Gerard Way | Sergeant

The USO Dance. 28 Hours before D-Day.

By the time that they were off the stage, Gerard's ears were still ringing.

It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. The hall was simply loud in a different way now, without the sound of his voice and live instruments filling every corner of it. Conversation had rushed in to take their place, layered over the scratch of shoes against the floor and the occasional burst of laughter. Somewhere near the back, somebody had put another record on, and the music drifted beneath everything else, bright and sentimental enough to make the whole evening feel almost normal.

Almost.

Gerard loosened the collar of his uniform a little and accepted a cigarette from one of the soldiers passing by.

"Thanks," he muttered, and tucked it between his lips without lighting it.

He'd been doing that more lately. Putting cigarettes in his mouth and forgetting them there. Maybe it gave his hands something to do.

The hall was crowded with khaki and dresses. The women looked brighter than anything had a right to look in wartime, done up with their red lipstick, curled hair, pale stockings, patterned skirts, and little handbags tucked against their sides. The soldiers seemed determined to match them in enthusiasm. Some were already dancing, despite the fact that half of them looked as though they had learned how only after joining the Army.

Gerard smiled, the expression ruefully sympathetic, as he watched one particularly unfortunate private nearly trip over his own feet.

"Christ," he muttered.

"What's Christ doing?"

Frank had appeared beside him.

Gerard glanced over, brow raised slightly. "Watching you dance."

"I wasn't dancing."

"You were absolutely dancing."

"I was walking."

"To music."

Frank grinned. "That's dancing."

Gerard quietly laughed at that, despite himself, and the expression remained light as Ray joined them a moment later, the medic looking considerably more relaxed than he had before the performance. He had a drink in his hand and was watching the floor with his usual quiet observation that still didn't quite make up for the amount of gel he had to use to tame his tight wild curls.

"That guy's going to kill himself," Ray said, half gesturing with a tip of his glass.

"That's what I said."

"No, you said Christ was watching him."

"Same thing."

Frank, who had been watching the verbal tennis match, nudged Gerard with his elbow. "You gonna sit around all night?" he asked pointedly, like it was a challenge.

"I'm standing."

"You know what I mean."

Gerard did. He glanced toward the dance floor. Frank was already looking for someone to bother, this time a pretty raven haired girl in red who'd been swaying with some Private from another Division. Ray had been approached by two other girls near the edge of the room and was talking to them with that easy, friendly manner of his. Gerard could see Mikey somewhere beyond them, half-hidden behind a cluster of soldiers. Seeing his little brother made the knot in his chest loosen just a little. Mikey, his glasses catching the lights in the hall, had a glass in his hand and was listening to somebody talk. He wasn't smiling exactly, but there was that little expression on his face the one Gerard knew meant he was enjoying himself more than he wanted anyone to know. Gerard watched him for a moment too long.

Frank, who'd been rebuffed haughtily by the girl in red, noticed.

"You all right?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

Gerard nodded. Firm.

"Yeah."

Frank accepted it. That was one thing about them. They knew when not to keep asking, no Frank didn't follow as Gerard lit his cigarette and wandered away.

He moved around the hall, stopping here and there, answering questions about the music, shaking hands, accepting congratulations from men who had probably never heard of them before tonight. A corporal asked where they had learned to play. Someone else wanted to know whether they were going to perform again. A girl asked Gerard if he wanted to dance. He nearly said no, but then he thought better of it.

"Sure."

He wasn't particularly good, but he didn't particularly care all that much. For three minutes, he let the music take him somewhere else. The girl laughed when he nearly stepped on her shoe, and Gerard laughed too, genuinely this time.

"You said you could dance," she said, lightly jabbing him in the way that was more sympathetic company than particular interest.

"I said sure," she replied.

"That's not the same thing."

"I didn't realize there was an examination."

She smiled. For tonight, he could pretend he was simply twenty-something and awkward at a dance. Then she asked him where they were going next, and the question landed harder than it should have. Gerard's polite smile faded by degrees.

"Not sure," he murmured.

"Somewhere nearby?"

"Yeah."

He didn't tell her. He didn't tell anybody much. They all knew, anyway. There were things they weren't supposed to know and things he didn't want to say aloud anyway. Everyone knew there was something coming. You could feel it in the way the men talked. In the way they drank. In the way some of them held onto the girls a little longer than necessary. Tomorrow had been hanging over them for days. The beach. Gerard looked toward the windows. He had spent weeks telling himself it was nothing. Habit. Responsibility. The fact that they were brothers. The fact that Gerard was a sergeant and Mikey was one of his men.

As his gaze wandered again, the glass reflected the hall back at him: the lights, the uniforms, the intimate dancing and theatrical movement to something more jazzy. For a second, the reflection looked like somewhere else entirely, like a bad omen of salt, and sand. He thanked the girl and stepped away, moving towards the far wall where the crowd thinned out like coins scattered in an old fountain. A media gleam of an older soldier, the clink of glasses, the stumble of a young recruit with two left feet.

That was where he first saw her. She had been there the whole time, Gerard was almost certain of it. A girl stood alone beside one of the tall windows, watching the room rather than participating in it. Her dress was darker than the others - not black, exactly, but deep enough that it absorbed most of the light. It was modest without looking old-fashioned, with a small collar and fitted waist, and her hair had been carefully arranged. She wore lipstick. There was nothing careless about her appearance. She simply hadn't joined in. No dance. No conversation. No soldier hovering beside her.

Their eyes met, and for a brief moment, neither of them moved. Then, gave him the faintest smile, and instinctively Gerard returned it. He should probably have left her alone.

Behind him, Frank shouted something at Ray that was drowned out by laughter. The record changed. Somebody cheered. The dance floor filled again. Gerard didn't join them.

Instead, he flicked ash into a nearby tray, straightened his uniform, and started across the room.

Formigny, France, June 11 1944.

Gerard had stopped counting the days because counting them made it seem as though there were going to be enough of them.

There weren't.

He had tried counting once, on the morning after they came off the beach. Five days until what? Home? Another landing? Another grave? He hadn't known. Eventually he'd stopped trying. Now the Army had moved them inland.

That was what everybody kept saying, anyway. Moved inland. Pushed the British north, pushed them, and the other Americans south in hopes of cutting off Route 13. The beach was behind them. The fighting had moved on. There were still Germans somewhere ahead, and there would be more shooting tomorrow, or the day after, but tonight the village was quiet.

Quiet enough for a small French bar to stay open in the compound. Gerard sat in the back corner with a glass in front of him and stared at it as though there might be something inside it worth understanding. The place was small, dim and warm. Smoke hung beneath the ceiling. A few French civilians occupied one table near the front, speaking quickly among themselves. American soldiers filled most of the remaining seats, a couple of nurses from the 45th who had washed up yesterday and started erecting the olive-drab tent city in the orchards were huddled together by the bar. Someone had managed to get a radio working, though the music came through in a wash of static. Every so often the signal disappeared altogether, leaving a brief pocket of silence before somebody hit the side of the set and brought it back.

Gerard liked the silence better.

Frank was at the bar. Of course he was. Gerard could hear his voice over everything else, animated and irreverent as ever, though he couldn't make out the words. Frank had found somebody to talk to within five minutes of entering the place, some Brit who'd gotten lost coming off the beaches and was now hanging around the 42nd. Frank always found someone to talk to, it was one of his talents.

Ray however was sitting across from Gerard. He hadn't said much tonight. That was another thing Gerard appreciated. There had been too many people telling him things since the beach. 'You're lucky.' 'You couldn't have done anything.' 'It wasn't your fault.'

He knew. He knew all of it. He simply didn't believe any of it.

Ray's eyes lifted toward him.

"You gonna drink that?" he asked, patient.

Gerard looked at the glass.

"Eventually."

Ray nodded, and looked away again across the bar like he was taking on 'Frank duty' so Gerard could get a much needed break from being the squad leader. The man with the stripes. Gerard almost smiled. This... this was why he liked Ray. No speech. No argument. Just eventually.

Gerard picked up the glass and took a swallow. It burned. From the back of his throat, hot, warming the way down to his leaded gut. Good. He wanted something that did.

His eyes, hazel, but oh so tired, wandered to the empty chair beside him, then looked away immediately. A few seconds later, he looked back. There was nothing there. Of course there wasn't. He had begun doing that everywhere. At breakfast, he'd glance toward the space beside him. On the truck, he'd find himself leaving room without thinking. When someone laughed, his head turned before he'd decided to turn it. When Frank said something particularly stupid, Gerard would start looking for Mikey's reaction, and every time, there was the same small, horrible moment in which his mind expected him to be there then remembered....Mikey was dead.

The words were simple, but they had become impossible. Gerard had said them once, quietly, after they'd left the beach. Mikey's dead. Frank had stared at the ground. Ray had closed his eyes. Nobody had corrected him. Nobody had said anything. Gerard hadn't said it again. He didn't need to. He remembered the beach too well. That was the trouble. He remembered everything. From the way the ice cold water had soaked into his clothes, his pack, his soul, to the roaring noise and gritty, clawing sand and choking smoke. He remembered the sound of wordless voices, of somebody screaming for a medic, Ray dropping beside Mikey. Gerard moving toward them and someone grabbing him, violent, desperate, under the spray of German bullet fire. He remembered fighting against whoever had caught him, remembered screaming. He couldn't remember what he'd said.

Sometimes he thought he'd been screaming Mikey's name, sometimes he thought he'd been ordering somebody to let him go. Sometimes he thought he'd simply been making noise. The memory changed depending on how tired he was, but the ending never did. He had watched his little brother die, and he had been unable to stop it.

He rubbed his thumb against the side of the glass. Ray noticed.

"You should sleep," he said; medic's orders "That's funny."

Ray looked at him, concern colouring his worn features, making him look twenty years older than he was. Gerard shook his head. "Nothing."

Frank appeared beside the table with three drinks. "Got these."

Ray looked at them.

"Three?" "Yeah," Frank replied, setting one down in front of Gerard, while Ray frowned heavily at him. "Why three?"

Frank paused, winced, then shrugged. "Didn't count."

Gerard looked at the third glass, and something deep inside him went cold. Frank saw his expression, and, painfully, his own face changed to something hardened by regret. For a second, neither of them said anything. Then Frank reached for the third glass.

"I'll take it," he offered.

Gerard caught his wrist.

"No."

Frank looked at him, and slowly, painfully Gerard let go, letting Frank sit down instead, the sound of the chair scraping masked by the music on the radio as it crackled and vanished. Somewhere outside, a truck passed along the road, and Gerard watched its headlights move across the window. It made him think of Mikey's old truck from when he'd do rounds for the milk man.

He could picture the house, could picture his mother's face, imagine stepping off a train. People would say they were glad to see him. Someone would ask where Mikey was. That was where the thought always stopped. Gerard could never get past it. 'Where's your brother?' What was he supposed to say? He died. Mikey was dead. He'd say it eventually. He would have to.

Maybe somebody would put a hand on his shoulder and tell him Mikey had been brave. Maybe somebody would say how sorry they were. None of it would change the fact that Gerard would arrive home alone. He couldn't decide whether he wanted that. Couldn't decide whether going home without Mikey was really going home.

"Way."

Gerard looked up and found that, again, Ray was watching him. Checking in the way that only Ray knew how, with that unflappable patience, but that same heavy weight of knowing that he tried everything and it hadn't been enough to keep Mikey from bleeding out in the sands of Omaha Beach, amongst too many American soldiers, who'd barely gotten a chance to raise a gun.

"You with us?" Ray asked, though it was clear he meant 'you're out of it, and I know why'.

Gerard glanced between them. Ray, then Frank.

"Yeah," he replied.

Frank snorted. "You're a lousy liar."

Gerard almost smiled.

"Didn't ask you." "Didn't have to."

Ray's mouth twitched at that, and for a brief, silvery second, it felt almost normal. Then Gerard looked down again. His fingers had found the cigarette in his pocket without him properly noticing he'd even done it. He rolled it between his fingers. Mikey had always hated when Gerard smoked too much. He'd make that face. Not angry. Just disappointed behind his glasses in that quiet way of his. Gerard could see it perfectly. He could hear him.

"You're gonna kill yourself," Mikey would have said; Gerard almost laughed.

The sound caught somewhere in his throat, bitter. He lit the cigarette, and thick smoke filled his lungs.

Outside, somebody shouted in French. A dog barked. The radio came back. Frank started arguing with someone at the bar again, Ray leaned back in his chair. The war, for the moment, was somewhere else. Gerard wished it had stayed there. He looked toward the empty chair one more time. He knew he would eventually have to go home. The Army would send them. There would be paperwork. Trains. Ships. A uniform folded into a bag. A door opening somewhere in America. And Mikey wouldn't be there.

The thought made his chest ache with such sudden force that he had to look down. He pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth, eyes watering violently. Ray glanced at him out the corner of his eye, but gratefully said nothing to draw attention to it. He took another drag and stared into the smoke. He had spent years wanting to get out. Out of his town, out of New Jersey. Out of his old life.

Now, sitting in a French bar with mud still caught in the seams of his boots, he would have given almost anything to have one ordinary morning back, back before he and Mikey had been conscripted. One breakfast argument, and a stupid joke over something in the paper. One irritated look from Mikey across a table when Gerard got too judgemental about linework. Just one.

He closed his eyes. For a moment, he could almost hear his brother laughing. Then the memory disappeared, and Gerard was alone with the noise of the bar again.