3: "Backstreet's Back"
Anthony jumped out of his seat and took
several paces back, away from the table. His eyes bulging, his pulse racing. His
underarms were dampening.
"Flea? John?" he glanced at each man as he
spoke the names. "I'd like to talk to you guys a minute."
The two got to
their feet and followed Anthony across the room. He turned to them, laying one
hand on Flea's shoulder, the other hand on John's. Narrowing his eyes at each,
he murmured, "What are those two really doing here?"
"Anthony!" Flea
exclaimed, shaking his head. "What has gotten into you today?"
"What has
gotten into me?" Anthony started rolling the sleeve of his suit shirt.
Mid-forearm, he unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it off. He held his arms in
front of them. "I woke up this morning missing most of my f***ing
tattoos!"
"What are you talking about?" Flea smirked. "You only HAVE
two!"
Anthony stared at him. Shaking his head, he slipped back into his
shirt. "And why the hell do we look so young?" Heat and blood rushed into
Anthony's head. He wobbled where he stood and held a hand to his temple. His
vision blurred but, with a blink, revived.
Flea put a hand on his
shoulder and looked into his eyes. "Maybe you should go lie down. You don't have
to go with us to the radio station. Just rest up for tonight,
okay?"
Furrowing his eyebrows, Anthony lowered his hand from his head.
"Why? What's tonight?" Anthony glanced at John, watched him as he shuffled where
he stood, staring down at his feet, his hands planted in the pockets of his dark
dress pants. The coat tails of his jacket covered his forearms.
"The
Grammies?" Flea sighed. He shook his head and slid his hand down to Anthony's
shoulder blade. "You need some sleep."
Flea guided Anthony toward the
door. Glancing over his shoulder, Anthony watched as John wandered back to the
table and slid into his seat beside Kevin Richardson. John picked up his fork
and resumed picking at his food.
Anthony and Flea stepped out of the
dining room, into the hotel corridor.
"What's with John?" Anthony
questioned, padding down the teal carpet at Flea's side.
"John's just
moody," Flea muttered. His face scrunched into a scowl. "But isn't he
always?"
They approached Anthony's room, and Flea slipped a key card into
the lock. Red light to green.
BEEP!
Flea pushed the door
open.
"Flea, seriously man," Anthony grabbed his friend's arm. Flea
stopped, sighed, and rolled his eyes. He turned to face Anthony, whose large and
teary eyes gazed back at him. "I need to know what's going on..."
"Damn
it, Anthony!" Flea shouted, stepping back. "First off, I don't know what it is
with this 'Flea' sh**! You're giving me the creeps! Stop calling me that! And
second, I am sick and tired of you not knowing what's going on! Pull yourself
together! Get some sleep! You had better be ready to perform tonight! We're not
f***ing this up like we did at the AMAs!"
Flea stormed out of the room,
slamming the door behind him. Its pow echoed in Anthony's brain as he stared at
the door, at its hideously shiny paint. He observed his breath, as he drew air
in and out of his lungs.
He dropped to his knees beside his luggage, his
hands wrapping around the middle bag. He unzipped it and reached inside. He
pulled out the framed photo, a comb, a handful of pens. These items clattered to
the floor as he grabbed a blue notebook. He opened it to the first
page.
<i>Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner. Sometimes I
feel my only friend is the city of angels. Lonely as I am, together we
cry...</i>
He turned the page.
<i>I've got a soul that
can't sleep at night, when something's just not right... </i>
His
fingertips picked at the corner of the notebook page and slid down the other
side. Again, he turned the page.
<i>It started when we were little
kids. We were free spirits tormented by our hands which were given to us by our
parents. </i>
He flipped through the pages, focusing on words
before they blurred as they passed.
<i>Music is my
aeroplane...</i>
<i>If you see me getting high, knock me
down...</i>
<i>How long will I slide?..
</i>
<i>My friends are so
depressed...</i>
<i>Psychic spies from China try to steal
your mind's elation...
</i>
<i>CALIFORNICATION</i>
He closed the
notebook and set it aside. His hands dove into the bag again, his fingers
brushing against gritty plastic. He slipped a thumb beneath the skinny object,
pinched it, and withdrew it from the bag.
A computer disk.
Laying
it aside, he glanced at the third piece of luggage. The brown leather bag stood
upright, its handles flopped to either side. Between the two brass clasps
holding the straps lay a flap, which latched into a buckle at the bottom of the
bag. Anthony undid the buckle and threw back the flap. He pulled out a laptop
computer. In a side compartment, he found a phone chord. He clicked it into the
modem's slot, the other end into the phone jack. He plugged the computer into
the power socket beside the jack. Flipped open the computer, hit the on switch,
shifted to a sitting position. His legs extended in front of him, and he rested
the laptop on his quadriceps.
The screen lit up. White dot matrix text
sprawled across it, then faded out before Windows ME's logo appeared against a
white background.
Anthony double clicked on "America Online" as soon as
the icon appeared. He sighed with a smile when he saw the password was
preset.
Dial-up. Crinkly static. Computer crunching. And he was
online.
He clicked on the URL space, and his fingers raced across the
keyboard. Letter by letter, the URL appeared in the space:
www.redhotchilipeppers.com. Anthony sat back and waited. The navigation window
turned red, and a familiar black asterisk painted itself onto the screen. It
disappeared and resketched itself. Smiling at the asterisk, Anthony ran the
mouse pointer over it and clicked.
A banner appeared first across the
screen. Anthony's mouth dropped open as he stared at it, as head shots of him
with Flea, John, Brian Littrell, and Kevin Richardson grinned back at him.
Beneath the picture read "Red Hot Chili Peppers: Buy their new album,
<u>Black And Blue</u>, featuring "The Call" and "Shape Of My
Heart".
Anthony's eyes widened as they stared at the
print.
"Sh**!" he whispered. "We ARE the Backstreet Boys!"