I also know that my opinion is completely biased, and I’m trying to remember that perhaps it’s only because I’m acquainted with Alex that I see him as the person shining through on these videos. Still. There appeared to be a lot of passion for what he was doing, and the man up the hill has no passion for much of anything that I can tell other than bursts of anger.
So now I’m dragging a little this morning, and my abrupt departure from the house last night has left me with the added chore of having to clean the coffee pot first thing. I go through this routine on autopilot, looking at the world through sleepy eyes, recalling specific moments from the videos and wondering where that person has gone to, and will he ever be back.
“You’re early, Shi.”
“Coffee,” I say in explanation. His unannounced appearance in the kitchen doesn’t even phase me this morning, everything feels like slow motion. I’m feeling as if I’m sorry I planned this barbecue, and even more sorry that it’s blossomed into a party of sorts. What does catch my eye, though, is Alex’s appearance. He’s wearing the same clothes he was wearing yesterday, only they’re slept in. “You okay?” I ask him.
“I’m fine.” He gives me a sleepy smile. “I fell asleep on the couch.” He looks down at himself. “Guess I look like shit, hunh?”
“No, you look like you slept in your clothes, though.”
“Yeah, well, not the first time that’s happened. Won’t be the last,” he says, and laughs a raspy, coughing laugh.
“I must have woken you, then, I’m sorry. Why don’t you go an...”
“It’s cool.”
“Breakfast?”
“Not yet, thanks.”
He sits at the table and lights a cigarette while the coffee begins to perk. Instead of puttering around, I join him. I have nothing to do, really, I only came up here early this morning to make coffee. The house is pristine, he hasn’t even slept in the bed, so I don’t have to do anything there, and he hasn’t showered, so the bathroom is still in one piece.
I try not to stare at him. I really do try. But I’m looking for that boy from the videos and there’s only the smallest vestige of him here.
“I acted like sort of a dick last night,” Alex says. “I didn’t mean for you to just leave like that.”
“You didn’t act like... Forget it, it’s not important.”
“No, it is, ‘cause I’m supposed to be, you know, aware of my behavior. It’s part of the deal, with all the things I’m supposed to do.”
“It must be very strange to look at those videos,” I offer. Strange isn’t the word I want to use, the word I want to use is ‘disturbed’, but I manage to hold my ‘new me’ tongue in check.
“Yeah, it’s strange all right. Seems like a million years ago.”
“I’ll bet. I suppose that you all grew up a lot in those, what five, six years?”
“Yeah, we did.” He gives me a quizzical look. “I thought you didn’t know anything about us?”
“I don’t, I read the information on the DVD’s. Do you mind my asking, what are your friends doing now?”
“Stuff,” he says, and then he laughs that hoarse laugh again. “Nick did a CD that tanked, Kevin’s been on Broadway, Howie’s been doin’ charity work, and Brian and his wife had a baby not too long ago.”
“That’s a lot of ‘stuff’,” I say. And I wonder why he hasn’t been doing any ‘stuff’.
“Gotta keep busy,” he says with a jaw cracking yawn, then he laughs again, and it’s more of his usual cackle.
“Busy beats bored,” I tell him, and I get up because I hear the coffee just finishing up with a few last hisses and a gurgle. I pour two cups. I need coffee this morning, if only to wipe the cobwebs from my brain. When I sit down again, it’s my turn to yawn. “Sorry.”
“Didn’t sleep?”
“Oh, I stayed up and watched the videos. They’re very, very compelling, some of them. And some of them seem, oh, cheesy. Very contrived. And some of them seem almost pornographic.”
“Oh, ‘Quit Playing Games’.”
“Is that the one where they’ve hosed you down?”
“That’s the one.”
“It’s revolting.”
“It’s probably one of the more popular ones,” he says, and cracks a grin.
“Considering your ages at the time, I think it’s in incredibly poor taste.” I do. I was appalled. I know that if I had a son who was under the age of twenty-one I wouldn’t want him being exploited like that for any amount of money. To see the youngest of them dripping with water in some of the slow motion sequences made my skin crawl. Not that they weren’t all attractive, they were. And up until the wetting down portion of the video, I thought that it made them all look very lovely and appealing. The song was nice, too. Then it lost it for me.
“You’re probably right,” Alex says, but there’s no conviction in his voice and I think that bothers me more than the video.
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“We didn’t have a lotta say in what was gettin’ done back then. But even when we have alotta say, eh, well, sex sells.” I shrug. I can see by her expression that she doesn’t get it. I can understand that, you know, I can. But she really doesn’t know where we were comin’ from back then. Now we have way more control in how we’re presented. Not that the videos have gotten any better, in fact a lot of them suck, but if we’re selling ourselves, at least we get to pick the package now.
Shi just snorts at me.
“It does,” I tell her. “We were sold that way. We knew it. Same way we knew about the way we’d be takin’ on these weird ass roles in the group. You know, Kevin was the stud, Brian was the good boy, I was the bad boy, Nick was the heart throb, and Howie was the sensible guy.”
“You were the what?”
“Bad boy.”
“You’re joking?”
“Not one bit. I’m dead serious. It’s part of the gig. We were put together like New Kids on the Block.”
“Who?”
“C’mon, you’ve heard of them.”
“Not really.” She’s serious now. “Hey, I’ve barely heard of you.”
This strikes me as being hysterically funny. I know I’m overtired now. And she’s laughin’, too, so she’s probably not doin’ too much better.
“I’m going to need a LOT of coffee today,” she says.
“I hear ya on that.”
“So you are a part of a manufactured group.”
“Just about. Auditioned for it and everything. I kinda knew Howie, from runnin’ into him at other auditions, and Nick, I knew him a little. Then there were three other guys who came and went until they got Kevin, and Kevin brought in his cousin, Brian, and after that, well, we worked real hard. Then it finally caught on.”
“Finally caught on?”
“We about lived in Europe for four years. Toured there. No market here. Even when we came back here, for a while. Eventually it took off like a motherfuc.. it took off.”
“And then you made the videos?”
“Nah, we made them all along. We got together in ninety-three, didn’t break over here until about ninety-seven, ninety-eight. But it went off the wall after Millennium.”
“After two thousand?”
“No, after the CD Millennium.”
“This is like learning a foreign language, Alex,” she says, but she’s laughing, so it’s cool. Much more cool to just talk about it than to have to sit there and watch it, have to watch those old videos.
I tell you, it was hard back then, but it was way more fun. Didn’t know it at the time. Maybe you don’t, ‘cause then maybe you wouldn’t move forward, ya know? If you knew that the fun wasn’t gonna keep gettin’ bigger and better, that it was gonna eventually be no fun at all, you probably WOULDN’T try and get ahead, you’d just stay where you are, happy to be havin’ fun. Sounds so simple now.
“So, like, what time are people supposed to be comin’ by today?”
“I have no idea. What time did you tell your friends to come?”
“I sorta left it open.”
“Aren’t we both just ever so bright?” she says, shaking her head. “I’ll call over to Mickie’s in a few hours. I think I’ll urge them to come by around four.”
“Four it is.” I’m gonna have to make a phone call myself. Four might be early for them, though.
“Might I ask who you’ve asked to this soiree?”
“Someone I used to work with, her name is Mindi. Her and her boyfriend.”
“Does she live out here?”
“Yeah, not far.” Not far at all, and was she ever surprised to hear from me.
“Nice.”
Shi gets up to get more coffee for the both of us. Nice. Mindi is very nice. And smart. And beautiful. Another woman in a long line of women who didn’t want me, but it’s okay, she really doesn’t know how much I wanted her. She thought I was just being a clown, which I was, but I was bein’ somethin’ else, too, and she never caught on. It’s okay. That was a while ago. A lot happened since then.
Too much.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
