Stop Playing Around

Gerard steps into the bar, and it doesn’t take him long to see his own birthday party. Unsurprisingly, only three people showed up, and each one of them looks like a little kid who had their bike stolen. It’s likely there were more given the fact that there are more chairs at their table, but they all probably left a few hours ago. It’s nearly eight, and most people have work tomorrow. Not Gerard, of course, but they don’t know that quite yet.

“Jeez, who died?” Gerard asks, walking up to the table.

Mikey looks up in surprise, “I thought you were at work.”

“I quit,” He says smiling. It’s kind of hard not to, because it’s so invigorating. He’s unemployed, he’s not going to get paid for the last week, and he’s practically dirt poor, but god does it feel good. He’s free. It’s like taking a cast off your arm after several months, or like finally coming up for air after nearly drowning. It’s just the best feeling in the world to not have to worry about writing a speech, or buying a shit bunch of useless crap. No more agonizing coffee orders that make his head spin. Of all the things that Gerard had to do for the Satan’s he’s going to miss ordering coffee the least.

“You’re kidding,” Brendon says, looking like someone just told him that they’d found the lost city of gold.

“No, I’m not. I quit!”

“What made you do that?” Mikey asks, kicking a chair out for him to sit down. Gerard takes it gladly, because his legs are still numbingly tired from the many hours he’s spent awake. He’d practically skipped down the road getting here, because he just couldn’t believe he finally quit.

It’s odd, but he’d never even considered it, and then he did it, and it was too late to take it back, so he rolled with it. Gerard is probably going to regret it in the morning, but then he’s going to remember the past three years and he really isn’t going to regret it. Job searching is not fun, especially in this economy but it’s more fun than working for Mr. Iero. Jumping into a volcano is more fun than working for Mr. Iero. Being stabbed repeatedly in the throat is more fun than working for Mr. Iero. The only thing less fun than working for Mr. Iero is being ordered around by his son.

“Dude, that’s fantastic,” Mikey says.

“I know!”

“Wait, is this the assistant job?” an older friend of his, Patrick asks. “Why did it take you so long to quit?”

“Good money,” Gerard frowns, “better than you guys make, no offense. I had to work ten times as hard for it though.”

“Your life has been The Devil Wears Prada or the past three years,” Brendon states.

“It really has been. Though I didn’t have any gay friends to help get me through it.”

“Because that’s the easiest way to get through life,” Mikey says sardonically.

“Well it would have been nice,” Gerard replies. It really would have. No life for three years also means no love life. He’d have liked a gay friend in several different senses of the term.

“But, you’re like actually, legitimately unemployed? Dude, that’s wonderful,” Brendon says, “I mean not that wonderful, because you do still have to pay rent, but it’s still great. Mentally a good thing, monetarily not so much.”

“I will find another job, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Gerard frowns.

“That’s a really strange term, and I don’t know why it has been normalized,” Brendon answers.

“But you’re not denying that you wear women’s underwear,” Gerard says.

“Because my mother told me to always tell the truth,” Brendon replies jokingly.

“I didn’t need to hear this conversation,” Mikey says putting his hands to his head.

“But you’re, like, free!” Patrick says.

“Like a bird,” Gerard says.

“Birds are supposed to be majestic. You’re a fucking train wreck on feet,” Mikey says. Gerard kicks him under the table, and all Mikey does is scrunch up his face.

“So, you quit, but how did your boss react?”

“Well, I didn’t really quit to his face,” Gerard says, “I quit in front of Frank, because he wouldn’t say please, and I really wanted him to use his manners.”

“And Frank is?”

“My boss’s son. Rich kid who grew up on daddy’s money and hasn’t lifted a finger all his life. He’s such a fucking dick too. He goes out of his way to make my job hard, and I think he enjoys watching me suffer. You know I have a theory about him. He was the kind of kid who took a magnifying glass to the playground and burned ants on the sidewalk. He also probably pushed people out of the way to get on the slide,” Gerard replies.

“He sounds like a bed of roses,” Patrick says.

“Oh god, you know, every day for the past three years, Gerard has come home and complained about the kid every fucking day,” Brendon says.

“It’s not my fault he’s so unruly!”

“You’re unruly,” Brendon retorts.

“Who says unruly?” Mikey asks with a grimace.

“Gerard just did,” Patrick replies.

“Who asked you?”

“I didn’t think that question was necessarily oriented to one specific person.”

“It was rhetorical,” Mikey replies.

“Your face is rhetorical,” Gerard says, “I have had an awful day. It was also a great day, but everything up until half an hour ago or so, it was awful. I just want alcohol and a pillow.”

“I would recommend you get those separately.”

“Thank you for your staggeringly obvious advice,” Gerard states monotonously.

Brendon shrugs, “Well you got like four hours of sleep so I thought maybe you’d need the reminder. Now, I’m not familiar with the ways of rich people, but do they become attached to their assistants? Are you likely to be offered a raise in exchange for your job back?”

“Let’s hope not. If he does offer, I’m going to decline. I don’t need that in my life anymore. From now on, I’m going to put this job behind me. I doubt it anyway. You should have seen how I yelled at Frank. I think I made the kid shit his pants.”

“Yes, well you are really passionate about your please and thank you,” Mikey says, “that’s why you refused to say either of those terms for the first fifteen years of your life.”

“You’re a dick.”

“You said that a lot more than you said please and thank you.”

“Okay, settle down, Mikey,” Gerard chides, “I blew up at him, okay? I kind of regret it, even. I told him I wanted to put pins in his eyes-”

“Ow.”

“Exactly! And I regret that a little bit, because the kid is a jerk, but I don’t like saying things like that, it’s rude. I try not to be like that, but it all just came to the surface all at once. Three years of holding myself back, but I just went for it. It’s not like he learned his lesson. He probably doesn’t even know my last name. I doubt he’d recognize me if he saw me at a Walmart. Except obviously he’d never be caught dead in a Walmart, because he’s a whiney little baby who makes his daddies assistant go to the store for him.”

“You okay? I think I just saw some steam coming out of your ears?” Brendon says.

“Fuck off. Will someone buy me a beer? It is my birthday.”

“You’re going to go look for a job though, right?” Brendon asks, “Because I can barely pay my half of the rent, so there’s no way I can cover you.”

“I will, yeah. I mean I’ve got enough for rent for a few months, but yes, I will find a job.”

“Alright then.”

Gerard is maybe a little too tired and spent to even be out right now, but he doesn’t care enough to move.

Brendon gets him a beer a moment later, and Gerard accepts it gladly.

“Toast?”

“I’d say this calls for a toast,” Brendon says.

“To the misfortune of the Iero family,” Gerard proposes.

“That’s a little mean,” Patrick says.

“Is it unjustified?” Gerard asks.

“I didn’t say that it was unjustified, it was just mean,” Patrick replies.

Brendon groans, “If it means that I don’t have to hear his filthy gossip about Frank or his boss anymore, than I am all for drinking to it.”

“Same,” Mikey says.

“I am not that bad.”

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that,” Brendon says mockingly.

~*~*~*~

On the next day, Friday morning, Gerard is not too keen to start job hunting. He’d just as well sleep in all day, and eat potato chips, but apparently that’s a ‘waste of his time.’

“Have fun at work,” Gerard says when Brendon stumbles out of his room at seven in the morning.

“Why are you already awake?” Brendon asks.

“I guess I’m just used to waking up this early. I’ve been up for like half an hour,” he answers, “but I don’t have to go to Starbucks this morning, and I am reveling in the fact that I don’t. I don’t have to do shit all day!”

“Thanks for rubbing it in,” Brendon frowns, making himself a pot of shitty coffee, that luckily has ten times less ingredients that Gerard is used to. They buy their coffee at the dollar store. It tastes a bit like dirt.

“But you have a job at least,” Gerard shrugs.

“You call customer service at a Best Buy a job, I call it the ‘who will achieve the status of ultimate idiot today?’ contest. Award goes to the guy who called me last year and thought the space bar was the mouse, and the track pad was the space bar.”

“Oh that sounds like a wild ride.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Brendon says. “For all you know you’re going to end up at a Burger King.”

“I am not going to work at a Burger King.”

“Can you cite the assistant job on your résumé or will they call your old boss?” Brendon asks.

“Can’t I just leave out his number?”

“Then they’ll think you’re padding it,” Brendon says, “put it on there, and if they call the guy then you won’t get that job, but if they don’t then you’ll be fine.”

“I hate job searching.”

“Sucks for you,” Brendon says, finishing a mug of coffee and throwing it in the sink. “I will see you later. Enjoy your first day off work in 36 months.”

“Will do!”

Gerard looks through ads for a little while, cringing at every one he sees, because he really doesn’t want to be a florist or a bathroom attendant. He also doesn’t know shit about cars, and has absolutely no training in just about anything.

He’s just about ready to give up for the day by noon, when his phone rings, which is odd, because he doesn’t know that many people. To Gerard’s horror, it’s Mr. Iero.

Instinctively, he rejects the call, because there is no way in hell he is going down that rabbit hole. He tries to reason with himself that maybe it was a butt dial or something, because he doesn’t want to be chewed out for quitting. Gerard’s often an unassuming person, and it’s easy to take advantage of him sometimes because of this. He just doesn’t like talking back to people so he gets stepped all over. He’d probably let the guy yell at him for several hours without hanging up the phone, because it’s in his nature to be polite.

He’s also completely afraid of the guy. It’s kind of demeaning to admit to being afraid of your boss, but Gerard definitely is. He would never tell anyone that, but the guy is scary. He’s rich, and he’s greedy. He has the power to blackball anyone who gets in his way, and Gerard’s terrified of that.

Instead of risking the onslaught of insults he’s bound to get by answering, he just doesn’t pick the phone up.

The second time his phone rings makes his stomach turn even more leaden. Mr. Iero should be somewhere in LA right about now, but no one booked him a flight. No one got him a hotel. That is probably why he’s so determined to get ahold of Gerard. He just turns the ring on his phone off, and gets back to the wanted ads. Not today.

Gerard has to do a lot of coaxing to believe that he’s doing the right thing. He thinks that it’s still possible to get his job back, but he’d have to grovel, and he still has some pride that he’d like to retain.

The phone lies face up on the coffee table in front of him, so Gerard sees the screen light up several more times. Luckily turning the sound off means that there’s no ringing so he can ignore it. With every call it gets easier to ignore the phone, because he knows that the longer he ignores it, the angrier Mr. Iero will get. It’s easy to ignore a call from what might as well be The Hulk.

“Maybe Mr. Iero really needs me,” Gerard thinks, and then shakes his head. Whether or not Gerard is needed, he isn’t going to answer. He’s just not. He quit that job, he wants no part of it.

How long can that mentality last though?