“Ah tried. He’s too burnt out to make much sense. We’ll have to have his back on stage, he’s not up to this at all.”
“What about a doctor?”
“Look, Kevin, if you’re so concerned, why didn’t you talk to him yourself?” Brian was getting more than a little annoyed and truly didn’t understand why Kevin just didn’t go talk to A.J. Yes, he was curious and concerned about A.J., too. He was the one A.J. was seeking out during his restless nights; twice Brian had rolled over in his hotel room bed in the middle of the night to find A.J. huddled beside him. The first time Brian found him there he’d woken A.J. only to have him jolt up, blink, and fall back into a fitful sleep. The second time Brian only noted the younger man’s appearance on the empty side of the bed before drifting off into some disturbing dreams of his own. Both times A.J. had been gone from the room before Brian had woken and neither of them ever mentioned it to the other. Regardless of all of it, though, Kevin’s concerns included, Brian had made up his mind that he wasn’t about to become Kevin’s middle man. There were enough unanswered questions in his own mind for him to be worrying about Kevin’s curiosity.
“Because he doesn’t like to talk to me. He talks to you.”
“Ah know, but that doesn’t mean Ah know anything more than you do yourself, and he’s not being cooperative, which isn’t anything new, mind you, but it certainly doesn’t help. Ah don’t know what to do for him, or what to do to help.” Brian shrugged and adjusted his ear monitor. “Ah don’t have any answers.”
Kevin frowned. He let out a long sigh and them shrugged, too.
“Nothing about the dreams?” Kevin pressed. He surprised himself with asking the question, then became equally surprised when Brian averted his eyes for a moment. It was quick, but noticeable.
“No,” Brian said. “Ah have to have someone check this,” he mumbled, fumbling with his ear piece as he walked away. He looked back over his shoulder once, then hustled himself down the corridor looking for someplace to go where he could be alone. All the while his mind raced with the thought that Kevin knew about the dreams and wondered who had told him, because he had never discussed them with anyone. The mere thought of Kevin knowing about the dreams made Brian agitated. It made him recall his own odd fantasies in the night, the wolf dreams, the old house in them, and the eerie quality of familiarity to it. To all of it.
No, there had been no talk of dreams between any of them, but now that Kevin had set his thoughts in motion Brian couldn’t turn them off. Caught up in thinking, he didn’t notice Howie and barreled into him in his dash from Kevin’s presence.
“Sorry, man,” Howie said. He grabbed Brian by the shoulders to steady the both of them and found himself staring deeply into the other man’s eyes.
During the seven or eight years that the five members of the Backstreet Boys had known each other, they had achieved a level of closeness between them that could rival the best of friends. Some of it was borne of survival. When they started out there were just the five of them and the small management team of Lou Pearlman, Johnny Wright, and Johnny’s wife Donna. Nick and A.J.’s moms had been semi-regular fixtures, too, but it still found the five boys relying on each other, needing each other’s company and loyalty. So over time they had developed a natural sixth sense about each other, knowing when one of the others wasn’t feeling well because of ill health, because of emotional upheaval, homesickness, or any number of things or combination of things. They knew each other’s likes and dislikes, preferences and opinions. Each year this innate awareness of each other grew subconsciously; they took it for granted.
As Howie looked into Brian’s eyes, that sixth sense exploded inside his brain. He was unable to move for several seconds and was completely conscious of his inability. In those few moments of physical connection Howie had a flash of understanding that was overwhelming.
“You, too?” Howie finally asked, his voice low as staff and technicians moved around them doing their jobs.
“Me too, what?” Brian countered, his eyes narrowed to slits of suspicion. He wanted Howie to let him go. Standing there in the corridor with Howie gripping his arms was more uncomfortable than his private tete-a-tete with Kevin had been. It made him feel strange in a way he didn’t understand.
“No sleep? Dreams?” Howie pressed. His fingers dug into Brian’s arms hard enough that he knew he must be hurting the other man, but Howie couldn’t, wouldn’t, unlock his grip. “A.J.” Howie whispered it the name and was almost pleased at the way Brian’s face drained itself of all color.
“Did he say something to you?” Brian asked.
“No. Did he say something to YOU?” Howie countered.
“No.”
“I think we all need to talk about this,” Howie persisted. He was frightened now. It was one thing to know that A.J. was not well. That was obvious from his appearance, his looks, and his attitude. It was another thing to know why, and although Howie wasn’t privy to the particulars, he felt sure that he was close to knowing, to guessing, but he didn’t know how he could be because no one was talking about it. Howie liked to talk things out. He wanted to talk this out, and he wanted to do it that very minute, which was impossible.
“Talk about what?” Brian asked, knowing full well what they needed to discuss.
“Everything,” Howie said, and it came out sounding more cryptic than he had meant it to.
Brian hesitated, flicked his eyes down the hallway. Kevin was approaching them with long strides and a determined look on his face.
“Did you get your monitor fixed?” Kevin asked Brian.
“Howie needed something,” Brian said. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, he just wanted to get away from the two men he felt were confronting him. It was not in his nature to back down from a direct confrontation, in fact he could be confrontational in his own way if needed, but it was in his nature to avoid them. The sinking feeling in his stomach let him know that there was no avoiding this.
“Where are Nick and A.J.?” Kevin asked.
“Aje said he was going to get dressed,” Brian offered. “Ah haven’t seen Nick.”
“I haven’t seen them, either,” Howie added.
***~~**~~**~~**~~~*~~~**~~**~~**~~***
“Here,” Nick said, tossing A.J. a small vial.
“Thanks,” A.J. said under his breath, catching the amber tube with a shaking hand. Shit, he needed this. Just a little pick-me-up to get him through the show. Not a lot, just a little. He would give the rest back to Nick, right now, as soon as he got what he needed.
Nick watched with morbid fascination as A.J. tapped out a small pile of white powder from the vial directly on a corner of the locker room sink. He had a razorblade ready in his free hand, making a few quick chops and two even lines with a practiced dexterity that was almost admirable. A.J. bent and snorted the two lines even quicker, tossing the cut piece of straw he used into the trash can along with the blade. His thumb swiped up the residue from the sink and he rubbed it along his gums. Then he handed the vial back.
“That’ll do it,” A.J. said. He was shaking, shaking from the coke, shaking from the elevated pulse in his heart from it, from being too tired, just trembling will all of it. He knew this course of action was stupid, but felt he was left with little alternative. Worse yet, he knew there was the come down when the high wore off and that in the state he was in, he was going to crash, and crash hard. Hard. He wanted to reach his hand out and take the vial back, but Nick had already pocketed it.
Well, if he wanted more there was plenty to be had. Every promoter in every city had a thousand connections to anything he might want, and he might just need another taste before the night was out.
Because it was better than sleeping.
He didn’t know why the thought had taken so long to occur to him. If he didn’t bother to try sleeping, if he in fact avoided sleeping, then he wouldn’t have to dream. The longer he went, and the closer he came to collapse would bring him the kind of rest he needed: blackout. He needed to blackout from everything. He needed that deep, dark void of nothing, because sleep only brought dreams to him now; crazy dreams. Dreams that were becoming so vivid that on waking with the usual scream on his lips he wasn’t sure who or what he was, much less where. Or what was real and what was not. Drinking didn’t help, working didn’t bring on that necessary level of exhaustion; nothing was helping. So snorting a few lines, riding out the high on stage, and then crashing into some abyss of unconsciousness seemed like a reasonable solution. He had done it before, and had always come out of it with a massive headache but with enough sleep to get him through a gig, a fight, whatever.
Nick studied A.J., inwardly appalled at his casual, cool stance. The vial burned inside of his pocket. Not that he never used coke, but never with the professional, cold, precise way that A.J. did. It was always recreational, often just a social thing to do. Fans, promoters, they all seemed to have a never ending supply of pills and coke and whatever else they might like and he’s indulged as they had all indulged; some more than others, but none of them were ‘pure’ by any means. Still, the way that A.J. had done it, quickly, so easily, without a thought to who might come in, without a thought to him watching, without a thought at all, it bothered Nick. In fact A.J. was bothering Nick, period.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked. He knew it was a dumb question, but asked it anyway.
“Yeah,” A.J. lied. He closed his eyes and gripped the edge of the sink for a minute, letting the coke do it’s thing, diving into the sensations it was bringing on and riding his escalating pulse.
“I know things were shitty last night and...”
“I’m fine. Not sleepin’, that’s all.” He splashed some water on his face, then dried himself on a paper towel. His head was clearing. The water helped. “Thanks for getting the shit for me.”
“Sure. You want the rest?” Nick offered.
“Nah, just needed a little something, ya know,” A.J. said.
“Yeah, sure. I gotta go finish gettin’ ready. You cool?”
“I’m cool,” A.J. said with a smile.
Nick grimaced to himself. A.J. was anything but cool. His smile was anything but a smile. Without thinking, Nick reached out a hand and squeezed A.J.’s shoulder, then drew him close to embrace him. The body Nick hugged felt thin and shaky; not just shaky from the coke, but from something deeper. The longer that he stood there the more reluctant Nick was to let A.J. go. He was surprised that A.J. allowed it at all, but then he’d been surprised since seeing the wreck of his hotel room. That fetid smell was still emanating from A.J., as if he hadn’t showered in some time which wasn’t the case, he’d only just showered a few hours ago.
Kevin, Brian, and Howie found them like that in the locker room toilet. Howie noticed right away that A.J. was white knuckled from clutching onto Nick’s shirt, chewing up the material with his fingers.
“Jesus, is he alright?” Kevin blurted out.
“I’m fuckin’ fine,” A.J. said, stepping back from Nick and swiping the back of his hand across his face. He was slick with sweat.
“You are NOT fine,” Kevin said. His voice echoed off the tiled walls and floor, cutting through the atmosphere of the room like a shard of jagged glass tearing fabric. The others stared at him with wide eyes, A.J. included, all too startled to say anything. “You look like shit and you smell and look at yourself, look,” Kevin insisted. He came up behind A.J. and with a hand to the back of the smaller man’s neck he turned A.J.’s head so they could both look at his reflection in the mirrors above the sinks.
A.J. looked at himself with only a quick glance before staring into the old, cracked porcelain of the sink. Kevin pinched the back of his neck hard, making him look up again.
“Look,” Kevin insisted, his voice hard, harsh. “Look at yourself, you look like shit and, and…” he sputtered. He couldn’t grasp the words he wanted; he was beyond words.
For years they, the collective five of them, had been having trouble with A.J. Kevin included A.J. within those parameters, too, because he had observed A.J. struggling with himself. It was something interior, something that A.J. found disturbing about his own existence, but it was a palpable thing to Kevin, something with an almost physical substance. He was the behavior problem, the sometimes rebel whose own worst enemy seemed to be himself. A loner by nature, an attention seeker by choice and circumstances, A.J. appeared torn and unsettled most of the time; when he wasn’t he fluctuated from being maniacally happy to dramatically sad. Back and forth, back and forth, Kevin had watched A.J.’s mood swings affect all of them, and this, this latest incarnation of his distressed side, was the most severe A.J. had ever been.
Kevin wasn’t sure if it was sudden or something that had happened gradually. At the moment he didn’t care. They had a show to do, and two more besides, before putting this tour of tours they had been on to bed. All Kevin wanted was a few days of equilibrium to get them through it. Then, after all their professional obligations were met, then they, someone, would address A.J. and this situation, whatever the situation was.
Even Kevin wasn’t sure what exactly it was that had A.J. so strung out. Baiting Brian with the question about dreams had been a shot in the dark, but Kevin was sure that it had hit some target. Dreams. A.J. was having dreams, Kevin was sure of it, because he, himself, was having dreams, night after night with increasing regularity and vividness. Dreams of a place, of not being himself, of being something not human, not a man, and of a place, some remote place that made him uncomfortable and, if he admitted it, frightened.
Now, as he held his friend’s gaze in the old mirror above the sink he had a moment of déja vu, of having done this before in another time and place, under different circumstances, but of a similar confrontation.
And Kevin saw it in the bloodshot, brown eyes that looked at him in the mirror’s reflection, saw that A.J., too, was recognizing the moment and was profoundly disturbed by it.
“Let him go,” Howie said, his voice soft, but commanding.
And Kevin let A.J. go, but neither of them moved from the mirror until Brian told them that it was time to go, to go through the final preparations for the show.
Kevin stalked out of the room, Brian behind him. Howie followed with A.J., leading him as if he couldn’t see where he was going.
Nick lingered behind, standing at one of the urinals as if to relieve himself. Instead, he took out the vial of cocaine from his pocket and, after staring at it for a long moment, emptied the contents of it down the drain.
***~~**~~**~~**~~~*~~~**~~**~~**~~***
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© 2002 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2002 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
