The Kids From Yesterday

11:12 am

Height-Ashbury

San Francisco, California

December 20th, 2004

“Whose bright fucking idea was it to do a Secret Santa?”

“Bob!”

“What! We all know it’s going to be rigged and that I’m going to get Brain!”

“Bob!”

“Fucking what?”

The boys didn’t have Christmas off, meaning they couldn’t go home and spend it with their families, but they were going to be spending it in California. And yes they were doing a secret Santa.
Elliot was particularly happy about it, she had done plenty of secret Santa’s back at home with her friends. Almost always she had to make her gifts, but she was artistic and who ever got her gift always fawned over Elliot’s talent.

She had drawn Gerard’s name out of the hat the day prior.

She won’t admit that she was disappointed that she didn’t get Frank, so don’t ask her. But she was a bit a stumped on what to actually get Gerard though.

“What does he even like?” she asked Frank.

Okay yeah, she completely broke the first rule of Secret Santa, but she felt like she had an excuse because she hardly knew the guy.

“He likes comic books, and crappy horror movies we all do actually, I don’t know Gerard is into a lot of weird things, undead shit, vampires, zombies, werewolves shit like that,” Frank told her, “He’s also a crazy artist, and he designed the cover art for Three Cheers.”

They were walking around Haight-Ashbury looking for their gifts. Frank had gotten Mikey. and Frank was able to pick out and buy Mikey’s present at the first store they went to.

Ellie was a bit jealous of Frank and his ability to pick out something so quick but at the same time, it had a lot of thought behind it too.

An idea popped into Elliot’s head like a light bulb in a cartoon. She needed a store that sold art supplies.

“What, you’re going to buy him art supplies; he has enough of that shit littering the bus.”
“
Not for him, for me, and I know, I cleaned the bus and almost threw it all out when I found five hundred fucking colored pencils of the same damn blue,” she growls.

She had cleaned the bus while the boys were playing their set the day previous. It had taken every ounce of will power to not kill the fuckers when they came back to the bus that night.

“Gerard, do you know how many colored pencils I found of the same color?” she had asked venom dripping from her teeth.
“Uh?” he shrugged looking like he was about to make a break for it.

“17, seventeen fucking dark blue colored pencils, they’re all in your bunk along with the other art materials I found of yours, they’re all rubber banded together by color, keep it that way or I might accidently throw them out.”

The boys looked at her completely flabbergasted.

“I am Ellie, hear me roar.” she grinned and then proceeded to meow like a kitten.

They didn’t stop laughing for fifteen minutes.

Ellie grins to herself replaying the memory.

“What do you need art supplies for?” Frank asked pulling her out of her thoughts.

“I’m going to draw him something; it’s going to a challenge though seeing as I have no privacy and five days.”

“You draw?” Frank asked somewhat surprised.

“I was an art nerd in school, all my friends were nerds, some of us were band geeks, some were drama kids and I was an art nerd,” she shrugged, “why do you think I’m so damn meticulous about how I want the bus to look and how I want all of your guy’s clothes to end up in their designated hampers? I mean shit, they’re labeled by name.” she exasperates making wild arm movements.

Frank laughed knowing that the band was going to be the reason that Ellie was going to have to be put on blood pressure medicine before her next birthday.

After a few hit and misses, Ellie and Frank had found a great art supplies store so Ellie could stock up on some things.

She decided on buying a package thing that was made by Blick art supplies: Her favorite art supply manufacture. It came with 3 pieces of poster sized cardstock paper, 5 pieces of 8 by 10 card stock paper, a sketch pad, 35 colored pencils, 20 markers, a thing of paint and paint brushes, 5 charcoal shading pencils and 5 sketching pencils. It was bit pricy, but Ellie had the money she stole and she certainly was not feeling guilty about getting it out of her hands.

She paid for the set and her and Frank walked out of the supplies store, Frank pressing about what she was going to draw.

“I’m not telling you, it’s bad enough I had to tell you who I got.” She shoved his shoulder lightly.

“Oh come on, is it going to be vampires? Or zombies, Zombie vampires!” Frank was practically jumping as they walked.

Ellie ignored him rolling her eyes. He was like a little kid; you just have to ignore them till they find something else to preoccupy them with.

“Are you hungry?” Frank asked ten minutes later.

“Frank, you made me eat three bowels of cereal on the bus and a multi-vitamin, no I am not hungry.”

“I was just making sure, what do you want to do now?”

“I want to start on Gerard’s present.” she said giddily, it had been a while since she last drew, so this was something she was really looking forward to.

“So back to the bus, are you sure you’re not hungry? It’s almost lunch time.” Frank pointed out.

“Are you hungry, is that why you’re asking?” Ellie asked.

No but Ellie, you need to eat I don’t care if you’re hungry or not.

Frank makes a face and shakes his head no, “I was just making sure.”

Ellie didn’t comment any further, she just shrugged and followed Frank up Hippie Hill to where the bus was parked.
--

3:15pm

My Chemical Romance’s Tour Bus

San Francisco, California

December 20th, 2004

“Whatcha doing?” Ray asked Ellie as he peaked around the curtain of Frank’s bunk which was wear she had holed up to sketch out Gerard’s present.

“Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!” She screamed pushing Ray’s face out of the bunk, “I’m doing special Secret Santa business.” She said through the curtain.

“Shit, sorry Ellie,” he laughed and walked away.

Ellie and Frank had been back at the bus for about 4 hours, and during those four hours Ellie had been sketching Gerard’s present, she had a few ideas, but she had to plan them all out and get them out on sketch paper. Ellie’s preliminary sketches were good, but she didn’t know what version she wanted to keep and finalize on the poster sized paper. She didn’t know if she should somehow merge her two favorite sketches or just pick one.

“Why does this have to be so hard?” she says to herself.

“Why does what have to be so hard?” She heard Gerard ask from outside of the bunk.

“Do not open the fucking curtain.” She growled.

“I wasn’t planning on it, not after your vicious attack on Ray.” He laughed.

“It wasn’t that vicious.” She said sheepishly.

“You nearly kicked him.”

“I did not!”

“Sure Ellie, sure.” Gerard laughed.

Ellie, like Bob said, had grown on Gerard when he had caffeine. It had only been about two days since the hospital, but he was quite fond of her outbursts and overall overbearing personality. There was so much of it, but there was so little Ellie.

“Are you still there?” Ellie asked a minute later.

“Yup.”

“Go away.” Ellie deadpanned.

“Well fine.” Gerard huffed and left the hallway.

Twenty minutes later Ellie had decided what she was going to finalize. She’s keeping me from knowing what it is, and I am the damn narrator. Told you this girl was good at keeping secrets.

“This is going to be perfect.” She mumbled and began her first strokes on the poster sized paper.
-=-

“Ellie, if you’re not out here in the next 5 seconds, we’re leaving without you!” Frank yelled an hour later. All of the other guys were outside waiting for Ellie, they were off to get some food and Ellie had seriously been in his bunk for five and half hours drawing. Frank had spent the last fifteen minutes coaxing Ellie out of the bunk

“Okay! Let me hide this!” she yelled.

She clambered out of the middle bunk and grabbed the paper and stuck it under the thin mattress.

She grabbed her jacket from where she left it on the couch and ran outside to meet the guys.

She ran past Frank out of the bus. He just blinked as she whooshed past him in a short blur of blond hair and a black jacket.

“Come on Frankie, we’re going to leave without you!” she yelled from outside the tour bus door.

“You little shit,” he grinned and followed her out.

They were going to the Rainforest Café that was off of Pier 39. Ellie was excited. She had never been outside of the East Coast (except for when she went to France when she was younger), so seeing such a huge iconic West Coast city was pretty much life changing. Even if she saw some weird characters walking around The Height, she believed it was all a part of California experience.

Even when her curiosity got the best of her earlier that day and found herself in a conversation with a man who she was sure was tripping on some type of hallucinogen. He didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but he was nice even when Frank came to drag her away by the wrist, the man smiled and waved after them.

“Ellie, for being really secretive, you sure know how to get yourself into some weird situations,” Frank told her.

“He was harmless, he wasn’t about to kid nap me, he thought the fucking sky was purple and he thought the sun was telling him to be a hornet, I’m pretty sure he thought I was a dancing candy cane or some shit because he told me he liked my stripes.”

“Still …” Frank trailed off, not releasing Elliot’s hand.

When they arrived to the Café, they were seated immediately, which was funny because they entire tour was there. The band, the support band, and all of their crew members, their party was huge, and they took up 2 booths and a table that sat at least fifteen people. The bands were at the booths while the crew members sat at the table, except for Ellie, she was small enough to squeeze in between Frank and Bob in their booth. The only problem was, if she had to get out of table, she would have to crawl out from underneath.

“Thank the Almighty Lord in Heaven that I am small,” she said when she was able to sit in between two grown ass men quite comfortably.

“You believe in God?” Gerard asked who sitting on the edge on the other side of Frank.

“Eh, once a catholic always a catholic,” She shrugged, “I’m not as devout as my mother, but I know the basics.”

“I’m right with you, Ellie.” Frank grinned.

“What is your heritage Ellie? If you don’t mind me asking,” Ray piped up, switching the subject.
Ellie grinned, she liked her blood lines.

“One quarter French and one quarter Italian, on my dad’s side and half German on my Mother’s,” She said proudly, “I’m 75% evil,” she said jokingly.

The boys didn’t get the joke, but it didn’t matter because their waitress was asking for drink requests.

“Elliot?” asked the waitress.

Elliot looked up feeling a bit uneasy as to why the waitress knew her name.

A look of familiarity fell to her eyes followed by complete glee, “Marigold!” she shrieked and scooted down under the table so fast the boys didn’t even realize what was going on till she popped back up on the other side and latched on to the young waitress in a crushing hug.

The two girls made weird noises of excitement as they rocked side to side in a huge hug. All of the boys were looking at each other and shrugging. They had uneasy smiles all on their faces.

“What the hell are you doing in Frisco?” Marigold asked.

“I could ask you the same question!”

“School, duh, the Art Institute, I’m there for Theater, remember?” The waitress said animatedly.

Ellie visibly gulped, but nodded excitedly anyway, “Yeah I forgot, it’s been crazy the last five months,” she forced out.

“Obviously, how did you score a job with these guys?” Marigold asked, and then realized she was supposed to be taking their order, “Shit, sorry! Elliot is a good friend of mine from high school; um what can I get for you?”

“Continue by all means!” Ray said, “Seriously, none of us have even made up our minds.” The rest of them nodded their heads enthusiastically and went back to their menus.

“Seriously Ellie, how did you end here with them?” She whispered and pretended to be writing down something on her note pad.

“Long story short? I hitched hiked all the way to Seattle, and they found me there, I’ve only been with them for like three days,” She whispered back. The boys at the table were being loud and giving them their privacy.

“Holy shit, Seattle, Ellie, how in the hell are you still alive?”

“Somebody is watching over me, obviously.”’ Ellie said and the two shared an all knowing face.

“But hey, you’re safe right? They treat you okay?” Marigold asked.

“Oh yeah, I have to share a bunk, but I’m not complaining, it’s warm and dry and Frank and I are the sizes of miniature bean stocks anyway, so it’s comfy,” Ellie grinned.

Frank looked up at the mention of his name, the two ignored him.

“Well that’s good, the places we end up, huh?” Marigold laughed, “I’m in college, and you’re off touring, what is it that you do?”

“I’m the bus-keeper, my duties include: laundry, keeping the bus from being a complete disaster, and making sure they don’t set themselves on fire.”

Marigold raises an eyebrow.

“Mikey likes to stick forks into toasters.”

“Who told her about that?” Mikey asks loudly, completely exasperated.

Frank sinks down in his seat silently laughing to himself.

Ellie turns her head and grins at Mikey, and then winks at Frank.

“You always were the little mother in the group back in school,” Marigold says.

Ellie makes a face agreeing with Marigold.

“Anyway, you should probably take our orders before I get you fired…” Ellie hinted at.

“Right!” Marigold threw up two thumbs as Ellie crawled back under the table to sit at her seat.

“Only you Ellie Love would be the sixth person in a five person booth,” Marigold grinned as Ellie re-situated herself in between Frank and Bob.

“I’m a miniature bean stock!” Ellie laughed.

Marigold shook her head and started to take the table’s orders.

An hour later they were all stuffed with food and ready to leave. Ellie made sure she latched on to Marigold and didn’t let go for at least five minutes and that was when Frank had begun to hover because everyone else was leaving.

“I’ll see you around?” Marigold asks as she let go of Ellie.

“I don’t know, we’re headed for Southern California tonight and we’re flying back to the East Coast for New Years, they’re doing some special in New York, and then we’re headed out to the UK on January 18th, for a 3 month long European tour, and I don’t have a cellphone yet, so it’s not like I can contact you…” Ellie said feeling a little sad that she had to abandon another piece of home once again.

“I’ll give you my number and anyway, just in case you decide you want to join the 21st century within the next few months or so,” Marigold have her a sad smile, and scribbled off her number on a piece of notepad paper she had her in her apron, “Europe though? I am so jealous of you! Take pictures if you can.” Marigold engulfs her into another hug.

“You can bet that I will.” Ellie promises.

“Ellie, we gotta go,” Frank says somewhere behind her, somewhere in her new life, she clung to her old one just a second longer then let go of Marigold, both of them misty eyed.

“You better fucking call me, Short Shit.” Marigold calls after her as Frank drags her out of the restaurant by the hand.

“I will!”

And like that, Boston was just a memory again. It was like leaving home all over again, to trek out and leave everything behind. Yeah there were some huge things that drove Ellie out of the state, but at the end of the day she had to ask herself if it was worth leaving her hometown and her family? And all her friends and the crazy ass times they had had wreaking havoc and being the hood rats they were, gallivanting around their high school as if they owned it, coming dressed up on any given day just because they goddamn felt like it. She had left all it behind because it would constantly remind her of the one thing that was always there during high school.
-=--=

12:45am

My Chemical Romance’s Bus

Somewhere in California on the I-5

December 21st, 2004

“Ellie, what’re you doing awake?” Frank asked groggily coming into the front lounge to find Elliot working on Gerard’s present. She quickly flipped it over he couldn’t see it.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says into the table not looking up.

It was true, homesickness was keeping her awake. She had been lying next to Frank for nearly an hour before she gave up and decided she should work on the drawing until her eyes would fall out.

It took Frank half an hour to realize she had left the bunk.

“What’s up?” He said and sat across from her at the table.

“I’m a little restless, you know? Seeing Marigold and all, she was one of my best friends back home.” She admits.

“You’re feeling homesick, Ellie.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement, then without missing a beat, “Why did you leave Boston?” Frank asked softly.

Ellie felt a pang in chest, she was sure that Frank wasn’t going to hurt her or anything now that he’s sat in a hospital with her and was making her take a multi-vitamin every morning. He was really paternal with her. And you should trust your parents, right?

“Something really terrible happened a month before graduation,” Ellie started, “And I couldn’t stick around after that, there was just too much baggage and too many memories, so the night after I walked the stage, I was on a bus somewhere that wasn’t Boston…”

“What happened?” Frank was pressing his luck, but he thought why the hell not?

Come on Ellie, you can do it.

She was about to open her mouth to answer when Bob came and looked at them a weird expression.

“What are you two doing up?” He mumbled groggily.

He didn’t stick around for an answer he just got a bottle of water from the fridge thing and went back to his bunk.

Bob, I hate you. You have the worst timing.

Ellie’s eyes were feeling really heavy so she rested her head on her arm that was propped up on the table by her elbow.

“Come on,” Frank mumbled realizing that was all he was getting out of her for the night, “Let’s get to bed.”

Ellie didn’t argue. She tucked her drawing away in the cabinet that the seats of the table doubled as and followed Frank to his bunk. He climbed in first and she clambered in after him. She hadn’t really gotten used to sharing a bed with someone else, especially when the bed was small, but Frank seemed to have, he was a huge cuddle bug.

“Good night Frankie,” Ellie whispered and faced the outside of the bunk.

“Good night Ellie,” Frank whispered back.