Writer's Note: Okay this is the second time I have to go through with this, grrr! It wouldn't save the first time! Anyway, this chapter disses N'Sync's fans, and I feel really bad about it now. See, my sis is a fan and I was mad at her when I wrote this! I've met lots of nice N'Sync fans, so I'm totally not trying to be biased here! Be gentle!:) I know you guys are nice:)
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I didn’t have much time to admire it or to conclude that it could be cancer because the waiter came in with my soup. I must have looked really sullen because when I thanked him because he high tailed it out of there.
I’d forgotten about the soup and now I really didn’t want it. I forced it down anyway, because now I was really getting scared. After I finished, I looked at the lump again in the mirror. You could still see it even if I covered it with my arm.
Just then, my bodyguard walked in on me and I hastily put on my shirt. You could even see it through the shirt! I was mortified and I didn’t want this brute to take me back to the hospital. So I kept it a huge secret and I hoped no one would ever find out. Besides it might have not been cancerous, I consoled myself.
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I went on with the tour and sang my heart out. On the middle of the stage I sat every day, trying to forget my tumor. It squished around when I put my arm down, so I tried to use that arm more often to hold the mike.
My personality changed too; I felt shy and awkward every place I went. I couldn’t even go to Mack Daddy’s because I was so afraid that someone would notice.
On the second week of the tour I got my cast off, but I wasn’t allowed to do anything. Basically I just sat there in that chair and ruined all the fans’ concert experiences. I’d talk to them during the show and tell them that I was sorry. They always seemed to understand me.
My hand had become infected so I had no choice but to keep that arm down. I did some research later on and found out that I had all the classic symptoms of leukemia, and infection was one of them.
On the third night without my cast, something terrible happened. It ruined the way I thought about some fans and it ruined the way I thought about myself.
I was in the dressing room getting changed with the guys. They hadn’t talked to me since AJ helped me out, and I thought they were doing it because they wanted to show that they didn’t care about me. Anyway, I was about to change into my “Larger Than Life” outfit, and I had gotten down to my boxers when I was seized by the shoulders by Rok and Kev. They didn’t say a word, but I knew what they were going to do because they had done it before. I kicked and tried to get lose, but I couldn’t loosen their grips. They dragged me unwillingly to the door, swung it wide open, and threw me outside in front of a pile of fans.
I kicked at the door with my good foot as the fans below screamed. The platform I was standing on was actually a wheel chair accessible plank with a flimsy guardrail on the bottom. At first I thought that the fans would break through the barrier and crush me, but they stayed down below nicely and surprised me.
The whole time I was punching at the door and yelling at the guys to open up. They wouldn’t of course, somehow I knew they wouldn’t, but I kept on doing it anyway. The fans were screaming for me to turn around and I did, but very carefully so that they couldn’t see my tumor. I could only turn around for a second, because I had to bang on the door some more, but I could tell that my muscles impressed the fans.
I heard the usual comments like, “Take it off!” or “Let me!” but I didn’t turn around anyway. Unfortunately for me, when I wasn’t looking, two girls that I thought were fans broke through the barrier. I saw them grab for my boxers in the last minute, and batted their grubby paws away.
In the music business, you have to either be very nice to your fans all the time to keep success, or very mean. We were the nice kind. So I had to take care of these girls without hurting them or saying anything negative. It’s very difficult to do, believe me, when two young ladies are pulling viciously at your pants and there’s nothing you can do about it.
The fans’ screaming had died down a bit as they watched me struggle with the two girls. I used one hand to fend them off and the other to cover up my tumor. At first it wasn’t too hard to block them, and I got some encouragement from the audience. One girl told me two kick their asses and a lot of them cheered. All I could do was smile, because that’s what I had been wishing I could do the whole time.
Just when I thought the two girls had given up because they had stepped back, four more girls jumped the barrier and the six of them attacked me with full force. One for each of my legs and arms, one had me in headlock and the chubbiest one tackled me to the ground. She sat on me the whole time, watching my face turn blue.
The girl who had me in the headlock let go finally and I could partially breathe. She went and sat beside my left leg, then turned to face the audience.
“You are about to face boy band history,” she said, “Today we’re going to find out if Nick Carter is actually a man! We are fans of ‘Nsync out to prove to you once and for all that he is not a guy!”
The fans were a bit confused, and they didn’t say anything. The girl sitting by my leg took the fabric of my boxers in her hands and tore them from the leg all the way up to the elastic. It was a big rip and apparently she saw something.
“Ladies and gentleman, well preteens, it looks like I was wrong after all! But we’d better take it all off to make sure!”
Don’t get me wrong, just because I wasn’t mentioning me doing anything, believe me, I was. I told her them to get off of me, that I’ll sue them – everything, but they wouldn’t listen.
The girl turned from the audience and suddenly tore viciously at my boxers. I was really scared; my body is sacred to me, I don’t like being violated like that. When she got too close to my crotch, I screamed. It wasn’t a normal scream, like from the audience kind of scream; it was a terrified scream. It wasn’t girly either; it was nice and loud, but not too high pitched.
The girls had gotten scared and run off. Through my screams and watery eyes I could barely see one of my real fans tackling them to the ground. I rolled over so that I was on my belly and kept on screaming. I could hear the fans telling me that it was all right, but I kept on doing it. The guys must have heard me, so they opened the door and whisked me inside.
I didn’t want to face anyone right now, so I ran and hid in the back closet. The world had betrayed me and I had turned my back on it. Amazingly, no one noticed the huge lump under my arm. Or maybe they had but they were too scared to say anything about it. I just hoped that they didn’t see anything crucial.
In the closet, I laid down on a pile of clothing, which was as comforting as it was comfortable. For some reason I couldn’t stop trembling, and along with that came the crying. The non-stop crying habit that I had was starting to get on my manly nerves.
Ten minutes later Denise walked in on me. I would have locked the door if could, but there aren’t any locks on closet doors.
At first she didn’t say anything, because she saw the shape I was in. I was still trembling and that contributed to my erratic breathing. Unblinkingly I stared ahead, my tears pouring onto the soft clothing.
“Nick come on, snap out of it,” she snapped fingers near my eyes a couple times but I still didn’t blink. I was really messed up.
When that didn’t work, she began to shake me. She nearly touched my tumor and she was making me feel sea sick, so I stopped acting all weird. Denise embraced me and it felt good, but I started to cry even harder for some reason. My emotions were really messed up then, and that’s what I was thinking while I cried too.
“There, there, Nick calm down,” she told me, “you still have a show to do so calm down for that.”
A show; I couldn’t possibly do a show, I had thought. All the fans would jump up and attack me but this time they’d do a better job.
Denise must have seen the fear in my eyes so she said, “Don’t worry, there’re guards all along the stage and no one can get through them. Here,” she handed me my “Larger Than Life” outfit, “you can dress in here if you want to.” She left and closed the door carefully behind her. I put the suit on over my tattered underwear and slowly stepped out.
Denise took me over to make up where the lady tried to hide my weary eyes. I was shaking pretty badly the whole time and crying as well. I kept ruining the lady’s work until she gave up.
“We’ll say you’re sick,” the lady from my management said as they whisked me off to do the show. I limped onto the stage and I could tell by the people’s surprised faces that they already knew what happened.
I practiced breathing so that my voice wouldn’t shake as I sat in the chair. The surround seats were raking at my brain; I kept thinking about how I could be attacked from every corner. That there was a possibility of N’Sync fans being in that audience.
My foot was hurting again and my stomach was queasy. It seemed like the guys would never come out and when I heard the opening number I’d never felt so relieved.
They made me wear a headset instead of holding the mike. I guess they were hoping that I would get up and do a little something like Kevin did when he sprained his shoulder. But I didn’t; I just sat in my chair cross-legged and sang to myself. Half the time I wasn’t sure if I was singing the right song because I was getting dirty looks from everyone. But scanning the audience for N’Sync fans kept me too busy to concentrate on what I was singing.
At the first costume change, I refused to change. I told them that the special building that had made for me while I was singing was too flimsy and I kicked it with my foot. On the second kick it collapsed, but they wouldn’t give up on me.
They grabbed my shoulders and sat me on the ground. Then they threatened everything they could think of – from kicking me out of the group to tying me to the ground and dressing me themselves.
None of it worked though; they just had me in hysterics the whole time. I was screaming so loud that they were afraid that I would lose my voice. But they still refused to give up so they called up Mandy. I could hear what they were saying to her.
The shivering had returned while they were talking to her and I got the hiccups with it. When they handed me the phone I could hardly speak.
“Nick, it’s okay. There are no more perverted fans. All the people out there love you; that’s why they spent money to see you. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t love you.”
“They…came to…my…dressing room…they’re in…the audience.” I was hiccuping and breathing these short little breaths as I talked.
“These people love you as much as I do, they just want you to change. No one will see anything.”
“They…threatened to…pin me…to the ground…like the fans…did.” I was starting to get mad.
“Five seconds left!” I heard from the stage director.
“Thank you… Mandy, but I’m… not going to do it.” I hung up on her and started towards the stage in my “Larger Than Life” outfit.
We looked unsynchronized now, but I didn’t care. I felt safe in this outfit and nothing in the world could make me change. The fans knew what was up, but the guys sure didn’t. When they went for the second costume change I could hear them complain. Kevin sure had a lot to say on that.
At our first encore, which was “I Want It That Way,” I saw something terrible. I spotted it right before I was supposed to sing “don’t wanna hear you say…” It was there as plain as day when I looked into the audience. A girl with N’Sync written across her forehead and she was just staring at me.
Instead of saying my part, I threw my mike to the floor and walked up to the edge of the stage. I looked from right to left and back again, but I couldn’t see her anymore.
I must have had a very peculiar look on my face because all the fans stopped screaming to look at me and in awe. The tumor was poking out of my shirt and I was sweating and panting so hard. I didn’t care though; I kept on looking very panicky for the girl. The band had stopped playing and I didn’t even notice. A few minutes later, my knees buckled and I fell to the floor.
Chapter 10
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