"Okay just don't pay attention to me," I said as I waved my hands around.

I had been with the guys an hour and the light was just starting to fade completely and I wanted my shots to document this. We had gone to Frankie's favorite pizza place because they made pizza's he could eat, vegetarian ones, and I had snapped a killer shot of Frankie licking the giant glass store front window of the place. God knows what was on that glass, but it didn't matter for Frankie had no idea I was going to snap the shot, so it turned out perfectly. I switched back and forth between black and white and color as I took my shots. Depending on the mood or the lighting.

We were now in a park of some sort, there was a jazz band playing on a small concrete round music stage with a few people gathered. There were loud kids running away from parents, there were older gentlemen playing chess on stone benches as their wives talked amongst themselves, and there was us. I couldn't NOT take photos, it was too perfect.

"But, but, but... you have a CAMERA. How are we not going to know you're there and not pose?" Frankie and Mikey both whined.

Mikey had opened up a bit and proved to be more like Frankie then he probably thought. But then an outsider saw more than those on the inside.

I snapped a shot of Gerard just standing with his hands in his pockets, his head cocked to the side as he listened to the jazz band play. I took a step and zoomed in as much as possible for the second shot. His eyes seemed to be lost in the music yet highly focused and the failing light glinted off them perfectly and made his pale skin shine. I took the shot and sighed. I had got the shot I wanted.

I turned around and took a shot of Bob looking over the shoulders of some oder gentlemen playing chess, and their wives checking out his backside as he did so. Smiling and whispering as they did, maybe sometimes we don't really ever grow up on the inside. Sighing I went about snapping other shots.

I got one of Frank sitting down on the grass peacefully, knees drawn up and arms wrapped tightly around them, just staring off and being silent. I got one of Mikey sitting on a bench making silly faces at two little girls around the age of six who were sitting on the far end from him, laughing and smiling at him. I even got one of Ray skipping stones serenely on the pond with Frank beside him jumping cheerfully in the air. People don't realize how much they tell the world through a camera shot when they're not looking and posing. You're captured being yourself and don't even know it.

It's how I speak to people, and to the world. Through my photos.

"You know you're quite good at that," a voice said from beside me, startling me and causing me to lose my shot.

I whirled around and glared.

"Only when I'm not being distracted by loud wanna be band rock star thingy's," I muttered lamely as I had no come back prepared.

"Wow that was lame. And I'm not just a loud wanna be band rock star thingy. I happen to be the lead singer and song writer," Gerard said as he spun around to my other side.

"Ahh, so you've got the biggest ego of them all," I said teasingly as I turned to face him and snapped a quick shot of him.

"Not really. See how you take this camera," he said as he swiped my camera from my hands.

I scoffed and furrowed my brow at him.

"You take your camera and snap pictures of unsuspecting moments in life. Like this," he said as he quickly snapped a shot of my face.

I smiled a bit.

"You take these shots of time stood still and you tell a story through still frame. You speak about life with every snap," he said as he quickly spun and took another unsuspecting shot of me.

"Of the camera lens. You taste the moment on your skin, feel the moment on your tongue and capture it on film. Each three by five," he said as he snapped a random shot that couldn't have held my whole profile.

My profile which was laughing slightly.

"You make your own, you tell a story with. A story you may or may not convey to others. I do the same thing. Just in a different way. I use my voice, my love of musical notes, the melodies I see painted before my eyes in bright vibrant hues and octaves. I write how I see things down on paper and turn them into pieces of audible artwork. Just like you do with your camera," Gerard explained as he stepped closer to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder pulling me close to him and then raising the camera and snapping a photo.

"Every time you walk out your door," he finished as he handed my camera back to me.

"Wow," was all I managed to say.

"See we're not so much different you and I, we just use different mediums," Gerard said with a smile.

I was still shocked. His words though based in simple every day dialogue rang in my ears like a perfect sonnet. His words held a grace to them. I could listen to him speak for the rest of time, starting from that moment on. His words held me entranced, and this was only regular conversation. Mostly.

I shook my head and came back down to earth.

"I write too, but not like lyrically or even poetry like. More like moments in time, bits that make sense to me at the time. I use them to document my pictures and vice versa. Sometimes I look to get a certain shot to go with whatever I've written that day or moment. But not like you," I said as I slid my camera into my suit jacket pocket as it hung open on my body.

"Like what? Or do you not share?" Gerard asked carefully.

"No I can share some, not all, but some I can," I said as I opened my cloth bag and dug for my journal.

Finding the journal that was starting to look well worn, with it's dirty black cover and coffee ring stained pages I cracked it open and flipped through the pages. Biting my lip as I looked for something that would purvey what I was trying to tell him. Finally I found a passage and read it out loud, planning on explaining the shots I would attach to it.

"Here's a blurb I wrote the other day. Frankie's my height which is odd. Reta smells of cornbread muffins, cigarette smoke and soap. I'm going out with actual people tomorrow, let's pray for rain. The sixth step on the stairs creaks like in the movies and the wood is worn smooth from years of use," I said out loud and then closed my book.

Gerard just looked at me with a look on his face that I couldn't place.

"With it I'm going to tag a photo of Reta scrubbing the diner's counter tops, a smile haunting her lips. I took it a few days ago, it's in black and white and speaks to me about her character. And then I want to take a picture of the step, it catches great light right after the lunch rush, right before the dinner one, when I'm taking a break out there. It's really amazing how the light reflects off the worn stain, and I'm babbling sorry," I said when I noticed Gerard's blank look.

"No, no you weren't. I just got caught up in what you were saying, it painted an image in my mind. Hence the probable blank look on my face," Gerard said apologetically as he shook his head as if shaking himself out of a daze.

"I understand, I got like then when you were talking," I said, smiling out of the corner of my mouth.

"See, one more thing in common. Come with me a second?" Gerard asked all of a sudden, his smirk, that I was coming to understand was a part of who he was, played across his face.

"Sure?" I replied.

He nodded his head at me and grabbed me gently right above my elbow.

"Hey guys hold for a few I'm taking Jay somewhere for a second or two," Gerard called out to everyone.

"Okay," Bob shouted back as he watched Frank and Ray in a slap fest that Mikey seemed to be egging on from the side lines.

"Don't scare her off Gee, that's Bob's job," Mikey yelled back as he quickly ran into the tangle that was Ray and Frankie's fighting bodies and pinched Frankie's thigh, earning the park a loud yelp.

"The friend's I keep and the siblings I claim as blood," Gerard said as he directed me away from the squealing mass that was the guys.

"They're not all that bad, I like them. And what do you mean siblings? Is one of them your brother or something?" I asked as I followed his lead away from the crowds to where it was slightly darker.

I wasn't afraid of being alone with Gerard, like I said before, with him next to me I felt like we could take on the world. I did though lift my sunglass off my head and stuck them into my bag since it was dark enough that they weren't going back on my face. At least not as long as we stayed outdoors.

"Uh yeah, you didn't see it? Mikey and I are brothers, me being the oldest. Most people either get it right off the bat or don't and take forever to convince," Gerard said nonchalantly as he shrugged his shoulders.

He still had a light hold on my arm right above my elbow as we started to ascend up a slight hill.

"Well at first I didn't see it, but now that you mention it the two of you have strikingly identical facial features. The spacing is similar enough that anyone should be able to see the artistic tie of siblings between the two of you. No two people are carved alike, but siblings share the same artisan and chisel working on their forms, just different mediums," I said as I followed up the now slightly steeper hill.

I was not built for steep climbing, regardless of my smaller frame, I still smoked like a chimney. My lungs were dead gone, I could do long FLAT distances, but not severely up hill.

"Wow, I never thought of it like that. But now that you paint it like that I understand more. Reminds me of my art professors going on about," Gerard started to explain but I cut him off.

"Art professors? Like in college?" I asked suddenly.

"Yeah I wasn't born with the notion of being a rock star, I went to college to be an artist first. I still dabble in it, but music is my main focus," Gerard explained as if it was nothing.

"Wow, that's amazing, simply amazing. I'd love to see something you've done some time. That is if it's not personal I mean," I said as we reached the top.

"No it seems only fair as you've given me a look at the art you create, and that's highly personal as well," Gerard said as he let go of my arm and walked to the middle of the top.

"I wouldn't call it art, but yeah," I added lamely.

"Didn't you hear anything I was saying earlier down there?" Gerard asked as he pointed out to where we must have come from.

I looked at him quizzically.

"You create your own art, the images you capture, while I may have not seen them I still know what you were trying to capture. I watched as you chose your shot. You capture things people don't always see because they are too cluttered in the day to day. You capture sides of people they don't even know they have, you capture life unsuspecting. And you speak it in your short writings. You see the world differently," Gerard said as he held his hand out for me to join him in the middle.

I already said this was sounding like a bad paper back novel some days ago.

I took his hand and stood beside him, looking out at the black that encased the city, with its bright neon lights breaking through like stars in the night. It was beautiful. And almost quiet, the city sounds were still there, but muted, and blended somehow.

"Why are we here? What did you want to show me?" I asked, disregarding what he had said about me.

"Here that?" he asked quietly.

"What?" I asked, confused as to what I was listening for.

I could hear everything I heard before.

"Shhh, listen. That's Jersey's voice singing her song to those who will listen," he said softly and then turned to look out at the vastness that stretched before us.
-xXx-
That night after all the antics were done and over with for the evening, and I had promised many more nights out, and many band show attendances I sat in my apartment and brought out my journal and camera. I downloaded the pictures I had taken that night and looked for the ones from the park, the initial ones. Pausing at them I numbered them P1 through P6 and then went to my journal.

"I saw the city in a different light and found art embodied in music, in the words of another. I've have started to find myself in this city of many people. I shared a bit of me to others and was given barter back. I've found I am an artist in my own right. I breathe life into still frames and paint them with jumbled thoughts and shed light on peoples other sides. Ray can't skip stones and Frankie can be silent. Little girls still crush on older boys and old ladies still fawn over the young ones. Jersey spoke to me and Gerard opened my ears to its silent hum. Note: pictures P1-6."

I smiled as I closed my book. Today had been a good day.

Notes

And hence, I got my title!