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It's all about the image

Nick

Mom saved just about everything from the early days. She has pictures of me and the guys and all of these old articles from magazines when we were just the new “Harmony group” that was playing in high schools and at dinner parties. That was what my life was all about in the beginning, singing on the drop of a dime and performing at all sorts of occasions. There was lots of hard work but also loads of fun. Being in the music business for so long I’ve discovered that there are often two kinds of situations; either thing’s are moving really slow and all you do is wait and wait. The people that know me know my personality knows that I have always had a hard time dealing with that kind of stuff. The other situation that’s been eating’ me is when thing’s are going too fast. So fast that you have a hard time gripping the situation. There are times when you can compare it to going on a very fast roller coaster ride where you wanna step down since the high speed is making you both dizzy and nauseous. You think that you’re going to die, at the same as there is that high feeling in your body that you don’t want to be without. The whole industry is very contradicting and it’s no wonder that you can get a little crazy living in it for too long.

Sometimes I wonder what the worst is; Doing nothing or doing everything?

Looking at the pictures of me and the guys goofing around a thought crosses my mind. I have no idea how I would have coped being in this business if it wasn’t for my friends helping me along. The guys were always by my side, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, almost like an old married couple. Or even better a family. They were the ones that helped me get through the situations when I was either so bored or hyper that all the energy I had left inside me just wanted to pop out, not caring about the consequences. And then they were also the ones that stuck by me when I was so tired that I had trouble holding my eyes open and there were so many thing’s that I had to do that confusion and stress became like a trademark for me.

Without them I seriously wonder if I would had survived.

What has really stressed me out at times is living the life when everything can be surreal yet so normal at other occasions. It’s hard to explain but sometimes it feels like I’ve been living in between two worlds and it has not always been easy to do so. Another thing that had me on the verge of loosing it many times was the squeaky clean image that our management wanted us to present. I was no poster boy and having to lie to my fans is not something I’ve liked, even though I’m far from the bad boy image that the gossip magazines wants to present about me. Mainly I’m just an ordinary guy with a different kind of work that likes to hang out with others but also needs some time to myself, time to be alone.

When I look up the word image I found that it means; a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface. And that is what it was…an image on the surface, sometimes very far away from reality except for in the beginning when everything was real… maybe too real.

*****************************************Flashback**********************************************************

Another fully booked weekend. Another formal dinner party where we were the main attraction. This Friday evening we were performing at some award show for people that were into science and they were holding such long speeches that it felt like an eternity.

Miserable I tugged at my tie, feeling like it would strangle me if I didn’t get some relief soon. The fact that we were all dressed up in suits, looking like a bunch of old folk's didn’t help the situation either. On top of everything the day had been packed already and we’d preformed at two high schools and also done rehearsal outside in the sweltering heat.

To kill some time the rest of the guys were playing cards, Poker, while me and AJ was talking about school and other thing that was on our mind. My grades were dropping fast and one of my teachers had called home to discuss about my school situation. Both mom and dad got a bit mad when they found out that I hadn’t been doing my homework like I was supposed to do. But then what do they expect out of me? I’m only fourteen and performing every week Thursday to Sunday and then having school Monday to Wednesday and rehearsal every day. It’s no wonder that these things have a tendency to take the edge out of you. It’s bound to happen that something’s has to be a leg behind and in my case its school.

Tonight thing’s were moving too slow for my liking and it didn’t help that it was so hot in the room that it felt like it was several hundred degrees inside. My suit itched as did the white shirt and all of us were tired and to say that we weren’t miserable would be an understatement.

“What’s taking them so long” I glanced down the hallway at the big formal dinner banquet. “Can’t they call us up so we can do our show and then we can all go home?” I knew I sounded whiny but would you blame me since we’ve been waiting close to two hours to do our act so we could go home for that day. Or in my case wait for mom or dad to pick me up and drive the long way back to Ruskin. With my luck it would be nearly dawn before I could hit my head on my pillow.

Alex looked at me, shaking his head. “No Kaos you know that we can’t do that. This is something Lou has booked us up for. I know it sucks but let’s at least be happy that this time we’re actually getting paid.”

That last comment perked me up a bit. We were getting paid? This time we didn’t have to perform for free? That was an improvement. Lou and Johnny had told us that we had to take every gig that we could get, whether we were getting paid or not. This was the way to get into the business and we needed that ride. I also knew that I should be grateful that someone actually wanted to come and listen to us, even if we got more and more known for being a harmony group. The outlook of actually earning some money this time, I was broke as always, improved my mood a little. Maybe now I got the chance to buy the latest version of Mario since I was starting to get sick and tired of always having to play that game “Kid Nicky”.

Suddenly I felt a tap on my head.

Looking up I found Alex waving his hand in front of my eyes, trying to get my attention. “Hello Kaos? You’re listening?”

“Huh?” I hate it when he does like that. Acts like I’m some kind of moron..

“You haven’t heard a word that I said, have you?” He acts annoyed.

“Yes I have.” I defended myself.

“Yeah sure.” He shook his head like he didn’t believe me. “Dude you were spacing out so bad. That I saw that with my own eyes.”

“I was not.” If there are one thing I hate it’s when people tell me that I’m spacing out. And even if I was, I don’t think it’s my fault that I have a short attention span. Blame it on my mom instead, since she was the one give birth to me or even better blame it on the guys that keeps bringing up so boring subjects that I’m not interested in at all.

“Yes you do. You always do that.” I open my mouth to object when he cut me short. “Ok if what you say is the truth then what do you think of my idea?” He was trying me out. Testing me.

Busted! “Huh?”

“See I knew that you weren’t listening.” His tone held a hint of victory.

I felt annoyed. There wasn’t any need for another Kevin in this group but hopefully Alex’s irritation was because of the heat and the waiting which was starting to affect us all. “So I wasn’t listening. Big deal.” I snorted. “I have other things on my mind you know.”

Alex grinned like that cat Garfield. “I knew you would fess up. You were not listening. You always space out dude and I knew it!”

Ok rub it in will ya’! My friend, all of the guys, have made a sport out of teasing me and sometimes I wonder who is the oldest. Them or me?

“What idea?” I was doing my best to act like I didn’t care yet I was curious what was on his mind. I also hoped that he wasn’t becoming irritated with me since I didn’t like it when people were hostile. It made me feel insecure.

“I asked what you thought about my new artist name.” His brown peered down on me, testing me.

“Artist name?” I looked at him strangely. Why would anybody wanna change their name? Ok if it was something old and ugly I would understand, but to me Alexander was perfectly fine.”

“Yeah you know Kaos. An artist name, to change your image and stuff.”

“Image?” I knew I was being blonde but remember it was hot in the room, I was tired and having this kind of conversation bored me out.

“God Nick are you stupid or what?” He snarled at me. “Yes image. You know to be someone else.”

“Why do you wanna be someone else?” All this talk was confusing me. “You don’t like it who you are?”

“Yes!” Alex shook his head in disgust. “I was just thinking that wouldn’t it be cool if we changed our names?”

“To what? James?” That was Alexander’s middle name and this whole conversation surprised me. Especially that he was discussing something like this with me. The kid who he often said was too dumb to understand anything.

“No dumbass.” Now he was getting irritated for real. “Not James. I thought about changing it to AJ!”

“AJ?” I did my best to see if he was pulling my leg but when I saw he was serious I couldn’t help to start giggling.” That sure sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” He glared at me. “Artists do that all the time. To get better image. It’s short for both Alexander and James and I like it.” He said the words out loud. “Ajee…. AJ McLean, yeah that sounds cool.”

I stared at him. “Yeah but they are big artists. We’re just a harmony group.” “Besides what’s wrong with the name you got? What’s wrong with Alex? I think AJ sounds stupid” I giggled, unsure how he would react.

“You’re the one that’s stupid.” I could tell he was hurt. “It’s lame and I don’t care what you think dipshit, besides I’m keeping it and both Johnny and the rest of the guys think it’s cool. Besides I think that the girls will go for it.” He looked at me like I was something the cat had dragged in and then left the table muttering, “Dumbass.”

Me, I shook my head, still not understanding why someone would want to change their own image. I mean you are who you are and that is the end to it. I’m Nick and I’m proud of it.

********************************Nick************************************************************************

I just had to laugh at that memory. It was both funny but also a bit sad since that was the first step for Alexander to turn into AJ. The hard cooked street smart person that always had a remark on his tongue. The one that the girls would do anything to get hooked up with. I like AJ but I like Alexander even better, which very few of us know. But maybe that is how it is. The image you see while the real person hides in the back?

Ok that was deep. Deep even for me.

I move on in my scrap book, so many memories popping up in my head and little did I know that this was only the beginning of my journey to success and hard work.

**********************Flashback****************************************************************************

It was in the middle of July. It was hot and I was freezing.

The reason for my discomfort this time was called Strep throat. I’ve been told that it’s a singer’s infection and you can get it when you haven’t taken care of your health and been stressed out like I’ve been for these past months. The schedule had been hectic and even if it was summer vacation I still kept working my butt off. Today I was at home, in bed, watching TV and trying to eat the chicken soup that mom had brought for me. It didn’t do much since it left me with a nauseous feeling in my stomach. In other words I was miserable.

We were supposed to record our first commercial. It was for Bealls, a clothing company here in Florida and afterwards there were going to be a video shoot. Unfortunately I was too sick to do anything but just lie around and sleep. Mom had called Johnny yesterday to tell him that I had to back out of it and he had been good about it. After all I was running a temp of 102, could barely speak and had a hard time swallowing anything, including liquid, so I guess that they didn’t want me on the set anyways since I could infect the rest of the guys. Howie had been sick the previous weeks so he was probably the one that infected me with this. Deep inside my fevered mind I planned a revenge for when I had the strength to kick his butt. But that was another story.

The whole day had been nothing but a blur and my head felt so mushy and I couldn’t even think a thought straight. When Aaron had come into the room intended to be company for me I had kicked him out. Not a great thing to do since it was his room too but the headache I experienced made my head feel like it would explode from any kind of noise.

I have no idea how long I slept but I most have dosed off when a loud and shrill signal cut through my head. Groaning I grabbed for my pillow and putting it over my head I hoped to block out the noise. As in fog I heard mom talking to someone downstairs and her voice was firm and hard.

“No I can’t allow that. He is sick and in no shape to do such thing!”

In my fevered mind I wondered who she was talking to. Her tone was so determined that it had to be someone important. From the distance I could hear her tell the person on the other line that I had a high fever and that it would hurt my throat if I was to record any song. That last sentence had me open my eyes.

Record a song? It had to be the guys that were calling or the management. I got the answer to my questions when mom’s next word was; “No Johnny! He is too ill. He can barely speak and I don’t like the way his temperature keeps getting higher. “She was silent for a while, “I know that it’s important but I can’t do that. He is my baby.”

Those last words had me smiling. Mom and dad always stuck up for me when there were something important and I could always trust their judgement. The more my mom talked to more curious I got what the conversation was all about. With that on my mind, my dizzy mind, I sat up in bed only to regret it seconds later. The whole world started spinning and I felt like I was riding one giant roller coaster ride that wouldn’t stop.

“Crap!” I closed my eyes. I had never liked roller coasters and the way my world was turning upside down made me feel nauseous. After waiting a few seconds I opened my eyes again only to notice that I wasn’t quite as dizzy and with that I slowly walked downstairs, barefoot, clad in only my boxers and a white t-shirt. Mom was standing in the hallway talking in the phone and as I made my steps on shaky legs she spotted me and waved me instantly to go back upstairs again. I pretended to not notice and instead planted my butt on the staircase, intended to listen to her conversation.

With a sigh she turned back to whoever she was talking too and this time she was soon involved in another heated argument. “NO! I can’t do that. This time you have to manage without him. He's too sick and it would only make him feel even worse.” Mom looked ready to throw the phone down Johnny’s ear and I have rarely seen her that upset from a simple phone call, at least not when it was something concerning me and my well being.

There was a brief pause when she mouthed for me to go to bed, but being the stubborn person that I am I simply refused. I had to know where this conversation would go and what Johnny and Lou would do when she would refuses sending me down the studio. I was so grateful for her backing up me since I felt way too sick to do any singing, much less dancing.

Someone else came on the other line and whoever it was made her change her tone a little then she asked the person to wait a moment and holding her hand on the mic she said sternly to me, “Nick go back to bed.”

I shook my head, only to regret it seconds later when the dizziness hit me again. Closing my eyes I tried to find my bearings and when I was feeling a bit better I looked up again, only to notice that mom was talking on the phone again, paying no attention to me or my health. Shivering I felt my temperature rising and at that moment I decided that maybe bed wasn’t such a bad idea after all. I was about to go back upstairs when Bobbie Jean, my sister, strutted down the stairs.

“Nick what you’re doing up? I thought you were sick.” BJ eyed me. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks sis. Thanks for the compliment. You look like hell too.” I was being sarcastic.

Mom shot me an eye since I was talking bad language. She never liked it when I swore and there were situations when she had blamed the guys, my friends, for me using bad language. In her eyes especially AJ was a bad cookie. Taking no notice for mom’s sharp eye I told BJ, who was actually showing some real concern for me, “I’ll go to bed as soon as mom stops talking with Johnny.”

“What do they want? Don’t they know that you’re out sick today?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “But they want me to go down there today.”

“They do? To the studio?” She looked at me in surprise.

“Mmmm.” I nodded. “But mom is taking care of it so I don’t have to.” Catching my sister’s frown I added quickly, “I’ll be all right.”

“You sure?”

“Mmm.” I hushed her down; whispering that I wanted her to be quiet so I could listen to what mom had to say. To my relief she didn’t object and instead left me to go and grab something to eat.

Suddenly I took notice that the firm and hard tone my mom had earlier on was replaced with a softer more forgiving one and whoever she was talking to made her act both small and strange. The change was weird and even if the fever was probably doing a number on my brain I still had to know what that person has said to make my mom change her act so drastically. It was almost as if she was getting her arm twisted. And it scared me.

She was laughing loudly and when I heard say Louie, I felt my heart freeze up. She was talking to Mr Pearlman, my boss and this time she didn’t act like she was sticking up for me anymore. Even before she hung up her phone I knew what the verdict would be. I had been into similar situations before and they had always ended up the same way; with me having to do what I was told to do.

Mom kept talking and talking and I was getting more tired than I thought was possible. I leaned my aching head against the wall and desperately wished that I this was over and I could get a few hours rest. She was now talking in a hushed voice and even if I was sitting close I had a hard time hearing what she said. She was whispering and that I’ve learned in the past was never a good thing. It meant that she didn’t want me to hear what she said and the way she acted made me think that she was a bit ashamed over the news she was going to tell me.

“Yes Lou I will tell him that…And yes I'll make sure that he will be on time. You said 2 pm this afternoon?”

I frowned. Now I was getting more and more worried and hoped, no prayed, that she didn’t mean what she said; that I would be in the studio by 2 pm this afternoon. In that moment I really hoped that she was lying to Mr Pearlman up in his face since the way I felt right now it was not an option for me to record any song, much less do a video shoot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the one that normally hides from work, but today I was feeling so lousy and my throat was croaking so bad that I didn’t think that any sound would come out of it at all.

Finally she hung up.

“Nicky,” she said, her tone gentle in that way it always is when she wants me to do something she know that I will refuse to do. “Nick that was Mr Pearlman and he really would like you to go down the studio this afternoon. They don’t want to leave you out of the commercial.”

My eyes shot open. “But I’m sick.”

“I know honey.” She sat down beside me. “I know that your throat is hurting and that you’re not feeling very well today but they say they need your beautiful voice and..”

This time I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Mom! I sound like a crow. I can’t sing.” To state my point I coughed so hard that I thought my eyeballs would fall out of my skull. “I don’t feel good at all.” My voice was really hoarse.

“Baby,” she ruffled my hair in that way that she always do when she’s trying to judge if I’m running a temperature or if I’m lying. A look of sympathy flashed through her eyes, but I could also spot the determination she had to change my mind. If someone had the willpower to move a mountain it was my mom.

I did my best to object but the more I talked the worse I felt and soon the energy was running out of me like an old used rag. She told me to listen to what she had to say and in a fevered haze I listened to her telling me about the conversation with Lou. They wanted me to go down the studio to Longwood and she had promised Lou that I would come. She went on telling me that if I refused I let the boys down and that could get nasty consequences for us as a group and that we had to take all offers that we could get. I also had obligations to attend to even if she and they knew I was not feeling well.

Sighing I couldn’t do any thing more than agree. Mom was right. Lou was right. I was in a group where you stick up for each other even when it felt that you had to sacrifice things. In my case it was my health. I just wished that she would see how bad I was feeling today. How much my head hurt and how sore my throat felt. How much I needed her comfort. Needed to curl up in bed like any other teen and sleep the day away.

Less than one hour later, I was dozing in our car on my way to the studio to record a song and to do the video shoot.

**************************************Nick******************************************************************

The flash back I got when I looked at that picture of me and the guys doing that commercial sent goose bumps on my arms. Even if I knew I must have felt bad it was nothing compare to the betrayal I felt towards my mother. She had left me out in the cold in a time when I had needed her most. When I had felt vulnerable and sick and when she was the one that should have been there sticking up for me. Being a mom.

Authors note: I’m sorry for the grammar mistakes but I’m not English and I did the self editing..So if anyone wants jump in a help me with the editing I would be so happy for it. Also thanks to Mare for sticking with it for so long. You rock girl! Thank you Bea for being there for me…you are the best !!! And as always Jenna you are my support in life and in this fanfiction world. Also please review what you think of the story and dont forget to check out the photos on my homepage! swenglish.