Band Aid Only Covers the Bullet Hole

Later that night, after Juliette and I had left Frank to be a mysterious and grumpy bitch by himself, the two of us were sitting in my motel room. There was a tiny TV in the corner that we were trying to watch, but it didn’t work properly and the black and white picture kept diminishing to grey fuzz. Juliette kept throwing things at the screen in efforts to get it the image to ‘fix itself’ though, despite knowing that nothing was going to work and that she’d only damage the shitty electronic further.

“You know what?” She sighed after a long silence of me just watching her throw my possessions around the room, laying back on the bed in mock exhaustion. “There’s no fucking point.”

“In what?” I asked, confused slightly by her random statement. “The TV?”

“Well, yeah, that too – but I was thinking more along the whole lines of this... shit. Iero’s making us do all his goddamn dirty work, and I’m sick to fucking death of it – that little bitch…”

“I don’t know…” I replied cautiously. I knew Juliette hated Frank because he hated her, but he’d never been particularly bitchy to me, so I had nothing to hold against him. “… I think he’s a weird guy, yeah, but I don’t think he’s making us do his dirty work – I mean, we do the delivery, but never actually getting our hands on the drugs in the first place. That’s the most risky part.”

Juliette narrowed her eyes at me. I have no idea why, but she did. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Oh, haha.” I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes and absentmindedly watching the fuzzy grey screen.

“No, seriously. You trust that guy, don’t you?”

I didn’t bother replying to Juliette this time. Not because I trusted Frank, but not because I didn’t, either. I was impartial; I didn’t go either way.

Juliette sighed again, clearly not impressed. “Do you honestly not see that he’s completely fucked in the head? He can’t even sell his own drugs because he’s worried about trouble – for fucks sake, if we ever got caught then he’d run to the other side of the country as fast as possible without giving a shit. You just can’t trust a selfish little bitch like-”

“Like me?” Frank’s voice offered from the doorway, and Juliette and I both sat up instantly out of shock. He had a smirk lingering around his lips as he stepped into the cramped motel room, that ever present cigarette twirling in his fingers and sending smoke cascading up towards the ceiling. When Frank’s eyes fell on mine and Juliette’s guilty expressions though, he gave his unexpectedly high pitched laugh, and beckoned us towards him.

I got up straight away, and went over to see what he wanted; I always did as Frank told me to, I wasn’t entirely sure why. Juliette was less enthusiastic to follow his orders though, taking her time in getting to her feet and dragging her way over to Frank with a look on her face that clearly said ‘I hate your fucking guts.’

“What the fuck do you want this time, Iero?” Juliette snapped harshly, her eyes already searching him for a sign of whatever he expected from us. “We’ve done our deliveries for today, give us a fucking break.”

“Ah, but this is a special delivery…” Frank stressed silkily, reaching into his leather jacket pocket and pulling out a small bag of white powder. Holding it up between his index finger and thumb, Frank almost suspiciously passed the bag to me, shooting Juliette a deliberate glare as he did so. “Now, what I want you two lovely girls to do, is deliver this. Take it to Bill – that’s the skeleton guy; he’ll be in reception sometime soon. Just tell him I sent you again, and that I can’t see him right now because I’m too fucking busy.”

“That’s what we told him last time, and he still gave us a death threat,” I replied uncertainly, turning the bag over in my hands and staring down at the cocaine that Frank had given to me. It was a lot lighter than I’d expected it to be, but even as it just sat there in the small, clear plastic bag; there was something eerily dangerous about that white powder that almost seemed to draw me to it.

“He won’t hurt you once he’s got his hands on that particular packet, don’t worry, sugar,” Frank smirked again, putting a finger under my chin to make me lift my face and look at him. “If he causes trouble for you, he sure as hell isn’t getting anything else off me.”

I heard Juliette snort from my right, but both Frank and I chose to ignore it. I simply nodded and headed out of the room, still with the cocaine packet in my hands and ready to deliver it, just as Frank had told me to. Juliette followed loyally after me, although she shot me a disapproving look that clearly told me she wasn’t happy about it.

We made our way down the long hall, the uneven floorboards creaking from beneath the shredded carpet with each step Juliette and I took. Everything about this motel was disintegrating; the walls had the peeling paper, the carpet had the fraying holes – even some doors were literally hanging off their hinges. The corners were all filled with cobwebs, and there were so many stains about the building that it made me wonder how long ago the owners had given up on cleaning this place.

The moment we got to the decomposing reception, we saw The Skeleton –or, should I say, Bill– standing idly in the middle of the room. He had a slight twitch as he stood there, twisting his fingers together nervously, like a smoker does when they crave a cigarette. Of course, Bill wanted a lot more than just cigarettes, and that made his cravings appear all the more desperate. He literally jumped out of his skin when he saw Juliette and me approaching him from across the room, and outstretched a long, skinny arm the moment we drew close.

“Have you got it?” He demanded, shaking his hand as a deliberate gesture for me to hand over the coke. So I nodded, and passed him the pack of white powder as subtly as possible; even though the decayed reception was completely deserted apart from the three of us, it never hurt to be cautious. Bill’s face relaxed the moment he had the small bag in his hand though, and he made a tight fist around the white powder before literally throwing a load of money at Juliette, and running out of the motel as quickly as his long, skinny legs could carry him. Either he didn’t want to get caught, or he was just desperate to fuck himself up, but I didn’t really care; he was gone, the coke was gone, and our work for the day was over, so Juliette and I could go back to our rooms.

“You know, that Bill guy is pretty bad about his drugs, but still nowhere as creepy as Frank…” Juliette muttered to me out of the side of her mouth, nudging me unintentionally as we made our way back down the cramped hall, trying to avoid tripping up on the scuffed carpet.

“I don’t know, Frank doesn’t twitch,” I half laughed, just as we arrived outside my room. I reached out and pushed the door open, looking back over my shoulder at Juliette as I continued “And he’s not some stretched skeleton guy.”

“Sure as hell I’m not.” Frank’s voice said loudly from the inside of my room, his tone itself smirking. He appeared everywhere when you least expected it, seriously; this time Frank stepped out of the shadows just as I flicked on the lightswitch, a smouldering cigarette held casually in his right hand.

“What the fuck are you doing here again?” Juliette snapped angrily. I shot a stern look but she ignored it, just as she always did when I told her not to get pissed off at Frank. “We told you, we’re done doing your fucking dirty work for today, so fuck off until you actually have a purpose to be here.”

“Oh, but I do have a purpose to be here,” Frank smirked, raising the cigarette to his lips and taking a deep draw from it before he continued. He blew the smoke out into my face in one long stream, ignoring my revolted look and saying smoothly “We’re going to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” I asked, making a move to step cautiously around him and across the room. For a minute it looked like Frank was going to put out an arm and stop me, but then the moment passed, so I just shot him a confused look as I sank down onto the mattress.

“Just… a general celebration.” Frank replied, his thin mouth curving into a small smile as I shot Juliette a questioning look. I didn’t like Frank’s reasoning for ‘celebrating’, but I mean, we were stuck in a motel in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do except stare at a broken TV, so Juliette and I really had nothing to lose.

“Psh.” Was Juliette’s only reply, stepping around Frank to sit down onto the mattress next to me. So Frank’s eyes turned back to me, raising his eyebrows in question.

I sighed; there was no point just spending the night doing nothing, we might as well have some fun with it. “Yeah, fine. But only because we have nothing better to do.”

“You got that right…” Juliette muttered from my left, leaning forward to prop her head up on her hands. Frank’s reaction wasn’t exactly eager, but he seemed more willing to be in the same room as Juliette now that I’d agreed to whatever his little ‘celebration’ was.

He came over to the bed, and took the place on my right, deliberately away from Juliette. I don’t know why he hated her so much; the only reason I could think of was still the pick-pocket thing, but hey, he was fucked in the head anyway, so I was sure he had his reasons, however obscure they were. Frank took off his leather jacket once he was sitting though, and it occurred to me at that moment that I’d never seen him without it on. Beneath the old leather he wore just a plain black tshirt, but what I hadn’t ever realised was that his arms were covered in tattoos. I couldn’t make them all out in the dim light, but they looked pretty cool from what I could tell.

Frank caught me looking at his arms, and gave a small cough of laughter. “Yeah, I know. I spend more money on ink than I do on anything else.”

I nodded slowly, still trying to make out the finer details of the pictures in the low light. I failed, but didn’t have much time to think on it as Frank reached into one of the pockets from the jacket he’d just discarded, and pulled out a small bag of what I instantly recognised as the drug I’d been selling for the past three weeks.

“Oh, so that’s how we’re celebrating?” Juliette asked with mild interest, lifting her head from her hands to look closer at how Frank rolled up a joint.

“What else did you expect?” He replied, his voice slightly muffled by the cigarette he still held between his teeth.

“Nothing less,” Juliette admitted, almost bitterly. But still, when Frank passed the weed to her a couple of minutes later, she didn’t object, and rolled up her spliff almost expertly. Frank looked at her for a moment, made a sort of ‘pfft’ noise, and then turned to me.

“Want some, sugar?” He smirked, tilting his head slightly to the side. I rolled my eyes at him and took what he held out to me, and rolled up a joint just as well as Juliette had. Frank looked surprised, to say the least.

“Thought you two were a lot cleaner than that.”

“You thought wrong then, didn’t you?” Juliette near spat at him. Frank arched a single eyebrow at her, which only enraged Juliette further, and caused her to snap “Just past me a goddamn lighter already.”

“For fucks sake, calm down.” Frank rolled his eyes, turning away from Juliette and indicating for me to put the joint I’d just rolled in my mouth. I did as he told me, as always, and Frank lit the end for me, only to then chuck the lighter across at Juliette, hitting her in the face. It couldn’t have hurt much, but I guess it was the gesture that counted; Juliette hit the fucking roof.

“Fuck you, Iero! You’re not God, you know – you’re just a pathetic little bitch, who gets fun out of chucking fucking lighters into my face.”

Frank raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah, true.”

I laughed; I probably shouldn’t have, but I did. The drug was already starting to have an effect on me though, and I began to suddenly find everything so much more relaxing, yet with a deeper meaning at the same time. It was… a completely different experience. But in a good way; it just made everything so much more interesting.

But still not as interesting as things were going to get later on that night.