"So," Frank stared up at the sun and back at the asphalt, watching their synchronized steps. "Where do we go from here?"
"My parents' house isn't far from here," Gerard led them up the alley and onto the sidewalk. "They've gone on vacation for the month so it would just be us."
Frank nodded and watched a slowed car pass them, an elderly couple sitting up front squinted at them in disgust with droopy, sagging expressions. Frank made eye contact with one and kept it as he brought up Gerard's hand interlocked with his up to his mouth where he kissed it and then dragged his tongue up his skin to the knuckle of Gerard's middle finger as he lifted his up. The one pulled their head back and opened their mouth before looking away, silent syllables formed and the car pulled past them. "What the fuck was that?" Gerard turned to see the car receding and bringing his queried gaze back to Frank.
"Just a couple of homophobic assholes," Frank grinned showing all of his teeth. "I gave them something to look at."
"Oh, Frankie," Gerard squeezed his hand and tried to suppress a grin of his own.
"I know!" Frank rolled his eyes and softly shook his head. "Homophobia is so gay."
They both laughed as their hands swung a pendulum of strength between them as they walked the streets together.
It was only a five or six minute walk to Gerard's family home. Frank stared at the wholesomeness of the trimmed lawn, flower beds, and the brown Welcome matt at the front step on the small concrete stoop. Gerard pulled out his keyring from his breast pocket and fitted a key into the deadbolt. The door swung open and Gerard gestured for Frank to enter first. The foyer was small and cozy; a vase of fake flowers on top of a lacy table runner greeted them amidst pink and red pillar candles that had never been lit but smelled of potpourri. The walls were filled with family portraits: a bride and a groom posed hand in hand for the camera, a vintage black and white woman's smooth and airbrushed face with an old Hollywood feel, two small boys smiling wide bearing tiny chicklets of teeth and plumping their baby fat cheeks. "Holy shit!" Frank rushed over to the two kids hanging on the wall and pointed at the boy sitting upright with dark hair. "Is that you?!"
"Yeah..." Gerard's face turned pinkish. "It is. With my brother, Mikey."
"Aww, that's sweet!" Frank compared the two children. "You both look so similar, except his hair looks a little lighter than yours."
"I guess," Gerard made his way over to the kitchen. "Do you want some water? I feel like it's been a century since I've had something to drink... Or eat."
"Sure," Frank called back, still taking in his surroundings.
Amid all the photographs were religious art: the last supper hung above a tchotchke in the hallway leading towards a staircase, Jesus hanging from the cross hung over the threshold of the archway leading into the room, Mary crying and holding her stabbed heart next to the bay window looking out over their front lawn of the neighborhood. There was also an unhung frame on the edge of the table with a diploma scroll with dark green font and gold embellishments with Gerard's name sketched in calligraphy at it's center. Gerard reappeared holding two red plastic cups and noticed Frank reading over the framed document. "Fuck, I didn't think my parents were going to actually hang that thing, ugh," Gerard set down the cups and exhaled dramatically. "What is this a fucking doctor's office or something?"
"Look at you! College graduate!" Frank patted Gerard on the back and took a cup, raising it in a toast.
"Art school graduate," Gerard picked up his cup and clicked it's lip against Frank's and then took a gulp.
"So you're an artist," Frank took a drink, staring at Gerard. "That's so fucking cool!"
Gerard was obviously anxious with the attention, his right hand wringing the skin of his left inner arm. "Thanks, Frankie," he stared down at his shoes.
"Uhm..." Frank cleared his throat and looked around trying to think of something to change topics. "Do you have any salt? I left all mine in the mausoleum."
"Yes?" A question as an answer.
"Is it in the kitchen?"
"Yes?"
Frank made his way into the small space and found the spice cabinet that hung next to the refrigerator and started looking through it's contents and found a cardboard cylinder with a generic SALT label. "So, salt?" Frank heard Gerard question from right behind him as he pulled the metal guide out from the lid.
"That's right." He smiled and patted Gerard's cheek and moved past him towards the front door.
Frank tilted the salt container to an angle as a steady stream of white spilled onto the floor right by the foot of the door. The line was drawn from corner to corner. Frank continued over to the windows in the foyer, spilling more lines at their meet. "What are you doing?" Gerard just stood staring at Frank, his forehead creased with confusion.
Before he left to investigate the ground floor for openings to the outside, Frank paused and smirked. "You don't know?"
Gerard shook his head, looking from the salt dispenser to Frank and back again. "Salt is used to keep evil spirits from gaining entry," Frank explained. "It keeps them out and keeps anything inside safe. You can also encircle yourself in a ring of salt and it would be impenetrable to anything that is trying to hurt you or do you harm."
"I never knew that," Gerard jerked his head and blinked his eyes wide. "Do you think it'll work?"
Frank shrugged, gesturing his empty and full hand out from his sides. "It's proven worthy many a time for me, sooo."
Gerard nodded his head continuously as Frank made his way through the rest of the downstairs and salted every window that he could find, as well as the sliding glass door that led to their small backyard. "I owe your parents another thing of salt," Frank shook the tube, just a small rattle of a thin remainder of it's contents.
"I don't think they'll be too concerned with being almost out of salt," Gerard giggled. "They'll be more worried with mine or Mikey's sodium intake."
After they rummaged the fridge and made cold cut sandwiches of pastrami, turkey, and pepperoni, Frank followed Gerard up the staircase noticing the following of frame after frame of family and friends. This wasn't a house, but a home with so much love tucked into every space. At the top of the steps, the first door on the left was closed as Gerard approached it and pushed the door open to his bedroom. Frank jumped onto the bed and pushed his face into the soft comforter that graced it inhaling concentrated Gerard. "This must be where it all happens," Frank rolled over and tilted his head up.
"Grow up, Frankie," Gerard set his keys and wallet onto the dresser on the far wall before making his way to his bookshelf tracing the spines with his finger trying to scavenge all the books from the night of the tried resurrection.
"What?" There was a smile in Frank's voice. "You're going to stand there and deny that you ever had a guy over in high school when your parents were away or asleep?"
Gerard paused and blushed, trying to hide his face from Frank. "Or maybe," Frank continued, playfully. "Maybe a girl?"
A brief moment flashed in his mind of Sophomore year of high school when he had a girl, Barbara, over and they fooled around a little bit, but had no fucking clue what they were doing. They were all gangly limbs and giggles. Gerard remembered how embarrassed they both were even though they were still wearing their underwear, Barbara also her bra, and were so scared to reach out and touch the other as though they would crack and fracture from just a brush. It was so awkward, but it meant so much and felt as though nothing would ever feel the same ever again. That important time in your life where you feel something different than that of the everyday and you just want to hold onto it and never let it go despite how weird it felt. That moment was frozen in his timeline and it could never be revisited or repeated in that exact way. The finality of every decision that you would ever make was a bullet lodged in Gerard's brain. That night when Gerard pulled over to the side of the road instead of driving by was a choice that could never be made again. It was the cause and consequence of all the events that followed and what had shaped his future, just like that night with Barbara. The only difference was that Barbara was still alive and free to make more choices for herself and for her life and that Helena's timeline ended and so did her choices and future which was Gerard's fault. He had stripped that and stole that life away from it's owner and took it into his own hands and chose the wrong path that led to it's end. All the possibilities of not only his own life, but more importantly hers if he just would have shrugged off that white flag in the distance. It was her surrender that he had misinterpreted. The hazard lights flicked fast in his memory and then at a crawling pace, as did his steps through dead leaves and stone. It all came rushing past him and then rewinding with a glitch here and there and a ribbon of past sutured with the present. He felt dizzy and his head throbbed as though he was about to birth the event, it was throbbing wanting to be let out.
His knees buckled and fell to the floor with a thud, fingers pulling at his lower eyelids almost inside his waterline, exposing the slimy insides of blood vessels and the bottom globes of white eyeball. Just as Frank pushed off the bed, Gerard let out a scream that shook the windows and jiggled the mirror on the wall. Frank skidded onto his knees in front of him, watching Gerard's fingers press deeper into the wells of thin tissue forming small bruises with his force. Frank grabbed both of his hands to free them from his face, but they felt soldered into place. Gerard's lips peeled back exposing all of his teeth as another shriek ripped out from inside of him. Frank continued to pull Gerard's hands away, whispering in a soothing tone to him to pacify whatever was happening. "Baby, please, please, let go!"
Frank felt helpless watching his lover writhe in agony from something he couldn't see. Was she here? Did Helena make it past their protection? The thoughts fast forwarded again in his mind, her body hung against the tree, the monsters surrounding her, the moon's reflection... It repeated on a loop, until finally it stopped. Gerard's body slumped over itself as he focused on his breathing and then there was a rupture as a trickle of blood ran down over his cupid's bow and began to pool on the carpet beneath him. His shoulders rose and fell sharply over and over again as sobs of air hyperventilated into and out of his body. Quakes rippled throughout his body, jostling his bones and tendons. This pool of blood grew, spreading into an ink blot on the floor.
Frank took his chin in his hand and tilted it up to the ceiling, trying to keep gravity from pulling more from him. With his other hand, Frank wiped up as much as he could, fingers and knuckles smearing the blood over both of their skin. Replacing his fingers with his lips, he kissed around Gerard's nose, a medicine that would help with the pain. As Frank worked his way down towards blood stained lips, the door to the bedroom casually swung open as a tall, skinny kid with glasses and straight brown hair stepped inside. "Gerard! I didn't know that you'd be here, but I saw dishes in the sink and cups on the table and, shit, I'm just so excited to see you! What've you been up..." He stopped still as he turned towards them both bloodied on the floor, Gerard still breathing heavily.
"What the fuck?!" He notices the stranger on the floor and pulled at his collar, bringing him up from the floor and winding a fist back before landing it straight to his lipring. "What the fuck did you do to my brother?!"
Frank's head shot back with the force of the blow as he slid his jaw along it's track and counted his teeth with his tongue, he felt as though he were in a cartoon and stars and canaries were encircling his head as the room bent and fizzled out of focus. "Mikey! Mikey! Stop!" Gerard struggled to his feet and drunkenly walked over to his brother, covering his fist with his palm.
Mikey let go of Frank's shirt and Frank wobbled and focused on standing, yet he still swayed on his two feet, rubbing at where Mikey's punch landed. "So this must be your brother," Frank fixed his collar and wiped at his shirt, extending his red right hand. "It's nice to meet you."
"Gerard," Mikey's eyebrows tightened in confusion and anger. "What the hell is going on?"
"This is my..." Gerard gestured towards Frank, his wrist going round and around in circles. "My friend, Frank."
"I never heard of any friend of yours named Frank," Mikey eyed him up and down and observed that they were both wearing the same outfit.
"Since I've been away at school," Gerard eyed Frank out of the sides of his eyes, willing him to go along.
"Yeah!" Frank joined in. "We bonded over how much I love your brother's art! He's incredible!"
Mikey still looked skeptical as he glanced over Gerard and stared at Frank trying to pick him apart with his stares. "Oh, alright. Well, what's your favorite of Gerard's pieces?"
A timer had begun and if Frank didn't respond, correctly, the buzzer would blare and he just knew that Mikey would knock him out cold. "That's... That's a hard one," Frank tried to stretch the time, but could hear the tick of the clock. "They're all so breathtaking."
"Everyone has a favorite for everything," Mikey retorted.
Tick. Tick. Tick. He could see the time running out, the last grains of sand about to fall, in Mikey's eyes. Gerard stared at him trying to plant a name in his head, but he was blank. As the final second of Mikey's patience expired and he stepped forward, Frank opened his mouth. "Helena."
Time now stood frozen before them all. "That's my favorite." Frank swallowed the remains of the lump that was forming in his throat.
Mikey's stoicism deflated just a bit as the name tittered around in his head. "The ghost girl? That's your favorite?"
Gerard looked equally horrified and relieved, red still reflecting lamplight from the soft glow of the room. "Damn, dude, you're just as dark as Gerard, huh?" Mikey continued before Frank could respond.
He reached his hand out and Frank took it as he felt him pull him in for a hug. Mikey towered over him and though he was skinny, his hug cracked his spine. "Sorry about the, uh..." Mikey mimicked a punch and smiled on one side of his mouth, exposing a sharp eye tooth. "I saw blood and my brother on the floor and you and I just... No one hurts my brother."
"Thanks, Mikes, but it was just a nosebleed from a migraine and Frank was trying to help stop the bleeding." Gerard smiled gratefully over at Frank, the urge to reach out and hold his hand almost impossible to ignore.
Frank reciprocated his grin and reached out and brushed his fingers over Gerard's. A sudden spark in the dark. "You're still getting nosebleeds?" Mikey asked.
"Don't worry, they aren't as bad as they were," Gerard lied knowing how they've actually got progressively worse.
"Maybe we should take you to a doctor." Mikey pulled out his keys from his pocket.
"No... No... Really, I'm fine." He smiled up at his brother. "Fuck, Mikey, it's like you're the big brother and I'm the baby the way you are with me."
Mikey sighed loudly as he jammed his keys back into his pocket. "Will you stop calling me "baby" brother all the time? I'm a fucking adult!"
They laughed together as Frank felt like a third wheel, trying to give their reunion some privacy by pretending to look around at the books and posters on the walls. "Well, I just stopped by to grab some clothes and shit," Mikey walked towards the doorway and then turned around.
"You staying over with Ray tonight?" Gerard drew his upper lip into a smirk.
"Yeah..." Mikey blushed and rubbed at the back of his neck, his elbow almost touching the ceiling. "We've... Been kinda a thing..."
Gerard almost knocked his brother down hugging him tightly. "Oh, Mikes! I knew it! I knew it! I'm so happy for you guys!"
"I'm happy," Mikey's smile widened with each word. "We're happy."
"Than what're you doing here?" Gerard was radiant. "Go get your shit and get the fuck out of here and go see your guy!"
"I love you, Gerard," Mikey reached down for another hug and held tight.
"I love you too, Mikes," Gerard smooshed himself into his brother.
Mikey ran to his room and was gone just a few minutes and returned to the doorway. "Well, I'll see you around, Gerard. You'll be here when ma and dad get back?"
"I plan to," he quickly glanced behind him at Frank, his face grim.
"Great! I'll see you then!" Mikey hugged his brother a final time and looked over at Frank. "It was nice meeting you! Be good to my brother, he deserves it."
Mikey shot Frank a shy smile as he looked down at the floor and back up. "He does," Frank flashed a smile back at Mikey.
They heard the sound of retreating footsteps, the front door click open and shut closed, and a car's engine in the near distance of Mikey's departure. "Well," Frank extended his arms and danced circles in the room. "I guess we're all alone now."
Gerard sat down on the bed and screwed his neck up and over towards Frank. "How did you know?"
"Know what?" Frank stopped spinning.
"About how I did a project about her?"
"It just fit."
"How's that?"
"Well, I don't know much about art," Frank bounced down beside him. "But one thing I do know is that people use art to express themselves; how they feel, things that are important to them, their anxieties, their imperfections, their mistakes..."
That word sent a shock through Gerard. Frank noticed how he was trying to dissociate, so he put his hand atop Gerard's and continued. "It's like a secret code, a way for people to express all sorts of things about themselves in an avenue of anonymity. Sure, people usually know who the artist is and the trivial things about them, but they can only interpret what it could mean to them and draw that to a potential meaning. Not the real meaning of it's creator. Art is, well, it's the most dangerous weapon. Not only to the public's interpretation, but how much it takes from the person that has made it. It's a stamp in time that can never be done again and has never been done before. It's a piece of that person that is ripped wide open for millions of eyes."
Gerard sucked in his lips and tried to strain the tears from his eyes so they wouldn't continue, but they persisted. "You aren't just an artist, Gee." Frank got to his knees on the floor, looking up into those running eyes. "You are a work of art."
Those five words unraveled the spindle as Gerard buried his face into his hands, large gulps of air between sputters of sobs escaped the slits of fingers. His grip pulled at his hairline trying to catch all the salt and emotion that was running out of him. Those words were so beautiful but felt wasted on him. He wasn't a work of art. He was a mistake that should be tossed out. He was the scribbles of a first draft that went to the shredder. Numbness engulfed him as he wept; Frank's hands on his knees were now sleepy and barely there. There was a frail phantom feeling where his teardrops landed on his face and hands, but it was all a blur. It all felt like a heavy sedation where he knew that he was there, but his body was asleep and all that was left was just pressure and velvet fingers running over his skin. He was naked on the operating table and he didn't care at all. The scalpel ran deep down, cutting him through all those layers and he could feel nothing at all. And it was almost bliss. But he missed Frank's touch.
"Baby," Frank put a hand over Gerard's, pushing fingers through cracks until light filtered through. "Please don't cry. You can't hide from me. I'm right here... I always will be... If you'll have me..."
Fresh tears fell as Gerard couldn't help but think of if anything were to happen to Frank and that he couldn't always be here and it tore a hole right through him. He needed him, he could feel it. Oxygen and atmosphere could fall away and as long as Frank stood, that was all there needed to be to keep a pulse, keep his freezing blood pushing through and his lungs full. Frank continued to plead and it sounded so far from him, he pulled his hands away and threw his head towards the sound and there he was, right beside him like he said he'd always be. "Frankie," Gerard threw his arms around his neck and drew him in closer. "I don't want to lose you."
"You'll never lose me, Gee," he inhaled and kissed the top of his head. "Never."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Gerard's lips quivered.
"Oh trust me," Frank lay his cheek down, replacing his lips. "That is one promise I would go to the ends of the earth to keep."