Mibba Frerard

"No," I whine at my alarm as it went off, filling my head with a noise like a hive of angry bees and replacing the beautiful cotton feeling of sleep. I roll over and realise it's Saturday. I always forget to turn off my alarm for the weekend. Usually I end up sleeping in but today is one of those days where I'm wide awake from the moment the alarm goes off and even though I had a late night, I realize I have to get up.

I climb out of bed and go through that time-honored tradition that all men must complete upon rising each morn; I yawn, pull my boxers out of my ass, re-arrange my balls and scratch everywhere that needs to be scratched. As I walk to the bathroom I realize how little me and Gerard really hang out. We live together so I see him all the time but I never really hang out with him since he got together with Frank. It's the only downside to the whole thing. Gerard is completely different now. He's totally come out of his shell and he's like this living cliche for being in love. All he ever did before was sit in his room and write gay porn. He thinks I don't know but sometimes I'm a nosy motherfucker and I go into his room. Every younger brother would say they go into their older brother's room to find something or to borrow something but I genuinely just like poking around his shit.

As I step out of the bathroom and into Gerard's room, he's still asleep. I could jump on him but since his second accident, jumping on him could really hurt him. He can still move his legs, it just causes him a bit of pain. It used to be so bad that he was on 15 different painkillers or something like that but I can think of a few things that won't hurt him.

"Mikey! What the hell! Grow up and come talk to me when you stop finding it funny wake someone up by telling them the house is on fucking fire!"

I can't stop laughing at Gerard's face and the way he shrieked " Stop, drop and roll!" after throwing himself out bed and rolling around on the floor in clear view of the window in his underwear.

"Good Lord Gerard. You'd think the house really was on fire from the way you went on about it," I said after helping him into his chair.

"Yeah well, you didn't roll around in your underwear in front of the window that you know the weird middle-aged divorcee who came onto you on New Year's can see you through."

This time I really can't stop laughing. I forgot that because of his ground floor room, the neighbors can see anything Gerard does with his curtains open, like the time the lady passing in the street knocked on the door to complain about Gerard's 'public masturbation' when she saw him hunched over moving his arm with the computer on. Turns out Gerard had been secretly learning to play guitar and was looking up music on the Internet whilst practicing straight from getting out of bed and therefore without a shirt on. The poor lady had bad vision and missed the neck of the guitar in his other hand

"Why did I never hear about this?" I gasp through shaking laughter.

"Because it was a traumatic experience and Mom said to be nice to Mrs Henderson because all she has is that stupid dog of hers, fake boobs and a pink outfit for every day of the week, so I didn't want to embarrass her."

Even if it is in such an insulting way, Gerard is so thoughtful. As I open my mouth tell him so his phone rings. I would dance to his ring tone if I wasn't still recovering from laughter. It's a song by this weird-ass Japanese band he likes called Maximize the Horror or something but it's pretty cool actually. The start of it is this cute Japanese girl's voice singing some random words and it just makes me want to dance.

I can hear it's Frank so I go get some juice and leave them to talk for a while. There's a note on the counter.

Mikey,

Went to Dubai for a few days on your father's business.
I've left you some money for groceries.
Make sure Gerard doesn't do anything stupid.

Mom.

Not even a 'love you' or a real explanation. Every kid with a big house and...$150 grocery money finds something to complain about, like getting the wrong car for their birthday, but as much as I can't complain about my parents wealth and the way they provide for us, I can sure as hell complain about the way they talk about Gerard. They may as well have put a giant 'again' next to that last line because they clearly meant it. They always blamed Gerard for his accident, not themselves for never really paying attention to him or that leading to him picking friends who only respected him for the outrageous stunts he did to replace our parents' attention with theirs.

I hear Gerard finish on the phone with much baby-talk and 'you hang up', which he clearly thinks I can't hear, and head to Gerard's room to help him get dressed. It only takes a few minutes while looking away out of not wanting to see my brother's penis and turned back around to help him put on some jeans.

We head out to go for ice cream after plenty of hugs from Gerard for my idea of ice cream for breakfast and going down the ramp at the door my parents had installed after discussing at great length the pros and cons of Gerard getting out of the house versus the embarrassment of putting a concrete block over our front step.

There's another call from Frank in which it appears due to a text from Gerard, he wants them to gush about ice cream and they do and Frank admits that he only called because he misses him. He's been away for a few days now and he's called at least 3 times a day every day since he went. Apparently he apologizes every time for calling too much.

I don't really say much as we eat ice cream (mine's a chocolate and Gerard's is coffee, obviously) as I want to give Gee the chance to talk about Frank. He does it all the time but it's great to see him so happy and that's never going to annoy or bore me. I care about him so much and my only hope is that Frank won't ever hurt him.

"And Frank just goes 'Where's the freakin' hot sauce?!'"

I missed the first part of the joke but I laugh anyway as Gerard has such an infectious laugh. I think it's his baby teeth. He's always had little teeth and they give him a smile that makes everyone else want to smile too. It's also probably because he has ice cream on his nose but I decide not to tell him that. I'll have to eventually. He starts to pretend he has tourettes when people laugh at him in the street. It's only funny until he does it to someone I have to push him away from extremely quickly.

After a third call from Frank and then a fourth because he forgot to say I love you. It's a little bit much sometimes but if all that unintelligible noise and babbling is what they're into then far be it from me to make barf noises.

Gerard's talking to me again. "And then Frank said 'A horse on a bagel!'"

I want a boy who will call me 3 times a day if he went away.
A boy who will apologize for calling too much,
and no matter how many times I tell him its okay, he'd still do it.