AFTERMATHS : THE SUBSEQUENT LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS

5.

5.
Fortune must have smiled on them, or mustn't, because just as Frank and Gerard pull into the disorderly garage of Frank's abode, the heaven opens and showers the town with sufficient amounts of rainfall. The surrounding atmosphere is getting colder and colder by the minute, and Gerard reticently squees at the frosty touch of sneaky raindrops. Frank laughs hysterically at Gerard's juvenile fit as he closes the garage door with a push of a button.
"You haven't changed Gerard. I take that back." - Frank remarks sardonically and Gerard makes a melodramatic shocked expression.
"Excuse you, I'm a father and a husband! My childish days are long over, my friend." - Gerard replies proudly, ruffling his dusty, brawny hair with self-proclaimed maturity.
"Oh please. I am too and I'm arguably the most mature, even when I was the cutest of the bunch, mind you." - Frank humorously added, whilst proceeding to lead Gerard to a nondescript grey door that blends in with the watered down wallpaper.

While both of them are laughing and giggling nostalgically, they seem to be lost in their own world, again, and recollect "the days", that time where Frank brought an oxygen tank onto stage, Gerard making waves with his effeminate, legitimately appropriate gesture of seduction on center stage that involved rubbing his crotch and making grunts and moans, panties and undergarments being thrown on stage, them pranking Mikey and Ray and even each other, etc. Are the childish days, as glamorous as they might seem, are over? Is that really possible? The band's fragmentation doesn't have to do with their individual behavior, right? The rhetorics have yet to be answered, but quickly forgotten, as Frank breaks the silence by giving shrift to Gerard's facial features, rather furtively, but nonetheless points it out:
"Gee, are those tear stains on your face I'm seeing?"
They have just entered a wide-set hallway and Frank has just reached in to turn on the light. Gerard sniffs, suppressing what seems to be mucus instigated by the cold, and consciously wipes his eyes, which are stained by the wetness of tears, and shrugs.
"Naw, it's probably the rain. Or sweat. I was punched out, you know, i must have teared up a bit."
"Well, okay then, but you know you can talk to me, right? Oh by the way, give me that overcoat, I already turned on the furnace."
Gerard nods and takes off the overcoat, revealing sweat stains that have been brought on by the supposed panic attack, and gives it to Frank, who raises the eyebrow of suspicion at the sight of them, but doesn't say anything. He merely, even perfunctorily, hangs it onto the coat hanger to their right and leads Gerard inside.

The walls that encircle them gives Gerard the impression of them closing in on him gradually, and so does the ceiling, but he chalks it up to the lighting and the often misconstrued concept of optical illusions. They were hanged with family pictures, neatly framed inside by ornately designed frameworks and enclosed inside are pictures of Frank and his twin daughters and wife, smiling broadly on a yacht, and there's another captured footage of Frank playing the guitar to his daughters, a photo of their twin daughters at a supposed ballet recital, a couple pictures of Frank and his lovely wife, Jamia, holding hands and kissing in some shots. He looks very happy, and Gerard can't help but smile, but also can't help but think: is he the most ragged victim of the disbandment? Is everybody moving on, but me? He can't control an aura of grief and panic that is surrounding him, and he seems to be on the verge of another sweatfest.

"Um, Gerard? Have you heard anything from Ray and Mikey lately? I kinda lost contact with them these days, and I don't even know why." - Frank asks as they enter the well-lit, slightly messy but mostly because of child-raising, room, and Gerard surreptitiously adores the quaint decor of the house.
"Mikey? He moved back to New Jersey too. I think he's doing well, but I haven't had a call from him in weeks now. And plus, he hasn't posted a photo on instagram for a long while and that's kinda eerie." - Gerard replies and helps himself to a toy-infested sofa and sits there awkwardly, looking at Frank who is smiling, amused.
"Gerard I'm sorry for the mess. Cherry got into a real fit this morning and starts to throw her toys all around the place. And how about Ray? I think he's moving on quite well. Come here, Gerard, I found the first-aid kit."
Gerard moves away from the couch and finds himself baulking at a large but cozy kitchen with a minibar of exquisite taste in victuals and lines after lines of cabinets. Frank has opened one of the cabinets and is currently getting the first-aid kit to open.
"Yeah, I don't know. I think he moved back to Kearny. And that's all I heard. According to Twitter and Instagram he's doing quite well, one might say." - Gerard laughs but with a residue of nostalgia. His nose has stopped bleeding, and he pulls the tissue out of his nostrils, which is half-soaked with stark blood, and Frank takes the tissue away from him.