Kill The Gerard

I know you’ve seen the interview. The one where the Way brothers were chosen as the two worst-smelling people in the band. It’s no exaggeration. Gerard is by far the worst, though. I don’t think it’s really Mikey’s fault; he has to spend the most time around Gerard, and after a while the difference became almost indistinguishable.

It may have been just a mild annoyance to everyone else, but I’ve always had a more keen sense of smell. I never could understand it, but I didn’t question it either. At any rate, I knew something had to be done. We would be leaving on our final tour soon, and if I had to put up with that God-awful odor again, I would scream.

As was the usual routine, the Way family invited us all over for a giant barbecue the night before our departure. I hoped the constant fog of smoke would mask the horrible smell, but I had a feeling I would be completely wrong. If anything, we would all be trapped in a cloud of it. It would be worse than mustard gas.

When I opened the gate leading to the backyard and walked over to Ray to say hello, I noticed a strange lack of Gerard-stench. I looked around and noticed he wasn’t even there.

“Hey, where’s Gee?” I asked as amicably as possible.

“Inside,” Ray answered. “He’s not done packing, of course.” I rolled my eyes and thanked him, passing through the sliding glass door and into the muted atmosphere of the house. I walked by the Way family laundry room, both washer and dryer busily humming as they attempted to eliminate the ever-present smell. I went to Gerard’s room, the door cracked enough to light up half the hallway.

“Hey, Gee,” I called, trying to see where he was.

“Frank! Good, you can help me pack.”

“Since when am I your slave?” I asked jokingly.

“Since now. I already have some stuff in the washing machine; can you move it over to the dryer?”

I cringed, but at least the clothes had already been washed. Maybe the stench wouldn’t set my nose on fire this time.

After unloading the dryer’s contents into a basket on the floor (he had done an entire load of only socks), I opened the door of the washer and carefully lifted one of his hundreds of black shirts out of the pile of sopping wet fabric. Surprisingly, I only smelled the thick scent of laundry soap hinted with lemon as I transferred each item to the dryer. When I first met Gerard, I noticed he smelled like lemon drops, but it was because he ate them almost nonstop. Once he stopped drinking, he stopped eating them, and it was around then that I started to notice the atrocious smell.

It dawned on me then that that had been the trigger. Every time I could remember being around him, there had been something to offset the odor. A fan, an air freshener, or so much humidity that no one would ever notice.

After adding enough detergent and fabric softener to start another load, I turned back and glanced into his room, where he seemed to be deciding how best to stack ten pairs of jeans in one suitcase. I rolled my eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I couldn’t decide which ones to bring,” he said simply.

“So you’re bringing all of them?” I asked incredulously. He shrugged.

I (somewhat daringly) walked back into his room, trying to mask the fact that I was about to faint from the rotting fish stench that followed him everywhere. It was time I did something about it.

I knew he would never go along with any of my ideas, so rather than futilely trying to persuade him, I took a simpler approach. When he turned away from me and grabbed something off of his desk, I walked up close behind him, wrapped my fingers in his unwashed, foul-smelling black hair, and slammed his face forward into the wood. Smiling as he crumpled to the floor – he was barely even bleeding – I picked him up by the arms and dragged him back into the hallway.

It took me a few minutes to actually put him in the washer because he weighed so much, but at least I had already put in the right amount of detergent and softener. I closed the door of the washer and started the cycle. Maybe he would finally be lemon-scented again after this.

I calmly walked away and went outside, where more people had arrived. Bob saw me first and dragged me over to the group where Ray and Mikey were standing.

“Please save us from the monotony of talking to Gerard’s parents,” he said pleadingly. I laughed.

“Hey, you found the hobbit!” Ray said with a laugh. I rolled my eyes and stole half the chips on his plate as retaliation.

“So, speaking of finding everybody, has anyone seen my brother?” Mikey asked, trying to look past me to see if Gerard was nearby. Everyone around me shrugged.

“Oh, he was almost done packing his suitcase,” I answered. “He’s just getting cleaned up.”