The Enigma’s Anomaly

“I know that you think you own the place but really, Frank, you think booby trapping Banks’ house with Legos is really the way to go?”

“Have you ever stepped on a Lego, Gerard?”

“I have. It hurts like a bitch, but do you really think that he’s going to just sit down and let you do that? Let you torture him? I know your friend likes picking on him or whatever, that’s why he agreed to put the Legos in the house, but there is such a thing as too far,” he says.

“I’ll stop when Banks has heard my whole message. I want him to suffer, and when you think about it, I’m not really doing that much to him. So far I’ve made him go on a road trip for a faulty lead, I’ve put his feet through some agony, and I also may have put some laxatives in everything in his kitchen,” I tell him.

“Jeez Frank, you are kind of an asshole,” Gerard says, but he doesn’t say it in a mean way. “What else?”

“There’s some more, but it’s not as interesting. Those were my favorites. By now Banks has realized he doesn’t have the upper hand. He knows I have away into his life and he is going to really hate that. This is the beginning of the end, Gerard. I can feel it,” I say.

Gerard looks at me skeptically, “How can you be positive? This has gone on for six months, Frank. Six months! How can you tell it’s ending?”

“I just can, I don’t know. I think that Banks is getting restless and we’re getting more confrontational. He knows he’s not dealing with lifeless objects anymore, Gerard. We’re fighting back, which is something he was not expecting.”

“How can you guarantee the safety of your friend if he’s been sneaking around Banks’ place?”

“You’re not one for the life, but it’s something that you grow good at. He’s the best I know. I don’t even know who he really is Gerard, but I can tell you that he’s good. So many different identities. I call him the Conte, because he’s Italian and he’s respected. Respected in my community anyway. I won’t tell you why he owes me a favor though.”

Gerard nods and he sighs, sticking his head in the crook of my neck. I smile at the contact and kiss the red hair at the top of his head instinctively.

After a while all these hotel rooms start to look the same and I’m honestly being driven crazy by the blandness. Same wallpaper that’s been peeled apart at the seams and also starting to curl up in a yellowing spiral. All of the carpets have little spots and blotches of mysterious little stains in the carpet that are both unsettling and unavoidable. All of the rooms have those curtains that are hanging right above the air conditioner that blows air directly up into the curtains, and decreases their effectiveness by about seventy percent. All of them have that weird hotel smell, and those creepy hallways with the loud ice machines.

I’m getting a little disgusted by the number of grotesque foreign beds with the same starchy sheets. I want stability really. I want to be somewhere that is going to give me some sort of regularity? I don’t know. I don’t want repetition, I guess what I want is normalcy. I want it with Gerard of course, but this isn’t normal. Running away from unknown threats and trying to hide is not normal. I want stupid mundane domestic stuff. Or more than that, I don’t know. This is New York after all.

“Frank?” Gerard asks, poking at my side, “you were drifting off again?”

“Sorry, I just really hope that it’ll be over soon. I want to have an actual relationship with someone who I can just be with and not have to worry about being killed.”

“Don’t we all,” he says, and I like the way his arm feels around my waist.

“I just... Gerard I want to someday wake u and go to brunch with you. Do something that is so tiny and meaningless, but it would mean so much. I guess I never knew how much I really took for granted, but just walking out on the street, holding my boyfriend’s hand is out of the question.”

“I know, Frankie,” Gerard says and I feel his breath on my neck, “I know it sucks, but it’ll be over someday, and when it is, I’ll take you to the park and we’ll do stupid couple shit that everyone will think is really cliché, but it’ll be perfect because we’ll be there together.”

“You’re cheesy as fuck, but that sounds wonderful,” I say, and he sticks his tongue out at me.

~*~*~*~

Mikey looks up from his place on the couch, moving his head and makes and he exasperated huff, “Where the hell is Gerard?”

“No idea. I didn’t know it took this long to buy shampoo,” I reply.

“Well if he doesn’t get back soon, the sun is going to set,” Mikey frowns, and I shrug. It’s not that big a deal if he gets here after dark, I just wish he’d call. Two hours is way more than it should be.

Maybe he stopped for something to eat or something. Maybe he’s being neurotic and trying to find a specific type of shampoo that isn’t very common. I just wish he were here instead of wherever he actually.

Maybe it’s hard to find the right store that sells it. Yeah, there’s a reasonable explanation for why he’s not here yet, I’m sure. I just don’t know what it is.

I trill my thumbs against the scoffed wooden table, and my hand traces around the stain of an ancient coffee ring. My feet are starting to become agitated too, and they’re hard to keep still.

I hadn’t been nearly this worried until Mikey pointed it out, but where the hell is Gerard? It’s been way too long. It’s just shampoo, which should’ve been a twenty minute stop, not two hours.

I look over to Mikey who’s busied himself with his ear buds in, signifying for him to be left alone.

I grab the phone resting on the table, a cheap burner phone so old in model that it flips open. I flip up the phone a few times nervously debating whether I should call him or not. I guess my mind is wondering and I’m being paranoid, but I’m just nervous. I have more of a reason to be nervous under these conditions than the average person. Not everyone can say that they legitimately have to be prepared for likelihood of being murdered, but all three of us have kick-me sign’s on our backs that say just that.

I quickly dial Gerard’s current number and wait for the dial tone. As soon as I hear it I also hear a buzzing from the bedside table, and I look over to see Gerard’s phone sitting there, vibrating. The small device is moving slightly, being moved by the energy of the vibrations, and I close my phone a moment later, with a groan.

He forgot his phone. Of course he did, so now I have to wait for Gerard, and he doesn’t have his phone, so there’s no way for me to call him to make sure he’s okay.

He’s probably okay.

Oh god, but what if he isn’t? What if Gerard got ambushed outside of a Walmart and he’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere? What if he got shot again and he’s bleeding out by the side of the road? What if he got hit by a car! What if he’s run away because he didn’t have the nerve to tell me he doesn’t love me?

That last one is preposterous though. Why would he have left Mikey here with me if that were the case? How on earth could he trick me into thinking he loved me for so long if that was true? No, he loves me, I’m practically certain, so that’s not it. But what if he’s fallen out of love with me in the past two weeks and I just haven’t noticed?

I check my watch to see that it’s been half an hour already since Mikey asked me where Gerard was. I’m worrying so much that time is moving faster around me, which is making me even more nervous.

150 minutes since Gerard left for shampoo. The length of the first Harry Potter movie. The length of the movie Gladiator. Of the Dark Night.

Now it’s been 154 and Gerard still isn’t here.

“Mikey?” I say, but he doesn’t hear me over the sound of his music.

“Mikey!” I try again, but still no answer. His feet are hanging off the end of the couch and I can’t see his face, but I see his feet tapping along to the beat of whatever he’s listening to.

I stand up and walk over to him, then look down at Mikey, lying on his back on the couch. He’s looking up and then sees me, rolls his eyes and pulls out an ear bud.

“Where do you think Gerard is?”

“Missoula, Montana,” Mikey says.

“Mikey, seriously. I’m worried, okay?”

“Why? He’s a big boy he can take care of himself. He’s probably just hanging out wherever. Maybe he found a coffee shop or something,” Mikey says, nonchalantly, and he makes to put the ear bud back in but I grab his hand.

“Mikey this is a big deal. The last time one of us went out and didn’t come back, I got thrown into the ocean and almost drowned. Gerard knows better than to leave us worrying like that. He knows we’re on our toes waiting for him, and since he left his phone here he should be hurrying back, but it’s been two and a half hours, and he’s done no hurrying.”

“He could be right outside that door about to come in,” Mikey says. I pause to look at him, then at the door for a moment and back at him.

“Yeah just outside, thanks for helping my anxiety,” I say sarcastically, and he groans, pulling himself up.

“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Frank,” Mikey says, getting up. He walks over to the window and pulls the curtains to the side to peer out.

“No, Mikey, you’re making a molehill out of a mountain.”

“Frank,” Mikey says with an odd tone, that is odd because it actually has a tone coming from Mikey, “something’s weird.”

“Weird? Weird how?”

“The car is still parked outside,” Mikey says, and he looks back at me.

“What do you mean? Why is that weird?” I ask.

“Well the closest town is a few miles out, so why on earth is the car parked outside? Gerard knew it would take a little while to get there, even by car, so he should’ve taken it. But its right there,” Mikey says, and I walk over to look out the window, to see he’s right. The car is still there. Why is the car still there?

Why didn’t Gerard take the car? Where the hell is he, and why didn’t he bring his phone if he knew he wasn’t going to drive.

“Now do you see why I’m nervous?” I ask Mikey angrily.