Dried Up Tears
Dried Up Tears

~~~~~Chapter Fourteen~~~~


So even through 1998 started out okay, it became what we called our year in hell. It was so bad we almost broke up, some of it was my fault, some was Lou's and some was outside forces. It was a disaster of a year to put it mildly.

Our small tour in the States was selling very well and we were gaining fans at every show. We did record signings, interviews and TV shows until we were ready to drop. I was so sick of singing "Quit Playing Games" and "As Long as you Love Me". We appeared on some really popular shows though. The Tonight Show, The View, Oprah, Regis. We had made it big in the States and to show that Lou signed us up for a crazy schedule with barely any breathing room. I got to go home a couple of times and met up with Mandy. Things were going really well there and I asked her to join us on tour later in the year. She was 17 and still in school, but she readily agreed. She told me that she missed me so much while I had been gone. No one had ever told me that, so, of course, I was gone. Totally in love with this girl. Stupid.

The first crack happened in May. Brian had been born with a heart defect and the time had come to operate to repair it. So Brian went in, had the surgery and the rest of us, after we had made sure he was okay, got ready for a break. I called Aaron and Mandy and told them I was coming home for awhile. Two days after Brian's surgery all us guys were in visting him. Lou's aide strolls in and hands out a revised schedule. Damn, I thought Kevin was going to blow a vein. The tour started in six weeks. Six weeks. Brian's incision would barely be healed and the bastard wanted him to dance around and sing? Kevin drove us all over to Lou's office and demanded to know what was going on. Lou said that the offer had been to good to refuse. Kevin insisted Brian was not touring until he was healthy. Lou held up Brian's contract and said, "He is performing or he will be sued. He'll never work in the music business again." So six weeks later, Brian is out there singing his heart out (pardon the pun) and puffing air through an oxygen mask at breaks. It killed me. Kevin barely spoke to Lou after that. He was already furious about N'Sync. Lou had taken them over to Europe and Germany was going crazy over them. This news drove Kevin over the edge. This was blood family Lou was messing with now.

The next crack was Kevin and Brian's grandpa dying. Lou told them they couldn't go home, that we couldn't afford the time off. Kevin threw a paperweight at the door to the office and smashed the window. "Fuck you!" he screamed. "Let's go Brian." They flew home for the funeral and were back that night to perform. They were both, rightly so, like zombies. Next, Howie's sister, Caroline, who had been so sick with Lupus, died in September. Howie was griefstricken. He had gotten a call that she had taken a turn for the worse but he couldn't go to her because we were scheduled for the MTV Video Awards and then the tour was on again. He collapsed when his brother called to let him know. He never got a chance to say goodbye to her. Kevin sent him home for the funeral and told Lou the next show was off. As it turns out I got stranded at the airport and they would have had to cancel anyway. Or go on without me, which Lou probably would have made them do. It was the first show we had cancelled in 6 years together. 1 show.

The crack that almost killed us concerned me. Of course. It had to be me, right? In the months after Caroline's death our tour card was full to the edges. We had a show each night. I was slowly going crazy, all the sadness, I was missing my girlfriend, my family, well some of my family anyway. I went to Lou one night and asked him for a hit, just one hit to get me through the night. He was having a party, some of the crew and office staff. He told me I could have it if I "performed" for his guests. I knew what he wanted. So what else was new? Well for some reason that I can't remember, Kevin wanted to talk to me that night. Someone told him they saw me at Lou's door. Kevin knocked and someone let him in. Big mistake or good mistake, I guess, for me. Hard to say. Kevin walked into the suite and the first thing he saw was me sprawled on the bed with someone banging me from behind and Lou sucking my cock. By this time I was higher than a kite. Lou had given me a drug cocktail and I was in the clouds. Kevin punched Lou and knocked him to the floor and dragged me out of there. I was kicking and screaming all the way to his room. Naked. Thank God no one was there to take a picture.

Kevin wrapped me in a blanket and kept me in his room until I came down from my high. He stayed up all night, and rubbed my back when I threw up over and over again. "What the hell were you doing Nickolas?" His eyes looked so sad, I couldn't say anything. "Nickolas?" "Coke, I don't know what else he gave me." I sniffled. "Cocaine? Again?" Kevin exploded. "How long have you been back doing cocaine?" I told him. He asked me why. I told him. I told him everything. It felt good to get it all out. I felt empty, but good. Kevin sat beside me on the bed, his face shocked. "He raped you and your mother knew?" I nodded. Kevin wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tighter than I have ever been hugged in my life. "Oh my God." he kept saying, over and over. I started crying and couldn't stop. I cried and cried and cried until there were no more tears. "I'll kill him. That goddamn bastard. You were just a kid." Kevin declared. "You can't!" I yelled. "Everyone will know." Kevin stared at me. "You don't want to defend that fucking bastard, do you?" I told him I just wanted to forget. That Lou left me alone now except when I wanted drugs from him. "No, we are going to get rid of him. He's done."

Kevin took me back to my room to sleep. He talked to Denise and the other guys while I was out. He told them everything and Denise devised the plan to get rid of him. She had looked over the books once and saw that some money was being skimmed from us, but had never mentioned it. Now was the time. I felt like an animal in the zoo when I got together with them all. Everyone was staring at me, with pity written all over their faces. I hated people feeling sorry for me. Kevin told me the plan and that a meeting was arranged with Lou and our lawyers in two days.

In two days we all sat down in Lou's office and laid it out. He let us out of our contract now, and now one would be the wiser about what he had done to Nick. We would tell the press about some contract infraction and offer that as the reason we were splitting with him and the management company. Lou shook his head no. "I made you guys and you're stuck with me." "Goddamn it Lou!" Kevin jumped out of his chair. "We're through! We are trying to make this easy for you. A nice, clean break with no one asking questions!" Still no. Damn him to hell. "I want a cut of the profits as long as you are together." he yelled back at Kevin. "Or the whole world will know about the druggie slut there." He pointed his finger at me and sneered. Kevin, bless him, went for Lou's throat before the other guys pulled him off. "You made him that way, you goddamn bastard, you raped him!" "I didn't force the drugs up his nose." Lou said simply and started reading some papers on his desk. Kevin thrashed around in his chair but the guys got him to settle. The lawyers drew up a new agreement and asked us to authorize it. It gave Lou a percentage of our sales on the condition that he never mentioned what happened with me. Ever. For public consumption we were suing for profits. I refused to sign. I just wanted to forget it all. So the other four were named as defendants and if anyone asked, they were told I wasn't listed because I was underage. I don't think it ever really went to court since it was just for show, basically. Kevin still wants to spit whenever he sees or is asked about Lou. It kills him that some of our money went to him until the day he died.

So there we were with no management, one person still recovering from heart surgery, three mourning someone they loved and one that badly needed counselling, therapy and rehab or all of the above. We were quite the bunch. We took on the management duties ourselves, Kevin and Howie mostly. They found us a new company called The Firm, that would take over in the new year. Kevin wanted me to go to rehab before we started recording the new album, but I insisted I was fine and that I never took that much to begin with. I wasn't fine, far from it. It was going to get alot worse. But I've yapped long enough tonight and I'm tired. More tomorrow.


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