FINAL NOTICE
I watched the sight from my front door. It was like the Armageddon. Various specialists and police officers and Paramedics rushed in and out of the same doorway I was standing in. I’d see some of them look back for a moment when they got into the hot sun, whispering to themselves and wondering why the doorway felt so cold. I moved further into my house and sat down on the second to last step leading into the upstairs. Boy, I really had bled a lot hadn’t I?
My body was still where I’d left it, sprawled out on the living room floor, surrounded by mail, letter openers and my checkbook. And now, police officers. They’d put up yellow tape all around my house but that hadn’t stopped my fans and neighbors from standing in my front yard, demanding to know what was going on.
My friends had come out too. It was ironic actually, that everyone had been nearby today. It was a random Tuesday afternoon, I thought for sure that everyone would be off somewhere, doing something but within the hour, most of them had arrived. Justin sat down next to me on the stairs and buried his head in his hands. His face emerged a few seconds later, covered in tears. A tall black man dressed in blue scrubs stood in front of us and we both looked up. “I don’t think it’s healthy for you to be here right now,” he said in a voice almost as low as my own…had been. Justin agreed and followed the man outside. It was sad to see him cry like that and know it was because of me but he just didn’t understand. How could he? He was a huge star now. Not that he wasn’t before. I saw JC pull into the driveway but he was already too shaken up from the news to dare come inside. There they were, Chris, Joey, JC and Justin all standing on my lawn, surrounded by unusually calm fans and neighbors, praying.
I looked back to my body. It was pale now. Very pale with a waxy sort of look to it. Congealed blood surrounded me. I was actually a little bit upset that I hadn’t been moved yet but the police had wanted more pictures. Why? I asked myself angrily. So they can sell them to magazines? Oh well, it wouldn’t matter I guess. Not to me anyway.
I’m sure you’re starting to realize what happened now and I know you’re asking why I did it. I don’t know, I just did. You would have too if you’d been in my shoes. Maybe I should tell you what happened.
When I decided to go into space, I didn’t think it would be that big a deal. I figured I’d get to fulfill a lifelong dream while the rest of the guys in my group, NSYNC, got a well-deserved hiatus. Joey would be in a movie and later on I found out that he’d gotten a role in the Tony Award winning musical RENT. JC would be working on his songwriting; Chris would be putting more attention into his clothing line FuMan Skeeto and Justin would be coming out with a solo album. I just, never thought it would do as well as it did.
So of course, when Justin’s album came out, it was a huge success. It actually sold 3.8 million copies in it’s first week which set the new record a good 1.4 million higher than No Strings Attached for most albums sold in its first seven days. That was in mid- November. So after the holidays we all met up again and that’s when Justin announced that he was going solo.
When I think about it, it makes sense. Why would he come back? His record setting album, doing what he loves, that is too hard to just walk away from. From the very beginning, he’d been in love with hip-hop. Not just the music but everything that went a long with it. ‘Justified’ was not a pop album; it was R&B. Why would he go from Pop (which was never his first love) to R&B then come back? It would be like a regression and Justin wanted to stay far from it.
Chris heartily agreed claiming he was too old for NSYNC anyway. The break up was a long time coming and he wanted to move on with his life. Joey had no problem at all, ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ had been such a big success that he’d gotten at least half a dozen new scripts from producers, all wanting him to come read for them. His acting career showed more promise than continuing on with NSYNC and he claimed that if Justin hadn’t suggested it, he would have. As for JC, he was completely content writing songs and managing artists. He was even thinking of coming out with a solo album of his own. So, on that chilly Monday in January, NSYNC said goodbye and we went our separate ways.
Me? I claimed that I still had A Happy Place and Freelance I could take up but the truth was, I needed NSYNC. It had cost me twenty million dollars for passage to go into space. I needed a loan, obviously, and I needed more projects with NSYNC to pay it off. Now that I was jobless, I’d have to think of something else in order to raise upwards of eleven million dollars to pay back the Russians. Frankly, I was scared shitless. Don’t think I’ve never seen ‘Training Day’ because I have and I didn’t want to end up like Denzel Washington.
So of course I tried to land a new job. Needless to say, it was extremely hard, what with my being an ex-NSYNCER. No one wanted to hire me. I read for movies, TV shows, plays, hell, even commercials but no one, absolutely no one would bite.
It was April now and I hadn’t worked in three months. Friends and family told me that desperate times called for desperate measures. In other words, they wanted me to sell my house…and my car, and my companies. Though it was hard to part with them, I sold A Happy Place and Freelance Entertainment, which combined, only amounted to a few million since they weren’t completely mine to begin with. As for my car, well, it was a Toyota, worth shit on the market. My house wasn’t that large and even if I had sold it, the money wouldn’t have been enough. I loved it too much to part with it anyway.
With no income and nothing but fame to back me up, I was up a creek without a paddle, the paddle being 9 million dollars. This is where I had found myself this morning when I went out to get the mail.
“Momma Bass, I don’t think you should be seeing this,” Justin said in his light country accent.
I smiled at my mom who was far from smiling back. I got a funny feeling as I watched her contemplate setting foot inside my house. Did she honestly want to put herself through the pain of seeing how her only son had taken his life? Well I didn’t. I passed through a short Mexican man and gave him chill bumps on my way to the front door. I placed an icy hand on her face.
“My goodness,” she said and put hers over mine.
“Chilly?” Justin asked.
“Yes.”
“I feel it too.”
Joey walked up behind my mother and rubbed her back for comfort. “Did you see him?” he asked.
“No, I don’t know if I can,” she looked to him for an answer. Any answer at all.
Joey’s eyes began to tear again and he shook his head. He had that far off, semi-vacant look. I knew he was remembering times we’d spent together. Probably the same one’s I’d remembered when I was laying in my living room, bleeding to death. Funny, I couldn’t remember those now.
She advanced toward the living room. I touched her again and again, hoping that my arctic chill would halt her. It didn’t but it was too late anyway, she’d already gotten a look at me. The blood in her veins stopped dead and her extremities became pale and cold. I saw her eyes drain of color as they surveyed my pale-blue body. The look on her face was one of sheer terror and disbelief. I couldn’t blame her; it was a pretty gory sight. There were two long gashes where I’d slashed my wrists with the blood covered letter opener that now sat beside my body. She saw my paling skin, my blue lips and my open eyes that they almost immediately closed when they noticed she was looking.
Damn them! Why hadn’t they done that before? It had been a good 3 hours since my time of death and it looked like not a damn thing had been done to remedy this mess.
“Momma, I came here as soon as I…” My sister Stacy had arrived. She’d gotten there as fast as she could and she was ready for the worst but I don’t think she never expected to see what she did. “Oh Jimmy…” she whispered.
I smiled. Jimmy. She hadn’t called me that in ages. Since my first given name was James, she’d always shorten it to Jimmy, claiming that I wasn’t cool enough to be called Lance. Besides, there was a guy at school called Lance that she liked. I was too dorky to share a name with him.
JC was there now too and he wrapped his arms around Stacy, letting her know she could lean on him. It seemed like everyone had seen me, except for my Dad who refused to believe his son could do something like this and Ford, Stacy’s husband who’d opted to stay with my dad. But wait, what about Chris? I looked out the curtained window in search for Chris. His silver PT Cruiser was parked a few yards down on the street but he was suddenly nowhere in sight.
That man had been like an older brother to me and it kind of hurt that he wasn’t around. Then again, I guess it hurt him too, that I wasn’t around. I was sure he’d turn up somewhere. I walked over to where Stacy stood, weeping in JC’s arms and put my arms around the both of them. JC hugged her tighter and rubbed the cold away. I was obviously not needed here. I moved on to my mother who had clung to Justin for support. He was doing a good job in not collapsing himself. I put him hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.
My good friend Joey. He stood in front of everyone else, staring at the EMT’s zipping up the body bag. He looked like how I’d felt when I decided to take my life, sickeningly alone. I stood next to him and watched as tear after tear made their way down his face and finally to a puddle on the floor below him. He was silent in his sorrow. He didn’t weep, nor did he gasp for air. He just stood there, stature-esque, with tears wetting his face.
In the blink of an eye he was looking straight at me. Not at my body, but me. Not through me, not just in my direction, but really and truly at me. His gaze caught me off guard and I took a step back. He couldn’t REALLY see me could he? “Joey?” I whispered, testing my limits. His eyes widened and he jumped.
“What’s wrong Joe?” JC asked, noticing his sudden alarm.
“I thought…” he began.
“What?”
“I...” he looked at me again. “Nothing, nothing.”
Joey, having had enough, kissed my mother and sister goodbye and within a few minutes, he was out of sight.
They all watched as my body was loaded into the hearse, headed for the morgue. No one spoke until it was long gone.
“Why’d he do it?” JC asked, finally. “What could have possibly been horrible enough to make him take his own life?”
“And why did he feel as though he couldn’t come to one of us for help?” Stacy chimed. She and JC were like two halves of one person. If something ever went wrong with Ford, JC would be Stacy’s in no time.
“I was talking to the police...” Chris said from out of the blue. I hadn’t even seen him walk up. “They said they have a motive.”
“Which is?” my mother asked.
“This.” Chris held up a bloodstained piece of paper. The last bill I’d opened. “It’s the bill for his trip to space. It was past due and it was his final notice. If he didn’t pay it off in full, they were going to take everything.”
“Oh dear.”
“To put it mildly.”
“Just short of nine million dollars.”
“Enough to drive anyone to suicide.”
“I suppose,” she said and sniffled a little.
The rest of the evening was spent on my front lawn, reminiscing about me. I thought it was stupid and unnecessary but I guess I’d have no say in the matter. And soon after nightfall, one by one, everyone left. What, had I expected them to stay there forever? I guess it was time to go. With a swift lift of the head, I was airborne. Racing through sky and moon, space and beyond to the place I’d visited a few hours before. It wasn’t heaven, I knew that. It was a sort of waiting area, if you could call it that. A resting spot until things picked up. Who knew how long that would be.
I never meant to freak Joey out, I just wanted him to know I’d always be there with him. That I loved him, the guys and everyone else who’d loved me. It was myself I hadn’t loved enough. I tried forever to prove myself worthy. From the very beginning I’d been NSYNC’s weak link. I even changed my name to fit in. I’d never really been up to their caliber. I still wasn’t, or so I thought. But I know now that I was. It was something I had to take my life to realize. (Wisdom comes hand in hand with death) We weren’t sure of much when we started off NSYNC. We were new to this way of life and we weren’t even certain we could pull this off. I didn’t even know why they’d picked me for this band but I remember the look on their faces when I signed that contract. Confidence, pure confidence. It was the one thing I’d doubted that was what they were sure of all along. Myself.
Completed
AllisonDiana is the author of 6 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 2 members. Members who liked Final Notice also liked 2 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 2 members. Members who liked Final Notice also liked 2 other stories.
Story Tags: Be the first to add a tag to this story
