Tell Me I'm A Bad Man
Fires and Friendships
Bob’s point of view.
I stood there in shock. I didn’t even realize when I hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
My only home was burning. All my stuff, everything that mattered to me. I had no where to go now, no family to stay with, and no plan.
Then I remembered what I had just told Ray. I had told him that “I want in.” I didn’t really, but I had just been jealous that I had been left out of something so freaky.
I was lost in my own thoughts when I heard crying. I snapped back to life and saw the woman that had lived in the apartment below mine.
Her name was Mo, and I didn’t really know her well except I knew she was a really bad cook. She just stood there crying, her curly hair hiding her face.
I took a step towards her and moved her hair so it wasn’t in front of her eyes. She looked up at me and started crying even harder. “I’m sorry, Bob, I’m so so sorry. I was cooking. I was trying to make a flambé, old family recipe, and I was going to bring you some, because I thought you’d like it.”
My stomach lurched at the thought of eating anything she cooked. But she went on. “It all happened so fast,” Mo sobbed. “The pot started boiling over when it was lit, and well, you can guess the rest.”
I could feel my eyes sting with tears, because of the smoke and also because she was trying to make food for me and everything went really badly.
A while later, one of the firefighters came over to us. “The fire has been put out,” he said.
“Can we go back in?” I asked, as I could feel my hope rising. But the back of my brain knew it would be horrible.
The firefighter nodded and led us inside. First, we went into Mo’s apartment. Her entire living room was burned so badly. I was so horrified by the damage there, that I didn’t notice the extremely obvious. A few minutes later, we decided to go up to my apartment and see what it was like up there.
I walked back out into the hallway, and practically ran up the stairs. My door was already partly open, so I pushed it open the rest of the way.
My breath caught in the back of my throat. I couldn’t even go inside. One reason was because it would have been painful for me to see everything, but another reason was the floor.
Or lack of it.
The door almost came off when I touched it, and my hand was stained black from it. A hole had burned though the floor of my living room, and I could see into Mo’s apartment below.
“This is really bad,” Mo whispered, and I realized that she was standing next to me. “What are we going to do?”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” I snapped as I sat down in the hallway and buried my face in my hands.
She was still crying but she sat down next to me. “Bob,” she whispered. “Bob, I’m so sorry. I’ll pay you back for all the damage. Oh my god, you’ve always been so nice to me, and how do I thank you for it? I burn down your whole apartment.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “And you don’t have to pay for the damage.”
“But you don’t understand,” Mo wailed. “I don’t have anywhere to go, I don’t know about you. But I’ve just ruined both our lives.”
“Well I don’t have anywhere to go either, but I’ll figure something out. Don’t you have any family you can stay with or something?” I asked.
“Well I have one sister Jerilyn, but I don’t know what happened to her. I haven’t heard from her in a long time,” Mo said, as she buried her face in my leather jacket.
Suddenly the thought that flooded my mind was Gerard and The Black Parade. Joining seemed like a good idea now, because I really have nothing here anymore. I decided to tell Mo about it.
“Well I have an idea,” I said slowly. “When I was working at the bar before, a man that I don’t know named Gerard Way came to talk to me. And he told me about something that I think could help us.”
“What was it?” Mo asked, interested.
“Um, well, you see it’s a cult,” I stammered, thinking of how ridiculous it sounded. “It’s called The Black Parade and he wanted me to join it.”
“A cult?!” she said, freaking out. “Why do they want you?”
“Because,” I answered. “Two of my best friends are in it, and they need me to be the cult lawyer. I told them I’d consider it.”
Mo seemed to consider the situation. “So you’d have a job?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Sounds good then. Because being a lawyer would make you more money than bartending and delivering flowers. And it usually doesn’t involve cleaning up puke,” she stated.
Strange as she was, Mo was starting to make sense. And I was becoming more and more convinced that I should join The Black Parade.
“So it’s settled then,” she said. “You have a plan. But what about me? I need your help. I don’t know what I should do.”
“Okay, let’s get something straight here. I never said I was definitely going to join it. I just said that that was one of my options,” I said.
“Yeah, but we both know that you’re going to anyway,” she said, shrugging. “Oh my god! I just got the best idea! I’ll join the cult with you!”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked, surprised that she would want to.
“Well I can’t let you face a bunch of cult weirdoes alone,” she explained. “And besides, what do I have to lose?”
“Um…”
“Exactly. Nothing,” she said triumphantly.
We went outside, and I found my phone that I had apparently dropped on the sidewalk. I found that I had about 7 voicemail messages, all from Ray.
Most of the messages were the same, saying things like “Bob?! Are you okay?! You said your apartment’s on fire! Are you hurt?! Are you dead?! Bob! Call me back as soon as you get this message!”
The last one sounded like Ray was on the verge of tears. “Bob!” the message said. “Bob, I don’t want to have to go to your funeral! Call me and tell me you’re not dead!”
I dialed his cell number. “Hey, Toro,” I said.
“You’re not dead!” he screamed at me.
“No, I’m not dead, but I am homeless. And I have news,” I said, waiting for him to beg to know what the news was.
“More bad news?” Ray asked, dreading the answer.
“Well, yes. My floor is totally burned through. I won’t ever be able to live here again. So, I’ve decided something. I’m going to join The Black Parade.”
“Seriously?! Dude, that’s awesome!” Ray screamed through the phone. “And you’ll have a place to live, too! I live in a freakin mansion!”
“What?!” I screamed back at him. “You live in a mansion and you didn’t tell me?”
“Yes,” he said sheepishly.
“Frankie and I are sort of like the second and third in command for the whole cult. We both live in Gerard’s mansion with him, Adele, Frankie’s girlfriend, and Nicole, Gerard’s girlfriend, and my girlfriend Kelly. It’s real fun because it’s a huge mansion, and there’s always something happening. You should come. You can live in one of the extra bedrooms.”
“Well, my neighbor, the one who lived below me, wants to know if she can join too,” I said.
“Yeah. She can come. Good, we need more members. Well, I’ll give you Gerard’s number and you can talk to him,” Ray said. He gave me the number and then we hung up.
“Bob!” Mo said to me from about 10 feet away. “Bob, it’s morning already! I can see the sun! You know what this means, right?”
“Uh,” I said as I thought. “It means that today will be sunny?”
“No. Well, yeah I guess. But it means that we’ll be okay!”
“How do you know?” I asked, confused.
“Because,” she said happily. “I know because sunny days rock! They can only bring good stuff! They’re sunny!”
“Sunny days bring bad stuff too,” I pointed out.
“Name one,” she countered.
“Um, sunburns,” I said, trying to think. “And skin cancer.”
“Well then you’re lucky, because today is not a skin cancer day! It’s a happy day! It’s like the Fall Out Boy song “Calm Before The Storm,” except it’s calm after the storm! And there wasn’t even a storm! It was just a fire! A silly little fire that we can recover from!”
Mo was running towards me and threw her arms around my neck. “Bob!” she screamed at me. “We have hope! Don’t you see it?”
“See what?” I asked, still not knowing what I was supposed to see.
“Look! The sun! The rays of light are coming down through the clouds and you can actually see them! Bob! This whole ‘Parade thing is going to work!” she said excitedly.
I couldn’t help but hope she was right.
We went to the Starbucks a few blocks away. As we drank our coffee, I decided to call Gerard.
“Hello?” he said when he picked up.
“Hey, Gerard,” I said. “It’s Bob Bryar.”
“Oh, Bob. Hey. Have you considered my offer?”
“Well,” I started. “Yes. I have. And I have decided to take you up on it.”
“Really?” Gerard said, sounding excited. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“That’s so awesome. Thank you so much,” Gerard said sounding relieved. “I thought you would think I was a freak and say no.”
“Well, I don’t have much of a choice now,” I told him. “There was a fire in my apartment when I got home from the bar.”
“Oh my god. What happened?” he asked.
“Mo, the woman who lived in the apartment below me, was cooking, and it started a fire. Now it’s totally destroyed. My floor collapsed. It can’t be fixed, I think. So I’m joining,” I said.
“That is seriously good. I feel better now. I’m sorry about your apartment though,” Gerard said.
“Thanks. And I have a question,” I said slowly.
“Go ahead,” Gerard replied.
“Yeah, um, can my friend Mo join too?”
“Bob,” Gerard said. “Didn’t you just say Mo burned down your apartment building?”
“Yeah, why?”
“How are you two friends?” he said incredulously. “You’re homeless now, Bob. And it’s her fault.”
“Well, she has no where to go either. So can she join or not?” I said impatiently.
“Yeah, she can join. What’s ‘Mo’ short for anyway?” he asked.
I realized that I didn’t know. “Mo,” I said. “What is ‘Mo’ short for?”
She grinned. “Marilyn,” she said. “As in Marilyn Monroe, not Manson.”
“Uh, Manson took the name from Monroe,” I told her.
“Really?” she asked, surprised. “Ew. Then where did the Manson part come from?”
“It came from Charles Manson, the serial killer,” I stated.
“Bob. Bob. Bob. Bob. Bob,” I heard Gerard saying from the phone. “Did you forget about me?”
“Huh?” I said, distracted. “Sorry. I was talking to Mo. So, when do we get to join?”
“Well, if you want, you guys can come tonight,” Gerard suggested.
“Awesome,” I said.
“Alright. This is what will happen. You guys will show up at the airport tonight at 8 o’clock. You will go to the security area, and then you will wait. We will take it from there,” Gerard said.
“And you’ll meet us there?” I asked kind of confused.
“Just go there and wait. You’ll be taken care of, don’t worry,” he responded mysteriously.
I had an odd feeling about this, but I ignored it. I was just glad that I could get out of here now.
I stood there in shock. I didn’t even realize when I hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
My only home was burning. All my stuff, everything that mattered to me. I had no where to go now, no family to stay with, and no plan.
Then I remembered what I had just told Ray. I had told him that “I want in.” I didn’t really, but I had just been jealous that I had been left out of something so freaky.
I was lost in my own thoughts when I heard crying. I snapped back to life and saw the woman that had lived in the apartment below mine.
Her name was Mo, and I didn’t really know her well except I knew she was a really bad cook. She just stood there crying, her curly hair hiding her face.
I took a step towards her and moved her hair so it wasn’t in front of her eyes. She looked up at me and started crying even harder. “I’m sorry, Bob, I’m so so sorry. I was cooking. I was trying to make a flambé, old family recipe, and I was going to bring you some, because I thought you’d like it.”
My stomach lurched at the thought of eating anything she cooked. But she went on. “It all happened so fast,” Mo sobbed. “The pot started boiling over when it was lit, and well, you can guess the rest.”
I could feel my eyes sting with tears, because of the smoke and also because she was trying to make food for me and everything went really badly.
A while later, one of the firefighters came over to us. “The fire has been put out,” he said.
“Can we go back in?” I asked, as I could feel my hope rising. But the back of my brain knew it would be horrible.
The firefighter nodded and led us inside. First, we went into Mo’s apartment. Her entire living room was burned so badly. I was so horrified by the damage there, that I didn’t notice the extremely obvious. A few minutes later, we decided to go up to my apartment and see what it was like up there.
I walked back out into the hallway, and practically ran up the stairs. My door was already partly open, so I pushed it open the rest of the way.
My breath caught in the back of my throat. I couldn’t even go inside. One reason was because it would have been painful for me to see everything, but another reason was the floor.
Or lack of it.
The door almost came off when I touched it, and my hand was stained black from it. A hole had burned though the floor of my living room, and I could see into Mo’s apartment below.
“This is really bad,” Mo whispered, and I realized that she was standing next to me. “What are we going to do?”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” I snapped as I sat down in the hallway and buried my face in my hands.
She was still crying but she sat down next to me. “Bob,” she whispered. “Bob, I’m so sorry. I’ll pay you back for all the damage. Oh my god, you’ve always been so nice to me, and how do I thank you for it? I burn down your whole apartment.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “And you don’t have to pay for the damage.”
“But you don’t understand,” Mo wailed. “I don’t have anywhere to go, I don’t know about you. But I’ve just ruined both our lives.”
“Well I don’t have anywhere to go either, but I’ll figure something out. Don’t you have any family you can stay with or something?” I asked.
“Well I have one sister Jerilyn, but I don’t know what happened to her. I haven’t heard from her in a long time,” Mo said, as she buried her face in my leather jacket.
Suddenly the thought that flooded my mind was Gerard and The Black Parade. Joining seemed like a good idea now, because I really have nothing here anymore. I decided to tell Mo about it.
“Well I have an idea,” I said slowly. “When I was working at the bar before, a man that I don’t know named Gerard Way came to talk to me. And he told me about something that I think could help us.”
“What was it?” Mo asked, interested.
“Um, well, you see it’s a cult,” I stammered, thinking of how ridiculous it sounded. “It’s called The Black Parade and he wanted me to join it.”
“A cult?!” she said, freaking out. “Why do they want you?”
“Because,” I answered. “Two of my best friends are in it, and they need me to be the cult lawyer. I told them I’d consider it.”
Mo seemed to consider the situation. “So you’d have a job?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Sounds good then. Because being a lawyer would make you more money than bartending and delivering flowers. And it usually doesn’t involve cleaning up puke,” she stated.
Strange as she was, Mo was starting to make sense. And I was becoming more and more convinced that I should join The Black Parade.
“So it’s settled then,” she said. “You have a plan. But what about me? I need your help. I don’t know what I should do.”
“Okay, let’s get something straight here. I never said I was definitely going to join it. I just said that that was one of my options,” I said.
“Yeah, but we both know that you’re going to anyway,” she said, shrugging. “Oh my god! I just got the best idea! I’ll join the cult with you!”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked, surprised that she would want to.
“Well I can’t let you face a bunch of cult weirdoes alone,” she explained. “And besides, what do I have to lose?”
“Um…”
“Exactly. Nothing,” she said triumphantly.
We went outside, and I found my phone that I had apparently dropped on the sidewalk. I found that I had about 7 voicemail messages, all from Ray.
Most of the messages were the same, saying things like “Bob?! Are you okay?! You said your apartment’s on fire! Are you hurt?! Are you dead?! Bob! Call me back as soon as you get this message!”
The last one sounded like Ray was on the verge of tears. “Bob!” the message said. “Bob, I don’t want to have to go to your funeral! Call me and tell me you’re not dead!”
I dialed his cell number. “Hey, Toro,” I said.
“You’re not dead!” he screamed at me.
“No, I’m not dead, but I am homeless. And I have news,” I said, waiting for him to beg to know what the news was.
“More bad news?” Ray asked, dreading the answer.
“Well, yes. My floor is totally burned through. I won’t ever be able to live here again. So, I’ve decided something. I’m going to join The Black Parade.”
“Seriously?! Dude, that’s awesome!” Ray screamed through the phone. “And you’ll have a place to live, too! I live in a freakin mansion!”
“What?!” I screamed back at him. “You live in a mansion and you didn’t tell me?”
“Yes,” he said sheepishly.
“Frankie and I are sort of like the second and third in command for the whole cult. We both live in Gerard’s mansion with him, Adele, Frankie’s girlfriend, and Nicole, Gerard’s girlfriend, and my girlfriend Kelly. It’s real fun because it’s a huge mansion, and there’s always something happening. You should come. You can live in one of the extra bedrooms.”
“Well, my neighbor, the one who lived below me, wants to know if she can join too,” I said.
“Yeah. She can come. Good, we need more members. Well, I’ll give you Gerard’s number and you can talk to him,” Ray said. He gave me the number and then we hung up.
“Bob!” Mo said to me from about 10 feet away. “Bob, it’s morning already! I can see the sun! You know what this means, right?”
“Uh,” I said as I thought. “It means that today will be sunny?”
“No. Well, yeah I guess. But it means that we’ll be okay!”
“How do you know?” I asked, confused.
“Because,” she said happily. “I know because sunny days rock! They can only bring good stuff! They’re sunny!”
“Sunny days bring bad stuff too,” I pointed out.
“Name one,” she countered.
“Um, sunburns,” I said, trying to think. “And skin cancer.”
“Well then you’re lucky, because today is not a skin cancer day! It’s a happy day! It’s like the Fall Out Boy song “Calm Before The Storm,” except it’s calm after the storm! And there wasn’t even a storm! It was just a fire! A silly little fire that we can recover from!”
Mo was running towards me and threw her arms around my neck. “Bob!” she screamed at me. “We have hope! Don’t you see it?”
“See what?” I asked, still not knowing what I was supposed to see.
“Look! The sun! The rays of light are coming down through the clouds and you can actually see them! Bob! This whole ‘Parade thing is going to work!” she said excitedly.
I couldn’t help but hope she was right.
We went to the Starbucks a few blocks away. As we drank our coffee, I decided to call Gerard.
“Hello?” he said when he picked up.
“Hey, Gerard,” I said. “It’s Bob Bryar.”
“Oh, Bob. Hey. Have you considered my offer?”
“Well,” I started. “Yes. I have. And I have decided to take you up on it.”
“Really?” Gerard said, sounding excited. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“That’s so awesome. Thank you so much,” Gerard said sounding relieved. “I thought you would think I was a freak and say no.”
“Well, I don’t have much of a choice now,” I told him. “There was a fire in my apartment when I got home from the bar.”
“Oh my god. What happened?” he asked.
“Mo, the woman who lived in the apartment below me, was cooking, and it started a fire. Now it’s totally destroyed. My floor collapsed. It can’t be fixed, I think. So I’m joining,” I said.
“That is seriously good. I feel better now. I’m sorry about your apartment though,” Gerard said.
“Thanks. And I have a question,” I said slowly.
“Go ahead,” Gerard replied.
“Yeah, um, can my friend Mo join too?”
“Bob,” Gerard said. “Didn’t you just say Mo burned down your apartment building?”
“Yeah, why?”
“How are you two friends?” he said incredulously. “You’re homeless now, Bob. And it’s her fault.”
“Well, she has no where to go either. So can she join or not?” I said impatiently.
“Yeah, she can join. What’s ‘Mo’ short for anyway?” he asked.
I realized that I didn’t know. “Mo,” I said. “What is ‘Mo’ short for?”
She grinned. “Marilyn,” she said. “As in Marilyn Monroe, not Manson.”
“Uh, Manson took the name from Monroe,” I told her.
“Really?” she asked, surprised. “Ew. Then where did the Manson part come from?”
“It came from Charles Manson, the serial killer,” I stated.
“Bob. Bob. Bob. Bob. Bob,” I heard Gerard saying from the phone. “Did you forget about me?”
“Huh?” I said, distracted. “Sorry. I was talking to Mo. So, when do we get to join?”
“Well, if you want, you guys can come tonight,” Gerard suggested.
“Awesome,” I said.
“Alright. This is what will happen. You guys will show up at the airport tonight at 8 o’clock. You will go to the security area, and then you will wait. We will take it from there,” Gerard said.
“And you’ll meet us there?” I asked kind of confused.
“Just go there and wait. You’ll be taken care of, don’t worry,” he responded mysteriously.
I had an odd feeling about this, but I ignored it. I was just glad that I could get out of here now.