Assholes Anonymous

Frank Iero and the Celebration

"My name is Gerard, and I am an alcoholic."

"You're also an asshole," Frank Iero coughed beside me, so that only I could hear.

I glared at him as he muffled his laughter in his sleeve, turning away as everyone else mumbled the world-recognized, highly-apathetic, AA-signified term.

"Hi, Gerard."

I glanced back at the small crowd and cleared my throat. "I first started drinking when I was in the ninth grade. I guess alcohol was my way of escaping my tough home life and my physically and mentally exhausting school life. I drank nearly every day up until just this last month. I've been clean since." I said proudly, even despite the fact that I knew nobody would really care.

There was a lighthearted applause for me from the maybe ten people in the room.

Frank excluded.

As the person to the right of me introduced themselves, I turned to my left and glared at the black-haired, tattooed and pierced man I had become accustomed to from my month of AA. Said boy grinned and flipped me off. I returned the favor.

"You make yourself so easy to make fun of. It's almost unfortunate, considering how attractive you are," he snickered, tapping his beat-up converse on the tiled floor.

"Why are you such a dick?" I hissed.

"I'm not. I have one, I can suck one, but I sure as hell am not a penis."

I took a deep inhale, closed my eyes, thought happy thoughts, and turned away from him for good.

"Hey," he pestered under his breath, poking my arm as someone else dragged on a story about how miserable their life was.

"Geraaaard," he crooned when I didn't answer.

"Oh, come on, Gee-Bee..." He pouted. I clenched my jaw but didn't speak.

He leaned in suddenly, his hand landing dangerously high up on my leg. I tensed. "Oh, you know you can't get enough of me, Gee," he purred, his breath brushing my ear.

"Oh, believe me, I can," I spat, shoving the younger boy off of me. He burst out laughing, quite loudly, in fact, causing everyone in the small room to hear and focus all their attention on us.

Frank sighed, raising his voice so everyone could listen to what he said next. "I'm afraid that I'm done here, Gee-Bee. These idiots will never be able to help me. I'm crazy, you see?" He flashed me a sharp smile before turning to the center of the circle of ex-drinkers. Well, all except for Frank, I was assuming from the hint of vodka on his breath.

"Peace out, fuckers. Gee." Frank announced, sending me a wink before snatching up his black leather jacket and standing up. He made sure to drag his chair across the floor as he did so, and then spun on his heel and sauntered out.

I rolled my eyes and didn't respond. There was a moment of surprised silence, which made sense I guessed, considering the fact that not much happened on Mondays. It wasn't as surprising to me, however, having known the source of all the madness.

"Let's just get back to the meeting, shall we?" Said our usually perky leader, the balding and oh-so-wonderful Vinnie Badacci, through his teeth. He shot me a look. Sinking into my chair, I let the meeting continue around me. But I wasn't thinking about that.

I was thinking, Wow, I probably should've stayed inside my house.

-

It was a slow meeting, no surprise there, and nobody seemed all that invested, which was not exactly shocking either, most likely because we were literally in a run-down and abandoned building that never finished constructing, or maybe for some other reason that 'the rest of us wouldn't understand'.