A couple of the guys had already taken off and since no one had quarters we all headed for the change machines. Both Brian and Nick changed $20 dollar bills into quarters. I looked at Howie in disbelief and asked "Are they really gonna use all those quarters??" "Thats nothing,once we stayed at a hotel that had an arcade, they spent 5 1/2 hours in there and blew like $100 dollars on games.", I laughed in disbelief.
We decided that since the band had their own mascot, Guido, then we should have one too, so we decided to play all the games that give tickets so we could win a mascot. AJ sat at the slot machines trying to win more tokens so we could keep playing, it was the closest hed get to a casino for a long while. Three of us ganged up on a croccodile bashing game and bashed the living crap out of it. I'm surprised it didn't go into tilt considering the number of tickets it spit out all at the same time. After a while we realized that n oone had seen Aaron in a while so we went looking for him, Bobby found him. Aaron had found an electricution chair just like the one in the Addams family. "You guys have to try this. You have to sit in the huge wooden chair and hold on to the two medal rods coming out of the arm rests. The longer you can hold on the more tickets you win."
He explained to us how it worked. It's incredible how easy it is to inflate the guys' egoes. "I'll do it." AJ stepped forward as if being executed and boasted proudly as he sat in the chair. I popped the tokens into the machine and watched as the posts started to shake at an incredibly high speed as he held on. It didnt give out real electricity rather the posts vibrated at extremely high speeds so it felt like electricity on your hands. "..Just to make sure you dont let go.." Nick said as he clamped his hands tightly over one of AJ's hands so he wouldnt be able to let go of the post, Kevin folowed and held the other one. At first the vibration was only slight "Hehe I can handle this." AJ boasted. As it grew stronger his face started to turn red and he started laughing. "HAHAHA you look like a red chili pepper." Bobby laughed and we all snickered. Had kevin and Nick not been holding his hands he would have let go half way through. "You guys have to try this." AJ laughed nervously and amused as he jumped off the chair rubbing his hands to get feeling back into them. "Me next." Aaron announced and sat in the chair.
I put in some more coins and Brian and Booby held his hands down. Aaron started laughing as the increasing vibration spread fro mhis hands to his arms to his face, making his jaw vibrate as he laughed. Half way through he couldnttake it anymore "..Iii..can..t..ho...ldd...onn...llee....tt.gooo.." he stuttered and they let him go. Evemtually everyone went and they didnt clamp anyone else's hands down since the rest of the guys were pretty strong and could deal with it. We all laughed at everyone's expressions as the vibrations made their faces shake. Eventually I was the only one left, they all turned and looked at me. "You can stop looking cause I'm not gonna sit in that torture machine, I'm all for being adventurous and taking risks but thats just plain masochistic." I said slightly backing away from the machine. "Come on Erika you can do it, I did it." Aaron said to me pleadingly. They all started wining and Bobby called me a wimp "Fine, fine if it'll shut you guys up. I'm only doing this cause Aaron asked me to." I finally gave in just so they'd stop wining "On one condition.. you guys dont hold my hands down..". I said stoping before getting to the chair. "Promise, scouts honor." both Brian and AJ said simultaneously crossing their hearts with their fingers. I sat down in the chair and held on to the posts as Aaron popped in the coins and I clenched my teeth. The beginning vibrations weren't that bad but it soon increased ' i... don..t.. kn..ow...y... imm.. do..inng... thiss.." I stammered in between laughs as my jaw vibrated and the guys laughed.
I was about to let go and then Nick and Kevin clenched their hands on top of mine and I couldn't let go. I could feel my hands starting to hurt from the vibrations and then I couldn't feel them anymore. ' lee..tt..gooo......" I attempted to say through my chattering teeth. I could feel my face getting hot and I couldn't talk anymore. It finally stopped and I ripped my hands from underneath theirs. "You guys suck, you promised u wouldnt do that.." I accused them in a pretty ticked off tone as I hopped off the chair rubbing my hands together trying to get the feeling back in them "We didnt promise, they did." Kevin snickered while nick laughed. I laughed realizing how stupid i was acting but tryed to act irritated anyway. "If I ever get the feeling back in my hands I'm gonna slap you two silly." "Ohh really..." AJ said with a grin in his face and making a purring sound "Is that all you ever think of??" I asked him laughing "Pretty much, yeah." he answered matter of factly. "Ok just making sure." I answered him laughing.I kept rubbing my hands as feeling slowly returned to them. "You know what the best part is? I got all you guys on tape..hehe." Bobby laughed handing Kevin his camera back. We all laughed.
We played more video games for about another hour when Mike reminded us what time it was. We pulled all our tickets together and fed them to the counting machine "Wow baby, I've never seen so many tickets." Aaron exclaimed as he helped Howie feed the machine. We ended up having 1100 tickets. I thought the machine was gonna explode. The 11 of us walked up to the prize counter and looked at all the prizes we could get. After 30 minutes of discussion we decided on a teal/green/blue Iguana like lizard. The tail was almost 1 1/2 feet long. When u picked it up it felt almost like a beany baby but the outside fabric was really shiny and looked like scales and it was stiff, not floppy like a beany baby. The lizard was only 850 tickets so with the rest of them we got a whole bunch of junk. We got glow in the dark animal paw prints, slinkys, bouncy balls, chinese finger traps, jacks, whistles and tons of junk. The guy had to put it all in 2 bags for us. I carried the lizard out on my shoulder as we walked back to the van.
It was already about 6 pm by then so we headed back to the hotel. We were all in a good mood so we decided to go in by the front entrance to make the fans happy. In the van we all took turns holding our mascot. "What are we gonna name it?" Aaron asked. "Good question little bro." Nick answered. We all started thinking of names. John suggested we call it John jr. we all said no. Brian and Nick suggested names from NES characters but none of them seemed right. We had reached the hotel and still had no idea what to call it. We stopped in front of the van and our protectors got out. There were about 15 girls standing around in front of the hotel and as soon as they saw the van stopping they started screaming. Surprisingly they got louder the moment the door opened. Being strange as usal AJ put the lizard on top of his head and walked out of the van.
"Hehe you know that lizard being on his head is gonna be all over the internet within 2 hours hehe." I laughed to Howie as we stepped out. He laughed in agreement. Surprisingly the fans were pretty calm and sedated by the time we were all out of the van so the guys all stopped and signed autographs and took pictures. One girl had Kevin sign a sign that said <Kevin, I want u to be the father of my firstr born>. He saw it and although he didnt seem fased by it u could tell that he was blushing under his skin. Within twenty minutes they were done and the fans even wanted me to be in the picks which was very flattering. One girl told me that my name and pics were all over the internet and that I should go on and check damage control. I thanked her knowing very well what was probably flying all through cyberspace about me.
The moment we were out of earshot from the fans the guys started teasing Kevin and we all laughed. Kevin, Howie and I were the only ones who felt like going clubbing so in an excuse to talk to Denise I said I'd tell her. Luckily, I found her in her room working on paperwork and some hotel forms. I waited for her to finish her phone conference and the told her our plans. I also asked her a few questions and she said shed have to make sure but she didn't see any problems with regards to my question. I said goodbye and went to find the guys.They were each in their respective rooms.
I stopped at Howie's room first and he let me in. "Hey D where do you wanna go,I don't know of any clubs around here and I'm really in a mood for a Latin club." I sat on his bed as he stood across the room looking through his luggage. The moment I mentioned the word 'Latin' he whipped around and seemed extremely happy. "Are you serious?? Finally I can go to a Latin club with someone these guys just can't manage to get the dances down so they hate going." "Yeah I'm serious, can you merengue?" I asked him. Instead of replying he came up to me and we started dancing merengue, hes pretty good. "I'll take that as a yes, cool, think you can find a club?" "I'll call down to the front desk and ask the concierge." he replied as he sat down next to the phone. "Sounds great, I'm gonna go tell Kev, and then I'll be in my room." I said walking out, already energied at the thought of being able to dance with someone who knew how to.
Kevin let me into his room and I told him, he didn't seem unhappy "It'll give me a chance to practice my moves, what time are we leaving?" he smiled, "I have no idea, Howie is finding out if there's any clubs around here". I left and headed to my room. The moment I reached my door I realized that I didnt have my key and would have to go through Nick's room. I knocked at his door, "Who is it?" came a low moan from inside "It's me Erika." "Come on in." he mournfully replied again. I walked into the room to find him strewn across the bed with his eyes closed. I became worried. "Hey Nick, you okay?? You don't look too great." "Thanks." he managed to crack a sarcastic smile "I feel like crap and the pain killers wore off and I cant take anymore for another 2 hours", I sat down next to him on the bed "I know how that feels, you just wanna crawl under a hole and die right?" he nodded in agreement. "Are you sure you dont wanna come with me Kevin and Howie?? by then the pain killers will have kicked in and you could get your mind off of it." "Where are you guys going?" "If we can find it, a Latin club." "Thanks but no thanks I'm not great at it and I dont feel like making an ass of myself today." "Thats a first..." I snickered trying to cheer him up, he still hadnt opened his eyes, at this point he opened his eyes slightly and laughed at me. "Ok, well in that case your gonna stay and sleep, no videogames." "Thanks mom." he answered laughing, a slight tinge of pain audible in his voice.
At that point someone knocked at the door and I went to get it, it was Howie. "Hey you weren't in your room and I remembered you had to come through here so I figured you'd be here, anyway I found a club and it doesnt open till 9 so theres about 3 hours till we have to leave." "Sounds great, and the guy said this is the best one in town??" "Yup, "I'm gonna go make security arrangements now, Kevin or I will come get you when we leave." "Sounds good to me, I'm gonna dress just as I would to go to the Liquid in South Beach, thats fine with you right?" "Thats how I'm going." "Allright I'll see you in a few hours then k?" "K later." and with that he left.
Nick was now sitting up watching tv, yet a painful facade still plagued his face. "I said no tv, it's not gonna help the pain it'll just make you strain your eyes more, don't make me have to treat you like a four year old." I said to him, he smiled back at me in defiance and shut the tv off "So Ms. Nurse, what do you want me to do instead?" he asked trying to get me rieled up. "Wait here".
I went to my room and changed into a t shirt and wind breaker pants. I layed out my outfit for the club then grabbed two of my journals and a couple of graphite pencils. I went back to Nick's rom and found him in the same position as I had left him. "Ok Mr. Smart-Ass since you wanna do something you can pose for me, I have to get at least 5 graphite photoreals done by the end of summer for class or my professor will kill me." "And how am I involved in this?" he questioned. "Since moving for you is painful right now you get to pose." I smiled at him "Oh, I see so I get to sit here like a dumbass while you draw." without replying I tossed him the new journal and a graphite "Oh ok, this I can deal with." "Had you let me finish, you wouldn't have needed to ask." I taunted him.
He sat on the bed with his back against the wall. I pulled the chair up next to the bed and sat in it with my feet on the bed facing Nick. I picked up my journal and started drawing. Since I had no inspiration at the moment I drew him since the light from the window created awesome effects on his rumpled up clothes. For a few minutes we sat in silence concentrating on what we were doing. Then he asked me about high school and what it was like. "It was half hell half a great time. I dont know, although I usually dont give a flying rat's ass about what people think about me there were days were I wished I could just fit in and not be the "Strange strange girl who has few friends", but overall I'd say it was fun. Although I wish I could go back and erase a lot of things that happend to me." I said painfully recalling all the things that had happened. He must have realized that there was emotional pain going through towards the end. "It's ok you dont have to tell me the bad parts, tell me about the fun parts." He softly said trying to get back to the uplifting part of the subject. "Tell me about prom, and all the stuff you do as a senior." His eyes lit up at thinking of all the things he missed "Well I'd have to say that my fave part of senior year was towards the end. Though I have to admit I loved being able to scream 'freshmen suck' at the peprallies." We both laughed "Hmhm I guess I'd say the most anticipated part for me was Grad Night, I had wanted to go since I was a freshmen. It was great, you guys performed it, I was front row center stage the whole time, I was the girl with the electric blue jacket and ice blue lipstick, I'd be surprised if you even saw me." I said slightly laughing trying to cver up my emberassement at realizing that I had told him about how much I liked them. He laughed but not at me. "Actually, you know we did see you cause AJ said he loved your makeup. He tried to find you later to ask you where you had bought the jacket. I hadn't made the connection that you were the same person. I remember it, it was the closest I'd ever been to being in high school.