I'm the Kind of Human Wreckage That You Love.

We drove into the city together and made our way into this tiny gallery packed full of people. I loved going to these places where a whole bunch of alternative people gather, because I always feel like I fit in, which is rare.

Thankfully it was dark inside, to set the mood, and I wore my hair kind of in my face so no one would realize my injury.

The plain white walls were covered in these huge, masterful canvases full of the most amazing detail. Every inch had something new to look at. The images were all fantastical and had repeating characters.

“That’s his character Luc. And those are the The WIllows.”

She pointed to a painting with a boy wearing headphones and then to a mural with a patch of personified trees with faces and arm-like branches.

Sid finally spotted her brother and we zig zagged through the crowd to greet him.

Jesse looked like the stereotypical art student. I could see right past his sports jacket, his attempt of dressing up. His hair was curly and dishevled, his fitted jeans were paint spattered and his shirt had a design you’d never seen before, and will never see again. He wore square glasses, too. In fact, he reminded me a lot of Mikey.

“Sido! Come here you glore!” He hugged her around her neck, since he was about six inches taller than she was. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Gerard’s girlfriend.”

“Oh, man! You mean she’s taken? Too bad. Oh, well.” He smiled.



“Oh, stop it Jesse, not in public.” Sid muttered.

Someone yelled over to Jesse.

“I’ll be back. Stay right here, little sister. I promise I’ll be back.”

“What was that? And what the hell’s a glore?” I interrogated, puzzled.

“You see, we’re a very strange family. Well, he’s one of my two older brothers, the other one’s Jake, and we hung out a lot together when we were younger and we sort of created our own vocabulary. We didn’t have too many friends, just each other, and we pretty much hated the rest of the world. And so with that, a ‘glore’ is someone who believes in ‘glove,’ which is ‘ugly love’. We didn’t think very highly of anyone from the ‘outside’ world.”

I laughed out loud and almost spit out my appetizer.

“It’s cute. I want my own vernacular!”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess, so don’t look at me weird if it slips out once in a while.”

“And, Sid-o?”

“My real name is Sidonie, kinda of like Sydney, but it’s French. So, for short, people call me Sido, as well as Sid.”

“Cool, cool. Do you think he’s coming back?”

“No, not really. He’s a little slow on the uptake. He reminds me a lot of a cat. A little, stupid cat.”

We both laughed at the comment and she introduced me to some other people. I actually knew some of them there and I had a very nice time.

It was dark when we left and on the drive home I got a call from Frankie.

“Hey, what’s up.” I said with a trace of a laugh, left over from a comment Sid had made.

“What have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know me, something zany.”

“Is that so? Well, I need to see you, we need to talk.”

“Um, okay. What’s wrong?”

“Just come over. Who’s with you?”

“Sid.”

“Umm... I don’t want...”

“It’s cool, I’ll be there in a flash.”

I hung up the phone and said good bye to Sid. When I arrived at Frankie’s place he was waiting for me at the door.