I know I said I wouldn't be flashy, but if you want to read the next chapter
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Here's all the nice nice links
Chapter 1: Part 1
Chapter 1: Part 2
Chapter 2: Part 1
Chapter 2: Part 2
Chapter 3: Part 1
Chapter 3: Part 2
Chapter 4: Part 1
Chapter 4: Part 2
Chapter 5: Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 2
Chapter 6: Part 1
Chapter 6: Part 2
Chapter 7: Part 1
Chapter 7: Part 2
Chapter 7: Part 3
And now here's the next four chapters home
Sorry for the confusion but I'm afraid of the astromomical size this is reaching
It's not all going to fit on one thread safely
Or at least I won't be able to open it with my better then dialup but still slow-ish internet because I have only one gigabite of freespace on my machine from my MCR picture fetish...
(kidding, and you didn't hear that)
Okay, New RULES:
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Yeah, it's cool, cool, I've seen... Two?... maybe, One, Rebecca here
No offence to you
But it's scarring me that's how you're relating to this...
The main character was druged and raped on prom night...
(Sorry for being blunt but that's what happened and that what scares me when you tell me. Don't tell me your name, say "I don't wantta be like that Becca"... It shall make my day, no joke. Please, play safe)
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CHAPTER FIVE
“Puuuuurrrrrrrrrrr”
“But I don’t like waiting that much… Why am I enjoying it so much now?”
Michelangelo’s little paws keep dragging against my arms, yearning for more attention from my hands. I kept running my fingers occasionally up and down her coat but I’m thinking too hard now and she wants more. Mikey-chan drags her little white paws harder, leaving tiny red lines behind. It’s not bleeding so I’m not really moving to stop her in any way. It’d probably be better if I just let her start scratching until my arm became senseless and warm from blood. I try and hold the blankets tighter around me but it doesn’t really help the sub-arctic temperatures. The bright side of the small pin pricks of pain from the lines is I can feel my arm. Feeling is one step over freezing and amputation from frozen flesh, but one step below comfortable feelings.
“At least during this wait, I found out I’ll need to file your nails back down again, eh Mikey II?”
But Mikey II really isn’t paying attention to me as a being; she’s only paying attention to how fast my fingers are working. All that’s left is to heave a cold cloud of air out, pet a little faster, and try to keep my pile of blankets on.
“But like I was saying Mikey… I really don’t know why I’m enjoying this.”
All the weight on my back from the blankets, melting jackets and comforters seem to draw in a more dizzy-like sight. Everything seems to lull like a lullaby in my ears, the ominous sounds of falling snow and carburetor parts. The small, sweet rumbles from purring Mikey II-chan and the tiny squeaks from broken springs create a symphony, a melody, a peaceful tune to match the fuzzy static from a nearly conked out radio. My eyes feel heavy and drawing shut like huge metal garage doors. I’d probably fall asleep too, like a huge black snow bunny with a kitten in my lap and nothing but snow and broken metal round me, but (hopefully) a kind, kind man driving the crappiest Chrysler anyone could see in a lifetime will come soon.
“The car’s not that bad Michelangelo II. Your father used to love taking long rides to the comic book store with me and… Well…”
Does Michelangelo subconsciously have memories passed down from his father? Could she possibly already know why I’m so silent near the end of sentences like this?
“I think you get the picture…”
I look down after feeling rough carpet fibers rubbing against the first knuckle of my right hand. It’s a pink tongue, built to take away and cleanse turtle fur into pristine shine, but it’s now pulling my rough, dead skin away. There are a dozen things better for this tongue to lick, like her own fur for once instead of me, but its better Michelangelo II to continue to lick my knuckle then for her to start licking the glass for frost in desperation for water.
“It’s quite nice here really. If Mr. Way never shows up, I’d be content to freeze here. It is pretty outside…”
What am I saying? I’ve never called snow ‘pretty’! It’s really just annoying things that stack up like bad memories and won’t go away. Snow doesn’t melt well and it sticks to everything in sight. I’d rather wish I would never see another flake of the stuff for the rest of my life.
As my head comes down to rest in my palms, Michelangelo II senses the comfortable fingers missing and lets out one loud and sharp
“MAARR!”
What does it mean this time?
“Pay more attention to me?”
“You’re crazy already, now just stop talking already?”
None of the above, it seemed.
Michelangelo showed a look of displeasure as she stretched upwards from my lap. Her legs poked at me as she leaned her light weight around a little and walked away as if from a pile of garbage. Michelangelo II’s long claws click-clacked on the rubber matt floor to the nearest box upright, and put both white gloved hands on the top edge. I could tell from the look of her back of what she was preparing to make. A mess. Michelangelo gathered some strength and pulled the entire box it crashing down onto its side, spilling things inside the box everywhere. The box was just a regular packing box this time, nothing too scary to hold my breath any longer, but a few pieces were sheer junk I kept holding on to.
“Ahhhh, I see what you’re doing Mikey-Chan! You want me to go through some things so I can be ready with my stuff when Mr. Way comes?”
Michelangelo didn’t say much about why she did what she did, she just moved to the left of the wreckage to let me sift through on my own. Most of the things that fell out of the box were junk, broken hair-dryers, smelly combs of a distinct tuna-scent and old issues of Vanity-Fair. It was the things I had stocked randomly in my old room for no particular reason. It’s all clutter now, just junk, another bent nail-file, a empty plastic bag that used to hold soap and-
A half emptied bag of cat food.
“I’m sorry Michelangelo II! You probably know better when to eat then I do.”
I took one of the Vanity-Fair magazines and flipped it open and pressed it down at the spine so it stayed flipped open. I pulled open the red and gold cat food bag and poured some of the dry cat food crunchies on the clean open pages. I set the magazine in front of Michelangelo II for her to look at the precious food spilled upon hideous demonic ‘pretty’ women. The same green cat eyes looked back up at me in disbelief and words were conferred without any translation barrier.
“You expect me to eat off this trash??”
“I’m throwing the magazine out anyways so please just mess it up more.
Oh, and this food too since Mr. Way has bound to have better food for you at his house. Tell me, would coffee grinds taste better than this cat food?”
Michelangelo looked back down at the food, took a whiff and proceeded to scrunch away slowly.
“See! At Mr. Way’s-… I mean, at the Way household, they have enough coffee grinds to keep you fed until I can find a pet store without pot hidden inside cat-food bags.”
I could sense Michelangelo smile, shutting her eyes quietly and approaching the food once again to see if any of the food particles were eatable by themselves. The small crunch-crunch of cat teeth on tough, stale cat-food seemed to ebb at my mind. I have to work or that noise is going to get on my last nerve.
I could open each box individually and go through the items one by one for importance and figure out what I may need when I get to the Way household or my own. There are many elements to consider, like length of stay and conditions of the living space and…
Skip it.
I look at all the boxes with contempt and reason if anything of importance was inside those boxes, Mikey would have told me and made me look at those things as well as her cat food and Gerard’s box. If Mikey only deemed those things as important, then that’s all I’m going to bring.
I looked at the floor and picked each piece from the original Gerard box, holding each one at a time as I dropped them randomly into different corners of the upright box. Each item is assorted…. What am I kidding? It wasn’t organized in the first place so why does it matter if the sketch book of “pre-super-superheroes” ends up next to a comic book of “Hellboy”? It’s all interconnected by time, owner, art, and space so it really doesn’t need more than a place in the box. I become faster as I get nearer and nearer to the bottom of the messy spill, not even recognizing items as I can’t really feel the items and their worth right now. It’s all in the box in the end and it looks very much like someone who cleaned out a comic book convention after the weekend was over.
I pick the box up, filled three fourths of the way up with anything I’d ever like to take with me, and moved it over the top of the passenger seat and drop it onto the seat. It made some rather unpleasant noises that resembled the sound of breaking china even though there were no breakables in the box, but the box itself seemed to nestle down into the seat and seem almost like a happy passenger. I bent down a few inches from my huddled bunny position sideways to the passenger seat to look under the driver’s seat.
Underneath, I saw a few black poking wires and I began to pull carefully with an icy grip until a round silver corner poked out. Slowly, my entire Apple laptop appeared like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. I unplugged the various cords and maneuvered my arms around the side of the seat and dropped the laptop in an open space on the side of the box. I wound the cords tightly up and chucked them along inside.
My laptop for work, my Gerard box for simple memories… That’s every-
“Maarrrooo…. MAARR!!”
Oh God, not Miracle cat Mikey again!
I look around for Michelangelo II, but she was no longer munching away at her crunchies on the magazine a foot away. I turned to the left and saw Michelangelo had picked a primary watching post out of one of the back windows. She stood intently looking out of the foggy glass at snow that was brighter from hours before since it had hit a foggy morning. She just kept staring as if there was no snow or fog at all, but the sense that something was coming.
“You’re not there to lick frost, are you?”
A minute later, it’s not just fog and snow Mikey-chan sees. Even through the breaking brightness, I could see the shape of a familiar dented gray Chrysler pull up in the snow and turn to park on the right side of the van. I need not move, breathe or express how thankful I am that he has arrived. I’m still paralyzed from the cold, another miracle Mikey-chan moment and sheer disbelief that Mr. Way came as quickly as he did. Michelangelo went away from the look out and walked back up to the front of the van. She didn’t slow down as she went up the wooden ramp and jumped inside the Gerard box. The side passenger door opened resoundingly and in popped the face that I’d kept in my head as a memory for years.
He was smiling as he poked his head in; tiny wrinkles seemed to have gotten bigger near the sides of his eyes and his mouth. The same cheeky face though, the smooth brow and perky yet masculine nose. I remember the brown eyes and their kind stare now, focused and a little deeper underneath his brows. The dark circles underneath the caring brown warmth seemed even darker now, but it had to have been because of me today. He wore the stupidest fuzzy brown Eskimo ear-flap hat tilted sideways on his head to reveal his short yet shaggy hair. It was now more silver then black now, more silver then my memory would attribute. His face is still as friendly, just as caring and just as magical in appearing when I needed a ride, a known face, and someone to talk to. He looked like the perfect neighbor who just came across the street to help you with dinner, not half way across a state to help you out with car problems.
His pause was momentary as I remained silent.
He spoke clearly and sesincly…. Sesucntedly… I never knew words…
But however he spoke, his words made me want to cry from all the things of the past I had missed.
CHAPTER SIX
“Heyyyyaaaahhhh…. Are you okay, ‘Becca??”
“…Um… I’m-… I’m good. Pretty fine really- How… How was the drive?”
I-…. I didn’t mean to sound as desperate as I did but… I-… I think I sound horrible.
“ ‘Becca… do you need a hug, I can’t reach you from here but… you sound horrible.”
Isn’t this the second time I’ve been right about my own state of looks?
Or is the second time that he’s read my thoughts by my voice alone?
I haven’t really moved an inch, and Mr. Way has hardly budged. His eyes still seemed to remain in happy crescents and his mouth still seemed to hang open from the smile he was carrying on his way to look in. His eyes now seem to glow not from joy now as patience. He’s patient in deed, his mouth curving a little downwards to create a smile a little let potent to my appearance. I can almost see a sliver of my face reflect back at me from those brown eyes. He’s still waiting to get a better look at me. Michelangelo II stares at his arm from the box, the arm that rests casually on the top of the passenger seat. The gray wind-breaker seems to shake from a current of wind forever blowing outside the van, shaking the rest of the dying material.
I barely moved my hand to get the latch in the back of the seat to work but work it did. The back of the passenger seat fell just like a dead bird off of a branch, with a sudden “oomph” and the deadening effect that follows afterwards. Mr. Way finally had a better look at me, and I finally had a better look at him. If we had started a staring competition with dreading, death-like faces, it was certainly not officially said.
Mr. Way just seemed to stare ominously beyond me and shut his eyes to think about what was sitting like a petrified bunny. His lips puckered and mumbled over some strong words in clear and steady voice.
“ ‘Becca… How long has it been since I’ve seen you last?”
The silence following was awkward, pleasant and somewhat expected and accepted by me and Donald. I held my blankets a little closer, my fingers getting tighter around the edges, the hurt it put on my fingers did not compare to knowing how long it had been. I pulled the blankets a little bit more around me, trying to hide my black sweater, trying to hide the water marks and the blue skin. I was still turned with my side facing him, looking ahead of me instead of looking into the eyes of understanding. I slowly moved my tightened fingers up and down the satin like fabric on the outermost layer, the pain still not enough for me to ignore his question.
I turned back and stared right through him as I answered.
“Um… Last time I checked my clock… It’s been nine years, three months, six days and… Two hours…. Give or take thirty minutes, Mr. Way. My clocks….”
My eyes wandered back to my hands that relaxed back into my lap. I began to play with my finger tips and pretend that I didn’t see the pain on Mr. Way’s face that finally gave away and showed. Nine years is a long wait just too finally pick up the phone and call my family, and when I admit that I count every day slowly in my head, the pain seems a little bit heavier. My cold fingers couldn’t move fast enough to count all the little pricks of pain going through my back.
Michelangelo II’s small head popped out of a corner of the box and looked back and forth from one statue of a human to another. One statue that’s curled deep inside folded blankets and wet jackets yet still remains cold, with a messed up head of hair hidden underneath a cap, and eyes that seem so distant and so clearly in pain waits for the other statue to speak. The opposite statue seems waiting for the other one to finish the sentence, warm and comfortable but rather perturbed at the basket case that sits like a lost bunny in the coldest van the world could create. His face must seem quite warm still, and it is in her eyes, just shocked into a kind of paralysis.
Then again, I think I look perfectly fine and Mr. Way is probably just contemplating the long drive back to Belleville and the gas he’ll waste on my miserable butt. Michelangelo II always had a one track mind for misery, and all she’ll want in the long run is the nice, lukewarm coffee grinds and water Mr. Way will have back at his house. I know how her little kitten mind seems to work, she loves to contemplate the worst of all situations. She knows quite well I’m perfectly fine... Aren’t I?
It’s-... It’s just the pain of remembering time... No big deal, it’ll fade.
“Miss….. Ms. Canner?”
“Um… Yeah?”
I turn to look back at him and try to look like I’m smiling. I am failing at it miserably but I think it’s the effort that counts... Isn’t it?
Mr. Way sucks in a cold breath of air and breaths it out, long and loud and tries to save us both from a long silence.
“You were just saying something… What were you saying?”
“Yeah…Um… My clocks, you know…”
I pick my fingers from my lap and begin to rotate them around each other like gears in a clock. My fingers are so cold, they’re perfect for gears… cold and metallic looking.
“They all seem to be artfully broken… a few minutes off whenever I need them to work… just… off”
Why does it matter? I haven’t checked a clock in nine years, nine years, three months, six days and two hours. It all seems so petty now. I just wanted to forget high school, not forget the people I love…
I let my fingers fall into my lap again and my face looks down upon them. Lowly fingers… you’re clumsy, dumb and slow to move for me, especially when I’m like this. I want you to work, just a little, instead of lying there helpless and almost immobile.
But… But now I can feel a gentle, kind force pull the sheets off my head. The weight seems a bit lighter now, the tug that was pulling my skull down to my neck seemed to disappear completely. I could feel my cap slip off to the side as well, falling to the black matt floor to me lost, all my uncared hair unveiled. Small bits and pieces of oily and unwashed hair started to trickle and fall into my eyes, irritating my small vision. The rest of my dying hair was so greasy and packed together that it didn’t even move from my head when the cap went.
The gentle force…The hand began to tap, arrange, manage… I don’t have the verb to quite describe how soothingly he played with my hair to try and calm my nerves. There really isn’t a word at all to come close to kindness I feel, but all I can really do is try and describe it.
If I took a warm sunshine that I’ve never seen before, from a meadow of miserable and dying things and combine it with the first smile I’d seen on Mr. Way’s face… I would come close to how warm, comforting and cleansing it feels to have such kindness right now.
It was only a warm silence after that, warm silence and Mr. Way’s hand on my head to brush my hair astray from its oily and ugly way. It was comfortable as I the blanket cover started to fall a little, letting the cool air to whip my skin awake. It seemed to last for half an hour but I knew it was only a moment of comfort a father could give to a child that was so close to being family.
“So… Do you have all your things together?”
“Um…. I’m not sh-”
“MAAARRR!!”
I turn my head from my pitiful fingers and looked down the long gray wind-breaker arm and straight to Mr. Way’s face. Both our eyes seemed to connect with recognition over that very familiar cry. I can’t help but egg-on a little smile that begins to arch across on my face as we both look down at the same time at the singular box. A protesting Michelangelo II was circling around and around the box like a fish in a bowl with anger towards the two slow humans. She had been so ready to go for so long; she already packed herself in the box so she could be ready to go with efficiency and in an orderly time.
“Marrr… Marr Marr Marrr…. MAAAAARRRRR!!!!”
Mr. Way retracted his arm from my head and rested the hand on the edge of the box for Michelangelo to inspect. I turned to face the box and hopped up on the back of seat and scooted closer to see her. I held my blankets tightly as I saw her little white and black whiskers tickle Mr. Way’s hand. Michelangelo was still fussy as she smelled and inspected the new-comer’s knuckles much closer. She seemed like she was protesting about the wait and how she was so ready to go and all I could do was sit and mope and Mr. Way wasn’t helping me move any faster out of the van…
Err… Or at least that’s what I think my cat is saying…
Good God, I’m losing my mind.
I’m losing my mind to a furry creature that is steady licking Mr. Way’s fingers in lighter silence but continue her occasional discourse of noise in my direction. I don’t have to be crazy to know we’re both thinking the same thing.
“Let’s hurry up and go already.”
I edged closer to the box, my sheets sliding on the slick material of the seat. I look up from Mikey II-chan’s whiskers continuing to sniff to Mr. Way’s face.
“I think Mikey II-chan says she wants to go now, Mr. Way…”
I smiled so hard, my eyes closed tight shut. It was a feeble attempt to look happy but it probably makes me look a little more becoming, even through smeared makeup and messy hair. My eyes creak open a peak to see Mr. Way heaving the box up to his chest from the edge of the seat. He was having a little bit of problems steadying the weak cardboard sides because of Michelangelo II’s constant movements around the edges to see if I was moving any faster. The little thing smiled as brightly as I did but with a little bit more real happiness behind it at finally being moved. She finally contented herself near the back of the box, sitting down and purring soft to Mr. Way. Mr. Way looked back up at me and I forced myself to smile again.
Keep up appearances, Rebecca, keep up appearances.
Mr. Way managed a smile while achieving a balancing act of the heavy box, turning and grinding his heels in the snow to face the car.
“Okay then, let’s get this show on the road ‘Becca!”
Mr. Way began to walk down to the second car door to open it, quickly kneeling down in the snow and resting the box on his other knee as the door quickly swung open. I could hear a small ding in the side of the van reflecting out into the rest of the van to make a resounding metal racket.
“Sorry!”
I pull my blankets a little tighter and scoot farther down the seat. There’s a single step out of the car, but it’s covered it rather unscrupulous… what is that?? My shoes can’t take going all the way around the car in the wet snow, so… How about I try the slip and slide idea to the seat?
“It’ll only take another minute for me to buckle the box in the back seat and I’ll help you out…”
I hold all my jackets and coats tight in my arms and tie the blankets around my neck like a cape for the slip. I scoot as close to the edge of the seat as I can and lower my feet to potential landing spots on the ground. I use the edge of the seat on my fingers as a push off and force my feet to buckle as I hit the snow. I end up falling like a cat, landing squatting on the ground with my butt nearly inches off the white, wet snow underneath me. I try to move my free right hand up and down a frozen leg to try and feel it again through the thin layer of cotton black.
Mr. Way slams the door shut and turns, heels clicking as he walks to where the door rests open, looking down at the black hunched bunny on the ground.
“Is it nicer down there, dear?”
I look up at the odd angle I do of his nose and chin structure. It seems quite odd really, magnified somehow from the particularly weird vantage point I have. I can also have a closer look at the Scottish plaid wooly pants he’s wearing.
“Nice pants”
I could just feel his smile coming down on me as I looked back to the ground and heaved myself up, blankets, jackets and all.
It’s going to be a long and interesting ride back home.
Chapter 7
*BOOM BOOM BOOM*
“Are you enjoying the stereo of the car next to us, ‘Becca?”
I just know he’s smiling. Christ, he’s still smiling. He still has that same broad smile he was wearing when he drove up. It’s ridiculous, way too big for his face and way too powerful at that. Why does he seem to wear it with such pride…? Not that I should argue now…. A smile is better then a frown now…. Much better….
“If you lean your head against the glass like that, you’ll get headaches. The high-fidelity will go right into your skull.”
I don’t care; I don’t have any pillows on me and my jackets are still wetter then a lake. I’d rather have a headache then get wet.
As the light stays a blaring red, his eyes turn to try and stare at mine. I refuse to make connection but his jutting chin shows just how hard he’s trying to see why I’m staring off so ominously off into space. His eyes seem so bright, even as he gives up to slouch back in his chair and stare at the changing green. He presses his foot down softly and clears his throat carefully, but I’m not buying it.
“Hum… This is an awful long re-”
“I hate small talk, sir, could you just go ahead and tell me what’s been going on at home?”
My heavy eyes didn’t have to open too much to see the look on Mr. Way’s face. He had the heavy burden of telling me what happened in my absence, or rather make a good friend feel guilty after she abandoned her mother and her friends from home. His brows seemed furrowed, deep and cutting while his eyes seemed a little grayer, but it wasn’t the pain of a heavy burden to tell, just the pain of having to tell such a tale.
The darkness of the world around us seemed a lighter now, like heaven was breaking from the clouds because the sun had gone and hidden itself behind the layers of fuzzy white. It’s brighter then a thousand incandescent bulbs blaring together in unison, like god had a spot light, or a soft fuzzy white he decided to try. It’s just too bright… Too bright to be awake or asleep for my tired and melding eyes that refused to look out much further then a few hundred feet at all the snow around.
The skin on my lips now seems to close upon itself, sealing and closing my other words away. My hair was hanging even worse on my brow. My head was sticking to the fake pleather siding, the skin tearing down as the following BOOM BOOM BOOM made my forehead move a little downwards. My fingers seem to drag out on my legs, giving up on the futile effort to hold my arms up against my chest, and lull out like disembodied members.
Everything just seems so far away; it would seem the opportune time to catch up on ten years.
Mr. Way stares back at me with the same sympathetic eyes and tries to look a little happier but…
“I hope you know how heavy ten years can be. It’s a lot to try and start with, you know?”
He got to my thought before I even got to it.
Damn
“Please… Could… Could you start with my mom?”
There was still snow to fill the silence along with Mr. Way speeding along the gray, icy road. It all seemed endless in front of us, white yet mixed with golden sand by the edges of the fuzzy future, tainted with ugliness until it moved back to white and gray ice in the middle. I just hung my eyes together and let it all be blurred to nothingness and ugly golden and white. It was still bright around even with shut eyes…. Too bright….
My lips kept sticking together as a few more thoughts came out without a care of effort.
“How… How is she doing?”
“Well…”
Mr. Way pulled his right hand away from the steering wheel and picked up a large red metallic mug, sealed by a black rubber stopper. He holds it for a while, taking a roughly managed sip and turns around the curve in the road, carelessly moving hand after hand around the wheel, slowing down just right yet speeding up to save time when needed.
He puckered his lips, tasting the remaining bit of coffee on his lips and contemplating directions with words.
“Your mom is… Okay. She’s doing pretty well; but…”
It’s because I left, isn’t it?
“Ever since you left, it seems like that sweet optimism that used to shine so bright died…. Along with cleaning up the house. Donna nearly broke her leg trying to help Janice move some boxes she had left on the kitchen table for three months!”
Mr. Way did a couple of rough maneuvers with his hands as he tried to show with finger exaggeration just how much junk was in my mother’s house.
“Either way…She’s either constantly at work or at our house. She’s like a hole in the coffee bag, constantly there with a mug and a sad sort of puppy face…
Well, you know how much she used to enjoy her coffee?”
I shut my eyes and nod my head lightly, the side of my face pulling farther against the pleather. I pulled my head off the side and looked out the window, across the expanse and away from mind.
“It’s now like she swallows a bitter pill. She doesn’t do it for want… it’s like a never ending need she just can’t help. Hell, I’m just glad she’s strong enough just to be a coffee person. You know your mom, she’s tough!”
He holds a brave voice but he lets out another sigh that gives away how she really is. Sighs are not like finger exaggeration, or story telling fibs, it’s more like truth and can be more honest then words. These kind of sighs scare me.
Mr. Way continues, passing the BOOM BOOM BOOM and heading ahead of a freight truck.
“Your mother now has… horrible times sleeping!”
He starts to chuckle, holding his head with his left hand for a moment and grabs his red mug again for another sip.
“Why…. How is that funny? I thought-“
“Oh, it’s just…. I was already up because I was working late but your mother…. He-…. She was sleeping on the kitchen table; a mug firmly glued in her hand and her other hand’s finger’s half way through drumming on the table….”
“Did I wake her up?”
I don’t know if that was a chuckle or a sigh... I’m kind of scared again.
I pull Gerard’s jacket from the heap of the wet things in my lap and try to curl inside of it. I lift my feet from the floor and onto the edge of the seat and wrap the black jacket closer around the ball. Gerard’s jacket pulls tightly over my knees, trying to be pulled down and up at the same time, trying to be hidden inside the darkness and block out the cold. I hear a tiny mew coming from the Gerard box, Michelangelo II agreeing that it still seems cold in here. I have no will to try and warm my skin, it’s probably a waste of energy to feel again, but I could at least protect it from the outside.
Mr. Way continues again… his smile seems confused and mixed in a way. I just can’t decide what it wants to do, other then drive faster without the ice becoming a problem.
“No… She didn’t wake up; she didn’t even flicker her eyes. She was sleeping so contently; I didn’t want to try and wake her, or even move her. Her hair was a total mess; I probably should have woken her up to tell her to get a shower-”
“No….. No, your table is quite soft. She’s probably more comfortable there then-…… home.”
The snow helps fill the silence again, but there’s so much less now. They aren’t majestic snow pieces; they’re pitiful, watery impressions of their true form. It’s so sad to watch when it’s falling. It’s not as blinding or disorienting to help my weary head be lulled to sleep either. It’s like pain.
“Should…”
I don’t want to say it… My lips don’t want to say it. They seem so stuck and swollen, bitter and twisted, cut and bitten…. Unusable.
“Should I say-… I’m sorry now or should I wait until we’re back and everyone can hear it?”
Now that was a smirk on his face. I know that was. Is he toying with me? It’s a sad sort of look inside but it’s still not nice to pull it out like this when it’s so obvious.
“Please rephrase… ‘Everyone’…. Who do you think is at home, ‘Becca??”
I turn my weary head to look at him, my eyes not so closed anymore and my hands starting to feel blood again. I feel a strength, an anger, a truth and a meaning behind this…
“What do you mean? When we get there, I know my Mom is there, you’ve said that; Donna hasn’t left you, she never would, Mikey is probably at college or something but I know Gerard. He’s still living in his basement, right? He’s still being his little comic book self down in the portal of no sun… right?”
I feel Mr. Way’s eyes turn to look at mine at first, and then I see his face. I’m staring right at him, constantly looking right at him but I just feel he’s staring at me in disbelief. There’s something here, not just recognition while talking, but utter disbelief…
“Um… Rebecca, you’re not much into music the way you used to be, are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mr. Way shakes his head instead of explaining. I almost feel a small smile creeping on his face, something eloquent yet understanding. Little wrinkles twinge at the sides of his eyes and his gaze stays even more focused on the road. Tiny poking grays and whites from his scalp began to emerge from the sides of his head as his cap slid a little to the side. His right hand popped up and brushed his Eskimo hat off backwards to the backseat carpeting, hair flipping back up and his hand resting back on top of the steering wheel casually. His mouth puckered lightly as he seemed to breathe in some ideas of what to say.
“Hey ‘Becca….”
He drew out the last “c” really long, letting the sound become its own word.
“Yeahhhh?”
He drew his right hand again from the wheel and tried to reach for the glove box in front of my balled up legs. The car dangerously starts to swerve as he tried to hit the latch on the glove box. He threw his hand back on the steering wheel, the glove box still shut and several cars on the road left honking and confused at what the crappy little car was attempting to do.
“Could you open the glove box for me? There’s a couple of CD’s in the back I need.”
I look down at the little gray plastic latch directly below the dash by and inch. There’s a black metal circle etched with scars where the lock is, looking defensive and alien to the rest of the gray interior.
“Um… is it locked or does it just…”
“It’s okay; it should just pop open the door below with a little touch.”
I drop my legs back down into the stair well so my arms can prop out to reach the lock. I move my fingers slowly through the cold air into the crevice carved into the back of the latch for fingers to pull forward. I placed a few fingernails on the top edge of the latch, feeling the plastique curve out until it fell back to give to the other side of the molding. I dig my nails into the thin layer of bumpy cover and wait for the thin layer to be molded to my nails digging force. I just wanted to leave a little imprint in the surface, just a little reminder in this beat-up car of how cold I was one day and how beat-up things used can really get. Eh, I don’t know.
Then, with the little sound of a “bunk”…
“OOww!”
“I told you the latch only needs a little pull. Are you okay?”
The car had gone over a small bump on railroad tracks and my hand had jutted down and made the door to the glove compartment come falling onto my knee caps. It felt like the soft tissue was popped out of place from my bone to my thighs. I kept my hands off my knees and pretended to dust my pants of inexistent dust.
I’m…
NOT…..
Okay……
“Oh no, I’m perfectly fine, Mr. Way- Make sure you keep your eyes on the road – I’m a klutz, I get into little scrapes all the time- Is that a squirrel in the road???- What was it again you wanted me to find, CD’s?”
Mr. Way kept his eyes on the road and drove over the minuscule knot of wood that resembled a squirrel as he raised his brows right at me.
“Okay, if you look in the back, there are a few CD jewel cases.”
I looked down into the dark hole and spotted nothing in particular but a huge gray blur in front of me.
“Um… Mr. Way, I can’t-“
“Press the button on the left side”
“Uhh?”
“To the…. left…”
He tried to reach over to press it again but I felt along the side quickly before he veered off the road. I felt the smooth, elevated dimpled button, pressed in and an orange glowing light from the very back of the glove box turned on. It illuminated the space like a firefly in the night. It was a small rectangle and seemed about two shades dimmer then the hazard sticker on the back of bicycles, but it worked quite well to show what was inside.
It was a mess, but nothing like what I could find in my broken-down bus. It seemed to start with a few assorted maps from five years ago mixed in on top, varying from New Jersey to New Hampshire and from lightly wrinkled to totally ruined. I pulled two from the very top, both folded in on each other. The messily folded bundle were a New York map and a New Jersey map, roughly tapped together and cut just right to fit together so it became one super two state map. It must have saved on the mess of going from map to map, but the corners seemed firmly adhered together because of the messy tape work used in construction. I plopped it in my lap and shoved the other maps aside to the right side of the compartment.
I kept pulling the tops items out, ranging from a battery free flash light-
“He-he-he… Last time Gerard was in this car he stole the batteries out of the flash light for his CD player! ...Or was it Mikey? He-he, they both have such light fingers sometimes.”
I couldn’t help but hold a smile as I looked down the empty insides of the flashlight.
Now… where was I?
Oh yes, there was a flashlight, a couple of gas receipts, a small wallet sized photo of DeNero, a speeding ticket-
“Mr. Way, how did you get a speeding ticket??”
“Oh-… Um… I think that’s Mikey’s… oh, wait, Donna?”
“So definitely not you?”
“Yes, err…. No? Um… I don’t speed!”
I felt like smiling again but the coldness seemed to rob me of the effort of trying to grin. I kept flicking through the things: a pair of gloves, a piece of torn cardboard, an outdated insurance card, and a “Godfather” figurine- … “Action Figure”. He-he-he…
I finally hit the back of the glove compartment and I saw a stack of four to five different jewel cases in the back, their ridged sides reflecting like rainbows in the light. I drove my fingers between the carpeted bottom of the compartment and the scratched underbelly of the jewel cases. I balanced my fingers on top and I pulled them out like a plant from overpowering dirt. I held them all shakily with one hand as I took my right arm and shoved the collection of memorabilia back into the deep hole, clicking the button on the left side and closing the door with a firm click.
I carefully place the stack of CD’s in my lap, examining the gleaming light coming off the surface, giving away all the little scratches and cracks it had received from misuse and abuse.
“Which CD do you want Mr. Way?”
“Oh, could you just choose for me? Just flick through them and pick out one you like. And…”
I look up from perfectly adjusting the top CD’s corners to be aligned with the following ones to see Mr. Way’s trouble with formal words.
“Yes?”
He dropped his head into his lap, shut his eyes to rest from the endless expanse of white and tried to think of the few words he wants. He looked back up, confident and turning along with the road, with nothing but the two of us resting in time. Michelangelo II hadn’t spoken for a while now, but I knew she was resting, staring as the road went by and waiting for home to come.
Mr. Way coughed unnecessarily, clearing of his throat just for the effect of time.
“You don’t have to call me “Mr. Way”. I’m-… I’m perfectly contented with getting called Don. Is it fine-…. Okay with you?”
I keep fixing the corners of these cases but in a car with bad shocks, it’s impossible to stay straight for long…
“Okay, Don”
Don flicked the wheel around to the red light ahead, an intersection covered in tan snow that melded down into black coal colors. It just started snowing here and the snow cleaners had cleared away huge sheets of snow into the side embankment. It’s really embarrassing really, knowing that I used to run through that in short skirts as a kid. I just drop my head before I remember the exactly last time I ran like crazy in a black mini-skirt
The first CD was easy to tell as a classic. It was “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, an easy like-like for me, but it’d be kind of boring to pick out something I’ve heard so many times as a kid. Plus…
Didn’t I promise Gerard I’d only listen to that 50% of the time with him?....
Cold air circulated back into my nose and feeling seemed to be lost from the inside, out as I breathed it all in. I flicked the CD backwards into my stomach to stare at the next CD.
“Siamese Dream” by Smashing Pumpkins… NEXT! They’re an okay band, but I was never a huge fan. Every time I’d listen to them, I get a picture of a bald Billy which inevitably led to a picture of a bald Gerard and that would merely lead to irritate my aching mind.
I flicked the CD back as well and stared a home-made burned copy of “Meat is Murder” by The Smiths.
“Is all this music Gerard’s or Mikey’s??”
“I usually listen to the radio… it’s more convenient for them to leave their sh*t here anyways. Look at another CD if you object to that one.”
I look once more at the thin, bright-pink CD and jewel case back-ground, the sharpie scrawled across the rim “Meat is Murder”, burled by passing fingers and time. I let out an exaggerated sigh of time and flipped the CD over to see the last one in the stack.
The cover was quite different, a little more morbid then two little girls smiling but lacking the poor homemade quality of sharpie print. It was a hand drawn picture of a couple staring at each other, jutted chins and sharp hair. The girl was wearing white lace and the man was in a black suit and the entire back-ground was a mixture of black, white and deep-red blood spatter. The looks they were giving each other with closed eyes…..
Wait… I’ve seen something like this before….
I turn around in my seat and reach back quickly for my cardboard box. Michelangelo II roughly disagreed with the jetting hand digging through the belongings she was sleeping on, but didn’t mind as the hand quickly left with a small piece of folded paper from the far corner. She went right back to sleep as I was quickly and nervously opening the four time folded paper. Inside was a sketch, a small and random little doodle of a dancing girl in a white lacy dress acting like a buffoon, a gun in her hand and lightly misted in blood all around her. I compared the sketch from nine plus years ago to the girl standing opposite on the cover of the CD. Their jaw line, the lace work, the blood spatter…
“OH MY GOD!”
“ ‘BeccA! Give warning next time will ya!? I nearly hit something!!!”
“BUT…. BUT LOOK AT THIS!!!!!”
I held the sketch and the CD close together, my arms waving back and forth from the jerky recap Don was making, and the drawings kept matching up in every way. I dropped the sketch and flipped the CD over, looking at the back and-
“OH MY GODDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!”
“What did I say about proper warning????”
The car swerved again, but less violently as I gave the back of the CD a death stare. Looking right back at my bulging eyes were a series of five shots, among them two I could recognize bombed out of my head and on my death bed. Mikey and Gerard, full as life itself in square picture boxes amongst men I’d never seen before. Mikey looked almost like he did back in high-school, wispy hair floating in the air and baby like eyes glowing away behind a new pair of glasses. Gerard though…. He…. He lost some weight since the last time I’d seen a photograph…
It seems to calm me down in the way…
God, why am I so jumpy?
“Are you done screaming yet?”
“I…. I knew it…”
“Knew what?!?”
I slouch back in the seat and try to cool back down. The cold chilled my head and Michelangelo II’s sleeping purrs returned to normal as the wheels rubber stroll feels like a normalcy.
I didn’t speak.
I couldn’t speak.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t talk. I just sat there, slouched, holding the CD in my hands, my fingers slipping over the sharp corners and dragging in my lap but too scared to open it and see what was inside. I’m too tired to see what’s inside. I don’t want to see. I can’t see because my fingers won’t move. My head starts to roll on my neck like a disjointed limb. I could feel my eyes lull; my lips tear and my ears creak as I gave up trying to be awake…..
I never quite realized how peaceful the snow is. It’s constant. It’s set. It’s snow.
Michelangelo II squawks now…
I wonder…. why…. He’s….. She’s never done that before….
“Hey Rebecca…”
My jaw feels so locked… why does it feel so immobile… Oh, maybe because I screamed so much?.... I don’t know, I just feel… so…. tired….
“Muuuhhh?”
“ ‘Becca, we’re home, wake up.”
But…. I…. I want to stay here and listen to…
Oh… what’s the…. the name?.....
“He….. He-he….. You-….. You know Mr. Way, sir….”
His smile is too sympathetic…. Too nice….
“What is it, honey?”
“I…. I never asked… What’s the band….. Name?”
His smile, it’s just too broad Mikey. You’ve seen it before; remember when he caught you throwing up under the sink? You…. you were just so little….
“It’s My Chemical Romance.”
Wow….. It’s……………
HERE
HELLO
WELCOME AND THANK YOU!
*heartless plug done*
Here's all the nice nice links
Chapter 1: Part 1
Chapter 1: Part 2
Chapter 2: Part 1
Chapter 2: Part 2
Chapter 3: Part 1
Chapter 3: Part 2
Chapter 4: Part 1
Chapter 4: Part 2
Chapter 5: Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 2
Chapter 6: Part 1
Chapter 6: Part 2
Chapter 7: Part 1
Chapter 7: Part 2
Chapter 7: Part 3
And now here's the next four chapters home
Sorry for the confusion but I'm afraid of the astromomical size this is reaching
It's not all going to fit on one thread safely
Or at least I won't be able to open it with my better then dialup but still slow-ish internet because I have only one gigabite of freespace on my machine from my MCR picture fetish...
(kidding, and you didn't hear that)
Okay, New RULES:
I will only the NEXT chapter HERE
IF
1) One or more people leave constructive critisim
Break out your mule accounts, yo
Anyone who actually is desive and good gets advanced details
SO COMMENT AWAY!
The more comments you leave, the happier I am
And the faster this goes!
2) No one, PLEASE,... tell me your actual name
Yeah, it's cool, cool, I've seen... Two?... maybe, One, Rebecca here
No offence to you
But it's scarring me that's how you're relating to this...
The main character was druged and raped on prom night...
(Sorry for being blunt but that's what happened and that what scares me when you tell me. Don't tell me your name, say "I don't wantta be like that Becca"... It shall make my day, no joke. Please, play safe)
NOW
Do you want to relate that way???
...Thank you...
3) No more chapters will come here UNLESS 5 COMMENTS COME IN ON THIS THREAD!
NO JOKE!
THREE MORE POSTS TO GO OR NO MORE!
4) Last but not lease...
Tell your friends about this
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CHAPTER FIVE
“Puuuuurrrrrrrrrrr”
“But I don’t like waiting that much… Why am I enjoying it so much now?”
Michelangelo’s little paws keep dragging against my arms, yearning for more attention from my hands. I kept running my fingers occasionally up and down her coat but I’m thinking too hard now and she wants more. Mikey-chan drags her little white paws harder, leaving tiny red lines behind. It’s not bleeding so I’m not really moving to stop her in any way. It’d probably be better if I just let her start scratching until my arm became senseless and warm from blood. I try and hold the blankets tighter around me but it doesn’t really help the sub-arctic temperatures. The bright side of the small pin pricks of pain from the lines is I can feel my arm. Feeling is one step over freezing and amputation from frozen flesh, but one step below comfortable feelings.
“At least during this wait, I found out I’ll need to file your nails back down again, eh Mikey II?”
But Mikey II really isn’t paying attention to me as a being; she’s only paying attention to how fast my fingers are working. All that’s left is to heave a cold cloud of air out, pet a little faster, and try to keep my pile of blankets on.
“But like I was saying Mikey… I really don’t know why I’m enjoying this.”
All the weight on my back from the blankets, melting jackets and comforters seem to draw in a more dizzy-like sight. Everything seems to lull like a lullaby in my ears, the ominous sounds of falling snow and carburetor parts. The small, sweet rumbles from purring Mikey II-chan and the tiny squeaks from broken springs create a symphony, a melody, a peaceful tune to match the fuzzy static from a nearly conked out radio. My eyes feel heavy and drawing shut like huge metal garage doors. I’d probably fall asleep too, like a huge black snow bunny with a kitten in my lap and nothing but snow and broken metal round me, but (hopefully) a kind, kind man driving the crappiest Chrysler anyone could see in a lifetime will come soon.
“The car’s not that bad Michelangelo II. Your father used to love taking long rides to the comic book store with me and… Well…”
Does Michelangelo subconsciously have memories passed down from his father? Could she possibly already know why I’m so silent near the end of sentences like this?
“I think you get the picture…”
I look down after feeling rough carpet fibers rubbing against the first knuckle of my right hand. It’s a pink tongue, built to take away and cleanse turtle fur into pristine shine, but it’s now pulling my rough, dead skin away. There are a dozen things better for this tongue to lick, like her own fur for once instead of me, but its better Michelangelo II to continue to lick my knuckle then for her to start licking the glass for frost in desperation for water.
“It’s quite nice here really. If Mr. Way never shows up, I’d be content to freeze here. It is pretty outside…”
What am I saying? I’ve never called snow ‘pretty’! It’s really just annoying things that stack up like bad memories and won’t go away. Snow doesn’t melt well and it sticks to everything in sight. I’d rather wish I would never see another flake of the stuff for the rest of my life.
As my head comes down to rest in my palms, Michelangelo II senses the comfortable fingers missing and lets out one loud and sharp
“MAARR!”
What does it mean this time?
“Pay more attention to me?”
“You’re crazy already, now just stop talking already?”
None of the above, it seemed.
Michelangelo showed a look of displeasure as she stretched upwards from my lap. Her legs poked at me as she leaned her light weight around a little and walked away as if from a pile of garbage. Michelangelo II’s long claws click-clacked on the rubber matt floor to the nearest box upright, and put both white gloved hands on the top edge. I could tell from the look of her back of what she was preparing to make. A mess. Michelangelo gathered some strength and pulled the entire box it crashing down onto its side, spilling things inside the box everywhere. The box was just a regular packing box this time, nothing too scary to hold my breath any longer, but a few pieces were sheer junk I kept holding on to.
“Ahhhh, I see what you’re doing Mikey-Chan! You want me to go through some things so I can be ready with my stuff when Mr. Way comes?”
Michelangelo didn’t say much about why she did what she did, she just moved to the left of the wreckage to let me sift through on my own. Most of the things that fell out of the box were junk, broken hair-dryers, smelly combs of a distinct tuna-scent and old issues of Vanity-Fair. It was the things I had stocked randomly in my old room for no particular reason. It’s all clutter now, just junk, another bent nail-file, a empty plastic bag that used to hold soap and-
A half emptied bag of cat food.
“I’m sorry Michelangelo II! You probably know better when to eat then I do.”
I took one of the Vanity-Fair magazines and flipped it open and pressed it down at the spine so it stayed flipped open. I pulled open the red and gold cat food bag and poured some of the dry cat food crunchies on the clean open pages. I set the magazine in front of Michelangelo II for her to look at the precious food spilled upon hideous demonic ‘pretty’ women. The same green cat eyes looked back up at me in disbelief and words were conferred without any translation barrier.
“You expect me to eat off this trash??”
“I’m throwing the magazine out anyways so please just mess it up more.
Oh, and this food too since Mr. Way has bound to have better food for you at his house. Tell me, would coffee grinds taste better than this cat food?”
Michelangelo looked back down at the food, took a whiff and proceeded to scrunch away slowly.
“See! At Mr. Way’s-… I mean, at the Way household, they have enough coffee grinds to keep you fed until I can find a pet store without pot hidden inside cat-food bags.”
I could sense Michelangelo smile, shutting her eyes quietly and approaching the food once again to see if any of the food particles were eatable by themselves. The small crunch-crunch of cat teeth on tough, stale cat-food seemed to ebb at my mind. I have to work or that noise is going to get on my last nerve.
I could open each box individually and go through the items one by one for importance and figure out what I may need when I get to the Way household or my own. There are many elements to consider, like length of stay and conditions of the living space and…
Skip it.
I look at all the boxes with contempt and reason if anything of importance was inside those boxes, Mikey would have told me and made me look at those things as well as her cat food and Gerard’s box. If Mikey only deemed those things as important, then that’s all I’m going to bring.
I looked at the floor and picked each piece from the original Gerard box, holding each one at a time as I dropped them randomly into different corners of the upright box. Each item is assorted…. What am I kidding? It wasn’t organized in the first place so why does it matter if the sketch book of “pre-super-superheroes” ends up next to a comic book of “Hellboy”? It’s all interconnected by time, owner, art, and space so it really doesn’t need more than a place in the box. I become faster as I get nearer and nearer to the bottom of the messy spill, not even recognizing items as I can’t really feel the items and their worth right now. It’s all in the box in the end and it looks very much like someone who cleaned out a comic book convention after the weekend was over.
I pick the box up, filled three fourths of the way up with anything I’d ever like to take with me, and moved it over the top of the passenger seat and drop it onto the seat. It made some rather unpleasant noises that resembled the sound of breaking china even though there were no breakables in the box, but the box itself seemed to nestle down into the seat and seem almost like a happy passenger. I bent down a few inches from my huddled bunny position sideways to the passenger seat to look under the driver’s seat.
Underneath, I saw a few black poking wires and I began to pull carefully with an icy grip until a round silver corner poked out. Slowly, my entire Apple laptop appeared like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. I unplugged the various cords and maneuvered my arms around the side of the seat and dropped the laptop in an open space on the side of the box. I wound the cords tightly up and chucked them along inside.
My laptop for work, my Gerard box for simple memories… That’s every-
“Maarrrooo…. MAARR!!”
Oh God, not Miracle cat Mikey again!
I look around for Michelangelo II, but she was no longer munching away at her crunchies on the magazine a foot away. I turned to the left and saw Michelangelo had picked a primary watching post out of one of the back windows. She stood intently looking out of the foggy glass at snow that was brighter from hours before since it had hit a foggy morning. She just kept staring as if there was no snow or fog at all, but the sense that something was coming.
“You’re not there to lick frost, are you?”
A minute later, it’s not just fog and snow Mikey-chan sees. Even through the breaking brightness, I could see the shape of a familiar dented gray Chrysler pull up in the snow and turn to park on the right side of the van. I need not move, breathe or express how thankful I am that he has arrived. I’m still paralyzed from the cold, another miracle Mikey-chan moment and sheer disbelief that Mr. Way came as quickly as he did. Michelangelo went away from the look out and walked back up to the front of the van. She didn’t slow down as she went up the wooden ramp and jumped inside the Gerard box. The side passenger door opened resoundingly and in popped the face that I’d kept in my head as a memory for years.
He was smiling as he poked his head in; tiny wrinkles seemed to have gotten bigger near the sides of his eyes and his mouth. The same cheeky face though, the smooth brow and perky yet masculine nose. I remember the brown eyes and their kind stare now, focused and a little deeper underneath his brows. The dark circles underneath the caring brown warmth seemed even darker now, but it had to have been because of me today. He wore the stupidest fuzzy brown Eskimo ear-flap hat tilted sideways on his head to reveal his short yet shaggy hair. It was now more silver then black now, more silver then my memory would attribute. His face is still as friendly, just as caring and just as magical in appearing when I needed a ride, a known face, and someone to talk to. He looked like the perfect neighbor who just came across the street to help you with dinner, not half way across a state to help you out with car problems.
His pause was momentary as I remained silent.
He spoke clearly and sesincly…. Sesucntedly… I never knew words…
But however he spoke, his words made me want to cry from all the things of the past I had missed.
CHAPTER SIX
“Heyyyyaaaahhhh…. Are you okay, ‘Becca??”
“…Um… I’m-… I’m good. Pretty fine really- How… How was the drive?”
I-…. I didn’t mean to sound as desperate as I did but… I-… I think I sound horrible.
“ ‘Becca… do you need a hug, I can’t reach you from here but… you sound horrible.”
Isn’t this the second time I’ve been right about my own state of looks?
Or is the second time that he’s read my thoughts by my voice alone?
I haven’t really moved an inch, and Mr. Way has hardly budged. His eyes still seemed to remain in happy crescents and his mouth still seemed to hang open from the smile he was carrying on his way to look in. His eyes now seem to glow not from joy now as patience. He’s patient in deed, his mouth curving a little downwards to create a smile a little let potent to my appearance. I can almost see a sliver of my face reflect back at me from those brown eyes. He’s still waiting to get a better look at me. Michelangelo II stares at his arm from the box, the arm that rests casually on the top of the passenger seat. The gray wind-breaker seems to shake from a current of wind forever blowing outside the van, shaking the rest of the dying material.
I barely moved my hand to get the latch in the back of the seat to work but work it did. The back of the passenger seat fell just like a dead bird off of a branch, with a sudden “oomph” and the deadening effect that follows afterwards. Mr. Way finally had a better look at me, and I finally had a better look at him. If we had started a staring competition with dreading, death-like faces, it was certainly not officially said.
Mr. Way just seemed to stare ominously beyond me and shut his eyes to think about what was sitting like a petrified bunny. His lips puckered and mumbled over some strong words in clear and steady voice.
“ ‘Becca… How long has it been since I’ve seen you last?”
The silence following was awkward, pleasant and somewhat expected and accepted by me and Donald. I held my blankets a little closer, my fingers getting tighter around the edges, the hurt it put on my fingers did not compare to knowing how long it had been. I pulled the blankets a little bit more around me, trying to hide my black sweater, trying to hide the water marks and the blue skin. I was still turned with my side facing him, looking ahead of me instead of looking into the eyes of understanding. I slowly moved my tightened fingers up and down the satin like fabric on the outermost layer, the pain still not enough for me to ignore his question.
I turned back and stared right through him as I answered.
“Um… Last time I checked my clock… It’s been nine years, three months, six days and… Two hours…. Give or take thirty minutes, Mr. Way. My clocks….”
My eyes wandered back to my hands that relaxed back into my lap. I began to play with my finger tips and pretend that I didn’t see the pain on Mr. Way’s face that finally gave away and showed. Nine years is a long wait just too finally pick up the phone and call my family, and when I admit that I count every day slowly in my head, the pain seems a little bit heavier. My cold fingers couldn’t move fast enough to count all the little pricks of pain going through my back.
Michelangelo II’s small head popped out of a corner of the box and looked back and forth from one statue of a human to another. One statue that’s curled deep inside folded blankets and wet jackets yet still remains cold, with a messed up head of hair hidden underneath a cap, and eyes that seem so distant and so clearly in pain waits for the other statue to speak. The opposite statue seems waiting for the other one to finish the sentence, warm and comfortable but rather perturbed at the basket case that sits like a lost bunny in the coldest van the world could create. His face must seem quite warm still, and it is in her eyes, just shocked into a kind of paralysis.
Then again, I think I look perfectly fine and Mr. Way is probably just contemplating the long drive back to Belleville and the gas he’ll waste on my miserable butt. Michelangelo II always had a one track mind for misery, and all she’ll want in the long run is the nice, lukewarm coffee grinds and water Mr. Way will have back at his house. I know how her little kitten mind seems to work, she loves to contemplate the worst of all situations. She knows quite well I’m perfectly fine... Aren’t I?
It’s-... It’s just the pain of remembering time... No big deal, it’ll fade.
“Miss….. Ms. Canner?”
“Um… Yeah?”
I turn to look back at him and try to look like I’m smiling. I am failing at it miserably but I think it’s the effort that counts... Isn’t it?
Mr. Way sucks in a cold breath of air and breaths it out, long and loud and tries to save us both from a long silence.
“You were just saying something… What were you saying?”
“Yeah…Um… My clocks, you know…”
I pick my fingers from my lap and begin to rotate them around each other like gears in a clock. My fingers are so cold, they’re perfect for gears… cold and metallic looking.
“They all seem to be artfully broken… a few minutes off whenever I need them to work… just… off”
Why does it matter? I haven’t checked a clock in nine years, nine years, three months, six days and two hours. It all seems so petty now. I just wanted to forget high school, not forget the people I love…
I let my fingers fall into my lap again and my face looks down upon them. Lowly fingers… you’re clumsy, dumb and slow to move for me, especially when I’m like this. I want you to work, just a little, instead of lying there helpless and almost immobile.
But… But now I can feel a gentle, kind force pull the sheets off my head. The weight seems a bit lighter now, the tug that was pulling my skull down to my neck seemed to disappear completely. I could feel my cap slip off to the side as well, falling to the black matt floor to me lost, all my uncared hair unveiled. Small bits and pieces of oily and unwashed hair started to trickle and fall into my eyes, irritating my small vision. The rest of my dying hair was so greasy and packed together that it didn’t even move from my head when the cap went.
The gentle force…The hand began to tap, arrange, manage… I don’t have the verb to quite describe how soothingly he played with my hair to try and calm my nerves. There really isn’t a word at all to come close to kindness I feel, but all I can really do is try and describe it.
If I took a warm sunshine that I’ve never seen before, from a meadow of miserable and dying things and combine it with the first smile I’d seen on Mr. Way’s face… I would come close to how warm, comforting and cleansing it feels to have such kindness right now.
It was only a warm silence after that, warm silence and Mr. Way’s hand on my head to brush my hair astray from its oily and ugly way. It was comfortable as I the blanket cover started to fall a little, letting the cool air to whip my skin awake. It seemed to last for half an hour but I knew it was only a moment of comfort a father could give to a child that was so close to being family.
“So… Do you have all your things together?”
“Um…. I’m not sh-”
“MAAARRR!!”
I turn my head from my pitiful fingers and looked down the long gray wind-breaker arm and straight to Mr. Way’s face. Both our eyes seemed to connect with recognition over that very familiar cry. I can’t help but egg-on a little smile that begins to arch across on my face as we both look down at the same time at the singular box. A protesting Michelangelo II was circling around and around the box like a fish in a bowl with anger towards the two slow humans. She had been so ready to go for so long; she already packed herself in the box so she could be ready to go with efficiency and in an orderly time.
“Marrr… Marr Marr Marrr…. MAAAAARRRRR!!!!”
Mr. Way retracted his arm from my head and rested the hand on the edge of the box for Michelangelo to inspect. I turned to face the box and hopped up on the back of seat and scooted closer to see her. I held my blankets tightly as I saw her little white and black whiskers tickle Mr. Way’s hand. Michelangelo was still fussy as she smelled and inspected the new-comer’s knuckles much closer. She seemed like she was protesting about the wait and how she was so ready to go and all I could do was sit and mope and Mr. Way wasn’t helping me move any faster out of the van…
Err… Or at least that’s what I think my cat is saying…
Good God, I’m losing my mind.
I’m losing my mind to a furry creature that is steady licking Mr. Way’s fingers in lighter silence but continue her occasional discourse of noise in my direction. I don’t have to be crazy to know we’re both thinking the same thing.
“Let’s hurry up and go already.”
I edged closer to the box, my sheets sliding on the slick material of the seat. I look up from Mikey II-chan’s whiskers continuing to sniff to Mr. Way’s face.
“I think Mikey II-chan says she wants to go now, Mr. Way…”
I smiled so hard, my eyes closed tight shut. It was a feeble attempt to look happy but it probably makes me look a little more becoming, even through smeared makeup and messy hair. My eyes creak open a peak to see Mr. Way heaving the box up to his chest from the edge of the seat. He was having a little bit of problems steadying the weak cardboard sides because of Michelangelo II’s constant movements around the edges to see if I was moving any faster. The little thing smiled as brightly as I did but with a little bit more real happiness behind it at finally being moved. She finally contented herself near the back of the box, sitting down and purring soft to Mr. Way. Mr. Way looked back up at me and I forced myself to smile again.
Keep up appearances, Rebecca, keep up appearances.
Mr. Way managed a smile while achieving a balancing act of the heavy box, turning and grinding his heels in the snow to face the car.
“Okay then, let’s get this show on the road ‘Becca!”
Mr. Way began to walk down to the second car door to open it, quickly kneeling down in the snow and resting the box on his other knee as the door quickly swung open. I could hear a small ding in the side of the van reflecting out into the rest of the van to make a resounding metal racket.
“Sorry!”
I pull my blankets a little tighter and scoot farther down the seat. There’s a single step out of the car, but it’s covered it rather unscrupulous… what is that?? My shoes can’t take going all the way around the car in the wet snow, so… How about I try the slip and slide idea to the seat?
“It’ll only take another minute for me to buckle the box in the back seat and I’ll help you out…”
I hold all my jackets and coats tight in my arms and tie the blankets around my neck like a cape for the slip. I scoot as close to the edge of the seat as I can and lower my feet to potential landing spots on the ground. I use the edge of the seat on my fingers as a push off and force my feet to buckle as I hit the snow. I end up falling like a cat, landing squatting on the ground with my butt nearly inches off the white, wet snow underneath me. I try to move my free right hand up and down a frozen leg to try and feel it again through the thin layer of cotton black.
Mr. Way slams the door shut and turns, heels clicking as he walks to where the door rests open, looking down at the black hunched bunny on the ground.
“Is it nicer down there, dear?”
I look up at the odd angle I do of his nose and chin structure. It seems quite odd really, magnified somehow from the particularly weird vantage point I have. I can also have a closer look at the Scottish plaid wooly pants he’s wearing.
“Nice pants”
I could just feel his smile coming down on me as I looked back to the ground and heaved myself up, blankets, jackets and all.
It’s going to be a long and interesting ride back home.
Chapter 7
*BOOM BOOM BOOM*
“Are you enjoying the stereo of the car next to us, ‘Becca?”
I just know he’s smiling. Christ, he’s still smiling. He still has that same broad smile he was wearing when he drove up. It’s ridiculous, way too big for his face and way too powerful at that. Why does he seem to wear it with such pride…? Not that I should argue now…. A smile is better then a frown now…. Much better….
“If you lean your head against the glass like that, you’ll get headaches. The high-fidelity will go right into your skull.”
I don’t care; I don’t have any pillows on me and my jackets are still wetter then a lake. I’d rather have a headache then get wet.
As the light stays a blaring red, his eyes turn to try and stare at mine. I refuse to make connection but his jutting chin shows just how hard he’s trying to see why I’m staring off so ominously off into space. His eyes seem so bright, even as he gives up to slouch back in his chair and stare at the changing green. He presses his foot down softly and clears his throat carefully, but I’m not buying it.
“Hum… This is an awful long re-”
“I hate small talk, sir, could you just go ahead and tell me what’s been going on at home?”
My heavy eyes didn’t have to open too much to see the look on Mr. Way’s face. He had the heavy burden of telling me what happened in my absence, or rather make a good friend feel guilty after she abandoned her mother and her friends from home. His brows seemed furrowed, deep and cutting while his eyes seemed a little grayer, but it wasn’t the pain of a heavy burden to tell, just the pain of having to tell such a tale.
The darkness of the world around us seemed a lighter now, like heaven was breaking from the clouds because the sun had gone and hidden itself behind the layers of fuzzy white. It’s brighter then a thousand incandescent bulbs blaring together in unison, like god had a spot light, or a soft fuzzy white he decided to try. It’s just too bright… Too bright to be awake or asleep for my tired and melding eyes that refused to look out much further then a few hundred feet at all the snow around.
The skin on my lips now seems to close upon itself, sealing and closing my other words away. My hair was hanging even worse on my brow. My head was sticking to the fake pleather siding, the skin tearing down as the following BOOM BOOM BOOM made my forehead move a little downwards. My fingers seem to drag out on my legs, giving up on the futile effort to hold my arms up against my chest, and lull out like disembodied members.
Everything just seems so far away; it would seem the opportune time to catch up on ten years.
Mr. Way stares back at me with the same sympathetic eyes and tries to look a little happier but…
“I hope you know how heavy ten years can be. It’s a lot to try and start with, you know?”
He got to my thought before I even got to it.
Damn
“Please… Could… Could you start with my mom?”
There was still snow to fill the silence along with Mr. Way speeding along the gray, icy road. It all seemed endless in front of us, white yet mixed with golden sand by the edges of the fuzzy future, tainted with ugliness until it moved back to white and gray ice in the middle. I just hung my eyes together and let it all be blurred to nothingness and ugly golden and white. It was still bright around even with shut eyes…. Too bright….
My lips kept sticking together as a few more thoughts came out without a care of effort.
“How… How is she doing?”
“Well…”
Mr. Way pulled his right hand away from the steering wheel and picked up a large red metallic mug, sealed by a black rubber stopper. He holds it for a while, taking a roughly managed sip and turns around the curve in the road, carelessly moving hand after hand around the wheel, slowing down just right yet speeding up to save time when needed.
He puckered his lips, tasting the remaining bit of coffee on his lips and contemplating directions with words.
“Your mom is… Okay. She’s doing pretty well; but…”
It’s because I left, isn’t it?
“Ever since you left, it seems like that sweet optimism that used to shine so bright died…. Along with cleaning up the house. Donna nearly broke her leg trying to help Janice move some boxes she had left on the kitchen table for three months!”
Mr. Way did a couple of rough maneuvers with his hands as he tried to show with finger exaggeration just how much junk was in my mother’s house.
“Either way…She’s either constantly at work or at our house. She’s like a hole in the coffee bag, constantly there with a mug and a sad sort of puppy face…
Well, you know how much she used to enjoy her coffee?”
I shut my eyes and nod my head lightly, the side of my face pulling farther against the pleather. I pulled my head off the side and looked out the window, across the expanse and away from mind.
“It’s now like she swallows a bitter pill. She doesn’t do it for want… it’s like a never ending need she just can’t help. Hell, I’m just glad she’s strong enough just to be a coffee person. You know your mom, she’s tough!”
He holds a brave voice but he lets out another sigh that gives away how she really is. Sighs are not like finger exaggeration, or story telling fibs, it’s more like truth and can be more honest then words. These kind of sighs scare me.
Mr. Way continues, passing the BOOM BOOM BOOM and heading ahead of a freight truck.
“Your mother now has… horrible times sleeping!”
He starts to chuckle, holding his head with his left hand for a moment and grabs his red mug again for another sip.
“Why…. How is that funny? I thought-“
“Oh, it’s just…. I was already up because I was working late but your mother…. He-…. She was sleeping on the kitchen table; a mug firmly glued in her hand and her other hand’s finger’s half way through drumming on the table….”
“Did I wake her up?”
I don’t know if that was a chuckle or a sigh... I’m kind of scared again.
I pull Gerard’s jacket from the heap of the wet things in my lap and try to curl inside of it. I lift my feet from the floor and onto the edge of the seat and wrap the black jacket closer around the ball. Gerard’s jacket pulls tightly over my knees, trying to be pulled down and up at the same time, trying to be hidden inside the darkness and block out the cold. I hear a tiny mew coming from the Gerard box, Michelangelo II agreeing that it still seems cold in here. I have no will to try and warm my skin, it’s probably a waste of energy to feel again, but I could at least protect it from the outside.
Mr. Way continues again… his smile seems confused and mixed in a way. I just can’t decide what it wants to do, other then drive faster without the ice becoming a problem.
“No… She didn’t wake up; she didn’t even flicker her eyes. She was sleeping so contently; I didn’t want to try and wake her, or even move her. Her hair was a total mess; I probably should have woken her up to tell her to get a shower-”
“No….. No, your table is quite soft. She’s probably more comfortable there then-…… home.”
The snow helps fill the silence again, but there’s so much less now. They aren’t majestic snow pieces; they’re pitiful, watery impressions of their true form. It’s so sad to watch when it’s falling. It’s not as blinding or disorienting to help my weary head be lulled to sleep either. It’s like pain.
“Should…”
I don’t want to say it… My lips don’t want to say it. They seem so stuck and swollen, bitter and twisted, cut and bitten…. Unusable.
“Should I say-… I’m sorry now or should I wait until we’re back and everyone can hear it?”
Now that was a smirk on his face. I know that was. Is he toying with me? It’s a sad sort of look inside but it’s still not nice to pull it out like this when it’s so obvious.
“Please rephrase… ‘Everyone’…. Who do you think is at home, ‘Becca??”
I turn my weary head to look at him, my eyes not so closed anymore and my hands starting to feel blood again. I feel a strength, an anger, a truth and a meaning behind this…
“What do you mean? When we get there, I know my Mom is there, you’ve said that; Donna hasn’t left you, she never would, Mikey is probably at college or something but I know Gerard. He’s still living in his basement, right? He’s still being his little comic book self down in the portal of no sun… right?”
I feel Mr. Way’s eyes turn to look at mine at first, and then I see his face. I’m staring right at him, constantly looking right at him but I just feel he’s staring at me in disbelief. There’s something here, not just recognition while talking, but utter disbelief…
“Um… Rebecca, you’re not much into music the way you used to be, are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mr. Way shakes his head instead of explaining. I almost feel a small smile creeping on his face, something eloquent yet understanding. Little wrinkles twinge at the sides of his eyes and his gaze stays even more focused on the road. Tiny poking grays and whites from his scalp began to emerge from the sides of his head as his cap slid a little to the side. His right hand popped up and brushed his Eskimo hat off backwards to the backseat carpeting, hair flipping back up and his hand resting back on top of the steering wheel casually. His mouth puckered lightly as he seemed to breathe in some ideas of what to say.
“Hey ‘Becca….”
He drew out the last “c” really long, letting the sound become its own word.
“Yeahhhh?”
He drew his right hand again from the wheel and tried to reach for the glove box in front of my balled up legs. The car dangerously starts to swerve as he tried to hit the latch on the glove box. He threw his hand back on the steering wheel, the glove box still shut and several cars on the road left honking and confused at what the crappy little car was attempting to do.
“Could you open the glove box for me? There’s a couple of CD’s in the back I need.”
I look down at the little gray plastic latch directly below the dash by and inch. There’s a black metal circle etched with scars where the lock is, looking defensive and alien to the rest of the gray interior.
“Um… is it locked or does it just…”
“It’s okay; it should just pop open the door below with a little touch.”
I drop my legs back down into the stair well so my arms can prop out to reach the lock. I move my fingers slowly through the cold air into the crevice carved into the back of the latch for fingers to pull forward. I placed a few fingernails on the top edge of the latch, feeling the plastique curve out until it fell back to give to the other side of the molding. I dig my nails into the thin layer of bumpy cover and wait for the thin layer to be molded to my nails digging force. I just wanted to leave a little imprint in the surface, just a little reminder in this beat-up car of how cold I was one day and how beat-up things used can really get. Eh, I don’t know.
Then, with the little sound of a “bunk”…
“OOww!”
“I told you the latch only needs a little pull. Are you okay?”
The car had gone over a small bump on railroad tracks and my hand had jutted down and made the door to the glove compartment come falling onto my knee caps. It felt like the soft tissue was popped out of place from my bone to my thighs. I kept my hands off my knees and pretended to dust my pants of inexistent dust.
I’m…
NOT…..
Okay……
“Oh no, I’m perfectly fine, Mr. Way- Make sure you keep your eyes on the road – I’m a klutz, I get into little scrapes all the time- Is that a squirrel in the road???- What was it again you wanted me to find, CD’s?”
Mr. Way kept his eyes on the road and drove over the minuscule knot of wood that resembled a squirrel as he raised his brows right at me.
“Okay, if you look in the back, there are a few CD jewel cases.”
I looked down into the dark hole and spotted nothing in particular but a huge gray blur in front of me.
“Um… Mr. Way, I can’t-“
“Press the button on the left side”
“Uhh?”
“To the…. left…”
He tried to reach over to press it again but I felt along the side quickly before he veered off the road. I felt the smooth, elevated dimpled button, pressed in and an orange glowing light from the very back of the glove box turned on. It illuminated the space like a firefly in the night. It was a small rectangle and seemed about two shades dimmer then the hazard sticker on the back of bicycles, but it worked quite well to show what was inside.
It was a mess, but nothing like what I could find in my broken-down bus. It seemed to start with a few assorted maps from five years ago mixed in on top, varying from New Jersey to New Hampshire and from lightly wrinkled to totally ruined. I pulled two from the very top, both folded in on each other. The messily folded bundle were a New York map and a New Jersey map, roughly tapped together and cut just right to fit together so it became one super two state map. It must have saved on the mess of going from map to map, but the corners seemed firmly adhered together because of the messy tape work used in construction. I plopped it in my lap and shoved the other maps aside to the right side of the compartment.
I kept pulling the tops items out, ranging from a battery free flash light-
“He-he-he… Last time Gerard was in this car he stole the batteries out of the flash light for his CD player! ...Or was it Mikey? He-he, they both have such light fingers sometimes.”
I couldn’t help but hold a smile as I looked down the empty insides of the flashlight.
Now… where was I?
Oh yes, there was a flashlight, a couple of gas receipts, a small wallet sized photo of DeNero, a speeding ticket-
“Mr. Way, how did you get a speeding ticket??”
“Oh-… Um… I think that’s Mikey’s… oh, wait, Donna?”
“So definitely not you?”
“Yes, err…. No? Um… I don’t speed!”
I felt like smiling again but the coldness seemed to rob me of the effort of trying to grin. I kept flicking through the things: a pair of gloves, a piece of torn cardboard, an outdated insurance card, and a “Godfather” figurine- … “Action Figure”. He-he-he…
I finally hit the back of the glove compartment and I saw a stack of four to five different jewel cases in the back, their ridged sides reflecting like rainbows in the light. I drove my fingers between the carpeted bottom of the compartment and the scratched underbelly of the jewel cases. I balanced my fingers on top and I pulled them out like a plant from overpowering dirt. I held them all shakily with one hand as I took my right arm and shoved the collection of memorabilia back into the deep hole, clicking the button on the left side and closing the door with a firm click.
I carefully place the stack of CD’s in my lap, examining the gleaming light coming off the surface, giving away all the little scratches and cracks it had received from misuse and abuse.
“Which CD do you want Mr. Way?”
“Oh, could you just choose for me? Just flick through them and pick out one you like. And…”
I look up from perfectly adjusting the top CD’s corners to be aligned with the following ones to see Mr. Way’s trouble with formal words.
“Yes?”
He dropped his head into his lap, shut his eyes to rest from the endless expanse of white and tried to think of the few words he wants. He looked back up, confident and turning along with the road, with nothing but the two of us resting in time. Michelangelo II hadn’t spoken for a while now, but I knew she was resting, staring as the road went by and waiting for home to come.
Mr. Way coughed unnecessarily, clearing of his throat just for the effect of time.
“You don’t have to call me “Mr. Way”. I’m-… I’m perfectly contented with getting called Don. Is it fine-…. Okay with you?”
I keep fixing the corners of these cases but in a car with bad shocks, it’s impossible to stay straight for long…
“Okay, Don”
Don flicked the wheel around to the red light ahead, an intersection covered in tan snow that melded down into black coal colors. It just started snowing here and the snow cleaners had cleared away huge sheets of snow into the side embankment. It’s really embarrassing really, knowing that I used to run through that in short skirts as a kid. I just drop my head before I remember the exactly last time I ran like crazy in a black mini-skirt
The first CD was easy to tell as a classic. It was “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, an easy like-like for me, but it’d be kind of boring to pick out something I’ve heard so many times as a kid. Plus…
Didn’t I promise Gerard I’d only listen to that 50% of the time with him?....
Cold air circulated back into my nose and feeling seemed to be lost from the inside, out as I breathed it all in. I flicked the CD backwards into my stomach to stare at the next CD.
“Siamese Dream” by Smashing Pumpkins… NEXT! They’re an okay band, but I was never a huge fan. Every time I’d listen to them, I get a picture of a bald Billy which inevitably led to a picture of a bald Gerard and that would merely lead to irritate my aching mind.
I flicked the CD back as well and stared a home-made burned copy of “Meat is Murder” by The Smiths.
“Is all this music Gerard’s or Mikey’s??”
“I usually listen to the radio… it’s more convenient for them to leave their sh*t here anyways. Look at another CD if you object to that one.”
I look once more at the thin, bright-pink CD and jewel case back-ground, the sharpie scrawled across the rim “Meat is Murder”, burled by passing fingers and time. I let out an exaggerated sigh of time and flipped the CD over to see the last one in the stack.
The cover was quite different, a little more morbid then two little girls smiling but lacking the poor homemade quality of sharpie print. It was a hand drawn picture of a couple staring at each other, jutted chins and sharp hair. The girl was wearing white lace and the man was in a black suit and the entire back-ground was a mixture of black, white and deep-red blood spatter. The looks they were giving each other with closed eyes…..
Wait… I’ve seen something like this before….
I turn around in my seat and reach back quickly for my cardboard box. Michelangelo II roughly disagreed with the jetting hand digging through the belongings she was sleeping on, but didn’t mind as the hand quickly left with a small piece of folded paper from the far corner. She went right back to sleep as I was quickly and nervously opening the four time folded paper. Inside was a sketch, a small and random little doodle of a dancing girl in a white lacy dress acting like a buffoon, a gun in her hand and lightly misted in blood all around her. I compared the sketch from nine plus years ago to the girl standing opposite on the cover of the CD. Their jaw line, the lace work, the blood spatter…
“OH MY GOD!”
“ ‘BeccA! Give warning next time will ya!? I nearly hit something!!!”
“BUT…. BUT LOOK AT THIS!!!!!”
I held the sketch and the CD close together, my arms waving back and forth from the jerky recap Don was making, and the drawings kept matching up in every way. I dropped the sketch and flipped the CD over, looking at the back and-
“OH MY GODDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!”
“What did I say about proper warning????”
The car swerved again, but less violently as I gave the back of the CD a death stare. Looking right back at my bulging eyes were a series of five shots, among them two I could recognize bombed out of my head and on my death bed. Mikey and Gerard, full as life itself in square picture boxes amongst men I’d never seen before. Mikey looked almost like he did back in high-school, wispy hair floating in the air and baby like eyes glowing away behind a new pair of glasses. Gerard though…. He…. He lost some weight since the last time I’d seen a photograph…
It seems to calm me down in the way…
God, why am I so jumpy?
“Are you done screaming yet?”
“I…. I knew it…”
“Knew what?!?”
I slouch back in the seat and try to cool back down. The cold chilled my head and Michelangelo II’s sleeping purrs returned to normal as the wheels rubber stroll feels like a normalcy.
I didn’t speak.
I couldn’t speak.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t talk. I just sat there, slouched, holding the CD in my hands, my fingers slipping over the sharp corners and dragging in my lap but too scared to open it and see what was inside. I’m too tired to see what’s inside. I don’t want to see. I can’t see because my fingers won’t move. My head starts to roll on my neck like a disjointed limb. I could feel my eyes lull; my lips tear and my ears creak as I gave up trying to be awake…..
I never quite realized how peaceful the snow is. It’s constant. It’s set. It’s snow.
Michelangelo II squawks now…
I wonder…. why…. He’s….. She’s never done that before….
“Hey Rebecca…”
My jaw feels so locked… why does it feel so immobile… Oh, maybe because I screamed so much?.... I don’t know, I just feel… so…. tired….
“Muuuhhh?”
“ ‘Becca, we’re home, wake up.”
But…. I…. I want to stay here and listen to…
Oh… what’s the…. the name?.....
“He….. He-he….. You-….. You know Mr. Way, sir….”
His smile is too sympathetic…. Too nice….
“What is it, honey?”
“I…. I never asked… What’s the band….. Name?”
His smile, it’s just too broad Mikey. You’ve seen it before; remember when he caught you throwing up under the sink? You…. you were just so little….
“It’s My Chemical Romance.”
Wow….. It’s……………
