Chapter 87

The day after the star ceremony, it was business as usual for the Backstreet Boys, as we went right back to the rehearsal studio to start our second week of tour rehearsals.

One week in, I was starting to feel more comfortable with my modified choreography, but I still had a lot of work left to do in order to be fully polished and performance-ready. We all did.

“Five, six, seven, eight, and right… left… right, back, front, put it on!”

As our choreographer called out the counts, I tried my best to keep up without dropping my fedora – which was easier said than done. We were working on the hat dance for “All I Have to Give,” which we had decided to bring back for our twentieth anniversary tour, knowing it was a fan favorite. For the other four guys, this was just a matter of dusting off their fedoras and activating their muscle memory. After a few times through the old, familiar routine, Howie, Brian, AJ, and Nick were performing it as if no time had passed since they’d last done so. But, for me, it wasn’t that simple. While my own muscle memory was as sharp as ever, the pathways between my muscles and brain had been severed, making it impossible for me to move the same way as I had before my injury. There was a time when I could have done this dance in my sleep. Now I had to figure out a way to do it in a body that was practically comatose from the chest down.

“Lean back, two, three, four, and turn, six, seven, and eight!”

As always, our team had risen to the challenges of accommodating me. Rich and Tone had modified the choreography so that I could perform it from my chair, while our stylists, Nicole and Tierney, had designed a custom fedora for me that I could doff, don, and dance with despite my limited hand function. It had a band of metal tape hidden beneath the wide ribbon that wrapped around its brim, which I could hold onto with the help of heavy-duty magnets sewn into a pair of bedazzled push gloves.

“You look like Michael Jackson,” Howie had joked when Tierney had given me the hat and gloves to try out that afternoon. Knowing how much he admired the late king of pop, I’d taken it as a compliment. I definitely couldn’t dance like Michael Jackson, but that didn’t matter. I was delighted by my new accessories, which would allow me to do most of the hat choreography.

The hardest parts to master were the moves that required two hands, such as turning my chair or transferring the hat from one hand to the other. As always, it took some trial and error to figure out what would and wouldn’t work for me. The most difficult section of the routine to modify turned out to be the middle, which consisted of a complicated sequence of spins and steps that included tossing, catching, and kicking the hat off the toes of our shoes up into our hands. Even the other guys occasionally dropped their hats during that part of the dance. While I had accepted the fact that I could no longer do the footwork, I still wanted my movements to match theirs as much as possible. We spent most of the afternoon working through the modifications in front of the mirrored wall, making sure each one looked okay before we moved on to the next.

After breaking for dinner, we warmed up our voices for a full run-through of the first set, which included five songs: “The Call,” “Don’t Want You Back,” “Incomplete,” “Permanent Stain,” and “All I Have to Give.” The other guys held imaginary microphones, singing into their empty fists as they performed the choreography. I didn’t bother, knowing I would have a headset on stage, since I needed both hands free to maneuver my chair.

The first two songs in the set featured AJ or Nick on nearly all of the solos, which had been a strategic choice. We wanted to give Brian time to warm up his voice and get the nerves out of his system before his first solo part, which came after the second chorus of “Don’t Want You Back.”

“Baaaa-a-a-ack, nooo, no!” Brian’s voice rang out, strong and clear as a bell, giving me goosebumps on the back of my neck.

That’s it, cuz; you got this, I thought, grinning at his reflection in the mirror as the rest of us joined him in singing, “I-I don’t want you back!”

But it quickly went downhill as Brian came in on the bridge, sounding completely different than he had twenty seconds earlier. “Baby… don’t bother telling me your reasons why,” he sang, his voice tremulous and reedy. Watching his red face in the mirror, I could see him straining to force the sound out through his vocal cords. “Just let us sing this story ‘bout you and I.” By the end of his solo, it sounded like he was being strangled. I noticed Nick and AJ exchange glances and saw Howie suck in a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling. I knew what they had to be thinking, but none of us said anything out loud.

Later that night, though, Nick brought it up as he drove me home from rehearsal. We were stopped at a red light somewhere in North Hollywood when he suddenly turned down the music and looked up into the rearview mirror. “So, can we talk about the elephant in the room?” he said in a low voice.

“What elephant?” asked Howie, his voice drifting up from the back of my van. Since Dawn had flown back to Lexington with Mason and my mom the previous day, the boys would be taking turns staying with me and acting as my temporary caregivers for the next few weeks, until she returned to L.A. AJ had spent the first night with me. Tonight was Howie’s turn, but Nick had also agreed to stay over in order to show him how to do my full care routine, including my bowel program the next morning. I was a little nervous about how that was going to go, but I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. It was too late for me to find another caregiver.

“Brian’s voice,” Nick replied bluntly. “What are we gonna do about Brian’s voice?”

Oh god, here we go again, I thought with a sinking feeling. I waited for a few seconds to see if someone else would speak first, but no one did. I was the one to break the awkward silence. “I don’t think there’s anything ‘we’ can do about Brian’s voice,” I said slowly. “And, based on what he’s told us, there’s not much he can do about it either, besides what he’s already been trying. So, what do you wanna talk about?”

Nick sighed. “I dunno. Never mind then, I guess,” he muttered. The light changed to green, and he gunned the engine. I opened my mouth to tell him to slow down, then changed my mind and held my tongue. He was doing me a huge favor; I didn’t want to piss him off.

Thankfully for me, AJ was also there to call Nick out. “Oh, c’mon, Carter, you can’t just open up a can of worms like that and then shut it down,” he chided from the back seat. Since he had driven my van to the rehearsal studio that day, he had to ride back to my house with us to retrieve his car. “So, tell us: What do you think we should do about it?”

Easing his foot off the accelerator, Nick shrugged. “I dunno; that’s why I was asking, dawg. I’m not trying to be a dick about it. I’m genuinely worried. What’s gonna happen when we go on tour with him sounding the way he did tonight?”

I frowned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Nick, but this is not exactly a new problem, is it? I noticed Brian struggling on your last tour with New Kids on the Block, and that was two years ago.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Nick. “We noticed it, too, but it’s gotten worse since then. I don’t think the therapy he’s been doing has made any difference.”

“Therapy’s not a quick fix. These things take time,” I told him, thinking about my own experience. It had taken three years of intensive physical therapy for me to build up enough upper body strength to qualify for a manual wheelchair – and, even now, my arms felt like limp noodles after a long day of pushing myself around. “Progress isn’t always linear. He’s bound to have some setbacks.”

“Kev’s got a point,” AJ agreed. “Besides, it wasn’t all bad. Rok sounded pretty good on ‘All I Have to Give,’ and he was fucking amazing on his ad-libs in ‘Don’t Want You Back.’ He can still hit those high notes like nobody’s business. It’s the lower parts that give him problems.”

“Exactly,” Nick said, nodding. “So, what can we do to help him with those parts?”

“We could add more harmonies underneath him,” Howie suggested. “That worked well on our new songs. Maybe we should do it with the old stuff, too.”

He was right, of course – the harmonies we had incorporated into Brian’s parts of songs such as “Permanent Stain,” “In a World Like This,” and “It’s Christmas Time Again” had helped to hide the flaws in his performance. But I had a feeling Brian would hate the idea of us turning all of his solos into duets or trios, and I told the other guys so.

“Well, it’d be better than us turning down his mic and having him sing along to a backing track,” Nick snapped back, bristling behind the wheel. “What else can we do? It’s not like we’re gonna replace him, and he’d never give up his solos or agree to lip sync ‘em, not unless he literally couldn’t sing at all. But I worry that, if he keeps straining his vocal cords the way he did tonight, it’s gonna progress to that point. I just don’t want this to get any worse, you know?”

“It’s not a progressive condition, though, is it?” I replied, frowning as I tried to remember everything Brian had told us about muscle tension dysphonia. Instead, I heard Dawn’s voice in the back of my head, talking about her own diagnosis.

“It’s a progressive condition. I may be able to slow the progression with a proper diet and exercise, but no matter what I do, my heart is gonna get weaker. The day will come when I won’t be able to do this job anymore.”

I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to Brian’s voice, which had been the heart of the Backstreet Boys’ sound for twenty years. The band may have survived without me, but I didn’t see how we could survive without Brian.

“I don’t think so,” AJ said. “And we don’t have to ‘do’ anything except support him. I thought that’s what we all agreed we were going to do. I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation again.”

“Oh, really, AJ?” Nick glanced into the rearview mirror, rolling his eyes. “You’re the one who wanted us to have it!”

“Only ‘cause you brought it up in the first place, dumbass!” AJ fired back. “Why can’t you let this go?”

“Because it’s fucking painful for me to listen to!” Nick exploded. “It literally hurts my ears to hear him sound like that! But, more than that, it hurts my heart. I hate what’s happened to his voice.” His own voice sounded thick, like he was on the verge of tears.

“Dude, we all fucking hate it!” cried AJ. “But, like Kev said, there’s nothing we can do to fix it. Sure, we could try to cover it up with harmonies or backing tracks, but that’d just be slapping a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”

“Better than nothing!” Nick argued. “At least we’d be acknowledging that there is an actual problem, instead of pretending there’s not! You think the fans aren’t gonna notice?”

“Well, obviously, they will… but if they’re true fans, they won’t care. I mean, they will care about Brian, of course, but they won’t mind if he can’t sing like he used to,” AJ clarified. “I’m sure most of them would rather hear his real, live vocals – even if they’re a little raw at times – than listen to a prerecorded track at a concert, just like they’d rather see Kev roll around the stage in a wheelchair than watch a hologram of him dancing or some bullshit.”

I had been waiting for one of them to mention my name or compare Brian’s condition to mine. I couldn’t help but wonder how many similar conversations they’d had behind my back since I had decided to return to the group. Had they argued among themselves about how they were going to handle my physical limitations?

“I don’t know why you’re bringing Kevin into it,” said Nick, giving me a quick sidelong glance, as if he knew what I was thinking. “I didn’t say a goddamn thing about Kevin! That’s a totally different situation.”

“It’s not that different, though,” Howie pointed out. “Kevin’s disability affects our performance, too – no offense, bro.”

“No, you’re right,” I acknowledged him with a nod. “It does.”

“The only real difference,” he went on, “is the way we’ve dealt with it. We haven’t tried to hide it or deny it, so why would we do that with Brian’s vocal condition?”

“Because Brian wants to deny it!” replied Nick. “That’s the difference! Kevin can’t hide his disability, but Brian can – or, at least, he seems to think he can, just because it’s not something that can be seen on the outside. But, going back to my point, if he thinks people won’t be able to hear it, then he’s in denial. And what are we gonna do about that? Pretend we’re in denial, too?”

“If that’s what Brian wants us to do, then yeah,” I said with a shrug. “It’s not our place to comment publicly on his health. If he wants to keep this private for now, then we have to respect his decision, whether we agree with it or not.”

“Nick brings up a good point, though. If people only knew what Brian’s been dealing with, they would be more understanding,” said AJ. “The fans already know something’s been up with his voice for the last few years. Ro and I have seen them talking about it on Twitter. If we talked about it more openly, too, we could put an end to the speculation and hopefully cut down on the criticism he gets every time we perform on TV.”

“That’s true,” replied Howie, “but Kevin has a point, too. Brian has a right to privacy. We can’t force him to go public with this if he’s not ready.”

“I know you two have been pretty open about the personal issues you’ve been through in the past,” I added, directing my attention toward Nick and AJ, “but not everyone’s an open book. Brian’s not the type to make the talk show rounds or write a memoir or do a reality show or document his whole life on social media. Neither am I, for that matter. No shade on you guys for doing those things; I think it’s great that you wanna share your experiences, and I’m sure the fans appreciate it. They probably wish we were less private. But some things are hard to talk about publicly.”

“But Brian has been on talk shows before,” Nick argued. “I remember him doing interviews about his heart surgery and stuff.”

“And maybe, in time, he’ll be able to talk more openly about this, too,” I said. “Frankly, I hope he did open up more in the confessionals he filmed for the documentary. But, for now, let’s try to give him the time and space and support that he needs… and stop talking about him behind his back.”

“Well, it’s not like I can talk about it to his face,” Nick muttered bitterly. “You saw what happened the last time I tried. He just got all defensive.”

“If I remember correctly, that’s because you were yelling and cussing at him. Try talking to him calmly and respectfully next time, and you might get a better reaction,” I replied matter-of-factly.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Kevin,” was Nick’s response. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not, but I laughed anyway.

“We still had a good conversation at that meeting,” Howie said seriously. As usual, he was the one trying to keep the peace and focus on the positive. “I’m glad Nicky spoke up. It needed to be said… maybe not in the exact way he said it, but at least he got us talking about it. You’re right, though, Kevin – we should be talking about it to Brian, not behind his back.”

“Agreed,” said AJ. “We’re a family. We should be able to have hard conversations without hurting each other’s feelings.”

I nodded. “Well said, AJ.”

“Dude, AJ didn’t come up with that!” Nick squawked, sounding like a cranky little kid. “I said the exact same fucking thing last summer in London, when Brian first told us about this!”

“Then well said, Nick,” I amended, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “Look, fellas, it’s been a long day. I’m tired. I can tell Nick’s tired, and I’m sure the rest of y’all are, too. So let’s table this for tonight, and the next time it comes up, we can try including Brian in the conversation. Okay?”

“Okay,” they all agreed, Nick rather grudgingly so. It was too dark to see the red creeping up his neck this time, but I knew he was nearing his boiling point and needed time to cool down. I didn’t want him to lose his temper while he was driving my van.

The rest of the ride back to my place was relatively silent. We listened to an R&B radio station and didn’t speak to each other again until Nick had parked in my driveway.

“I hope y’all know how much I appreciate this,” I said as he and Howie took their overnight bags out of the trunk. “I don’t know what I would do without your help.”

“That’s what family’s for,” said AJ as he finished folding up the ramp and slid the side door shut. “Speaking of which, I’ve gotta get home to my girls. Love you guys. Have a good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you too, AJ,” I replied, giving him a grateful smile. “Goodnight.”

As AJ got into his car, Nick and Howie followed me into my house. It was the first time Howie had been over since I’d bought it the previous fall. “Pretty cool place you got here, Kevin,” he said, looking around approvingly as I took him on a tour. “Very mid-century modern.”

“Heh… wait till you see his bathroom,” Nick said, snickering, as we headed into the master suite. Most of the pink in my bedroom had been replaced by neutral shades of gray and cream, but the bathroom still looked like a bottle of Pepto Bismol had exploded inside, as Dawn had once put it.

“Barbie would approve,” Howie joked when he saw it.

“Barbie did approve,” I replied, remembering Natalie’s enthusiastic reaction to this room the day my realtor had shown us the place. “This is how it looked when I bought the house. Natalie loved all the pink, so I left it alone. I haven’t had the heart – or the time – to change it yet.”

“What’s the hurry?” he responded with a shrug. “It looks perfectly functional. Who cares if it’s pink?”

“Good point. I guess I don’t, really.” But a lump rose in my throat as I gazed past him into the bubblegum-hued bathroom. It had taken some getting used to, but after a few months, I’d barely noticed the pastel pink walls, flooring, and fixtures anymore. I only hated the room now because it reminded me of how much I missed her. Subconsciously, I couldn’t help but wonder if the real reason I still hadn’t hired someone to remodel it was because there was a part of me that regretted breaking up with her and secretly hoped we might get back together someday.

Swallowing hard, I said, “Well, that’s all there is to see. Why don’t you guys go get settled while I take care of some business in here? I don’t have a guest room, so one of you can sleep in Dawn’s room, and the other one will have to take Mason’s. Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Howie turned to Nick. “Rock, paper, scissors to see who’s sleeping in the twin bed tonight?”

“I think it should be you,” Nick said at once. “You’re smaller.”

“Yeah, but you’re younger,” Howie fired back.

Nick rolled his eyes. “All right, fine. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” He held out two fingers, which Howie immediately hit with a closed fist.

“Rock smashes scissors. Sorry, buddy,” said Howie, flashing him a triumphant grin.

“Best out of three?” Nick asked hopefully.

“No way!”

Sighing, Nick turned to me. “Please tell me Mason doesn’t still wet the bed.”

I shook my head. “Not since last summer. Don’t worry – Dawn put clean sheets on all of the beds before she left. I hope you don’t mind dinosaurs.”

Nick’s face brightened. “Are you kidding? Dude, I freaking love dinosaurs!” he replied with all the enthusiasm of a five-year-old boy. “Lauren won’t let me have fun sheets; she only buys us boring white bedding, like you’d find at a damn hotel. Who wants to feel like they’re still sleeping in a hotel room when they’re finally home?”

Howie and I both laughed. “Well, there you go, buddy. Only the best here at Hotel Richardson,” I joked. “Make yourselves at home.”

While Nick and Howie went to drop off their things and change out of their sweaty clothes, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, took my medication, and emptied my bladder. After another draining day of rehearsal, I was desperate to get out of my wheelchair and into bed – but not dumb enough to attempt an independent transfer without someone there to spot me. I didn’t trust my tired arms to drag my dead weight across my sliding board, so I waited until one of the guys knocked on my bedroom door.

“You decent, Kev?” Nick’s voice drifted through it. I don’t know why he bothered to ask, considering he was about to help me undress anyway, but I supposed it was more polite than barging in unannounced.

“Yup!” I called back. “Come on in!”

Howie followed Nick back into my room. “Nice painting,” he said, nodding at the wall behind my bed. “I didn’t notice that before.”

I glanced back over my shoulder, following his gaze to the blackbird canvas that was still hanging over my headboard, despite Dawn’s offer to take it down a week earlier. “Thanks. I went to one of those Paint and Sip nights a couple of months ago.”

“You painted that?” Nick sounded impressed.

The memory of my Valentine’s Day date with Natalie was painful, but I forced myself to smile. “Yeah… not bad for a guy with no hand function, huh?”

“No, that’s really good, bro!” Nick leaned in to take a closer look at the canvas. “K plus N…” One corner of his mouth curved into a smirk as he read the initials carved inside a heart on the tree in my painting. “Aww, Kevy! I love you, too,” he cooed, planting a big, wet kiss on my cheek.

“Damn it, Nick, I just washed my face!” I protested, wiping his slobber away.

“You know you love me,” he replied with a playful grin. “The proof is in the painting.”

I laughed. “We do make a pretty good team.” Clapping the heels of my hands together, I added, “C’mon, let’s show D how we do this, so I can go to bed.”

Nick and I kept up a running commentary as we went through my night routine, narrating everything he did to help me get ready for bed so that Howie could learn what to do, too. I let Nick take the lead and felt a flood of deja vu as I listened to him describe each step in the process to Howie, sharing the tips he had learned for transferring, undressing, stretching, and positioning me. I remembered talking him through it all the first time he had handled my night routine on his own… but Nick didn’t need me anymore.

“And the student becomes the teacher,” I said at one point, smiling up at him with a sense of pride. I felt a little like Master Yoda talking to Luke Skywalker from his deathbed in Return of the Jedi. “Done well, you have, my young padawan. Pass on what you have learned.”

Nick just laughed, his face flushing pink. I hoped he felt pleased with himself. He had come so far in the past five years. We both had.

To Howie’s credit, he was a fast learner. I had expected his first night to be a little awkward, and the next morning even more so, as it always had been when I’d trained new caregivers in the past. But Howie seemed surprisingly unfazed by all of it. He hardly even batted an eye when Nick showed him how to put on one of my condom catheters and hook it up to a night bag.

“Thanks for being so cool about all this, D,” I told him the next day, after he had assisted Nick with emptying my night bag, taking off my catheter, and beginning my bowel program. “I know it’s… a lot… but you’re doing great.”

“No problem, bro,” Howie replied with a shrug, fastening the seatbelt of my shower chair. “Like I said, I’m happy to help.” As he wheeled me into the bathroom, he added quietly, “Not that you guys need to know this, but… my dad had some trouble controlling his bladder and bowels toward the end. Even though he’d lost a lot of weight, he was still too heavy for my mom to lift or roll, so Johnny and I had to clean him and change him and stuff like that.” After positioning my chair over the pink toilet, he stepped back to make sure the hole in the padded seat was aligned with the porcelain bowl. “Once you’ve done that for your own father, helping a friend like this is no big deal. At least you’re not dying.” He flashed me a crooked smile, his big brown eyes shining with unshed tears.

Hearing him talk about his dad made me think of my own dad – and how much my mom and older brothers had tried to shelter me from the worst parts of his illness. Having been in Florida for most of it, I had never had to take care of him the way Howie had cared for his father. In a way, I was fortunate – but, at the same time, being on the receiving end of the caregiving now made me wish I had done more for others when I was physically able to. It would be a lot harder for me to pay it forward now.

“That must have been hard for you – and for your dad,” I murmured, offering him a sympathetic smile in return. “I know it was hard for mine. He hid a lot of it from me because he didn’t want me to see him like that. I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but I get it now. It’s frustrating – and humiliating – to lose abilities you used to take for granted, like something as simple as going to the bathroom by yourself.” I glanced down at myself, sitting naked on the commode with nothing but a towel draped loosely over my lap to cover me, and shook my head in disgust. “I think that’s why it’s easy for me to empathize with Brian’s situation. It’s obviously different from mine, but still similar in some ways, you know? I mean, he’s been singing since he was in diapers. So for him to suddenly struggle to do something he’s always been able to do so well… Well, I know how that feels. It sucks.”

Howie and Nick nodded as they listened in silence. Nick had said nothing for the last few minutes, as Howie and I commiserated over watching our fathers succumb to cancer. I knew he could neither relate to Howie’s story nor identify with Brian’s struggles in the same way that I could.

“And then to hear you guys criticize him for it, like you did in the car last night,” I continued. “That’s hard for me, too. It almost feels like you’re criticizing me for something I can’t change – and that hurts.”

Nick and Howie exchanged guilty glances. “We never meant to make you feel that way, bro,” Nick finally said, his voice apologetic. “Sorry for bringing up Brian. I was just frustrated… and worried…”

“I know,” I said, nodding. “Believe me, I get it. I feel the same way sometimes. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about this thing with Brian. We need to talk about it. But we also need to make sure that Brian knows we’ve got his back, no matter what. All I’m asking is that you guys give him some grace and show him the same love, support, and encouragement that you’ve always shown me.”

“Of course,” said Howie, and Nick bobbed his head in agreement.

“Thanks, fellas.” I grimaced as my stomach let out a loud and ominous gurgle. “That would be your cue to go make coffee or find something for breakfast while I take care of business. Dawn got groceries before she left, so the fridge and pantry should be full. Help yourselves. I’ll holler when I’m finished here.”

Howie glanced back at Nick, who gave another nod – he knew the drill by now. Hopefully, he would prepare Howie for the next part of my program.

“Thanks, guys,” I added as they both left the bathroom, closing the door behind them to give me some semblance of privacy. I knew they would probably whisper about me once they escaped to the kitchen, but I didn’t care. Actions spoke louder than words. The fact that my friends were willing to stay with me and assist with the worst parts of my disability meant the world to me. Despite everything, I was grateful to have them in my corner.

***