Chapter Text
Frank felt the alcohol-induced giddiness fade into a dull buzz as the face of the asshole in front of him swam in and out of focus. The bearded guy was part of the typical crowd he saw around that curb, and he had learned a long time ago that leaving them alone was the best way to be left alone. So it made no sense at all why this one was spitting slurs in his face when he was just trying to have a smoke with his buddies.
His friends were telling him something, then shouting at the man to back off. Their voices were muted, like he was under water, overpowered by the shrill tinnitus that grew insidiously. His assailant looked ghoulish beneath the purple lamp outside, pressing him up against the brick wall, and Frank’s drunken astigmatism made the street lights behind him dance. If he wasn’t an ugly fucking skinhead calling him a fag and a Tinkerbell-looking pussy, Frank would have considered this moment romantic.
He really didn’t have any witty retorts to that insult, or a counterargument. So he answered him with stoic silence, and a forehead to the nose.
It hurt, but the other hurt more. He cussed as blood dripped from his nose, black in the light, and the lightheaded feeling returned as his friends clashed into him on either side, pulling him away as he brandished a knife and came at him.
“Frank, are you for real right now?” Bob looked back at him, just strong enough to restrain the skinhead from shivving his stupid friend. “You wanna at least get the fuck outta the way?”
“And call security while you’re at it,” Curtis added. “Today, Frank.”
Frank did eventually snap out of it, but between calling security and trying to swing at the guy again, he kind of lost the plot until it was morning, and the cot he woke up in was harder than usual.
He shot up. A night in jail? Before he could process it, he was acutely aware of someone jabbing him in the ribs. He turned to find Curtis, eyes dull and ringed, gesturing him towards the open door.
“What the fuck…” Frank pinched the bridge of his nose, his headache killing him. “Did we get arrested?”
“Nope, just the other guy. You want these?” he threw jeans at him. Belatedly Frank understood why he would need them. “We gotta go clean up the set.”
“Is Pansy okay?” he asked immediately. “Oh, and is Bob alright?”
“Priorities,” Curtis commented. For a keyboardist, Frank always thought he looked a bit too rough. The sideburns and leather jacket certainly didn’t give off the vibe that the guy was a professional pianist. He supposed Bob fit the profile a bit better, if not a stereotypical picture of a drummer in a punk band.
And him? Well, he sure as shit tried.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the flexible acrylic mirror they put in jails so you don’t shatter it and kill someone or yourself, gasping at the damage to his forehead. Luckily his lip wasn’t busted this time, it was a bitch trying to wear the lip ring when it was puffed up. His makeup was smudged, the culprit of his encounter from the previous night, and his short hair that was spiked up into a long mohawk hung limp to the side. He ruffled it, putting bangs over his forehead to hide the ugly wound. He shot Curtis a glance, as though daring the man to comment on the younger man’s preoccupation with his appearance. He told them, time and time again, you don’t become a record-breaking rockstar without giving a shit about your I-don’t-give-a-shit appearance.
Not that they were breaking any records. In fact, Frank was making a mental tally of other venues they might hit as he was dragged back to the bar they played last night to collect their equipment. The owner wasn’t too pleased with the amount of trouble their act caused, and let it be known in the arctic glare he gave Frank.
Fuck him, thought Frank. This crowd wasn’t the sort he wanted to appeal to, anyway. A bunch of rough, leather-jacket wearing bearded dudes, dunked in testosterone by their heel, thinking they’re tough shit.
He looked up at Curtis, who was shoving his keyboard into its case and collapsing the stand.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked suddenly. Curtis didn’t look up. “Do you think we should, like, have a gimmick or something?”
He looked up at him like he said the most incredulous thing. “A gimmick?”
“Yeah, well, you know,” Frank gestured helplessly. “Like Kiss had the face paint, or Misfits with the skull—”
“We’re not the Misfits,” Curtis suggested patiently, like he was explaining this to a very dumb dog. “And I think if we did have a gimmick, you’re already supporting the image plenty.”
“How?”
“Well, let’s not pretend that the…altercation from the other night was provoked by something other than what you were wearing.”
“Oh, come the fuck on!” Frank tossed the equipment aside haphazardly, “what are you, slut-shaming me? I had pants on!”
“And a skirt.”
“Yeah! So it’s okay when they do it,” Frank pointed at a Celtic cross on the bar, “but when I do it, I’m a fag?”
“That’s Scots, not Celts,” Curtis huffed. “And, coming to think of it, I don’t think they were displaying that to celebrate Celtic culture. We should’ve known better than to play here—matter of fact, I think I can do better with the type of music I play, rather than wasting my time here.”
“Yeah, fuck this place and their Nazi bullshit—”
“Are you listening to me, Frank?” Frank looked up at the man. He had his keyboard slung over his back, the stand in one hand, and binder with sheets in the other. Looking tired. Looking miserable. “I’m saying it’s just you and Bob now.”
“What?” he shrieked. He set down the amp he was transporting without much progress to run up to Curtis, taking the stand from him. “No, you’re not! You’re our composer!”
“I’m sure you can figure it out,” he snapped. “What you play don’t exactly count as sophisticated.”
“Hey! Let’s see you give singing and playing a try! Don’t leave us, man—the piano gave us that unique sound!”
“Oh really, you could hear it over the screaming?”
“Holy shit, we’ll turn you up if that’s the problem! Come on, stop being a bitch. Is it because I got wasted and fought a Nazi last night? It’ll happen again. But please, Curtis, don’t leave us. I feel like we’re this close to finding our crowd!”
Curtis shook his head. “Sorry, Frank.” He gently pried the stand from his hands, pushing past him towards the exit. “You’re a good guy under all that,” he nodded at him, “and one of these days you gotta get serious about your future. You can’t keep getting into fights and drinking yourself stupid every night.”
“Is the fatherly advice free or will I receive a quote for it in the mail? You don’t wanna be with us, then fuck you! See you from the top billboard, you mutton chopped asshole! I bet you’ll still be sitting in some crappy jazz bar, playing your boring-ass music, telling people how you used to play with us, fucker!”
Curtis just grinned. “I’ll consider it an honour if it happens. You two take care.”
Frank was beginning to feel like it was going to be one of those days. Or weeks. Or months. Bob only stopped by to pick up their equipment, and evidently was even more pissed off at him than Curtis was, and never having been the ‘let’s talk about it’ kind of guy, drove away while Frank was walking to the passenger side.
Frank just looked bemused as the truck rolled away, then flipped him off, hoping he’d see him in the rearview mirror. He slung Pansy over his back and headed towards the bus stop, but found himself strapped for cash. So it was with soggy shoes and a lobotomizing headache that Frank trekked home, through central Jersey, all the way into the suburbs. The morning was cold and wet but the late August day soon brandished its warmth and he was sweating buckets by the time he approached his driveway, the dust stinging his lungs.
He huffed for a few moments before turning to enter the house through the back door. Sneaking in, he set the guitar down and crept towards the kitchen. He was so damn hungry he didn’t think he could make it subtle, but all attempts were ruined as the guitar slid down the wall, hitting the tiles with a deafening thud that echoed through the house. And sitting with an irked expression at the sound was his mother at the kitchen table. She opened her eyes slowly once the sound subsided, her mouth skewed to the side.
“Why don’t you use the front door like a normal person, Frankie?” she demanded, and without dropping her irritated look, stood up and started getting a plate. “You’re having casserole right now. You look like you’re wasting away.”
He didn’t talk back, just sliding down into a chair as his plate was heaped with the world’s best food. She yelled at him to wash his hands and he shot up to do it.
“What do we say?”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“And Jesus.”
“Jesus didn’t make the casserole.”
He ducked under the hand that was aimed at swatting him on the back of the head, shovelling food into his mouth. He was three mouthfuls in when her scrutinizing gaze fell on his forehead. He groaned as she parted his hair to look at the gash.
“What happened?” she shrieked, running over to the medicine cabinet to get antiseptic. “Did you fall? Why don’t you be more careful?”
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “It’ll be a gross scab for a while though,” he self-consciously ruffled his hair back over his forehead, when his eyes fell on an envelope on the table.
“That from him?”
She glanced at the envelope, nodding. “Not accepting his hand-outs.”
“It’s what he owes you,” Frank mumbled, shying away as she started smearing antiseptic on his forehead. “He’s a fucking prick.”
“Enough about that,” she snapped in a voice that said she was sorry for it too. “Howard was asking about you.”
Now there’s a man who was truly a fucking prick, and Frank supposed it was even more appropriate to hate him. Call it the Cinderella complex to hate stepfamily, but there was nobody in the world he could tolerate less than Howard. It just wasn’t gonna happen, but he couldn’t blame her for it.
“What does he want?”
“Said he’ll write you outta the will, kick you out, all the usual stuff. But you know, Frankie, I talked him down—if only you two talked like grown-ups, he’d see what a smart and hard-working boy you are—and I think he has a point about finding a job.”
“I am working, Mom—”
“You’re self-employed,” she insisted. “I meant something…more official, part-time even.”
“I won’t have time for music,” he groaned. “You always supported me, you said I gotta do whatever will leave my mark on the world.”
“Yes, Frankie, but it’d be nice if that whatever also got you health insurance!”
Tough argument there, decided Frank. He hasn’t exactly been the picture of health, and the lifestyle wasn’t agreeing with him. But throwing himself into work was usually a good way to go. He figured, now that Curtis left, he’d have more work than ever, composing and performing. Maybe he would have to become one of those ridiculous one-man acts, tapping the bass drum with his foot and hitting the snare with his elbow or some shit because for all he knew, he might have no bandmates as of this morning. Time would only tell if Bob was coming back.
What they needed, he decided, was one good gig to raise morale. And as he slumped off to take a shower and down into the basement to sleep off the headache, ideas flickered before him of just how to achieve it. Fuck what Curtis said, a gimmick would be their break. In fact, if he hadn’t left, he’d be perfect for the gimmick Frank had in mind. He was thinking something along the lines of an old-school horror, mad scientist act, with a bit of a distinguished flair, have Curtis and him be in waistcoats or something. He was very sure there’d be a market for it. And their music, the direction it was going in, would support it. Their last few songs had a melancholic air, though maybe it was just Curtis’ existential depression or some shit. Frank always stirred them towards a louder, angrier path, but he was willing to try new things.
He hadn’t realized that he had drifted off to sleep until a loud bang had woken him. He rubbed his eyes, watching the silhouette of Howard become clear in the doorway. Resisting the natural instinct to duck under the covers, he conjured his most hateful and irritated expression.
“I’m trying to fucking sleep here.”
“Oh, so no room service?” the other quipped. He was still in a business suit, and Frank thought that was so stupid, equating it to a doctor going to the grocery store in a labcoat. “Your mom mentioned something about you getting hurt?”
“Yeah, you came to kiss it better?” he pushed up his hair to display the wound. He watched Howard’s lip curl in distaste.
“She wants you to get a job. You know we’re always hiring—you’ll get your health insurance. And even money to spend on whatever it is you do, if you’ve got any canvas left by the end of it.”
“Does it look like I’m eager to work at a damn law firm?”
“Okay, let me rephrase—I am not paying for your hospital stay when you inevitably get every bone in your body broken by some punk, or when your skin turns yellow.”
“Is that just wishful thinking or—”
“Stop with the smartass remarks,” Howard barked. “God knows I don’t owe you anything, and I suppose you feel the same.”
“Correct.”
“But I’ve made your mom a promise, and that I intend to keep. I knew you’d be a pain in the ass ever since senior year, and since you graduated, you’ve only been digging yourself into a deeper hole. I’m not trying to offend your artistic sensibility here,” he bared his palms in mock sympathy, “but maybe you oughta consider another career path if you don’t wanna end up in the streets.”
“Nice talk,” Frank concluded. “Don’t worry, I've got a plan, I’ll be stable and doing something that doesn’t make me wanna hang myself by thirty-five in no time,” he smirked at Howard, and lay back down.