Keep it a Secret

Chapter 3:
Gerard POV:
“Hey Matt! It’s Gerard.”
“G-Gerard… Way?”
The voice on the phone sounded confused. And why shouldn’t it be? It wasn’t like I kept up with old high school buddies after I graduated. “Uh-yeah.” I muttered as I ran a hand through my hair. I was starting to get nervous. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, but I had to try. I didn’t come all the way back home for nothing. I took a deep breath and started again, “Hey listen, I need a favor. Are you free at all today?”
“Well I have a few things going on today but my schedule is all clear tomorrow. Why? Whatcha need, bud?”
“Well, I just moved back into town and remember how we used to – uh, write songs together and shit back in high school?” There was a pause on the other end before a barely auditable “Uh huh” was heard. “Well, I was wondering if you could help me out with kind of the same deal.”
There was another pause as I could only assume he was thinking it over. “Hell, yeah! Reliving the old days. Or are you looking to start another band? Because you know how that worked out last time.” I cringed as I remembered all the various bands that I got involved in throughout high school. I was nearly kicked out of each one because I couldn’t multi task. I could sing. I could play guitar. I just could not do them at the same time. That was when I shoved my guitar in the back of my closet so I wouldn’t have to look at it and remember just what a huge failure I was.
“Well, n-not so much a band. More of an... an idea.” I stammered. Just come over around noon tomorrow and we can figure this out from there, kay?
“Gotcha. See you then. Same place, right?”
“Yeah, same place.” I clicked the phone off and felt a small twinge of hope. Maybe this will work.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Matt showed up half passed one. I didn’t mind, considering I didn’t get up until twenty minutes beforehand which gave me just enough time to get some coffee in me.
“God man, you reek. When was the last time you showered?” Matt crinkled his nose up to feign disgust.
“I guess two days ago.” I said, handing him a mug of coffee. “But I’ve been busy. Besides, this isn’t the longest I’ve gone without showering. It’s not like there’s any weird colored goo oozing from my pores.”
Now he really cringed in disgust. “Well, not now anyways. Now, where do we get started?
“Right down to the basement in my room.” I lead him down the stairs to where I’ve been working for the past few days.
“Uhm… any other places you have designated for work? Perhaps somewhere where your stench hasn’t seeped into the walls yet?” Matt joked, at least I think he was joking. His eyes were seriously starting to water now.
I rolled my eyes as I handed my sheet with the proposed lyrics to him. “Well if it’s such a big problem, I’m sure I can just clear some things out of the attic and make some room. In the meantime, you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
Matt huffed as he took the paper and started reading it through. I stood on my tip toes, awaiting his verdict on my song. Every so often he would narrow his eyes in concentration which would just make me even more nervous. What if he laughed? What if he didn’t understand it? God, I should have read it over a few more times.
At long last, He looked up at me and just stared. I knew it. He hated it. It sucked. He thinks it sucked. This was a bad idea, I should never have asked him to come.
“Dude, this- ” He gestured towards the scribbled and marked up paper. “This is amazing! We could seriously go somewhere with this.”
“I-uh, what? Y-you like it? Seriously?”
“Hell, yeah, man! You should call up Ray. He’s still got his Les Paul, and I think he’d be more than willing to help us out.”
“Ray… Ray… You mean the one with the fro? That Ray? Man, I don’t even think I have his number anymore”
“Way ahead of you.” I watched as he pulled out his cell and pressed some buttons and was soon connected to our old friend. “Hey, it’s Matt…. Pellisier…. Was wondering if you can meet me at Gerard’s house….. Way. God your memory sucks…. Yes, he still lives with his mom…. Mikey too, yeah, that you can remember…. Now would be nice. Bring the Les Paul…. Well, Gerard said it’s more of an idea” Matt snickered” …Because I know you still play and I know you have nothing else going on in your life besides – ” The voice on the other end got louder as Matt cringed away from the receiver. “Okay, Okay. Just make your way over.” I could hear that Ray obviously wasn’t through scolding Matt, but Matt hung up anyways.”
I raised an eyebrow at him
“What?”
“Nothing, just… you sure Ray is gonna go for this? He seemed pretty ticked off”
Matt waved it off “Nah, he’ll be fine. He gets like that, then five minutes later he’s over it and onto the next topic.”
I sighed. “Whatever you say.”
_______________________________________________________________________________
A half hour later, there was a knock on the basement door. Matt opened it to reveal a pissed off Ray Toro whose hair seemed to be consuming the top half of his head.
“You fucker.” He accused Matt before pulling him into a hug. “Hey Gee, get over here!” I walked over to them hesitantly before Ray grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me into the embrace. A few seconds later Matt pulled out but Ray still kept one arm wrapped around my shoulder. “So how the hell are ya? I heard you went to New York for a while? How was that?”
“I, uh, yeah.” I stammered, still locked in Ray’s grip. “Was alright, I was about to pitch an idea to Cartoon Network.”
“Really? Man, that’s great! How’d they like it?”
“Well, actually I never got the chance to pitch it.”
Confusion overtook his face which slowly turned to anger. “You kidding me? What, did they not have time for you or something? Christ that – ”
“No, no! i-it wasn’t that.”I stammered. “I was headed there and all, just that’s when the, uh.. the towers..”
“Oh.” He suddenly quieted down as concern seeped into his words. “You were there, weren’t you? What was it like? I mean, we saw it all on TV and everything but it had to of been something to see up close.”
“Yeah, it sure was something…” My mind started to wander back to the horrific event until Matt snapped me out of it.
“Ray, check this out!” Matt handed my song over to Ray who read it over with the same concentration as Matt earlier.”
A few minutes later, Ray set the sheet down on the bed and walked over to where he set his guitar case. Sitting down right next to the song sheet, he got out the Les Paul and started strumming. It was another few minutes until he got a good rhythm going causing Matt to, on my desk, tap his fingers to the same beat. I stood there and stared between them and my guitar that I discarded to the side yesterday before I made up my mind to try and play with them.
With my inexperience, it took a while, but we eventually got in sync with each other and I decided to try my skill out at singing and playing the guitar once again. But just like before, once I started singing, my skills at the guitar diminished.
After a few minutes of missed chords and wrong pitches, I set the guitar to the side and got up to leave the room, trying my best to ignore the snickering from both Matt and Ray. When I opened the door to go upstairs, I was greeted once again by my little brother’s face. “Jesus, Mikey. How long have you been standing there?” I could tell he was trying his best to hold back the laughter. His face was red and tears forming in his eyes.
“Just long enough to hear you completely fail at whatever song you’re playing. Why don’t you just stick to the guitar or to just singing? You obviously can’t do both.” He was just rolling by now which made me angry. I knew it was bad but not a complete failure. I assumed I could just work on it but Mikey was right, I was never able to get them both down in the past and it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to now. I sighed again and looked back at my guitar that I set aside, barely getting out of the way of my brother as he pushed past me into my room.
“Hiya, Mikes!” Ray beamed as my little brother came into view.
Mikey blushed and nodded at Ray before turning to me. “See? You already have a guitarist, and I am assuming he is drums?” Mikey gestured towards Matt and I nodded. “Well, if you work on your vocals a little more, the only thing you seem to be missing is a bassist.”
“Well, where the hell am I going to find a bassist?” I at least knew Matt and Ray from school. I was lucky enough to still have Matt’s number and even luckier that he kept in contact with Ray. Any bassist that I used to know are long gone without even a number to track down.
“Hmph, well… you know, I happen to fiddle around on a bass” Mikey hinted and I blinked at him confused.
“When in God’s name did you pick that up, Mikes?
He shrugged. “When you left. I needed something to do to occupy myself since you weren’t around anymore. Bass was just the first thing that caught my interest.”
“Okay, so you think you can keep up with us? I mean, I’ve never heard you play. How good are you?"
“Like I said, I fiddle, but I haven’t, like, devoted myself to the thing. I’m sure if I practice a little more, I could keep up. I mean, I could read the cords just fine. I just need to work on where I put my hands.”
“Yeah, that’s a little important.” Ray chimed in. “But he seems promising enough, c’mon, Gee. Give the baby brother a chance.”
“Yeah, Gee. Give the baby brother a chance.” Mikey mimicked.
I rolled my eyes at both of them. “Okay, fine, fine. Mikey I really need you to work on that though, don’t just get excited about it then blow it off. If you want to be in this band, then as the bassist, we are going to be relying on you to keep the rhythmic and harmonic foundation of the group, understand?”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Mikey smirked as he put his hand up to his forehead in a mock solute.
“Smartass.” I rolled my eyes at him. “So, if I am going to be just singing, then what are we going to be doing about the second guitar?”
This time Matt chimed in. “Well, not every band has to have two guitarists. It all depends on how you want to sound. We could probably get by with just Ray... at least for this song. If the time comes and we decide that we need like a rhythmic guitarist, I know the perfect little energy ball for the job.”
“Really? Who.”
“His name is Frank Iero.” He laughed as I blinked at him. I didn’t recognize the name at all. “You obviously don’t know him, but he was in a few bands before. I actually met him at one of his gigs about a year ago. His previous one just recently broke up and he’s pretty upset about it.”
“You think he would want to play with us?”
“Oh man, you kidding? Even when he was in Pencey Prep, he kept saying how he wanted to jam with me. He just loves to play, even if it isn’t for a profession. He’d be more than willing to help us out. Oh, and don’t underestimate me when I say he is a ball of energy.”
I’m sure we could get by without a second person on guitar. I mean, Matt was right. There are plenty of bands out there that get by with just one guitar player. Though, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to have someone as a back-up in case we need something more.
“Alright then, looks like we have a good start to the band, Oh, I’m sorry. Idea.” Ray smiled as he started to pack away the Les Paul. “How about we just continue this tomorrow? That way we can get Matt’s drums over so he could actually contribute instead of tapping on the desk like an idiot.”
“Hey! I resent that!” Matt stammered.
“As an idiot is expected to.” He grinned at Matt then changed expressions as he gazed over at my little brother. “You know, I could also help Mikey out and go over some chords with him. That way we could get a solid rhythm going for your song, Gee.” Mikey blushed at that and nodded.
I looked at the both of them, pondering what that blush meant but shook that thought out of my head before it lingered there. If anything was going on between Ray and my baby brother, unless it was serious, I didn’t not need to know.
“Alright then let’s just continue this tomorrow. I want to get food and I don’t plan on feeding any of you besides Mikey.” Matt and Ray both huffed before getting up and making their way towards the door.
“See you both guys tomorrow” Ray called as he made his way out to his car.
“Bye, Ray!” Mikey excitedly called after him. Yeah, real subtle. I closed the door behind the two boys and ushered Mikey into the kitchen. “What are we having for dinner?”
“I was thinking about mac n’ cheese.”
“Sounds good to me.” Mikey sat down at the kitchen table, pulling a discarded book towards him as I started to boil the noodles.
After a few minutes, the noodles seemed ready enough as I poured them into a strainer and mixed in the packet of cheese before serving it in two bowls for Mikey and me.
Mikey took his bowl without looking up from his book, making it obvious that it was going to be a silent dinner.
Mikey was not much of a reader when we were younger but as soon as he landed his first job at a Barnes and Nobles, he seemed to have a new book almost every week. Normally, I didn’t pay any attention to his choice of books, but this particular one caught my interest. It was one by Irvine Welsh, titled Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.
The title had this poetic ring to it that struck me and I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it. I jabbed Mikey with my fork to get his attention as well as getting cheese on his arm.
“Seriously? What, Gerard?” He demanded as he tried to wipe off the cheese.
“I think I have a name for our band.”
Mikey immediately looked up. “So soon? Didn’t this just establish a few hours ago?”
“Yeah but I have a good feeling about this. What do you think about Chemical Romance?”
Mikey rolled his eyes as he looked at the cover of his book, obviously aware of where I pulled that name from. “Seriously, Gee? Where’s that artist originality in you?” He looked thoughtfully at the cover again as if contemplating something. “You know, I actually kinda like the name. Though, Chemical Romance seems a bit too blunt and, well…” He tilted his head towards the book. “Copyrighted. You need to come up with something more yours.”
I looked at him confused. I honestly thought it was a good name. “What do you mean, more mine? What, like My Chemical Romance?”
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. But… My Chemical Romance, I really like the ring to it.” Mikey said the name over and over again, getting a feel for it. Each time he said it, it sounded better and better and by the fifth or sixth time, I had goose bumps.
“My Chemical Romance, I think we could really roll with that.” Mikey ‘hmphed’ in agreement before sticking a forkful of mac n’ cheese in his mouth and getting back to his book,
Now with all the members in order with a song to work on and a band name in question, this was actually starting to feel like a real thing. This idea, this… band could actually happen.

Notes

Alright, so an update.
I'm sorry this took longer than I wanted it to. I finally got through finals and finished my spring semester classes with straight As
Also was caught up with physical therapy, dr appointments and trying to find a second job as well.
Going to try to update more often but I don't know what this summer holds.
Thank you so much for being patient.