Dancing Towards The Moonlight

Part One

Gerard was forced to press his back against the dirty concrete wall since there was hardly any room for a grown man to comfortably sit; let alone stand in a place like this. He let his leg stretch past the tiny ledge he was sitting on and was greeted by rushing water hitting his shoe. Grunting in annoyance at getting it wet, he pulled back to examine his shoe, but it was already so tattered up from making hundreds of trips down here in the first place, it probably wasn't that big of a deal.

After pulling his knees up to his chest, he lit a cigarette, and listened to the water rushing right below him, there wasn't another sound. The roaring of the water echoed all around the tunnel, from the large cement arch above the water. He came here every so often when he had a day off from work, or just to relax for a little while. It was a place to sit at night to draw, have a drink or two, occasionally he'd even bring a blunt if he felt bold enough. Not that a lot of people came here, though.

This waterfall had been here for a pretty long time, as far as he knew, man-made back in the late eighties. There was a large stretch of woods behind it, that he hadn't bothered to explore since getting down here was hard enough on its own; he assumed it was because he smoked like a chimney and hardly moved, for a man in his late twenties.

Graffiti lined the concrete walls on both sides, some had been there for so long, he couldn't make out if something was art or letters. Although it was always a little dark no matter what time of day it was, and now that he thought of it, there were probably rats running around down here. Gerard concluded that he felt rather safe though. He had always admired the peacefulness that came with sitting here in what felt like his own hidden gem.

He started coming here when he was a teenager, usually to hang out with friends and do things they shouldn't have been doing, and yet, here he was sitting right here in the same spot they had been, with no one beside him.

Back then, he was a chunky kid who had trouble wanting to exercise anyway, let alone the harsh task of making it down here. He pondered about how he had gotten to be this lanky in adulthood. He figured it was probably the fact that life drained everything out of him, including his weight.

The pocket of his jeans began to buzz loudly, taking him away from his thoughts. Flipping the phone open, he pressed it up to his ear.

"Hello?" He wondered who could've been calling him this late at night.

"Hi Gee, there's something I saw the other night that I thought I should let you know about." His brother sounded somewhat urgent when he spoke, Gerard heard him take a shaky breath on the other end.

"What's wrong?"

"Listen, I don't know if you've been going to that waterfall a lot recently, but a couple of nights ago I drove past the pathway to the woods and I saw a few shady-looking guys. I just thought I should let you know."

"If anything, those people would probably think I'm the shady looking one, Mikey!" Gerard teased, the tunnel making his voice echo.

"Well, " Mikey paused for a moment, "The thing that was so weird to me is that they seemed to be scared of the headlights on my car, they wanted to hide from it, almost like they were doing something they weren't supposed to."

"We were teenagers once too, " Gerard smirked at the thought, "they were probably glad they found a place to do drugs that not a lot of people come to."

He heard Mikey smiling on the other end, "Teenagers are definitely pretty scary, but the thing is it seemed like they wanted to hide something, so I thought you should be on the lookout."

"Okay Mikey, I'll guard myself against that scary gang of teenagers," Gerard said tauntingly. "Probably hiding a bunch of free goddamn booze."

Mikey laughed a little bit, "Okay Gee, I'm sure your skinny ass could take them. I'll talk to you later though, just be safe please."

"Oh you know I'd fuck them up for sure," he laughed, "bye Mikey."

Gerard struggled to get out of the deep brush, hanging onto the rope that was tied to a small tree. The rope, he assumed, had probably been around longer than the tree. It was old, dirty, and frayed all over, the pokey pieces always stuck themselves into the palms of his hands and made his hands bleed a little every now and then; as if the rope burn alone wasn't enough. He had to grasp onto it tight enough to where he didn't lose his footing since the ground was so rough.

Huffing, as he had finally made it out of the brush, he looked out onto the gravel road, that was a few feet away and wondered why Mikey bothered driving down it anyway. Mikey always thought he had to take care of Gerard in some way, even though they were adults and Gerard was the oldest of the two. Still, as he walked back to his apartment he admired how his brother always wanted to protect him, as silly as it was.

The wind made his jacket dance around his body the whole walk back to his apartment, which was surprising since leather was fairly heavy. New Jersey had always been dreary, but lately, it felt to him as if there was a slight change in the chilly weather. People seemed more distant from one another. Not that Gerard was the most sociable person himself, but it was still something he had picked up on, living here his entire life.

He thought about how odd this was to him, as he climbed the steps up to his apartment complex. Keys jangling in hand, he opened his door and flipped on the light to see Moe, perched on the small kitchen counter.

The cats' green eyes pierced into him, orange fur bouncing along as he stood up and curled his fluffy tail upwards, it was almost as if he was saying 'what are you doing home so late when you were supposed to feed me half an hour ago?'

Gerard paced over and bent down to sit in the large barstool in front of the counter, placing his hand on the cat's head as he did so, "I'm sorry Moe, dad's just been stressed lately, I swear I'll spend more time here with you."

The cat gently pressed his head into Gerard's hand and let out what Gerard thought was a small mew of approval, Moe then took a step back and looked up at him.

Gerard swept his eyes across the small apartment and sighed at the way he had let it get, the white tile floor in the kitchen looked like it had never even been swept once, and dishes piled up in the sink. Next to the sink was the opening to his small living room, and past that he looked into his room at the clothes on the floor that seemed to be shaming him.

"Oww" Moe chirped, as he jumped off the counter and scurried towards Gerard's room, hopping onto the large clothes pile on the floor, and curling into a big orange-white mass.

"At least someone doesn't mind the mess," Gerard said lightheartedly.

He looked towards his closed laptop sitting on the counter in front of him, lacing his fingers through his short black hair in frustration. It was already Friday, and he had hardly worked on the project that was commissioned to him; the deadline was tomorrow. Since he was a decent artist, he made a living off of digital art, whether it was something original that he sold, or something that was commissioned to him. It was barely enough to afford his tiny apartment, let alone take care of Moe. He still decided to go to bed without taking a glance at his project, leaving it for the next day.

Working as fast as he could to draw a tiny poodle with as much detail as possible, the day seemed to drag on for Gerard until the familiar sound of screaming seeped through the thin apartment wall.

Gerard let out an annoyed sigh, throwing his stylist onto his laptop.

His neighbor was playing satanic ritual music, or at least that's what Gerard called it. The frontman sounded like a literal demon and Gerard could never make out what the lyrics were, if there was any. The neighbor who played this music, in particular, always wore shirts with lettering that Gerard could never make out. Other than the fact that he bothered Gerard with his constant satanic-ritual-music bullshit, he had only exchanged a few words with the oddly quiet neighbor; but that was going to change soon, very soon, if he kept giving Gerard a headache.

He sat there in frustration listening to the music, deciding whether or not he was going knock his neighbor's door down like in the movie "The Shining" or just walk down to the waterfall so he could work in peace, even though he would have no stable internet connection.

He decided to march over to his neighbor and have a chat. There was plenty of time to go to the waterfall later, he decided.