Desolation Row - MCR ficlet
Desolation Row
1500 words
It all kicked off officially when Mikey decided he was going to headbutt the officer holding him.
Until then, it had been pretty much a decent night’s fun, if not a slightly wilder one than usual. A bit of rough. Fans at the 21+ only venue getting a bit drunk and feral, and lashing out for their anti-establishment kicks. If things had kept on going down the route they had been taking at that point, the band would have probably wound up with a caution for getting involved. Refusing to stop playing, therefore becoming the soundtrack to the chaos, if not a catalyst for it. At the most, they’d have spent a few hours in holding, until Brian could explain about the stress they’d been under recently, and distributed a few bribes or free tickets into the right hands, to compensate for any trouble caused.
Shit just never seemed to fall into place as it should: neatly contained and not spilling all over the sides, forming rank sticky puddles.
Mikey thought sometimes that whatever mutt was in charge of everything -- like, the universe kind of ‘everything’ -- had it in for him. Or them all. Personally. He’d told Gerard at the time that his old priest outfit had been crossing some kind of line.
“What line?” Gerard had said while laughing, Mikey’s stern face watching him back in the mirror.
“Just, a line. A spiritual one probably. Like you don’t burn bibles, and shit like that. Unspoken code. And you wouldn’t draw smiley faces on photographs of Holocaust victims. There are just some things you don’t do.”
“You’re blurring religion and history. Two separate zones, ” Gerard had replied, smearing his eyeliner with his freakishly long pinky finger.
“Same point,” Mikey had argued back.
You’re too superstitious, the memory of Gerard’s voice echoes. It’s just a look. Something I’m trying. Mikey glances down at his own ‘look’: dirty drainpipe jeans and a ripped t-shirt. The punk-ass leather jacket. His aesthetic is ‘don’t give a fuck’, but his current state doesn’t really match it. He can’t help but suspect there’s some brand of righteous payback at work tonight. People they’ve somehow wronged in the past risen up from dusty tombs to grab at their ankles.
There’s a sound like someone’s dragging a chair across the concrete outside his cell. A drawn-out metallic whine putting his teeth on edge. He doesn’t like it.
He hadn’t liked the feel of the car hood against his cheek. Too cold. His spine bent over it in a very uncomfortable arc. The cop’s fat, donut-greased hands pinning him down hadn’t sat well with him, either. To his credit, the guy had made an honest mistake. Judging Mikey solely by his slight build and the skinny wrists he was in the process of cuffing. Slack. And it cost him.
At least, Mikey thought afterwards while picking dried blood out of his nostrils, he’ll probably be more careful with the skinny ones in future. Call it some extra skills development, on the house.
“Gerard Way,” the guard announces as he batters on the door, swinging it open. “You got a visitor.”
“Mikey,” he corrects him drolly. “You got my brother in another one of your suites.”
The guard just laughs and winks with a friendly stab of his finger. “A real hot shot, aren’t you hairspray? I guess it’s true. Money doesn’t buy you manners.”
“Can it buy you a neck?”
“She’s got you for ten minutes, then it’s lights out.” He rattles his bundle of keys, and over the top of this Mikey thinks he can hear Bob yelling in the corridor outside, but the sound is getting distorted, like it’s either being sealed away or dragged off towards another part of the station. It’s probably just some spare harmless drunk they allow to float about the place.
“We’re not giving you enough royalties so you gotta go picking fights to get our attention?”
The back of Mikey’s skull still hurts; his memory clinging to the sensation of the cop’s nose smashing against it.
Stacey comes in like a cocked pistol, already talking, and he knows he should be glad to see her since she’s the only one who can get him out of this mess. But honestly, he’d have preferred to see Alicia carrying a chilled bottle of Gatorade and some cigarettes, even if she did smack him over the head before she shared them with him. “I guess things got out of hand. I snapped. I don’t like being pushed around like some felon when I did fuck-all.” He slides up the wall, from his spot on the floor, and the plastic cushioned mat he’s been sitting on jerks out from under his feet.
“Congratulations then, because now you get to find out how that feels.”
He looks up. She’s dressed in a suit. A trouser suit. Pinstripe. He wonders if this is what she was wearing when she got the call, or if she put it on specially for the occasion. “Is Gerard okay?”
“He’s got a killer headache, but apart from that, he’s doing fine. They checked him out at the hospital before they brought him here. It’s nothing serious.”
“The other guys?”
“You’re only my second customer tonight.” Stacey smiles, and rests her briefcase on the wide low shelf that Mikey guesses is supposed to function as a bed. Her lips stay in a straight line as she pulls a smoke and a lighter out from her pocket and hands them over.
“Aren’t I in enough trouble?”
“Just keep it under the grill,” she points to the ventilation opening above him. Mikey immediately ignites the smuggled article, hoovering in the comforting fumes.
“You haven’t told them anything, have you?”
“Quiet as a church mouse. Told them I was waiting for my lawyer.”
As per training. It was rock music, after all. They had to be briefed, because people do silly things sometimes in this business. Take drugs. Plant drugs. Run a red light in a Mercedes. Assault a cop.
“You haven’t asked me how he’s doing.”
Mikey looks up, eyes retracted deep under his brow bones, and a little confused.
“The officer.”
“Breathing through a tube, for all I care.”
“Nice. That’ll go down really good with the jury.”
“Come on, it was self defense. Any moron will be able to see this,” Mikey rubs his forehead, the bruise there where the baton made contact, “and see it was excusable.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Isn’t that why you get paid so much? To get us off?”
“I don’t get anyone off, Mikey. I defend. The jury, or the judge acquits. I just try my hardest to swing it that way. And it looks like I’ll be thoroughly earning my fee this time. I don’t know whether they’ll treat you all as a gang, or if this’ll be some kind of a five-ring circus.”
“Do we each get separate lawyers if that happens?”
Stacey looks back at him, and Mikey can’t decide if she’s being at all condescending while doing it or whatever, because he only cares that she’ll say she’s sticking with him if the worst comes to the worst, like she’s looked out for him before.
“You’re My Chemical Romance, and you got involved in a fan riot. It’s not like Metallica went on a killing spree at Disneyland.”
“Point taken.”
“You relapsed.”
“I what?”
Stacey retrieves some documents from her case and presents them to him. “Post-traumatic stress disorder. From your condition, and the pressures of touring. That officer manhandling you beyond all reasonable and justifiable levels caused you to jolt back, in an effort to free yourself. You thought you were being mobbed and kidnapped. Fans with testify to this.”
“This would really work?”
“It’s what happened.”
“Okay.” Mikey’s eyes have surfaced a little, and they’re scanning the page. Every other word contained in the ‘motion to dismiss’ is typed in italics, and it’s making his vision go swirly. “Could we not cut out the stuff about me being kidnapped? It sounds like I’m a total pussy.”
“Would you rather be a fake total pussy in the dock, or a fresh total pussy serving time behind bars for attacking a police officer?”
Mikey holds a lungful of smoke in, then releases it in an upwards jet towards the ceiling. “Again, point taken.”
Stacey takes the paper from him, and folds it closed.
“What are the rest of them charged with?”
“I think they’re still working on that. They have a few more hours to come up with something. We’ll see what they pull out of their hat.”
“Is Brian here?”
“On a flight as we speak.”
Mikey picks at the loose thread coming from one of his socks. His boots were confiscated when he was booked. Too many sharp edges on the buckles. He contemplates the slightly entertaining, slightly tragic image of someone taking their own life with the decorative metalwork on their footwear. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?” he eventually admits.
“Big time.”
1500 words
It all kicked off officially when Mikey decided he was going to headbutt the officer holding him.
Until then, it had been pretty much a decent night’s fun, if not a slightly wilder one than usual. A bit of rough. Fans at the 21+ only venue getting a bit drunk and feral, and lashing out for their anti-establishment kicks. If things had kept on going down the route they had been taking at that point, the band would have probably wound up with a caution for getting involved. Refusing to stop playing, therefore becoming the soundtrack to the chaos, if not a catalyst for it. At the most, they’d have spent a few hours in holding, until Brian could explain about the stress they’d been under recently, and distributed a few bribes or free tickets into the right hands, to compensate for any trouble caused.
Shit just never seemed to fall into place as it should: neatly contained and not spilling all over the sides, forming rank sticky puddles.
Mikey thought sometimes that whatever mutt was in charge of everything -- like, the universe kind of ‘everything’ -- had it in for him. Or them all. Personally. He’d told Gerard at the time that his old priest outfit had been crossing some kind of line.
“What line?” Gerard had said while laughing, Mikey’s stern face watching him back in the mirror.
“Just, a line. A spiritual one probably. Like you don’t burn bibles, and shit like that. Unspoken code. And you wouldn’t draw smiley faces on photographs of Holocaust victims. There are just some things you don’t do.”
“You’re blurring religion and history. Two separate zones, ” Gerard had replied, smearing his eyeliner with his freakishly long pinky finger.
“Same point,” Mikey had argued back.
You’re too superstitious, the memory of Gerard’s voice echoes. It’s just a look. Something I’m trying. Mikey glances down at his own ‘look’: dirty drainpipe jeans and a ripped t-shirt. The punk-ass leather jacket. His aesthetic is ‘don’t give a fuck’, but his current state doesn’t really match it. He can’t help but suspect there’s some brand of righteous payback at work tonight. People they’ve somehow wronged in the past risen up from dusty tombs to grab at their ankles.
There’s a sound like someone’s dragging a chair across the concrete outside his cell. A drawn-out metallic whine putting his teeth on edge. He doesn’t like it.
He hadn’t liked the feel of the car hood against his cheek. Too cold. His spine bent over it in a very uncomfortable arc. The cop’s fat, donut-greased hands pinning him down hadn’t sat well with him, either. To his credit, the guy had made an honest mistake. Judging Mikey solely by his slight build and the skinny wrists he was in the process of cuffing. Slack. And it cost him.
At least, Mikey thought afterwards while picking dried blood out of his nostrils, he’ll probably be more careful with the skinny ones in future. Call it some extra skills development, on the house.
“Gerard Way,” the guard announces as he batters on the door, swinging it open. “You got a visitor.”
“Mikey,” he corrects him drolly. “You got my brother in another one of your suites.”
The guard just laughs and winks with a friendly stab of his finger. “A real hot shot, aren’t you hairspray? I guess it’s true. Money doesn’t buy you manners.”
“Can it buy you a neck?”
“She’s got you for ten minutes, then it’s lights out.” He rattles his bundle of keys, and over the top of this Mikey thinks he can hear Bob yelling in the corridor outside, but the sound is getting distorted, like it’s either being sealed away or dragged off towards another part of the station. It’s probably just some spare harmless drunk they allow to float about the place.
“We’re not giving you enough royalties so you gotta go picking fights to get our attention?”
The back of Mikey’s skull still hurts; his memory clinging to the sensation of the cop’s nose smashing against it.
Stacey comes in like a cocked pistol, already talking, and he knows he should be glad to see her since she’s the only one who can get him out of this mess. But honestly, he’d have preferred to see Alicia carrying a chilled bottle of Gatorade and some cigarettes, even if she did smack him over the head before she shared them with him. “I guess things got out of hand. I snapped. I don’t like being pushed around like some felon when I did fuck-all.” He slides up the wall, from his spot on the floor, and the plastic cushioned mat he’s been sitting on jerks out from under his feet.
“Congratulations then, because now you get to find out how that feels.”
He looks up. She’s dressed in a suit. A trouser suit. Pinstripe. He wonders if this is what she was wearing when she got the call, or if she put it on specially for the occasion. “Is Gerard okay?”
“He’s got a killer headache, but apart from that, he’s doing fine. They checked him out at the hospital before they brought him here. It’s nothing serious.”
“The other guys?”
“You’re only my second customer tonight.” Stacey smiles, and rests her briefcase on the wide low shelf that Mikey guesses is supposed to function as a bed. Her lips stay in a straight line as she pulls a smoke and a lighter out from her pocket and hands them over.
“Aren’t I in enough trouble?”
“Just keep it under the grill,” she points to the ventilation opening above him. Mikey immediately ignites the smuggled article, hoovering in the comforting fumes.
“You haven’t told them anything, have you?”
“Quiet as a church mouse. Told them I was waiting for my lawyer.”
As per training. It was rock music, after all. They had to be briefed, because people do silly things sometimes in this business. Take drugs. Plant drugs. Run a red light in a Mercedes. Assault a cop.
“You haven’t asked me how he’s doing.”
Mikey looks up, eyes retracted deep under his brow bones, and a little confused.
“The officer.”
“Breathing through a tube, for all I care.”
“Nice. That’ll go down really good with the jury.”
“Come on, it was self defense. Any moron will be able to see this,” Mikey rubs his forehead, the bruise there where the baton made contact, “and see it was excusable.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Isn’t that why you get paid so much? To get us off?”
“I don’t get anyone off, Mikey. I defend. The jury, or the judge acquits. I just try my hardest to swing it that way. And it looks like I’ll be thoroughly earning my fee this time. I don’t know whether they’ll treat you all as a gang, or if this’ll be some kind of a five-ring circus.”
“Do we each get separate lawyers if that happens?”
Stacey looks back at him, and Mikey can’t decide if she’s being at all condescending while doing it or whatever, because he only cares that she’ll say she’s sticking with him if the worst comes to the worst, like she’s looked out for him before.
“You’re My Chemical Romance, and you got involved in a fan riot. It’s not like Metallica went on a killing spree at Disneyland.”
“Point taken.”
“You relapsed.”
“I what?”
Stacey retrieves some documents from her case and presents them to him. “Post-traumatic stress disorder. From your condition, and the pressures of touring. That officer manhandling you beyond all reasonable and justifiable levels caused you to jolt back, in an effort to free yourself. You thought you were being mobbed and kidnapped. Fans with testify to this.”
“This would really work?”
“It’s what happened.”
“Okay.” Mikey’s eyes have surfaced a little, and they’re scanning the page. Every other word contained in the ‘motion to dismiss’ is typed in italics, and it’s making his vision go swirly. “Could we not cut out the stuff about me being kidnapped? It sounds like I’m a total pussy.”
“Would you rather be a fake total pussy in the dock, or a fresh total pussy serving time behind bars for attacking a police officer?”
Mikey holds a lungful of smoke in, then releases it in an upwards jet towards the ceiling. “Again, point taken.”
Stacey takes the paper from him, and folds it closed.
“What are the rest of them charged with?”
“I think they’re still working on that. They have a few more hours to come up with something. We’ll see what they pull out of their hat.”
“Is Brian here?”
“On a flight as we speak.”
Mikey picks at the loose thread coming from one of his socks. His boots were confiscated when he was booked. Too many sharp edges on the buckles. He contemplates the slightly entertaining, slightly tragic image of someone taking their own life with the decorative metalwork on their footwear. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?” he eventually admits.
“Big time.”