Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Perquisite
Perquisite
3 reviewsThe story of an amoral junkie with a fetish for literature and bitter 'jokiest' determined to save him. Lives cross and end but how do they carry on?
0TrainWreck
Perquisite. Chapter 1. What I Was Looking For.
Gerard.
What had brought me to the one of the unused extremities of the school was the drunken squabble and clanking of bottles. With only seconds to spare before the meeting began, I decided to explore and find him or her (not that it mattered, they were all one in the same: scum) and work my magic where ever my magic was needed.
It was cold and dusty here, no one willing to heat places we didn't use on Saturdays. As long as it's free for these poor kids I didn't care. Not kids, most of them were legal, not like it made heroine any more legal.
I was getting closer to the source of the noise and my palms began to sweat. "Come on Gerard, you've done this a billion times." I mumbled and wiped my hands on my pants. "Yeah well they're dangerous, and I have no incentive to help them but Istill do. I'm not scared, just... anxious." I argued and consoled myself at the same time. I clenched my fists as I could finally distinguish the words he was saying.
"Better than any cock.Better than any fucking drink....!" I smelt a burning fire and knew what was going on. I pushed the door open with a creak. "Oi! Who goes there?" He said in arough voice making himself giggle. I surveyed the scene. He was lying on his back, arm still tied, needle still in hand. His pillow was a glass bottle and he was almost naked, save a tattered white wife beater and his stained boxers.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" I asked him in a soft voice.
"I'm just.... Just... I'm a just having some ...fun..."- more mumbling- "...catching winks." He trailed off and continued to ramble in the slow tired voice.
"Uh huh... I see you're having some... illegal fun." I crouched down next to him. He swung his head to look at me and his eyes rolled around in his head till he squeezed them shut and opened them again to stare into my eyes. He's just akid, for real. He can't be legal. He sunken in face made his fantastically bright eyes stand out, his dark shaggy hair contrasting with his pale waxy skin.
He gasped. "If I get caught." I filled in the blanks of his sentence for myself. I knew how to deal with these guys; after all, it takes one to know one. To know is to love, and to love is to know. I recited in my head, catching myself off guard. To love is to know... It haunted my skull so I continued with him.
"Do you want me to call the cops?" I prompted. This would be easy; it's always easy when they're high.
"Noo..." He groaned and curled himself into a ball.
"I won't make you go if you come with me." I stood up and started to unzip my sweatshirt that suddenly was incredibly constricting.
"I won't fucking suck your dick put it back in your fucking pants!" he managed to shout. I cringed. Had this kid gone through more than a couple highs? Or was it simply naivety speaking? I knelt back down, put my hand on his cold, bony shoulder.
"My name is Gerard." I said softly.
"I dun care..." he mumbled and pulled his shoulder out of my relaxed grasp.
"I won't take you to the cops if you come with me. I won't hurt you either." He reached out to touch the browning wall slowly, like he had to prove it was real, like he had to prove to himself he could move his muscles. Thought seemed to consume his face and he stared intently at the wall.
"I barely di any." He said, voice's frequency and pitch roller coastering. He was still fascinated with that goddamn wall.
"If you get up and come with me nothing bad will happen to you." I repeated, knowing that he probably was addicted, he probably had done a lot, and that he couldn't comprehend a word I was saying.
"I barely di any!" he shouted and flung his hand out but when it met my knee I barely felt it.
"Uh huh. So you're coming with me?" I got behind him, obstructing the bright light from the windows with the translucent paper over them. Reaching under his armpits Ipicked him up, and placed him on his feet. He was a good head shorter than me. For some reason my heart broke to see such a young skinny boy like this. I knew I could help him and I knew I would. But why did someone like him have to be so misled?
The way he leaned into me for support was, I will confess, as adorable as it was vexing. I didn't want him hurting me, or his dirty little junkie hands frisking my pockets for some money. I stumbled back a little.
"Whooaaa... I barely did any!" he said and his arms stiffened up. I steadied him against me and peered over his shoulder to see his cooking equipment strewn on the floor. I stomped on the needle, shattering it, and scattered the remaining dope across the floor till it soaked in with the other dust and dirt. I was sure he didn't realize what I was doing because he would have done something drastic if he did.
Spoon and bottles stayed in place because Ihad no idea as to what to do with them. The thing that looked like nothing more than a used condom I removed from around his arm with my teeth, spitting it onto the floor. I heard him moan again when his socked feet tripped over themselves.
"Hey, hey, hey..." I said pulling him back up to his full height. "Come on, let's just go." I dragged him to the door and closed it behind me.
Realizing that carrying a half naked boy obviously able to see his house from the height he was at through an empty part of a decrepit building wasn't the wisest decision for someone with the history like I had, I sat him down on one of the benches in the school hallway. He sighed loudly.
"Waz going' on?" He asked as I pulled his arms through my warm hoodie. He looked at me with a dumb smile.
"We're just going to clean you up."
"Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age." He slurred randomly. His gesticulation of his theory was wild an uncontrolled.
"Exactly..."I didn't give the phrase another thought and instead I left him there for asecond and looked back into the room where I had found him but I couldn't find evidence of him stripping before shooting up so I returned to him and decided the sweat shirt covered just enough of him for me to not to half to worry about him. I stood him back up and lifted his arm around my shoulders keeping the other one tight in my grasp.
We shuffled to the gymnasium where the meeting was held, and the folding chairs Ihad set up in a circle were almost filled. With my head I motioned for one of the anonymous people sitting down to grab another chair for him and they complied, sensing either a state of urgency or obliging for all the times I had helped them, because I had helped them. I sounded like an ass because it was the truth. Damn teenagers and their highs.
The possessive air I gave off like a lion and his new kill cleared a radius around us, not narcissistic or indifferent to them, I just needed, or perhaps wanted him more.
I sat him down, observing his skin break out in bumps when the cold metal chair unfolded and met his hot skin. His head hung backwards but I didn't care enough to fix it, as long as he stayed in his chair.
"So..." I said clapping my hands together and seating myself down in the chair, eager to get their eyes off of me and start the meeting. "As to our impromptu guest, he'll be with us for awhile. Why don't you tell us your name?" Their stares slowly broke my from my nervous face and onto his, waiting for the answer from the kid they all wanted to be.
"Fr...... ank...Frank...Frankayyyyyy" He said, trying to swing his head to see everyone.
"Look Ithink we can carry on without you this time Gerard, why don't you take care of him till he's alright to be here?" Someone suggested. It was Shelia, a long time attendee of our get-togethers. She was right, I wasn't their leader by choice, maybe by experience, or just because I had become a fixture to them despite the waves of new and old addicts who dropped by for a self-help meeting that really just got them... us off the streets.
I sighed. "I don't know where to take him." None of us could take our eyes of him. Say his name Gerard. I told myself. Say it. "I don't know where to take Frank."
"You know exactly where to take him." Said Hollis. He was new, and albeit clean, testy and moody as ever. I glared at him.
"I'm not taking him to my apartment." That would just be trouble. Be weird.
"Maybe he meant get him a motel room." Leah suggested in a soft voice.
"I don't have the funds for that." I stared at my shoes. It wasn't like I had ajob, and the money I had gotten for smack was stolen or from stealing cars and shit.
"We could donate, Gerard, the least we could do." Margo said softly. Her black swooping hair covered her face, embarrassed she had actually spoken at to me concentrated on the floor.
"Yeah. I would do that." Ray said. He hoisted the bottom half of him off the chair and reached into his pocket and the others slowly followed suit.
"Honestly guys, it's not necessary, a shelter would-" I tried. It was surprising how readily they would. The money was pushed to me in the handfuls, some from kids I didn't even know. "Really... guys, thanks."
"Hey, no problem Gerard, you're worth more than that to us." Ray said with a smile and the rest nodded in agreement. I didn't really know why I didn't believe them, but they were greater than me, and so were the people before them who were able to move on. Move on to somewhere else where people were waiting for them, a heaven-like place I didn't have, and wouldn't have the chance to find.
"Dude get the hell outta here!" Shouted Max teasingly as I sat there with a fistful of cash. I chuckled.
"Wow, really? Hate me that much you're willing to pay for me to leave?" Poor attempt at a joke, and the first in months. In acknowledgement they grinned and nodded again and I felt my face rise in temperature as their anticipating eyes relentlessly stayed fixed on my back.
I hoisted the babbling, filthy boy (He really did smell) back to his feet and dragged him outside to the bus stop with one last wave goodbye to the group which Ray and Shelia seemed to take over, much to Hollis' resentment.
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