This Is My Chemıcal Roman̈ce
Bandslash, PG-13, ~3600 words. Mikey/Pete. "This Is Spın̈al Tap" AU.
Thanks to zarathuse for the beta.
***
"Killjoys never die!" squeals a teenage girl who appears to be dressed as a circus raccoon. She's wearing shitkickers, neon green fishnets, a torn denim skirt, a leather jacket with a creepy black-and-white smiley face stitched on the back, and a multicolored mask, and she's clutching a water gun.
What does 'Killjoys never die' mean?
"No clue!" she enthuses. "Gerard tweeted it as a caption to a photo of him in a body bag. It might be from their next music video! The picture had to have been taken right before he tweeted it, the dye job proves it. We measured his roots."
Not many of the fans shivering in line are dressed up as 'Killjoys,' the most recent look of My Chemical Romance. Instead, the majority are clad in black and chains, reflecting the band's previous image.
"I think this Killjoy shit is a joke," says another fan, a boy in a college hoodie. He shoots a contemptuous glance at raccoon girl. "That 'Na Na Na' song is so ridiculous it has to be fake. Some kind of statement about what bullshit people are willing to accept from a group just because they're popular. I bet they'll come out dressed as vampires or something and make fun of everyone who fell for it."
A woman in her late twenties sums up her opinion of the band's recent style changes simply: "It doesn't matter. They're My Chem. Whatever they do, I'll love it."
***
Gerard Way struts out onto the stage like a tight-jeaned, pink-haired peacock. "HELLO!" he hollers into the microphone, then pauses. "Fuck, I've lost track of where the fuck we are. Where are we?" The crowd screams. "Boston? HELLO, BOSTON! Wait, no, that can't be right, we were in Louisiana two days ago. That's, that's at the bottom of the map, Boston is all up top."
Ray, the band's lead guitarist, trots over to whisper something into Gerard's ear, and Gerard says, "Oh! AUSTIN! HELLO, AUSTIN!"
The band dives into their most recent single, aptly titled "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)". The college fan's skepticism about their change of heart is perhaps warranted, but if the band is playing an elaborate prank on their fans, they're not giving away the game now. Gerard stomps around the stage like he's belting out a punk anthem instead of a bouncy pop tune, and rhythm guitarist Frank is actually headbanging to the lyric "let me see your jazz hands."
***
Gerard laughs and shakes his head. He's clearly been getting this question a lot. "No, no joke," he says. "Man, people's expectations of us are totally fucked. You spend a few years singing about depressing shit and all of a sudden you find out you're never allowed to be happy? What the hell? Yeah, the new stuff is more upbeat. I'll do my time, fuck."
He admits that the new sound is a big departure from the previous work of the band, which was catapulted to fame with "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)," a 2004 hit single that attracted emo kids like flies.
"I've been through a lot of shit," says Gerard. "Well, we all have, but mine is the shit that goes into the lyrics. Their shit matters too!" He gestures to Frank, Ray, and bassist Mikey, who is Gerard's brother. "I care about everyone's shit, like all the shit in the world matters, every single person's shit. Your shit, man, I care deeply about your shit. That's why I do this. The music is made up of bits of everyone's shit. But mostly mine."
The rest of the band seems generally happy to let Gerard take the lead in interviews as well as onstage, although they interject on occasion during Gerard's brief history of the band. "It was just me and Otter at first," Gerard reminisces. "We brought Ray on board because I don't play guitar and sing at the same time. I mean, I can, but then my whole presence just suffers."
"He got kicked out of one group 'cause he sucked so bad on the guitar," adds Frank.
Gerard doesn't bat an eyelash. "Mikey named us after some random library book and dropped out of college to join us, and then Frank fell in with us after Pencey broke up."
"It wasn't random," says Mikey. "I did actually read the book."
Gerard nods. "Yeah, Bullets," he says in apparent agreement. "Then Revenge, then Black Parade. That shit was intense, we needed some R&R after that, so it's been a while. The fans are really excited about this new album. We're excited too. It's a cool idea, you know. Not a concept, we're totally done with concept albums, but like a world."
Wait, so what happened to Matt "Otter" Pelissier?
Ray narrows his eyes. "We don't talk about that."
***
The band's manager, Brian Schechter, has some bad news.
"They don't like the album cover, guys," he says. "It's too gay."
"Too gay?" Gerard demands. "There's nothing wrong with being gay! It's not even gay at all, what's gay about it?"
Brian holds up his hands, trying to placate the irate singer. "Gerard, it's a picture of Show Pony's ass. In tights. With a thong outside the tights, and a phallic pink gun aimed at his ass in a provocative way. They don't like it."
"Well, I don't like them!" yells Gerard. "Fuck them, we don't have to listen to the man! No one gets to tell me how to express myself!"
"Stores won't sell it, Gerard," Brian says. "What good is expressing yourself if nobody gets to listen to the music? Look, let me talk to them and see if we can come up with something else we can all live with."
Gerard crosses his arms mutinously.
***
"What is that?" Mikey says, peering into the pocket of Gerard's hoodie.
Gerard looks down. "Oh, 's just my cigarette. I'm saving it."
"You're saving a half-smoked cigarette in your pocket?" Mikey asks incredulously. "Dude, that's unsanitary. Put it on the table."
"I'll forget it on the table," Gerard protests.
Mikey shakes his head indulgently. "Can't take you anywhere."
Their interactions clearly betray their familial relationship. Have they been writing music together since they were young?
"Oh, yeah," says Gerard, as Mikey nods besides him. "We had this song when we were little and we would get nosebleeds, we had this song about being faucets for vampires. Drip, drip, drip, goes the little human snout..."
Mikey joins in: "Sip, sip, sip, they drink the blood right from the spout! You scared the crap out of me with that song when I was five." He laughs nostalgically.
***
"Brian!" Gerard waves his coffee cup imperiously. "This coffee is fucked, man, they fucked up my coffee. This mug is tiny, what the hell."
"You can refill it," says Brian. "There's a jug of coffee there, you can fill it up as much as you want."
"But if I fill it up too much it overflows."
"I mean you can drink some and then refill it," says Brian.
Gerard shakes his head. "It's a problem, this is a problem. And the temperature's all wrong too, like, it's too neutral."
"Too cold?"
"No, too neutral. I'm okay with cold coffee, I'm okay with hot coffee. I'm even okay with medium coffee. But this, this is like somewhere in the middle of all three. It's not right, they fucked it up."
Brian heaves a sigh. "I'll see what I can do."
"See if you can find a bigger fucking mug, too. This mug, fuck."
***
"I feel like we're doing good things," Gerard says earnestly. "So many people have told me that our music has affected them, helped them through hard times, even saved their lives. I feel like we're doing meaningful things with our work, like our lives are really meaningful. You know how in Hitchhiker's Guide, the answer to the meaning of life is 42? I feel like the meaning of our lives is 43, like, one more meaningful."
"42 isn't the answer to the meaning of life," says Mikey, who rarely contradicts his brother on creative matters but never leaves a nerdy reference unexamined. "It's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. The entire point is that it's meaningless unless you know what the question is."
"It's a metaphor," Gerard objects.
"It's already a metaphor," Mikey says.
Gerard scowls. "It's really meaningful, is my point. We're doing meaningful shit."
***
Mikey is grinning. This is apparently a big deal for Mikey.
"What are you so happy about?" asks Gerard curiously.
Mikey looks up from his phone, still touch-typing with his thumbs. "Pete's coming!" he says, much more enthusiastically than his usual monotone.
Gerard raises his eyebrows. "He's gonna visit us in New York, you mean?"
"No, no, he's coming with us for the rest of the tour." Mikey practically bounces up off the hotel bed. "I gotta shower."
Gerard watches him disappear into the bathroom, his forehead slightly wrinkled.
Frank runs in, brandishing an iPhone plugged into a mini-speaker. "Hey hey, they're playing 'Na Na Na' on college radio!" he says excitedly.
"Cool!" Gerard leans in to listen.
"Cut my hair, gag and bore me/Pull this pin, let this world explode... aaaaand anyone wanna take a guess at who that was? So perky, it could almost have been Justin Bieber. But no, ladies and gentlemen, that was My Chemical Romance, who seem to have set aside any pretense of respect for their punk roots in favor of overproduction and dance-club beats. Don't worry, folks, we won't be playing that one again. Next up, Black Flag..."
Gerard's face falls.
***
In their treasured home state of New Jersey, the band takes a detour to Lyndhurst to devote some time to their heritage.
"This, it's this one over here," says Frank, pointing.
Gerard peers at the headstone. "No, this one says Jeff Hyman."
"That's Joey Ramone, dude. Joey was his stage name. They weren't actually brothers, you know."
"They weren't?" says Gerard, but the rest of the band is ignoring him for once, kneeling in front of the grave. There is a silence, then Mikey clears his throat.
"Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go," he sings softly, "I wanna be sedated."
"Nothin' to do, nowhere to go, oh, I wanna be sedated," Frank sings along.
Gerard and Ray join in. "Just put me in a wheelchair, get me to the show, hurry hurry hurry before I go loco. I can't control my fingers, I can't control my toes, oh no, oh oh oh oh. Bamp bamp bamp bamp..."
"No, dude, it's 'ba-bamp ba-bamp," Mikey says to Gerard.
"Bamp bamp bamp bamp," sings Gerard again.
Frank shakes his head. "No way, it's like 'bamp bamp ba-bamp," he corrects.
"Bam-bam bam, I wanna be sedated," warbles Ray obliviously.
***
"So Bob was our next drummer after Otter," says Gerard. "We loved Bob, we miss him a lot. He got lit on fire while we were filming a music video once. It was awful in a really badass kind of way."
What happened to Bob?
The band avoids eye contact.
***
In the middle of soundcheck in New York, Mikey stops playing suddenly. "Hey there, sweet lil' dude!" says a voice from the rear microphone, and there is Pete Wentz, grinning manically.
Mikey sheds his bass and dashes across the auditorium, meeting Pete in a kiss to rival the one at the end of The Princess Bride. Gerard watches, lips pressed together.
"Guys!" Brian calls, lugging a box out from backstage. "Everyone come here! Where's... oh, there he is. Mikey! Come on, it's the album!"
Mikey detaches his lips and saunters over, Pete trailing behind him. Brian rips open the box and holds up a CD proudly.
"It's... the desert," Ray says doubtfully.
"With the spider," says Brian. "The spider from the video? It's a symbol!"
"This is what it's going to be?" says Frank, dismay written all over his face. "This, right here?"
"Yeah, these are already being shipped to stores," says Brian.
Everyone looks at Gerard.
"It's, the album is called True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys," says Gerard. "That's in the name, and this, this is not fabulous. It's like, how much less fabulous could this be? And the answer is none. None less fabulous."
"Spiders are kind of fabulous," puts in Pete helpfully.
Frank glowers. "They are not."
***
"Pete and Gerard like to pretend they don't like each other, but really they're buds," confides Mikey. He takes Pete's hand, looking at him fondly. "They're very similar, both very opinionated and creative. Really, they're practically the same person."
Pete's expression is aggressively neutral.
***
Gerard is humming an uncharacteristically low-key tune as he putters around the tour bus.
"Oh, this?" he says. "It's a lullaby I'm working on for my daughter Bandit. It's in C minor, which is the sleepiest of all keys, I've found. I'm really influenced by Mother Goose and Raffi, you know, it's kind of a Mother Goofy piece. I call it Sleep Like You're On Rohypnol."
***
"It's not that bad, you know," says Pete. The band, and Pete, are sitting in a diner somewhere outside of Chicago. It's eleven PM. Pete is eating waffles.
Gerard narrows his eyes. "Not that bad?"
"No, dude, the music is actually pretty good," says Pete, unaware of Gerard's death glare. "The problem is the stage show. You guys are performing like you're still playing metal. The audiences don't know what to do with that."
Gerard leans forward onto his elbows indignantly. "Like you know jack shit about metal!"
"No, no, here's what I'm saying. I know pop. You guys are playing pop now. This is the kind of music I know exactly how to perform."
"It's not pop," Gerard yells, slamming his palms on the table. "Punk is all about challenging the motherfucking status quo! If the status quo is unintelligible screaming, then for fuck's sake I am going to enunciate!"
Brian gives him a look, and he takes a deep breath. "Fine. Go ahead, educate me. How do you think we should be performing our music?"
"You need a gimmick," says Pete immediately. "I have more than enough animal outfits for everyone--"
Frank starts laughing uncontrollably. Ray looks worried. Gerard's expression could melt the polar ice caps.
"He's got a point," says Mikey, who seems emboldened by Pete's presence. "The crowds aren't as engaged as they were with Black Parade. We should do something different."
"Okay," says Gerard. "Okay, we've got this whole Killjoys universe to draw from, we can make something happen. We can wear the outfits from the video, yeah, and maybe bring on some people to act as dracs and try to fire on us halfway through the show. We need the Trans Am. Brian, get the Trans Am out here from L.A."
"No," says Brian.
Gerard folds his arms and arranges his eyebrows into bitch mode. "What do you mean, no?"
Brian stands up and tosses down his napkin. "You have no idea," he says, "what I do for you." He surveys the astonished group. "I do everything. While you're doodling and fucking around and whining about the temperature of your coffee, I'm keeping your shit together. All of you. I'm keeping your makeup stash stocked, and making sure you have a goddamn drummer, and spending entire afternoons searching the bus because you," he points to Mikey, "have left your motorcycle helmet in the refrigerator. And now you're actually listening to this obnoxious dickhead," the finger of judgment moves to Pete, "and commanding me to transport a car across the country and into every venue on our route."
He shakes his head. "When I say no, what I mean is no. Actually, what I mean is fuck this shit. Fuck you ungrateful bastards. I quit."
He storms out of the diner, leaving stunned silence in his wake.
"I can help manage, if you guys, like, need someone..." says Pete.
***
"I don't believe in curses," says Mike Pedicone, My Chemical Romance's current drummer. "Anyway, I'm just the touring drummer. I'm not officially part of the band."
If he were offered a place in the band, would he take it?
"Are you shitting me? Fuck yes." He grins. "I said I don't believe in curses. Just because all the band's previous drummers have left under mysterious circumstances they refuse to explain to anyone, that doesn't mean it would happen to me."
***
"Me and Mikey, we're like brothers," says Gerard. "I mean, obviously we are brothers, but you know the sense of brotherhood people talk about when they're close to someone? Usually brothers aren't like that at all, they bicker and pick at each other and shit. But that's not me and Mikey. We're brothers, but we're actually like brothers, like even more brothery than brothers. It goes beyond actual brotherhood."
He pauses. "Brotherly. I meant brotherly, not brothery. Can you edit that?"
***
"I feel like we've matured a lot, as a band and as individuals," says Ray thoughtfully. "I mean, except Frank, he's a baby--"
"Hey!" says Frank.
"--except Frank, we're all in our thirties now, we're settling down, we're... ack." Ray stops his wild gesticulating and lifts a frosting-covered hand. "Oh, man. I put my hand in a cupcake."
"I'll let that speak for itself," says Frank smugly. "But I will also add, to the point about us being mature, that Mikey bathed twice last month, and one of those times, he brought a space heater into the shower with him."
"Fucking... can you pass me that napkin?" Ray asks.
Frank ignores him. "Oh, and one time Gerard got lost on the tour bus. I'm not even kidding, he was trying to find the bathroom and ended up in the cab with the driver."
"I'm dripping sugar," says Ray sadly.
***
"Pete," says Gerard, "why are we in a mall? Isn't the venue expecting us in five minutes?"
"It's cool, dude," Pete says dismissively.
Gerard stops dead. "Why, Pete," he says sharply, "are we in a mall?"
"This is the venue," says Pete. "I changed it. I told you, you've got to work with your demographic. The kids who like the music you're playing now, they're mall kids."
A heavily Botoxed middle-aged woman tip-taps up to them in six-inch heels. "And you must be Our Chemical Romance!" she chirps.
"My Chemical Romance," says Frank.
"Of course, of course, Your Chemical Romance. Let me just say that we're so happy to have you. We are such fans of the punkcore aesthetic, we've made friends with the folks at Hot Topic and everything. I've even put on my leather boots for the occasion. People will be thinking I'm part of the band!" She titters, gesturing to her delicate stilettos. "Come on over here, I'll show you where we've got you set up. Try not to be too loud, all right, some shoppers prefer a calm environment."
Gerard walks off the stage halfway through the show.
***
The rest of the shows on the tour are canceled.
"We can't perform without our lead singer," says Frank. "We can't perform without Gerard. But he'll come back, he has to come back."
"I dunno," says Ray anxiously. "Mikey's pretty fucking pissed."
Frank sticks his hands in his pockets. "Well, if he doesn't, I guess we'll finally get to do that dueling-guitars interpretive dance routine we've been talking about for so long."
"You have been talking about interpretive dance," says Ray. "I have been talking about wiping stripes on the floor with your frets, motherfucker."
***
When the interrupted tour caravan reaches L.A. three days later, Gerard is waiting outside the practice space, smoking.
Mikey doesn't say anything aloud, but from the way the brothers lock gazes, something is clearly taking place. Finally, Gerard says, "I talked to Brian. 'Planetary (GO!)' is ripping through the Japanese punk scene. They get it there. They understand how Danger Days really is punk."
"Is Brian coming back?" Frank asks.
Gerard shakes his head. "But I think we can figure it out. We've been at this long enough. Pete, I respect your music for what it is, but you don't understand what we're doing here. Back off. This band needs to work out some shit by ourselves."
***
END
***
Do you feel like the rock-and-roll lifestyle keeps you in a state of perpetual adolescence?
"Naw," says Frank. "It's like, you know how Johnny Rotten used to spit at the crowds and people would wipe it off with a napkin and then save the napkin? I'm like that napkin, I still have the spirit of youth, but I'm not trapped in it."
You feel like a spit-soaked napkin onstage?
"Yeah."
***
Do you have a philosophy or creed by which you live your life?
"Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," says Ray. "Well, not drugs. Not so much sex, either, at least not as a major lifestyle component. Basically I just play my guitar a lot. Can that be my philosophy?"
***
What would you want your gravestone to say?
"I want it to say 'Here lies Mikey Fuckin' Way'," says Mikey. "Make sure whoever's in charge of me after I keel over knows that. Mikey Fuckin' Way."
***
If you had to quit the band, what other job do you think you'd get?
"I guess I could work in a store or something," Gerard says pensively. "I could freelance sell comics, maybe. I could be a salesman, like, 'hello, sir, what kind of shit you into?' I could handle that."
Would you be happy with that kind of job?
"Well, I dunno. Would there be coffee?"
Thanks to zarathuse for the beta.
***
"Killjoys never die!" squeals a teenage girl who appears to be dressed as a circus raccoon. She's wearing shitkickers, neon green fishnets, a torn denim skirt, a leather jacket with a creepy black-and-white smiley face stitched on the back, and a multicolored mask, and she's clutching a water gun.
What does 'Killjoys never die' mean?
"No clue!" she enthuses. "Gerard tweeted it as a caption to a photo of him in a body bag. It might be from their next music video! The picture had to have been taken right before he tweeted it, the dye job proves it. We measured his roots."
Not many of the fans shivering in line are dressed up as 'Killjoys,' the most recent look of My Chemical Romance. Instead, the majority are clad in black and chains, reflecting the band's previous image.
"I think this Killjoy shit is a joke," says another fan, a boy in a college hoodie. He shoots a contemptuous glance at raccoon girl. "That 'Na Na Na' song is so ridiculous it has to be fake. Some kind of statement about what bullshit people are willing to accept from a group just because they're popular. I bet they'll come out dressed as vampires or something and make fun of everyone who fell for it."
A woman in her late twenties sums up her opinion of the band's recent style changes simply: "It doesn't matter. They're My Chem. Whatever they do, I'll love it."
***
Gerard Way struts out onto the stage like a tight-jeaned, pink-haired peacock. "HELLO!" he hollers into the microphone, then pauses. "Fuck, I've lost track of where the fuck we are. Where are we?" The crowd screams. "Boston? HELLO, BOSTON! Wait, no, that can't be right, we were in Louisiana two days ago. That's, that's at the bottom of the map, Boston is all up top."
Ray, the band's lead guitarist, trots over to whisper something into Gerard's ear, and Gerard says, "Oh! AUSTIN! HELLO, AUSTIN!"
The band dives into their most recent single, aptly titled "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)". The college fan's skepticism about their change of heart is perhaps warranted, but if the band is playing an elaborate prank on their fans, they're not giving away the game now. Gerard stomps around the stage like he's belting out a punk anthem instead of a bouncy pop tune, and rhythm guitarist Frank is actually headbanging to the lyric "let me see your jazz hands."
***
Gerard laughs and shakes his head. He's clearly been getting this question a lot. "No, no joke," he says. "Man, people's expectations of us are totally fucked. You spend a few years singing about depressing shit and all of a sudden you find out you're never allowed to be happy? What the hell? Yeah, the new stuff is more upbeat. I'll do my time, fuck."
He admits that the new sound is a big departure from the previous work of the band, which was catapulted to fame with "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)," a 2004 hit single that attracted emo kids like flies.
"I've been through a lot of shit," says Gerard. "Well, we all have, but mine is the shit that goes into the lyrics. Their shit matters too!" He gestures to Frank, Ray, and bassist Mikey, who is Gerard's brother. "I care about everyone's shit, like all the shit in the world matters, every single person's shit. Your shit, man, I care deeply about your shit. That's why I do this. The music is made up of bits of everyone's shit. But mostly mine."
The rest of the band seems generally happy to let Gerard take the lead in interviews as well as onstage, although they interject on occasion during Gerard's brief history of the band. "It was just me and Otter at first," Gerard reminisces. "We brought Ray on board because I don't play guitar and sing at the same time. I mean, I can, but then my whole presence just suffers."
"He got kicked out of one group 'cause he sucked so bad on the guitar," adds Frank.
Gerard doesn't bat an eyelash. "Mikey named us after some random library book and dropped out of college to join us, and then Frank fell in with us after Pencey broke up."
"It wasn't random," says Mikey. "I did actually read the book."
Gerard nods. "Yeah, Bullets," he says in apparent agreement. "Then Revenge, then Black Parade. That shit was intense, we needed some R&R after that, so it's been a while. The fans are really excited about this new album. We're excited too. It's a cool idea, you know. Not a concept, we're totally done with concept albums, but like a world."
Wait, so what happened to Matt "Otter" Pelissier?
Ray narrows his eyes. "We don't talk about that."
***
The band's manager, Brian Schechter, has some bad news.
"They don't like the album cover, guys," he says. "It's too gay."
"Too gay?" Gerard demands. "There's nothing wrong with being gay! It's not even gay at all, what's gay about it?"
Brian holds up his hands, trying to placate the irate singer. "Gerard, it's a picture of Show Pony's ass. In tights. With a thong outside the tights, and a phallic pink gun aimed at his ass in a provocative way. They don't like it."
"Well, I don't like them!" yells Gerard. "Fuck them, we don't have to listen to the man! No one gets to tell me how to express myself!"
"Stores won't sell it, Gerard," Brian says. "What good is expressing yourself if nobody gets to listen to the music? Look, let me talk to them and see if we can come up with something else we can all live with."
Gerard crosses his arms mutinously.
***
"What is that?" Mikey says, peering into the pocket of Gerard's hoodie.
Gerard looks down. "Oh, 's just my cigarette. I'm saving it."
"You're saving a half-smoked cigarette in your pocket?" Mikey asks incredulously. "Dude, that's unsanitary. Put it on the table."
"I'll forget it on the table," Gerard protests.
Mikey shakes his head indulgently. "Can't take you anywhere."
Their interactions clearly betray their familial relationship. Have they been writing music together since they were young?
"Oh, yeah," says Gerard, as Mikey nods besides him. "We had this song when we were little and we would get nosebleeds, we had this song about being faucets for vampires. Drip, drip, drip, goes the little human snout..."
Mikey joins in: "Sip, sip, sip, they drink the blood right from the spout! You scared the crap out of me with that song when I was five." He laughs nostalgically.
***
"Brian!" Gerard waves his coffee cup imperiously. "This coffee is fucked, man, they fucked up my coffee. This mug is tiny, what the hell."
"You can refill it," says Brian. "There's a jug of coffee there, you can fill it up as much as you want."
"But if I fill it up too much it overflows."
"I mean you can drink some and then refill it," says Brian.
Gerard shakes his head. "It's a problem, this is a problem. And the temperature's all wrong too, like, it's too neutral."
"Too cold?"
"No, too neutral. I'm okay with cold coffee, I'm okay with hot coffee. I'm even okay with medium coffee. But this, this is like somewhere in the middle of all three. It's not right, they fucked it up."
Brian heaves a sigh. "I'll see what I can do."
"See if you can find a bigger fucking mug, too. This mug, fuck."
***
"I feel like we're doing good things," Gerard says earnestly. "So many people have told me that our music has affected them, helped them through hard times, even saved their lives. I feel like we're doing meaningful things with our work, like our lives are really meaningful. You know how in Hitchhiker's Guide, the answer to the meaning of life is 42? I feel like the meaning of our lives is 43, like, one more meaningful."
"42 isn't the answer to the meaning of life," says Mikey, who rarely contradicts his brother on creative matters but never leaves a nerdy reference unexamined. "It's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. The entire point is that it's meaningless unless you know what the question is."
"It's a metaphor," Gerard objects.
"It's already a metaphor," Mikey says.
Gerard scowls. "It's really meaningful, is my point. We're doing meaningful shit."
***
Mikey is grinning. This is apparently a big deal for Mikey.
"What are you so happy about?" asks Gerard curiously.
Mikey looks up from his phone, still touch-typing with his thumbs. "Pete's coming!" he says, much more enthusiastically than his usual monotone.
Gerard raises his eyebrows. "He's gonna visit us in New York, you mean?"
"No, no, he's coming with us for the rest of the tour." Mikey practically bounces up off the hotel bed. "I gotta shower."
Gerard watches him disappear into the bathroom, his forehead slightly wrinkled.
Frank runs in, brandishing an iPhone plugged into a mini-speaker. "Hey hey, they're playing 'Na Na Na' on college radio!" he says excitedly.
"Cool!" Gerard leans in to listen.
"Cut my hair, gag and bore me/Pull this pin, let this world explode... aaaaand anyone wanna take a guess at who that was? So perky, it could almost have been Justin Bieber. But no, ladies and gentlemen, that was My Chemical Romance, who seem to have set aside any pretense of respect for their punk roots in favor of overproduction and dance-club beats. Don't worry, folks, we won't be playing that one again. Next up, Black Flag..."
Gerard's face falls.
***
In their treasured home state of New Jersey, the band takes a detour to Lyndhurst to devote some time to their heritage.
"This, it's this one over here," says Frank, pointing.
Gerard peers at the headstone. "No, this one says Jeff Hyman."
"That's Joey Ramone, dude. Joey was his stage name. They weren't actually brothers, you know."
"They weren't?" says Gerard, but the rest of the band is ignoring him for once, kneeling in front of the grave. There is a silence, then Mikey clears his throat.
"Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go," he sings softly, "I wanna be sedated."
"Nothin' to do, nowhere to go, oh, I wanna be sedated," Frank sings along.
Gerard and Ray join in. "Just put me in a wheelchair, get me to the show, hurry hurry hurry before I go loco. I can't control my fingers, I can't control my toes, oh no, oh oh oh oh. Bamp bamp bamp bamp..."
"No, dude, it's 'ba-bamp ba-bamp," Mikey says to Gerard.
"Bamp bamp bamp bamp," sings Gerard again.
Frank shakes his head. "No way, it's like 'bamp bamp ba-bamp," he corrects.
"Bam-bam bam, I wanna be sedated," warbles Ray obliviously.
***
"So Bob was our next drummer after Otter," says Gerard. "We loved Bob, we miss him a lot. He got lit on fire while we were filming a music video once. It was awful in a really badass kind of way."
What happened to Bob?
The band avoids eye contact.
***
In the middle of soundcheck in New York, Mikey stops playing suddenly. "Hey there, sweet lil' dude!" says a voice from the rear microphone, and there is Pete Wentz, grinning manically.
Mikey sheds his bass and dashes across the auditorium, meeting Pete in a kiss to rival the one at the end of The Princess Bride. Gerard watches, lips pressed together.
"Guys!" Brian calls, lugging a box out from backstage. "Everyone come here! Where's... oh, there he is. Mikey! Come on, it's the album!"
Mikey detaches his lips and saunters over, Pete trailing behind him. Brian rips open the box and holds up a CD proudly.
"It's... the desert," Ray says doubtfully.
"With the spider," says Brian. "The spider from the video? It's a symbol!"
"This is what it's going to be?" says Frank, dismay written all over his face. "This, right here?"
"Yeah, these are already being shipped to stores," says Brian.
Everyone looks at Gerard.
"It's, the album is called True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys," says Gerard. "That's in the name, and this, this is not fabulous. It's like, how much less fabulous could this be? And the answer is none. None less fabulous."
"Spiders are kind of fabulous," puts in Pete helpfully.
Frank glowers. "They are not."
***
"Pete and Gerard like to pretend they don't like each other, but really they're buds," confides Mikey. He takes Pete's hand, looking at him fondly. "They're very similar, both very opinionated and creative. Really, they're practically the same person."
Pete's expression is aggressively neutral.
***
Gerard is humming an uncharacteristically low-key tune as he putters around the tour bus.
"Oh, this?" he says. "It's a lullaby I'm working on for my daughter Bandit. It's in C minor, which is the sleepiest of all keys, I've found. I'm really influenced by Mother Goose and Raffi, you know, it's kind of a Mother Goofy piece. I call it Sleep Like You're On Rohypnol."
***
"It's not that bad, you know," says Pete. The band, and Pete, are sitting in a diner somewhere outside of Chicago. It's eleven PM. Pete is eating waffles.
Gerard narrows his eyes. "Not that bad?"
"No, dude, the music is actually pretty good," says Pete, unaware of Gerard's death glare. "The problem is the stage show. You guys are performing like you're still playing metal. The audiences don't know what to do with that."
Gerard leans forward onto his elbows indignantly. "Like you know jack shit about metal!"
"No, no, here's what I'm saying. I know pop. You guys are playing pop now. This is the kind of music I know exactly how to perform."
"It's not pop," Gerard yells, slamming his palms on the table. "Punk is all about challenging the motherfucking status quo! If the status quo is unintelligible screaming, then for fuck's sake I am going to enunciate!"
Brian gives him a look, and he takes a deep breath. "Fine. Go ahead, educate me. How do you think we should be performing our music?"
"You need a gimmick," says Pete immediately. "I have more than enough animal outfits for everyone--"
Frank starts laughing uncontrollably. Ray looks worried. Gerard's expression could melt the polar ice caps.
"He's got a point," says Mikey, who seems emboldened by Pete's presence. "The crowds aren't as engaged as they were with Black Parade. We should do something different."
"Okay," says Gerard. "Okay, we've got this whole Killjoys universe to draw from, we can make something happen. We can wear the outfits from the video, yeah, and maybe bring on some people to act as dracs and try to fire on us halfway through the show. We need the Trans Am. Brian, get the Trans Am out here from L.A."
"No," says Brian.
Gerard folds his arms and arranges his eyebrows into bitch mode. "What do you mean, no?"
Brian stands up and tosses down his napkin. "You have no idea," he says, "what I do for you." He surveys the astonished group. "I do everything. While you're doodling and fucking around and whining about the temperature of your coffee, I'm keeping your shit together. All of you. I'm keeping your makeup stash stocked, and making sure you have a goddamn drummer, and spending entire afternoons searching the bus because you," he points to Mikey, "have left your motorcycle helmet in the refrigerator. And now you're actually listening to this obnoxious dickhead," the finger of judgment moves to Pete, "and commanding me to transport a car across the country and into every venue on our route."
He shakes his head. "When I say no, what I mean is no. Actually, what I mean is fuck this shit. Fuck you ungrateful bastards. I quit."
He storms out of the diner, leaving stunned silence in his wake.
"I can help manage, if you guys, like, need someone..." says Pete.
***
"I don't believe in curses," says Mike Pedicone, My Chemical Romance's current drummer. "Anyway, I'm just the touring drummer. I'm not officially part of the band."
If he were offered a place in the band, would he take it?
"Are you shitting me? Fuck yes." He grins. "I said I don't believe in curses. Just because all the band's previous drummers have left under mysterious circumstances they refuse to explain to anyone, that doesn't mean it would happen to me."
***
"Me and Mikey, we're like brothers," says Gerard. "I mean, obviously we are brothers, but you know the sense of brotherhood people talk about when they're close to someone? Usually brothers aren't like that at all, they bicker and pick at each other and shit. But that's not me and Mikey. We're brothers, but we're actually like brothers, like even more brothery than brothers. It goes beyond actual brotherhood."
He pauses. "Brotherly. I meant brotherly, not brothery. Can you edit that?"
***
"I feel like we've matured a lot, as a band and as individuals," says Ray thoughtfully. "I mean, except Frank, he's a baby--"
"Hey!" says Frank.
"--except Frank, we're all in our thirties now, we're settling down, we're... ack." Ray stops his wild gesticulating and lifts a frosting-covered hand. "Oh, man. I put my hand in a cupcake."
"I'll let that speak for itself," says Frank smugly. "But I will also add, to the point about us being mature, that Mikey bathed twice last month, and one of those times, he brought a space heater into the shower with him."
"Fucking... can you pass me that napkin?" Ray asks.
Frank ignores him. "Oh, and one time Gerard got lost on the tour bus. I'm not even kidding, he was trying to find the bathroom and ended up in the cab with the driver."
"I'm dripping sugar," says Ray sadly.
***
"Pete," says Gerard, "why are we in a mall? Isn't the venue expecting us in five minutes?"
"It's cool, dude," Pete says dismissively.
Gerard stops dead. "Why, Pete," he says sharply, "are we in a mall?"
"This is the venue," says Pete. "I changed it. I told you, you've got to work with your demographic. The kids who like the music you're playing now, they're mall kids."
A heavily Botoxed middle-aged woman tip-taps up to them in six-inch heels. "And you must be Our Chemical Romance!" she chirps.
"My Chemical Romance," says Frank.
"Of course, of course, Your Chemical Romance. Let me just say that we're so happy to have you. We are such fans of the punkcore aesthetic, we've made friends with the folks at Hot Topic and everything. I've even put on my leather boots for the occasion. People will be thinking I'm part of the band!" She titters, gesturing to her delicate stilettos. "Come on over here, I'll show you where we've got you set up. Try not to be too loud, all right, some shoppers prefer a calm environment."
Gerard walks off the stage halfway through the show.
***
The rest of the shows on the tour are canceled.
"We can't perform without our lead singer," says Frank. "We can't perform without Gerard. But he'll come back, he has to come back."
"I dunno," says Ray anxiously. "Mikey's pretty fucking pissed."
Frank sticks his hands in his pockets. "Well, if he doesn't, I guess we'll finally get to do that dueling-guitars interpretive dance routine we've been talking about for so long."
"You have been talking about interpretive dance," says Ray. "I have been talking about wiping stripes on the floor with your frets, motherfucker."
***
When the interrupted tour caravan reaches L.A. three days later, Gerard is waiting outside the practice space, smoking.
Mikey doesn't say anything aloud, but from the way the brothers lock gazes, something is clearly taking place. Finally, Gerard says, "I talked to Brian. 'Planetary (GO!)' is ripping through the Japanese punk scene. They get it there. They understand how Danger Days really is punk."
"Is Brian coming back?" Frank asks.
Gerard shakes his head. "But I think we can figure it out. We've been at this long enough. Pete, I respect your music for what it is, but you don't understand what we're doing here. Back off. This band needs to work out some shit by ourselves."
***
END
***
Do you feel like the rock-and-roll lifestyle keeps you in a state of perpetual adolescence?
"Naw," says Frank. "It's like, you know how Johnny Rotten used to spit at the crowds and people would wipe it off with a napkin and then save the napkin? I'm like that napkin, I still have the spirit of youth, but I'm not trapped in it."
You feel like a spit-soaked napkin onstage?
"Yeah."
***
Do you have a philosophy or creed by which you live your life?
"Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," says Ray. "Well, not drugs. Not so much sex, either, at least not as a major lifestyle component. Basically I just play my guitar a lot. Can that be my philosophy?"
***
What would you want your gravestone to say?
"I want it to say 'Here lies Mikey Fuckin' Way'," says Mikey. "Make sure whoever's in charge of me after I keel over knows that. Mikey Fuckin' Way."
***
If you had to quit the band, what other job do you think you'd get?
"I guess I could work in a store or something," Gerard says pensively. "I could freelance sell comics, maybe. I could be a salesman, like, 'hello, sir, what kind of shit you into?' I could handle that."
Would you be happy with that kind of job?
"Well, I dunno. Would there be coffee?"