When I left the white room and all the calm I felt from it, I returned to Louie’s voice. I could hear him say, “Hey you, wake up, I’m talkin’ here!” To let him know that I was awake, I stirred slightly in the bed. Ever so slightly, I might add. In fact, the only movement I was sure I made was the twitching of my fingers in Louie’s hand.
“That medicine of yours sure packs a wallop don’t it? Let’s see it’s…morfine? No, that’s not right…it’s morphine! Ah, I see. And I asked them to add a special something that nearly eradicates pain. I use it all the time. I think I’m getting old.” I could feel his eyes on me for a moment. “Well, talking to you is like talking to a corpse isn’t it? I can’t tell whether you’re awake or asleep either. The whole time I was talking to you like a fool and you were asleep! Ha! And I don’t even remember half of what I said.
He turned his attention away from me and began thinking to himself. Finally he said,“ Let’s make this interesting. If you don’t scream out in agony from what I’m about to do, then the “medicine” is working. If you do, I’ll just add more. Let’s try this shall we?” As if he didn’t to convince himself further, he added, “ I’m bored, there’s no one around to harass today.”
His hand took mine, but I could hardly feel it. I felt a bit more once his grip tightened, but my hand was mostly numb from any feeling. When I heard the crack I felt like crying, but I couldn’t do that either. He had just crushed my hand in both of his…for fun. And I wasn’t feeling any of it.
“You know, this medicine is expensive. And there is a price to pay for lying to me and sucking up all of my hard-earned cash. I think I ought to send you out on the streets for a while and make you pay for it yourself. But for now…” He trailed off to punch me in the stomach. I felt nothing of it, except that my whole body and even the bed were vibrating from the force of the punch. Without whatever medicine they were giving me, I would be screwed.
Louie must have felt like he was punching a rag doll. I could almost picture what I looked like from the view I had before. My eyes were shut, my body unlife-like and as helpless as ever.
Time sped by me after that. Louie never came to visit anymore and most days I would just be by myself. It was terrifying to think that I could withstand weeks of just thinking and nothing else. Me, Nick Carter, just lying there for days on end, thinking. No talking, no singing and most of all, no Nintendo. But for some reason I didn’t quite mind. I was in a place I used to never go, and it gave me so much comfort whenever I went there. I still go there today, when I’m not busy writing this book, or sleeping. In this place I could be whomever I wanted and where ever I wanted.
Of course, it was never meant to last. But when I woke up from it, I always felt better.
When I was in that place, I had no trouble at all keeping myself entertained. When I was awake, that was a whole other story. Sometimes I would think about what I saw in my dreams, but most of the time I tried to go back to the place in my dreams.
Sometimes I would try to move. I convinced myself to try moving every single day until I could at least wiggle my fingers. I got caught on several occasions, but there wasn’t much that they could do to me that wasn’t already done.
Once I was able to move my fingers, I started concentrating on moving my entire arm. I became fascinating with my ability to motivate myself, and began doing these exercises instead of trying to go back to sleep.
Finally, I was able to move my toes, both of my arms and the fingers on my left hand. My right hand was still mangled, but in time I would get that one moving too.
I worked in order, trying to work the smaller muscles first before moving onto my legs. For some reason, my lips were more difficult to move than anything else was. So, instead of starting with my lips, I worked on flaring my nostrils voluntarily, scrunching what was left of my eyebrows and rapid blinking. Whenever I blinked, my eyelid didn’t come back up and I had to struggle to open my eyes again. I needed to blink often, because there was a lot of dust in the room, so my eyes were open for only seconds at a time.
Soon I could move everything. Now all I had to do was piece them together so that I could move more than one part at once. Before I knew it, I was sitting up by myself, blinking properly and practicing talking whenever the feeding tube wasn’t in my mouth. Everyone who had been trying to help me (they called me Project:97b because they didn’t know my name) was pleased with my progress. Every once in a while they would tell me not to push myself too hard. It was like they were afraid that I would break myself in doing so or something.
A month later (or so I was told) I began practicing to rebuild my strength. I started with trying to feed myself and ended up walking in the end. Every day was one step closer to my family.
A couple times I could have sworn that Nancy was in the room. A couple of times I could have sworn I felt her hand in mine and her soothing voice telling me that everything was going to be fine. But it could have just been an illusion, because I hadn’t seen her in months.
On the day of my release, Louie stopped by one final time. He had this smirk on his face and I could tell already that his visit wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.
He sat down on one of the chairs and began to speak to me. “So I see you’re finally blowing this joint huh?”
I was bent over, trying to tie my shoelaces. My right hand was still awkward but I managed to do the job anyway. I looked up at him so that I could answer.
“Yyeess…” I managed slowly. I still had problems speaking the right way and I gave every letter two syllables.
Louie obviously didn’t know this and burst out laughing. When the storm blew over he looked me in the eye and said, “Betcha wanna know who did this to ya huh?”
Little did he know, but I was one step ahead of the bastard. What he would say now took me by surprise before when I figured it out. It took me awhile, but I’m pretty much over it. Besides, I was leaving and I’d never see that prick again.
“It was me!” he exclaimed, and laughed loudly. “But you’re a rich bastard, you should be able to handle it eh? Ha, ha! You can’t get everything you want for free ya know! And now you’ve got to…” He trailed off when he saw the look on my face. During all of my trauma, my frown lines had deepened. So when I frowned, it really showed. My eyes narrowed and I gave him the most sincere anguished look I had ever given anyone in my entire life.
I left the room without another word. There was a new life ahead of me and it was just a few meters away. A new life without Louie in it, I thought. Well, you don’t always get your wish.
In my backpack I had a few supplies necessary for my survival. The nurses had packed my medicine and I was wearing the facemask they gave me to protect me from the smell of pollution. If I was lucky I would never have to get used to that smell again.
As I limped down the street, I began to think. I didn’t know where I was and I was totally vulnerable to everything. Living in LA for a while had knocked some street sense into me, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to use it to help myself.
I passed a few shops without an incident. No one said a word to me as they walked by and I was glad. I was wearing my hat so that I wouldn’t attract too much attention.
Ten minutes later I got to a spot that looked like an appropriate place to stop. I sat down gingerly on a bench covered in graffiti and waited for my head to stop spinning. Then it clicked. My medicine was starting to wear off and for the first time ever I’d have to inject myself with it. I hoped that the nurses left instructions in my bag.
While I was resting, a strange-looking teenage boy of about eighteen approached me. He was bald; not because he had to like I did, but by choice. Proudly displayed on the top of his head was a tattoo of a dragon.
“What up? Meet me at this exact spot every day at four. I’ll give you the stuff.” He turned to go but I grabbed his coat.
“Wwhhaatt ddoo yyoouu mmeeaan?” I croaked, trying hard not to look embarrassed about my speech problem.
It seemed as though this guy had heard it all before, because he hardly flinched. In fact, he only reacted to what I said.
“Ya mean that bastard didn’t tell ya?” I shook my head no. “Man, I’d better sit down, this is gonna be a long one, I tell ya.”
He made himself comfortable beside me before he carried on. “See Louie has a “special drug.” It works better than the stuff you were taking before and it takes away nausea. But…” he paused to look me in the eye, “it’s extremely addictive too. I’m addicted, I love the stuff. But I don’t know about you Mr. Straight. This stuff does have a name ya know, and it’s heroin.”
I gasped and shook my head no. This couldn’t be happening to me. It was just too much.
“Lift up your sleeve.” I did just that and gasped again. There were a bunch of puncture marks, all from needles containing heroin.
“That’s where you’re gonna inject…”
I cut him off. “Nnoo!”
“You can’t live without it kid. Trust me, I know Louie. He’s gonna get every cent he used on you back this way. I can’t keep giving you the stuff for free ya know. You’ll have to pay me somehow. And all the money goes to Lou Lou.”
I buried my face into my hands and struggled not to cry. Still, people walked past us without a second glance. The teen gave me one last look and then took off.
I had a decision to make. Either I would go home and break the news to my family, or I would wait it out. After careful consideration, I decided on the second choice. My parents weren’t ready to see me like this and I remembered what Aaron said in my dream.
I regained my bearings and walked further down the street. Somehow I had to find a place to stay that didn’t cost me any money. I would then have to get to the bank and withdraw money from there. Luckily I had my credit card number memorized, a tip I got from AJ awhile back when he lost his card in Germany.
I pretended to window-shop as I walked down the street because it would look strange if I just kept walking. A few of the shops I had never seen before. They must have emerged when I was immobilized. Some of them were unique, others were plain. Every time I looked into the window of a snazy-looking store, I would get this terrible look from a person inside. It was like they were telling me to quit dirtying their merchandise with my eyeballs. Needless to say, I redirected my attention to my shoes.
I stopped at a music store which had TVs in the windows. Those TVs were constantly tuned to MTV and I wanted to know if they would say anything about me. I assumed they would because today I was officially dead.
Sure enough, the reporter began to talk about me. But not how I expected. “Today was supposed to be the official death date of Nick Carter, but a man has just claimed to have seen him alive today. We join Greg Chaberman live at the scene. Greg?”
“I’m here at the Carter house, where a man by the name of Louie Dalberman has just personally delivered the good news to the Carters. Unfortunately, Mr. Dalberman has no clue as to Nick Carter’s whereabouts at this moment, but says that one of his workers had a discussion with Mr. Carter today. As soon as he heard the news, he rushed over to the Carters to tell them. Unfortunately, he also found out the reason why Mr. Carter has been so difficult to find. He is totally unrecognizable and completely bald from the chemotherapy that Mr. Dalberman started for him in his facility. At the time, he had no idea who he was. He just said that his name was “Nick”. Aaron Carter isn’t taking that aspect of the news as well as his other siblings.”
The reporter who started off the report shook her head sadly and starting talking about Madonna’s latest project. I, meanwhile, had to pry myself of the window and figure out what to do with this mess I called a face.
Chapter 36
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