When We're Both Thirty

“Word through the grapevine travels faster than it used to,” Mikey says, looking at Gerard with a grim expression.

“What cryptic shit are you trying to pull on me today?”

“Mother called me,” Mikey says, “because someone hasn’t answered his phone.”

“And how did you know to find me here of all places?” Gerard asks, squinting at the coffee shop in front of him. The sun is too bright, reflecting on the glass windows from the skyscrapers up above. When he was younger, Gerard used to think sky scrapers actually did touch the sky. He thought they poked a hole through the sky, which was dangerous, because if the hole got too big, it’d let all the gravity out. Like a balloon being popped.

“I am clairvoyant,” Mikey says.

“Yeah, or I’m just predictable,” Gerard murmurs, sidestepping his brother to walk into the small shop.

“Why are you ignoring mom?” Mikey asks.

“Because I’m not in the mood to have her lecture me about getting fired again.”

“You’re going to want to pick up the phone sooner or later,” Mikey says, “because you’re going to either be really amused by what she has to say, or really fucking pissed.”

“Or both,” Gerard says, taking his sunglasses off to look at the menu in front of him. He’s not sure why he even looks at the menu, he always orders the exact same thing. The baristas all know him by name. It’s like an episode of fucking Cheers. It’s not like he actually has to order verbally anymore.

Mikey shakes his head, “well, just pick up the next time, okay?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Coffee is on me,” Mikey says, rolling his eyes when someone behind the counter waves a hello to Gerard.

“Aw, you’re too kind. You think I need you to pay for my food because I’m unemployed.”

“Again.”

“Don’t rub it in, alright?” Gerard says, “Yeah, I’m jobless yet again. You don’t think I don’t know that?”

“Just take the free coffee,” Mikey says throwing a fiver at the lady working the cash register. She doesn’t say anything in response, just doles out the ever-slimming change as the prices continue to increase.

“Yeah alright,” Gerard says, grabbing his drink. “So what is it she’s angry about now? Is it that I got fired, or is it the reason I got fired? Or is it mostly just because this is the fourth time in the last two years that I’ve gotten fired?”

“None of the above,” Mikey says, making his way towards the door of the coffee shop to leave. Gerard pauses, and turns to ask Mikey what the hell he means until he sees that the guy is walking away. Gerard groans, and follows behind at a slower pace. There’s a lid on the coffee but Gerard is not stupid enough to try running with it.

“Mikes, where the hell are you going?” Gerard asks, running slowly out of the shop and back into the brisk autumn air, which is doing no favors to the sniffles he’s coming down with.

“Um, that way,” Mikey says, pointing.

“You can’t just hijack me, pay for my coffee on the threat that mom is mad at me, and then leave,” Gerard says.

“She’s not mad at you per se. She’s just... it’s so stupid you won’t even believe me. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Gerard says, “you up for movies tonight maybe?”

“I think you’re going to be busy tonight,” Mikey replies.

“What’s that supposed to mean? What the hell did I do?”

Mikey stops and looks at Gerard, with a bored and almost amused expression on his face, “think back twenty five years, Gee.”

“Twenty five years? What?” Gerard asks, “Mikes, you were two back then.”

“That’s all I’m going to say on the matter,” Mikey says, “now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

“Things? It’s noon on a Friday! What the hell are you doing?” Gerard asks him, as Mikey starts to walk away. As it seems he’s not going to get Mikey to spill anymore, he just stops and lets Mikey walk away on his own.

“I, unlike you, have a job to get back to,” Mikey calls back to him. A few pedestrians walking along the sidewalk look at them with annoyed expressions. The last thing they need is two grown adults shouting across the pavement.

Gerard rolls his eyes and whispers under his breath, “Well fuck you too.”

He makes a U-turn, walking back the way he came, a destination already in mind. Gerard lets the world drift passed him as he walks along the street, not really paying attention to much of anything until he’s stepping down yet another one of his routinely visited streets. He’s fairly sure that by now, he’s worn a path into the concrete from this small menacing alley to that coffee shop.

Gerard walks into the only shop that had the nerve to set itself up in this horror movie backstreet, and he lets the always too-stale air fill his lungs.

“Hey Gee,” a voice calls from behind the counter as Gerard gives a halfhearted wave to his buddy working the register. Then he looks around the comic book store, and sighs. It’s not like there’s really anything new to look at, as he’s got all the newest issues of all the comics he’s reading reserved by the guys in the back because he’s a regular. Sort of a loyalty deal.

“You’re order’s not going to be ready for another three days, I hope you know,” the guy says, a guy named Alan who has an impressive handlebar mustache and can be seen moonlighting as a waiter at the steam punk club across town.

“Yeah, just wanted to escape the grimy New York air, for the even grimier musty air of this poor decrepit building,” Gerard says.

“The building thanks you for the high compliment concerning its appearance.”

“What’s new with you then?” Gerard asks, walking over to the counter.

“Uh, not much. The Mrs. found a new vegetable casserole she wants to try out.”

Gerard makes a face, “Well if you’re not here the next time I see you, I’ll visit the morgue and ask for demise by death cap.”

“You’re a true friend,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Any chance you might have some variety of extreme emergency that might interfere with dinner plans?”

“Are you asking me to lie to your wife for you?” Gerard asks, “You’re going to have to deal with that on your own. Hell if I’m stepping in. Besides, I’ve got a stimulating evening lined up of being yelled at my mother and eating leftover Chinese takeout.”

“Is it about your latest stint with being occupationally terminated?”

“If that’s your arrogant way of asking whether she’s mad because I got fired again, than I don’t know. My brother was being all mysterious about it. He told me to think back, like twenty five years. What the fuck does that mean though? Like twenty five years ago I still believed Santa Clause was perving in on my nighttime antics,” Gerard says, and then, almost as if it was practiced, Gerard’s phone starts to ring, “oh shit, speak of the devil.”

“Have fun with that one,” Alan says, looking around to pretend he’s got something to do. Gerard flips him off and then, rather begrudgingly, holds his phone up to listen to whatever shit-storm is heading his way.

“Uh hi?” Gerard asks into the receiver.

“Gerard Way! I’ve been calling you nonstop for two days,” the sound of his mother on the other end forces him to pull the speaker away from his ear again, because he cannot afford the bill he’d have to pay if he went to the emergency room for having his ear drums blown out.

“Yeah, I, uh, dropped my phone in a fish tank,” Gerard says, playing with the peeling siding on the counter distractedly.

“You don’t have a fish.”

“I was in a pet store,” Gerard says.

“You don’t have any pets,” she says.

“Well I wasn’t getting things for pets.”

“So what were you doing in a pet store then?”

“What I do in a pet store is none of your concern, mom,” Gerard says. He rolls his eyes at himself because of how stupid an argument this is.

“I see,” she says, making a ‘hm’ noise, “well anyway, that’s not the point.”

“Then get to the point, I am entertaining company,” Gerard says, and he looks at Alan with a warning look in his eyes.

“You’re at home?” she asks.

“Uh, yeah,” Gerard says shrugging. He’s not sure why he’s lying, he just is.

“Oh really?”

“Mhm.”

“So then you hear me knocking right now?”

“Oh shit,” Gerard says, “that’s you? I thought that was the builders across the street. Hammering or something. I can’t uh, come to the door, I’m not, uh, decent.”

“You’re not decent with company over?” she asks.

“I’m thirty years old,” Gerard says, “What I get up to is also none of your concern.”

“I’m not outside your door, Gerard, you’re just a horrible liar,” she says, sounding disappointed in how gullible Gerard is.

“Oh,” Gerard says, smacking himself in the face, “okay, well I am with a friend though. Alan, say hi.”

Alan just gives him a look like he can’t believe he’s being such a hypocrite. Gerard had refused to lie for him, so really, the guy has no reason to lie for Gerard.

“Hello,” he says, looking at Gerard with an expression saying ‘you owe me.’

“You don’t need to make up excuses not to talk to me, I’ll be quick,” his mother says.

“Alright, what’s up then?”

“Halloween is coming up.”

Gerard is surprised by the words, taken aback by the lack of yelling, or moreover, a point.

“Yes,” Gerard says, drawing his eyebrows together out of confusion. It’s a month away technically, but considering how many months out of the year there actually are, it is technically coming up.

“Do you know what Halloween is?” she asks him.

“Do you want the dictionary definition?” Gerard inquires.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean then? Please, just, out with it, I have places to be.”

“No you don’t,” his mother says.

“Alright, but I have three Lord of the Rings movies to get through, plus bonus features, so that’s at least, like, I don’t know, twenty four hours of content or something?”

“Your lack of priorities astounds me.”

“Get to the point,” Gerard repeats, leaning against the counter, with his back to the pointed edge of it now digging into his back. He’s eyeing a display across the floor for something to do with Neil Gaiman, which Gerard will probably end up buying because Neil Gaiman is perfect.

“You’re so impatient,” she sighs, “but anyway, do you remember the house you grew up in?”

“I’m familiar with it, yes,” Gerard says, “I mean, I did live there for like eighteen years, not including the months where I was a fetus.”

“Yes, well, do you remember the family that lived next door to us?”

“Uh, family? I recall it being an old widow,” Gerard says.

“No, the other house.”

“The other house...” Gerard says, thinking back, “Oh right, yeah. I remember that house. That’s where that bitch Frank lived. What an asshole.”

“You didn’t always think like that.”

“I was disillusioned.”

“You’re morphing history to fit your own taste,” his mother accuses.

“So you say,” Gerard rolls his eyes, picturing that annoying little guy that used to walk around school like he owned the place. Frank wasn’t actually popular or anything, he was just overly confident. Gerard hates that guy so much he’s not even sure if hate is the right word for it. He wanted the guy to accidentally walk in front of a bus. Repeatedly.

“Gerard, don’t you remember your childhood at all?”

“What?’

“You two were best friends!”

“Me? Best friends with that guy? You must be mistaken,” Gerard replies.

“I have an entire photo album to prove it.”

“You do not! What? There is no way,” Gerard says, trying to think back. A lot of his childhood is pretty blurry though, he doesn’t really remember much of anything before fourth grade.

“Gerard you’re not that oblivious. Sure you remember being friends with Frank,” she says, “you stopped hanging out in second grade. You can’t tell me you don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember,” Gerard lies, because, come to think of it, he does vaguely remember being friends with someone who, putting the pieces together, was probably Frank.

Gerard doesn’t even think he remembers what Frank looks like. He had... a face. Probably some legs, and a couple of arms. Gerard recalls brown eyes. Or maybe they were green. They were kind of some color between the two. Frank was really hot in senior year. Gerard’s eyes widen at that thought and he tells himself to pretend that he’s never thought that in his entire life.

“Okay,” Gerard says, “So, suppose Frank and I were friends. What does that have to do with anything now?”

“Frank’s birthday is on Halloween.”

“Good for him,” Gerard says, “He’s still a dick.”

“You haven’t talked to him in over ten years, Gerard, you can’t say that with such certainty.”

“Yes I can, and I never intend to see him again so no one’s going to be able to prove me wrong.”

“Well that’s a shame,” she says, and Gerard’s eyes nearly pop right out of his head when he widens them this time.

“Why is that a shame?” Gerard asks.

“Because, oh you probably don’t remember this, but anyway, Gerard, you’re thirty.”

“I am aware of my own age, thank you for the refresher,” he says.

“The point is that you’re thirty and you haven’t had an emotionally stable relationship in those thirty years.”

“Well, you can discount the first sixteen or so years, because I was a child,” Gerard says, “And a horribly bad judge of character if what you say about Frank is true.”

“It is, but the point is that Frank is in the same city as you-”

“Where are you going with this?”

“It’s just that, well back then, you and Frank were so close,” she says.

“Yes, but if I do recall correctly, he was a little traitor. A Benedict Arnold in disguise,” Gerard reminds her, and then murmurs under his breath, “evil bastard.”

“Do you even know why you hate him?”

“Wasn’t he the one who made me cut off my hair? Bastard! I said so already.”

His mother tsks, “Frank wouldn’t have done that.”

“Oh wouldn’t he? Are you trying to tell me he was framed? The little runt was framed by some criminal mastermind. Some little trickster, probably wearing a ski mask, framed Frank and then he laughed monstrously at the disastrous deed he’d committed. Oh, I can just see it now. You might want to sell that story to Paramount, because that’s just what it is. A story. A lie. It’s not true.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was in second grade, and no second graders are smart enough to try to ruin our friendship by implicating the incident that resulted in my hair being chopped off,” Gerard replies.

“Do you remember before that happened though?”

“I try to forget about it,” Gerard answers, remembering how he used to hang out with Frank, basically every day. For god’s sake, Frank was his first kiss. Gross.

“You two were going to get married,” she says, “He was going to be Batman and you were going to be Wolverine.”

“I don’t ever recall the intercompany homosexual relationship issue of either of those comics,” Gerard says.

“You don’t have to think about it so analytically, you were five.”

“Therefore, an idiot.”

“You were adorable!”

“Were?” Gerard asks, “Mother I feel you are horribly misrepresenting how adorable I am now. You meant to say ‘are.’ I are adorable.”

“Your grammar-”

“Was intentionally wrong. Back to the conversation at hand, how does Frank’s birthday concern me?”

“It’s just that, well, you are older than you were back then. You’re more mature, you should just, meet with him at least. Try to find common ground or something.”

Gerard snorts, and almost feels his eyes roll out of his head at the words. “Surely you’re kidding.”

“He’s in New York,” she says.

“So?” Gerard says, “Lots of people are in New York. The Saturday Night Live cast! The characters from the show Friends!”

“Gerard,” she says, scolding him through her voice alone.

“Mother,” Gerard replies.

“Well, see the thing is that the two of you made this, sort of contract thing,” she says.

“Yeah, well back then I also made a picture using only stamps, resulting in a piece of construction paper that cost upwards of seven dollars,” Gerard says.

“Gerard, would you listen to me and set the sarcasm aside for just a moment?”

“I’m sorry, my sarcasm and I are a package deal,” Gerard says, “you want the sarcasm to go, you’re going to have to take me with it.”

“Do you remember that contract?”

“I recall thinking Frank and I would get married,” Gerard says, “but I also thought that Morrissey would officiate the wedding. I was banking on juice boxes and teddy grahams being served at the reception as well.”

“I just think you should maybe give him a visit.”

“You want me to visit my arch nemesis so that we can hook up?” Gerard says. “Mom, you are not being serious.”

“Gerard, you got fired. Again.”

“Everyone keeps saying that ‘again’ with such vehemence. Yes, I get it. I get fired a lot, I’m sorry. What do you want from me? A written confession that I’m bad at holding down a job? I can’t keep a job, sorry.”

“I just meant that, well, you’re in your thirties without a stable job, relationship, home, or anything else stable for that matter.”

“Not true,” Gerard says, “I just put up earthquake hooks in my living room, because the Subway travels right next to my building. They’re pretty damn stable now.”

“You just need to find some real stability.”

“You’re right,” Gerard says, “I should nail my bookshelf into the wall too.”

“I’m not kidding!”

“Me neither.”

“So you just want me to show up at this Frank guy’s place, a guy who I haven’t talked to in over ten years, who I’ve hated for over half of my life, and you just want me to what? Like, get down on my knee and ask him to marry me to stay true to a contract we made when we were five?”

“I just want you to have something.”

“Something? Oh, I’m sorry that all I have right now is my health and an ability to cope on my own without depending on others,” Gerard says.

“But you don’t have a job! No relationship! You won’t be able to pay your rent in a month.”

“Well I’m sorry that I’m such a fucking disappointment.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she says.

“Not in so many words,” Gerard says, “but yeah, it is what you were implying.”

“I just think-”

Gerard groans, “No, you know what? Fine! Just give me the guys address. Tell me where he lives, and fine, I’ll go see him. You can have your way, because I’m such an utter failure and you don’t deserve having such a washout of a son.”

“Ger-”

“No, don’t bother. We both know it’s true. I’m not under any misconception that it’s not true. Just tell me where he lives,” Gerard says, using his best guilt inducing voice.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Gerard says, louder than he’d anticipated, “just send it to me. You can have your way, okay? Just give me the information.”

Fast forward five minutes of his mom trying to calm him down, and Gerard scoffing her off because he’s stubborn and he has a bravado to uphold. Finally, however, he gets the details, not knowing whether he intends to do as he said he would or not.

Lying to your mom is generally not a good idea, but Gerard is an adult, and somewhat of a storyteller. That’s the way he sees it at least.

“You know you don’t have to.”

“But you’re going to be irritated with me if I don’t talk to Frank, and I’m going to be annoyed with you being annoyed at me if I don’t. Besides, at the very least, if he’s still a jerk, I can say it to his face how much I hate him,” Gerard says.

“Is that meant to be a silver lining?”

“I like clouds, the sun is annoying,” Gerard says. After another, what feels like three years, but is probably only a minute, he finally finds the space in the conversation to hang up.

“What was that about?” Alan asks, as Gerard looks at him over his shoulder.

The only response Gerard provides is a long exasperated sigh, followed by a rather unintelligible flailing of his arms. At that, Gerard walks back through the front door, trying to figure out anyway out of doing what he just said he’d do.