Status: in progress
It's a Punk Rock Kiss, Asshole
Dammit
Minding my own business seems to get me in more trouble than it should. All I’m trying to do is get some god damn gas from Circle K, and it’s probably too late to be in this part of town and think I’m safe, but I don’t really care. Every Starbucks is closed, this is the closest place that’s open by my place, and shitty Circle K coffee is better than no coffee, which is the situation I’m left with since my piece of crap coffee maker broke this morning.
I’m about to pull the hose out of my car, but a shout from across the lot catches my attention. It’s a bunch of punks, the kind with green mohawks, girls with shaved heads and leather jackets with a shit ton of studs and spikes on them. One has a paper bag with a badly hidden bottle of booze in it, and he’s passing it around to the others who are gathering around them.
Then he walks up, the one they’re apparently all waiting for, shrugging off a girl who’s desperately trying to cling to his arm.
He’s beautiful. That much is obvious, even from how far away I am. But he’s pulsing with red-hot energy, screaming with rage that seems to fill him up and threatens to consume him if he doesn’t get it out of his system. He’s short, but he has an air of importance about him. It’s the way he stands, he walks, the way some of them give him a curt nod of respect when he walks past.
Once he gets to the huddle, one of them says something to him that set him off, and if you blink then you would have missed how he slams the guy against the wall, one of his strong arms on the guy’s throat.
“Say that again,” I hear him growl.
“I said, you’re so twisted up in Jimmy’s panties that you can’t make decisions for yourself!” The man grinned and spit in the short one’s face. “What does he do anyway? He just orders everyone around, making them do a song and dance that doesn’t mean shit!”
He retaliates, slamming the guy’s head against the brick wall and then throws him down, kicking him again in the head. I pretend not to notice, not wanting to be recognized on a security tape and be called by the court to testify, because this doesn’t look like a guy I’d want to be on the bad side of. Quietly as I can, I put the gas pump hose back and slide into the front seat of my car, hoping to someone that he’s too busy beating the shit out of that other guy to notice my beater car wheeze its way out of the lot and down the road. Just my luck he does, his eyes locking with mine for what feels like forever, but the other guy grabs for him and he’s forced to go back to fighting while I make my great escape back to my apartment.
✖✖✖✖
My head feels fuzzy, and I’ve got a weird, sinking knot in my belly. The weak strained light of dawn is starting to filter in the window through the slits in the blinds, which is strangely mesmerizing, most likely because I haven’t slept in 13 hours. I’ve been up all night working on filling in panels on comics, which is my job, and I procrastinated until the last minute like I always do.
I’d finished two hours ago, but I’d drank too much shitty coffee and my anxiety about having to go out into public and look like an idiot because I have to get another coffee maker is starting to kick in. It’s not that I don’t like asking for help, it’s just that I don’t really like dealing with strangers, and that’s mainly why Mikey is my only friend. In high school I was always the awkward chubby kid who hid away in the art room and drew things that made people question whether I needed to go to therapy or not, and so far I’ve only matured to the awkward chubby adult that has to recite in my head what I want to order when I go to a restaurant a bunch of times so I don’t screw up and make a fool of myself. Reaching out to people just is filled with tedious small talk that’s boring and makes me feel uncomfortable and annoyed, and when people reach out to me I always worry about saying the wrong thing. God bless Mikey, seriously, because he’s the only one who will actively put up with me and has never once gotten upset with me.
Trying to distract myself, I let my mind wander back to what that guy had yelled. “I wonder who Jimmy is?” I murmured to myself, twirling my pencil around. He’s probably a really good underground punk musician, and that guy who seemed like he was in charge was one of his friends or something. I started to absentmindedly sketch him, giving him neck tattoos and an ass ton of eyeliner. My hand started to lose its grip and I felt myself finally relax a little. I realized that I’m starting to feel the beginning of the caffeine crash, so I quickly text Mikey to please please drop the drawings off because I shouldn’t be operating a motor vehicle in my state and that he’s the best brother ever before I lean back against my bed, too lazy to actually get into it, and fall asleep.
✖✖✖✖
When I wake up, my room is dark, but I can hear the soft murmur of the TV from the other room. The drawings are gone, which means Mikey came through like he always does because he’s the best, and is probably in the other room.
“I was wondering when you were gonna get up,” Mikey stated as I shuffled into the room.
“How long did I sleep for?”
He shrugged. “It’s almost 11 now, if that helps at all.”
“Shit,” I moaned, burying my face in my hands and rubbed at my eyes. “I need to stop doing this. I’m morphing into a vampire who can never get any shit done.”
Mikey made a slight breathing noise, which let me know that he found that amusing. “They have sleeping pills, you know. And you could not like, procrastinate on everything.”
“Shut the hell up,” I muttered half-heartedly,
“How come there’s no coffee?”
“The thing broke. Now I’ve gotta go out and get a new one.”
“Want me to come with you to get it?”
Seriously, Mikey is a saint. I need to remember to get him like, a fruit basket or some shit because he deserves a bunch of fruit baskets with the fruit cut out like bats and zombies and vampires or something. “Yeah, please.” It helps having someone there with me. Besides, Mikey knows generally a lot about coffee makers, so now I won’t have to ask strangers questions.
We decided to watch Dawn of the Dead, because there’s nothing worth watching on TV this late except maybe South Park. I look for food that’s more than just orange juice and plant myself next to Mikey, eating and poking him occasionally until he falls asleep.
✖✖✖✖
Mikey got the coffee maker for me. He left me a note on it saying that he didn’t really want to wake me up, and it would be easier for him to just go get it himself. I sent him a text about how I’m going to kiss his feet the next time I see him and go to make myself a huge pot of steaming, glorious coffee to drink all day before working up the courage to go to the art supply store.
Going to the art store isn’t as bad as going to other stores because 1. Usually people leave me alone when I’m there so I don’t feel so pressured and 2. If anyone is in there, it’s Joe, the really nice guy who waves quietly to me from behind his Spiderman comic. And one time I was in there and this nice older lady started to talk to me about paintbrush quality. She was really funny and didn’t make me feel stupid for adding my opinion, and the best part was she was one of the only strangers I’ve met that didn’t make me want to run and hide. So basically, it’s the only public place that I feel comfortable.
I decided to get some neon paints that glow under black light for fun, since I’ve got every other possible color imaginable. I’ve been painting different comic book heroes, and they’ve been selling pretty well on the internet. After four more cups of coffee and a shirt change, I headed out.
✖✖✖✖
I rummaged around in my pocket for my jeans, expertly balancing my Starbucks in my hand the bag between my teeth while I pried the door open.
“Jesus Christ!” I screamed, almost dropping the bag of paints I had on the ground, which would have stained the carpet then I would have had to pay a shit ton to get that fixed. It’s The Guy I saw from the other night in the parking lot of Circle K, and he’s on my couch, smoking a cigarette and gazing at me from half lidded eyes. It feels like a dream, like maybe I fell asleep at a bus stop or something or hit my head and this is the aftermath. But the ground is firm under my feet and the reek of cigarette smoke wafting toward me is real, and oh Christ this is really real. “What- How the fuck did you get in here?!”
“Calm down, Pretty Boy,” he said calmly, lazily reaching over and snuffs out the cig in my ashtray. He stands up slowly and stretches, like it’s just so straining to get up off my couch after smoking my cigarettes, exposing a colorful strip of skin. I want to examine that skin forever, tracing the designs and pretend to paint in the colors, but then I realize what I’m thinking. I feel my face heat up, but in a flash the skin is replaced by his Misfits tee shirt, where it belongs. “I saw you watching me the other night in the parking lot. And God, you’re so pretty, I couldn’t let you just leave and never see you again.” He stepped closer, looking up at my face and tracing a finger along my jaw. “So I had to follow you home.” He smiled warmly, his lips pink and wet. He has a lip ring, which surprisingly doesn’t look stupid on him. In fact, it looks great. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out a little. I- um. I’m just not too great with the whole “taking it slow” thing. Once I saw you I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“You- what?” He’s a stranger. I don’t even know his name. Yet, I’m not afraid. So what he broke in? That’s him- bold and not afraid what anyone else thinks, and he certainly doesn’t give a shit what I think. “I thought you were pretty amazing. You know, slamming that guy to the ground and almost beating his brains out.” Yes, I find that you are probably capable of murder endearing. Good one, Gee.
He giggles- yeah, the guy who broke in and has two neck tattoos giggles. “Aw, that was nothing. Besides, if I knew you were there I would have been a gentleman and made sure you didn’t have to see that. But let’s not think about that. I’m Frank.” He offered me a small, tattooed hand which I gladly took. Frank’s easily shorter than me by a few inches, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in tattoos. They’re everywhere on him, and he’s got a nose ring and holes in his ears (and is that one in his eyebrow?!) where it looks like he got them pierced. His hair is styled in a black, sort of grown out mohawk, making the bangs curl around his face and sometimes hang in his eyes.
“Gerard,” I offered back, awkwardly scrubbing my other hand through my greasy locks. “Do you want anything?”
“Nah.” Frank shakes his head and shrugs. “I have to go, actually. But I’ll give you this.” He glanced over to the mess of pens and paper on my table and scribbles down his number, drawing a little smiling heart with x’s where it’s eyes should be. “Text me, and I’ll call you later when I can. Maybe even follow up on that gentleman thing and take you out on a proper date. See you later, Gerard.” He smirks at me in a flirty way and lets himself out, leaving me in a dazed and confused state.
My heart’s beating a million miles an hour. That guy has got to have some kind of criminal record. There’s no way he can’t. HE HAS A POSSIBLE EYEBROW PIERCING. PEOPLE WITH THAT MANY TATTOOS AND PIERCINGS AREN’T YOUR AVERAGE GUY. But the other thing is, I find him..... Endearing? His personality, that smirk when I opened the door, his boldness. I mean, he’s so unlike anything I could ever dream of being. I clutched the paper in my hand and looked it over again, almost expecting it to just vanish out of sight.
Maybe it’s fate, forcing me to be social with someone and put some of my burden on someone other than Mikey. Maybe Mikey actually hired Frank to be my friend so I can call him in the middle of the night when I have great ideas for zombie movies instead of Mikey.
I grabbed my phone and dialed, waiting impatiently between the dialing sound until the other line picked up. “Mikey? Can we talk?”
“Um, yeah sure.”
“Wait, wait. Are you with Pete? If you’re with Pete it’s okay I can-”
“Gee. It’s fine. Sit down and tell me what the hell is going on.”
I sighed and nodded, settling myself down where Frank was before and lit myself a cigarette. I took a drag before starting from the beginning, telling Mikey about the encounter at Circle K and how I went from being terrified of being killed for being a witness to a beating to the possible love interest of this guy. Mikey just stayed quiet for a while, processing everything I was saying and just would murmur “Mhm” when I’d take a break to smoke. “So what do I do?”
He sighed. “I don’t know, Gee. I mean, you can’t change the locks because he broke in without a key already. Do you wanna call the cops or something?”
“Well, no...” I trailed. Maybe Frank is misunderstood and wants to get out of the life of a criminal. Maybe he thought that I looked like a nice, normal guy that could hook him up with a job and be his friend. Possibly boyfriend. “What if he just wants to turn his life around or something? I mean, he could be a nice guy.”
I heard Mikey arguing with someone, and then sigh “Pete, stop! Okay, fine. You talk to him.”
“Gee, be crazy, and give this guy a chance,” Pete’s voice replied. “I mean, you might as well. He knows where you live already.”
I nodded, but then stammered an “Okay,” when I realized that Pete couldn’t see me nod. I mumbled a goodbye to both of them, hands starting to shake slightly as I typed in Frank’s number with a “Hey, it’s Gee :)”.
It’s only 3:43 in the afternoon. I need to do something, or I’m gonna freak out from waiting for him to respond, so I settle for distracting myself with paint and playing the demo CD of Pete’s band. Loudly.
I’m about to pull the hose out of my car, but a shout from across the lot catches my attention. It’s a bunch of punks, the kind with green mohawks, girls with shaved heads and leather jackets with a shit ton of studs and spikes on them. One has a paper bag with a badly hidden bottle of booze in it, and he’s passing it around to the others who are gathering around them.
Then he walks up, the one they’re apparently all waiting for, shrugging off a girl who’s desperately trying to cling to his arm.
He’s beautiful. That much is obvious, even from how far away I am. But he’s pulsing with red-hot energy, screaming with rage that seems to fill him up and threatens to consume him if he doesn’t get it out of his system. He’s short, but he has an air of importance about him. It’s the way he stands, he walks, the way some of them give him a curt nod of respect when he walks past.
Once he gets to the huddle, one of them says something to him that set him off, and if you blink then you would have missed how he slams the guy against the wall, one of his strong arms on the guy’s throat.
“Say that again,” I hear him growl.
“I said, you’re so twisted up in Jimmy’s panties that you can’t make decisions for yourself!” The man grinned and spit in the short one’s face. “What does he do anyway? He just orders everyone around, making them do a song and dance that doesn’t mean shit!”
He retaliates, slamming the guy’s head against the brick wall and then throws him down, kicking him again in the head. I pretend not to notice, not wanting to be recognized on a security tape and be called by the court to testify, because this doesn’t look like a guy I’d want to be on the bad side of. Quietly as I can, I put the gas pump hose back and slide into the front seat of my car, hoping to someone that he’s too busy beating the shit out of that other guy to notice my beater car wheeze its way out of the lot and down the road. Just my luck he does, his eyes locking with mine for what feels like forever, but the other guy grabs for him and he’s forced to go back to fighting while I make my great escape back to my apartment.
✖✖✖✖
My head feels fuzzy, and I’ve got a weird, sinking knot in my belly. The weak strained light of dawn is starting to filter in the window through the slits in the blinds, which is strangely mesmerizing, most likely because I haven’t slept in 13 hours. I’ve been up all night working on filling in panels on comics, which is my job, and I procrastinated until the last minute like I always do.
I’d finished two hours ago, but I’d drank too much shitty coffee and my anxiety about having to go out into public and look like an idiot because I have to get another coffee maker is starting to kick in. It’s not that I don’t like asking for help, it’s just that I don’t really like dealing with strangers, and that’s mainly why Mikey is my only friend. In high school I was always the awkward chubby kid who hid away in the art room and drew things that made people question whether I needed to go to therapy or not, and so far I’ve only matured to the awkward chubby adult that has to recite in my head what I want to order when I go to a restaurant a bunch of times so I don’t screw up and make a fool of myself. Reaching out to people just is filled with tedious small talk that’s boring and makes me feel uncomfortable and annoyed, and when people reach out to me I always worry about saying the wrong thing. God bless Mikey, seriously, because he’s the only one who will actively put up with me and has never once gotten upset with me.
Trying to distract myself, I let my mind wander back to what that guy had yelled. “I wonder who Jimmy is?” I murmured to myself, twirling my pencil around. He’s probably a really good underground punk musician, and that guy who seemed like he was in charge was one of his friends or something. I started to absentmindedly sketch him, giving him neck tattoos and an ass ton of eyeliner. My hand started to lose its grip and I felt myself finally relax a little. I realized that I’m starting to feel the beginning of the caffeine crash, so I quickly text Mikey to please please drop the drawings off because I shouldn’t be operating a motor vehicle in my state and that he’s the best brother ever before I lean back against my bed, too lazy to actually get into it, and fall asleep.
✖✖✖✖
When I wake up, my room is dark, but I can hear the soft murmur of the TV from the other room. The drawings are gone, which means Mikey came through like he always does because he’s the best, and is probably in the other room.
“I was wondering when you were gonna get up,” Mikey stated as I shuffled into the room.
“How long did I sleep for?”
He shrugged. “It’s almost 11 now, if that helps at all.”
“Shit,” I moaned, burying my face in my hands and rubbed at my eyes. “I need to stop doing this. I’m morphing into a vampire who can never get any shit done.”
Mikey made a slight breathing noise, which let me know that he found that amusing. “They have sleeping pills, you know. And you could not like, procrastinate on everything.”
“Shut the hell up,” I muttered half-heartedly,
“How come there’s no coffee?”
“The thing broke. Now I’ve gotta go out and get a new one.”
“Want me to come with you to get it?”
Seriously, Mikey is a saint. I need to remember to get him like, a fruit basket or some shit because he deserves a bunch of fruit baskets with the fruit cut out like bats and zombies and vampires or something. “Yeah, please.” It helps having someone there with me. Besides, Mikey knows generally a lot about coffee makers, so now I won’t have to ask strangers questions.
We decided to watch Dawn of the Dead, because there’s nothing worth watching on TV this late except maybe South Park. I look for food that’s more than just orange juice and plant myself next to Mikey, eating and poking him occasionally until he falls asleep.
✖✖✖✖
Mikey got the coffee maker for me. He left me a note on it saying that he didn’t really want to wake me up, and it would be easier for him to just go get it himself. I sent him a text about how I’m going to kiss his feet the next time I see him and go to make myself a huge pot of steaming, glorious coffee to drink all day before working up the courage to go to the art supply store.
Going to the art store isn’t as bad as going to other stores because 1. Usually people leave me alone when I’m there so I don’t feel so pressured and 2. If anyone is in there, it’s Joe, the really nice guy who waves quietly to me from behind his Spiderman comic. And one time I was in there and this nice older lady started to talk to me about paintbrush quality. She was really funny and didn’t make me feel stupid for adding my opinion, and the best part was she was one of the only strangers I’ve met that didn’t make me want to run and hide. So basically, it’s the only public place that I feel comfortable.
I decided to get some neon paints that glow under black light for fun, since I’ve got every other possible color imaginable. I’ve been painting different comic book heroes, and they’ve been selling pretty well on the internet. After four more cups of coffee and a shirt change, I headed out.
✖✖✖✖
I rummaged around in my pocket for my jeans, expertly balancing my Starbucks in my hand the bag between my teeth while I pried the door open.
“Jesus Christ!” I screamed, almost dropping the bag of paints I had on the ground, which would have stained the carpet then I would have had to pay a shit ton to get that fixed. It’s The Guy I saw from the other night in the parking lot of Circle K, and he’s on my couch, smoking a cigarette and gazing at me from half lidded eyes. It feels like a dream, like maybe I fell asleep at a bus stop or something or hit my head and this is the aftermath. But the ground is firm under my feet and the reek of cigarette smoke wafting toward me is real, and oh Christ this is really real. “What- How the fuck did you get in here?!”
“Calm down, Pretty Boy,” he said calmly, lazily reaching over and snuffs out the cig in my ashtray. He stands up slowly and stretches, like it’s just so straining to get up off my couch after smoking my cigarettes, exposing a colorful strip of skin. I want to examine that skin forever, tracing the designs and pretend to paint in the colors, but then I realize what I’m thinking. I feel my face heat up, but in a flash the skin is replaced by his Misfits tee shirt, where it belongs. “I saw you watching me the other night in the parking lot. And God, you’re so pretty, I couldn’t let you just leave and never see you again.” He stepped closer, looking up at my face and tracing a finger along my jaw. “So I had to follow you home.” He smiled warmly, his lips pink and wet. He has a lip ring, which surprisingly doesn’t look stupid on him. In fact, it looks great. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out a little. I- um. I’m just not too great with the whole “taking it slow” thing. Once I saw you I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“You- what?” He’s a stranger. I don’t even know his name. Yet, I’m not afraid. So what he broke in? That’s him- bold and not afraid what anyone else thinks, and he certainly doesn’t give a shit what I think. “I thought you were pretty amazing. You know, slamming that guy to the ground and almost beating his brains out.” Yes, I find that you are probably capable of murder endearing. Good one, Gee.
He giggles- yeah, the guy who broke in and has two neck tattoos giggles. “Aw, that was nothing. Besides, if I knew you were there I would have been a gentleman and made sure you didn’t have to see that. But let’s not think about that. I’m Frank.” He offered me a small, tattooed hand which I gladly took. Frank’s easily shorter than me by a few inches, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in tattoos. They’re everywhere on him, and he’s got a nose ring and holes in his ears (and is that one in his eyebrow?!) where it looks like he got them pierced. His hair is styled in a black, sort of grown out mohawk, making the bangs curl around his face and sometimes hang in his eyes.
“Gerard,” I offered back, awkwardly scrubbing my other hand through my greasy locks. “Do you want anything?”
“Nah.” Frank shakes his head and shrugs. “I have to go, actually. But I’ll give you this.” He glanced over to the mess of pens and paper on my table and scribbles down his number, drawing a little smiling heart with x’s where it’s eyes should be. “Text me, and I’ll call you later when I can. Maybe even follow up on that gentleman thing and take you out on a proper date. See you later, Gerard.” He smirks at me in a flirty way and lets himself out, leaving me in a dazed and confused state.
My heart’s beating a million miles an hour. That guy has got to have some kind of criminal record. There’s no way he can’t. HE HAS A POSSIBLE EYEBROW PIERCING. PEOPLE WITH THAT MANY TATTOOS AND PIERCINGS AREN’T YOUR AVERAGE GUY. But the other thing is, I find him..... Endearing? His personality, that smirk when I opened the door, his boldness. I mean, he’s so unlike anything I could ever dream of being. I clutched the paper in my hand and looked it over again, almost expecting it to just vanish out of sight.
Maybe it’s fate, forcing me to be social with someone and put some of my burden on someone other than Mikey. Maybe Mikey actually hired Frank to be my friend so I can call him in the middle of the night when I have great ideas for zombie movies instead of Mikey.
I grabbed my phone and dialed, waiting impatiently between the dialing sound until the other line picked up. “Mikey? Can we talk?”
“Um, yeah sure.”
“Wait, wait. Are you with Pete? If you’re with Pete it’s okay I can-”
“Gee. It’s fine. Sit down and tell me what the hell is going on.”
I sighed and nodded, settling myself down where Frank was before and lit myself a cigarette. I took a drag before starting from the beginning, telling Mikey about the encounter at Circle K and how I went from being terrified of being killed for being a witness to a beating to the possible love interest of this guy. Mikey just stayed quiet for a while, processing everything I was saying and just would murmur “Mhm” when I’d take a break to smoke. “So what do I do?”
He sighed. “I don’t know, Gee. I mean, you can’t change the locks because he broke in without a key already. Do you wanna call the cops or something?”
“Well, no...” I trailed. Maybe Frank is misunderstood and wants to get out of the life of a criminal. Maybe he thought that I looked like a nice, normal guy that could hook him up with a job and be his friend. Possibly boyfriend. “What if he just wants to turn his life around or something? I mean, he could be a nice guy.”
I heard Mikey arguing with someone, and then sigh “Pete, stop! Okay, fine. You talk to him.”
“Gee, be crazy, and give this guy a chance,” Pete’s voice replied. “I mean, you might as well. He knows where you live already.”
I nodded, but then stammered an “Okay,” when I realized that Pete couldn’t see me nod. I mumbled a goodbye to both of them, hands starting to shake slightly as I typed in Frank’s number with a “Hey, it’s Gee :)”.
It’s only 3:43 in the afternoon. I need to do something, or I’m gonna freak out from waiting for him to respond, so I settle for distracting myself with paint and playing the demo CD of Pete’s band. Loudly.