When the guys got on the plane, I pretended that I was sleeping. I could have really slept, but I wanted to hear what they would say about me when they thought that I wasn’t listening.
At first they didn’t say much of anything that could interest me. They were just talking about where they were all going to sit. We don’t believe in having designated sitting areas because when we get on the plane, we just want to sit down and go. After they decided, then they started talking about me.
“Is Nick sleeping?” Brian asked as AJ went over to check. I nearly blew my cover, because he was poking me in the tummy and I’m ticklish there. But I thought about how much I wanted to know what was going on and I kept the laughter inside.
“Yup,” AJ answered, “so who wants to sit beside him?”
“I think you should,” Kevin replied, “just don’t blow it, okay? He doesn’t suspect a thing, so just don’t start getting soft.”
“Hey, I don’t think that I’d get soft first, it’s more like Rok would.”
“We’ll see AJ, we’ll see,” Brian said, waving his finger at him.
“We have to go through with this. It’s awful, but it seems to be getting through to him. Hopefully, he’ll learn his lesson.” Howie said and the guys agreed with a chorus of, “yeahs.” I didn’t know what the hell was going on and I wanted some closure, but all I could do was pretend to sleep and hope that they’d give up some more information. They didn’t seem to want to do whatever it was they were doing to me, but that only confused me more.
“Why does he sleep so much?” Kevin asked and made his way over to me. I felt him touch my forehead like he was looking to see if I had a fever. It was funny, him acting like a dad; and I almost burst out laughing. The thing that kept me from doing so this time was that they hadn’t been this nice to me in a while, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
“Well, he doesn’t have a fever…” Kevin concluded, “but ew, look at his hand! It looks like he squashed it under something.” That’s right, I’d forgotten all about my hand! I remembered then that I had squashed it on the plane, but I never noticed it after that. The guys ooohed and awed over it though, and again I nearly burst out laughing. They were so convinced that it was some kind of evidence or something, but really it was nothing.
After they looked at my battle scars, they must have figured that I would wake up soon so they went to sit down. On the contrary though, I was falling asleep at that very minute, because I had my eyes shut and the movement of the plane was so relaxing.
This time, instead of blacking out, so to speak, I had a dream. Well, a nightmare actually. I woke up to AJ shaking me and my screams. I don’t remember the dream that I had, but it must have been a bad one. That was one of the only times I’d ever done anything remotely close to talking in my sleep.
“Shut up man!” AJ yelled at me while he was shaking me, “You woke me up!”
“Oh, sorry,” I told him quietly. I knew that he was just pretending to be mad, because I could see the fear in his eyes.
To freak him out, I faked that I was going back to sleep again. He started shaking me again and his excuse was that he wanted to stretch out on my seat. He made me get up and sit on the floor and I’m lucky that I didn’t get hemorrhoids sitting on it. It was so cold and the rest of the guys had used all of the extra seats for their bags and their bodies.
Denise had somehow gotten onto the plane without me noticing, and the first thing she did was bug me when she came to check on us.
“Nick, why aren’t you sitting in your seat?” she demanded the second she walked into the door.
“All the seats are taken,” I put it bluntly, just for her. The less you say the more effective the one sentence is.
“Have you eaten anything?” Not that question again. It was really starting to piss me off.
“They served supper while he was sleeping,” Brian cut in.
“Well Nick, then you’d better have something. Come with me, come on,” she held out her hand and waved it in my face. I wondered why she was here, and I remembered that I put my Denise-off in one of my bags. Damn.
I must have pulled off a really annoyed look because she took her hand away from me. “I ate at the studio,” I lied again, giving her the evil eye. When I pronounce every syllable of every word I say it’s usually pretty effective, along with the evil eye.
“Bullshit,” she told me and I was shocked. Even Brian flinched a bit; I saw that out of the corner of my eye. It’s not exactly funny when she says it; it’s kind of scary actually. Phonies aren’t supposed to be mean to people. It’s not in their phony nature.
Denise turned to Brian and said, “He’s been preaching that shit to me all day and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t eat a single thing.”
Brian shrugged, “So?”
“He won’t be able to do the show if he doesn’t have the energy Brian.”
“So?”
“Think about all those people he’ll disappoint. The papers will say that he was starved or something.”
“So what? Just let him, it’s his problem.”
“No Brian, it’s our problem!” With that she left the room. I could have run over to Brian and hugged him for getting rid of her, but something told me that he wouldn’t like that very much. He sure knew how to keep her on her toes though. I picked up that knowledge for further use. We were just glad that AJ was sleeping or he’d give us an earful about talking about his mother like that.
We got off the plane and no one said anything to me, which was lucky. I didn’t want them to anyway. If they did say anything it would most likely make me angry all over again, even though I knew that they didn’t mean it.
I’ll fast-forward a bit to an hour before the show. You’d want me to spare you, trust me. I’ve said sleep so many times already, but that’s what I did the whole time; I laid down on the couch and slept. Man, that was nice; sorry, I forgot what I promised!
Anyway, since I was all rested up and dressed up for the concert, I decided to go outside and play a little basketball. It’s amazing that I’ve never been caught by the fans yet, but don’t start you guys! It’s kind of hard to miss me though, wearing that blue “Larger Than Life” outfit. I like that outfit; it’s very spacey. Wave of the future or something like that. I guess that’s why the designer made it.
Rok and I used to do this all the time, but since he’s trying to hate me, I beat him to the court. He was mad at me that he didn’t get his game in. I needed the extra exercise anyway, to test out my durability.
The second I started dribbling down the court, I felt the change. It was a good change though, I felt as light as a feather and the ball felt like nothing. Now, getting three-pointers was such a breeze. I’d flick my wrist and stretch out my arm without even bending my knees and the ball was in. Nothing but net almost every time. The only times I’d miss were completely by human error.
One time the ball fell through the hoop and hit the concrete base on the bottom. It strayed towards the direction of the arena and my eyes followed it as it rolled. I didn’t want to go pick it up until it stopped rolling. The ball landed by the window and as I looked up, I saw Brian watching me from behind the glass. I tried not to smile and he ducked when I came closer.
Instead of saying anything, I pretended not to see him and picked up my ball. It had gotten all sandy, but I didn’t care. I took it and dribbled up to the hoop, then I did a lefty lay-up. For some reason, I’m really good at those; I get good height and everything.
I had an awesome time trying out new things. When I threw the ball hard against the backboard, I could even slam-dunk the rebound back into the basket. For those of you who are basketball impaired, it’s sort of like getting a new super power and using it for the first time.
All good things must come to an end; mine sure did. I had to take my inhaler four times and I was tired again. Plus Denise came and yelled at me about sweating in my outfit. Well, I was going to sweat in it dancing ANYWAY, so I might as well. She wasn’t my mother; I think I said that before…
Before I left, I noticed that Rok had gone. My security guards were yelling at me to get back inside, so I guess it must have been close to curtain time. This was starting to become a routine, I get hooked up to that harness and fly over the audience.
For the second time on the tour, the man put me out there too early. I was waiting for it to happen again, because this time I had something to say. I’d planned it out over and over in my mind since the first time it happened.
“What’s up?” I asked as I just hung around. The people in the audience screamed loudly when they saw what was happening.
“They did again! Promise me that you’ll make a mosh pit if I fall all right? I’m not that heavy.” More people screamed; they were the best. After I said that, the rest of the guys were launched and we began the show.
Soon after, I had another accident with my board. It was stiff or there wasn’t enough grease, but whatever the reason, I was thrown off my board in one jerky movement. I fell on my hands, an involuntary reaction to falling. At least I didn’t fall on my nose that would have been a bloody disaster; so to speak.
After that little fiasco, things went smoothly. I tried not to push myself too hard, and on my little solos, I’d concentrate harder on my breaths and my singing. It sounded really good too.
The dancing sometimes got really hard, especially during our faster songs. I would have to just move my mouth for the chorus because I couldn’t handle doing both at the same time. I prayed that my management or the critics wouldn’t notice.
By the time our second costume change came, disaster struck. I could not breathe. Not even enough to see straight. My knees collapsed on me and I met the floor with full force. I only had five minutes to change, and the guys were already done. Everyone started shouting, “Where’s Nick?” because I’d taken off in a different direction than I was supposed to go.
AJ was the one who found me and I almost didn’t recognize his voice because I had started blacking out. I thought I was going to die in that room and AJ would watch me, laughing. After, when I thought about it, I couldn’t believe that I had thought that about him.
Immediately after he found me, AJ turned me over so that I was facing up and screamed for help. He then propped me up against the wall and tilted my head back. At last I could breathe! I took the fastest, deepest breaths I could muster, relishing the moment. He’d opened my trachea that way; he must have learned that in first aid. I’m still eternally grateful to him; even so he acted like a jerk afterwards.
“You’re face turned blue,” he said finally, and started laughing. Abruptly, he stopped. “Blue…” All of a sudden, it wasn’t funny anymore.
I felt like a small child, suddenly, and I wanted AJ to hold my hand until the paramedics arrived. It didn’t feel gay to me, as some people would say it was. I needed the extra comfort. But AJ refused to.
My breathing had gone back to normal after I took my inhaler. I’d taped it to the inside of my sleeve so that I could take it when no one was looking. But with that I’d gotten my feeling back and I could feel that I’d taken a bite out of my tongue when I fell. When I coughed, I put my hand up to it to smother it and the blood sprayed all over it. It was the hand that I’d squashed on the plane, and now I realized that I could hardly move it.
I stuck out my bloody hand to AJ and whispered, “Please hold my hand.” He took one look at my oozing, bluish colored hand and I could tell he almost barfed. I’d done it for a joke, because he looked so grim, but now I regretted it because he was really worried about me.
When the paramedics arrived, I heard AJ say, “Double check that hand of his okay?” That made me laugh a little, but more blood sputtered out of my mouth and nose. It kept me from laughing and breathing for too long. My nose had started bleeding again, just as I feared it would. When I hit the hard floor, it must have triggered it again.
I wasn’t too comfortable about going to the hospital. But I tried to be brave and told AJ, “Tell the fans I miss’em already.”
“Yeah, yeah,” was his reply and I knew he would do it.
Chapter 8
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