Circo

Thunderstorms are the natural war. If you ever want a taste of the fear and terror, just wait out for a thunderstorm. The angry crashes of thunder that shake the caravans from the inside out, and the lightening, so dangerous, that forks left right and centre. It’s not as dangerous as war, but it sure can give you an idea.

We’d been taking the tent down when it started. The group were doing what still seemed to be the impossible to me, while I did the job I was good at, cleaning the smaller tent poles.

Gerard, as usual, had been helping by annoying everyone as much as possible. His mood had improved greatly since this morning, and once again he was prancing around singing a song I didn’t recognise.

I don’t know what it was that compelled him to dance around in December without a shirt, but he did it anyway, not letting the cold get to him.

“Hey stalker,” he laughed, sidling up to me.

“Stalker?” I laughed nervously.

“You know what I’m talking about,” he murmured, his mouth so close to my ear that I could feel his breath. “You were in the tent this morning,”

“So what if I was,”

It was at that point, where my confidence levels had finally started to expand...that a huge crack of thunder split the sky and caused the rain to fall in not so small amounts. Sheets of it cascaded from the black clouds that had covered this morning’s perfectly clear sky.

People cursed and ran into their trailers, the taking down of the tent postponed due to health and safety. That made me laugh a little, Mr Way didn’t tend to care about that kind of thing, but he insisted that everyone went to a trailer of sorts.

I’d turned to make for Josie’s trailer...my trailer, but I was stopped by a hand wrapped loosely around my arm. Gerards hand. Without any kind of hesitation, he dragged me over towards his luxury trailer throwing open the door and pushing me inside.

After straightening myself out, and shaking my head, watching as fat droplets of water flew from my sopping wet hair, I looked intently around the trailer. Already I could see the difference in this one and my own, not only in size, but also in the fact that it was a lot cleaner.

There were no water stains on the ceiling from the cruel treatment by the weather, and it wasn’t as messy as mine. The walls were red, and the two beds that could be found were not only spread at either end of the trailer so that the two brothers weren’t in such close confines with one another as they slept – or as Gerard fucked, but they were also a lot larger.

There was another flash of lightening, and then a couple of seconds later there was another crack of thunder which made me jump; I was glad when I saw that Gerard didn’t notice. He was instead just turning on a couple of lamps that were dotted around the room.

“So, not only do you get a nicer trailer, but you get electricity?” I said, rolling my eyes as I carried on looking around the trailer, sifting through items on shelves and work surfaces.

“Hell no,” he laughed pulling a shirt over his head, ignoring the fact that his chest was still wet. “These are battery powered. Though I’d love to carry electricity everywhere we go so I can use my fucking hair straighteners or at least my hair dryer, I don't think it's possible to take electricity somewhere with you.”

I chuckled to myself, continuing to look around before Gerards voice cut through the silence once more.

“Listen,” he started, but paused to sigh. “You didn’t....you didn’t tell anyone about this morning did you?”

“No, why?”

“Just...don’t,”

“I wasn’t going to.”

An awkward silence fell onto the trailer and the only sound to be heard was that of the rain as it hit violently onto the metal roof of the trailer.

I sat on the closest bed, and leant over so that I could look out of the window, watching the rain as it fell across the campsite or the lightening as it cracked across the sky.

I smiled to myself as I thought once again of the little rhyme. It was obviously just a coincidence, but the fact that the red-sky had coincided with this storm almost brought a little bit of my father back into my memory, since it was always him who’d say that rhyme, whether or not there was a storm later in the day.

I was torn from my memories upon hearing Gerards voice over the loud clattering of rain on metal. “How does thunder...” he started, but then paused, “never mind,” he concluded.

“No it’s okay, what were you gonna ask?”

“I...just – I was wondering how thunder...happened,”

I stared at him across the caravan from where I was seated on the bed. “You...you don’t know?”

He looked embarrassed and shook his head, glancing away and out of the window as another rumble of thunder filled the air. In that moment, Gerard Way’s shell cracked a little more, exposing him to me even more.

“Well, no-one is really sure. Some people think that it’s just the clouds like...colliding or something, but others think that it’s more complicated than that, like the clouds increasing temperature so fast that they expand quickly and cause a shock-wave which causes the sound. I don't really know though, I was never very good at that aspect of science. I preferred biology,”

He stared at me in awe, a look on his face that I couldn’t place. “Biology?”

“Yeah, like the human body and stuff. And animals and plants,” I paused for a second, realisation hitting me full force. “You...you never went to school did you?”

The look on his face at that moment could have broken anyone. Mr Way, who didn’t care, or even Lou who hated Gerard with a passion I’m almost one hundred percent certain would have crumbled.

He looked so lost, so confused, but more than anything, he looked ashamed. “It’s just there was never any point in going to school. My Dad said that I had my life set out for me, and that I didn’t need an education to do what I do,” I briefly wondered whether Gerard meant his act in the show, or the fucking. “Plus, with all of the moving around, there never would have been any point in me starting a school, I’d just have to leave again a week – sometimes even a day later,”

“Something like that is important though,” I started softly. “What if this isn’t what you want?” I gestured my hands vaguely around, referring to the Circus in general.

He hesitated momentarily, before snapping his head up and narrowing his eyes at me. “What would you know, Iero? You waltz in here acting like you’re so fucking superior. What was all that science and thunder shit just then? Just because you have a fucking education and come from a perfect little white picket fence family who send you to school so that you have the option to do what you want with your life don’t make you any better than us,” he snapped defensively.

“I didn’t ever say I was better than you,” I whispered, cowering away. I half expected him to approach me and pick me up, stuffing me in a locker (but due to a lack of locker it would of course be a closet or something) because the look that he was giving me was that similar to all of those guys at school who decided to lash out on someone different to their usual victims, and go for me.

Instead when he approached me, he reached his arm out to me, and pressed his palm into my cheek, his eyes darting quickly around my face. My breathing was shallow, my eyes blurring. He was getting closer and closer to my face, and I could feel his breath on my lips, I could practically taste it.

I was reminded of my first day at the Circo, when he’d approached me and flirted shamelessly.

“Good,” he whispered, a seductive tone to his voice. “We wouldn’t want you being misinformed now, would we?” and with that, he tapped my cheek with his palm, and turned away, throwing open the caravan door and leaving into the pouring rain.