All My Favourite Colours

I work late on Monday night unpacking boxes with Bob. By the time we’ve locked up it’s too late to get to the hospital. I spend the car ride home cursing and listening to Frank’s band’s EP. They’re really good.
At home my mom and Mikey are in the kitchen, eating. “There’s a plate aside for you on the counter Gee,” mom says and then continues eating. I take my plate into the living room and flick through the channels to find something mind numbing. A reality TV cop show does the trick.
I’m on the couch again tonight. This time when I dream of Frank it is sexual and he’s not dying.

I text Mikey as I get into my car after work the next day
Going to see Frnk in the hospital. Will be home later. Tell mom she can stay another night if she wants to
His reply comes, lighting up the passenger seat, as I pull off a roundabout.
Mom will stay. Have fun. Use protection J xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I roll my eyes and continue to the hospital. The sun is almost completely gone in the evenings now.
When I walk into the hospital room Frank is just lying on his bed staring out the window.
“Hey Frankie,” I say and he jumps slightly.
“Gee! Your brother isn’t here y’know,” he says propping himself up in the bed.
“Yea I know he’s back at my place. I came to visit you, thought you’d be lonely.”
Frank looks up at me and smiles menacingly and suddenly all the images of last night come flooding back to me. Frank on his knees smiling up at me just like that… I sit in the chair and cross my legs.
“Yea it’s been pretty boring here. Doctors and nurses are here the whole time. This group of college kids come in with Toro the other day and were supposed to ask “intelligent questions”, right? They come in and the first one asks if my chest hurts. I’m like “uh yea I have fucking lung cancer.” So they go silent for a while then the next one just looks at me and asks, “Do you have trouble breathing.” And I’m sitting here staring at these like twelve kids who are supposed to know something about medicine, they’re fucking studying it and me hooked up to a fucking breathing machine!” I laugh with him and just stare adoringly, “I just laugh at them and Toro explains why their “intelligent questions” are really fucking stupid and that this breathing box,” he gestures to a machine by his bed, “is only here because I have trouble breathing! He then like asks them if they have anything actually intelligent to say and every kid is standing there because they’re afraid that whatever it is they say will be as stupid as what the others just said. Toro just leads them out of the room. I hope he sends them back to class and learn about cancer before they ask a dying man if his chest hurts.”
I stare into Frank’s eyes. He stares back in mine. This is the part in the movie where we’d kiss or I’d propose or something. But this is not a movie
But Frank just laughs. Then coughs.
“How long have you been here Frankie?” I ask after a bit.
“Too long,” he says his eyes looking at me but he’s far away. “They still aren’t sure what branch of this fucking disease I have. Heck all they know is I’m not dead, yet.”
We sit in silence for a while and then start talking about Iron Maiden. It’s a light conversation compared to talking about cancer and shit.

On the way down the hall toward the main exit I run in to Nurse Toro. “Hey Ray, listen can I ask you something?”
“Yea Gerard anything!” his reply comes with a smile that reminds me of a watermelon slice.
“Uh well I was wondering if like shit goes okay with Frank, uh, Iero in the next while that I could bring him outta the hospital for a while…” I’m blushing. I feel like an eighth grader asking a girl’s dad if I can take his daughter out for a McDonalds.
Ray smiles widely, “Yeah Gerard! I mean if the mucus starts clearingout and he can breathe then yea you can take him out for a few hours, but no sleepovers,” he winks at me. I go even redder.
“Well thanks Ray, I’ll visit again like tomorrow,” I turn down the corridor.
“Bye Gerard,” he calls after me, probably smiling widely.
When I get home Mikey and Pete are playing Mario Kart on the couch, shouldering each other and laughing. You wouldn’t believe the dork on the couch has bowel cancer.
“Where’s mom?” I ask slinging car keys on the counter.
Realising I’m here Mikey pauses the game and pushes me backwards into the kitchen. “Tell me,” he says eyes glistening like a school girl about to receive some juicy gossip about who’s lost their v card. Maybe that’s exactly what he’s hoping to hear. When I don’t immediately answer he prods me in the chest and asks again, “C’mon Gee I’ve been curious all afternoon!”
I sigh. “Nothing happened.”
“Give it to me straight Gee.”
“Nothing about this is straight,” I laugh, “the dude is sick as fuck but if he can breathe I might be able to bring him out of the hospital for a few hours. It must be so lonely there all the time and no family coming to visit. I don’t even know if he has family.”
“He has an aunt in Denver but that’s it” Mikey says walking back into the living room.
Upstairs my mom is fast asleep on my bed. It’s terrible but I hope she goes home soon. I love her and so does Mikey of course but the longer she stays the longer I have to sleep on the couch and with these dreams about Frank, the wet dreams that were the bane of my teenage years are always a threat. That would be really awkward.
I wait in the kitchen drinking this cheap Jack Daniels knock off and smoking till Pete goes home and I can finally sleep.
I’m out as soon as I hit on the couch. In my dream I’m in Frank’s hospital room. I’m lying in his bed but he’s not there. I decide I’d lie there and wait for him. After what felt like hours of watching cars fly by on the interstate Nurse Toro opens the door and wheels Frank into the room. He looks really bad, like he did when he came back from surgery only awake. Ray props him up in the bed beside me and Frank immediately curls into my chest. I play with his hair until he purrs. When he looks up again he’s not sick anymore but smiling like he did when I came to visit him. “Hey Gee,” he grins climbing on top of me and staring down into my eyes. He undoes my belt slowly, his eyes never leaving my gaze. My heart racing Frank’s head goes down between my legs and begins to pull at my length and put his mouth lightly over it. Just as I expect the ecstasy that should follow I look down and don’t Frank’s head but a tangle of damp sheets and my legs in the dark on my half price sofa.

Notes