Frank Iero and the Meaning of Life

Chapter Eighteen - Black Friday

After waiting for what felt like hours, a little buzzing noise followed by some muffled words rang out from the cupholder in the front seat. I reached over to investigate and pulled out a walkie-talkie; its sound was kind of fuzzy, but I could tell that it was the Woman speaking.

"Frank?" she said, "can you read me? Over."

"Loud and clear," I said. "Erm, over."

"Good," she said. "Right now, we're picking the lock of the back entrance. We know this mall inside and out, but in case something goes horribly wrong, we'll alert you two. Of course, it's highly unlikely that anything will go wrong...we have a near-perfect track record, after all. Over."

Although that made me feel a little bit better, I still shuddered and thought about the worst that could possibly happen.

"We're in," she said. "We are currently inside the Macy's. The Boy and the Girl have split off to go hunt down the security camera system. And...oh, my! What a lovely dress! And it's machine washable, too. We should pick that up before we leave."

Suddenly, her voice was interrupted.

"This is the Man. Ignore previous statements, over."

"Come to think of it," continued the Woman, "we need to pick up a lot of things. The Boy's getting too big for his shoes, and the Girl needs a new backpack."

"Oh, I'm sure the Boy will love that. Shoe shopping is his favorite thing," grumbled the Man.

"Oh, don't start!" said the Woman. "And how long has it been since the two of them have had a home-cooked meal? They've been eating nothing but fast food for a whole week. If we keep feeding them that junk, they'll be too fat to even shoot a pistol."

"That's what happens when you live on the run," said the Man. "Your food has to be fast."

"You two fight like an old married couple," I said, giggling. "Over."

"Oh, great," muttered the Woman. "Did they hear that whole thing? I told you to shut that thing off. Augh, this is so embarrassing...shut it off--!"

And suddenly, silence.

"Those two talk too much," said Poison. "I'm surprised that they're such skilled criminals. You would think that their loud mouths would give them away to the police."

I sighed and stared out at the rising sun; I then glanced down at my leg to see how it was doing. Even though I was mildly disgusted, it looked a whole lot better than it did before. I leaned back in my seat and kicked both my feet up while Poison rummaged around.

"I don't think you should go snooping around," I said. "Something tells me that these guys don't like having their stuff touched."

Poison dug a Taylor Swift CD out of the front, took one look at it, and slipped the disc inside the CD slot. Suddenly, We Are Never Getting Back Together blasted from the speakers and irritated Poison after it played for a few seconds; he shut it off and buried the CD back where it came from.

"These guys," he said, "have a shittier taste in music than BLI."

He then popped open the glovebox, and much to our surprise, two grenades tumbled out of it and scared the living shit out of me.

"Jesus," I muttered, "I told you that you shouldn't have gone snooping!"

Poison quickly scooped up the two grenades, shoved them back into the glovebox, and slammed it shut. "Hmm," he said. "Maybe I should get us a minivan someday. Plenty of space, plenty of storage. Probably can soak up some hits, too."