Cary
In early June, we flew to Frankfurt, Germany for the first show of
what the Boys had decided to dub “The Curtain Call Tour.” The name fit Nick’s whole idea behind the
tour – to take the stage for the last time on each continent and be recognized
by the fans who had supported the group for so long. It also made sense to start in Germany, one
of the first countries to embrace the Backstreet Boys so many years ago.
I had never been to Germany before, nor to any of the other
countries on the tour itinerary – Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil. I wished I could be more excited about
visiting such foreign and exotic places, but instead, I was filled with a sense
of dread that overwhelmed all other feelings.
It dominated me, the fear that this tour was going to be too much for
Nick, the knowledge that even if he made it through the two weeks of traveling,
it would still only be a matter of time.
Time was something he didn’t have much left of, and I could hear
it ticking away, as fast I could feel my heart racing in my chest whenever I
thought about it. I tried not to think about it, but that was
impossible. The dread was with me
wherever I went, and it had followed me overseas. I couldn’t enjoy myself, knowing what lay
ahead.
No one seemed excited about this tour… not even Nick. It had been all his idea, but now he faced it
with a sort of grim determination. Maybe
it wasn’t something he wanted to do,
but something he felt had to do, for
the fans and for the guys as much as for himself. But the guys weren’t the same lively bunch
I’d met at the beginning of the This is
Us tour. They, too, seemed quieter,
more sedate. I hoped they’d be able to
fire up the charm onstage the following night, or their concert would seem more
like a funeral than the celebration it was supposed to be.
The night before the show, Nick and I relaxed in our hotel room,
which was small, but clean and comfortable.
We had just gotten back from dinner with all the guys and their
families, and after eating too much heavy German food and drinking too much
strong German beer, I was feeling sort of sick.
Lying next to me on the bed, Nick was quiet. I wondered how he was feeling, but I didn’t
ask, knowing he was tired of the question.
He’d made a big deal out of wanting to go out for a big German meal, but
he hadn’t eaten much at dinner and only drank one pint of beer, while I’d
downed one and then another and most of a third, eager to drown my anxiety in
alcohol. Nick hadn’t had much of an
appetite lately, and I worried it was yet another sign of the cancer taking
over his body. “What are you thinking
about?” I asked him instead, wanting to get out of my own head for awhile.
“Nothin’,” he said at first, then added, “Just thinking about how
it used to be when the guys and I would come overseas, back before we blew up
in the States. They’d all go out on the
town at night, and I’d get left behind at the hotel, ‘cause I was only one who
couldn’t drink yet. Except here in
Germany… I always liked Germany, ‘cause the drinking age is only sixteen. I could go out in Germany. Everywhere else, though, I’d be stuck lying
around my hotel room, trying to watch TV in foreign languages. I wish I could say I’d picked up more from
it.” He smirked, inclining his head
toward the TV.
It was on, but neither of us were really watching. We’d found a channel that was showing ET, only it was dubbed over in
German. At first, we had fun with it,
laughing at ET saying “ET zu Haus telefonieren”
instead of “ET phone home,” but it didn’t take long for the novelty to wear
off. We left it on for background noise,
but it was starting to get on my nerves.
All the characters sounded like Dr. Schnabeltier,
the transplant doctor who had put Nick through all that torture without curing
him.
“Did you at least learn some good pick-up lines to try out on the
German girls?” I asked, for the sake of making conversation.
He laughed. “If I did, I
don’t remember any now. All I know how
to say is ‘I love you.’ Ich liebe dich. I’ll use that one tomorrow night.”
I smiled and then turned my head, so he wouldn’t see the tears
that had suddenly welled in my eyes. What brought that on? I wondered. I was such an emotional wreck these days, I
didn’t even know. It didn’t take much to
bring me to the verge of tears. All I knew
was that I loved Nick so much it hurt… and that losing him was going to hurt so
much worse.
“What are you thinking about?” Nick turned the question back on
me.
I swallowed hard, blinking back the tears. I couldn’t tell him what I’d really been
thinking: that I was dreading this tour
because it felt like a countdown to the end.
Six shows to go… then five… then four, three, two, one, and after the
last show, Nick would go back home to die.
The countdown is on. The last time I’d thought that was the night
before his stem cell transplant, when there was still hope for a cure. Now there was no hope left.
Nick was getting worse. He
still had good days where he could get up and go out and do the things he
wanted to do, but they sapped him of his strength and led to more and more
frequent bad days, which he spent lying in bed, too tired and weak to get up,
incapacitated by blinding headaches or back pain, which was sometimes
accompanied by strange, tingling sensations in his arms and legs. I prayed for the next two weeks to be all
good days. That was all there was to
hope for now: that Nick would make it
through this tour and die on his own terms.
“Cary?” When he said my
name, I realized I’d never answered him.
“Just that I love you, too,” I whispered to the wall, then cleared
my throat, trying to get back my composure.
“How do you say it again?”
“Ich liebe dich.”
I rolled over to face him again.
Looking into his beautiful, blue eyes, I managed a smile to mirror the
little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ich
liebe dich,” I repeated.
***
All six shows of the Curtain Call tour had sold out in a matter of
minutes, and I’d heard stories of tickets being scalped on Ebay and StubHub for thousands of dollars. Every fan wanted to be in the audience for
one of Nick Carter’s last concerts.
Every seat was filled in the Festhalle
Frankfurt, and all around me, I could hear fans talking in different languages
– not just German, but English, Spanish, French, and languages I didn’t even
recognize. There were fans from all over
Europe, maybe even other continents, who had spent hundreds on travel expenses
and come thousands of miles just to be there.
I marveled over their devotion, but at the same time, I understood.
Following the procedure to retrieve my eggs for the sake of
freezing embryos, I had taken a twelve-week medical leave of absence from my
job to travel and take care of Nick, as well as my own health. I would be off the whole summer, long enough
to recover from the exploratory surgery I had scheduled for the end of June and
to see Nick through the tour and perhaps through to the end. No one could predict when, exactly, the end
would come, but Dr. Subramanien had given him six
months, and by the end of the tour, three of them would be gone. I knew it was unlikely he’d make it much past
the summer.
I knew it, but it was hard to believe it once the concert
began. The fans started screaming like
usual when a video montage of the Boys through the years came up on the big
screen, and the live band started to play.
I recognized the beginning of “Everyone,” which they repeated over and
over again until it was time for the guys to take the stage.
They rose up from under the stage on moving platforms, and the
lights were dimmed so I could just see their five silhouettes. My breath caught in my throat, as I realized
how long it had been since I’d seen the familiar shape of the five of them
onstage together. My eyes filled with
tears, as I realized it was a sight I would never see again, once this tour was
over. But I tried not to dwell on
it. I tried to stay in the moment and
enjoy every precious second of the show.
I knew every fan around me must be going through the same internal
struggle.
But even though it was in the backs of our minds the whole time,
once the Boys started singing, it was almost possible to forget, or at least to
pretend it was just another show. “We’ve been through days of thunder…”
Brian sang the opening lyrics, and his voice sounded strong, not shaky like it
had on their last TV performance. “Some people said we don’t belong. They try to pull us under, but here we stand
together and a million strong.”
“Let’s get on with
the show,” the guys sang together, as the music picked up, and a cheer rose
over the crowd as Nick’s voice rang out powerfully, “Let’s get started!”
“Turn the lights
down low,” they went on, and Nick echoed, “Turn the lights down low!”
“You were there
from the start,” they sang, and Nick added, “You
were there!”
“We know who you
are… and this one goes out to everyone… everyone… everyone. We’re standing strong ‘cause of what you’ve
done, and this one goes out to you.”
As the five Boys pointed out into the audience, the fans echoed
their sentiments with screams.
Goosebumps rose on my skin as they transitioned from “Everyone” into
“Larger Than Life.” I knew they had
frontloaded the show with these two up-tempos to get the choreography out of
the way early, before Nick ran out of steam.
Most of the other numbers were ballads and mid-tempos, which didn’t
require as much stamina. They had
planned the set list carefully, giving Nick plenty of opportunities to rest his
body and voice in between the songs on which he had most of the leads.
But here at the beginning, Nick came out strong. He sang and danced like there was nothing
wrong, and even though he didn’t perform the old “Larger than Life”
choreography with the same energy as the other guys, he still had plenty of
charisma.
It took its toll on him, though.
After the opening medley, the stage lights went dark while the guys ran
backstage for drinks of water, except for Howie, who stayed out to welcome the
audience to the show. While the
spotlight was focused on him, stage hand scurried in and out of the darkness,
setting up five stools behind him. Then
the lights came back up and the rest of the guys came back on stage, settling
onto their stools. I was close enough to
see the sweat streaking Nick’s face, to notice how hard he was breathing
already, his chest expanding rapidly. Oh God, I prayed. Please
let him get through this. Please don’t
let anything go wrong. But there
were so many things that could. I
shuddered as I imagined Nick collapsing, going into convulsions on the stage.
But he didn’t, and after a few more songs, when things seemed to be
running smoothly, I started to relax again, to almost forget. For awhile, I was actually enjoying myself,
lulled into a false sense of security by the familiar music I’d loved for so
long. But all it took was one song to
bring me back to reality. It hit me like
a slap in the face when the band played six haunting notes that I associated
with lyrics: Don’t wanna lose… you now…
The melody was enough to break my heart, but it was worse when
they actually started singing the words.
“Don’t wanna lose… you now. Baby…
I know we can win this.”
But we can’t, I thought sadly,
looking up at Nick on the stage. His
image blurred before my eyes as they filled with tears. We’re
both going to lose.
“Don’t wanna lose…
you now. No, no… or ever again.”
How can they stand
to sing this? I wondered. But I knew the
answer: the fans had voted on it, and
even if the lyrics hit too close to home, it was a song they’d once enjoyed, a
song they’d always said they wanted to perform again. If only it were under different
circumstances…
I’m sure Brian was regretting it when he started the next
verse. His voice cracked and wavered as
he sang, “I got this feeling you’re not
gonna stay. It’s burning within me. The fear of losing, of slipping away…” His voice sounded thick, like he was
choking back tears. His eyes glistened
in the stage lights. “It just keeps getting closer…” Finally, Brian’s voice broke, and he bowed
his head, sucking in an audible breath.
Thankfully, Kevin was there to cover for him. “Whatever
reason to leave that I’ve had…” he sang in harmony, until Brian jumped back
in with the melody, “My place… is always
beside you...”
Whether it was planned that way or not, Brian and Nick happened to
be sitting next to each other, and on that line, Brian leaned away from Kevin
and towards Nick, reached out, and took his hand. Through my tears, I couldn’t make out Nick’s
reaction.
“…and I… wish that
I didn’t need you so bad,” the cousins sang, their voices shaky, but in perfect
harmony. “Your face… just won’t go away…”
“Don’t wanna lose…
you now…”
I don’t know how they made it through the rest of the song, let
alone the rest of the show, but somehow, they did. That’s the mark of a true professional, I
guess, and here were five of them. They
had performed through both physical and emotional pain before – injuries and
illnesses, losses of loved ones, personal health crises, national
tragedies. They knew when to let their
emotions show and when to hide them deep down, so they wouldn’t surface on the
stage. There were tears in their eyes
when they joined hands and bowed, but they left the stage gracefully, with no
dramatics, while the house lights came up on fans who were distraught, sobbing
on each other’s shoulders.
For most of them, this was the last time they would see all five
Backstreet Boys perform together, live and in person. The last show. Ever.
For me, there were still five more shows to get through.
But the countdown was on, and for Nick, time was running out.
***