FicWad

Hey! There's someone you know and love making his first appearance in the story! Hooray to that!






When I woke up in the morning feeling the cold tile of the bathroom floor against my sweaty, swollen cheek, I had no memory of the night before. My body weight seemed to have doubled over the night and it took some serious effort to drag it up to a sitting position. I was afraid to look in the mirror, but when I finally did I decided that there had been reason enough to be scared - my eyes were puffy enough to be mistaken for a pair of plums and I wasn't sure whether it was just the night spent on a cold surface or did the fact that I had trouble inhaling need immediate medical attention.

I stared blankly at the mirror before turning the faucet with a shaky hand and mechanically splashed cold water all over my face only to discover that with a face swollen as mine it felt much like drowning. There was no towel in sight so I left the bathroom with a dripping wet face and wobbly feet that I feared were going to give up on me any minute.

I felt awful, but so unlike most mornings with a hangover. There was no headache, no nausea, no intense need of vomiting at the thought of cigarettes or food. I felt unreal, as if I'd stepped out of my body into a severely beaten up one without really feeling the pain but very much living the inconvenient discomfort. I felt light as a feather and heavy as a jackhammer simultaneously and couldn't help wondering if I'd actually died and gotten trapped in between two worlds as a rather unattractive and clumsy ghost.

The sound of a phone ringing sent my heart into a frantic drum solo and the newly found balance in my body evaporated resulting in me leaning on the wall to avoid ending up on the floor. I wobbled into the bedroom from which the sound came and found Grace lying on the bedroom in a state much like mine.

"Grace" I hissed "Grace, I think it's your phone"

"Answer it" her voice came out at a sob of some sort.

I picked it up and cracked out an out-of-breath hello.

"Em? Is that you? I tried your phone, are you with Grace?"

"Sunshine!" I sighed with an easy smile as Frank's soothing voice reached my ear.

"You sound weird" He stated with suspicion.

"I just woke up"

"You what?!" I was taken aback by his sudden outrage "It's fucking seven p.m!"

My brain processed the information slowly, so slowly, but a glance at the huge digital clock by the bedside table and the overall darkness of the room made me add another factor to my list of why this wasn't just like any other hungover morning. It wasn't a morning.

"Oh" I managed to whisper into the phone.

"Oh? we're in Newark, I tried calling you when we left, went straight to the receiver. By the way you really need to change your message, it says 'unicorns aren't real Mikes' and a bunch of similar random drunken bullshit."

My heart sank.
"You're there already? But how am I supposed to get there? You know my phone's busted so don't give me any crap about being the friend and trying to call me before leaving!"

"Get your ass up here, Em. We're unpacking the van, we're playing in two hours or so.."

"But Frank.." I squealed but he'd already disconnected.

I threw the phone on the table and concentrated on shaking the hell out of an extremely incoherent Grace.

"Get up! We overslept" I shrieked even though I was pretty sure the expression didn't quite cover a case of being out the entire day due to some sick pill-popping.
Fuck.
My head seemed to have discarded the musky cloud that had had my brain wrapped around itself since I'd woken up and as I thought about the word. Yes, that's what we'd been doing..

"Grace, get the fuck up" I grunted in defeat before having another epiphany. I searched the bed for the yellowish bottle, tossing the covers and the extra pillows down onto the floor. Where are you..
After declaring the bed vacant except for a passed out chick I took a peek under the bed and found what I was looking for.

I thrusted two round pills into Grace's mouth and then covered it with my hand and pinched her noue with the other. Swallow, bitch, I thought as I waited for the reaction I knew would come. Her eyes flew open and she swallowed the little buggers and then with a swift movement made me take my hands off her.

"I would've volunteered, you know, you didn't have to force them down" She finally muttered, eyes wide open.

"I was desperate" I offered as an apology. "We gotta be in Newark in two hours"

"Okay.." She said slowly "Then let's get ready and hit the road. It's only a twenty minute drive, thirty with bad traffic"

"We don't have a car" I informed her tapping my foot on the ground restlessly "And our ride left us to fend for ourselves"

"Well that changes things.."
I don't know why I'd expected any good ideas on her behalf to begin with so I shouldn't be surprised by getting none.
It didn't stop me from getting aggravated at her apathy and lack of trying, though, there she laid, rubbing her eyes like a child waking up with not a care in the world. Ugh!

"I'm not gonna miss this fucking gig" I stated with determination "I'm gonna hit the shower and you're gonna call up everyone you know owns a car and plead for a ride. And then you're gonna lend me some clean clothes and a ton of makeup" I stomped out of the bedroom, hoping she wouldn't fall asleep again..







I wore my own jeans but had to use a top Grace found in the back of her closet, a simple black one with only one rip. Man, we were poor. My leather jacket was always enough to make me look decent though, I decided and threw it on. I left my hair down like I always did and despite my lack of expertise in the cosmetics area managed to do a good job hiding the swelling and the greenish tone of my skin. I breathed in and out to calm myself, the stress didn't mix well with the weird feeling the pill had left me with. I felt unstable, and my body agreed.

"Still no one.." Grace yelped from the kitchen.

"Just keep going" I snapped at her. It was just too easy to take my frustration out on her, I didn't have to look far to find a reason to blame this all on her, after all she was the one who had offered be the pill to begin with. I found it hard to believe there would be an entirely different reason to us sleeping the day away and ending up terrible late. Well not yet, I corrected myself as I glanced at the clock. We were both fresh and clean with our clothes and makeup on and ready to go, all this we had done in less than twenty minutes, but the getting there part was still a big mystery.

"That was the last one" She informed.

"There's no one else?"

"Nope."

"Well fuck this shit, we're walking" I decided as I tied my boots a little tighter than usual. I prepared myself for a protest on her behalf but much to my amazement she shrugged and followed me into the hall and out onto the street.

"You up for hitch hiking?" She asked with childlike enthusiasm in her blurry eyes.

"At this point I'm up to anything" I amended understanding that making it to Newark by foot in 90 minutes would require some serious running, and that was pretty much the only thing I wasn't up to.

"Here" She extended her hand "You'll feel better"

I stopped dead on my tracks, allowing myself a minute to stare and consider. Why was I doing this again? I tried to rationalize, to tell myself to keep walking, that someone had to be in their right mind if we were ever goning to make it to Newark without any kind of gameplan. I tried picturing a worried yet disgusted Mikey looking down at me like a parent facing a misbehaving child while struggling with great personal disappointment, I tried picturing Frankie staring at me like I had taken whacko to an entirely new level - a restricted one. I even tried picturing Gerard but realized that he would most likely shrug like an idiot and tell me how he didn't exactly care whether I lived or died, nor in which way I prefered to do the latter. I don't know why, but thinking about Gerard's lack of interest in me (and his inconveniently great interest in the male gender) made a grateful smile appear on my face as I stared at Grace. Yes, please.
I don't know what went in to me, again, but at that precise moment the best thing I could imagine seeing in front of me was Grace with an easy, mellow smile offering me a pill and a tiny bottle of something liquor-like.
I grabbed the items without hesitation and raced the damn thing down with two large gulps of the burning liquid. Whiskey, it was. Grace hardly ever bought anything else.

"Where do you get this shit from?" I can't believe I didn't think of asking until now. Speaking of which- "and what exactly are these?"

"Get them from a guy. They're pills" She shut her tiny mouth with a look that closed the subject.

"Am I sworn to secrecy?" I laughed mockingly as we walked toward the gas station nearby.

"Definitely"

We stomped down the road in silence, both feeling irrationally hopeful about getting a ride from one of the cars ahead of us. I'd never tell Grace, but I was pretty much ready to rent out her body to get someone to drive us to Newark.

It was a chilly night, which messed with my mind quite badly since i'd only woken up half an hour ago. I hung on to my jacket, hugging it closer to my body for warmth. When we reached the gas station I realized I didn't need it so much anymore, as if the biting chill was somehow unable to touch me. My steps grew lighter and I almost suspected my forehead had started to perspire just a little.. What are these, I wondered again but soon forgot the thought and enjoyed the feeling.

Grace seemed to steal looks at me, turning her gaze away the second I looked back. She looked happy, and smug, and I felt like hugging her and kicking her ass at the same time, neither of which I acted upon.

We parted ways, she went to the row of cars on the left side of the parking lot and I took the right, to make the pleading trip go a little faster. I wasn't even half way to my first car when she called my name and waved me over. I ran toward the muddy, rusty piece of shit of a car not really wanting to see the owner. Out of breath, I stepped forward to take a look at the driver and didn't find the moustached, sweaty cowboy with a kink for young girls, but a rather young man with wild brown hair and a reliable smile.

"I'm on my way there myself" He smirked after introducing himself as Raymond.

It wasn't until Grace and I were seated on the back uncomfortably close to each other that I noticed that a good part of her cleavage and chest was showing, her thin shirt almost entirely unbuttoned. Turns out she was fully capable of renting out her body herself, I thought and pretended to count all the money I just lost as my career as a pimp went down the drain. After we'd pulled out of the parking lot, she spotted my snickering gaze and hastily buttoned her shirt back up and turned her face away. She looked out of the window at the passerbys whileI sipped the bare whiskey for as long as it lasted.

"Gotta pick up a friend of mine on the way" The man informed after crossing the Holland Tunnel. I nodded silently, not really caring about who had to be picked up or anything as long as he was taking us to Newark on time.

I couldn't help but smile at what I was seeing, the great tired looking city rose in front of my eyes. the lack of colors only made it more dignified, I decided, as the car dived into the intimitating maze of tall, grey buildings that looked like they were about to swallow anyone who dared to walk past.

Billy Corgan sang on the radio and I closed my eyes, letting the soft hum of the engine lull me to a state close to sleep. It amazed me how tired I still was after a day of sleeping, and then at the same time I felt so energetic. My mind wandered once again to the tiny white pills I'd accepted from Grace. I knew for fact that even if Grace did tell me what they were, it propably wouldn't stop me from taking them, yet I felt like I needed to know.
I needed to know where I stood on the illegal substance case, was I taking prescripted sedatives which was sadly very common even among normal, middle-class people or was I a nuthead on ecstasy? In my mind, the difference was immense.

We passed Jersey City and crossed the Passaic River and I could just picture the five years younger version of myself running down the roads, happy to have escaped Belleville and discovered a town slightly bigger, a dreadlocked Frankie following my tracks laughing like a madman. We were always up to mischief, though years later I'd only come to think of it as something so innocent, so harmless. Maybe that's why the pill situation bothered me so much, it wasn't so much about taking drugs but the fact that I'd lost the remains of my youthful innocence somewhere along the way and this could no longer be shrugged off as pushing boundaries, teen rebellion or some sort of identity crisis.

This was the real deal and I wasn't eighteen anymore.
When I thought about it, I think mostly I was just bothered by the fact that it did not bother me.
I was afraid of my lack of fear.

The traffic on Raymonnd boulevard made our driver turn right at the corner of River Bank park and Jackson, and then drive through Lafayette to McCarter. I hated the family friendly neighbourhoods with their cookie-cutter houses and white fences. I hated the families so ignorant to the world surrounding them, but most of all, I hated the fact that I was never going to get what they had.
It had always been beyond my reach, the whole suburban dream and all its normality. The best I could do was propably an apartment on some slightly more decent part of the city, a home which I did not share with a roommate but had all to myself. I guess I could get my degree and a job that didn't involve criminal actions, as well.. But the white fence dream, that wasn't reality for me. And reality always wins..
When we took the left turn to Market street, I was relieved. I'd much rather stay away from what I secretly envied.

My head lolled to the side and my eyes found Grace in a position much like mine.
We stared at each other blankly.

"He's hot" She mouthed silently after a moment.

I let out a muted, hollow laugh and stole a glance at the driver. I could only see his forehead and eyes through the mirror, both appeared average enough to lose my interest. I shrugged, feeling like staying on neutral ground was the best approach when it came to disagreeing with Grace.

She wasn't happy with my indifference, and started making inappropirate gestures that indicated she had a thing or two up her sleeve for this Raymond dude - I couldn't keep a straight face to save my life. Even though I did my best to hide my giggles and keep them inconspicious to the spot I could definitely see Raymond eyeing me throug the mirror every five seconds, clearly irritated.
I kicked Grace's leg and with a minimal squeak she finalyl stopped her shenanigans.

"Thank you" I muttered
She leaned over and seeing that she was about to whisper something I leaned in, too.

"All I'm saying is, after I'm done with him, I don't think you're gonna wanna ride back to the city sitting on this very backseat"

I pushed her back with a disgusted face, falling into another fit of giggles, but grew severe as I caught a glimpse of a traffic sign we just passed. Why were we driving out of Newark?

"Uhm, Ray - is it? I think Newark is the other way, in fact, we just drove through it. the club is like two blocks from the Market street, on the corner of Eagles and Kinney" I slapped myself for letting the insecurity I suddenly felt show on my features. My shaky voice didn't help much either, my nerves were bare and audible for him to sense.

"We need to pick up a friend of mine, I told you" He smiled, leaning back on his seat, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a cigarette.

"Couldn't you have just dropped us off, then?" Grace chipped in.

"Sorry" he shrugged and despite the tiny amount of fear I felt, annoyance took over and I huffed loudly on the backseat. Should've just walked.

"We'll be late" I commented grudginly.

"We'll only drive up to Belleville and back, the gig starts in about an hour now I'd say, so we'll be perfectly on time."

"Belleville?" I repeated.

"Yeah, ever been there?" he asked conversationally.

I nodded dreamingly "Yeah, I've been there".

I wondered if the guy we were supposed to pick up was someone I knew, after all, Belleville wasn't a big place and most of the residents were folk that were born and raised there. Some of us moved elsewhere the day we could, but some stayed. I'd never heard of anyone moving to Belleville from somewhere else - it wasn't exactly a place people knew about and dreamed of living in. There was a certain charm to Belleville but it certainly did not attract new blood.

I figured the best way to pass the time was to chat with the guy. Grace's mind seemed a million miles away and besides, she was always kind of hard to have a conversation with. Her brain worked differently from most people and sometimes her words were hard to follow, other times I couldn't get much out of her unless I used physical force.

"So you like Pencey Prep?" I asked

"Well, yeah.. My friend is the one who really wants to go, though. He asked me to tag along but I'm pretty sure all he really wants is a someone to drive him there and back" he chuckled.

"Oh, yeah - I never thanked you for agreeing to take us with you. My best friend is playing and I'm doomed if I miss this." Now that I was talking more, I realized that the words did not come effortlessly, my tongue seemed tangled and my lips worked in slow-motion. I wonder if he noticed and if he'd believe me in case I claimed brain damage.

Realizing the bottle in my hands was almost empty, I understood that I propably smelled bad enough to make anyone in the five mile radious notice that I'd been drinking, but the buzz in my head and the weird senselessness in my facial area was definitely the pill's work. It had to be some kind of a sedative, I thought, since it made me relax at first but truly kicked in after being mixed with alcohol.

"No problem"


I was getting a bit panicky the closer we got to Belleville because the streets got extremely familiar. My mouth popped open when we finally reached an area that I knew all too well, and the street sign confirmed my suspicions. Even after he pulled up at the Way's driveway I tried to convince myself that this was just some sick joke.
My hopes were crashed as a familiar face appeared and jumped into the car, taking the seat before me.

"Hey man" He greeted the Raymond dude and Grace, damn her, decided that it was the right time to open her devilish mouth and called out a delightful hey I know you
The man turned to look at Grace, nodded unsurely, and then let his eyes wander over to me. Oh good god, he's hot.
I stared back sheepishly.

"Hi, Gerard" I sighed not really knowing why I felt like a deer caught in headlights.

"..Hi" he replied after a moment and straightened his posture.

It was going to be an interesting drive back to Newark.







Rate&Review please? For Ray..?