Fractured Greyhound Routes
everyone wants to be ok.
Reality checks are very realistic, sometimes feeling close to hard smack in the face or a pressure that caves your chest in for a moment. In this life, my first love wasn't Mikey. It wasn’t hot, heated romance or enveloped with smothering kisses and needy touches; it wasn't the kind you could fuck up. No, it was something indestructible. He was twenty-three, I was eleven. This boy had dark disheveled ebony hair that slovenly fell in his eyes, muddled eden-colored eyes that burned me with unfamiliar aches I never knew I could feel so young, and fair skin that glowed fluorescent in the street lamps dim light every night on his porch steps. He was fucking beautiful, alluring in every single way. It tortured me when I would watch through my bedroom window while he hopped into his dates' car for the night. Gerard Way wasn't filthy like me; latching onto sex to try and steer the relationship back in the right direction, to bring any kind of feeling back. No no, he believed in true, till death do us part, through sickness and health love. The way his eyes glazed over while talking about his resent dates he would return from, comparing them to his own expectations; maybe one didn't open the door for him, another ordering his food for him, while the other was just right-- except he fucked with his radio. Gerard gave me a glimpse of what love could be. It didn't have to be so brutal and tragic, no dramatics but simplicity in the small kisses to the temple and without any other intention but letting you know it was there; love. Or the lacing of fingers, just to be connected; this was Mikey's favorite, I wasn't sure if he had picked it up from his brother or not.
Back then I never understood exactly why Gerard took such an interest in me as a kid. We'd met the day I first tried to runaway; it was wet from overnight rain shed and the clouds were still thick and blocking any strong sunlight. I didn't know anything about running away; where I would go, what would I do, how long I would be gone. I wished I could have stayed away for a life time. Gerard had been stepping outside ready to drive off in his infamous rusted green Honda to work when he caught sight of me. There I was, sitting on the porch steps with a duffle bag placed beside be as I stared off unaware of his curious glances. Maybe he had seen the boy underneath the torn and shabby flannel shirt and faded jeans that were sizes too big on my hips. I would have liked to think he saw what was really happening to me inside that shack of a house I lived in. Maybe he had seen the all-too-soon wilted innocence, something that a child was supposed to have as a hole, in me. Maybe it had been the healing gash in my lip, or maybe it had been the limp in my stride; the one my mother chose in particular to never notice.
Something about me had stopped him, sent him rigid in his driveway while I stared into the dark world I would rather live in then the darker of a house that imprisoned me through my whole childhood and days to still come; in present and in my dreams. He had been the only person besides my teachers and hand full of playground friends who asked what had happened to little Frank Iero’s face; after a while, it wasn’t so shocking to see a bruise or cut smearing the face of the Iero’s son’s face. He had been the one to truly care. Or care enough to call in a sick day and spend it sneaking me a decent pair of his brother’s old jeans and inviting me to dinner.
That was how it all started.
To this day, I still blame Gerard for incinerating the perfect picture of what he had given me of love. Slashed to little rivulets and torched, I listened to my childhood naivety’s screams the day I learned things could never stay so chaste and pure like I thought it could be. My first love was snatched so brutally from me I still had the empty whole in my heart that continued to bleed in his absence. He didn't want his friends to see him cry, no one besides the Way family had seen Gerard until his funeral that had come so abruptly it seemed I was watching a movie in sequence. Mikey still had nightmares of his big brother, describing to me the hideous changes Gerard had went through. In sobs, he explained how his brother decayed long before his body was put into the ground; his mouth scabbed with sores that made it impossible for him to eat without a tube and how his soft silky ebony locks detached from his scalp and replaced with painful rashes.
At his funeral, it was ordered to keep the casket closed. No one would recognize the rotted corpse of Gerard Way; it was best for everyone to remember the boy he had once been instead of decay and rot. I had gone to the funeral, my parents staying behind me as I watched the coffin lower into the ground. And I still remember how my father had leaned down to whisper in my ear so venomously I'm still stained.
"That's what happens to faggots. This is what happens when you take it up the ass."
I hadn't known what to say to that when I was eleven except for begin to cry- which I paid for later. But now, I could think up so many things I could have said to that sick son of a bitch that it was agonizing to think of now. I could have had so many retorts to that filthy hypocrite and I wish I could have one last chance to tell him so to this day.
I remember seeing Mikey at the funeral, his eyes pooling with tears and he clung to his distraught mother who had been sobbing about her handsome little boy. At the time, I hadn't even really exchanged more then a polite hello to him since I would only run into him at Gerard's house, I could never recall seeing him anywhere else. At thirteen-years-old, Mikey even then had glasses, much wider and thicker then they were now, and his hair mousey brown that he inherited from his mother contrast to his brother that had taken the shade of their father. I remember meeting his gaze since we were both standing opposite sides of the coffin. For a second, his mouth had opened as if intended to tell me something, but then closed and turned back to tend his mother. That was the last time I had seen Mikey until later years, because I never visited the Way household again.
Now, I just find it ironic I’m seeing the brother of what I always felt was my “first love”. I never pictured myself this way; I had always imagined myself in a romantic relationship, a perfect fucking true blue love. It had always seemed so wonderful when Gerard had explained things, and for a while I was able to act the part to Mikey. But every day we seemed to fade and I things didn’t seem so clear.
And now, as I sat next to Mikey in some little shit-hole town in Maryland, my baseball cap at our feet with scraps of dimes and quarters inside. We hid our clasped hands, not chancing some homophobe to walk by and see us. How fucking romantic, sitting on the curb with dried gum decorating the cement in patterns against a shop that had been run-out of business by the Rite Aid that was just around the corner. How fucking beautiful. I watched people glance down at us, some with revulsion etched across their faces, but some gave us a second of their time to drop spare change they wouldn’t need in my hat. I hated begging, I couldn’t stand asking for people’s money when I still had some in my pocket…just not enough for a train. It was some kind of pride I had Gerard to thank for, probably some bullshit philosophy of his that stuck with me. Mikey’s hand was almost literally weighing me down from pacing the side walk as the amphetamines began to kick in. This time, Mikey watched me silently as I dry swallowed the tabs and didn’t return my reassuring smile.
“Frank?”
My head turned slowly as if rusted cogs were forcing me to face him. The way he just said my name already gave me a clue I didn’t want to have this conversation, but on impulse my attention was given to Mikey who was shivering in his coat, his fingers shaking between mine like his fragile bird skeleton had been ignited, his body rattling with bursting humiliation behind the pale layer of skin that was only expressed through his unnaturally bright eyes.
At this moment in time, staring down at my frail, worn out baby doll I dragged along with me out in the middle of the disgusting streets of Maryland, I wished I could fix him. For that brief moment, I wish that the lights could guide us home, where I knew Mikey belonged. He wasn’t meant for this life; sitting on the street corner begging, running out of restraunts before paying for our meal when his legs were still sore, putting up with me. I know at the beginning it had all seemed fun; he’d never had a taste of breaking the rules. My baby doll wasn’t built to be a badass kid running the streets. Slowly, Mikey was picking up on how nice his bed was back home and every day I could see his wanton to continue this dead-end journey slip.
“Do you regret this?”
To be honest, I don’t. I wouldn’t hesitate to leave Jersey if I had a second chance; the only thing I do regret is bringing Mikey.
“No, Mikey. I don’t.” His body seemed to sag for a brief moment, a sigh repressed at how pointless it was for me to ever return home.
Then he just landed me with the biggest persuasion.
“Do you remember the squeaky swings down by my father’s cabin?” he asked softly, his eyes glazed and staring distantly, as if he could see us swinging in the tall grass with our summer bliss. “The water felt so good, remember?”
I nodded numbly, remembering last summer when I couldn’t recall a single care. Before we shed our summer skin for some hard, thick crust of something destructive. I remember the greenery and humid air, shadow puppets with our hands—Mikey’s addition.
“B-but I can’t blame you Frankie. I d-don’t.”
“The night you left,” Mikey recalled, “the first time.”
My teeth grit tightly together as I battles to stay numb for this even when my throat began to clog.
“I came over…remember when your dad called you home?” I nodded, remembering that night of reluctance to leave Mikey and the fantasy land we had both created for ourselves back at his dad’s cabin. That night had added itself to my many night haunts; I still feel my blood drain and my sweat turn cold when I picture Mikey opening the door of my bedroom, his eyes peeking in through the crack to witness the events that occurred in my house. Mikey saw just how precious daddy Iero treated his son.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “And remember when I told you to never come over?”
I wasn’t sure if Mikey flushed, but his gaze looked down into his lap at how harshly I snapped that time. But that’s when he squeezed my hand so tightly, I thought in this weather they would be brittle enough to crunch.
“I wish you could just forget everything,” he whispered, his voice wavering when one of very few footsteps padded by us and into the distance where the streetlamp’s light didn’t reach. “I just w-wish you could remember us and c-come back.”
This grabbed me and I looked at him bewildered.
“Mikey, I right here-“
“Your not, your not!” he began to softly sob. “B-because your always back with him. Y-y-you won’t f-fucking leave him, and I’m running out of ideas how to m-make you forget!”
Mikey’s sobs were the only thing that sounded throughout the street and I just stood there, petrified in stand-still position, my mouth agape without any of my air breathing out between my parted teeth. I didn’t move, just stared down at Mikey while I pondered how in the hell he could just say this to me. Mikey stared up, his soaked eyes pleading up at me to do something. My lip quivered to break my disturbing posture and I could swear that brittle shield I had been holding up for so long seemed to just finally collapse. I could feel my insides squirm and my heart pound out blood with every beat, it’s scream as piercing as a banshee’s while my shield scattered down beside it. Tears that might have well been crimson leaked down my cheeks as I continued to stare down at Mikey, who was beginning to look frightened; I think he was witnessing everything crumble inside me as he stood just as still.
“Y-y-you don’t know how much I wish could just forget. Baby, I ran out of ideas years ago.”
And like the money that had been dropped into my baseball cap, I clattered to the bottom.
Back then I never understood exactly why Gerard took such an interest in me as a kid. We'd met the day I first tried to runaway; it was wet from overnight rain shed and the clouds were still thick and blocking any strong sunlight. I didn't know anything about running away; where I would go, what would I do, how long I would be gone. I wished I could have stayed away for a life time. Gerard had been stepping outside ready to drive off in his infamous rusted green Honda to work when he caught sight of me. There I was, sitting on the porch steps with a duffle bag placed beside be as I stared off unaware of his curious glances. Maybe he had seen the boy underneath the torn and shabby flannel shirt and faded jeans that were sizes too big on my hips. I would have liked to think he saw what was really happening to me inside that shack of a house I lived in. Maybe he had seen the all-too-soon wilted innocence, something that a child was supposed to have as a hole, in me. Maybe it had been the healing gash in my lip, or maybe it had been the limp in my stride; the one my mother chose in particular to never notice.
Something about me had stopped him, sent him rigid in his driveway while I stared into the dark world I would rather live in then the darker of a house that imprisoned me through my whole childhood and days to still come; in present and in my dreams. He had been the only person besides my teachers and hand full of playground friends who asked what had happened to little Frank Iero’s face; after a while, it wasn’t so shocking to see a bruise or cut smearing the face of the Iero’s son’s face. He had been the one to truly care. Or care enough to call in a sick day and spend it sneaking me a decent pair of his brother’s old jeans and inviting me to dinner.
That was how it all started.
To this day, I still blame Gerard for incinerating the perfect picture of what he had given me of love. Slashed to little rivulets and torched, I listened to my childhood naivety’s screams the day I learned things could never stay so chaste and pure like I thought it could be. My first love was snatched so brutally from me I still had the empty whole in my heart that continued to bleed in his absence. He didn't want his friends to see him cry, no one besides the Way family had seen Gerard until his funeral that had come so abruptly it seemed I was watching a movie in sequence. Mikey still had nightmares of his big brother, describing to me the hideous changes Gerard had went through. In sobs, he explained how his brother decayed long before his body was put into the ground; his mouth scabbed with sores that made it impossible for him to eat without a tube and how his soft silky ebony locks detached from his scalp and replaced with painful rashes.
At his funeral, it was ordered to keep the casket closed. No one would recognize the rotted corpse of Gerard Way; it was best for everyone to remember the boy he had once been instead of decay and rot. I had gone to the funeral, my parents staying behind me as I watched the coffin lower into the ground. And I still remember how my father had leaned down to whisper in my ear so venomously I'm still stained.
"That's what happens to faggots. This is what happens when you take it up the ass."
I hadn't known what to say to that when I was eleven except for begin to cry- which I paid for later. But now, I could think up so many things I could have said to that sick son of a bitch that it was agonizing to think of now. I could have had so many retorts to that filthy hypocrite and I wish I could have one last chance to tell him so to this day.
I remember seeing Mikey at the funeral, his eyes pooling with tears and he clung to his distraught mother who had been sobbing about her handsome little boy. At the time, I hadn't even really exchanged more then a polite hello to him since I would only run into him at Gerard's house, I could never recall seeing him anywhere else. At thirteen-years-old, Mikey even then had glasses, much wider and thicker then they were now, and his hair mousey brown that he inherited from his mother contrast to his brother that had taken the shade of their father. I remember meeting his gaze since we were both standing opposite sides of the coffin. For a second, his mouth had opened as if intended to tell me something, but then closed and turned back to tend his mother. That was the last time I had seen Mikey until later years, because I never visited the Way household again.
Now, I just find it ironic I’m seeing the brother of what I always felt was my “first love”. I never pictured myself this way; I had always imagined myself in a romantic relationship, a perfect fucking true blue love. It had always seemed so wonderful when Gerard had explained things, and for a while I was able to act the part to Mikey. But every day we seemed to fade and I things didn’t seem so clear.
And now, as I sat next to Mikey in some little shit-hole town in Maryland, my baseball cap at our feet with scraps of dimes and quarters inside. We hid our clasped hands, not chancing some homophobe to walk by and see us. How fucking romantic, sitting on the curb with dried gum decorating the cement in patterns against a shop that had been run-out of business by the Rite Aid that was just around the corner. How fucking beautiful. I watched people glance down at us, some with revulsion etched across their faces, but some gave us a second of their time to drop spare change they wouldn’t need in my hat. I hated begging, I couldn’t stand asking for people’s money when I still had some in my pocket…just not enough for a train. It was some kind of pride I had Gerard to thank for, probably some bullshit philosophy of his that stuck with me. Mikey’s hand was almost literally weighing me down from pacing the side walk as the amphetamines began to kick in. This time, Mikey watched me silently as I dry swallowed the tabs and didn’t return my reassuring smile.
“Frank?”
My head turned slowly as if rusted cogs were forcing me to face him. The way he just said my name already gave me a clue I didn’t want to have this conversation, but on impulse my attention was given to Mikey who was shivering in his coat, his fingers shaking between mine like his fragile bird skeleton had been ignited, his body rattling with bursting humiliation behind the pale layer of skin that was only expressed through his unnaturally bright eyes.
At this moment in time, staring down at my frail, worn out baby doll I dragged along with me out in the middle of the disgusting streets of Maryland, I wished I could fix him. For that brief moment, I wish that the lights could guide us home, where I knew Mikey belonged. He wasn’t meant for this life; sitting on the street corner begging, running out of restraunts before paying for our meal when his legs were still sore, putting up with me. I know at the beginning it had all seemed fun; he’d never had a taste of breaking the rules. My baby doll wasn’t built to be a badass kid running the streets. Slowly, Mikey was picking up on how nice his bed was back home and every day I could see his wanton to continue this dead-end journey slip.
“Do you regret this?”
To be honest, I don’t. I wouldn’t hesitate to leave Jersey if I had a second chance; the only thing I do regret is bringing Mikey.
“No, Mikey. I don’t.” His body seemed to sag for a brief moment, a sigh repressed at how pointless it was for me to ever return home.
Then he just landed me with the biggest persuasion.
“Do you remember the squeaky swings down by my father’s cabin?” he asked softly, his eyes glazed and staring distantly, as if he could see us swinging in the tall grass with our summer bliss. “The water felt so good, remember?”
I nodded numbly, remembering last summer when I couldn’t recall a single care. Before we shed our summer skin for some hard, thick crust of something destructive. I remember the greenery and humid air, shadow puppets with our hands—Mikey’s addition.
“B-but I can’t blame you Frankie. I d-don’t.”
“The night you left,” Mikey recalled, “the first time.”
My teeth grit tightly together as I battles to stay numb for this even when my throat began to clog.
“I came over…remember when your dad called you home?” I nodded, remembering that night of reluctance to leave Mikey and the fantasy land we had both created for ourselves back at his dad’s cabin. That night had added itself to my many night haunts; I still feel my blood drain and my sweat turn cold when I picture Mikey opening the door of my bedroom, his eyes peeking in through the crack to witness the events that occurred in my house. Mikey saw just how precious daddy Iero treated his son.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “And remember when I told you to never come over?”
I wasn’t sure if Mikey flushed, but his gaze looked down into his lap at how harshly I snapped that time. But that’s when he squeezed my hand so tightly, I thought in this weather they would be brittle enough to crunch.
“I wish you could just forget everything,” he whispered, his voice wavering when one of very few footsteps padded by us and into the distance where the streetlamp’s light didn’t reach. “I just w-wish you could remember us and c-come back.”
This grabbed me and I looked at him bewildered.
“Mikey, I right here-“
“Your not, your not!” he began to softly sob. “B-because your always back with him. Y-y-you won’t f-fucking leave him, and I’m running out of ideas how to m-make you forget!”
Mikey’s sobs were the only thing that sounded throughout the street and I just stood there, petrified in stand-still position, my mouth agape without any of my air breathing out between my parted teeth. I didn’t move, just stared down at Mikey while I pondered how in the hell he could just say this to me. Mikey stared up, his soaked eyes pleading up at me to do something. My lip quivered to break my disturbing posture and I could swear that brittle shield I had been holding up for so long seemed to just finally collapse. I could feel my insides squirm and my heart pound out blood with every beat, it’s scream as piercing as a banshee’s while my shield scattered down beside it. Tears that might have well been crimson leaked down my cheeks as I continued to stare down at Mikey, who was beginning to look frightened; I think he was witnessing everything crumble inside me as he stood just as still.
“Y-y-you don’t know how much I wish could just forget. Baby, I ran out of ideas years ago.”
And like the money that had been dropped into my baseball cap, I clattered to the bottom.