The interrogation continued (how anti-climatic was that? I must be losing my touch…). Doc thought long and hard, scratching the waddle that was forming just below his chin. I was lounging on a traditional shrink-couch with my bare feet dangling over the edge. Normally we’d be on this for hours, but I was promised sleep after I finished a session with Doc, so I regretfully complied. But if he wasn’t going to say something in the next two seconds, I would have fallen asleep. Normally it would be rude for someone to shake a recovering cancer patient from sleep, but Doc does it anyway. It’s common sense, but he doesn’t have any of that and it’s a very precious quality. I don’t like to have to life shaken out of me because I’m very sore and weak all of the time.
Doc: “Are you afraid of races or religious groups? Perhaps groups that express themselves uniquely or sometimes dangerously?
Me: “Not in the way that you’re putting it, no.”
Doc: “People who go to your concerts, your fans?”
Me: “Hell no.”
Doc: “People who mock or ridicule you?”
Me: “Sort of.”
Doc pauses to do some more waddle scratching. I try to avoid eye contact with him at all times because he stares when he’s trying to figure something out about you. It’s completely unsettling. I tell him that sometimes because I like to get the truth out of my system, but he just laughs at me and doesn’t care. Feel sorry for me, I had to open up to that guy…
Doc: “Fans of other bands?”
Me: (thinking about the fact that Doc is split seconds away from recovering the secret of me) “Specifically from one particular group. I wouldn’t exactly call them a “band” because they are more like a group of people who lip sync together and get paid oodles for it.”
Doc: “Nsync?”
Me: “Exactly.”
Doc: “It’s good that you’re finally voicing a true opinion of them. You can be nice to other singers and too picky when it come to reviewing their music, but the Nsync thing was just bad. I can’t imagine how you kept your hate bottled up inside.”
Me: “I’ve always had a true opinion about everyone and everything – just not a public one. The trick is to vent to someone who will listen, then stuff a cork in it later on when something is mentioned; like that they broke a new record or something. Frankly, I just don’t give a flying crap about them or their music anymore. They soiled the music business and humped television screen for three-year-old viewers everywhere – it was all picture-perfect for them. Then our fans thought that they should be able to pick between the two of us. Those cannibalistic piranhas ate our fanbase. I’m just sick of hearing about them all the time since my disappearance. It was like they were using the most horrible experience of my life to their advantage. I don’t disagree when they said it was ruthless for them to do that, but I do disagree that it had to be done.”
That’s what the little bastards said in an interview once. I have a clipping from it. My dad thinks its funny to bring me the entertainment magazines because that’s the only way to get a rise out of me. The picture on that particular magazine (it was a Rolling Stone magazine, by the way) was enough to throw me to fits. On it was a picture of Nsync with the greedy caption, “What they REALLY think about Nick Carter’s Disappearance” along with a picture of them fingering a picture of me. Even though the article pissed me off more than the picture, I punctured the front cover with an old IV, tearing large holes in their putrid faces with my vicious assault.
“Now you can show Rolling Stone what Nick Carter thinks about what they put in their magazines,” I told my dad, handing him back the magazine after tearing out the article.
“See, honey, I told you he was mature enough to handle it!” my dad bragged to my mom, who was severely P.O’ed that I had expended my strength on such a vigorous activity.
“Thanks for sticking up for me dad,” I returned, grinning cheekily. He had just waved it off. Consequently, I was so tired afterwards that I fell asleep for the first time while I was being interrogated (because that’s what I like to call it) by Doc and he taught me a lesson on that. I couldn’t sit in my wheelchair for a week after he shook me.
Meanwhile Doc had kept his word and had not expressed any sign of amusement towards my pusillanimous fear towards fans of a band so horrifying it is blasphemous for anyone who knows me to speak the word in my presence. There aren’t enough hated words in the English language to express my extreme distaste towards that particular band. Somehow I knew they would use my misfortune to thwart a pile of drooling miscreants.
I was still wondering how Doc had figured out my fear so quickly and with so much ease. I hadn’t planned on letting him know, but I assumed it wouldn’t really matter considering the extent of what I had told him already. Which still wasn’t much, but, like he always told himself, it was a start. He pulled his chair closer to mine so that our knees bumped. That morning I had taken a tumble out of my bed and onto the floor of my bedroom trying to prove to myself that I didn’t need to use the bedpan. They had to sedate and imprison my legs, which amused me to no end because I could pinch any part of my lower body and not feel a thing. I ended up leaving horribly deep trenches in my thighs; my mother believed that I had some kind of tropical flu when she looked at the rash-like markings. What was I thinking?
Me: “How’d you do that so fast?”
Doc: “Nicky, (I grimaced, that gawd awful nickname!) my job involves the human mind. A person with this type of profession learns to manipulate the brain in order to get response from their patients. I’ve been in this profession a long time, despite my youthful appearance (I pointedly shuddered and adjusted my blanket on my shoulders) and you, my dear, are the least cooperative and most disrespectful patient I’ve ever had. This is exactly the reason why I chose to help adults, not children. Do you catch my drift? Do I have to keep calling you Nicky? Are you a man or a child?"
I chose to say nothing.
Doc: “Your parents are paying more money than they can afford to keep me here. I want to leave, but I stay for them and their children, especially Aaron. You know, he’s a lot bigger than the last time you saw him. Grown a foot or two, I believe. He asks about you a lot.”
Me (in a hushed whisper): “Really?”
Doc: “Oh yeah… he asked me just the other day what you looked like…”
Me: “You didn’t tell him the truth did you?”
Doc: “Well, I said you had a lot of chemo and operations and that your face has some scar tissue, but I don’t know that happened.” He grasped my chin and pulled my head to the left to examine one of my longer scars.
Me: “I… it… um…” I averted my gaze as my eyes began to well over.
Doc: “Remember I’m here to help you. Anything you say in this room…”
Me: “Won’t leave it, yeah I know.” I sighed. “Someone blew up a window… in my face.”
Doc: “On purpose?”
Me: “Of course.” I sniffed.
Doc: “Are you still writing that book like you promised?”
Me: “I haven’t got to that part yet.”
Doc: “You need to talk to Aaron about everything.”
Me: “Behind a screen, you mean.”
Doc: “I’m working on that.”
Me: “It hurts, you know, not being able to see my little brother. I-I don’t have any friends, my fame is gone – forgotten if you will - and my family is falling apart. It wouldn’t be like this if I was dead.” I looked him dead in the eyes so that he would know I wasn’t kidding.
Doc: “You can’t have that attitude if you ever want to see him again.”
Me: “My opinion on that doesn’t matter. It’s his choice whether or not he wants to see me.”
Doc: “He misses you, Nick. I can look into his eyes and see that he misses you. It’s not you, I’m sure of it. For some reason, he’s afraid.”
Me: “He’s afraid that I’ve turned ugly and he’ll have call me brother when he’s wheeling me down the street like an old lady. I believe that’s already been established.”
Doc: “I’m afraid that it goes deeper than that. I can arrange for you two to have a session together. He wouldn’t know that you’re coming, but it could change his mind. What do you think?”
Me: “Do you think I’m ugly?”
Doc: “I think that you’re a survivor. Despite what you may believe because of how you’ve behaved towards me, I respect you.” Silence.
Me: “I…I’m glad that you didn’t laugh at me, thank you.”
Doc: “It’s a perfectly creditable fear because a lot of those nutcases want you dead.”
Me: “Sometimes…it even goes deeper than that.”
Doc: “I suppose that you’re referring to the backstage incident where those young ladies tried to pull off your pants. Brutal, I can only imagine.” I nearly fall off my chair in shock.
Me: “How…?”
Doc: “I read about it a long time ago; it was everywhere. Didn’t you see the articles? I kept one myself because I was wondering if you would press charges.” I was going to add that it probably pleased him to see it, but I thought back to our conversation and kept my mouth shut. The article was short and small instead of the headliner news it could have been. Apparently the girls’ mothers took them to a psychiatrist to seek help, grateful that I didn’t put them in jail. At the time I had other things to worry about.
Me: “They must have gone to great lengths to keep this hidden from me.”
Doc: “Not really. A day afterwards the breast story came out and that was a great deal to everyone.”
I placed my hand where the tumor had been and rubbed the area gently as I started to tear. These were not pleasant memories. Doc grabbed the tissue box for me and took one, knowing full well that I wouldn’t cry although I wanted to. I sniffed and pressed my palm to my forehead, feeling heat from illness transfer to my heat. At that point I wasn’t ready to re-face the reality of the breast story, so I changed the topic.
Me: “Where did you get those articles? Who gave them to you?”
Doc: “No one. Believe it or not, I used to be a fan of yours.”
I smiled.
Me: “Until you met me, right?”
Doc: “No, actually until I got married. After your last album the Backstreet Boys faded away and I forgot. I listened to the CDs that I have last night and a thought occurred to me. Can you still sing, Nick?”
Me: “I haven’t really tried.”
Doc: “Go ahead.”
Me: “I’m going to sound horrible. I’m on a lot of pain killers you know.”
Doc: “You’ll never know unless…”
Me: “You try. God, I hate cliches. All right, tell me what to sing.”
Doc: “How about “All I Have To Give”?
I began to clear my throat and as I did, I realized something.
Me: “I don’t remember how that one goes.” Wordlessly Doc handed me his Discman and I listened to the first verse, thinking that couldn’t be me! I didn’t remember this song, even though I remember liking it. After the fourth time repeating it, I began to sing, not really hearing myself as I turned up the volume. I ended up singing the entire song, from beginning to end.
With shaking fingers I pressed “stop” and I remembered that I had an audience. Doc was smiling and clapping and I ended up bowing meekly from my spot on the couch. Apparently, I still had it in me.
Me: “Can I borrow this? I have to get reacquainted with myself.”
Doc: “Certainly. When you’re done with that album you can listen to the others.”
That night I cried myself to sleep, wondering how my Backstreet friends were doing and if they missed me. For some strange reason I’d forgotten the bond we had shared in the past, possibly because they had hurt me and I forced myself to forget. Little by little I remembered everything the drugs had taken away from me. By the time my mom discovered what CD I was listening to and threw it in the garbage, I memorized every song again.