisioning." She could tell that Brian was still ill at ease. "Relax, this is to help Nick, not to hurt him."
Those were the only words Brian needed to hear. He would do anything in the world for his friend, anything they asked of him.
"Brian's starting to talk more now too," Kevin remarked to the attorney and the medical accessor.
"Talk, how?" The woman asked, curious.
"AJ brought some medications back from the hospital pharmacy including a new drug that Dr. Johnson wanted Brian started up on and Brian said no meds," Kevin mentioned, innocently.
When he said new drug, both the attorney and the woman looked at each other.
"Do you still have the meds with you?" The woman asked.
"Yeah, I'll go get them," AJ replied.
The woman scribbled down information on a chart.
"Brian, can I ask you yes or no questions?" She looked up, waiting for Brian's response.
Brian slowly said the word, "Yes."
"Here, here's the meds," AJ handed the white paper sack to the woman.
Opening the bag she pulled out one vial of each of the three medications that had been prescribed for Brian. She looked the labels over and handed the bag to the attorney.
"Preston, I think we have a good case going," the woman replied with a slight smile.
At a long table in the jailhouse laundry room, Nick stood folding grey cotton towels. That was his "job" every day, for 5 hours he did nothing but stand in one spot and fold towels that got dumped on the table, hot from the large metal dryers in the room.
Sweat poured off his face and down his back, more than what he ever had performing a two hour show could do. The room was like a hot oven, the temperatures was always above 90 degrees. The worse part of the whole situation was that they were limited to only two showers a week, just two, one on Tuesday and one on Friday.
Nick missed that more than anything, showering before going to sleep. That is if he ever did sleep. He spent most of his night hours writing, drawing, crying anything but sleeping. He sometimes managed to catch an hour or two before the lights came on at 5:30 am and the whole monotonous day began again.
The trustee that Nick knew as Joe approached him. "Nick, you have to come with me, you have a visitor."
Nick stopped folding. His mind started racing with thoughts about who the visitor could be. He quietly followed Joe down the hall towards the first room before being allowed into the phone room.
Standing with his arms extended off to the sides, Nick waited patiently for the guard to do the body search before he could be allowed into the room. Once the guard was satisfied, he pressed the buzzer which allowed the adjoining room door to swing slowly open.
The guard standing next to the door told Nick he was to sit in booth number three. Nick walked up to the empty booth and sat down on the hard stool and waited.
Nick looked down at the dirty counter in front of him. He figured this was going to be another boring meeting with his attorney, telling him he was still working on getting him out, telling him he was still gathering more information.
This had been going on for almost three months and the attorney kept promising him that they were getting closer, but that was all he had been able to tell Nick, nothing more.
Nick could see from the reflection on the countertop that someone had finally taken a seat on the other side of the thick glass window. He slowly raised his head to acknowledge the visitor.
Looking back at Nick through the smudged glass, Kevin Richardson's mouth dropped open. Nick didn't look like the Nick that had left him three months ago. His eyes had dark circles under them, the once blonde hair was now a dark brown, down past his ears and greasy. He also looked like he had easily lost twenty pounds. He looked like his whole essence was beaten down. Like he was a shell of the person he used to be.
Nick blinked away the tears that stung his eyes. His jaw set, he tried desparately to control his emotions. He placed his hand on the glass, Kevin reciprocated the movement and placed his hand on the other side of the thick glass...the closest either could come to contact.
They both picked up the communication phones.
"How's Brian?" Nick asked quietly, he had to repeat the question, clearing his hoarse voice.
"Brian's doing better. He's talking now and the therapists are working with him to regain strength in his arms and legs," Kevin replied. "How are you?"
Nick sighed. He wanted to tell him that he was losing his will to live through this mess, but he smiled faintly. "I'm okay."
"Nick, they are going to get you out of this, you know that?" Kevin spoke, his voice thick with emotion.
"Yeah, I know you're trying," Nick replied.
They sat there for a few moments, just staring at one another. Nick didn't have anything to offer in conversation, there was nothing in his day to day exsistence that would give him anything to talk about.
Desperate for any sort of conversation, Kevin wracked his brain for something to tell Nick. The only things he could think of were things that Nick certainly didn't need to hear: a replacement being considered for Nick, the breakup of the group.
"AJ and Howie said hi," Kevin forced a smile.
Nick nodded his acknowledgement. "Tell them I said hi back."
The guard standing by the door announced to Nick that he had three minutes left.
"Nick, is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you?" Kevin spat out quickly, feeling the pressure of limited time.
Nick sadly shook his head. There were a million things he needed and wanted but the only real true thing Nick wanted was to know that Brian was okay. That was all he needed, not freedom, nothing, just to know that Brian was okay.
"Are you sure? Come on, there has to be something man," Kevin pleaded with Nick, he could tell by his face that he wasn't answering.
"Well, um, yeah there is," Nick started out, embarrassed.
Kevin leaned forward, anxious to find out and anxious to deliver.
"I'm out of soap and shampoo and it will take me another few months to build up the money to buy it, I get paid five cents a day and it cost more than what I have," Nick akwardly explained.
"Tell me what to do and I will do it," Kevin replied.
"Time to go, Carter," the guard gruffly announced.
"Bye Kev, tell Brian to get better," Nick said quickly and hung his phone up.
"Wait! Nick!" Kevin shouted out in vain. Nick was already gone, led away by the guard.
As he was being led away, Nick bit his lower lip, trying to fight off the tears that stung his eyes. He didn't want to leave Kevin, there were so many things he wanted to ask him, so many things he wanted to say.
Nick stood in the new room with his arms extended, waiting for the guard to finish his job of doing the body search on him before he could go back to the laundry room. Once the guard was finished, he stood and waited for the trustee to come back to escort him to the laundry room. The humiliation Nick felt was beyond words.
Kevin reluctantly left the vistors room. He was angry to think that he was allowed only ten minutes with Nick. It was unfair, Nick had been convicted and sentanced literally before he had even gone to trial. He could tell that Nick was scared of them, the way he acted when they told him it was time to go, that was not the rebellious Nick Kevin knew.
Kevin prayed that this whole nightmare would end soon. Nick's attorney promised that he was close to tying up the loose ends. Kevin couldn't see anything happening at all. All he could see that Nick was slowly slipping away from them, slowly blending into the prision system.
Stopping at the front desk on his way out, Kevin inquired about leaving money for Nick.
The clerk pulled out a file box and thumbed through the cards until she pulled one out that had Nick's last name and ID number stamped on it. "Inmates are only allowed ten dollars on the account," she stated with a business-like tone.
Kevin reluctantly laid a ten dollar bill on the desk. The woman wrote the amount on Nick's card and gave Kevin a yellow receipt.
"What do they use the money for?" Kevin asked.
"Oh, lots of things but mainly cigarettes, things like that. We keep records of all the inmates purchases," she looked Nick's card over while she was talking and turned it over reading the back. "He usually buys cigarettes, sodas and candy, typical things."
"Cigarettes? Nick doesn't smoke, why would he buy cigarettes?" Kevin questioned her.
"It gets boring in the cells, I'm sure there are worse habits to form," the woman replied as she stuffed Nick's card back in the filebox.
Instead of going back to the laundry room, Nick was diverted to the yard, it was time for their hour long break. He got so he looked forward to going outside, it was a temporary escape from the stale smelling jail.
The sun was bright and Nick managed to find a spot to sit along the gates, soaking up the sunshine. He looked up when he heard heavy footsteps approaching him. His heart sank when he saw Devon leering over him.
"So pretty boy, you got it yet?" the muscular black man asked impatiently.
Nick looked up at Devon, squinting to block out the glare of the sun. "Um, I think I'll be able to get it for you this afternoon, I had a visitor and I think he left me some money on my account, I dunno if he did or didn't," Nick replied.
"Better hope so bitch, I need my cigarettes and I hate to mess up that face of yours," Devon spat out, turning away.
Nick watched as Devon and his inner circle of friends banged each others closed fists. Nick had been using his account money to buy off Devon, making sure he was kept with his supply of cigarettes. He didn't want trouble and Devon was sure to give it to him if he didn't cooperate. Nick had already been on the receiving ends of Devon's hard hits to his stomach, he didn't need any more trouble from him.
