Circo

The air was fresh and cool on my face as I stepped out of the Way brothers trailer. I wasn’t sure where Gerard had disappeared to, and why Mikey hadn’t been present in his own caravan at all during the storm, therefore it had felt undoubtedly awkward for me to just be sitting around amongst the possessions of strangers.

On Mr Ways orders, we were staying within this camp for the night, leaving a day later than scheduled. The thunderstorm had had a setback effect on the progress of getting the tent taken down and packed away in the lorry, therefore by the time everyone set off, we wouldn’t make it on time to the campsite that Mr Way had pin-pointed.
Although a lot of the campsites were random to me, they held some familiarity to some of the performers for the simple reason that the people who owned the plots of land had to be trusted, or else we could end up camping in a field owned by some blood-thirsty murderer.

A few people – Gerard included - had gone into the nearby town for a look around, to stock up on food supplies in case we couldn’t get anything from a diner, and I was sure that half of the money going on food was going towards booze as well. I couldn’t complain much, the stuff was growing on me.

I was sat in one of the deck chairs, staring out at the emptiness of our surroundings, thinking over what Gerard had said. It may sound pretentious of me, but I’d had an education, I didn’t smoke like a chimney and I didn’t drink like a fish and I most certainly didn’t sell my own body for other peoples sick pleasures – yet he still thought he was better than me. The thought irked me somewhat, but I decided to let it go. There was always going to be a Gerard Way in the world. The one who thought he was better than everyone despite his shocking flaws.

“Hey guys,” he chirruped cockily as he walked into the camp. I turned my head to look at him, and was caught instantly by the cheeky glint in his eyes. “Who wants to get fucked up tonight?”

People swarmed to him and the bag that he held from his outstretched arm. Curiosity took over and I stood from my seat, eager to investigate what was in the bag. People were talking animatedly, grinning and thanking Gerard. When I walked over to Gerard I peered into the bag seeing not only a measly three bottles of vodka, but stuffed in between, and piling across the bottles, ducked into every single crevice was a see-through baggie with a white powder sitting patiently inside, waiting to fuck with someone’s mind.

I grabbed one of the bags in disbelief and looked up at Gerard. “There must be like $6, 000 worth of cocaine in here,” I muttered exaggerating, of course. “How the fuck’d you afford it?”

“Frankie, baby,” he pouting playfully at me, obviously mocking me as he petted my hair down as if I was some naive child who didn’t know what was going on. “It’s not always about money.”

I cringed. I don’t know why the idea of Gerard fucking around got to me so much. It’s not like I should care, what he did with his life was nothing to do with me.

I looked over Gerards shoulder to see Mikey and Stan pull up in Mikeys car. They climbed out grinning, and unloading bag after bag filled with some kind of alcohol, some with names so exotic or foreign that I didn’t even think I could pronounce it.

“What happened to spending only half of the money on booze?” I snapped upon seeing the amount of alcohol now being hauled into the camp.

“Hey, calm down,” Gerard muttered through a cigarette. “The fucks your problem? Who needs food when we’ve got this shit,” He gestured at the bag.

“But – I don’t...” I whimpered, not understanding how however much cocaine could solve the fact we now had no food to last us the night.

“Jeez Frank, you’re so naive. I thought every teenager fucked about with drugs and drink whether or not they were in this fabulous life of our wonderful Circo,” Gerard grinned. “Crack is a god-send Frankie-baby; keeps off that hunger,” he poked at my side, “You know how pesky that is.”

“I don’t any,” I muttered, scuffing my shoes across the grass.

“You will,”

-------------------------------------------------------------* * *

Only a couple of hours later, everyone was having a great time – apart from myself.

No-one had touched any of the cocaine yet – claiming that they wanted to save the ‘gold dust’ – but they were getting fucked up enough on the booze right now.

“C’mon Frankie, have ‘nother drink,” Josie slurred, placing herself in the chair next to me. She really wasn’t one to hold her drink well, which shocked somewhat, with my knowledge of the length of time she’d been at the Circo.

“M’okay,” I mumbled. “Still got this one,” I muttered, gesturing to the bottle in my hand.

“That still y’first?” she asked, chuckling to herself. “C’mon baby, live a little!” she yelled the last three words, rolling her head back on her neck so that it was hanging over the back of the chair, her neck exposed as she laughed.

“First hit’s mine!” I heard Gerard shout. I looked over with curiosity, and saw a crowd surrounding him as he stood on one of the car bonnets. After his announcement, he jumped down and emptied a fair amount of the powder from the plastic baggie and onto the bonnet, structuring it into a line before – with no hesitation – rolling up the card in his hand and snorting the powder. He stood up, and was still for a minute, his hand going to massage the bridge of his nose. “That,” he grinned, “Is pure shit man, fuckin’ try that,” he laughed, passing out the bags like candy. He looked up at me and I could tell that while the effects of the drug weren’t 100% setting in just yet, he was well on his way, and it was just a matter of time; through un-focusing eyes, he threw one of the bag at me. I caught it in my right hand and stared at it dumbly for a few minutes.

I’d never been one for drinking and drugs, the thought kind of scared me. I’d seen my mother drunk, and I never wanted to get like that and although I’d never tried any form of narcotics, I just knew that it’d be much the same effect, if not worse.

“Everything,” Gerard wavered slinging his arms around my neck. “Is fucking beautiful. I assure you Frankie-baby, if there is a fucking God, his name is Gerard fuckin’ Way. You tried this shit yet?” He asked, taking the bag from me hand. I shook my head without hesitation, in no rush to grab the bag back from Gerard. “You know you want to try it,”

“I can assure you, I don’t,”

“Not even a little?” He smirked, his hands moving around to my back pockets. I screwed my face up and shifted away from him.

“Not even at all,” I finalised.

I removed his arms from around my neck and turned to walk away. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” he called from behind me.

I was shocked, and even somewhat disgusted when I turned back to bite back some kind of witty remark, when I saw Gerard leant over the plastic garden table, concentrating on making a near enough straight line of the white powder before snorting that just as quickly as before.

He blinked a few times, the knuckle of his index finger going to his nose as he continued to sniff inwards for a couple of seconds before grinning lazily at me. “This is fuckin’ good shit,” He said for what must have been the fourth time that night.

I cast my eye over the camp once more watching as people staggered around in a drunken stupor and leant over dirt ridden tables, destroying their brains and their noses with a few inhalations of cocaine before I turned an stepped into mine and Josie’s caravan, taking off my jeans and climbing into my bed. As I lay there, a dimmed light coming from the fire outside, something on the floor caught my eye.

It’s a well known saying that curiosity killed the cat, but I looked anyway, leaning out of the bed, and pulling whatever it was from its place in the back pocket of my jeans.

On closer inspection, I realised that it was one of the bags of cocaine.

There should have been no hesitation. I should have realised what it was and thrown it back onto the floor, or opened the door of the caravan and thrown it on the ground. I should have flushed it down the non-working toilet in the caravan or buried it amongst Josie’s things, but instead, I stared at it. I squeezed it between my fingers and watched as the powder fell around in the bag, moulding into the pads of my fingers. Like I said, I should have thrown it away. I shouldn’t have tucked it back into the pocket of my jeans.

But I did anyway.