Young and Stupid…again.
I would have to say, considering all the recent crap that has happened we were still probably in the best place we have been in years. I’m sure I’m speaking too soon and everyone does tend to think that I always look at things through rose colored glasses, but to me I was just happy that we were all back doing what made us happy again. Scandals come and go but eventually like everything else it’ll die down.
That was my thought as we headed to the backyard and into the murky green pool? “Oh my God AJ, that is about the most disgusting pool I have ever seen! Don’t you guys ever clean this thing out or hire a pool boy or something?”
AJ looked at me as if I had just said the stupidest thing ever. As if all pools should be swamp like and I had to have my head examined.
“Dude, it’s the track lighting inside the pool that gives it that color.”
“Track lighting?”
“Yeah…can’t you see that?” I walked closer to the edge of the pool and bent down and sure enough, there were green little lights under the water. It’s not like what I had thought was all that out of character for those two though but still I conceded.
“Sorry…I just panicked for a second.”
“Dude I know we’re bad….but not that bad.” He said as he sat on the side and placed his feet in the water. “It’s cold as hell!”
“Shouldn’t it be hot as hell?”
“Huh?”
“Hell is hot not cold; you said it’s cold as hell.”
“Howie are you on crack or something? Taking any meds I should be aware of?”
“How is it that I’m the one on crack when you are being a walking oxymoron?”
“I know what you are but what am I?”
“You have been living with Nicky too long.”
He laughed at me as he jumped into the water doing that tip toe ‘my balls are going to fall of because it’s so cold in here’ dance. “You should come
in…it’s great in here.”
“You’re such a liar!”
“Am not!”
“Your teeth are chattering…”
“Okay fine its cold as my aunt Tessie’s ass in here. You happy?”
I shook my head at him as he dove under the water. See, a normal person after complaining about the cold, might…I don’t know…come out of the water, but instead he dove underneath. These kids were not right in the head. Speaking of kids…
“What’s taking Nick so long to come out here? This was his idea and he’s nowhere to be found.” I said, making a casual observation while at the same time looking over to see if he had fallen out his window into the bushes.
Nope no sign of Nick in the bushes…we were safe, for now.
“I have no idea…did you check the bushes?” It’s sad that he said that too huh?
“Yup no sign of him there.”
“Why don’t you peak into his window then?”
“What? That’s creepy AJ!”
“Oh come on…”
“Besides I’m not that tall.”
“NICK!!!!” AJ screamed all of the sudden and so loudly all the dogs started barking.
“AJ! Good lord that was loud.”
“I had to be loud, otherwise he wouldn’t hear me!” He said splashing me.
“Ah! Stop it!”
“Come on D…come in the pool!”
“Why are you acting like a five year old? Whenever you are anywhere near water you act like a child, have you noticed that?” this was an observation I have made over the years when it came to the baldest member of our band. Yes I said baldest, because he is. When he goes into a pool he turns into a child.
At any minute I expect to turn around and see him wearing those floatie things. He has this routine of jumping into the water and then doing a hand stand and then proceeds to say “Look at this…and look at that…and let’s see who can hold their breath the longest...” it’s really quite comical actually.
“Hey D…watch this!” See?
I shook my head at him as he dove under the water and out came his feet. I couldn’t help but smile at him though. He came back up and wiped his nose and shook his head hitting his ear, “Damn, I have water in my ear now! I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“Yeah, you’re a real old man.”
“You might as well come in since you’re already wet.” He winked at me and started doggie paddling to the other side of the pool.
“Yeah, but then I’d have to drive home in wet clothes and get my leather seats all messed up.”
“I can loan you clothes or we could even wash yours. I’m sure between the three of us, we can figure out how to use the washing machine.”
“I know how to wash my clothes J.”
“Jump in the pool…jump in the pool…jump in the pool…” He started chanting as he pat at the water with his palms.
“Oh all right…Jesus Mary and Joseph just stop the chanting.” I scooted my bottom off the side and into the cold as ‘hell’ water.
He applauded my efforts and then once again splashed me. I took that as an invitation to throw his tiny ass across the pool and was just about to when I swear to God I thought I saw Batman.
I looked out the window as I finished my beer, suddenly not in the mood to go swimming anymore. I kind of just wanted to be by myself. I know I’m bipolar…but I’m entitled to change my mind. Hearing the sound of splashing made me sigh. Now that AJ was in the water I would have to go in otherwise I’d never hear the end of him bitching about it.
I sometimes wish I had a place of my own. I’ve been thinking about moving out but then again I love having the company. I’m so all over the place with everything. God, when am I going to grow up already?
I threw my empty beer can into the garbage, hearing Kevin screaming at me for not recycling in my head. God, if he knew how many aluminum cans I just threw away he’d pummel me or I don’t know…like make me go hug an acre of trees or something.
When I stood up to put my bathing suit on I peeked out the window once more. They seemed to be having a normal conversation but I couldn’t make out what was being said. I bet they were talking about me though. I’m a hot topic it seems.
I wish I was able to get control of my emotions. Once second I felt fine and even…good, then the next I wanted to hang myself. It scared me sometimes, how ferocious my mood swings seemed to be.
“One more…” I walked over to my fridge and grabbed another beer. The guys were busy outside having a good time, it’s not like they were even noticing I wasn’t there. Besides, I didn’t want to drink in front of AJ and I was a little embarrassed I was drinking now. I knew it was wrong but I needed to do something to calm myself down.
When I got like this especially, I just had no idea how to make myself feel better. Usually I’d go out and hang with my Florida Boys but considering the circumstances the last thing I wanted to do was go out in public besides, none of my boys were around anyway.
If I could just stay inside forever I’d be one happy camper, well not really but you know what I mean. How could you know what I mean when I don’t even know what I mean? Anyway…now to pull up my pants and make my way outside. I let out a burp as I finally finished up my beer and left my room.
Instead of heading out towards the back door, I decided to climb to the upper floor. This was our junk floor. We seriously had nothing up here except junk. Piles and piles of boxes and other things we would never use. It was a nice little attic, not creepy at all. I always wanted to live in a house with an uber-creepy attic, one of those that you could swear there were ghosts or monsters living in there.
I’m not sure why I came up here, maybe I was looking for something. I walked over to one of the boxes that had my name on it in permanent marker followed by the words ‘random shit’ and opened it up. There were a ton of photo albums and fan letters and random gifts from people so yeah…it was indeed random shit.
I lifted up one of the photo albums and leafed through it. I smiled when I saw all of us when we were so young and just starting out as the Backstreet Boys. Why I even had this stuff was kind of funny to me. I usually just left stuff like this with my family.
That thought made me sad again.
When I went to get my stuff from my father’s house, he was nice enough to store it in his garage for me, he made it kind of clear that there was no room for my crap in his life anymore and even though he was only talking about my stuff, I think deep down inside he meant me in general. I felt like a guest for the first time in my life and I remember walking out of there feeling like an orphan even though I had just held my brand new baby brother in my arms. He had his new life and didn’t need the stress of the old one any longer. He actually muttered those words to me when he showed me his brand new car.
Of course the understanding son I was just nodded, but the little boy in me, the one that needed and missed his father wanted to say something like, “well if it wasn’t for your old life you wouldn’t be showing me a brand new car that my money bought for you in the first place.”
Aaron and Angel were living with them and I was happy about that. It was better that they stayed with him than my mother who was a complete disaster. At least this way, they had the illusion of a happy life and even more importantly, they had each other.
“NICK!!!!” I heard my name and my heart almost went into my throat. AJ sounded like he was set on fire so of course that had me go and look out the window once more. My view was blocked though because of the roof. Well if he was being murdered, he would have screamed my name more than once so I looked down at the pictures I was holding in my hands once again.
As if to further add salt into my already gaping wounds there was a picture of my mother and I staring back up at me. I was actually sitting on her lap; a grown teenage boy sitting on his mother’s lap. What the hell was wrong with me back then?
We looked all happy and smiling but I remembered having a huge fight with her that day. It was when we appeared on TRL and it was one of worst fights ever. Funny but I think it was then that I realized for the first time that our family was going to eventually disintegrate into nothing. I wish I was wrong.
I decided since these pictures were doing nothing to lighten my mood that I would dump them back into the box and forget about them. Oh if real life were that easy huh? That’s when I got the incredible idea to go sit out on the roof.
When I was a kid, we liked to do that, sit out on the roof of our small rented house and gaze up at the stars. I walked over and unlocked the window; luckily Brian hadn’t gotten to the ones up here yet. I’m sure that’ll change after tonight though. I climbed out of the window and almost lost my footing immediately. That would not have been cool. Luckily I was quickly able to grab onto the window ledge and settle myself down on my ass without falling to my death…good times.
Now I was able to get a much better view of the guys from where I was sitting and I couldn’t help but smile when I saw Howie in the water. I knew he would give in to AJ and end up going into the pool. He was such a push over Howie was.
I saw him look up my way and point. Oops, I guess my cover has been blown and did he just call me Batman?
“Nick is that you?” He yelled up at me. Like who the hell else is it going to be exactly? I mean if it wasn’t me, why would he ask so calmly. “No Howie, I’m a mass murderer. I just hacked Nick to bits and thought I’d come and sit on his roof for awhile. Hope you don’t mind!”
“What did you say? I can’t hear you!”
Okay then…
“Nick why are you on the damn roof?”
“It’s pretty up here!” I made sure to scream so this way they could hear me.
“Well get down before you break your neck!” Was that AJ or my momma? Wow, I think I may be a little tipsy. Hehehe
That’s when I figured I’d go for it. I stood up and made my way over to the edge. It was a little high but not that high. We for the most part lived in a ranch home so we were only talking maybe about 16 feet up or so, if even? Although what the hell do I know about feet and inches? I friggin’ sucked ass at math. All I knew was, it was my moment and I was going to take it.
So before they could even protest, I held my breath and jumped off of the roof and into the pool.
“Is someone sitting on the roof?” I looked up when Howie asked that incredibly random and yet very disturbing question. He asked it so calmly too. As if I always have random roof people.
He was right though, there was someone sitting on the roof. “Nick is that you?” He yelled up.
There was much babbling from above, neither of us could make out what he was saying but it was definitely Nick. That thought made me calm down. I know, Nick is on the roof…Nick has been troubled…I get it. But it’s still much better than saying ‘ermm there’s a random crazy dude on my roof, now what?’ Besides I know Nick and he wasn’t out there to kill himself or anything.
I yelled at him to get down before he broke his neck. The kid is accident prone to begin with and that’s when he fucking jumped off of the goddamned roof!
Before either Howie or I could scream at him he landed in the water with such a huge splash I thought I was going to be flung out of the pool. I swear to God if he didn’t drown, I was going to kill him.
He came up from the water and laughed. “Hey guys!” He said as he wiped at his eyes, “It is cold as shit in here.”
“Way to make a grand entrance Nicky.” Howie said calmly. I swear the guy was a cucumber or one of those walking Gel ads. You know Gellin’ like Magellan. That was Howie…he should be in their next commercial.
“Nick what the hell were you thinking? I mean what if you missed and hit your head on the concrete?”
“That would have sucked ass.” Despite my anger I laughed.
“Why were you up on the roof?”
He turned to Howie and shrugged, yes what a dumb question Howie. Why wouldn’t he be on the roof? Dur…
“I was just up there looking through things and thought it would be fun to jump.”
“Looking through things?” I asked him, kind of surprised that he even remembered how to get into the attic. That’s how often he went up there. He turned to me and smiled.
“Yeah, just some stuff and shit…so, why are you in here Howie?”
“He splashed me so I figured why the hell not. You feeling better?” Nick shrugged again as he back paddled away from us to grab onto the side of the pool.
“I’m glad I suggested this.” He said but I suddenly wasn’t. See, when he swam past me I got a whiff of alcohol. When the hell had he been drinking?
“Well, if it helps than I’m happy to.” Howie looked over at me. I think he smelled it too.
“I love you both very much.” He said it out of the blue, as he so often did. I wish I could get the women in my life to profess their love to me half as much as Carter did. I’d be set for life.
“Love you too buddy.” I smiled at him, yup he was definitely wasted. This alarmed me, for the first time when it came to him and drinking I became alarmed.
He moved close to give me a hug but I pulled away, “What’s wrong?” He asked. Did he really think I wouldn’t be able to tell he was drunk? I used to get so wasted the smell of alcohol would come out of my pores.
“You’re drunk buddy.”
“No I’m not AJ.” He got defensive, this was another sign.
I felt Howie’s eyes on me. I could tell he wasn’t happy I confronted Nick but I’m sorry. The guy jumped off a roof drunk. This is not a good thing. He jumped off a roof drunk and into water.
“You have been drinking Nick.” Suddenly I found myself furious at him. I really had no right to get mad about it. Maybe Kevin possessed me or something but the more I thought about what he had just done, the more I wanted to smack him.
“Relax AJ, it was just a beer.”
“You jumped off the fucking roof!”
Howie started making his way to the steps of the pool, as did I. “I wasn’t going to get hurt…relax.” I shook my head at him as I got out as well.
“Nicky let’s go back inside I’m cold.” Howie softly said, hoping to egg him out of the water.
“Leave him be Howie, if he wants to be an idiot and drown in the pool so be it!” I grabbed my towel and walked into the house.
I turned to look out the back door as Howie went and sat along the edge of the pool. Nick was talking to him now. Probably complaining about me but I didn’t care. Nothing pissed me off more than reckless behavior and that’s what was going on now. Again, I know of all people, I should talk, but maybe my past experiences gave me even more room to feel this way.
He definitely wasn’t going to like what was coming next, I thought to myself as I picked up the phone and dialed Kevin’s house.
