Raised in the Era of Heroes and Cons
PEACEMAKER
"So, do you feel like telling me what's happened yet or do I have to keep going on about my shitty family life?"
I'm not upset anymore, just angry. This woman --I still don't know her name-- is treating me to lunch at some small place in China Town. She's acting as if she can make everything better by just clapping her hands and telling me all about her teenage years and it's extremely aggravating. Also, I'm kinda worried that she might kidnap me or drug my food while I'm not looking or something, but I'm so hungry that I almost don't care.
She's told me practically everything about herself. She's from Indiana, military father who was also a history professor at the local university, also a child of divorce, never sees her mother (another thing we have in common), ran away at the age of fifteen, and she dances in the Paris Ballet for a living. And her hair color is natural.
I know, trivial, but I was curious.
Honestly, looking at this woman in her Misfits T-shirt and worn Chuck's wouldn't make you think that she danced fucking ballet for a living, but I guess I shouldn't judge. It's fucking New York. I grew up in the shittiest town ever, went to a private school where I had to wear the ugliest uniforms ever, and barely had a sense for fashion. I mean, I was wearing some old, flannel shirt and home-made jean capris for the love of God. This woman looked way better than I did.
Even if she was thirty-eight.
"Well, I just ran away today, I was born in Detroit, I'm a child of divorce, and apparently I was a mistake," I said as I took a pull from the soda sitting in front of me.
"Want to elaborate on any of that? I practically gave you my life's story."
I gave her a glare and she just stares at me blankly for a moment before slapping her apparently trade-mark grin across her face.
"So I was born in Detroit. Dad was twenty-three, Mom was twenty-six. They got divorced when I was four, for reasons I'm just finding out now, and Dad moved us to the shittiest town in California ever."
I let her muse over that while I shoveled some noodles into my mouth. How in the hell did I get this hungry?
"So after that, he enlists me in this huge-ass private school -probably the place's claim to fame or some shit like that- I end up getting no friends there because Dad's a therapist and treats practically half the school's population. So, about a week or three ago, my friend Jessie calls me and says that Slow Down or Burn Up, that's a band, is playing in Sacramento, and I ask Dad if I can go, and he surprises me with tickets to the show."
This woman just smiles slightly at the mention of the Burn Ups and nods for me to continue.
"So, after the show he surprises me with this weird back-stage shit and it ends up that Christian Elliot -that's the lead singer of the band- is his best friend from way back in like, '89 or some fuckery like that, and so Chris ends up inviting us to stay in his apartment for a week."
Now she looks down-right shocked. Probably because I have connections to a band's lead singer. I'm kinda liking that whole being connected to a famous person thing. Adds onto the shock-factor when telling a story.
"So, Chris and Dad fight a shit-load, and they're pretty open about it because they're pretty small fights over practically nothing, but today I overhear them talking about some chick that Dad has a kid that isn't me and makes it pretty obvious that this chick is the reason why he and Mom got divorced and that his whole life with us was a big fucking mistake, hence I am a mistake. So I just got the hell out of there because I couldn't take it."
I practically spat the whole thing out. I was so angry, I didn't even want to think about it. I just wanted to throw both Dad and Chris in a well and leave them there. How could they keep something like that from me?
I also kind of wanted to throw that random chick down a well, too. She was the cause for all of this. If she was never in the picture, Mom and Dad would still be together and we would still be living in Detroit and none of this life would be a mistake and everything would be perfect. I fucking hated her.
"Um, wow, that's-That's horrible-"
"I know."
She gave me this look like she was about to speak, but then her phone started ringing. She smiled apologetically before checking a text. A flash of shock passed over her face for a fraction of a second, then she typed something quickly and looked back to me.
"Look, do you want to go outside and have a smoke or something?"
I gave her a look. She was thirty-eight. I was seventeen. She shouldn't even be able to tell that I smoked. "Look, lady, I don't smoke-"
"Like fuck you don't. All that perfume that's still clinging to that shirt gives you away. Honestly, it's like you expect that I wasn't a smoking fourteen-year-old with an over-bearing father at some point. Besides, it's as if you think that I don't know what a lighter looks like from the outside of someone's pocket. And the only reason that you would have a lighter, other than being a pyromaniac, would be that you smoked."
I couldn't think of anything to say after that, so I just followed her out of the restaurant and accepted the cigarette she handed me. And it was true, I was carrying my favorite Zippo lighter in my pocket. Damn this woman was good.
"So, anything else that you find extremely shocking that you think would be great to tell me right now?"
"Um, I'm a cannibal and I'm getting ready to eat you alive?"
"Oh, good, I'm not the only one."
I just staged at her while she grinned back at me. "Where in the hell did you come from?"
"Fucking Indiana, I told you."
I rolled my eyes. She had the same way of acting childish that Dad did. It was obnoxious. I sat down on the sidewalk and finished my cancer stick, putting it out on the cold concrete.
"Dad's in love with someone who isn't my mom. I'm a mistake. I don't know what to do. I don't want to go back to Chris' apartment, but I don't want to sleep out on the streets. I'm absolutely fucked."
I wasn't looking at her, but I could feel the woman's somehow motherly gaze burning holes in the top of my head. But at this point I didn't happen to care about her. I did happen to care about these two blond girls, probably twins, who were staring at me pretty intently from across the street. Once they noticed me looking back at them, they made their way across the road, hand in hand, somehow being missed by every single person in the street despite that it was fairly close to being some sort of Chinese form of rush hour.
They reached our side of the street and bent down in front of me.
"Daddy's little mistake, are we?" The one on the left said.
"Mommy's little monster, are we?" The one on the right said.
"You always were such a disappointment," they whispered together.
I gave them a look and they giggled. In a natural defense measure against those people that bothered me, I kicked towards one of their shins. My foot just passed through the leg I had aimed for. That's when I started to get a bit freaked out.
"Just realizing we're not real, Addie?" Lefty asked.
"Oooh, poor darling. You really didn't know?" Righty pouted
"You're off the deep-end now," they laughed.
"Go away. Go away, go away, just go away-"
"Hey. Hey-Jesus, it would be easier if I know your name."
I glanced up at the woman standing above me. She held a newly lit cigarette in one hand and her gaze was filled with concern, as if she had seen someone talking to people that weren't there before.
"Addison. My name is Addison."
The girls giggled and I couldn't stop the shiver that racked my body.
"Addison, are you alright?"
"No." My voice sounded strained, alien even to me.
She leaned down and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, careful to keep the hot tip of her cigarette away from my face. She ran one hand over my hair and I found myself clutching her wrist with both hands. Staring straight forward, my heart was racing. I didn't know what was going on, and I was scared.
And the girls just kept on giggling.
"I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do," I breathed.
"Look, um, stay at my place tonight, okay?"
I nodded, desperate to just get away from these twins, and she helped me up. She lit another cigarette for me and I sucked in the toxic fumes as she lead me through the busy city to her apartment building, up the stairs to the sixth floor, and into her apartment.
I glanced around. The twins hadn't followed us, I was thankful for that. After I was done worrying about that, the lay out of the room really caught me. Silk scarves hung from the ceiling and plush couches littered the floor. Band posters hung on the wall space that could be seen, and specifically placed lamps gave the whole room a warm glow.
"Sorry, I left the place a mess when I last left. I wasn't planning on picking up a random girl off the street today."
"You picked me up in Chris' apartment building," I corrected her, still staring around the room. A faint scent of incense lingered with the smell of cigarette smoke and coffee.
This was the ideal apartment.
I wanted to stay here forever if at all possible.
"Apartment building, street, it's all the same thing," she said, waving a hand around as she wandered around the space I assumed was the living room, picking up dance shoes and random articles of clothing. "I'll go set up the spare room for you."
"Uh, thanks. Thanks...whatever your name is."
I saw her pause and she turned to me with a small smile.
"Gloria. My name is Gloria."
Well I've got a fever
...........A non-believer
I'm in a state of Grace
...........For I am the Caesar
...........I'M GONNA SEIZE THE DAY
Well call of the banshee HEY HEY
...........HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
As God as my witness
...........The infidels are gonna pay
Well call the assassin
...........THE ORGASM
A spasm of LOVE AND HATE
For what will divide us?
...........The righteous and the meek
WELL CALL OF THE WILD HEY HEY
...........HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
...........Death to the girl
At the end of the serenade
Vendetta, sweet Vendetta
This BERETTA of the NIGHT
The fire and the desire
SHOTS RINGING OUT ON A HOLY PARASITE
I am a killjoy from DETROIT
I DRINK FROM A WELL OR RAGE
I feed off the weakness
..............With all my love
Call up the captain HEY HEY
..............HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
DEATH TO THE LOVER THAT YOU WERE
..............DREAMING OF
This is a stand off
..............A Molotov Cocktail
..............On the house
You thought I was a write off
..............You better think again
CALL THE PEACEMAKER HEY HEY
..............HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
I'M GONNA SEND YOU BACK TO THE PLACE
..............WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Well no the caretaker's
...............The undertaker
Now I'm gonna go out
And get the PEACEMAKER
This is the neo
................st. Valentine's MASSACRE
Well call up the Gaza HEY HEY
................HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
................DEATH TO THE ONES
AT THE END OF THE SERENADE
.................Well, death to the ones
.................At the end of the serenade
I'm not upset anymore, just angry. This woman --I still don't know her name-- is treating me to lunch at some small place in China Town. She's acting as if she can make everything better by just clapping her hands and telling me all about her teenage years and it's extremely aggravating. Also, I'm kinda worried that she might kidnap me or drug my food while I'm not looking or something, but I'm so hungry that I almost don't care.
She's told me practically everything about herself. She's from Indiana, military father who was also a history professor at the local university, also a child of divorce, never sees her mother (another thing we have in common), ran away at the age of fifteen, and she dances in the Paris Ballet for a living. And her hair color is natural.
I know, trivial, but I was curious.
Honestly, looking at this woman in her Misfits T-shirt and worn Chuck's wouldn't make you think that she danced fucking ballet for a living, but I guess I shouldn't judge. It's fucking New York. I grew up in the shittiest town ever, went to a private school where I had to wear the ugliest uniforms ever, and barely had a sense for fashion. I mean, I was wearing some old, flannel shirt and home-made jean capris for the love of God. This woman looked way better than I did.
Even if she was thirty-eight.
"Well, I just ran away today, I was born in Detroit, I'm a child of divorce, and apparently I was a mistake," I said as I took a pull from the soda sitting in front of me.
"Want to elaborate on any of that? I practically gave you my life's story."
I gave her a glare and she just stares at me blankly for a moment before slapping her apparently trade-mark grin across her face.
"So I was born in Detroit. Dad was twenty-three, Mom was twenty-six. They got divorced when I was four, for reasons I'm just finding out now, and Dad moved us to the shittiest town in California ever."
I let her muse over that while I shoveled some noodles into my mouth. How in the hell did I get this hungry?
"So after that, he enlists me in this huge-ass private school -probably the place's claim to fame or some shit like that- I end up getting no friends there because Dad's a therapist and treats practically half the school's population. So, about a week or three ago, my friend Jessie calls me and says that Slow Down or Burn Up, that's a band, is playing in Sacramento, and I ask Dad if I can go, and he surprises me with tickets to the show."
This woman just smiles slightly at the mention of the Burn Ups and nods for me to continue.
"So, after the show he surprises me with this weird back-stage shit and it ends up that Christian Elliot -that's the lead singer of the band- is his best friend from way back in like, '89 or some fuckery like that, and so Chris ends up inviting us to stay in his apartment for a week."
Now she looks down-right shocked. Probably because I have connections to a band's lead singer. I'm kinda liking that whole being connected to a famous person thing. Adds onto the shock-factor when telling a story.
"So, Chris and Dad fight a shit-load, and they're pretty open about it because they're pretty small fights over practically nothing, but today I overhear them talking about some chick that Dad has a kid that isn't me and makes it pretty obvious that this chick is the reason why he and Mom got divorced and that his whole life with us was a big fucking mistake, hence I am a mistake. So I just got the hell out of there because I couldn't take it."
I practically spat the whole thing out. I was so angry, I didn't even want to think about it. I just wanted to throw both Dad and Chris in a well and leave them there. How could they keep something like that from me?
I also kind of wanted to throw that random chick down a well, too. She was the cause for all of this. If she was never in the picture, Mom and Dad would still be together and we would still be living in Detroit and none of this life would be a mistake and everything would be perfect. I fucking hated her.
"Um, wow, that's-That's horrible-"
"I know."
She gave me this look like she was about to speak, but then her phone started ringing. She smiled apologetically before checking a text. A flash of shock passed over her face for a fraction of a second, then she typed something quickly and looked back to me.
"Look, do you want to go outside and have a smoke or something?"
I gave her a look. She was thirty-eight. I was seventeen. She shouldn't even be able to tell that I smoked. "Look, lady, I don't smoke-"
"Like fuck you don't. All that perfume that's still clinging to that shirt gives you away. Honestly, it's like you expect that I wasn't a smoking fourteen-year-old with an over-bearing father at some point. Besides, it's as if you think that I don't know what a lighter looks like from the outside of someone's pocket. And the only reason that you would have a lighter, other than being a pyromaniac, would be that you smoked."
I couldn't think of anything to say after that, so I just followed her out of the restaurant and accepted the cigarette she handed me. And it was true, I was carrying my favorite Zippo lighter in my pocket. Damn this woman was good.
"So, anything else that you find extremely shocking that you think would be great to tell me right now?"
"Um, I'm a cannibal and I'm getting ready to eat you alive?"
"Oh, good, I'm not the only one."
I just staged at her while she grinned back at me. "Where in the hell did you come from?"
"Fucking Indiana, I told you."
I rolled my eyes. She had the same way of acting childish that Dad did. It was obnoxious. I sat down on the sidewalk and finished my cancer stick, putting it out on the cold concrete.
"Dad's in love with someone who isn't my mom. I'm a mistake. I don't know what to do. I don't want to go back to Chris' apartment, but I don't want to sleep out on the streets. I'm absolutely fucked."
I wasn't looking at her, but I could feel the woman's somehow motherly gaze burning holes in the top of my head. But at this point I didn't happen to care about her. I did happen to care about these two blond girls, probably twins, who were staring at me pretty intently from across the street. Once they noticed me looking back at them, they made their way across the road, hand in hand, somehow being missed by every single person in the street despite that it was fairly close to being some sort of Chinese form of rush hour.
They reached our side of the street and bent down in front of me.
"Daddy's little mistake, are we?" The one on the left said.
"Mommy's little monster, are we?" The one on the right said.
"You always were such a disappointment," they whispered together.
I gave them a look and they giggled. In a natural defense measure against those people that bothered me, I kicked towards one of their shins. My foot just passed through the leg I had aimed for. That's when I started to get a bit freaked out.
"Just realizing we're not real, Addie?" Lefty asked.
"Oooh, poor darling. You really didn't know?" Righty pouted
"You're off the deep-end now," they laughed.
"Go away. Go away, go away, just go away-"
"Hey. Hey-Jesus, it would be easier if I know your name."
I glanced up at the woman standing above me. She held a newly lit cigarette in one hand and her gaze was filled with concern, as if she had seen someone talking to people that weren't there before.
"Addison. My name is Addison."
The girls giggled and I couldn't stop the shiver that racked my body.
"Addison, are you alright?"
"No." My voice sounded strained, alien even to me.
She leaned down and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, careful to keep the hot tip of her cigarette away from my face. She ran one hand over my hair and I found myself clutching her wrist with both hands. Staring straight forward, my heart was racing. I didn't know what was going on, and I was scared.
And the girls just kept on giggling.
"I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do," I breathed.
"Look, um, stay at my place tonight, okay?"
I nodded, desperate to just get away from these twins, and she helped me up. She lit another cigarette for me and I sucked in the toxic fumes as she lead me through the busy city to her apartment building, up the stairs to the sixth floor, and into her apartment.
I glanced around. The twins hadn't followed us, I was thankful for that. After I was done worrying about that, the lay out of the room really caught me. Silk scarves hung from the ceiling and plush couches littered the floor. Band posters hung on the wall space that could be seen, and specifically placed lamps gave the whole room a warm glow.
"Sorry, I left the place a mess when I last left. I wasn't planning on picking up a random girl off the street today."
"You picked me up in Chris' apartment building," I corrected her, still staring around the room. A faint scent of incense lingered with the smell of cigarette smoke and coffee.
This was the ideal apartment.
I wanted to stay here forever if at all possible.
"Apartment building, street, it's all the same thing," she said, waving a hand around as she wandered around the space I assumed was the living room, picking up dance shoes and random articles of clothing. "I'll go set up the spare room for you."
"Uh, thanks. Thanks...whatever your name is."
I saw her pause and she turned to me with a small smile.
"Gloria. My name is Gloria."
Well I've got a fever
...........A non-believer
I'm in a state of Grace
...........For I am the Caesar
...........I'M GONNA SEIZE THE DAY
Well call of the banshee HEY HEY
...........HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
As God as my witness
...........The infidels are gonna pay
Well call the assassin
...........THE ORGASM
A spasm of LOVE AND HATE
For what will divide us?
...........The righteous and the meek
WELL CALL OF THE WILD HEY HEY
...........HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
...........Death to the girl
At the end of the serenade
Vendetta, sweet Vendetta
This BERETTA of the NIGHT
The fire and the desire
SHOTS RINGING OUT ON A HOLY PARASITE
I am a killjoy from DETROIT
I DRINK FROM A WELL OR RAGE
I feed off the weakness
..............With all my love
Call up the captain HEY HEY
..............HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
DEATH TO THE LOVER THAT YOU WERE
..............DREAMING OF
This is a stand off
..............A Molotov Cocktail
..............On the house
You thought I was a write off
..............You better think again
CALL THE PEACEMAKER HEY HEY
..............HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
I'M GONNA SEND YOU BACK TO THE PLACE
..............WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Well no the caretaker's
...............The undertaker
Now I'm gonna go out
And get the PEACEMAKER
This is the neo
................st. Valentine's MASSACRE
Well call up the Gaza HEY HEY
................HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY
................DEATH TO THE ONES
AT THE END OF THE SERENADE
.................Well, death to the ones
.................At the end of the serenade
♠ ♠ ♠
First author's note of the story, but I found it somewhat amusing that because Addie knows nothing about Jimmy's teenage years, she doesn't know that that "random chick" probably saved his life by unknowingly getting him sober, thus hates "random chick" for saving her dad's life and being the main reason she's alive.Oh, I am silly.