Animosity In The Ranks
Chapter 38
“So this girl swore up and down the baby was mine, that she hadn’t slept with anybody other than me while we were together. So me being as blind as I was then was doped into believing the kid was mine, I was in love what can I say. Not that I regret that really, I love him as a son, I just wish the bitch hadn’t run off with the real father and taken him from me. But I can’t really do anything about it, even though I raised him for six years, legally he isn’t mine,” the guy in your chaired poured out as you did the last of his portrait tattoo.
“But at least you got the time you had with him, you gave him a father figure for a crucial part of his upbringing. There, it’s finished,” you said as you put the last touch on the smiling portrait of a little boy on the mans arm.
“Thank you Kales Mae, now when I look at it I’ll get to have a little piece of him always,” the man said as he admired it in the mirror before turning to give you a tight hug.
“Thank you for trusting me with such an important piece,” you said as he gathered his belongings and went to pay Zarin.
“I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else in the business. Anywhere. Have a good day,” the man said as he waved and left the parlor.
“I don’t know how you all pack away all these life stories like you do, and then when they show up again it’s like old friends and you remember every detail,” a woman in Greg’s chair said after the guy had left and you were getting ready for your next one.
“It’s part of our training, we use the same memorization techniques the Buddhist monks use. And if you believe that I have some nice fertile growing land down in the swamps of Mississippi for sale,” Greg said cheerfully.
“Funny Greg, real cute. But it seriously amazes me how you all do it,” the woman said as she looked down at the flower piece Greg was doing around her calf.
“You learn as you go,” you replied, looking up at the clock and realizing it was lunch time the same time your stomach growled.
“I heard that Kales Mae,” Zarin said from his seat.
“It was a loud truck going by,” you answered cheekily as you set up for your next client.
“You can’t go on tour if you die from hunger, much less keep your job,” Zarin said, not even bothering to look at you from his magazine.
“Grrr,” you growled and dropped down into your chair trying to figure out what to do for lunch when the situation was taken out of your control.
The door slammed open with a force that could only belong to one person on the entire earth.
“Kailey!” a loud voice shouted from the front of the parlor.
And there was only one person in the entire world who ever called you that and knew he wouldn’t die instantaneously.
“What’s up ‘Cracken?” you said as you opened your eyes and looked in his general direction.
“Food. Now. Let’s go. Move,” he said persistently.
“Uhh,” you started but then shot a glance Zarin’s way.
He simply looked up slightly from his magazine and raised an eyebrow at you warningly. He loved Bert, but having him around the parlor for any lengthy period of time, which meant over three minutes, was detrimental. And besides he had just ordered you to stop and take a lunch break before the whirl wind that is know as Bert McCracken came storming in as if on cue.
“Let’s rock this party boat ‘Cracken,” you sighed as you stood up and grabbed your essentials before heading his direction.
“That was easier than expected. Missed ya Kailey bailey Mae,” Bert said as he wrapped you in one of his infamous Bert hugs and kissed your temple in only the way Bert McCracken could.
You couldn’t help but smile, Bert really was one of the closest people to your heart besides your brother and Jimmy and the crew. He was like a beautiful disaster, you were drawn in by the wild music and couldn’t help but watch it burn and go down with the ship in the process.
“Where to?” you asked once outside as you were lighting two cigarettes.
“I want burritos!” Bert shouted at the top of his lungs as he jumped in place excitedly.
“Mexican it is, lets scoot,” you said as you passed Bert one of the lit cigarettes and walked down the sidewalk.
You loved the placement of the shop because there was just about every kind of food stationed within walking distance from it, including your favorite Chinese restaurant. Which meant that you didn’t have to fight the city traffic to go somewhere for lunch, which was a blessing in and of itself. You stopped at the first Mexican restaurant that had outside seating, which was the second, hey this was California what were you expecting. Plus since they had passed that damn smoking law a lot of places had made outside seating so as not to lose any customers because of it, this way they could smoke outside and STILL eat. Which was the only deciding factor when eating out with Bert.
“So what are you getting?” you asked as you poured over the menu, trying to decide what to eat.
“Burritos,” Bert replied happily, and quite loudly.
“I should have guessed, it’s what you said you wanted. Any idea what kind?” you asked as you battled over a chimichunga or their quesadea special.
“Uh, the burrito kind?” Bert said as he sipped his ice water.
“You’re hopeless,” you sighed as you had decided on the quesadea special and placed your menu back down onto the table where Bert’s lay unopened or looked at even.
“But that’s why you love me, it’s part of my charm,” Bert said cheekily as he grinned and proceeded to spill his ice water down himself.
You just chuckled and threw your napkin at him, hitting him in the face, and made a mental note to ask the waiter for extra napkins before the meal.
-xXx-
“Thank you,” you told the waiter as he took your plates away.
Bert had managed to get burrito all over the place, and yet not really on himself except for his face but that evidence was wiped clean. He really was a circus to eat with, but it made lunch less boring. And it didn’t get to happen all that often, with his busy schedule and life style taking up most of his time. Like the boys. Which made you frown a bit since you hadn’t seen them in a little while. Not since the disaster the amusement park day.
“Why so glum chum?” Bert asked as he lit a cigarette, passed it to you and then lit one for himself.
“Just thinking,” you replied as you took a drag off the cigarette.
“Thinking doesn’t cause ones face to droop into a most unattractive upside down smile,” Bert said and then belched out loud and patted his stomach.
Bert’s raunchy table manners made your unattractive upside down smile as he called it lift upwards bit. But not enough to please him it seemed.
“Spill,” he said as he leaned his elbows onto the table.
He really was great. And you wished that all the girls that drooled all over him, though you didn’t even know why, that maybe one would be able to get to see that. He was your closest friend besides Jimmy and there was no getting around it. He knew you inside and out. He had a knack for it.
“Just stuff. I haven’t seen the guys in like two weeks. On purpose and not. I don’t know if I miss them, and yet I do. Things are just really bad this time around and I don’t know why,” you sighed, slouching in your chair and taking a long drag off your cancer stick hoping the nicotine would help your thoughts unmuddle themselves.
It didn’t.
“Yeah I heard about that last disaster. Sorry ‘bout that,” Bert said sympathetically.
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault,” you said, anger flickering in the pit of your stomach over the memory of it.
“But I can still apologize for it, for my fellow musician and fellow friend as sad as it is,” Bert said, losing his normal goofy self for once.
“No I’m sick and tired of people apologizing for something that’s not their fault,” you said in a huffy tone, your anger starting to show.
Unfortunately while Bert may have slipped into serious mode, or at least out of his outrageously goofy mode, but he still wasn’t the brightest crayon at the moment.
“But,” he started in again.
You knew that he was once again going to apologize, or make an excuse, or try to make it better. But he didn’t know. None of them did. You weren’t even sure you knew everything either anymore.
“No fucking buts Bert. I’m sick and tired of people making fucking excuses for that putrid excuse for a sorry human being. He doesn’t deserve to be defended. Ever! He doesn’t deserve to have friends that will take his side, see his way of things, make him seem like not so much the bad guy. He doesn’t deserve to fucking live,” you shouted and then stood up, literally knocking your chair over as you did so.
Bert looked at you all shocked like, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water at your outburst. But you just shot him a glance that killed any ambition he had of opening his mouth and saying something. Quickly you turned and stomped off, luckily your meal had already been paid for at that point so it was okay.
You stormed down the sidewalk back towards the parlor. You were pissed beyond belief. You hated that someone was always going to take his side, try and make you see that he wasn’t a bad guy. That he wasn’t a fucking whoring, slimy, putrid, crotch lice ridden excuse for a sorry ass human being. He was a waste.
Blindly you took out a cigarette and lit it, bringing it to your mouth with shaky hands and missed before getting in between your lips. And then you realized that the reason you couldn’t see was because there were tears building in your eyes, threatening to pour out at any moment. Turning into a small alley way blindly you slammed back against a side of a brick building and slowly slid down it till your thumped onto the ground, cigarette still dangling from your lips. Slowly you brought your hands to your face and covered your eyes with them, letting your cigarette fall from your mouth and on to the alley floor. You simply leaned into your hands and bawled. And not the polite, delicate kind of bawling, the big fat juicy tears that fall at a mile a minute without any stop in sight mixed with loud unattractive noises, that you would have to call sobs, that wracked your whole body kind of bawling.
You just let yourself cry, realizing that you had been holding so much in for what ever reason and you were finally breaking down.
“I’m fucking losing it,” you whispered hoarsely into your sobs.
You sat there and cried for a bit till it lessened a some what. You were still crying pretty hard core, but there looked to be an end in sight for your tears and they weren’t falling as fast either. You also had a control over your sobs that were now just hiccups, and your breathing wasn’t as ragged or fast anymore.
“Kales?” you heard a voice ask above you.
Not bothering to try and hide the fact that you had been crying since it was pretty damn obvious to any onlooker, you looked up at the voice.
“Kris?” you asked in a voice that was hoarse from crying so hard.
“Hey. Are you all right?” he asked as he squatted down beside you, resting on his heels as he placed a calming hand on your knee and petted it.
You looked up and realized that there was another person with him that was still standing, another guy. Wiping your hand under your eyes and relieving your face of your destroyed makeup you looked him dead in the eyes and smiled.
“I’m fine,” you said the best you could, your voice was a little shaky but you were pretty sure you pulled it off all right.
There would be time later on down the road to break down, to lose it.
Hopefully.
“But at least you got the time you had with him, you gave him a father figure for a crucial part of his upbringing. There, it’s finished,” you said as you put the last touch on the smiling portrait of a little boy on the mans arm.
“Thank you Kales Mae, now when I look at it I’ll get to have a little piece of him always,” the man said as he admired it in the mirror before turning to give you a tight hug.
“Thank you for trusting me with such an important piece,” you said as he gathered his belongings and went to pay Zarin.
“I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else in the business. Anywhere. Have a good day,” the man said as he waved and left the parlor.
“I don’t know how you all pack away all these life stories like you do, and then when they show up again it’s like old friends and you remember every detail,” a woman in Greg’s chair said after the guy had left and you were getting ready for your next one.
“It’s part of our training, we use the same memorization techniques the Buddhist monks use. And if you believe that I have some nice fertile growing land down in the swamps of Mississippi for sale,” Greg said cheerfully.
“Funny Greg, real cute. But it seriously amazes me how you all do it,” the woman said as she looked down at the flower piece Greg was doing around her calf.
“You learn as you go,” you replied, looking up at the clock and realizing it was lunch time the same time your stomach growled.
“I heard that Kales Mae,” Zarin said from his seat.
“It was a loud truck going by,” you answered cheekily as you set up for your next client.
“You can’t go on tour if you die from hunger, much less keep your job,” Zarin said, not even bothering to look at you from his magazine.
“Grrr,” you growled and dropped down into your chair trying to figure out what to do for lunch when the situation was taken out of your control.
The door slammed open with a force that could only belong to one person on the entire earth.
“Kailey!” a loud voice shouted from the front of the parlor.
And there was only one person in the entire world who ever called you that and knew he wouldn’t die instantaneously.
“What’s up ‘Cracken?” you said as you opened your eyes and looked in his general direction.
“Food. Now. Let’s go. Move,” he said persistently.
“Uhh,” you started but then shot a glance Zarin’s way.
He simply looked up slightly from his magazine and raised an eyebrow at you warningly. He loved Bert, but having him around the parlor for any lengthy period of time, which meant over three minutes, was detrimental. And besides he had just ordered you to stop and take a lunch break before the whirl wind that is know as Bert McCracken came storming in as if on cue.
“Let’s rock this party boat ‘Cracken,” you sighed as you stood up and grabbed your essentials before heading his direction.
“That was easier than expected. Missed ya Kailey bailey Mae,” Bert said as he wrapped you in one of his infamous Bert hugs and kissed your temple in only the way Bert McCracken could.
You couldn’t help but smile, Bert really was one of the closest people to your heart besides your brother and Jimmy and the crew. He was like a beautiful disaster, you were drawn in by the wild music and couldn’t help but watch it burn and go down with the ship in the process.
“Where to?” you asked once outside as you were lighting two cigarettes.
“I want burritos!” Bert shouted at the top of his lungs as he jumped in place excitedly.
“Mexican it is, lets scoot,” you said as you passed Bert one of the lit cigarettes and walked down the sidewalk.
You loved the placement of the shop because there was just about every kind of food stationed within walking distance from it, including your favorite Chinese restaurant. Which meant that you didn’t have to fight the city traffic to go somewhere for lunch, which was a blessing in and of itself. You stopped at the first Mexican restaurant that had outside seating, which was the second, hey this was California what were you expecting. Plus since they had passed that damn smoking law a lot of places had made outside seating so as not to lose any customers because of it, this way they could smoke outside and STILL eat. Which was the only deciding factor when eating out with Bert.
“So what are you getting?” you asked as you poured over the menu, trying to decide what to eat.
“Burritos,” Bert replied happily, and quite loudly.
“I should have guessed, it’s what you said you wanted. Any idea what kind?” you asked as you battled over a chimichunga or their quesadea special.
“Uh, the burrito kind?” Bert said as he sipped his ice water.
“You’re hopeless,” you sighed as you had decided on the quesadea special and placed your menu back down onto the table where Bert’s lay unopened or looked at even.
“But that’s why you love me, it’s part of my charm,” Bert said cheekily as he grinned and proceeded to spill his ice water down himself.
You just chuckled and threw your napkin at him, hitting him in the face, and made a mental note to ask the waiter for extra napkins before the meal.
-xXx-
“Thank you,” you told the waiter as he took your plates away.
Bert had managed to get burrito all over the place, and yet not really on himself except for his face but that evidence was wiped clean. He really was a circus to eat with, but it made lunch less boring. And it didn’t get to happen all that often, with his busy schedule and life style taking up most of his time. Like the boys. Which made you frown a bit since you hadn’t seen them in a little while. Not since the disaster the amusement park day.
“Why so glum chum?” Bert asked as he lit a cigarette, passed it to you and then lit one for himself.
“Just thinking,” you replied as you took a drag off the cigarette.
“Thinking doesn’t cause ones face to droop into a most unattractive upside down smile,” Bert said and then belched out loud and patted his stomach.
Bert’s raunchy table manners made your unattractive upside down smile as he called it lift upwards bit. But not enough to please him it seemed.
“Spill,” he said as he leaned his elbows onto the table.
He really was great. And you wished that all the girls that drooled all over him, though you didn’t even know why, that maybe one would be able to get to see that. He was your closest friend besides Jimmy and there was no getting around it. He knew you inside and out. He had a knack for it.
“Just stuff. I haven’t seen the guys in like two weeks. On purpose and not. I don’t know if I miss them, and yet I do. Things are just really bad this time around and I don’t know why,” you sighed, slouching in your chair and taking a long drag off your cancer stick hoping the nicotine would help your thoughts unmuddle themselves.
It didn’t.
“Yeah I heard about that last disaster. Sorry ‘bout that,” Bert said sympathetically.
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault,” you said, anger flickering in the pit of your stomach over the memory of it.
“But I can still apologize for it, for my fellow musician and fellow friend as sad as it is,” Bert said, losing his normal goofy self for once.
“No I’m sick and tired of people apologizing for something that’s not their fault,” you said in a huffy tone, your anger starting to show.
Unfortunately while Bert may have slipped into serious mode, or at least out of his outrageously goofy mode, but he still wasn’t the brightest crayon at the moment.
“But,” he started in again.
You knew that he was once again going to apologize, or make an excuse, or try to make it better. But he didn’t know. None of them did. You weren’t even sure you knew everything either anymore.
“No fucking buts Bert. I’m sick and tired of people making fucking excuses for that putrid excuse for a sorry human being. He doesn’t deserve to be defended. Ever! He doesn’t deserve to have friends that will take his side, see his way of things, make him seem like not so much the bad guy. He doesn’t deserve to fucking live,” you shouted and then stood up, literally knocking your chair over as you did so.
Bert looked at you all shocked like, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water at your outburst. But you just shot him a glance that killed any ambition he had of opening his mouth and saying something. Quickly you turned and stomped off, luckily your meal had already been paid for at that point so it was okay.
You stormed down the sidewalk back towards the parlor. You were pissed beyond belief. You hated that someone was always going to take his side, try and make you see that he wasn’t a bad guy. That he wasn’t a fucking whoring, slimy, putrid, crotch lice ridden excuse for a sorry ass human being. He was a waste.
Blindly you took out a cigarette and lit it, bringing it to your mouth with shaky hands and missed before getting in between your lips. And then you realized that the reason you couldn’t see was because there were tears building in your eyes, threatening to pour out at any moment. Turning into a small alley way blindly you slammed back against a side of a brick building and slowly slid down it till your thumped onto the ground, cigarette still dangling from your lips. Slowly you brought your hands to your face and covered your eyes with them, letting your cigarette fall from your mouth and on to the alley floor. You simply leaned into your hands and bawled. And not the polite, delicate kind of bawling, the big fat juicy tears that fall at a mile a minute without any stop in sight mixed with loud unattractive noises, that you would have to call sobs, that wracked your whole body kind of bawling.
You just let yourself cry, realizing that you had been holding so much in for what ever reason and you were finally breaking down.
“I’m fucking losing it,” you whispered hoarsely into your sobs.
You sat there and cried for a bit till it lessened a some what. You were still crying pretty hard core, but there looked to be an end in sight for your tears and they weren’t falling as fast either. You also had a control over your sobs that were now just hiccups, and your breathing wasn’t as ragged or fast anymore.
“Kales?” you heard a voice ask above you.
Not bothering to try and hide the fact that you had been crying since it was pretty damn obvious to any onlooker, you looked up at the voice.
“Kris?” you asked in a voice that was hoarse from crying so hard.
“Hey. Are you all right?” he asked as he squatted down beside you, resting on his heels as he placed a calming hand on your knee and petted it.
You looked up and realized that there was another person with him that was still standing, another guy. Wiping your hand under your eyes and relieving your face of your destroyed makeup you looked him dead in the eyes and smiled.
“I’m fine,” you said the best you could, your voice was a little shaky but you were pretty sure you pulled it off all right.
There would be time later on down the road to break down, to lose it.
Hopefully.
Out of all the fanfics this is the one I've read through 3 times through all 108 chapters. This is one of the best Zacky fics I've read and I still hope it'll be continued one day ; v; a very good read for any Zacky fan.
5/3/18