Lindsey


Sunday afternoon is the day and the time that I get coffee. Not just normal coffee; but a serious, fancy drink. You know, lattes, caramel machiatos, drinks like that. When I was touring last I used to drink something like that nearly every day without fail, until I realized it was making me gain weight rapidly. Now I limit myself to a nice drink every Sunday afternoon, it's a sacred moment for me.

I savor this time of week and my drink; prefer to spend it alone. I come to the same coffee shop every week, because it's filled with natural light streaming through the glass walls. The best place to sit is at a small table with two chairs in one corner, I sit there alone and gaze at the empty seat across from me.

Usually.

I'm so used to sitting there that I barely notice the man, but when I do I stop short about half a foot away from the table.

He glances up in surprise when he hears me. He had been holding his head in his hands; a topless cup steaming—untouched—before him. Skin blotchy and red, his damp eyes meet mine and his mouth drops open in surprise.

“Lindsey? Chrissakes, you're Lindsey Ballato.”

Confused at first, I suddenly recognize him. “Frank?” I feel awkward, both of us catching one another off guard and me realizing that this is a bad time for me to be here.

I didn't know why it took me a moment to recognize him; I should have known from the intricate tattoos and the thin ring in his lower lip. His tattoos were incredible; irreplaceable. I loved tattoos, and when I first met him he had been happy to show me them. I had traced my fingers over his partial sleeves, listened to him say what he wanted to fill in and what needed to be outlined and all the ideas he had that he wanted Gerard to draw.

“Lindsey,” he repeats in amazement. “In Los Angeles?”

“I—” Stuttering, I shake my head. “I'm sorry, I totally didn't see you here.” I can tell he'd been crying, and this makes me even more uncomfortable. I'm intruding on something private and I have no idea what to do, no idea why fate has left our first meeting after four years in such an unfortunate situation. Seeing men cry throws me off greatly, I'm not used to it.

He shakes his head, his eyes turning soft. “It's fine. I shouldn't be acting like a basket-case in a public place, anyway.”

Now I remember, that he was just nice. I hadn't talked to him much, but the way he interacted with people was gentle. He seemed like he was always trying to be kind, almost seemed innocent. During the pre-show nervousness Gerard was having back then when they were opening for us, he was the one to offer the comforting word; the one to say that Gerard's voice wouldn't fail.

“Is this a bad time?” I clumsily say. “I mean...I, uh...”

“No, it's cool.” He rubs his eyes. “Just caught me off guard. Go ahead and sit, I can tell I took your seat and I could use company anyways.”

Hesitantly, I ease into the seat across from him, place my coffee on the table.

“What're you doing here?”

“I moved to Los Angeles a few months ago.” I focus on my drink so I don't need to make too much eye contact with him. “I haven't been to a lot of local places but I found this coffee shop and now I come here every Sunday.”

“Really? It's probably the best one in L.A., me and my girlfriend come here all the time.” His eyes cloud over again, and he shakes his head and looks down.

“You have a girlfriend now?” I ask.

“Yes.” He says faintly, running his fingertips around the edge of his cup but not drinking.

I can tell I asked the wrong question when he lays his forehead in his hand and bites into his lower lip, holding back everything he had been letting out before I arrived.

“Oh God—I...I'm sorry. I'm so intrusive.”

“Lindsey, is it okay if I tell you everything?” His bleary eyes meet mine. “We can pretend that this never happened afterward.”

Reaching across the table, I gingerly squeeze his hand and then pull mine back quickly like his was about to implode. “Go ahead and vent; my lips are sealed.”

I've only seen such a grateful look on someone a few times, and his might have beaten them all. Instantly, I felt like I was doing something good, felt ready to listen even if I was kept there all day.

And this was how I found out that his girlfriend was in terminal condition in the hospital, and that Frank Iero was thinking of leaving My Chemical Romance before they released their next possible platinum album. How I found out that Gerard had seemed so lost inside himself that he was pushing aside the things he had once seemed to deem most important in his life, including his best friend and cousin dying alone in a hospital ward.

I can see the frustration and hurt scrawled across his face as he continues to tell me everything. “I don't get it, I feel sort of misplaced. I don't know why he's acting like this, but he's not an asshole at heart. I wish I knew what was wrong with him.”

“I met Gerard,” I confess. “A few weeks ago, we went out for dinner.”

“That's news to me.” He laughs hollowly. “If things were the way they used to be, he probably wouldn't shut up about it to me for days.”

Wouldn't shut up for days?

“He seemed fine when I met him,” I shrug, feel my cheeks get warm.“But he's not my best friend either, like in your case.”

“I don't know.” Frank rubs his eyes, takes a sip of his coffee long gone cold. “It hurts every time she asks about him, hurts every time he blows her off. I don't know what's going on, but Mikey told me that he hasn't left his apartment in almost a full week. He missed two sessions in the studio, didn't even show up.”

“I think you need to talk to him. Is he still in his apartment?”

“He still is and I've tried! I've texted him, called...” his voice trails off. “I'm losing my patience.”

“You losing your patience?” I shake my head, the thought of it bemusing.

“I think I'm blowing it,” he says hoarsely. “He knows I'm upset.”

“You have every right to be. I would chew him out on it, if I were you.”

He shrugs. “I don't really give myself that indulgence, because if we all did we wouldn't be very nice to one another, would we?”

The virgin Mary stares at me upside down, dead eyed and cold looking on his skin. The rays from a Japanese sun just miss her head, guns circle around a rose above.

“I'm sorry I kept you, it's so nice of you to—” He says, gaze following mine as I distantly stare at his tattoos.

I interrupt.

“How old were you when you got your first tattoo?” I tear my eyes away; it's difficult. I have an eye for art; it doesn't matter what kind. All artwork is eye-candy to me, from body modifications to Picasso to comic strips.

“Seventeen.” He says fondly, runs his hand down one of his forearms, grazing over some of the many. “When I told my parents, they tried to convince me not to, said I would get older and not want a tattoo anymore. They were wrong.”

The artwork and the coffee are starting to turn the gears in my head, make me able to think straight again. “Frank? Could you do me a favor?”

“Sure...I owe you a lot after this.” I can tell our time here is done, that he'd vented all he'd wanted to and I'd done all the listening I thought was good for him. “It just can't be anything...you know.”

“Let's go visit Gerard.”

He freezes, looks like he's going to refuse; but then a change comes over him.

“Alright, but only because you listened to me.”

*

The apartment building is nice: a mixture of warm brick and metal panels to make a large, contemporary looking building. There's a communal parking lot across the street that we parked in, getting a good view of the entire place.

I had followed Frank in his car, trying to keep up behind him since he knew the roads and traffic in Los Angeles better than I did. He clipped around slow cars, taxis, with no problem while I tried to keep my eye on his camaro without getting lost on one of the identical, palm tree laden roads.

My mind was spinning, felt like a yoyo all tight and wound up before a child threw it to the ground.

“This is a gorgeous building,” I say as we make our way up the stairs, Frank leading in an automatic way. I could tell he'd been here many times, up and down the same stairs.

“I don't know what I'm doing. What the hell am I doing?” He mutters to himself, eyes fixed ahead.

“You have to tell him how you feel.”

“That's not that easy, Mrs. Ballato.” He says, I detect a hint of bitterness.

“So how are you going to do it then? By quitting the band and harboring anger until you resolve all this, which might be never if you do that?”

He stops to abruptly I almost walk into him. “You don't know what this is like.”

“Maybe I don't.” I say. “But I know what happens when you let things go to far.”

“His apartment is one-twenty-four. Right there.” He points a finger to a door a few feet away from us. “We can go right ahead or turn around.” He looks at me fixedly. “You obviously don't know him like I do, so I'm warning you that he will never forget this. Might not be able to look you in the eyes again if we've come at a terrible time.”

I clear the nervousness out of my throat. “Alright.”

These are the things that were added to the whirlpool of my thoughts as I made the first knock on the door. The things I had inside of me while I summed up all my courage and—

Knock.

Knock.

“Gerard?” Frank leans his face in close to the door, I step out of the way. “It's Frank.”

We wait a few minutes, both of us completely still.

There's no noise from the other side of the door.

Waiting. It had never been kind to me. I was accustomed to expecting bad things at the end of waiting, my childhood never gave me what I wanted at the end of my waiting period. So I grew into a woman with no hope for the end of a long wait. It makes me nervous.

Hoping—never had been kind either.

The words he says may not be for me; words said under an anxious, quiet breath. “Please don't have killed yourself now, Gerard.”

After I hear that, the next few seconds seem to stretch into another lifetime.

The voice we had been waiting for comes faintly from the other side just as I position my knuckles for one last knock. “What, Frank?”

It doesn't sound like the Gerard I talked to in the restaurant.

“Listen,” Franks' voice turns slightly pleading. “I came to talk to you, and I'm with Lindsey. We've all been worrying about you...you little fuck.”

There's silence, then: “Lindsey, Lindsey who?” I hear a different lilt to his voice when he says my name, but I can't tell if it's a positive transition.

I clear my throat, speak up. “Lindsey...” I don't know how to define myself, struggle. “The girl who you took to your favorite restaurant. The girl who convinced the rest of her band to let you open for them because I thought your voice was perfect.”

It takes a little while, but we hear him speak up again. “Don't go, just give me a minute.”

“We'll wait,” Frank says. “I've been waiting all week, I can do it for a minute.”

Me and Frank don't talk while we wait the for the next ten minutes, simply shift uneasily from foot to foot and give one another small looks.

When I hear the door open, the heartbeat inside my wrists quickens.

“Hi.”

His voice sounds like he's been chain smoking for days without speaking, hoarse and thin.

“What did you do to yourself, Gerard?” Frank demands.

The door opens enough so that we can see him completely; see his disheveled hair and I can tell he'd thrown on some clothes moments ago by the way his shirt's sleeve is rumpled up. It's the eyes that get me though; not how disheveled he looks.

He doesn't make eye contact with either of us, but he flashes a quick look over me and I see his eyes. They kill me. From simply seeing them I feel this deep, wrenching understanding.

I know maybe everyone has every right to be angry with him, but for some reason I understand. I know he's gone through some hell I don't know, that I haven't even scratched the surface of Gerard Way and who he is. I understand what it feels like to go through something no one knows about, that you can't tell anyone about so they remain upset with you because they don't understand at all.

“Shit, I don't know.” He tugs down on his long sleeves. “No idea, actually.” He sounds slightly faded, like he's still mostly here but part of him is gone. “I keep on trying to remember but I can't really and now Mikey's mad too. I think maybe it's because I lost the lighter.”

“Let me in.” Frank says. “I'm taking everything out.”

“You can't do that,” he shakes his head. “I'm not letting you do that.”

“Gerard,” I say softly. “I think he knows what's best right now.”

“I wrote five new songs.” He pulls down on his eyelids, eyes closed. I see the little veins in them, a purplish hue against his pale skin. “You can sing them instead.”

“I'm done, Gerard.” Frank says, voice blunt. “I'm not recording, and you had better let me and Lindsey into your apartment.” He pushes his way past Gerard, nods at me to follow but I don't.

Staring past them into the apartment, I see all the papers on the floor, torn out form the binders. I see all the empty bottles, see the plastic and glass carnage he left.

I swallow. “Was this all you?” I look at him, look at the same man I had gone out with only a few weeks earlier. The same boy who'd taken a picture with me four years ago. The same person who had a beaming smile and this voice that no one else could compare to.

“I don't know what to say,” he grits his teeth, shakes his head. “I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to have to see me like this.”

I don't know what to say, either. “Can I come in?”

He finally looks up at me. “Alright.”

Inside the apartment, Frank does a full one-eighty as he takes in it all.

The papers don't prove to be garbage, but drawings and words done in dark, harsh charcoal. I pick one of them up, scan my eyes over it. I can see everywhere he pressed harder, see every time his hands faltered. In my mind, I can picture the scene.

I can imagine him filling up pages and pages, tearing them out from the binders of his notebooks while he self-destructed. Imagine him documenting all his feelings and thoughts during the week.

It scares me.

Does the television make you feel the PILLS you ate?

I collect them in a pile, he gets down on his knees besides me and wordlessly hands me more. There's sketches of cyborg people, cats, mummified girls, and people wearing capes and super hero costumes. There's bullet points besides most of the characters, filled with notes of who and what they are. Most of them seem whimsical, childish.

Run, bunny, run, bunny, run....

“Are these lyrics to danger days?” I murmur. “They're beautiful.”

Eyebrows furrowed, he nods. “I've been thinking about the songs a lot.”

Frank had found a trash bag, is ransacking the kitchen and collecting all the full and empty alcohol bottles. Gerard watches him doing it, but I see no resistance whatsoever on his face. It's like he's given into us completely, is broken down.

Cleaning the apartment is strenuous, he doesn't have much but what he does is strewn around. The things that seem to be cared well for and kept in place are just his comic books, and the awards and some photos placed on the shelves. I can tell what he cares about, as we all assist one another.

I see a sort of selflessness in Frank as he doesn't accuse or even express any of what he is upset about to Gerard, but scrubs stains out of the cabinets from spilled alcohol and vacuums up ashes.

We're all silent, each lost in our own minds as we mull over everything.

“Are you still gone?” Frank asks Gerard later, hushed voice. “I need to talk to you.” I barely hear them as I pick up some of the last big pieces of glass by his couch. After we picked up all the debris it didn't look that bad, but we ended up also washing dishes and doing simple things like that since he hadn't in a week.

“I'm ready to talk to you now.” A quick glance at me, and they both go out on the fire escape.

I'm left alone in the apartment, pieces of a whiskey bottle in hand.

When I first moved to L.A, I was afraid of being lonely. I grew up surrounded by people in a busy suburb, learned that even in that environment you can be lonely. It doesn't matter how many people walk by you everyday, that doesn't make you a part of it all. I remember that in the months before I boarded a plane for Los Angeles, that I felt removed from life. Felt like I was a small planet orbiting a larger one, close to collision but never even skimming the surface.

In my own little orbit, all alone. Close to touching but never succeeding.

Which was why I was glad when I met Gerard, met someone I had known before in a foreign city. I thought maybe it would work, maybe I could pull together something from someone I had only met four years prior. I suddenly didn't feel alone anymore as soon as I saw him there.

Maybe he'll be a shitty friend but I'm faced with the realization that he may be the only person I have linked to the past out here, the only person who I can relate to somehow.

For some reason I feel attached the the nice kid who looked at me shyly and asked to take a picture with me even though he was soon to become our betters in the music industry. For some reason, I don't think I can give up on that person.

Notes

sorry it sucks