Did We All Fall Down, Well After All

Bob’s POV
I had found Ray sitting on top of a large bass amp near the stage staring at the screen of his phone in his hand. “What are you doing?” I asked. Ray ignored my question, putting the phone up to his ear. I was trying to help out, but everyone just shot me down. They all seemed to know what to do. I was lost, alone for the first time ever since I had joined this band. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to expect. I had tried talking to Gerard, but failed.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

The words stung. All I wanted to do was help. “Donna? It’s Ray.” I could hear her yell a ‘What the hell is going on over there?!’ from where I was standing. Ray cringed. “Mama Way, I don’t feel it’s my place to tell you. Just please, promise us you won’t let Bert anywhere near Hannah.” I pressed my growing blonde hair against my face to flatten it out.

“Ray,” I spoke quietly. His eyes darted to mine. “Where’s Brian?” He shrugged his shoulders in response while simultaneously getting and earful from Donna. I frowned and decided to walk up the ramp onto the stage. Our entire set was still intact. The crew had yet to take it apart. My hands reached out to touch the backdrop, but stopped abruptly when I heard a small voice behind me.

“Bob?” Mikey walked towards me cautiously, his face stained with wet streaks that reached down to his chin and a red nose with two puffy eyes. The “Spiritual Advisor” he had once called himself. In the last year though, he has fallen far from that title. He was the one that needed the spiritual adviser now. “I don’t know if I can do this.” My mind shot back to when we were writing The Black Parade.

Mikey sat silently on the couch in the haunted mansion we had been staying in for the last two and a half months. Even if you didn’t know the kid, you could tell it had taken an obvious physical and mental toll on him. His eyes had sunken into his head. At first we thought it was makeup, but Mikey had confirmed that it was not. He was skinnier than usual as well, which is saying a lot since the guy was already pretty damn skinny. And he had remained silent for almost a week now, resulting to nodding his head and pointing. That was, until, they were all sitting in the lounge area drinking coffee when he silently murmured “I don’t think I can do this.” He glanced at Gerard as he said it, which of whom looked at the younger one knowingly. The rest of us watched, full of sorrow, as Gerard helped his helpless little brother to his feet and they left. Four hours later he came back, without Mikey. He had taken him to Alicia’s apartment.

“He’s going to stay there and meet with his psychiatrist four times a week.” All of us remained silent, not knowing what to say.Bipolar. The word was not spoken, afraid of the terror it might add to the situation. After his first two our session the doctor had called us. He explained the nightmares, panic attacks, how alone Mikey felt and the fear of living another day. Three weeks after Mikey left, Gerard started writing a verse of lyrics over and over again. “I am not afraid to keep on living. I am not afraid to walk this world alone. Honey, if you stay I’ll be forgiven. Nothing you can say can stop me going home.” There was no other lines, no melody, but the words stuck. They refused to leave our conscious. Whenever we would try to write more to it or a different song entirely, all we could think about were the words that Gerard had written. Then early one morning around four o’ clock, Mikey called us.

“I have a few lyrics. It doesn’t have a tune but. . . . they’re really shitty.” His voice was hollow, but the tone proved to us that he was, in fact, getting better. He had written “Famous Last Words.” We stuck in the four lines as a chorus and Ray and Frank quickly came up with a melody. Gerard had left for a week to visit Mikey and comfort him while we worked on the song. He needed his older brother there to pull him through to the other side, like Mikey had done for him.

But who was going to comfort him now?