Married In My Mind

There was the usual rush of pre-show-adrenaline as Frank pulled me through the stage door. It was kind of like being forcefully submerged under water. All the sounds my brain had peripherally been picking up on were muted by the roar of the crowd. I couldn’t hold anything in my head. My mouth went dry.
I was a few steps away from hitting the stage when I saw Bert standing just out of the crowd’s line of sight. He had a mic in his hand and was staring at me with a devilish grin.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” Frank said harshly against my ear. The neck of his guitar bumped my arm. I could barely hear him over the sound of the show-goers at the end of the stage.
“I don’t know.” I said honestly, making eye contact with Ray who was staring at me with a confused frown. A sound tech was shoving a battery pack in my back pocket and handing me a cordless mic.
“He’s not gonna sabotage the show or anything, let’s just go with it!” I yelled over the roar.
“Gerard, there are representatives from the fucking label here. I am not fucking around with this.” Ray argued loudly.
“I don’t care, Ray!” I yelled back.
Ray stared at me in disbelief. He looked as shocked as I felt. Bob rolled his eyes. Mikey raised his eyebrows. Frank scowled. The emotions hit their faces one after the other like dominos.
“I haven’t cared for awhile!” I continued, “I know you guys hate him, but the kids out there will be stoked… now, are we gonna play a show or not?”
I glanced over at Bert. He was still grinning at us impatiently, waving a twitchy hand, beckoning us to shut the fuck up and get out on the stage.
“He knows all the words and I…. well, y’know!” I added, glancing at my bandmates who all nodded back at me apprehensively. Well, Frank was still scowling but I was out of time to do anything to fix it before we went on.
I turned on my heels and headed for the stage, grabbing Bert’s arm. The sounds from the crowd picked up as I stepped into the lights. I felt a flash of heat rush through me. I brought the microphone to my mouth:
“NEW! JERSEY!” I drawled, making the most guttural sound my throat could produce.
The yells from the crowd were deafening.
I heard the crunch of Ray’s guitar. Bob ticked on the hi-hat to count us off… and the amps began to explode with sound.
Of course, Bert had been right all along. I stared into the crowd, screaming the lyrics without even thinking about them. I turned to Bert to shoot him a grateful grin. He’d picked out his own complimenting harmonies and screamed the lyrics back at me. I found myself grinning uncontrollably as we circled each other in the center of the stage, screaming at each other.
As Ray’s guitar solo flooded in, I glanced over Bert’s shoulder at Frank. His guitar dangled off his shoulders, swaying around in his arms. He played his guitar frantically, strumming out the sharp rhythms. His lips hovered an inch from the mic in front of him. His eyes were on me. As we made eye contact I lost my breath.
I’d never seen him look so pissed off but it fit with what the rest of his body was doing. He looked more like a moody, punk rhythm guitarist with a taste for blood than an angry, confused, sort-of-ex-but-sort-of-current-boyfriend. My mind flooded with everything that had made me fall in love with him in the first place.
He was so mad at me. I could see it all over his face. The murderous look he tossed at Bert made me smile. Whatever specifics had Frank angry... they were nothing I couldn’t fix. Nothing we couldn’t eventually work out. Because he loved me. He’d said so.
All of the sudden Bert was pulling my arm, snapping me back into reality. We finished the final chorus, looking into each other’s eyes, challenging each other to see who could scream the lyrics louder.
“New Jersey!” I panted into the mic as the guitar tones of the first song were fading. “We’re My Chemical Romance.”
The crowd screamed back at me.
“Does this guy look familiar to you? Has anyone lost a child?” I asked. I turned to look at Bert, who was already completely covered sweat. Voices in the crowd were screaming Bert’s name.
“I’ve never seen him before in my fucking life.” I laughed into the mic, shrugging.
Bert grinned back at me and stuck up his middle finger.
“We’re so glad to be here. Thanks for having us.” I drawled as Bob ticked off the timing for the next song. And just like that we exploded into the next two songs.
The rest of the show blurred together in a similar fashion. Bert and I hung off each other. My voice was hoarse. I was dripping with sweat; I could feel my makeup running and my hair limping. It was so hot I wanted tear all my clothes off.
The show had been going great, I realized. I’d remembered all the words. We hadn’t done anything that would piss off our label. The way Ray was expertly shredding through his solos made me want to cry. Frank was rolling around on the stage with no regard for himself or his instrument… or anyone else. Bob glared at Frank the one time he’d almost pushed one of his cymbals over but mostly kept his face stoic as he drove the rhythm for the rest of us. Mikey picked a spot somewhat behind Ray to avoid the wrath of Frank’s frantic playing. The crowd was eating us up.
During Ray’s guitar solo of our final song, Bert leaned in and kissed me as hard as he could. I was too dazed to kiss back, and also too high from the rush of everything to protest and shove him off. The crowd fucking loved it. Just as Bert was starting to pull away from me I pulled him back in and kissed him again. For the fans, I thought to myself. The crowd went insane.
Bob banged out the final drum fill and tossed his drum sticks into the crowd. I watched as the the drum sticks disappeared into the sea of sweaty, yelling show-goers. I felt a hand on my arm and turned to find Bert grinning at me. He pulled me along with the rest of the band. We all filed out stage-left and huddled together backstage. We only had to wait a few moments before we would go back on for an encore. The wall of sound coming off of the kids in the showroom was deafening.
“I hate you.” Frank growled, glaring at Bert. “I just… fucking hate you.”
“Why?” Bert asked innocently, grinning at Frank.
I was vaguely aware of Ray, Mikey and Bob gravitating away from us to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
“What the fuck was that?” Frank yelled, taking a step towards Bert, “You said you’d back off if I-”
“You could’ve kissed him up there, y’know?” Bert interrupted. “Nobody would’ve stopped you.”
“You know why I didn’t!” Frank yelled.
“No, I don’t.” Bert challenged.
“God, I need a fucking cigarette.” Frank huffed.“Smoking is prohibited within the venue, sir.” A passing sound engineer reminded.
An unholy growl escaped Frank’s mouth as he glared at the sound engineer. The sound engineer looked terrified. He probably wasn’t wrong to be afraid, either.
“You’ll be thanking me later, Frankie.” Bert said, shoving Frank. He stumbled back and bumped into me.
Frank lunged for Bert then. His tattooed fist shot right for Bert’s face. Bert leaned back; his face split into an evil grin as he barely avoided the punch. I reached for the back of Frank’s sweat-soaked shirt, pulling him back towards me. I tried to wrap my arms around him to stop him. It was harder than it should’ve been, between the guitar hanging around his neck and the blows he was throwing at the air.
“Frank! Quit it!” I yelled, finally getting a good grip on him. He stopped trying to fight Bert and instead tried to free himself from my arms. I only hugged him tighter.
“Gerard, let go of me!” He commanded. “I can fucking handle myself!”
“Not until you calm down.” I said, pressing my lips against the hair behind his ear.
With another shove he broke free of me, spinning around to glare at me.
“Fuck you. Both of you.” He growled, storming off towards the rest of the band. Three pairs of eyes stared back at me. Mikey looked amused. Ray looked pissed. Bob just looked bored.
“What the fuck did you say to him before the show?” I asked, turning to Bert.
“Ask Frankie.” Bert laughed, blotting at his sweaty face with a towel one of the stagehands had given him. “Go play your encore. I’m throwing you an afterparty and I have to go finalize some details.”
“Bert, you-”
“Shut up.” Bert interrupted, waving me off. “Go.”
The crowd was still going crazy. I turned back towards the stage. Ray, Bob, Mikey and Frank all hovered just out of the view of the crowd, anxious to get back out there and play. I stepped past them and into the lights. The buzz of the crowd picked up as we all got in position to play a few more.
Bob counted off on his cymbals, leading us into a song I knew everyone wanted to hear. The sweaty fans raged on as we played.

I turned to Frank at some point during our last song. He was on the ground again, playing out his moody rhythms and staring up at the ceiling. He bit his lip as he strummed violently on his guitar, writhing on the dirty floor. His eyes darted up over to me. He looked away when our eyes met. I almost forgot the words then. Almost.
I spun on my heels, wishing Bert was still there to scream my own lyrics back at me. I carried on, gazing out into the crowd. The song was coming to an end, the guitars were dissipating into spacey noises.
...And then there was this horrible sound erupting from the sound system. I spun around in search of the source of the sound. Ray and Mikey were still playing, but they were both staring in Frank’s direction. I turned my gaze towards Frank…
Frank had ripped his guitar from his shoulders and was lifting it over his head and smashing it against the stage, over and over and over again. He dropped to his knees and continued smashing away. Knobs were flying off, skittering away and hitting chunks of the finish that had broken off. The bridge was just barely hanging on. All of the strings had broken and curled into mangled distortions of themselves.
The guitar hadn’t been in bad shape. It was one of the guitars Frank was still really in love with. He’d been mad at me for letting Bert touch it before the show, even. Now it lay in broken pieces on Frank’s side of the stage. It looked as if someone had detonated a tiny bomb inside of it and blown it into a million pieces.
I wondered if Frank had broken some kind of world record for guitar smashing. The pieces lay all around his feet. He just stood there inspecting his work as the crowd kept screaming. Watching him take all of his anger out on the thing he loved most was always sort of amazing. It was almost terrifying too, knowing I’d likely be the one dealing with that anger later.
“Goodnight.” I mumbled into the mic, having almost forgotten where I was for a moment. I let the mic drop onto the stage and followed Ray and Mikey off, stage-left.

Notes

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. sorry for the delays erryone. usual suspects: writers block. i was out of town for awhile there too.....................

there's more. oh man. there's more to this story. sorry this update is kinda short.

i literally looked up from writing this update and said to myself, "it's 2015. why am i still writing frerard?"

on that note, happy new year. ha.

-m