Categories > Celebrities > The Used > Why Don't You Just Drop Dead, McCracken?
“One of the things I love about New York is how everything has its own district,” I said to Amy when we to returned to the loft several hours later toting several large bags full of “totally cute punky” clothes. “The flower district, the clothing district, the foody district.”
“The red light district,” Amy grumbled limping along behind me in her high high heels that she had insisted on wearing.
“Exactly!” I said excited as I fumbled with my key at the door of our apartment. “More than half of this shit is yours you know. You’ll be lucky if Waldo doesn’t strangle you.”
“If I don’t strangle him first!” Amy shrieked looking into the apartment. I flinched at the shrillness of her tone. Did I really want to look?
My lovely apartment, so clean when we had left a mere four hours before, looked as if there had been a week of nonstop partying by deranged kindergarteners in it. I dropped my bags at the door and for the second time that day gaped at the wreckage my home had been reduced to. The kitchen counter was covered in what looked like melted smoothie and that was probably the least disgusting thing within my line of vision at that moment.
“Gross!!!” Amy screamed, pointing at the kitchen sink. “Is that a rat?!”
“Rats aren’t blonde, sweetie,” Waldo said wandering into the front hall. “It’s just Payton’s hair.”
“Why is Payton’s hair in the sink?” I said alarmed at how high my voice had suddenly become.
He shrugged, “We didn’t want to get it in our smoothies, duh.”
“For the love of god, there’s smoothie all over the floor, the counter, and the couch, duh!!!” I practically screamed at him.
“The couch? Oh, that must’ve happened when I tackled Bert.”
I didn’t even have the strength left in me to ask about that one. I just flew into the living to where there was a half melted trash can full of blacked paper, DVDs and CDs scattered in front of the TV, some uncapped sharpies sat next to a pair of dirty Chucks that had “PENIS” written on the toes, and an old magazine with Kelly Osbourne on the cover adorned with horns and blackened teeth.
“Ohh. Emm. Gee.” Amy said exaggeratedly before snatching Billy up as he sneakily tried to sample smoothie a la floor.
I turned in slow motion, surveying the damage until I was faced with the one person on whom my blind rage had decided to vent itself on.
“YOU!” I shrieked, advancing menacingly towards Bert who was holding a crumpled pack of Marlboro reds at the balcony door. “You….you…I don’t even know what the hell you are!”
“Instigator,” Adam said meekly.
“INSTIGATOR! You’re an instigator! You did this; I can’t even leave you here with my relatively well-behaved friends without you destroying the place! How am I supposed to tour with you and what the fuck did you do to my trashcan!?”
“That was my fault,” Payton said appearing from behind an openmouthed Bert with a half filled glass of the offending smoothie and a freshly shaven head. “I accidently dropped my cigarette into the trash, but luckily Bert put it out.”
I felt slightly deflated after that so I scowled at Payton and snatched the pack of cigarettes out of Bert’s hand before grabbing one of my books that had escaped unscathed and went outside to the balcony to calm down. Amy stowed her swag in her room and decided that she would supervise the cleanup.
(Before you start to think I’m an uber-anal ultra mega bitch, there are a few things you should probably know about me. I am the child of an English teacher and a major general. Being an army brat meant that I never really got to stay in one place long enough to make friends and it wasn’t until my father’s affair that my brother and I spent more than six months at one school. Despite my father’s betrayal, and the subsequent final move off of the Fort Huachuca army base in Arizona to my grandparent’s house in sunny Maplewood, New Jersey I still lived and breathed my strict adolescence. Everything I did at my small school right outside the greatest city in the known universe I did with a fierce passion. I learned how to play the bass in eighth grade and I sucked at it for a long time until I found a friend in Paul O’Shea. Whom I loved with every fiber of my being. Until he died. And now you know why I can be bitter, a bitch, and just downright grumpy.)
I’m not sure at what point I fell asleep while reading my book, but I did. I awoke to some soft tapping on my nose and a voice whispering in my ear.
“Ms. Reynolds, you have a phone call.”
I thought I was still dreaming.
“Well, I guess she’s out cold, Mrs. R,” the voice said at a normal speaking volume. “I can take a message though….okay…have Marla call her mother.”
My eyes snapped open and I whipped around so fast that I swear my whiplash from the night before came screaming back to ask for my autograph.
“Of course I would love to come have tea with you Mrs. R,” Bert said meandering around the balcony with the phone cradled to his ear.
I began to motion wildly at him. He DID NOT want to have tea with my mom.
Bert noticed me and smiled before mouthing, “Your Mom” and giving me a thumbs up. “Yes, ma’am. Well it looks like she has woken up now and is shooting eye daggers at me. She has pretty good aim, which I am sure you are well aware of. Mm-hmm. Well kids will be kids….yes. I am positive she would like to talk to you ma’am. Yes, I’ll talk to you again soon, here she is.”
“What a delightful woman,” He remarked as he handed me the phone. I could only manage to stare at him in disbelief as he headed back into the apartment, I’m sure to burn my baby pictures or something equally destructive.
I looked at the phone in my hand like it was a snake about to bite me and then slowly put it to my ear. “Hello mom?” I said, not quite managing to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
“You know, Marlene,” my mother’s slightly accented voice said. “You’re more likely to get a date if you sound at least slightly happy about talking to your mother. Speaking of which, how did you date with that nice boy Jonathan go?”
I wracked my brain, “The lawyer?”
“No dear,” My mom said sounding exasperated. “The doctor.”
“Oh, that Jonathan,” I said slowly reliving the horror that was my date with the doctor. Okay, it hadn’t been that bad, until he had tried to get me to give him a blow job in the taxi on the way to the restaurant. That had happened within five minutes of us meeting. “It was great, but I’m….” I struggled to find a plausible sounding lie.
“You’re what?” My mother snapped impatiently.
“I’m seeing someone else right now,” I blurted out crossing my fingers that she would believe me.
“Well thank you for telling the woman who brought you into the world.”
I let out the breath I had unknowingly been holding in and did a victory punch in the air.
“Is this the same young man I was talking to a moment ago?” She asked dragging me out of my Rocky-running-up-the-stairs moment.
“Bert?!” I said disgustedly. “God no. You wouldn’t know him”
“Well, I hope to be meeting the boy who has swept my baby off of her feet,” she said motherly. “See if he’s up to snuff. You need to start telling me things or I’m going to enlist Amy to spy on you for me again.”
“Well, I do have something exciting to tell you.”
“Don’t leave me in suspense,”
“Oh, it’s nothing really. My little ol’ rock band was signed this morning. That’s all.” I said attempting and failing at sounding nonchalant.
Approximately 3.726 seconds later my phone exploded with happy sounding, decibel shattering scream/sobs from my middle aged mother. I smiled to myself. As proper as she may act sometimes, my mom has always love to be involved with the bands, especially when Paul’s mom had still attended some shows. It had always cracked me up to see little Mrs. Korean divorcee flirting with Shay and his two foot high liberty spikes.
“Mom,” I said as rationally as I could with my hand over my mouth trying to suppress my very unladylike snorts of laughter. Adam and Bert had begun mock sword fighting with a mop and a broom in the center of the living room. “Calm down.”
“I have to call your aunts, and Cousin Mary, and your high school guidance counselor who said you all would never make it. I’m going to love wiping that self satisfied smirk off of her face. Oh, are you going to be making an album sweetheart?”
“We’re going to be doing a short tour first, mom. But I will make sure to get you some tickets to anything nearby. The tour stars on the seventeenth.” I sounded so adult. Yea, right.
“Marlene,” My mother began warningly. “The seventeenth is in three days.”
“What?” I felt all of my bravado make like a banana and split. “Oh crap…”
“Oh crap, indeed”
“Mom, love ya, gotta go.”
I took off running towards my room, snatching the damp mop out of Adam’s hand as I went and thrusting it at a surprised looking Amy.
“Hey,” Payton whined. “I have money riding on Adam. That’s not fair.”
“Yea,” Waldo said sounding annoyed. “What’s your problem today?”
“Pack.” I said sounding desperate. “That tour starts in three days.”
“Techniquely ,” Bert said with a grunt as he dealt a death blow straight to Adam’s crotch who proceeded to collapse onto the couch groaning. “We leave tomorrow.” Upon taking in our openmouthed expressions he shrugged and simply said. “Practice.”
‘Just three months,’ I reminded myself. ‘And then you never have to speak to him again.’
Author's Note-I would like to thank Mike's Hard Pomegranate Lemonade, Fall Out Boy, and my general lack of a social life for making this chapter possible. I couldn't have done it with out you.
“The red light district,” Amy grumbled limping along behind me in her high high heels that she had insisted on wearing.
“Exactly!” I said excited as I fumbled with my key at the door of our apartment. “More than half of this shit is yours you know. You’ll be lucky if Waldo doesn’t strangle you.”
“If I don’t strangle him first!” Amy shrieked looking into the apartment. I flinched at the shrillness of her tone. Did I really want to look?
My lovely apartment, so clean when we had left a mere four hours before, looked as if there had been a week of nonstop partying by deranged kindergarteners in it. I dropped my bags at the door and for the second time that day gaped at the wreckage my home had been reduced to. The kitchen counter was covered in what looked like melted smoothie and that was probably the least disgusting thing within my line of vision at that moment.
“Gross!!!” Amy screamed, pointing at the kitchen sink. “Is that a rat?!”
“Rats aren’t blonde, sweetie,” Waldo said wandering into the front hall. “It’s just Payton’s hair.”
“Why is Payton’s hair in the sink?” I said alarmed at how high my voice had suddenly become.
He shrugged, “We didn’t want to get it in our smoothies, duh.”
“For the love of god, there’s smoothie all over the floor, the counter, and the couch, duh!!!” I practically screamed at him.
“The couch? Oh, that must’ve happened when I tackled Bert.”
I didn’t even have the strength left in me to ask about that one. I just flew into the living to where there was a half melted trash can full of blacked paper, DVDs and CDs scattered in front of the TV, some uncapped sharpies sat next to a pair of dirty Chucks that had “PENIS” written on the toes, and an old magazine with Kelly Osbourne on the cover adorned with horns and blackened teeth.
“Ohh. Emm. Gee.” Amy said exaggeratedly before snatching Billy up as he sneakily tried to sample smoothie a la floor.
I turned in slow motion, surveying the damage until I was faced with the one person on whom my blind rage had decided to vent itself on.
“YOU!” I shrieked, advancing menacingly towards Bert who was holding a crumpled pack of Marlboro reds at the balcony door. “You….you…I don’t even know what the hell you are!”
“Instigator,” Adam said meekly.
“INSTIGATOR! You’re an instigator! You did this; I can’t even leave you here with my relatively well-behaved friends without you destroying the place! How am I supposed to tour with you and what the fuck did you do to my trashcan!?”
“That was my fault,” Payton said appearing from behind an openmouthed Bert with a half filled glass of the offending smoothie and a freshly shaven head. “I accidently dropped my cigarette into the trash, but luckily Bert put it out.”
I felt slightly deflated after that so I scowled at Payton and snatched the pack of cigarettes out of Bert’s hand before grabbing one of my books that had escaped unscathed and went outside to the balcony to calm down. Amy stowed her swag in her room and decided that she would supervise the cleanup.
(Before you start to think I’m an uber-anal ultra mega bitch, there are a few things you should probably know about me. I am the child of an English teacher and a major general. Being an army brat meant that I never really got to stay in one place long enough to make friends and it wasn’t until my father’s affair that my brother and I spent more than six months at one school. Despite my father’s betrayal, and the subsequent final move off of the Fort Huachuca army base in Arizona to my grandparent’s house in sunny Maplewood, New Jersey I still lived and breathed my strict adolescence. Everything I did at my small school right outside the greatest city in the known universe I did with a fierce passion. I learned how to play the bass in eighth grade and I sucked at it for a long time until I found a friend in Paul O’Shea. Whom I loved with every fiber of my being. Until he died. And now you know why I can be bitter, a bitch, and just downright grumpy.)
I’m not sure at what point I fell asleep while reading my book, but I did. I awoke to some soft tapping on my nose and a voice whispering in my ear.
“Ms. Reynolds, you have a phone call.”
I thought I was still dreaming.
“Well, I guess she’s out cold, Mrs. R,” the voice said at a normal speaking volume. “I can take a message though….okay…have Marla call her mother.”
My eyes snapped open and I whipped around so fast that I swear my whiplash from the night before came screaming back to ask for my autograph.
“Of course I would love to come have tea with you Mrs. R,” Bert said meandering around the balcony with the phone cradled to his ear.
I began to motion wildly at him. He DID NOT want to have tea with my mom.
Bert noticed me and smiled before mouthing, “Your Mom” and giving me a thumbs up. “Yes, ma’am. Well it looks like she has woken up now and is shooting eye daggers at me. She has pretty good aim, which I am sure you are well aware of. Mm-hmm. Well kids will be kids….yes. I am positive she would like to talk to you ma’am. Yes, I’ll talk to you again soon, here she is.”
“What a delightful woman,” He remarked as he handed me the phone. I could only manage to stare at him in disbelief as he headed back into the apartment, I’m sure to burn my baby pictures or something equally destructive.
I looked at the phone in my hand like it was a snake about to bite me and then slowly put it to my ear. “Hello mom?” I said, not quite managing to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
“You know, Marlene,” my mother’s slightly accented voice said. “You’re more likely to get a date if you sound at least slightly happy about talking to your mother. Speaking of which, how did you date with that nice boy Jonathan go?”
I wracked my brain, “The lawyer?”
“No dear,” My mom said sounding exasperated. “The doctor.”
“Oh, that Jonathan,” I said slowly reliving the horror that was my date with the doctor. Okay, it hadn’t been that bad, until he had tried to get me to give him a blow job in the taxi on the way to the restaurant. That had happened within five minutes of us meeting. “It was great, but I’m….” I struggled to find a plausible sounding lie.
“You’re what?” My mother snapped impatiently.
“I’m seeing someone else right now,” I blurted out crossing my fingers that she would believe me.
“Well thank you for telling the woman who brought you into the world.”
I let out the breath I had unknowingly been holding in and did a victory punch in the air.
“Is this the same young man I was talking to a moment ago?” She asked dragging me out of my Rocky-running-up-the-stairs moment.
“Bert?!” I said disgustedly. “God no. You wouldn’t know him”
“Well, I hope to be meeting the boy who has swept my baby off of her feet,” she said motherly. “See if he’s up to snuff. You need to start telling me things or I’m going to enlist Amy to spy on you for me again.”
“Well, I do have something exciting to tell you.”
“Don’t leave me in suspense,”
“Oh, it’s nothing really. My little ol’ rock band was signed this morning. That’s all.” I said attempting and failing at sounding nonchalant.
Approximately 3.726 seconds later my phone exploded with happy sounding, decibel shattering scream/sobs from my middle aged mother. I smiled to myself. As proper as she may act sometimes, my mom has always love to be involved with the bands, especially when Paul’s mom had still attended some shows. It had always cracked me up to see little Mrs. Korean divorcee flirting with Shay and his two foot high liberty spikes.
“Mom,” I said as rationally as I could with my hand over my mouth trying to suppress my very unladylike snorts of laughter. Adam and Bert had begun mock sword fighting with a mop and a broom in the center of the living room. “Calm down.”
“I have to call your aunts, and Cousin Mary, and your high school guidance counselor who said you all would never make it. I’m going to love wiping that self satisfied smirk off of her face. Oh, are you going to be making an album sweetheart?”
“We’re going to be doing a short tour first, mom. But I will make sure to get you some tickets to anything nearby. The tour stars on the seventeenth.” I sounded so adult. Yea, right.
“Marlene,” My mother began warningly. “The seventeenth is in three days.”
“What?” I felt all of my bravado make like a banana and split. “Oh crap…”
“Oh crap, indeed”
“Mom, love ya, gotta go.”
I took off running towards my room, snatching the damp mop out of Adam’s hand as I went and thrusting it at a surprised looking Amy.
“Hey,” Payton whined. “I have money riding on Adam. That’s not fair.”
“Yea,” Waldo said sounding annoyed. “What’s your problem today?”
“Pack.” I said sounding desperate. “That tour starts in three days.”
“Techniquely ,” Bert said with a grunt as he dealt a death blow straight to Adam’s crotch who proceeded to collapse onto the couch groaning. “We leave tomorrow.” Upon taking in our openmouthed expressions he shrugged and simply said. “Practice.”
‘Just three months,’ I reminded myself. ‘And then you never have to speak to him again.’
Author's Note-I would like to thank Mike's Hard Pomegranate Lemonade, Fall Out Boy, and my general lack of a social life for making this chapter possible. I couldn't have done it with out you.
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