It's been a hard day's night, and I'd been working like a dog


We creep up the stairs, careful not to make a sound and get mom's attention. Frank hides behind my outstretched jacket. Mikey is behind us with Amber on his heels, her hand curled around his shoulder, keeping lookout. I feel like a ninja. I'm hoping that mom is in her room, taking her usual afternoon nap. I don't even want to imagine what she'd do if she knew that Frank and Amber had snuck back in.

"Mikey, could you come here for a second?" mom calls from the living room; this can’t be good.

We stop dead in our tracks, all of us going pale. Frank, Amber, and I turn to look at Mikey with wide eyes. My little brother looks back at us chewing on his bottom lip. He's thinking about going, weighing his options; the pros and cons of the situation. A vigorous head shake from Amber tells him not too.

“Mikey,” mom calls again. I can hear rustling and then footsteps coming towards the stairs.

"Shit!" I exclaim, as we move again, clumsily this time, rushing up the rest of the stairs, clattering around.

Frank trips on the top step, falling on me. This causes a chain reaction with Mikey falling on top of him. Amber is the only one that remains standing, balanced on her tip toes in between Mikey and Frank's tangled legs. The redhead rolls her eyes, steps around all of us, and peeks her head around the corner, making sure that our mom isn't coming.

"Fuck, Mikes, get up!" I gasp; trying hard to breathe with the extra weight of my bother and our friend on top of me.

I feel the pressure move away as Mikey stands up, followed by Frank. I take in a deep breath, enjoying my ability to take in oxygen. Mikey offers me his hand, helping me stand up. Once we're all standing the four of us dash for the front door, temporarily blinded by the sunlight that never enters my room. Frank jumps over the two front steps, loses his footing, and ends up face first in our front yard.

Amber rolls her eyes and Mikey and I come to stand beside Frank. The four of us laugh, as the redhead pulls clumps of grass out of Frank's hair.

"Do you ever not have some kind of injury Frank?" Amber giggles, her hand slipping in Frank's. He sticks his tongue out at her as Mikey wraps his arms around Amber's shoulders.

"Mom is gonna have a fit when I don't come and talk to her," Mikey mumbles as all of us head down the road towards Frank's house.

I glance over at him. I really wish he wasn't so worried about this. He doesn't need anything else to stress out about. "Hey bro, everything is going to work out. Mom is going to forget all this happened. You know how she is."

Mikey nods as Amber smiles up at him. Although my little brother still looks like he's lost in thought he seems less worried than before.

"Again, guys thank you so much for helping me," Frank says smiling, as we all walk up the sidewalk towards his front door.

"It's not like we have anything better to do," Mikey says, glancing over at Amber. The smile that slides onto his face tells me he’s thought of something better. I swear those two were made for each other. Watching them just makes me happy…I like seeing my little brother happy.

“Actually,” Amber steps in, biting on her bottom lip. “I’ve got cheer practice. I really wish I could help. I’ll come by after wards.”

“Will you wear your cheer leading outfit?” Frank questions, smiling slyly, receiving and elbow in the ribs from Mikey and an eye roll from Amber

“Not this years….” Amber replies before kissing Mikey and heading to her car.

Mikey looks after her like a puppy watching it’s owner drive away…that’s how much he likes this girl. I almost don’t have the heart to see them apart.

“Dude you can go if you want,” Frank says seeing the same thing I am.

“Naw, I wanna help,” Mikey replies, wrapping an arm around both Frank and my shoulders.

As we watch the fancy BMW drive away the two try and convince me to stay with the croquet ‘team.’ I suck at that game and my foot has just stopped throbbing from the other day, there is no way I’m gonna try it again. I’m just not a sports person.

After about five minutes of Frank’s relentless talking I have to step in, “Fuck no, I'm never playing that shit again!"

"But Gerard, come on!" Mikey says. "Practice makes perfect!"

Frank snickers but I know what my little brother is talking about.

"Fuck practice, I've taken my beatings, thank you very much."

Frank finally gives up as we enter his house. Walking into the living room he waves at his father who is on the couch, a beer in his hand, a few other bottles littering the floor by his feet.

"Hey, Pops...." he says.

“Frank, you have to pick up after the dogs, clean your room, rake the leaves in the back yard, and wash the car." Frank’s father says not even looking at him as he says this.

"That's a lot of shit," Frank comments.

"We should have Ray come help too," I suggest. He’s probably doing nothing right now anyway.

"Yeah!" Frank jumps in agreement. "Shit would get done so much faster!"

At that Frank takes out his phone and calls Ray. The two talk for a few minutes before Frank closes his phone, turning to look at Mikey and I. "He's on his way over right now!"

The dark haired boy then walks past Mikey and I into the kitchen, grabbing a water bottle out of the fridge. Once he's taken a long drink he turns to the two of us, eyes shifting between us. For a few seconds I become uncomfortable, not knowing what's going on in my friend's head. "So let's figure out who's doing what."

"I ain't picking up no dog shit, that's for fucking sure," Mikey insists, and Frank laughs.

"Fine, you can clean my room, Mikes, and when Amber gets here I’ll send her up to help you."

Mikey shrugs, nodding; relieved he doesn't have to deal with picking up after Frank’s dogs. Frank then turns to me.

"Gerard, you can rake the yard, I'll pick up dog shit, and we can all wash the car together, yeah?"

"Sound's like a fucking awesome plan,” I reply, putting my hand up for a high five.

Frank high fives me but Mikey just looks at my hand, shaking his head. He’s a strange kid. After a second we all head our separate ways, Mikey down the hall towards Frank’s room and Frank and I out the front door.

Frank walks me to the shed, grabbing out the rake and a shovel I assume he’s going to use to pick up his dogs crap with. We then walk to the backyard, being greeted by Frank’s dogs, running around the back yard on their leashes. They are kinda cute.

Frank walks over to one, rubbing it between the ears, cooing at it, "Who's a good girl? Sweet Pea, yeah, you're a good girl, good girl..." He takes Sweet Pea off the leash, picking her up. He then turns to me, still rubbing the dogs belling.

"Okay so what you gotta do is just rake up the leaves into a gigantic pile," Frank explains

I nod, moving hair off of my forehead, trying to pretend like I’ve done this a million times. I’ve never raked anything before. Mom used to ask Mikey and I to help her with house chores but eventually she just gave up. In the end we just made things take longer than they needed too. Mom ended up having to go back an re-clean everything we'd done.

Frank continues, pulling me out of my thoughts, "And let me know when you're done, so I can show you where the garbage bags are to put them in."

"Alright, awesome," I reply, shouldering the rake.

I walk past him, patting Frank on the shoulder as I do. As Frank walks away I start swinging the rake around in my hands pretending it’s a lightsaber; I’ve got to find someway to make work fun. Unfortunately, I don't know the first thing about raking. Instead, I just stand there, staring at the ground, until I feel a hand on my shoulder. Jumping around I swing the rake, knocking Frank, the one who touched my shoulder, in the head.

My friend holds his palm to his forehead as he glances around the yard, "Gerard, you didn't do anything...."

I smile shyly, petting Frank’s dog, “Um, yeah, I don’t really know how to rake.”

"You've never raked before?" Frank questions sounding surprised, putting Sweet Pea on the ground.

"Uh, no..."

"Gerard, it's this easy," Frank says, taking the rake from me.

I step back and watch as Frank demonstrates the right way to rake as Sweet Pea runs across the leaves, wrecking the tiny pile that her owner had started to make.

“Pea, no!” he says before trying again. “Short, quick strides, until you make a pile.”

Frank hands me the rake back and I try mimicking what my friend has done, lost in thought, not really paying attention.

"Gerard.” Frank says, pulling me out of my head.

"Hmm?"

"The rake's upside down, bro,” Frank says.

Laughing nervously, I twist the rake around so that the end with all the metal is on the ground. That looks a lot less dangerous than all those pointy things up by my head.

"Now try it..." Frank says.

I do and this time is works, a small pile of leaves forming as I move the rake back and forth.

"Look, I’m doing it! Fuck yeah!” I exclaim a little too excited about being able to perform a simple task like raking.

"Yeah, you've got the entire backyard to do, man," Frank explains, patting me on the back.

Looking around I groan, this yard is huge. Frank just shrugs, leaving me to perform my duty.

As I continue to rake I hear a car pull up in front of Frank’s house. Assuming its Amber, I drop the rake and head around front. There, standing on the sidewalk is the redhead. She’s in a cheerleading uniform, but it’s definitely not something they’d let anyone wear at school. Her skirt is short, blue and white to match the tank top she’s wearing. It rides up just enough so I can see that she has her belly button pierced. Her flaming red hair is in curls around her face, blowing a little in the wind. I still don’t know how Mikey got that lucky.

“There you are,” Amber smiles, walking across the front yard towards me.

“They gave me raking duty,” I explain sliding out of my jacket and giving it to her. It’s too cold for her to be running around in a tank top.

“Gerard Way…doing work, this is unheard of,” Amber laughs, shoving her hands through the end of my arm sleeve as we walk towards the back yard.

I shrug, going over to pick up the rake when I hear someone coming around the corner. This time it’s Ray. Acting like he’s not there I watch as he sneaks up behind Amber, picking her up and spinning her around.

“Hello,” he says with a smile.

“Mop head,” Amber giggles.

“My head does not look like a mop, flame head,” Ray jokes, looking hurt.

Deciding I need to get the yard done, I pick up the rake, laughing as Amber runs past me, followed by Ray. He really doesn’t like people poking fun at his hair.

Notes

Song: Hard Day's Night by The Beatles