"I'll pay you fifty dollars to trade buses with JC," Lance whispers in his ear, and Chris tries to
hide his smile. Lance must be horny as hell, because he's the biggest skinflint Chris knows, and he
wouldn't offer Chris one thin dime if he weren't at the end of his rope.
Between Justin's sudden tendency to go on drinking binges and complain until three p.m. about
his hangover and Joey and Lance all of a sudden being On Again (again), JC's sleepy ass was the
most popular guy on the planet. Everybody liked the *quiet* guy all of a sudden, which honestly
really hurt Chris' feelings, but a crisp fifty-dollar bill from Lance would go a long way to make it
better. Not so much the fifty -- just taking money from Lance.
But he's not a greedy man, and as soon as he switches to the two-person bus, passing JC, who
looks so bleary-eyed that Chris doubts his ability to find his way from one bus to the other
without the aid of a search party, he smacks the fifty down on the floor in front of Justin.
"What will this buy me?"
Justin glances at it, and then flicks it aside so he can move a short row of cards. "Our CD. Three
times."
"I was thinking about a blow-job."
"You'll be thinking about an ass-kicking if you don't pick your shit up off my cards."
"Are you winning?"
"It's solitaire."
"Are you cheating?"
"How come *you* get Lance's cash and *I* have to put up with you?" He's full of shit, though.
Chris can tell by the way he keeps turning his head to the side and pretending to scratch the back
of his neck that he thinks Chris is funny, but doesn't want to show it. Tough house this
afternoon.
Chris sprawls out on the floor. From this angle, even though he's sitting down cross-legged,
Justin looks ridiculously tall. When did he get so *tall*? It makes Chris itch to do something
terrible to Justin's dignity, but nothing comes to mind. He must be losing his touch.
"Can I play?" he finally says. Hell. Maybe he just won't piss off the kid today. Maybe they'll just
be cool instead; they've all been hitting the publicity circuit pretty hard to say pretty much nothing
about the management change, and boring though the net result may be, Chris can understand
why everyone's trying to take it easy now -- Joe and Lance doing their thing, JC getting in some
really quality sleep, and even Justin not doing anything but sitting around in track pants playing
solitaire.
"It's *solitaire.*"
"Come on. We could play Kings in the Corner instead. Hey, I'll give you Lance's fifty if you
win."
"I don't want your blood money," he says absently, but then he sweeps his hand across the floor
irritably, destroying the layout. "Fuck. I'm sucking today."
"So we'll do something else. Bloody Roar?"
"Nah, I can't handle one more video game. Scrabble?"
"Oooo, you're a *brainy* fucker all of a sudden."
"Fuck you," Justin says, but he grins. "Kings in the Corner it is."
After Justin loses three hands, quick and dirty, he gets mysteriously sick of playing cards, and they
end up just lying on the floor drinking beer. "I hate Texas," Justin tells him.
"Only because you can't get the hats on top of your hair."
Justin makes a face. "As if I'm dying to wear a fucking *cowboy* hat. No, I hate it because you
get all excited when you get into Texas, 'cause it feels like you're almost there, and then you end
up having to drive another, like, ten hours. It's fucking huge." Cabin fever was a big problem for
Justin; he was a great traveling companion for a little bit, while his focus was completely on you,
but eventually he got antsy, and it was all downhill from there. He was like a lion in some two-bit
circus, pacing endlessly back and forth across eight feet of cage, and getting meaner all the time.
"Dallas isn't far," Chris promises, although he has no idea how far away Dallas might be at this
point. But it has to be nearer than it used to be. "Sucks that Lance won't be able to do his
singing thing," he comments, figuring that a distraction is definitely about to become necessary.
"We're not letting Lance sing anymore? Dude, I wish someone had talked to me about this
decision; I'm kinda against it."
"No, at the church." Justin frowns and shakes his head. "You know, you might consider paying
attention sometimes. When he was in the hospital, Lance promised that preacher, you know, the
gay-church preacher who came to see him, that next time he was in Dallas, he'd sing on Sunday.
Guess he really wanted to."
"So why can't he?"
Chris shrugs, and flattens his empty beer can slowly. "Johnny thinks we're too high profile right
now for Lance to be going to some queer church. He said maybe some other time."
Abruptly, Justin sits up, and behind his narrow eyes, that lion is getting really, really fed up with
the cage. "Oh, is that what *Johnny* says?"
He fights back a smile, because...*Justin.* Justin is management's bitch and always has been. He
wasn't even capable of being outright rude to Lou, and he hated Lou. Somewhere along the line,
during those formative child-star years, Justin must have gotten it into his head that his career
depended on keeping his handlers happy, and now he sucks up instinctively to managers,
publicists, even the fucking makeup people for Christ's sake, even the irritating fuckers from
MTV anyone who might conceivably exert some backstage influence over *Nsync. *Justin,
taking care of business,* JC calls it, half-admiringly. Justin digging out his kneepads is more like
it, from Chris' point of view.
"Yeah. That's what Johnny says."
"Well, nobody fucking talked to me about this, either," he growls, and goes for his cellphone.
"What the fuck are you doing, Infant?"
"I'm calling home," he says, much, much too sweetly.
It feels like it takes longer than crossing Texas on a tricycle. He's put on hold a hundred times,
transferred, and everybody and their cousin seems to want a chance to take a message, but Justin
is patient when he feels like it, and he just keeps saying, "No, thank you, I'll just talk to Johnny.
Sure. Justin, that's right. Thank you."
Chris finishes another beer and makes himself a ham sandwich while Justin is still trying to get
through.
"Johnny!" he hears, and he rushes back from the kitchen to get a front-row seat. "Nah,
everything's cool. Just checking that me and Lance are still on to do that thing at the church. ...
Uh-huh. ... No way! Johnny, come on, it's been arranged forever. The pastor is a buddy of
Lance's, we can't just bail. ... Oh. Oh, *right.* ... Of course I understand. ... No, I understand
completely. Johnny, look who you're talking to! I know how it's played. ... I'm not mad.
You're just doing your job."
It seems like a whole lot of being on hold for no particular reason, and Chris feels obscurely hurt
by the whole thing. Justin is Justin, he should be used to it by now, but.... But why the hell
*didn't* the boy ever get mad? Sure, the suits made them famous, but they also ran everybody's
life down to the stupidest little detail, and it feels like Justin is the only one who doesn't at least
sometimes feel like it's kind of a devil's bargain.
"The thing is, though, Johnny, you know, I have a job, too. Me and Lance, we're singers, you
dig? If we say we're gonna be at a venue, we... I know. Yeah, you're right. ... Well, Lance *is*
gay. .... I'm just saying. It would be a nice thing to do for Lance." Justin rolls his eyes and
heaves a dramatic, though silent, sigh at Chris, who just shrugs. What can you do?
"Johnny. John-- hey, Johnny, are you-- Are you listening to me? Johnny, listen up, yo. Are you
listening? ... No, it's just that I thought you might want to do the right thing, here, but whatever.
You do what you gotta do. But me and Lance are doing the engagement."
Whoa-ho. Justin is in the building.
"Hey, don't even, Johnny. Just fucking deal with it, isn't that what we pay you to do? ... He's
not *somebody,* Johnny, he's *Lance,* for Chrissakes. ... Look, I've been on a bus for the last
thirteen and a half hours, Chris is kicking my ass at cards, and I'm sick of people very politely
telling me to shut the fuck up. No-- ... Yeah, I was listening. Now *you* listen, okay, Johnny?
"Lance wants to go to church and sing a fucking hymn. You're gonna show him some respect,
yo, because he's a grown man, and this is a favor to a friend who came and saw him while he was
in the hospital, so just shut up about what Lance can and can't do in his free time. ... Well, it
sounds like a threat because it is a threat, Johnny -- you didn't think I called to beg, did you?"
Chris, who kind of had thought that's why Justin called, realizes he's forgotten to keep chewing.
"One more word, Johnny -- one more *word,* and I swear to God, *I'm* coming out of the
closet. And I'm not talking about some pissant YM interview that you can clean up. I'm talking
Nightline, Larry fucking King Live, *Saturday* Night Live. The whole fucking world is going to
hear it, so you might want to start hiring a few extra media people. ... Of course I'm not, Johnny,
but I know how it's played, yo. It don't matter what's true, just what they print. ... *Dead*
serious. Johnny, I will turn your tiny world upside-down. I'll tell them I'm fucking Ricky Martin.
Nick Car-- no, *Aaron* Carter. Ashton Kutcher. ... What? ... He's an actor. He's on-- What
the fuck do you care who he is? As far as Regis and Kathie Lee are gonna be concerned, he's the
guy whose dick I suck. Your hair will go completely white by the time I get around to issuing a
retraction. ... Like I fucking need the money, Johnny. Gimme a break. ... Bullshit, you're just
trying to scare me. People's careers survive a hell of a lot worse. It's practically the 21st fucking
century, yo. You ever heard of Elton John? ... I *told* you what I want. I want you to do right
by Lance. ... Because he's my *friend.* Because I love him. Because he deserves it. Get out
from behind the desk and be a human being for a little while, dude. But first, *call Lance,* and
tell him that WEG is completely behind him, and that you guys will do the best you can to take
care of his career so he can worry about living his fucking life. You tell him that. ... Yeah, I'm
sorry, too, Johnny. I don't like doing this shit. ... Thank you, Johnny. ... You, too, man."
He turns off the phone and gives Chris a radiant, if slightly demonic, smile, spreading his arms out
in a *so whaddaya think?* gesture, and then completes it with a little hop like he's coming out of
some complicated dance move. In a way, he sort of is. "I'm a god, huh?"
"I am *so* turned on right now."
"It just finally sunk in on me, you know? With Lou, we were nobody, it was his way or back to
square one. But that's not how it is anymore, is it?"
"Nope."
"We're fucking *stars.* We should get to make a few goddamn *decisions* around here."
"Ashton Kutcher?"
Justin shrugs. "I met him at a party one time; he seemed really nice." He raises one eyebrow, and
it's humorous and playful, and still there's something to it that Chris really hadn't been expecting
to see out of Justin when he says, "He's cute."
"Yeah?" Bundle of surprises, this boy. Chris gets the feeling that Justin is changing fast these
days -- they all are, but maybe Justin more than most. It's exciting, but it feels a little weird, too,
because what if he ends up with someone who isn't -- quite -- *Justin*?
"Well." Playful, playful like a big cat, let out of his cage to romp for a while. "He's tall, at least."
"You're an asshole, you know that? Man, if the fans knew what you were really like...."
"I'm sorry," Justin announces grandly, looking vaguely like Diana Ross as he holds out one hand
in a *stop* signal and looks off in the other direction. "I'm not giving any autographs today. I'm
a little too *insanely* famous to care about you; try back with me tomorrow."
Chris blows him out of the water six more times at Kings in the Corner before they make Dallas.
end
Bettythoughts: Kings in the Corner is kind of a two-person (more is playable, but two seems to
work best) variant of solitaire. It's very easy to play, which makes it an ideal game for time-
wasting, and I'm completely addicted to it (that and chicken's-feet dominos, and I do actually
think that Double Blank would make a good story title, but I don't have a story to go with it, and
even if I did...this isn't it.) For those of you who, like me, sit around and wonder about time, this
would take place in the fall of 1999, during the second leg of the NSA tour, if I'm not completely
confused.