Just stuff….
“Nick that by far is the stupidest thing you have ever done dude!” AJ smiled as he said that.
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure he’s done far more stupid things.” Howie, now he’s always one to come to my defense….riiight.
“Uh yeah, like falling out a window answering his cell phone?” Brian, even you dawg? What is up today?
“Are you guys done making fun of me?” I had a headache and didn’t feel much like hearing all the ways the guys thought I was an idiot. There would be plenty of time for that after breakfast. I mean it was still early, by noon I’m sure I’d give them at least a dozen more reasons to call me a dumbass. Supposedly word got out that I set my boxers on fire. News travels fast, I wonder if I’ll read about it in a tabloid or something?
AJ came over and pat me on the leg, “Relax….we’re only playing. Jeez someone woke up on the cranky side of the bed.”
“Yeah with two naked girls on the other side of the bed! How much did they cost you?”
“Shut up Howie, you’re just jealous. You couldn’t get two girls in bed at the same time if you had peanut butter smeared all over your ass!”
“What the hell?” AJ said in a half laugh, like he could come up with something better than that.
“Oh my God, someone quick poke me in the eyes to get that image out of my head!”
“Ha ha! Very funny Brian…and kid just remember who the king of the one night stand was… before Leigh anyway.” Howie said with his confident wink. He is under some kind of delusion that he is a stud.
“Whatever…you all suck!” I decided it was best to maybe walk away from them all and drink my coffee in peace. Well actually until Kevin comes in and rips it out of my hands telling me caffeine is no good for me before touring. “Where is Kevin?” I asked just out of sheer curiosity. I would have been fine if he never surfaced today. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. In fact I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone.
“No idea, he’s not answering his phone. I left him a message.” Howie answered while stirring his tea.
“If that was me…”
“We know Nick…we know!”
“So, what’s on the agenda today? Please Lord, tell me no more interviews!” I took another chug of coffee followed by a Munchkin. We have gotten into the habit of buying a box of donut holes to have for breakfast. It was really AJ’s idea. Probably the only good one he’s ever had. He said there was no way Kevin could come up with why having a few Munchkins would damage us forever. He was right. Kevin never said a word about them. Of course we also made a habit of hiding the box and putting them in a brown paper bag. Yes, it’s gotten to the point that we are treating sweets as heroine and I guess if anyone knows how to hide that stuff it would be AJ. And no I didn’t say that to be mean, I’m only stating facts here. He has said so himself, many times.
Howie took a small sip of his tea and then made a face, more like a grimace really. I think it was his ‘this is too hot to drink’ face. “No interviews today…only a meeting and then we are off!”
“Hallelujah!” Brian and I said at the same time. Well I said it, he sung it. He sings everything; you’d think he was a singer or something.
“Maybe we can make this meeting an extra short one!” I said, looking at my watch. Not that I had anything to do or anywhere to be. When those girls left my room this morning, I was sure I had the entire day off. We all thought we did and then no, Johnny has to call and tell us differently. All I wanted was to go back to bed! Me likie my bed…me likie very much!
“We aren’t going to even have a meeting if Kevin doesn’t get his arse down here!”
“Did AJ just say arse?”
“Yes Brian, I just said arse.”
“That reminds me of zebras for some reason.”
“What? Why Howie?”
“I have no idea…I’m just saying.”
“You are so weird.” I shook my head at my little weird Latino friend.
“You know it’s bad when this one calls you weird.” AJ said pointing at me.
“Oh excuse me, like you are the poster child for normalcy?”
“Stop fighting kids!” Brian put his arms in a T shape, “Where is Johnny anyway? Don’t tell me he calls a meeting then doesn’t show up.”
“Maybe he went to go drag Kevin out of bed. Remember when he used to do that to me?”
Back when I was a kid, there were many days when we had meetings and I would much rather lie in bed and watch cartoons or play video games. Kevin would call me and I would say ‘just five more minutes…’ then of course Brian the entire time would keep trying to coax me out of bed with promises of a basketball game or a trip to the first arcade we saw. I used to believe that but quickly smartened up when time after time, he found ways of getting out of it. When neither of those things worked, they would call in the big guns. Back then the biggest gun was Johnny. He would come into my room and pull me by my legs right out of bed until I fell on the floor.
The guys got a huge kick out of it, but it used to bug me. I would scream “This is child abuse!” which would further escalate the giggling amongst my band members. You know what? They really all do suck!
Anyway, the point I’m getting at here is Johnny was mean as hell back then. I don’t think he liked me much when I was a kid. Maybe he just hated his job though, who knows?
“Yes I remember…this is child abuse!” Brian mimicked my voice, my before puberty one. He loves doing that.
“Well…it WAS!” I rolled my eyes at them all.
“He better get here soon, I have a lot of stuff to do before my bowl-a-thon tomorrow.” I definitely didn’t like the way Howie looked at me after he said that. He’s so going to ask me to come to his fundraiser and I SO do not feel like going. Of course our eyes locked right at that moment. Damn, now he’s really going to ask me.
“Maybe someone should try calling Kevin again. Nick, maybe you should, this way you can rub it in that he’s not down here yet.” AJ suggested.
“Uh…no thanks.”
“I say we give them about ten more minutes before we call this meeting adjourned.” I nodded at Brian and his brilliant idea. “I’m supposed to take Baylee to the zoo today.” I smiled at the way he said that. He sounded so excited. “AJ, are you doing anything today? You know you’re more than welcome to tag along.” He called across the room to J who was otherwise preoccupied staring at his fingernails.
“Don’t you just want to have a family day?” He finally answered, when I guess his fingers began to bore him.
“Eh…well you are family, aren’t you?”
I was trying to not let this conversation bother me, but it was, so much so that I found myself wanting to leave the room. Don’t get me wrong, if Brian invited me to the zoo I most likely would have said no, but I wasn’t even thought of in that way.
“I’m going out to get some air.” I said to them all, not that any of them really cared one way or the other.
As I walked out the door, I couldn’t help but think ‘that used to be me.’ I hated being jealous of AJ.
“What about you D? You and John want to come to the zoo?”
“No thanks, we’re going to be getting things sorted out for my event tomorrow.”
“Oh that’s right.”
“You guys should come bowling, it’ll be fun.” I made sure to look directly at AJ when I said that. Of course he looked down at the ground instantly.
“Yeah, maybe…” Brian answered.
“I’m going out to bug Nicky.” I said.
“Tell him he can come to the zoo too if he wants.” Brian was suddenly a zoo crazed lunatic, but that’s also when I realized Nicky’s abrupt exit had everything to do with just that.
“I’ll be sure to mention it.” I said as I walked out the door. Sometimes we acted like a bunch of twelve year olds.
When I got out there, Nicky was sitting hunched down next to the wall. He kind of looked funny, as if he was going to take a dump right there on the pavement. Thankfully he had his pants on otherwise I would have given him some privacy.
“Hey.” I said walking over and squatting down next to him. I’m sure we looked silly.
“Oh, hey D!”
“You okay? You seem kind of cranky today.”
“I had a bad night and I’m slightly hung-over.”
“Slightly?” I raised my eyebrow at him. Slightly was the understatement of the year. The boy was wasted last night, or so I hear.
“Okay very hung-over, there…you happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Great, glad to know I could help.”
“Brian said he wants you to go to the zoo with him.”
“Brian can kiss my ass!” He muttered this under his breath. Yup, twelve year olds.
“Do we have to smear peanut butter on it first?”
He laughed at that. “Shut up.” He playfully tried to push me over and he almost succeeded. It’s not easy to keep your balance when you’re hunched over you know.
“So, what kind of plans do you have for tomorrow?” I asked him as I finally decided to get out of the ridiculous position I was in and stood upright. I gave him my hand to help him up and he took it.
“Uh…I think I have stuff to do.”
“Like what?”
“Uh…I don’t remember…just stuff…kind of.”
“Stuff…kind of?”
“Yeah…you know…stuff.”
“Because I think everyone would be so excited if you were to show up to my event tomorrow.” He let out a sigh, he knew that was coming. “I mean, its bowling and it’ll be a lot of fun. We’ll have pizza and ice cream!”
He thought that was hilarious for some reason, “Wow pizza AND ice cream?”
“Yup, you can even make your own sundaes!” I figured I’d play into it for him. The kid was having a bad day.
“Wow, maybe I’ll have to think about it then.”
I nodded at him, “I’m going to try to get AJ to come as well.”
“If J comes then I will too!”
“Okay good…” I winked at him and placed my hand on his shoulder. “See you inside.” I added as I walked back into the building just as Brian walked out. We were the revolving door Backstreet Boys. In and out…in and out. Wow that made us sound gay. We’re not gay…I was just pretending to be a one of those revolving doors, you know what I mean?
When I got in there, Johnny had just arrived. He was holding a huge notebook which meant more appearances and or schedule changes. “We’re going to get started in about ten minutes or so.” He said to me as I walked past him and back into the room with all the food.
“Okay.” I answered as I glanced over at AJ. I really need to talk to him about the bowling thing, although I might need to be more persuasive besides mentioning ice cream.
You know if and when I die, okay well I guess it’s when I die and not if because if implies I plan on living forever and I know I’m not immortal. Although sometimes I wonder, especially with all the stupid stuff I have put my body through. Maybe I am immortal.
Nah…
So when I die, if by chance I happen to go to hell, this would be it right here, waiting for meetings. I HATE waiting for meetings. I don’t enjoy the actual meetings either but it’s the waiting that bugs me more than any friggin’ thing in the world! I could have slept for at least another hour. I could have danced around naked on my bed. I could have done just about anything I wanted to but NO, instead here I am sitting and waiting for a meeting to begin. Oh goodie and here comes Howie.
He sat next to me and smiled, “Hey J!”
“Hi.”
“Johnny said the meeting will be starting in ten minutes.”
“Oh, okay well it’s about time!” I knew he was going to ask me about his bowling thing, I could feel it.
“I was wondering if you weren’t too busy tomorrow if you’d like to come to bowl with us. Nicky said he’d come if you came.”
“He did?” Ugh Nick! Thanks for leaving it up to me!
“Yeah…so what do you say?”
“If Nick does it then I will too.”
“Excellent!”
“What do you think this meeting is about anyway?” I let out a sigh as I asked that. Howie just laughed at me because he already knows my hell theory when it comes to meetings. I do believe I say that every single time we have one of these.
“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s changing some things. He has his notebook with him.”
“Good God, not THE notebook.”
“Yes, the one and only.”
THE notebook was something we didn’t really enjoy seeing. Whenever Johnny pulled that thing out, it usually meant no more free time for us or more recently, Jive was doing something yet again to screw us over. Either way, the notebook was never a good sign.
“Great! And where the hell is Kevin? I am not waiting any longer for this meeting to start because he can’t get his own ass out of bed!”
“I’m sure he’s on the way.” Howie said that just as Johnny walked into the room with THE notebook.
“Where are Brian and Nick?” He asked as he threw the thing down on the table.
Suddenly I found myself standing up to get the hell out of that room, “I’ll go get them.” I volunteered which left Howie with a shocked look on his face.
When I walked out the door it dawned on me that Johnny didn’t mention Kevin at all. Maybe that meant the he was on his way down or something. What the hell ever, I just want this thing to get underway.
“Hey guys!” I said as I walked out the door. “The meeting is about to start up.” Both Nick and Brian looked at me as if I interrupted something.
“Oh, okay. We’ll be right there.” Brian said, glancing over at Nick who didn’t look very happy. Damn, I always miss the good stuff.
“Are we good?” Brian asked which only escalated my curiosity.
Nick nodded, “Yeah. Tell Johnny I’ll be there in a second, I need to pee.”
“Sure thing.” I replied as Nick went inside. “What was all that about?” I asked Brian once Nick was out of ear’s range.
“Just stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Yeah, stuff. Not a big deal.”
“Are you sure, because he didn’t look happy.”
“AJ, it’s not a big deal, just some unfinished words we had yesterday. It’s all good, stop being nosy!” He knocked my baseball cap off of my head and smiled at me. “Baldy!” He added, like he has so much more hair than I do.
“Who you calling bald?”
“I is calling you bald! Now let’s go before we get yelled at!”
I nodded as I followed Rok into the building.
“Beware, Johnny has THE book with him.” AJ whispered to me.
“Oh great, what do you think he’s changing this time? We can’t keep changing the schedule around. I have a family.”
“You do? I never noticed.” AJ answered sarcastically before continuing, “I don’t know…maybe Jive isn’t happy with the CD.”
“It’s too late; it’s already printed, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, I thought so.” AJ answered.
“Then they’ll never go back and change anything, they’re too cheap.” Sometimes my disdain for our record company was a little overwhelming.
“I guess we’re about to find out.” AJ said as he opened the door for us and led us into the room.
“Hey guys, where’s Nick?” Johnny asked as he flipped through his notebook.
“Bathroom,” I answered.
The old me wanted to go check on him, make sure he was okay. I’m not sure how our conversation so quickly escalated into a lecture but it did. Leigh would have been disappointed. I wanted to finish our conversation about me being better than him, so what do I do? Lecture him instead. I was mad though, when Howie told me what he heard about Nick setting things on fire in his room, I just lost it! We were in the next room for goodness sakes! What if the fire had gone out of control? He could have put my family at risk because of his drunken stupor.
My anger only grew when he insisted he had no recollection of what had happened. How do you set your own clothes on fire and not remember that? How wasted do you have to be? Or worse yet, was there anything else he was on that prevented him from remembering?
The look on his face as I was yelling at him, and I do admit my voice did grow louder and louder as I was speaking, got more and more solemn looking. He so reminded me of what he used to be like as a tween. If I ever got angry at him he would be so upset. He was so used to Kevin yelling at him and lecturing him. Same with his parents, but when I did it for some reason it hit close to home.
Maybe it would work this time.
“What about Kevin?” I looked up when Howie asked that, not realizing that I had been staring at the table.
“He’s not coming.” Johnny answered before flipping another page.
“What?” Everyone looked over at me, surprised by the tone of my voice. I wasn’t happy and I guess it showed.
“Yeah, I talked to him and he said he can’t come.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know Brian…he didn’t elaborate. He just said he had some stuff to do.”
“Stuff?”
“Yes, just stuff.”
“Well then why are we here? We all have stuff to do, I’m sure my cousin isn’t the only one with stuff to do!”
“Brian, when was the last time Kevin missed a meeting?”
I looked over at Johnny and answered honestly, “He’s never missed one before.”
“Exactly…cut him some slack.”
I glanced over at AJ, trying to read his face, see if I was the only one annoyed about this. It was hard to tell though because AJ was annoyed about everything meeting related. Howie didn’t seem to mind one way or the other. Okay, I guess it’s just me being a jerk again, so I dropped it.
Nick finally made his way into the room and quietly sat in a corner away from everyone. He still looked upset so I gave him a small smile. He didn’t look at me though. “What’s going on Johnny?” I decided to ask because someone had to, right?
He paused for a second and then let out a sigh, both of those things are usually not good, but then he smiled and suddenly I felt relief. “Sorry guys but I wanted to give you all one of these today. They just came over by courier this morning.” He went into his bag and pulled out our brand new CD then proceeded to pass one down to each of us.
“It looks great and sounds great! You guys did great.” He said with a big smile on his face.
I took the CD in my hands and looked it over. The front cover had this uniquely antique look about it. I’m so glad we went with that idea over the other ones we were presented with.
“I like the fan collage.” Howie said as he glanced at the back.
“Code again Nick?” AJ asked with eyebrows raised.
“Yeah,” he answered. One word answer Nick is still a sad, brooding Nick.
“Congratulations boys! Meeting adjourned!” Johnny winked at us.
“So, what’s the deal with THE notebook?” I asked him.
“Oh, I just thought I’d bring it to scare the crap out of you guys!”
“Nice.” I answered, very happy to know that plans didn’t change. I was still put off by the fact that Kevin didn’t even bother to show up. It seemed unlike him, but maybe Johnny let him know it really wasn’t a big deal.
As we were leaving AJ came over to me and held up the CD, “I think we did it again…” He sang in his best Britney voice.
“I’m glad you left out the oops!” He laughed at that.
“See ya later! Have fun at the zoo with the family.”
“We will.”
Nick tried to walk past me but I stopped him, “Hey…you okay?”
“Yeah...” He answered.
“I’m sorry I yelled.”
“I deserved it.”
“You want to come to the zoo with us? I know Bay would love to have you there.” As the words were coming out of my mouth my brain was already trying to come up with excuses to give to my wife as to why I was inviting him.
“Nah, I think I’m just going to lay low today. Hang in the hotel, maybe watch some movies and catch up on sleep. Thanks for the offer though.” He knew.
I nodded at him and watched as he walked out the door.
“Have fun today.” Howie said.
“You too D.”
“Never Gone…” He said as he looked down at the CD.
“We did it.” I answered.
“Yup, indeed we did. Too bad Kevin had stuff to do.” He winked at me and smiled.
For some reason, the fact that Kevin missed a meeting really bothered me but I tried not to dwell on it too much. Leigh will be relieved that our plans didn’t have to be cancelled today. I am relieved too and with that thought in mind, I took my CD and the left over Munchkins and headed back to my room.
