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

“Oh my God,” I coughed out along with a cloud of smoke. I guess I wouldn’t have to think of something to say.

“Hey,” I say walking over to the decently sized tree, “What are you doing?”

“Well, I’m finally having some fun...cuz my fucking brother is....” he grunted as he made his way up the tree, “LAME!” he started laughing again. I still couldn’t see his face, all I could see was his bottom half, not that pleasant. All I could do was laugh at his stupidity, somewhat out of disbelief and nervousness.

“You’re gonna fall!” I shout upwards.

“No I won’t, I am FUCKIN radioactive...” He laughed at himself, pleased.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to climb up after you!” I giggled at the situation and what I was about to do. I hadn’t climbed a tree since fifth grade, maybe.

“Cool man, join the party! I think I see the fuckin Eiffel State Building from here.”

“You mean the Empire State Building.” I corrected him

“No, the Empire, duh, are you dumb or something? Jeeeeezzz. I’m not dumb, I’m an artist. A fucking AMAZING artist!” He then howled like a wolf.

“Well,” I compliment, watching my step very carefully and grasping my purse for dear life. I was looking down basically the whole time and didn’t realize until I bumped into something, that I had reached where he was in the tree. I look up and he surprises me in more ways than one.

“Boo!”

I gasp and jump. I lose my footing and slipped. He tried to grab hold of me but his weakened reaction time is too slow. I crash down to the ground.

“Holy shit! No fucking way! ..... and, Ouch......”

The boy in the tree was the boy I met in the alley on the worst night of my life.

“Oh, shit! Are you okay?” He spit out suddenly sounding sobered up, but I could tell he was muffling his laughter.

“You... it’s you.”

“Who me?” He looked over his shoulder then shrugged. Then looked down at me. “What are you talking about, sister?”

“Like you’d remember right now...” I said under my breath

“You’re gonna have to speak up. I’m, like, kinda up in a TREE right now!”

I laughed at the thought.

“Well if you won’t speak up, I’m gonna have to come down there. Now how did you do it? I forgot... Oh, wait, I remember now. 1, 2, 2, 4...Ah shit, whatever... here it goes!”

Now realizing what he was about to do, I tried to get up but my knee hurt like a bitch. While thinking about my pain I got side-tracked and before I could say more he threw himself out of the tree, in my direction. All I could get out of my mouth was a concerned moan as he plummeted from the tree on to me.

“Aaaahhhhh!”

“Aaaahhhhh!”

“What the FUCK? Are you stupid or something!?” He landed on me and the pain was intense!

“Fucking Shit! That really hurt!”

“No shit Sherlock!”

“But it was pretty funny!” He spit out between laughs. He rolled off me twitching with giggles.

“Oh... so you’re crazy... makes sense...”

He flipped over on to his back and replied, “No you’re crazy, because ...you’re not ...laughing at this!” He returned to his hysterical fits.

“Wha....well....I guess it is kinda....” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. We laid there cracking up. As we calmed down to catch our breaths, he sat up and I followed. He began to wipe his tears and turned to look at me. I was scrounging around to retrieve all the contents of my purse that had escaped. I felt his gaze and returned it. He reached out and wiped the smudged makeup under my eyes.



“You’re so drunk.” I say out of shyness. It was weird, I felt like I was back in 8th grade and was in the same room as the boy I had a crush on. Maybe I am crazy, I don’t even know the guy’s name.

“What’s your name?” he asked, almost reading my mind.

“What are you doing out here?” I heard Frankie shout all of a sudden. His words startled me. The boy sitting next to me found this, not surprisingly, hilarious.

“Hey Frank. Oh, you know me just up to some zany antics.” I remark casually. I look back at the boy and smile then start to play with the grass. Frankie comes up behind me and tries to pull me up.

“”Ah.... son of a BITCH, I forgot I busted my knee.”

“And how did you do that” Frankie questioned eyeing the boy sitting next to me.

“Uh, well long story... I think I’ll need some coffee before I can fully explain.”

“Oooh, I fucking love coffee!” said the boy.

“You should come. It is all your fault.” I blurted out, somewhat regretting it.

I wobbled to my feet and for the second time of the night Frankie helped the kid who was drunk-out-of-his-mind.

“Thanks, bro.”

“Sure,” said Frankie wearily, “Can I talk to her for a second, alone?”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me 20 feet away without waiting for a response.

“Babe, do you know this guy? ‘Cuz I sure don’t know this guy. All I know him for is being Mikey’s creepy older brother. All he does is draw comics in his basement all day.”

“No, I don’t know him, but we had a pretty good time.” I said knowing what was coming out of Frankie’s mouth next. “It’s just coffee. We never have to see him again if he’s a bad guy, okay?”

Then without waiting for a response, I signaled the boy to come over. He stumbled, but I laughed about it, causing Frankie to laugh about it.

We arrived at some doughnut shop and hopped out of the car inside. It was warm inside and we all got large coffees and a doughnut.

“So what is your name?” I asked as soon as we sat down.

“Gerard.” The boy, no longer known as the boy sitting next to me, responded.

“Gerard?” I asked.

“Gerard.” he responded

“Gerard?” Frankie asked.

“Yes, Gerard, now you guys sound like the drunk ones!” He joked.

The rest of the conversation mostly revolved around his artwork, and his band, and our tree-time story. The coffee seemed to sober him up quickly.
“So, wait, you’re ‘Skylines and Turnstiles’?” Frankie asked. “We listened to that on the way to the party,” he said directing it to me.

My eyes widened and I gave Frankie an I-told-you-so look.

“Yeah we haven’t named it yet, but it seems to be working out. I got a good feeling about it.” he noted about his band.

It somehow got to be 3:30 am and Frankie wanted to go home, he hadn’t slept in two days. He lived around the block so he decided to walk. I offered to drive Gerard home and he accepted. When we arrived I, out of habit, stayed until he got in safely. (Thanks mom.) He seemed to be locked out and came to tell me.

“You can stay the night at my place.” I extended quickly.

“That, would be great.” He said flopping back into the car. “Yeah, sometimes Mikey locks me out. But only when I make him and Sido mad.”

“Mikey? Sido?” I asked confused as I pulled into my driveway.

“Shit, this is a nice place.”

“Yeah it works,” I whisper, “ Sometimes too big, lonely you know?”

“I’m so fucking tired.” he interrupted.

I was glad for it though, that last bit was kind of embarrassing. I had just bought a second set of sheets for the guest bed and he was the first guest I ever had in the new apartment. I showed him his bed and he collapsed on to it. I reached mine pulled off my shoes only, and did the same.