How Could You Cry for Me?
Going Home
In short, we survived the plane. Ray’s ‘fro is evil and tells him things that are untrue about the world. I almost didn’t survive the flight though because Gerard and Frank found a Frerard online and started acting it out. Needless to say the whole no Internet on planes (it’s just as vicious as when they put snakes on planes) thing is useless. Yeah, it’s called a printer.
“Ungh Frank, I love you so much,” Gerard would say to Frank who would pull himself closer to Gerard. Closer than they already were.
“I love you too Gerard, I’ve always felt this way…oh fuck, I’m not doing that!”
“Don’t be a poo Frank, just do it.”
“Fine.” Eye roll, “I love you Gerard.” I will not repeat what Frank did just then, go read a Frerard if you need to know so bad, you pervert.
It was about this time that Gerard pulled out a second printout, winked at me and waved it in my face.
“Wanna read it with me?” he asked me childishly.
Even though I’m younger, I’m also more mature and definitely smarter.
“No, I do not.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted, “It looks fun. Look it’s about you and me!”
“No,” whined Ray, who was still superstitious about the stupid plane, “No Waycest, I don’t want to die listening to Waycest.”
“Shut up Toro,” Gerard demanded, ever caring. See kids? This, this monster is what you worship. He says he was nice to me when we were kids? Pah! He’s just like every other older brother—demanding, stupid, annoying. And yet, I love him and I do a lot of shit for him.
“Fine,” I groaned (no, not an orgasmic groan, more like that of a bored teenager), leaned down to look at the paper and immediately regretted it, “Fuck no!”
“Come on!”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“For coffee?”
I held up my cup.
“For sushi?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“For…love of your wonderful older brother?” There were the damned puppy dog eyes.
“Who?”
“Fuck you Mikey!”
“Goodbye Gerard.”
And that’s when he decided to kill himself, for the second time today, Justin Timberlake being the means of his suicide. Loud JT, telling us all about bringing sexy back through Gerard’s earphones as he fell asleep. I turned it off. He didn’t notice.
**
When we finally landed in Newark, it was all I could do not to run from everyone. I took my own car and offered no one—especially not Gerard, who was carless at the time—a ride home. I was going the other way, headed to Brooklyn and the tall buildings of New York. Gerard, Frank, and Ray were all headed to Jersey, to various places, to the basements of my childhood home, apartments and diners to feast on cheap no-shit food. Bob, we had left him in Chicago about three hours before, and he was probably doing something better than braving traffic and overcast skies.
“Hello?” I called finally reaching my door and opening it. I had to be careful, the cat could get out and a cat getting out in Brooklyn could be hell. Trust me, we’d learned that lesson quick.
“Hi Mikey,” came a call from a voice that approached me. The voice belonged to Alicia, my girlfriend at the time, then fiancé and eventual wife, but that wouldn’t happen for a while so I’ll stick to the context of this story.
“Hi,” I smiled and kissed her forehead, looking at her makeup, “You look like a panda.”
She had almost more than Gerard on.
“Do you like pandas?”
“I love pandas,” I smiled and kissed her again. I love her, I loved her then and I will never stop. There is no one better than her in the world and even if she spends half of her life training a cat how to shake hands, she’s perfect.
“Want macaroni and cheese?” she asked me, holding up a bowl of orange mushy looking noodles. Okay so maybe she wasn’t perfect. Her cooking could use some work. But we were working on that. We lived in Brooklyn—it wasn’t hard to get food.
“Uh, no I’m okay,” I tried not to smell the foul cheesy smell that radiated from the bowl.
“Smart one, aren’t you?’ she laughed dryly, “Come watch TV! There’s some awesome special on the History Channel that me and Bunny are watching. It’s about the bubonic plague.”
“You’re a nerd,” I grinned, letting her pull me to the TV.
“Says the boy from the Not Okay video,” she rolled her eyes with a smile and sat down on the couch, turned up the TV volume, put the cat on her lap, put her head on my shoulder and we settled in for a nice night of old British guys talking about people getting massive purple shit on their bodies or something. Good times.
Life was perfect, I had no reason to be unhappy.
So, remind me again why I was?
“Ungh Frank, I love you so much,” Gerard would say to Frank who would pull himself closer to Gerard. Closer than they already were.
“I love you too Gerard, I’ve always felt this way…oh fuck, I’m not doing that!”
“Don’t be a poo Frank, just do it.”
“Fine.” Eye roll, “I love you Gerard.” I will not repeat what Frank did just then, go read a Frerard if you need to know so bad, you pervert.
It was about this time that Gerard pulled out a second printout, winked at me and waved it in my face.
“Wanna read it with me?” he asked me childishly.
Even though I’m younger, I’m also more mature and definitely smarter.
“No, I do not.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted, “It looks fun. Look it’s about you and me!”
“No,” whined Ray, who was still superstitious about the stupid plane, “No Waycest, I don’t want to die listening to Waycest.”
“Shut up Toro,” Gerard demanded, ever caring. See kids? This, this monster is what you worship. He says he was nice to me when we were kids? Pah! He’s just like every other older brother—demanding, stupid, annoying. And yet, I love him and I do a lot of shit for him.
“Fine,” I groaned (no, not an orgasmic groan, more like that of a bored teenager), leaned down to look at the paper and immediately regretted it, “Fuck no!”
“Come on!”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“For coffee?”
I held up my cup.
“For sushi?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“For…love of your wonderful older brother?” There were the damned puppy dog eyes.
“Who?”
“Fuck you Mikey!”
“Goodbye Gerard.”
And that’s when he decided to kill himself, for the second time today, Justin Timberlake being the means of his suicide. Loud JT, telling us all about bringing sexy back through Gerard’s earphones as he fell asleep. I turned it off. He didn’t notice.
**
When we finally landed in Newark, it was all I could do not to run from everyone. I took my own car and offered no one—especially not Gerard, who was carless at the time—a ride home. I was going the other way, headed to Brooklyn and the tall buildings of New York. Gerard, Frank, and Ray were all headed to Jersey, to various places, to the basements of my childhood home, apartments and diners to feast on cheap no-shit food. Bob, we had left him in Chicago about three hours before, and he was probably doing something better than braving traffic and overcast skies.
“Hello?” I called finally reaching my door and opening it. I had to be careful, the cat could get out and a cat getting out in Brooklyn could be hell. Trust me, we’d learned that lesson quick.
“Hi Mikey,” came a call from a voice that approached me. The voice belonged to Alicia, my girlfriend at the time, then fiancé and eventual wife, but that wouldn’t happen for a while so I’ll stick to the context of this story.
“Hi,” I smiled and kissed her forehead, looking at her makeup, “You look like a panda.”
She had almost more than Gerard on.
“Do you like pandas?”
“I love pandas,” I smiled and kissed her again. I love her, I loved her then and I will never stop. There is no one better than her in the world and even if she spends half of her life training a cat how to shake hands, she’s perfect.
“Want macaroni and cheese?” she asked me, holding up a bowl of orange mushy looking noodles. Okay so maybe she wasn’t perfect. Her cooking could use some work. But we were working on that. We lived in Brooklyn—it wasn’t hard to get food.
“Uh, no I’m okay,” I tried not to smell the foul cheesy smell that radiated from the bowl.
“Smart one, aren’t you?’ she laughed dryly, “Come watch TV! There’s some awesome special on the History Channel that me and Bunny are watching. It’s about the bubonic plague.”
“You’re a nerd,” I grinned, letting her pull me to the TV.
“Says the boy from the Not Okay video,” she rolled her eyes with a smile and sat down on the couch, turned up the TV volume, put the cat on her lap, put her head on my shoulder and we settled in for a nice night of old British guys talking about people getting massive purple shit on their bodies or something. Good times.
Life was perfect, I had no reason to be unhappy.
So, remind me again why I was?