JANUARY 1995
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I sat curled up in my window seat in the front of the van watching the pale gray German scenery flying by.
I could hear Brian and A.J. talking and laughing from where they sat in the back of the van, rolling my eyes I huffed out a sigh. Since when had those two jerks become such great friends? From the beginning it had always been Brian and me and now suddenly Brian and A.J. were a team and I was left out in the cold.
I glanced over to Howie sitting in the seat across from me, eyes closed, headphones on as he listened to some kind of music I was sure I would hate. I considered getting up to go and sit by him. I could laugh really loud and pretend like he was the coolest guy in the world just to make Brian and A.J. jealous. But listening to the two of them now as they burst out in a fit of giggles I figured that even if Howie and I were best buds they probably wouldn’t even care.
Pulling up to the venue the van crawled to a stop. Brian and A.J. grabbed their backpacks and were down the aisle and off the bus before I could even uncurl my legs from beneath me. If I would have been thinking faster I would have stuck a foot out in the aisle to trip them but instead I stood up slowly wrestling my heavy red backpack onto my shoulders as Kevin made his way up the aisle.
“Hey kiddo,” He said stopping with a smile. “I totally forgot to tell you earlier….Happy Birthday.”
* * *
I was fifteen years old today, fifteen. What a lousy age to be. I couldn’t drive a car, I couldn’t go to the bars, I couldn’t even freaking vote. Fifteen was like being stuck between birth and something incredible and I hated it.
After we had loaded our backpacks into the lockers in the dressing room the roadies and the guys disappeared for five minutes returning with screams of ‘Happy Birthday’ as they wheeled a big steel tray into the room covered with a sheet. Kevin grabbed the sheet and tore it off yelling “Surprise!”.
They had all pitched in and gotten me a cake. A huge sheet cake with a bunch of stupid baby toys all over it like I was five and the words ‘Happy Birthday Nicky’ printed on it in swirling pale blue frosting. Everybody laughed when A.J. plucked one of the pacifiers from the middle of the cake tossing it at me and telling me to “get to sucking”, everybody that is but me. I just gave him my best sneer and walked away.
Brian found me later sitting on one of the speakers on the stage, staring off into the darkness of the venue that in a few hours would be pulsating with thousands of girls all screaming our names. He set a paper plate with a huge piece of cake on the speaker beside me with a smile.
“You didn’t have any cake.” He said pushing the plate a little closer to me.
“I didn’t want any.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged my shoulders as I swung my legs back and forth.
“Everybody was making fun of me Rok, everybody was laughing at me.” I could feel tears beginning to pool in my eyes which wasn’t going to help me look like the man I wanted to be instead of the baby that everybody else around me still saw.
“Nobody was laughing at you you dork. They were laughing with you.”
“But I wasn’t laughing.” I whined digging my thumb and forefinger into my eyes to try and stop the tears from coming.
“Listen Nicky, you’ll be a man before you know it and then you’ll be sitting here bawling because you want to be a little kid again. Being a man isn’t all it’s cracked up to be you know? Stay naive for as long as you can Little Man.” He pushed playfully at my shoulder.
“You’ll know too much soon enough.”
* * *
I was on a high throughout the concert that night, grinning from ear to ear as the whole crowd launched into “Happy Birthday”. After which the guys chased me all over the stage squirting me with silly string, the crowd egging them on with shouts and cheers as hundreds of balloons fell from the ceiling.
“Nicky here is fifteen years old today.” Kevin boomed into the microphone leading me covered with silly string to the front of the stage where a big spotlight found us. “Not a little boy and yet not a man.” I rolled my eyes slapping a hand over my face in embarrassment at Kevin’s dorky speech.
“So none of us knew quite what to get him for this special day.” I felt Brian’s hand clamp down on my shoulder as the rest of the guys moved in around me, Howie taking the microphone.
“Then it occurred to us that there was one thing that Nick had been wanting more then anything in the world,” as he spoke my mind went through its’ automatic check list of all of the things I wanted. A car, a big screen t.v., my own life sized replica of the Millenium Falcon…..
“Soooooo,” A.J. took the mic next strutting back and forth in front of me as the crowd screamed out their suggestions of what they thought I wanted for my birthday. “We went out and bought Nick something that he has always wanted.” Brian walked out of the spot light disappearing stage right for a few minutes before coming back holding some sort of leash. The closer he got to me the more my heart began to pound as he walked back into the spotlight with the most wonderful little Golden Lab puppy I had ever seen. The crowd erupted into wild applause but I heard nothing as I fell to my knees, dragging that soft little body into my lap and planting kisses all over his wiggling head. Looking up I smiled at the guys who were all smiling back at me and for one brief moment in time I came to the conclusion that maybe being fifteen wasn’t so bad after all.
* * *
After the concert I followed the guys into the dressing room thanking them over and over for the gangly little guy that followed after me slobbering on my heels. We all showered and dressed and then met with some fans afterwards who presented me with some nice birthday presents that I had planned to give to the local orphanages before we left the city for the next tour date the following afternoon.
Climbing into the vans that waited at the dock doors of the venues I road with Howie and the dog and some roadies while the other guy’s road in the other van back to the hotel. Whereupon we were greeted by more screaming fans, most of who were just as excited to see my new birthday puppy as they were to see me.
At some point I lost the guys as they fell off one by one heading to the elevators to go back to our rooms. So by the time I got upstairs I was a more then a little disappointed to learn that Brian and A.J. had taken off to enjoy the nightlife, Kevin had headed downstairs to enjoy the bar leaving me and Howie there to enjoy each other…..never something either one of us much cared for.