Frank Iero and the Meaning of Life

Chapter Nine - Fun in the Sun

Holy hell, this city.

When we pulled into the central business district, the first thing that caught my eye was how impossibly tall the skyscrapers were; every building looked as if it wanted to put the Burj Khalifa to shame. Unlike Wattpad, however, all of the buildings were a lot more colorful and looked more like upscaled toys from the 80s than actual architecture.

Secondly, all of the life that was everywhere. People were everywhere. Cars were everywhere. Every square inch of every block had someone in it or something going on. Considering the fact that I've had to put up with nothing but dirt for the past couple of days, it was a welcome change.

"Now, we just have to find somewhere to park," said Poison.

He then damn near drove right into the sidewalk; a couple of innocent, ditsy-looking pedestrians hardly noticed that their lives were in danger and didn't move out of the way. I snatched the wheel away from him for a couple of seconds and just barely swerved out of their path before we could mow them over.

"Poison, stop it!" I shouted.

"What am I doing wrong this time?" he hissed.

He finally backed off the sidewalk, and the brain-dead pedestrians continued on their merry way without even turning their heads.

"You can't just park it wherever you want," I said. "You gotta find a parking spot. Or a garage."

Poison sighed in frustration, but he kept on driving. "I can handle driving in between lines," he said, "I can understand speed limits. But telling citizens where to park? Jesus Christ. This couldn't get any more fascist."

We circled around a few streets with little luck; it seemed as if every single parking space in the city was taken. To make things worse, since it was still apparently rush hour, traffic crawled along at a snail's pace. I noticed that Poison grew angrier and angrier with every sudden stop and snag we encountered; but then, we finally got in front of the pack for a while. We cruised along at a merry pace until suddenly, a red light came on. Unsurprisingly, Poison didn't even pay attention to it; he did not slow down at all. I rolled my eyes, reached my hand over to the wheel once again, and shouted at him.

"Stop!" I yelled.

Poison jumped out of his seat, wrestled with the wheel, and screeched to a halt just barely before the line. "What the actual fuck is going on?" he yelled.

"It's a red light, dumbass!" I shouted. "Have you seriously never seen a red light? Red means stop! Green means go! Yellow means...floor it, actually. Are you seriously that stupid?"

Poison threw his hands up in surrender and reached for the door handle. "That's it!" he shouted. "I give up! Ghoul, since you're such a fucking genius with Battery City traffic laws, you drive!"

I hardly had any time to react; Poison literally just stepped out of the car without any other warning and yelled "CHINESE FIRE DRILL!"

I got off my ass, ran out into the road, and quickly swapped places with Poison; for whatever reason, Kobra and Jet also switched sides when we did. I barely made it into the seat before the light turned green again; as soon as I strapped in, I put my foot to the pedal and took off.

"You think anyone saw us?" asked Mikey. Ray turned around and looked out the back window.

"I think everyone saw us," he said.

I eventually found a massive parking garage and pulled into the depths of it. When we made it to the ticket both, guy with the creepiest smile I had ever seen in my life stood there as if he had been waiting for us all day. He kind of reminded me of the fake plastic whore from the cowboy town; he just looked a little too perfect and not quite human. As much as he gave me the major creeps, I had no choice but to roll down the window anyway.