Sequel: Gerard Way: Artist

Frank Iero: P.A.

Six

A strange urge came over me when I carried those three canvases down into my office. Gerard had disappeared once again during my brief absence, which, for once, I was very grateful for. It gave me the opportunity to do some research about the fate of ‘Demolition Lovers’.

I Google mapped the address that it was to be sent to and discovered it was a private address. This buyer was obviously fucking loaded, judging by the size of the pool in their backyard, not to mention the Corinthian columns adorning their front porch. That didn’t deter me, though. I looked up their phone number in the White Pages and dialled it immediately. The buyer who’d solicited the artwork seemed nice enough – an English man in his late 60’s who had an extensive art collection (he made a habit of comparing Gerard’s work to some of the artist’s he already had ‘hanging in the library’). I explained to him that I was Gerard’s personal assistant and asked just how much he had paid for it. Eight-thousand dollars was his answer.

My intention when I called was to buy the canvas from him and keep it for myself, but there is no way I can justify spending eight-thousand dollars on a painted canvas, no matter how much I want it. The way I used to live before I got this job taught me to be careful and frugal with my money, and while I am certainly in a much better position financially, I’m still not willing to spend so much money on so little; I could buy myself a reasonably good car for less than that and still have enough money left to buy one of those classy air fresheners.

I bade the man good day and was about to hang up when his English accent came through the line.

“Mr. Iero, forgive me, but did you not say that you were his assistant?”

“Yes, I did,” I replied. I assumed it was some form of Alzheimer’s disease that caused him to question me.

“Well, then why not ask him to paint another for yourself?” he said, as if it were that simple.

“Gerard Way doesn’t do requests,” I informed him solemnly.

I hung up after that.

It strikes me now, though, as I sit here staring at ‘Demolition Lovers’ (I can’t bring myself to put it in its shipping box yet), that I might not be denied if I asked Gerard to paint another for me. I mean, I’ve been working hard all day, I made him smile with that smoking monkey cupcake – I deserve a piece of art worth eight-thousand dollars. But... I want the original. I don’t want someone else to have it – I want to be the only person in the world who gets to see it. That’ll never happen, though.

Fuck.

***


I stayed in the office until six o’clock, just like I’m supposed to even though I wanted to leave. Everything that needed to be done got done, including boxing up ‘Demolition Lovers’ so it could be sent to a nice English man with an extensive art collection that would soon consist of a Gerard Way original.

Finished for the day, I trek over to the kitchen to talk to Ellie. She’s busy plating up our dinner for this evening when I plonk myself down on a bar stool. We always speak in French, as you’ve seen, but this evening I feel like speaking in English. I tell her so.

“That’s fine, dear,” she says, smiling.

I watch her work for a little bit; she hums while she works. I’ve never really noticed, but she does that quite a bit. Actually, there’s not all that much that I know about Ellie. We spend so much time together, yet we don’t really talk about anything other than Gerard’s work. Maybe it’s this place; it makes you disinterested in anything non-Gerard related.

“Ellie, how long have you been working here?” Might as well find out that little piece of information.

“About two years; since his work started getting some attention, really,” she tells me, not looking up from the food she’s dishing out, “but I’ve known him much, much longer than that.”

“Really?” I can’t keep the surprised tone from my voice. I need to know more about this. “Tell me about it all.”

She covers one of the two plates with aluminium foil, sets it by the microwave, and slides the other plate toward me as well as a fork. I take a mouthful while she walks around the island and sits down on the stool next to me.

“He and his family lived next door to me when he was a boy, and he went to the same school as my children. Gerard was the same age as my daughter, Juliet, and his brother the same age as my son, Phillip. They were all good friends, though.” She goes quiet for a moment, recalling everything from all those years ago it seems. “Their parents worked a lot of odd hours, so Bernard and I looked after the boys quite a lot when they were young. They grew up of course, so they didn’t need us to look after them anymore, but Gerard still came by the house a lot.” She sighs. “That boy would walk around carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was more of a parent to his brother than his mother and father were.” She dabs a finger at the corner of her eye. “I’ll never forget the day he came into my kitchen asking me to teach him how to cook... it took him a while, but he got quite good.”

My fork pauses in mid air as I take in what Ellie has said. “You taught him how to cook?”

“Yes, when he was sixteen; he wanted Mikey to have proper home cooked meals each night. Everything that boy did was always for his brother, never for him. Despite appearances, Gerard is one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met.”

“So, how did you come to work for him then?”

Ellie smiles. “It was another selfless act on his part. My children had moved out a few months before he had gained some recognition, and my husband was working long hours as a school principal. I’ve always been a caretaker, but I had no one to take care of anymore. Gerard came by for one of our regular coffee dates, I told him how much I wasn’t needed anymore, and he offered me a job as his house keeper. I know he doesn’t really need me to do all the things I do for him, but I appreciate that he lets me pretend he does.”

It’s hard to believe Ellie is saying all this about Gerard. He’s always so dismissive of everyone, and keeps to himself – how could someone who acts like that be the same person who put everyone before themselves. I’m shocked.

“You really care about him, though, don’t you?” I ask.

She nods thoughtfully. “I love and care for both him and his brother as if they were my own children.”

Ellie and I talk for a little bit longer, mostly about Gerard as a child. Apparently he kept to himself a lot then, too, but still cared for others immensely. Ellie told me that he still keeps in contact with Juliet and Phillip, phoning them at least once a week to see how they are going. He went to both of their weddings, to their baby showers, and has promised to go to Austin and Adrien’s, Juliet’s twin sons, first birthday party tomorrow afternoon.

When Ellie leaves at seven o’clock I go upstairs and play my guitar for a bit. I’m still working on the song I started on Friday night. It’s easy to compose when I’m alone. I’m proud of how well this song is coming along.

***


Gerard’s vanishing act lasts until nine o’clock. He comes through the front door just as I reach the bottom of the staircase on my way to get something nice for dessert.

I take in his appearance; he looks completely drained. His long hair is greasy, dishevelled, like he’s ran his fingers through it a few too many times. There’s no light in his eyes at all; it’s as if he’s a zombie. He walks past me, not acknowledging my presence at all.

“Ellie left your dinner next to the microwave,” I call after him a bit too desperately.

“I’m not hungry,” he says. His tone suggests he’s not up for an argument, so I let him go without so much as a ‘you need to eat’.

Part of me wishes he’d just tell me what’s going on. I don’t care what’s upsetting him, I’m just sick of this rollercoaster of emotions that I have to deal with everyday. If he’d just tell me then perhaps I could help him deal with it, or at least I could establish why he acts the way he acts. I don’t think I’ll ever find out, though. Actually, no – I will find out. I am Frank Iero, and I want to know what’s going on, and I am determined to find out. Gerard Way won’t know what’s hit him.

I take myself back up to my room to plan out what I’m going to do. If I’m going to find out what’s going on with him then I’m going to need him to trust me. How is trust earned? By demonstrating a sense of reliability. Even if it kills me, I’ll be sitting behind that desk by eight o’clock every morning. I’m not going to debate him when he gives me an order, nor will I take my time doing what he asks of me to piss him off. I’ll be working three times harder than I usually do. Gerard will see that he can rely on me to do his bidding, and that’s when I’ll begin to slip in little personal questions until I get to the big one.

By six o’clock Tuesday morning I was in the shower, at six-thirty I was downstairs having a decent breakfast, not just a piece of toast, and I made it into the office just before seven o’clock. There was a lot of emails waiting for me, which I was strangely thankful for. Although I’m doing all this to gain Gerard’s trust, I also want to prove to myself that I’ve got what it takes to be a great P.A.

“On time two days in a row,” Gerard comments when he enters my office at exactly eight o’clock, although he doesn’t look up from his art magazine, “I may have to call you a doctor.”

He passes through into his own office. When he’s out of sight I stick my middle finger up at him. As much as I’d prefer to shout something obscene at him, I can’t do anything that will jeopardise my chances of finding out what he’s hiding.

The morning goes by quite speedily, much to my surprise; that must be an effect of actually putting one hundred percent effort into your work. Gerard disappears at nine o’clock, I assume up to his studio, and the phone begins to ring non-stop. Most of the calls I can handle on my own, but there are a couple that I need to transfer through to Gerard. I make sure I keep my tone as professional as I can when I transfer the calls to him. I think he may be beginning to notice a change in me, but I know it’s going to take more work on my part before I gain his trust entirely.

At twelve o’clock I leave the office and head to the kitchen. Ellie is in there preparing a tray for Gerard.

“Bonjour!” she greets cheerily.

“Bonjour, Ellie,” I reply politely. “Je n'ai ici que pour quelques minutes, je veux revenir au bureau et travailler un peu plus.”

I'm only here for a few minutes; I want to get back to the office and work some more.


Ellie looks at me comically. “De travail pendant le déjeuner? Vous devez être malade.”

Working through lunch? You must be ill.


I fix myself a salad sandwich and grab a diet Coke from the fridge before I plant myself behind my desk again. I’m using my lunch hour to answer more of Gerard’s fan mail. The worst thing about the fan mail is that every time I feel like I’ve made a dent in the pile, a new sack of it gets delivered to my office. But generally it’s quite entertaining; some of his female fans mail him enough material to have themselves institutionalised. Today I’m finding a lot of nasty surprises wrapped up in the letters I’m reading – women’s underwear. My desk is slowly turning into a trashy lingerie store.

Seriously, how the fuck do women wear these things? I pick up a lacy pink garment and hold it to the light to examine it. It’s literally a scrap of lace with a thin piece of material that gets stuck between their ass cheeks. Don’t they feel like they’ve got an all day wedgie when they’re wearing them? And it’s so tiny! Where do they put everything? Surely their bits would be hanging out the sides...

“I’d appreciate it if you kept your bizarre fetishes away from the office, Frank.”

Oh, God – Gerard’s back... and I’m holding a g-string in... This is so embarrassing.

“It’s – It’s not what it looks like!” I stutter.

Gerard holds up his hands as if to surrender, looking nonchalant. “Hey, hey, if you like to wear women’s underwear, who am I to judge? I just don’t want to see your collection.”

“I don’t wear women’s underwear, you fucking dickhead!” I shout at him. Oh, fuck! I was meant to be watching my mouth. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

He giggles. He fucking giggles. “There’s my Frank,” he says, smiling somewhat.

I’m left alone in the office again, feeling confused. Did he just inadvertently say that he prefers me when I lose my temper and insult him? Either I’ve got the best boss in the world, or he’s fucking with my head...