FicWad

The sun hung in the middle of the sky on a Friday afternoon somewhere in the state of New York. It was June, 2006, and rock band, The January Meltdown, was finally returning home from their first headline tour after a five month stint on the road. The tour bus was alive with chatter as the entire band sat around the kitchen table, playing a game of poker.

Once again, Abbey Talent found herself staring out the window instead of paying attention to the game taking place around her. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to play poker, which certainly didn’t help her cause. ‘Abbey!’ Aleisha, Abbey’s older sister and the band’s lead guitarist, brought the young lead singer out of her reverie. ‘Are you going to take part in the game this century, or would you like us to just wait a few millenniums for you to be ready? It’s fine, you know, we have all the time in the world.’ Sarcasm ran in the Talent family. Only one of Abbey’s siblings didn’t seem to have inherited the trait. That sibling was Aleisha’s twin sister, Darcey, the band's keyboardist, who looked at Abbey and smiled apologetically, trying to excuse Aleisha’s impatience.

Abbey rose from the table and let her cards scatter down onto the table. ‘I’m going to save you all the humiliation of losing to me. I’m going to nap.’ She walked briskly from the room, down the hall and into the bunk room, where she flopped on her bed, tore back the tiny curtain and gazed out the window, watching the scenery fly past in a blur of colour. Abbey was ecstatic to be returning to Newark today. Although she had loved touring, she had missed home terribly. She felt herself drifting away and so she let sleep claim her, hoping it would pass a few hours so home would be that much closer.

‘FUCKING SNAP!’ Abbey was jerked awake by the sound of rhythm guitarist, Chris, yelling out random game catch phrases. ‘GO FUCKING FISH! UNO! ALL THAT SHIT!’ He screamed. ‘I AM THE WINNER!’ She laughed as she heard the other members of the band groan as he predictably commenced his victory dance; Chris was the sorest winner and they all knew it. He would be gloating about his win for days. Footsteps approached Abbey’s bunk and Jordan, TJM’s bassist, peeked tentatively around Abbey’s bunk curtain. ‘Abs, your phone’s vibrating.’ He handed her the cell phone and disappeared again. She didn’t even bother to look at the caller ID and flipped the phone open, muttering a ‘hello?’

The scream of a throaty male voice, reminiscent of a pot smoker, reached Abbey’s right ear.
‘MOTHERFUCKER!’ Frank Iero was never one to hide his enthusiasm. ‘You haven’t called me in like, a month! I thought you’d died of malnutrition or something!’
Abbey couldn’t help but laugh at her best friend’s genuinely disappointed tone. ‘Dude, I’ve been kind of busy. Tour, you know. Plus, you could’ve called me you asshole.’
‘For your information, Abs, I’ve been kind of busy. Recording an album, you know.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ Abbey retorted. ‘We’ve both been busy motherfuckers and shit best friends so we have to make up for it by hanging out tonight.’
Frank lapsed into silence momentarily. ‘Wait. W-w-w-wait. You’re coming home today?!’
‘I wrote it on your calendar.’ Abbey rolled her eyes and shook her head as she spoke.
‘Yeah, I lost it,’ Frank admitted as he tried to conceal his sheepish grin, even though he knew Abbey couldn’t see him through the phone. ‘BUT YOU’RE HOME TODAY! HOLY SHIT...’ He trailed off. ‘HOLY SHIT, I HAVE TO CLEAN THE HOUSE BEFORE YOU GET HERE!’ He sounded panicked.

Abbey's eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Frank. What’s wrong with the house?’
Frank’s voice went slightly high pitched. ‘Oh, nothing you know. Just gotta do some tidying...’
‘Frank,’ Abbey said sharply. ‘Tell me the truth.’
‘Oh it’s really not that bad... It’s just...’ Abbey knew that he was trying to find a way to admit his doings in a way that would make her the least angry. ‘The boys have been staying here for a while, you know, since like April, so we could write together whenever we want and...’
‘Frank.’
‘There’s trash everywhere, Mikey decided to shave his uh, pubic area, in the kitchen sink and it got clogged, Bob took a shit in your bathroom three days ago and the smell won’t go away and I may have cut my toenails on your bed and forgot to clean up afterwards. We tried to straighten Ray’s hair but all we ended up doing was breaking your straightener and we’re pretty sure that’s the reason why Ray’s moulting hair all over the house. Gerard wore some of your t shirts and they haven’t smelled right since even though we washed them like ten times and I’m pretty sure Hairy McLairy is constipated because we ran out of dog food so Mikey said it would be okay to feed him a cheeseburger.’
A stunned silence followed this statement.

Abbey had been living with Frank for five years. They had bought their dog Hairy McLairy two years ago, to celebrate the release of the second album by Frank’s band, My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. She had always known Frank a messy, even slobby person, but his band took it to a whole new level. Abbey was reasonably good friends with the lot of them, she had even dated their bassist, Mikey, briefly a year or so ago, but that didn’t make remaining calm at the thought of toenails on her bed and a constipated dog, amongst other things, any easier.

‘But I swear, everything will be fine when you get here. I know you probably want to sleep for a decade when you get back and not worry about cleaning and shit so I’ll sort it out. How long until you’re here, babe?’
Abbey looked at her watch and replied in a monotone voice. ‘One hour and forty five minutes.’
‘Fuck!’ The line went dead.