Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Perquisite
The room felt so empty without him there. Its crushing silence was unbearable and made worse by what he had said, yelled, before leaving me alone. I swung my feet over the side of the bed and rested my head in my hands. He was winning at everything, with the stupid, patronizing, aptness of knowing what was going on. I was what he wanted-on the way to getting better. I would have felt proud of myself if it was my fucking choice, but it wasn't. I wanted to prove him wrong now, like those stupid pictures in Hollywood. But why would I bother proving him wrong if I could win? If I got the upper hand. It would piss him off so bad. I smiled to myself. I just wanted him to like me, like he liked the people he met with. Admittedly, he had the intentions of someone who wanted to help, but he got caught up in that and didn't see that I was happy with heroine, and the life it came with. He could be a part of it if he wanted, which, I hoped he would.
I needed a hit to clear my head.
I stood up to walk around the room like I did when I was bored. Sometimes I ended up throwing up my meal, but who wouldn't when all you had to eat for the past three days was SPAM? My hand grazed the door knob out of habit and I was surprised to see it turned. I grabbed it and yanked on the door. The afternoon light and cool air rushed at my face.
I inhaled deeply with wide, excited eyes. Oh fuck yes. I looked around the room. Was this a joke? Was this a test? Because I was about to fail, big time. I grabbed his coat that he had left at the end of my bed and ran out the door, stopping at the end of the walkway that married the line of doors which led to the other rooms, all probably with a lot less dramatic than this one.
The asphalt felt good beneath my feet, compared to the grimy carpet that I had to deal with in there, in my cell. "Oh fuck yes!" I shouted and slid my arms into the coat. It was big on me, but I didn't care. Couldn't go running through town in my underwear, now could I? I jumped up and down a few times out of excitement. "You gotta be shitting me!" I said gleefully as I slammed the door shut behind me and ran like bloody hell.
I eventually ended up in the old neighborhood I had dealt to and bought in, getting there only after being chased by the cops for hitching a ride on the back of the bus, just like the good old days, except less fun since I was all by my lonesome. Jesus, phrases like that could kill you.
I clapped my hands and rubbed them together, blowing into them once or twice to keep myself warm. Weird I never realized that warming my hands never really could keep my whole fucking body warm. I shook my head free of the cluttering thoughts and focused on getting to the apartment. 12B. I repeated to myself and turned into an alley to avoid any more pigs.
The building was more decrepit than I remembered, the red bricks crumbling and the roof's tiles fraying. Leaves clogged the gutter and windows were smashed in like someone had tried to break in, or jump out. Spray paint graffiti decorated the apartments, sprucing up with neon and wild strokes what the empty flower beds had failed to do. Well, this was home. I felt a warm happiness spread through my body and translate into a smile across my face. Home. Gerard was a thing of the past. I hopped up the white steps covered in dust, dirt, bullet shells and condoms, not to mention the cigarettes, blunts, balloons and broken light bulbs. Home was like 'over the rainbow'. I opened the door and strolled in, taking the steps three at a time until I had gotten to the twelfth floor.
I passed the cries of pain, pleasure and passion of the occupants and sprinted down the creaking hall to apartment 12B. I stood outside it expectant of the fun that was on the horizon. I peeked through the peep hole as if I could see what was inside... I couldn't, so instead I adjusted the restricting denim jacket on my broad shoulders and knocked on the door and turned the handle simultaneously.
"Hey guys! You'll never believe what happened to me! And someone better start cooking before I even start." I looked around, by passing the first room where the dust on the floor had to be an inch thick. I pushed open the only door in the apartment that was closed and saw my friends in a circle on the floor, cooking as I had hoped, what else?
"Oh my god, Frank?!" Shouted Hollis. "I thought you were a fucking goner!" He jumped up and grabbed me in a bone crushing hug. Jimmy, Tulip and Gia jumped up too and crowded around me.
"Let him go, I can't see him!" Laughed Tulip and Hollis let me out and into the circle of friends. "Frank!" She cried, and grabbed my head. "You screw up." They laughed and she planted one on my cheek. Jimmy and Gia grabbed my arms and pulled me down to the floor, enlarging their circle.
"We'll cook up a hard one for the return of Frank!" Declared Jimmy and got to work. I couldn't help but feel out of place, though with two girls on my arms and smack should be the opposite. Gia gave me another hug as we sat on the floor and they all chattered exuberantly.
"Gia! You're pregnant!" I looked down to her swollen stomach.
"Thanks for pointing that out, and to think, I had assumed it a tumor all along!" she laughed and patted her belly. "Probably just as annoying." She muttered.
"...The father?" I asked weakly. It couldn't have been me, I never fucked Gia, at least not consciously.
"Um, I don't actually know..." She started.
"Is it Maz? Is that why he's not-"
"Hey dude here, just in case." Hollis whispered into my ear, and never looking directly at him, I reached out my hand a fraction of the inch and felt two pills pushed into the palm of my hand.
"Fucking awesome." I told him and he smashed his forehead against mine.
"Always looking out for the less fortunate." He said with an excited laugh. I grinned, so good to be back with smack. And friends.
"Shit guys." Jimmy said and stood up, backing against the wall. We turned to see what had happened. Huge flames had engulfed the blankets on the floor.
"GET THE SHIT!" I shouted. We looked around helplessly, each powerless against the flames.
"Shit guys, fucking run!" Tulip shouted and was gone before we could give it another thought. She had taken Gia with her before she had inhaled too much smoke I guess. The fire spread to the ceiling fan. I felt tears stream run down my face. All the shit was gone, ruined... Except for the pills in my pocket. I looked to Hollis as our thoughts aligned.
"Here." I said and parted ways with one pill.
"Thanks man." He took it and we stared at each other for the last time. He held out his arms and I obliged my one true friend a hug before the collapsing floor made us break up. I pushed him out the door and we ran down the hall and the stairs that were filled with smoke. People had ventured out of their apartments to cough and see if there was anything to see. I felt no remorse not telling them they needed to leave, hell I didn't even hear the sirens as I followed Hollis' dingy yellow fleece pullover out of the building. I didn't think about how my books would only feed the fire, and how I wanted to go back and check to see if I could salvage them still. Not to sound like a prick, but they were the only things I had, my best friends were being burning alive. Hemmingway, Bradbury, Hawthorn... Walcott. I laughed in my head; can't forget darling Millay and Longfellow. Their last effigy was in a squatter's refuge.
I pushed these burdening thoughts to the back of my head and jumped down the stairs onto the concrete. Our eyes watered from the smoke and at the sidewalk we hesitated before parting ways. "Come and find me if you don't have anywhere to be!" Hollis shouted as he ran backwards.
"I'll drop you a line sir. Take care of your grippe now! You crazy mother fucker." I shouted and he turned around and into full sprint off towards wherever the fuck he was going, and I towards the room. If a book had taught me anything, it was that I needed a home to return to after an odyssey.
>%|'_'_'_'_'_]-----
I felt the orgasmic rush of lust shake through me as the lighter traveled around the bottom of the concave spoon, holding my poison. I saw the liquid turn amber and ripple as I grabbed the already uncapped syringe. It smelled slightly like piss from being hidden in the toilet but I didn't care now, nothing could touch me I'd be so high. I held the spoon delicately between my teeth like when you're trying not to drop an egg in an Easter Sunday game that I always won. I smiled; it was like I was born to do this. And I never was supposed to be at those goddamn egg hunts! So yes, everything was working out just the way Jesus fucking Christ himself wanted it to.
Once I had gotten my hand correctly contorted around the needle to suck up all the shit, I did just that. I tying my arm as quickly as I could, I outstretched it hurriedly. "Can't have Gerard finding me." I said in a sing song voice and positioned the needle over the veins which I had smacked ten or so times, no pun intended. My legs tensed up with delightfully tantalizing anticipation and I licked the tip of the needle like a cat who had gotten her mouse. It hovered over the blue river in the red land, a big one hearted river. Go.
Dammit. I sighed, frustrated. I still hadn't injected the junk yet, and it was Gerard that was stopping me. Could I really let him down like this? I brushed of the idea and returned to take the apathetic, self indulgent plunge.
I hesitated still! "What the fuck is wrong with me?" I growled to myself. "He'll never know. Do it. Do it." I swallowed and licked my lips. The needle hovered over a site slightly lower than an old bruise. I squeezed my eyes shut. I want this. I want this. Heroine. Junk. Smack. Dope. Once it would flow I would realize how much I wanted it. My heart beat like a battle field drum. There was the pinch...
"Frank what are you doing?" Gerard shouted, appearing from nowhere in the door frame. He dropped a bag of groceries, cans rolling in crazy paths around the floor.
"What?" I asked, disoriented. The needle hung halfway out of my arm but barely a fraction of my love was in my blood stream. I looked from him and then to the needle and then back to him again. Emotion washed over me in suffocating waves. I was exactly what Gerard had said. A kid. A junkie.
"Gerard, no! Its not what it looks like!" I said and his legs sprung to action, getting him to my side to violently grab my arm and yank the needle out of it. "NO!" I shouted as I watched it fly in slow motion to hit the wall and crack. I turned to look at Gerard but my face met a stinging slap. He was glowing, everything was glowing.
"Frank!" he shouted as I reeled in shock, body feverish. "What the fuck are you doing?!" The trickle of blood from my arm ran onto his soft hands. My face screwed up with unfamiliar emotion and I deftly turned my head into the corner of the grimy, white linoleum as far as it would go, trying to pull my whole body with me. Tears streamed down my face. I was falling into the white, drowning in it but the blackness took me back to the surface.
"I'm trying! Help... I'm tryin' Gee I swear..." I sobbed and tried pulling my arm into the compact corner I squeezed into.
"Frankie..." he said his voice changed to a tone I hadn't heard him use before, at least not with me. Understanding? Forgiveness? "Frankie, come here." He said and tugged lightly on my arm, finally noticing the blood and using his sleeve to wipe it up. Stained from battle. Knowing him I would have to pay for that.
"No. Gee I'm so sorry. It was just- It was just" I couldn't stop myself from stuttering and I was so close to succumbing to the little warming numb that had spread through my body.
"Frank." He said with the authority in his voice again. He looked back at my inner elbow and pressed his lips on the almost invisible hole in a gentle kiss. More tears flooded down, it felt so good, so good when he kissed me. My arms weren't thorns anymore, they cotton and they couldn't hurt him, they couldn't him.
I swung around and my arms clamped around his neck, pulling him closer to me and then the feeling of his broad, strong hands holding me back.
"I'm really sorry." I said and he shushed me in my ear. This life wasn't enough for me anymore. I held him closer and wondered if this is what love felt like, except, of course, it was supposedly a lot happier.
I needed a hit to clear my head.
I stood up to walk around the room like I did when I was bored. Sometimes I ended up throwing up my meal, but who wouldn't when all you had to eat for the past three days was SPAM? My hand grazed the door knob out of habit and I was surprised to see it turned. I grabbed it and yanked on the door. The afternoon light and cool air rushed at my face.
I inhaled deeply with wide, excited eyes. Oh fuck yes. I looked around the room. Was this a joke? Was this a test? Because I was about to fail, big time. I grabbed his coat that he had left at the end of my bed and ran out the door, stopping at the end of the walkway that married the line of doors which led to the other rooms, all probably with a lot less dramatic than this one.
The asphalt felt good beneath my feet, compared to the grimy carpet that I had to deal with in there, in my cell. "Oh fuck yes!" I shouted and slid my arms into the coat. It was big on me, but I didn't care. Couldn't go running through town in my underwear, now could I? I jumped up and down a few times out of excitement. "You gotta be shitting me!" I said gleefully as I slammed the door shut behind me and ran like bloody hell.
I eventually ended up in the old neighborhood I had dealt to and bought in, getting there only after being chased by the cops for hitching a ride on the back of the bus, just like the good old days, except less fun since I was all by my lonesome. Jesus, phrases like that could kill you.
I clapped my hands and rubbed them together, blowing into them once or twice to keep myself warm. Weird I never realized that warming my hands never really could keep my whole fucking body warm. I shook my head free of the cluttering thoughts and focused on getting to the apartment. 12B. I repeated to myself and turned into an alley to avoid any more pigs.
The building was more decrepit than I remembered, the red bricks crumbling and the roof's tiles fraying. Leaves clogged the gutter and windows were smashed in like someone had tried to break in, or jump out. Spray paint graffiti decorated the apartments, sprucing up with neon and wild strokes what the empty flower beds had failed to do. Well, this was home. I felt a warm happiness spread through my body and translate into a smile across my face. Home. Gerard was a thing of the past. I hopped up the white steps covered in dust, dirt, bullet shells and condoms, not to mention the cigarettes, blunts, balloons and broken light bulbs. Home was like 'over the rainbow'. I opened the door and strolled in, taking the steps three at a time until I had gotten to the twelfth floor.
I passed the cries of pain, pleasure and passion of the occupants and sprinted down the creaking hall to apartment 12B. I stood outside it expectant of the fun that was on the horizon. I peeked through the peep hole as if I could see what was inside... I couldn't, so instead I adjusted the restricting denim jacket on my broad shoulders and knocked on the door and turned the handle simultaneously.
"Hey guys! You'll never believe what happened to me! And someone better start cooking before I even start." I looked around, by passing the first room where the dust on the floor had to be an inch thick. I pushed open the only door in the apartment that was closed and saw my friends in a circle on the floor, cooking as I had hoped, what else?
"Oh my god, Frank?!" Shouted Hollis. "I thought you were a fucking goner!" He jumped up and grabbed me in a bone crushing hug. Jimmy, Tulip and Gia jumped up too and crowded around me.
"Let him go, I can't see him!" Laughed Tulip and Hollis let me out and into the circle of friends. "Frank!" She cried, and grabbed my head. "You screw up." They laughed and she planted one on my cheek. Jimmy and Gia grabbed my arms and pulled me down to the floor, enlarging their circle.
"We'll cook up a hard one for the return of Frank!" Declared Jimmy and got to work. I couldn't help but feel out of place, though with two girls on my arms and smack should be the opposite. Gia gave me another hug as we sat on the floor and they all chattered exuberantly.
"Gia! You're pregnant!" I looked down to her swollen stomach.
"Thanks for pointing that out, and to think, I had assumed it a tumor all along!" she laughed and patted her belly. "Probably just as annoying." She muttered.
"...The father?" I asked weakly. It couldn't have been me, I never fucked Gia, at least not consciously.
"Um, I don't actually know..." She started.
"Is it Maz? Is that why he's not-"
"Hey dude here, just in case." Hollis whispered into my ear, and never looking directly at him, I reached out my hand a fraction of the inch and felt two pills pushed into the palm of my hand.
"Fucking awesome." I told him and he smashed his forehead against mine.
"Always looking out for the less fortunate." He said with an excited laugh. I grinned, so good to be back with smack. And friends.
"Shit guys." Jimmy said and stood up, backing against the wall. We turned to see what had happened. Huge flames had engulfed the blankets on the floor.
"GET THE SHIT!" I shouted. We looked around helplessly, each powerless against the flames.
"Shit guys, fucking run!" Tulip shouted and was gone before we could give it another thought. She had taken Gia with her before she had inhaled too much smoke I guess. The fire spread to the ceiling fan. I felt tears stream run down my face. All the shit was gone, ruined... Except for the pills in my pocket. I looked to Hollis as our thoughts aligned.
"Here." I said and parted ways with one pill.
"Thanks man." He took it and we stared at each other for the last time. He held out his arms and I obliged my one true friend a hug before the collapsing floor made us break up. I pushed him out the door and we ran down the hall and the stairs that were filled with smoke. People had ventured out of their apartments to cough and see if there was anything to see. I felt no remorse not telling them they needed to leave, hell I didn't even hear the sirens as I followed Hollis' dingy yellow fleece pullover out of the building. I didn't think about how my books would only feed the fire, and how I wanted to go back and check to see if I could salvage them still. Not to sound like a prick, but they were the only things I had, my best friends were being burning alive. Hemmingway, Bradbury, Hawthorn... Walcott. I laughed in my head; can't forget darling Millay and Longfellow. Their last effigy was in a squatter's refuge.
I pushed these burdening thoughts to the back of my head and jumped down the stairs onto the concrete. Our eyes watered from the smoke and at the sidewalk we hesitated before parting ways. "Come and find me if you don't have anywhere to be!" Hollis shouted as he ran backwards.
"I'll drop you a line sir. Take care of your grippe now! You crazy mother fucker." I shouted and he turned around and into full sprint off towards wherever the fuck he was going, and I towards the room. If a book had taught me anything, it was that I needed a home to return to after an odyssey.
>%|'_'_'_'_'_]-----
I felt the orgasmic rush of lust shake through me as the lighter traveled around the bottom of the concave spoon, holding my poison. I saw the liquid turn amber and ripple as I grabbed the already uncapped syringe. It smelled slightly like piss from being hidden in the toilet but I didn't care now, nothing could touch me I'd be so high. I held the spoon delicately between my teeth like when you're trying not to drop an egg in an Easter Sunday game that I always won. I smiled; it was like I was born to do this. And I never was supposed to be at those goddamn egg hunts! So yes, everything was working out just the way Jesus fucking Christ himself wanted it to.
Once I had gotten my hand correctly contorted around the needle to suck up all the shit, I did just that. I tying my arm as quickly as I could, I outstretched it hurriedly. "Can't have Gerard finding me." I said in a sing song voice and positioned the needle over the veins which I had smacked ten or so times, no pun intended. My legs tensed up with delightfully tantalizing anticipation and I licked the tip of the needle like a cat who had gotten her mouse. It hovered over the blue river in the red land, a big one hearted river. Go.
Dammit. I sighed, frustrated. I still hadn't injected the junk yet, and it was Gerard that was stopping me. Could I really let him down like this? I brushed of the idea and returned to take the apathetic, self indulgent plunge.
I hesitated still! "What the fuck is wrong with me?" I growled to myself. "He'll never know. Do it. Do it." I swallowed and licked my lips. The needle hovered over a site slightly lower than an old bruise. I squeezed my eyes shut. I want this. I want this. Heroine. Junk. Smack. Dope. Once it would flow I would realize how much I wanted it. My heart beat like a battle field drum. There was the pinch...
"Frank what are you doing?" Gerard shouted, appearing from nowhere in the door frame. He dropped a bag of groceries, cans rolling in crazy paths around the floor.
"What?" I asked, disoriented. The needle hung halfway out of my arm but barely a fraction of my love was in my blood stream. I looked from him and then to the needle and then back to him again. Emotion washed over me in suffocating waves. I was exactly what Gerard had said. A kid. A junkie.
"Gerard, no! Its not what it looks like!" I said and his legs sprung to action, getting him to my side to violently grab my arm and yank the needle out of it. "NO!" I shouted as I watched it fly in slow motion to hit the wall and crack. I turned to look at Gerard but my face met a stinging slap. He was glowing, everything was glowing.
"Frank!" he shouted as I reeled in shock, body feverish. "What the fuck are you doing?!" The trickle of blood from my arm ran onto his soft hands. My face screwed up with unfamiliar emotion and I deftly turned my head into the corner of the grimy, white linoleum as far as it would go, trying to pull my whole body with me. Tears streamed down my face. I was falling into the white, drowning in it but the blackness took me back to the surface.
"I'm trying! Help... I'm tryin' Gee I swear..." I sobbed and tried pulling my arm into the compact corner I squeezed into.
"Frankie..." he said his voice changed to a tone I hadn't heard him use before, at least not with me. Understanding? Forgiveness? "Frankie, come here." He said and tugged lightly on my arm, finally noticing the blood and using his sleeve to wipe it up. Stained from battle. Knowing him I would have to pay for that.
"No. Gee I'm so sorry. It was just- It was just" I couldn't stop myself from stuttering and I was so close to succumbing to the little warming numb that had spread through my body.
"Frank." He said with the authority in his voice again. He looked back at my inner elbow and pressed his lips on the almost invisible hole in a gentle kiss. More tears flooded down, it felt so good, so good when he kissed me. My arms weren't thorns anymore, they cotton and they couldn't hurt him, they couldn't him.
I swung around and my arms clamped around his neck, pulling him closer to me and then the feeling of his broad, strong hands holding me back.
"I'm really sorry." I said and he shushed me in my ear. This life wasn't enough for me anymore. I held him closer and wondered if this is what love felt like, except, of course, it was supposedly a lot happier.
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