Coffee and Cigarettes

2

I couldn't tell you how it happened, and neither could Frank, but an hour and a half later, he and Gerard were still talking, this time in the back of the band room. Frank was in the jazz band and was known to the band geeks as the coolest guitarist to ever live. Recently, he'd been tasked with organizing boxes upon boxes of cassette tapes and cds into cabinets in the back of the room. His reward: To keep whatever piqued his interest and to get a 100 on his final. Every so often he'd come across a cd of a band he liked that had gotten mixed up among the blues and jazz but for the most part, he was stuck covered in a layer of dust, sifting through cassettes of Mozart and some other classical dudes with names he couldn't pronounce.

"Ok so what's your *favorite* black flag song?" Gerard asked. They found they had a lot in common and had spent the last hour discussing music and horror movies. Gerard had a killer fixation on vampire movies while Frank was more of a 'Halloween-horror-story' type of guy.

"TV Party for sure. That's always been a song I've wanted to cover but it's a little hard to do a cover of a song when you only have one person."

"That'd be pretty cool, I've heard you're a great guitar player. I play a little bit, just casually. I sing sometimes too, I guess."

"Rad, you do choir don't you?" Gerard flushed again at the reminder that other people were aware he was in choir.

"Yeah, I do." He tried to sound proud of it, but was just a little too ashamed to be completely convincing.

"You've gotta be pretty good then right? I gotta hear you sing sometime then." Gerard mumbled out a positive response and tried to bury himself in the CDs in his hands. "Oh it's nothing to be all shy about, stop that. What are you singing this year?"

"Oh just some songs. This Les Mis thing, something from Rent that's pretty hard, that sort of thing."

"My mom loves musicals, next time you guys are choir-ing somewhere let me know, I wanna come." Gerard seemed in shock that someone would be interested in hearing him sing. His own brother even puts up a fight coming to the concerts. Mikey played bass in jazz band. He probably actually knew Frank... He'd have to bring it up later.

"Man, you're so nice. I'm surprised you don't have more friends."

"Eh. I wouldn't say nice, I'm kind of an asshole. Well, I'm told I'm an asshole all the time so I at least feel like I'm an asshole most of the time. But you seem pretty nice yourself, so I do take your compliment seriously. I'm also just kind of... Out there? All over the place? I don't know, I'm told I'm a lot though. A bit hyper, a few problems, that sort of thing."

"We've all got problems, that's alright. I can definitely tell you're hyper. I see you bouncing around on the side when you play at the jazz concerts. I have the opposite problem. People say I'm just weird and quiet. So I'm just left alone most of the time which, I guess, is better than being made fun of."

"Well, we're friends now so no more being left alone for you. And trust me, I talk enough for the both of us."

Gerard smiled, a genuine sort of smile that people only give when they are truly satisfied with the current circumstances.

The period ended and Frank and Gerard went to say their goodbyes. They both had classes they couldn't skip out on next. "Wait, give me your phone number so I can text you or whatever." Frank held out his flip-phone for the taller boy to put in his number.

"Oh, yeah sure, text me so that I'll have yours too."

"Yeah, no worries. By the way, I do have *one* other friend, his name's Ray. Me and him usually hang out in one of the science rooms after school if you wanna come. It's E-5."

"That'd be really cool, thanks for inviting me."

"Now you'd better be there or we are going to have a problem sir. I'll see you then!" Frank joked and strolled off with a salute. Gerard couldn't think of a cooler person he'd ever met. And he was friends with him! It might have started out as a bad day for Frank but Gerard was having a top tier one. He couldn't wait to get home and talk to Mikey about him, maybe his brother would know a bit more about his new friend.