21st Century Breakdown

Wiki! and Editing!

2009-12-13T19:09:00.001-08:00

First... editing.
To make this suitable for public consumption, I'm editing the crap out of this thing. It's now original and about Gloria Nesser and Christian Armstrong. I'm just getting through chapter 10.5.

AND A WIKI. http://21cb.wikia.com/wiki/21st_Century_Breakdown_Wiki

FAQ.

2009-12-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

Though not really.

Q- Is it really possible to get hooked on Novacaine?
A- In this world? No. In my world? Very much so.

Q- What the fuck, Opal?
A- I stole it from Trent Reznor.

Q- What's up with Tre's dream in Chapter 12? Foreshadowing?
A- Wordcount, silly. at least I foreshadow better than Smeyer!

Q- So where do you the the Epilogu titles?
A- Homecoming is a Green Day song off American Idiot. It has five parts (The Death of St. Jimmy, East 21st Street, Nobody Likes You, Rock 'n' Roll Girlfriend, and We're Coming Home).
--The Deaths of Christian and Gloria was modified from The Death of St. Jimmy and similar to a comprehensive title for the Epilogue - Christian and Gloria's Eulogy.
--The City... is pretty obvious
--Catastrophic Hymns From Yesterday fits the scene, doesn't it? It's a lyric from the song Misery by Green Day off Warning ("the catastrophic hymns from yesterday of misery...")
--Deadbeat Holiday is a Green Day song off Warning
--21st Century Breakdown (reprise) is a closer... a reprise of a song, in a musical, is performing it again, although differently, right? It's mirroring the first 21st Century Breakdown. Except, less despair and more hope.

Q- Dates?
A- There is a calendar for this -- two, one that's with chapters and another from Billie Joe's POV. It starts May 1st and ends July 31st. I did that with the dates on purpose.

Q- What inspired you to write this?
A- When I saw the image on the cover. I was like "Oh, I know what my NaNo this year's gonna be."

Q- Favorite 21st Century Breakdown song? Favorite chapter of the novel?
A- My current favorite song is either Before the Lobotomy, Christians Inferno, or Horseshoes & Handgrenades. My favorite chapter is... hm... American Eulogy, actually. I also really like how Homecoming came out. I also adore my rambling about hair coloring in Restless Heart Syndrome. 21 Guns also came out pretty good. I actually really don't like how most of the first act was, actually. But I love the sexytime in Peacemaker.

Q- What is/was Minority and Welcome to Paradise?
A- The original epilogues. There was actually a whole epilogue act (Act Four - Broken Dreams and Minorities) at one point. Originally, they were just gonna quit the Class of Thirteen (thus Mass Hysteria). Then they'd leave. Minority was gonna be Billie reflecting on his life. Welcome to Paradise was some months later, reflecting on life in the City once more (see: 21st Century Breakdown (reprise))...

Q- How do you pronounce reprise?
A- If we nouning it, (as in *song title (reprise)*) then ree-pree-ze. If it's a verb (to reprise a song) then re-prize.

The Original Ending. And Stuff.

2009-11-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

Here's the original last few chapters of 21st Century Breakdown. Isn't it amazing how much it changed?

Chapter Sixteen: 21 Guns
(Billie Joe’s POV)
Tré, who has also moped -- of course, he moped by writing some of Billie Joe‘s poetry/lyrics on his walls -- (and who has been inspired by Billie Joe “replacing him so quickly”) , invites Billie Joe over. Tré mentions how he felt about the failed riot, and Billie Joe counters that he felt the same exact way, then explaining what happened with Davey at the café. They end up working everything out, after a long talk and Billie sharing the poem/lyrics he wrote in Chapter 13. This is also where Billie Joe explains his past as the Jesus of Suburbia/St. Jimmy and with Davey/Whatsername. At the end of the chapter, Tré and Billie Joe both decide to quit the revolution, as they make plans to move to the City soon.

Chapter Seventeen-a: American Eulogy -- Mass Hysteria
(Billie Joe’s POV)
This song is about the hysteria following Tré and Billie Joe quitting. Billie Joe is pretty pissed off that everyone is reacting so strongly, like it’s the end of the world or something. He quietly stays at Tré’s house and they wait for the tension to die down. Alone, he thinks over his revolution as compared to Davey’s, Gloria to Whatsername. He decides that, upon moving out to the City, he and Tré should join what was Davey’s group, not as leaders, but as members.

Chapter Seventeen-b: American Eulogy -- The Modern World
(Tré’s POV)
Tré’s opinions on the (literally) modern world. He’s kinda being all ranty to Billie Joe now that he has someone to rant to again. Tré talks about how the world is decaying and how everything seems to be collapsing, that this is the era of descent and that systems are failing and the world is just generally screwed up. Tré ends by saying that he doesn’t want to live in the modern world.

Chapter Eighteen: See the Light
(Tré’s POV)
Technically the last chapter. This is Tré’s promise to Billie Joe that he is going to become clean and that they are going to stay together, forever. Tré looks over his life and his relationship with Billie Joe, noting what went wrong and what might still go wrong. He talks to Billie Joe for a while, and they compare their lives and their relationship -- or, the relationship of Christian and Gloria -- with that of Billie Joe and Davey -- or St. Jimmy and Whatsername. At the end of the chapter, they start packing to move out and the two make hotel reservations.

Chapter Nineteen: Minority
(posting it @ htttp://www.twitter.com/StJimmysEulogy)
(Billie Joe’s POV)
As he and Tré leave for the City, Billie Joe reflects on how the Jesus of Suburbia became St. Jimmy, and how St. Jimmy became Gloria. He thinks back to a time when he was addicted to…well…anything he could get his hands on and how he was so desperate that Davey left him. At the end, he says a final goodbye to the suburban town he once called home and creates a tune for the words he made up all those years ago:
“I pledge allegiance to the Underworld. One nation under Dog, here of which I stand alone. A face in the crowd, unsung against the mold. Without a doubt, singled out, the only way I know. I wanna be the minority. I don’t need your authority. Down with the moral majority. ‘Cause I wanna be the Minority…”

Chapter Twenty: Welcome to Paradise
(also @ twitter.com/StJimmysEulogy)
(Billie Joe's POV)
A month or so later -- Tré and Billie Joe's life in the City.

Umm... what?
And, as you can find on the Minority/Welcome to Paradise Twitter, I'd already written a bit of Chapter Eighteen.

(Tre's POV)
After minutes of breathless kissing and touching wherever our lustful hands could reach, Billie Joe muttered something incoherent. I asked him what he'd said.

"I said -- I wrote those lyrics for me," he restated.

"Which lyrics?" I questioned.

"See the Light. The ones on your walls."

"Oh. What about them?"

"I wrote them for me. But they can be for you, too."

I just smiled and nodded, before walking over to a wall and running my fingers over the carefully Sharpied words. A moment of silence passed before, finally, I said something. "Come here, Billie."

Slowly and silently, he walked over to me. I pulled him against me and kissed him once more, feverishly pulling his shirt off -- or trying to, anyway -- at the same time. "Make love to me again. In here. Now," I whispered in his ear. "It's gonna be our last time in the room with your words on its walls."

Billie Joe looked up at me in surprise as I threw his shirt to the ground and began taking off mine.

"We're gonna move far, far away, soon." I brought him close to me once more. "Because, Gloria, I love you."

Aftermath.

2009-11-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

So I won NaNoWriMo with this piece of shit novel that people love. It clocks in at 50,458 words and (counting Homecoming as one chapter and putting 10.5 with another) just about 2655 words a chapter. Sounds about right.

Soon, I will be posting fun stuff from the novel, outtakes AND the goddamn Alternate Ending. I can't wait!

Oh, yeah, then it's back to Year Zero & Pretty Hate Romance for me.

~Suki

The End.

2009-11-27T13:26:00.000-08:00

V. 21st Century Breakdown (reprise)

And here I sit now, in my small room in the apartment complex that used to be the headquarters of the Underbelly. Tré is sleeping on the old bed -- he looks so damn cute when he sleeps! I’m just sitting at this old desk, writing down everything that’s happened since I went back to suburbia from the City. Tré added in his few cents -- parts that I didn’t want to write, parts that I though he’d be better at writing. Like our first date.

We’ve just gotten back from a riot. Mike took over the Class of Thirteen, and Davey (and his boyfriend, Jade) helps from time to time. No one knows that Tré and I are alive, but no one needs to. I know that if we ever run into Mike or Dave, that we’ll tell them (but we know they’ll keep it secret). They’d be relieved.

But we don’t expect them to run into us anytime soon.

So for now, we’re just living in the City together. It feels so permanent to be here with Tré. I think it’ll last -- it better last, otherwise I really will fuck shit up. I’m more in love with Tré than I’ve ever been with anyone, and he feels the same way.

I’m satisfied now, to be back in the City where I feel like I belong. It’s paradise here…

I’m getting tied now. I think I should go sleep. There’s nothing else for me to write, really, so I’m closing this notebook and I know that there will be a rhythm. Who knows if I’ll live to be 100, or die at 37. It doesn’t matter. For I am satisfied.

Billie Joe Armstrong.
July 31st, 2013.

The End.

1022 Words.

2009-11-27T13:16:00.003-08:00

IV. Deadbeat Holiday
Tré and I scaled the hill once more, hand in hand, breaking through the midday chill and through the trickle of people. Not many people hung out around those parts of the City -- it was the place where the Underbelly had resided, of course. And it was the place that the Class of Thirteen currently was. We weaved through the line of people dressed in black, and a sinking feeling fell through my gut.

Black. Funeral colors. We’d died, hadn’t we? So does that mean that they were coming back from our funeral?

“Can you believe it?” I heard someone mutter.

“Yeah. I heard that Dave and Mike and them gave ‘em a twenty one gun salute. Is that fucking insane, or what?” another said.

“They deserved it.”

“Hell yes, they deserved it -- but it’s still fucking insane that we had to have a fucking funeral for them. I mean -- I’m damn surprised they’re dead.”

The two who had been talking moved up the line and kept ascending the hill with the rest of them and with us. I made sure that my hood was definitely hiding my face, and made sure that Tré’s hat and sunglasses made him look unrecognizable.

“Can you believe it, Tré? They gave us a twenty one gun salute… you know, like soldiers in the military get. They really…” I whispered, my words drifting off at the end.

“They really think we’re dead -- but then again, that makes sense, doesn’t it?” he asked me back in an equal whisper to mine.

“Yeah. They really truly think we died. That’s… that’s a serious mind fuck.”

I shook my head and increased my pace, half dragging Tré behind me as we continued up the hill, following the group, the parade of black. Wait -- isn’t that an album name or something?

We waited outside the building as everyone filed in, waited around the corner as they closed the door. We gave it a good ten or twenty minutes, waiting until everything sounded like it was settled down in there. We then stealthily walked in and bit our lips so as not to gag and throw up at the smell and alert everyone. Near silently, we went up the stairs and to what had once been mine and Davey’s room, into the room where a few girls lived now.

“Why are you here again?” the first girl (the one with the dark hair and eyes) asked as we walked in. “I told you -- the Class of Thirteen’s over. Christian and Gloria are fucking dead -- they just had the funeral, morons!”

“Shut up,” I said. “How’re you sure that someone else won’t take it up? We just wanna sign the fuck up over here. You know, just in case it all comes back between now and then. We wanna be part of the riots.”

The first girl narrowed her eyes and another -- who I hadn’t seen yesterday -- shook her head. This girl had short, lighter brown hair, and brown eyes that were considerably lighter than her friend’s were. “Come on, Gazzy,” she said, “just take their names and contacts. Can’t do us any harm, right?”

The first -- nicknamed Gazzy, apparently -- rolled her eyes. “Fuck it. Fine. Names, contacts?”

“I’m Wilhelm Fink, remember?” I asked her. She nodded.

“And you?”

“’m Tré the Second.”

“You stole Christian’s real name.”

“We were friends. He told me to take his name if he died,” Tré improvised.

Skeptically, Gazzy nodded. “And where d’you two live?”

“Live?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “We’ve just been hangin’ ‘round, you know? At the old hotel, but we can’t stay there forever. Been lookin’ for a place t’ stay -- you wouldn’t happen to know of one, would you?” I made sure that my patterns of speech were different enough to make it seem like I was a totally different person -- to make it seem like I definitely was not Billie Joe Armstrong, or Saint Jimmy, or Gloria -- to make it seem like I was just Wilhelm Fink and someone who wasn’t me.

“Well, there are some apartments down in these parts that are free -- you two wouldn’t mind sharing, would ya?” asked the second girl, the one with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Not at all -- would there be any rent t’ pay, by chance?” I asked.

“No rent, you just need to go claim it,” explained Gazzy. “So -- what, it’s room three nine a, right Queso?”

“It is. Just checked it out before we left for the funeral,” confirmed the second girl, who was apparently called Queso (Spanish for cheese, of course, like quesadilla). The third girl also nodded.

“It’s free,” she said.

“Yeah, you should trust Shika more than you should trust me,” said Queso, sticking out her tongue. The other girl -- apparently called Shika for some reason -- just slapped her. “But yah, it’s open.”

“Ohhh kay then. You guys got it. Wilhelm Fink and Tré Cool II, for room thirty nine a and a spot at riots. Go grab your shit and move it.”

“Woah. Sweet. Thanks, ya guys. See ya around, huh?” I said, turning and round and staying on the top step.

“Mmhmm. See ya two around.”

And as Tré and I walked back to the hotel to check out and get our stuff, a cool wave of relief swelled through me. We were set now, in the City of the Damned, and it was all going to be good for a long, long time.

“I’m so excited. Now we won’t be held responsible for fucking shit up. Whoever takes the reins of the Class will,” I said, grinning at Tré and leaning into him.

“Yep.”

I sighed happily. “I love you, Tré.” I leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned around and his lips met mine. It wasn’t much of a kiss -- but it was short and sweet and beautiful.

“I love you, too, Billie Joe. More than you’ll ever know. I love you so fucking much.”

1446 Words.

2009-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

III. Catastrophic Hymns From Yesterday
When I opened my eyes, Tré was gone. In a dizzy haze, I stood up and wandered out of the room, looking for Tré. Next thing I knew, I was in the lobby (our hotel room was on the third floor, eighth door to the right, thank you very much). My eyes felt dry and everything around me felt so damn numb. And slightly pastel. I put it off to my just having woken up and walked out into the street.

Out there, I saw things that, quite frankly, surprised me. An Underbelly riot. Whatsername -- well, Davey as Whatsername, really -- stood at the front of it. They charged toward me.

“Hey! Saint Jimmy!” Davey -- or Whatsername -- yelled. “Come on! Let’s go!”

“What the fuck?” I asked, cocking my head.

“Didn’t you get the message about the riot? I knew your friends took you out for partying last night and parked you at this damn hotel, but I swear I told you! Maybe it’s the hangover?” Davey shook his head. “Anyway, come on! We’ve got fucking buildings to burn!”

“Um. Okay.”

I walked down the steps, still disoriented. Was I really still here in the City? Everything felt so surreal… had everything I could remember happening in the last three years really have been a drunken dream? It all felt so damn real. Is it really possible to have lived three years all in my head? Well, I had to admit that Davey breaking up with me was kind of fucking crazy… but, then again, so was most of what he did.

Whatsername -- well, I guess since he was Whatsername at the moment, I should call him that since he certainly wasn’t Davey right then -- grabbed my hand and jerked me to the front of the crowd amidst screaming and the all too familiar smell of smoke.

“Everyone -- welcome Saint Jimmy to this crowd of pain! Are you ready to fuck shit up?” shouted Whatsername, throwing his hands in the air as he said so. The reply was tremendous, a roar of hell- and fuck yeahs, general purposeless screaming, and other such incidences of insanity. The crowd -- the Underbelly, to be more precise -- shouted a rhyme that almost made me sick to my stomach.

“Saint Jimmy’s coming down across the alleyway! Up on the boulevard like a zip gun on parade! Lights on his silhouette! He’s insubordinate! Coming atcha on the count of one, two -- one two three four!”

And I answered them in a scream, no matter how wrong it felt then: “My name is Jimmy and you better not wear it out! Suicide commando that your mama talked about! King of the forty thieves and here to represent! The needle in the vein of the establishment. I’m the Patron Saint of the Denial! With an angel face and a taste for suicidal!”

The crowd went seriously wild then, screaming and holding up everything from hand grenades to unlit torches and lighters to -- yes, in fact -- shovels. I grinned at them and threw my hands in the air and both Whatsername and I lead them through the City, down to the Town Hall and the seat of the government here.

My own words echoed in my mind: “Jimmy… suicide commando… needle in the vein… Patron Saint of the Denial… taste for suicidal…”

Of course, the second sweet refrain of that started out: “Cigarettes and ramen and a little bag of dope. I am the son of a bitch and Edgar Allen Poe.”

But all the mention of suicidal in the old chant, the old wartime song reminded me of something from the so called dream. I had tried to commit suicide during that, hadn’t I? Didn’t I then throw the gun into the bay and decide that that was the Death of St. Jimmy, and that I was just Billie Joe afterwards?

I guessed then that the whole past three years that I thought I’d experienced was just a dream -- I didn’t just guess it at that point, really, but that’s when it pretty much solidified in my mind that the past three years had all been one, huge, drunk and or high dream. It made a shitton of sense, really. I mean -- why would Davey (Whatsername?) ever break up with me? I don’t think I could piss him off that badly, right?

The first sign of madness is talking to yourself.

In my dream, hadn’t I said that to the one called Tré? I guess he was my boyfriend in the other world of my subconscious mind, the other world unlocked when I drift easily off into sleep after drinking my weight in alcohol.

So that’s why everything was so damn fuzzy… damn hangover.

Then I guessed -- I speculated, I assumed, I knew -- that I’d recently dosed up on Novacaine. I mean, otherwise I’d be driven mad from withdrawal, right? Novacaine has pretty damn bad effects that will in fact drive you mad after a long enough time. That is, until it’s all passed and that’s when you sleep off the last two weeks of pain.

I sighed once more and ran my fingers through my shoulder length greasy black hair. I definitely needed a shower -- I made a note to myself to remember to tall that to Davey when we got back to the headquarters.

The headquarters… Tré and I had went there in my long, fucked up dream, hadn’t we? The Underbelly had long since dissolved in that other world… so had the group I guess I had created, the Class of Thirteen. Well -- it didn’t dissolve too long before the end of the dream, did it? Just after they all thought that Tré and I were dead. That’s when it ended.

“We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen! Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of 1969!”

Wasn’t that our -- the Class of Thirteen’s war cry? I mean, it had to all have been a dream, it wasn’t even 2013 yet! It was 2009 or 2010, I was sure of it. It couldn’t have been any other goddamn way. It all had to have been a dream -- again, one long, very fucked up dream. I wondered what I’d been doing the night before and found that I couldn’t remember. Damn… whatever it was had to have been some pretty nasty shit.

My thoughts had carried us all the way to our destination of the Town Hall in the middle of the City, amidst sky scrapers and tall hills.

Whatsername grinned at me and gave me a hand grenade. “On three, fire,” he whispered.

All was silent as we looked upon the building in the early hours of the dawn. All was silent until Whatsername suddenly shouted: “Fucking bastards, give us our City back! Give us our fucking freedom back! This is the land of the free, isn’t it? One -- two -- three!”

Everyone screamed, a dedicated Underbelly war cry, as they pulled the pins and lit the torches and threw all their firepower at the old, creaky government building. The fires all exploded on impact, a blazing inferno of freedom and dissidence. The sound of the fire, the heat of it -- it all suddenly felt so distant as I turned to look at Whatsername. He didn’t stand there. Instead, in his place, there was the current Davey, smiling, his long black fringe framing his face. A few tears sparkled in his eyes. I ran my fingers through my hair again, looking strangely around as a few blonde strands fell in my face.

Oh-kaay, that was some nasty shit I did last night.

“Oh my God, Billie Joe -- we all thought you were -- didn’t you -- you’re alive!” he said.

The fire wasn’t there anymore. Neither was the Underbelly. We were back in the café where Tré and I had first met, where Davey and I had patched things over -- right?

Davey wrapped his slender arms around me, sobbing quietly. “We thought you and Tré died in the fucking fire! You’re alive, you’re alive, god damn it, you’re fucking alive! I’ve never been happier to see you and holy shit you’re alive!”

His words blurred around me, as did the scenery.

I awoke with a start in the old hotel room, in Tré’s arms. He was sleeping peacefully now. And I knew exactly what we had to do.

Rejoin the Class of Thirteen. Not as its leader, but as its fighters.

1144 Words.

2009-11-26T23:35:00.000-08:00

Part II. The City
Back in the hotel room, we sat together on the bed in silence, drinking some of the actually pretty decent tap water and holding hands. The sun was just starting to rise, now, and the view over the City was amazing. Just watching the silhouettes of the buildings and tall sky scrapers was enchanting. Whatsername and I had done it millions of times, just laying together on the top of the apartment complex and holding hands. Sometimes, the morning air cooled the sweat laying on our exposed chests after a bout of heated sex. Some of it involved handcuffs and chains. Some of it didn’t -- just the two of us becoming one. Anyway, that isn’t really relevant. So Tré and I were sitting on our hotel bed, looking out at the sunrise. There was an overall melancholy feel in the air.

I looked up at Tré, and he looked back at me. In silence, we both mulled over our thoughts. If we were supposed to be dead, then what should we do? Were we supposed to go ahead and say “hey world, we’re fucking alive!” or just disappear and avoid controversy? At the moment, disappearing seemed really nice. So did joining the rebel group -- well, the remnants of the Class of Thirteen -- in the City. I bit my lip as I sat there staring blankly ahead at our lives together in the City.

I honestly did not know what to do then. It was a huge dilemma -- and possibly the largest one I’d ever faced before. I was scared. I honestly did not know what to do (fucking Redundancy Department of Redundancy called, they want their redundancy back). With a sigh, I looked down at the dirty carpet. The hotel -- motel? -- was definitely worth what we’d paid, but that meant it was still pretty damn shitty.

“So… what should we do?” Tré asked finally, knowingly echoing both of our thoughts. He knew exactly what was going on in my head -- since it was exactly what was going on in his. Again, I sighed and he did too.

“Honestly -- I really, truly, seriously don’t know,” I answered silently, looking back up at Tré and meeting his light blue gaze. Tré cocked his head and looked away from my eyes. The room suddenly felt so claustrophobic that I wanted to scream and run away forever. Tré looked back up at me then, his eyes misty.

“They all think we’re dead. Our parents. What-- Davey. Mike. All of them think we’re dead… we’re literally dead to the world. People think we’ve kicked the bucket. I mean… fuck… we may not be dead, but Christian and Gloria most certainly are. The Class of Thirteen may or may not be dead. Who knows? Do you think Mike or Whatser-- fuck, Davey, would take it over and continue it?” It was a long run on question, but it made me grin. Tré was just so adorable when he rambled, and he never really noticed it.

“If they do -- if they do, not when they do, I don’t think they will -- do you think we should rejoin the Class of Thirteen? I mean -- we can take on aliases. I already have one. And you could just be, like, Norman Iwo,” I stated, snickering at the strange name I’d made up on the spot.

“What the hell of a king of name is fucking Norman Iwo?” Tré asked, incredulous.

“I don’t even know anymore.”

Tré sighed, rolling his eyes, before going back on subject. “So -- what should we do? I’m not sure I want to protest anymore, but it’s not like we can do anything else. I mean, we’re dead for crying out loud. Well -- you know what I mean, right?”

“Yeah. We’re dead. People -- we’re listed as dead. Under our names -- deceased, right? We really can’t do anything else now, can we?” I sighed after saying or asking Tré that, and felt my eyes getting misty again. “It’s crazy what some people think, but at least this is a reasonable conclusion. The building was fucking burned down. There were guns shooting at us. We were nearly assassinated.”

“Are we so important that if we were murdered -- it would be an assassination? Really?”

“I’m not sure… it was staged like an assassination, I guess. I don’t think they’ll arrest the people though, not for supposedly killing us, they would for burning the building to the ground, though.”

“I would really have to agree with you there, Billie Joe -- or should I now say, Wilhelm Fink?” Tré stuck out his tongue.

“You like abusing my nicknames, Sir Norman Iwo,” I said to him in reply, glaring playfully as I said so. He knew I was joking. And I knew he was joking.

“Dude! That is not my fucking nickname!” Tré said, glaring back at me just as playfully. I just shook my head at him and went back to watching the slow and steady sunrise. My foot was falling asleep now, and my eyelids were heavy with tiredness. I was ready to sleep -- but I didn’t want to until we had figured out what the hell had happened and what the hell we should do next.

“Well then, Tré, I’m stuck here. Do you know what we should do? I sure as hell don’t… right now -- well, right now, I want to sleep,” I muttered. Did I mention that I tend to ramble when I’m tired? Well -- I do. I sure as hell ramble when I’m tired. Tiredness is not a good thing for me -- sure, I come up with some damn good poetry then, but talk to me an I just go on and on and on and on. I just can’t stop. “I want to sleep but I won’t be able to until we figure out what the hell to do. Well -- what the hell should we do, Tré? Please enlighten me.” I wasn’t sarcastic there, by the way.

“I honestly don’t know, and Billie Joe Armstrong, you are rambling now. It’s damn adorable, but sort of annoying -- and therefore you definitely need sleep. Get your ass under the covers, Armstrong.”

“No way in hell. Fuck you, Tré,” I mumbled, already drifting off.

“Gladly. But we can do it tomorrow, okay Billie? For now -- just get some sleep, okay? We’ll be able to figure this out better if we’re both more awake.”

“Then order some goddamn coffee and room service shit. I’m not going to sleep until we figure this the fuck out, okay?”

“No, Billie Joe, you are going to bed. Right fucking now, okay?”

“No, I am fucking not going to fucking bed, okay Tré?”

And with that, I fell asleep.

1300 Words.

2009-11-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

Part I. The Deaths of Christian & Gloria

The City was unnaturally quiet at this hour -- either that or the life there at three ante meridian had changed significantly since I’d left three years before. I guessed that the latter was correct, since the Underbelly had stopped wreaking havoc at all times of the night and morning and day and -- well, you know, all the goddamn time. I was thoroughly unused to the silence as I snuck out of the hotel building, Tré close on my heels. We turned the corner and walked up the street to the headquarters of the Underbelly -- well, what had once been the headquarters of the Underbelly, anyway. The sun was still lurking on the other side of the world, setting slowly on the other hemisphere and watching as other people fell asleep. The sun was sure that the world was silent over here, the sun was sure that most everyone was asleep (except for the people on the East Coast, who were then just waking up).

Well, Tré and I sure as hell were not asleep.

We climbed up a small hill, sticking to the shadows in true Underbelly fashion. My hood had been flipped over my eyes at the time, and Tré stopped at a shady kiosk to get a pair of sunglasses and a hat, hiding his identity. No one would recognize us as we went incognito through the City streets to the run down apartment complex that, as far I could see, was still standing. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized that I had been holding as I saw its outline against the dark, hazy, cloudy sky.

“It’s still there,” I muttered in utter disbelief. It was impossible -- well, it was totally possible, but it wasn’t likely in my mind that the building would still be standing after all that had taken place there. For all I knew, by then it could have become an insane asylum or a county jail or something of the like. Or it could have been quarantined, too -- no one knew what had been growing in the fridges or on the walls. Or what the hell people had been cooking up in some parts of the house. As far as I knew, there was most likely a meth lab or two on the second or third floor of the apartment. It had been an almost-scary place on some days, but totally harmless on others. It was living on the spot, living without permission, living without warning. It wasn’t safe, but it sure as hell was a lot of fucking fun.

Tré looked up at the building and looked back at me. Behind the dark shades, his eyes were unreadable. “It looks like a regular place, to me, you know -- like my old apartment. Right? That can’t have been the headquarters of the fucking Underbelly,” he scoffed. I couldn’t tell if he was just as surprised as I was, in awe of seeing the headquarters of what might once have once been the headquarters of the Underbelly of all things it could have been the headquarters for, or just didn’t think that it could possibly be the headquarters. It did seem pretty far out, actually.

I looked back at Tré as we ascended the hill. “You really don’t think so? I wouldn’t be mistaken ‘bout this shit -- I may have been seriously drugged out when I used to go here, but there’s no chance that this damn building could be anything else.”

“How do you know that? It just looks like a regular apartment to me --”

I cut him off quickly with a sharp retort: “This isn’t suburbia, you know. Not everything down here in the City looks the same, wouldn’t you agree, Tré?”

“You’re crazy,” said Tré, but he quickly dropped the subject as we just kept walking. Our footsteps were the only things that made noise now, the only sound being our shoes hitting the pavement with a dull thud. It was monotonous and boring, but somehow rhythmic. I almost liked it -- well, that might just have been the recent trauma and resulting sleep deprivation.

I tolled my sore shoulder, which was fairly useless now that it was totally bandaged as all hell and in an awkwardly bandaged position.

It took very little time from then to get to the old headquarters. It looked exactly the same as I remembered it, it looked just like the same old run down apartment full of delinquents, miscreants, and mischief makers as it always had been.

We silently walked to the doors and I opened it, greeted by the oh so familiar smell, the wall of the scent of rotting eggs, sour milk, mold, and general uncleanliness. It was the same dark hallway that it had always been. It was the same claustrophobic staircase that I ascended then as it had always been. It was just so familiar that I could barely stand it then.

“I’m sure this is the building,” I whispered to Tré as I ascended the steps, pulling my hood further over my eyes. There was a quiet, muted light at the top of the stairs that I was immediately drawn to. It all felt so familiar, and I knew why.

That’s when voices drifted down to us. “Did you hear what happened…?” “Yeah, I can’t believe it…” “It’s amazing, I can’t believe it would ever happen in a million years…” “Those arsonists will probably be let out free, this government’s such a bitch…” I ignored them, and as Tré and I got closer to the top of the stairs, they evidently heards us and all went silent. Making sure that no one would be able to see my face, I walked in first, creating a dim shadow on the flimsy plaster walls. I knew where we were -- the top of the building. Where Whatsername and I had once lived.

“Who’re you?” someone finally asked. A small tomboyish girl who looked to be around 15. Her dirty brown hair was tied back, a few strands brushing over her tanned skin, and her brown eyes glimmered with life. It was amazing how fragile she seemed.

“Me?” I asked, my voice quiet and bland. “I’m Wilhelm Fink --” A name made up on the spot. “-- you can just call me Fink, though, and I’ve heard that this is where you go in the City to hook up with the Class of Thirteen?”

Tré remained silent behind me as the girl responded in a quick, harsh whisper: “Didn’t you two morons hear? Christian and Gloria -- dead, the both of ‘em. They were shot and killed in the fire. Didn’t know that, now, didja? It only happened, like, six hours ago and word’s only been going ‘round for about an hour now.”

“Holy shit,” was all I could say.

They thought we were dead. They all thought -- and swore they knew -- that were really, honest to God dead.

“I know, right?” asked another girl from the corner of the room. She had long blonde hair thart was tied back with a rag, and streaks of dirt covered her pale face. “It’s kinda crazy -- I mean, makes more sense than Whatsername just packin’ up her bags ‘n leaving, but crazy all the same.”

I just nodded, my throat seeming to close.

“So, Fink, ya really don’t need to be here,” said the first girl. I nodded my head, signifying ‘no, I really don’t,’ and turned around to leave. “See ya ‘round the City, huh?” I nodded once more and walked down the stairs in total and utter disbelief and Tré followed me in complete silence as we were plunged back into the darkness.

Epilogue: Homecoming

2009-11-26T00:08:00.000-08:00

I. The Deaths of Christian & Gloria
II. The City
III. Catastrophic Hymns From Yesterday
IV. Deadbeat Holiday
V. 21st Century Breakdown (reprise)

~1000 words/part.

My hearts is beating from me
I am stranding all alone
Please call me only
If you are coming home
Waste another year flies by
Waste a night or two
You taught me how to live...

Chapter Eighteen: See the Light

2009-11-25T23:53:00.000-08:00

(2712 words)

Even from my spot in the center of that room, in the center of Tré’s room, I could hear the unmistakable snap! of a quickly growing fire outside of the room. Pulling away from my boyfriend, I hastily ran to the window and looked outside, my eyes widening in shock and horror. There was a fucking fire outside my window. And it was quickly approaching us.

I breathed in and out deeply as I leaned back against the wall, trying to collect my nerves and trying to not hyperventilate as I realized just exactly what the hell was happening now. A fire. A goddamn fire. It was going to burn the whole apartment complex down, maybe. It wasn’t just going to kill me and Tré, but hundreds of innocent people.

“Billie Joe? Are you -- are you okay?” he asked me quietly walking over to where I stood. I just looked up at him, tears really on the brink of spilling over now, a panic attack on the verge in the corner of my mind.

“Tré…” I mumbled, wrapping my arms rightly around his stomach as he wrapped his arms protectively around me. “I don’t want to die.”

“What d’you mean? We aren’t -- not dead yet, are we?” Tré asked me.

“We will be,” I whispered. “There’s a fire out there.”

Tré stepped back, looking at me in surprise. We stood there, frozen, for just a moment, before Tré started saying just barely audible words: “A fire burns today of blasphemy and genocide… the sirens of decay will infiltrate the faith fanatics.”

“What the… Tré, where the hell did that come from?”

“I made it up a while ago…” Catching my confused glance, Tré added, “Right before you texted me about the meeting.”

The meeting. Dammit, that seemed so long ago, even though it was only a couple weeks past at that point.

“Wow,” I breathed, just trying to look at him, just trying to look anywhere but the window. The inherent fear of panic was rising in the pit of my stomach, a fire just as fierce as the one outside my window raging inside my mind, sending my senses alight with crazy and maniac panic. My heart beat like a miserably tuned, off beat drum, leading dogs into war and reprimanding the little shreds of innocence in my soul.

I looked back at Tré, guessing that my fear and panic were evident in my eyes. I guessed then that we had two options: to go down right there and then, to go down in supposed glory (Gloria?) -- or to run away, leaving everyone to think we’re dead, and just hide out forever.

Guess which option my high on fear and adrenaline brain chose?

“Tré, c’mon… come on -- let’s go. I have an idea… t-take my hand, okay?” As I said this, I held out my hand to him. It shook in midair, shaking with fear and insanity and hysteria. It shook like a flag in the midst of a summer windstorm. “Tré… come -- come on, we have to go.” My voice was choked with tears as I watched him just standing there, frozen to the spot with his reciprocal of my own panic. “Tré?”

He still refused to move. I reached my hand out to him again, trying to get a hold of his hand. However, Tré was frozen to the spot, his eyes wide, shaking ever so slightly like a leaf in the harsh winds of a frozen over winter. The only motion that I could see at all were the tears that streaked down his face so slowly.

“We can do this Tré! C’mon… we have to… have to get out of here!”

“But --” Finally, he spoke. “But what if we’re supposed to die here?”

“To hell with faith, we are getting the fuck right out of here, got it?”

Tré seemed indecisive for a minute. “Come on, do you want to die here, alone, in some fucking fire or with me in glory?” I asked him.

“Decide in gloriam…” Tré whispered. To die in glory. Latin. Of course.

“Then come on!” I shouted, grabbing his hand and wrapping my fingers around his palm. Unyielding, he let me pull him out the door and down the hall, showing no remorse for anything in my way. People were yelling outside in the long hall that connected all the rooms, and I pushed and shoved my way through the thick crowd. The elevators were packed tightly, and so were the stairs.

However, the windows that lead out to the front of the building -- the hall fire escape -- was unopened and unused. Without thinking twice about it, I half dragged Tré to the window and tried opening it.

It was either locked or jammed.

Using all the force I had, I rammed into the window pane with my shoulder, glass shattering on impact and flying mostly outward. Some of the bits that had shattered were embedded in my shoulder, but I tried ignoring the pain and the bleeding as I swung a leg carefully onto the top of the fire escape ladder. Quickly, I stepped down, looking up and at Tré’s worried face through the window.

“Come on!” I mutt have screamed, for he did exactly as I had and carefully started to climb down the ladder.

I grimaced as I kept going down, warm blood trickling down my back and the wound itself stinging like all hell. To distract myself, I bit my lip hard and looked out behind the building, and sort of off to the side. The fire was just barely visible, but it was there all right. That’s when I saw people walking around it and holding up bottles of… something. Liquor? No -- even worse. Fucking lighter fluid.

They were serious about burning down the apartment.

“Tré! Faster, faster dammit!” I screamed, my voice getting scratchy from overuse and breaking with my oh so evident panic. “They’ve got fucking lighter fluid, oh god, they’re gonna burn it down, shit shit shit.”

“Quiet, stop thinking about it, just move. Get the fuck off this ladder and then… I dunno, get the hell away from here, right? Sooner we stop panicking and starting going then the sooner we’ll be away from the fire, right?” Tré said, kind of rambling by the end of the statement.

“Yeah. I guess.” My throat was so dry. “I think we’re gonna get off this thing and run like hell to… like, a hotel or something. Wait -- do you have any money?”

“No,” said Tré, and my hearts sank all the way into my intestines or something squicky like that. “But… I can hack my way into my parent’s debit card shit and get some money there. You know how they always act like I’m not there. I know a lot of shit I shouldn’t.” I could practically see his grin, which pulled on my heart painfully, so I kept hurrying down the ladder -- just so I could see Tré again and make absolutely, one hundred percent sure that he was perfectly fine.

The metal was cold beneath my hands and slick with the sweat that was freely flowing from my nervous palms and fingers. I started to bite my lip again, each step feeling more precarious than the last. I didn’t dare to look down, knowing what sight would befall my eyes. I knew that if I even thought about looking down, that I would be overtaken by curiosity and I would actually fall.

My heart raced beneath my so fragile seeming bones and flesh, ricocheting freely in a bloody ballet. It was a gory image -- but it was better than imagning me going splat at the bottom of the fire escape ladder. Or the image of me burning in this damn fire. Either way, it was the best image I could bring up.

The sount of my heart drumming in my ears reminded me of a certain short story that I happened to like a lot -- The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. It was actually really interesting -- about a man who is insane (yet periodically denies it to the reader) and kills his father or master or whatever, trying just to get away from the gaze of a hawk like eye. He smothers the older man with a bed, before chopping the man up and putting the body beneath the floorboards. The police come and the character is ever so sweet and perfect, but is slowly being eaten from hearing what he assumes is the sound of the old man’s still beating heart. In a frenzy of panic and insanity, he reveals it all to the police officers.

That was totally random, but that was also better than imagining myself going splat or burning alive.

The trickle of blood was still uncomfortable though, and even though it had mostly stopped, my wound still stung.

Holy shit, I recall wondering mentally. If we’ve been climbing down long enough for the blood to have stopped… damn, this is one fucking long ladder. Huh.

“Tré…” I muttered, panting slightly. I guess we had been climbing longer than I had thought we had been climbing (fuck, was that confusing or what). “You… have you noticed that this ladder’s pretty damn long? I mean -- I think we’re almost at the bottom… but fuck, this ladder is long.”

“Yeah. I would really have to agree with you there. I mean -- fuck -- I can’t hear people screaming up there now. I hope they’re all right… woah, what the fuck dude, no way… they’re bitches,” Tré half muttered in reply to me (and himself, apparently).

“Talking to yourself… the first sing of madness,” I teased.

“Oh, Armstrong, don’t tell me you don’t do it too.”

“You fucking bet I do.”

“So we’re going mad together?”

“There’s no one I’d rather go mad with more than you -- oh shit, and I seem to have lost my ability to speak coherently.”

“Or the author just lost the ability to write coherently.”

“True.”

We both laughed a bit as we continued downward. Everything felt so surreal and distant now, my hands numb, my back numb, and I felt permanently blinded.

That was when I felt something soft and yet solid beneath my foot, instead of hard, flimsy metal ladder. “Tré! I made it!” I screamed in joy, watching his form slowly work its way down to join me. Finally, he was next to me again and he wrapped his arms around me, kissing my forehead. “Let’s go,” I whispered, grabbing his hand and starting to walk down the road to the town, away from the fire.

“Oh. Shit. Wait… Tré?” I said as I stopped, coming to a dreadful realization that lurked like cancer in the pit of my stomach. “Tré? How the hell are we supposed to get there? I’ve walked over the highway -- well, the highway… the long one, you know, when I was walking back here from the City -- and it takes ages -- days at least. So what the hell should we do?”

“Let’s see… we don’t have the materials to hijack a car,” Tré held up one finger. “No buses go down to the City from here, or from here to that other town.” Another finger. “No car.” Another one. “No bikes.” Yet another finger. “Nothing -- but I agree, we should go to the City and disappear.”

“Um, Tré? What the hell? How the fuck are we even gonna get to the damn City?”

“We could always hitch a ride.”

I slapped him. “You moron! We couldn’t do that!”

“Well, then I’m out of ideas.”

“So ‘m I.” I let out a long sigh. “We should just try getting some cast first or something, then see what we could do. At best… we could always hijack a bus or something.”

“Naw,” replied Tré, “it’s fucking impossible to drive a bus.”

“You’ve -- holy shit -- you’ve driven a bus?”

“Yep.”

“You get cooler and cooler and crazier and crazier every time we talk, did ya know that?” I asked him, playfully hitting his shoulder before interlacing my fingers in his.

“Mmhmm.”

“Narcissist.”

“I know I am -- but what are you?”

I didn’t have a reply to that. We just kept on walking, in silence, to the bank while trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Once at the bank, Tré hacked into his parents’ balance on the ATM thingy with barely any effort. Sometimes, being ignored pays off. He shoved around three hundred bucks in his pocket before heading back out with me in melancholy silence.

We made it to the highway then, and say down on the sidewalk, sitting with our legs crossed and our elbows leaning on our knees. We sat there in silence until we suddenly saw headlights and a car coming in from the old town, headed where we wanted to go. Inexplicably, it stopped right in front of us, and the heavily tinted front window rolled down to reveal a twenty five-ish girl with Italian features and short brown hair.

“Hey, need a ride anywhere?” she asked, grinning with straight white teeth. They seemed fake.

“Um… yeah.”

What was that rule about never taking rides from strangers, again?

“Hop in. Where ya headed -- the City, per chance?” she asked. As we stood up, she looked at us and our dirty appearances. “I’m Gina by the way.”

“Billie Joe,” I answered mechanically.

“Tré,” said my boyfriend.

“Well, then, come on in!”

“Why should we trust you? I mean -- you literally just drove over here and asked if we needed a ride. Seriously.” Damn me and my suspicious curiosity.

“Well, I think we’re in a similar situation. I’m headin’ over t’ New York eventually ‘cause I killed my -- er -- boyfriend, Vinnie. First I need to go down t’ Las Vegas, though, t’ pick my… friend, Virginia,” Gina said, a sparkle of mischief and glamour in her eye.

“Really?” It was Tré speaking suspiciously now. “And how d’ we know if you’re not just going to kill us or something if you get the chance?”

“Now -- why’d I do that? You look like ya don’t have much to either of your names, huh?”

Oh, if only she knew what would happen if she killed Gloria.

“Well, um, oh God…” I muttered. It was a serious dilemma -- first of all, our fire escape, well, escape would all go to ruins if this Gina chick really did kill us. But, on the other hand, we desperately needed a ride to the City. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and it was not fun at all.

“Oh, fuck, why not,” I eventually said, nodding at Gina and grabbing Tré’s hand once more. “We are desperate… even if we’re not helpless.”

“Come on in, then.”

The back door opened and Tré and I walked in, sitting down but not buckling in. We never did, really. What’s the use if we might need to get away fast -- right?

Yep, we’re so fucking paranoid that it makes no sense -- but oh fucking well.

The drive was mostly silent and didn’t take that long to me. She played a bit of music, not too loud, but the music was good. Some old pirate station, playing some old punk stuff. Finally, Gina dropped us off outside a run down hotel -- apparently, it was cheap but actually pretty damn nice. We thanked her and watched her drive away -- away from her murder and toward her friend, all in the name of misery.

Tiredly and in a daze, we checked in and retreated to our room. Tré insisted on looking at my shoulder and reluctantly, I let him. He deemed it bad, made me take a shower, and went out to get some gauze and other similar things. Tré was back before long and he quickly -- although messily -- bandaged my arm. Once he was satisfied with the way my shoulder was healing now, we turned off the lights and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Chapter Seventeen: American Eulogy

2009-11-24T15:33:00.000-08:00

(2539 words)
(3rd POV)

It was a sad day in the small suburban town as the news of the death of two lovers spread. It wasn’t the pair themselves who were mourned -- no, it was definitely the way that they had gone out that had touched something in everyone’s hearts. Only a few people went to the funeral, but there was a certain shade of grey over everything and a raining cloud above the heads of everyone.

The first person to show up to the funeral of the two dead lovers was a twenty one year old man going by the name of Mike Dirnt. He was of an average height, and had a bit more muscle than most. His naturally brown hair was spiked in a fan similar to a peacock‘s tail, and it was tipped with blonde. A rusty old shovel was leaning on his arm, only dirtying his informal black clothing by just a bit.

The second person to show up was a seventeen year old now called Davey Havok, but who had once been called Whatsername. He was rather short for his age and sex, and he had fair skin that brought out his eyeliner outlined, dark brown eyes and dyed black hair. This attending member dressed rather femininely, wearing a flowing black shirt and just as flowing black pants over shimmery black boots. A thin arm was wrapped around the waist of the third person.

The third person to show up was the boyfriend of the aforementioned Davey Havok. This one was called Jade Puget, and although he hadn’t known the deceased, his lover had. Jade was quite tall, actually, and had warmly tanned skin, freckles dotting his face. He wore a crisp almost tuxedo. His grayish hazel eyes were also outlined by eyeliner, and were a lovely contrast to his light brown hair with his shaky blonde fringe.

A few more people also showed up after these first three. A girl by the name of Maria and her friend Haushinka. Another girl around their age hung out in the general vicinity -- she was called Taylore Mishell. A twenty something guy going by the name of Lance Shields, and another late teenaged girl who was called Kera. There was another guy standing near Kera -- his nickname was Crash, and no one knew what his real name was. There was a slightly younger girl there, too, and she was called Losty -- she was actually chatting somberly with Lance and another participant named Brighty, and yet another girl who was around the same age called Lilly. Lilly’s identical twin sister, Soundy, was also talking with Lance and Losty, seeming a bit distracted.

After these few people had entered the small, dark room that smelled of incense and sweat, a whole rush of people around their age followed. They were tightly pack now, like sardines, and the mass of black wearing teenagers looked around nervously, trying to find some shoulder, or elbow, room. They stood in a silent and not so neat line, a semi circle around a neat little coffin inscribed with Frank Edwin Wright III and William J. Armstrong -- however, colorful graffiti near the names read Christian and Gloria -- well, the nickname St. Jimmy was also there, written right below Gloria. The coffin had been insured by a certain Mrs. Wright, even though she had outwardly hated her son and his boyfriend, and even though the whole funeral was really held by the strange assortment of teens from the next town over -- not a person over the age of twenty five seemed to be there.

Before anyone questioned the entire ceremony, that certain Davey Havok pulled away from the crowd, walking over to a familiar makeshift podium that had once occupied blank space on a certain old stage. He adjusted the microphone a bit, the long skin tight sleeves of his shirt moving fluidly over his lean, pale arms. Davey cleared his throat once or twice or three times to get the attention of the mismatched group of his peers.

“Well, hello -- you should all know me, right? My name’s Davey. And, um, as our very own Billie Joe -- or Gloria -- would have said,” he spoke into the old staticy microphone, breath coming out all too clearly over the speakers. “’Dearly beloved, are you listening?’”

There was a ripple of excitement through the crowd, and Mike visibly held back tears. Davey scanned across the room, meeting everyone’s glassy eyes and biting his lip quietly. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say next.

“I’m, uh, glad ya are.” He paused, recollecting his thoughts. “I was… appointed to speak up here, ‘cause me and Billie Joe, well, me and Gloria used to be pretty close. I’m not sure exactly what to say, to be completely honest with ya. I mean -- he was a wonderful person. He’d had his shortcomings, but don’t we all? I’m sure Tré -- well, all of us know him better as Christian, really -- was an awesome dude too. And, ya-- y’know, in the end, they went out… together… I mean, it was bittersweet, huh?”

Everyone nodded, a murmur of approval at Davey’s speech going through the crowd. Encouraged by the positive appeal, Davey looked back up at them, his eyes glimmering with tears. “They were really, truly in love, I bet. They had a fight -- you probably know some about it -- but then… in the end, they were… together, weren’t they?” A few tears fell down his face. “Me and Billie Joe -- we weren’t meant to be together, ya know -- well obviously. That’s why I left him over letter and didn’t see him for two or three years, something crazy like that.”

A shock of realization rippled through the crowd, and someone shakily asked the question: “W-well, then, like Whatsername and St. Jimmy? I heard that she left him over something she called a letter bomb or something.”

Davey smiled, replying with no haste. “Yeah, you’re right, ’cause I am -- I was, anyway -- Whatsername. And yea, I’m really a guy, but can’t ya just imagine me with long, really long hair? And a lot more makeup than just this? Honestly, people…”

“So that means that Gloria -- Billie Joe, whatever -- was the Saint Jimmy?”

“He was.”

Everyone gasped and Davey stepped back, at an honest loss for words. Helplessly, he glanced over at Mike, who met his gaze and just nodded. The older of the two took the place at the podium as Davey slipped back into the crowd, next to his boyfriend Jade. Raising his hands to silence them, Mike commenced the speech. “Billie Joe -- he was really, a really honestly great guy an’ he was just trying to get by in this hell of a town, ya know? He was just trying to make sense of all the chaos in his short life… and ya know what, I don’t believe in God or anything, but I think that he and Tré should rest in fucking peace.”

The crowd cheered at this remark, making Mike grin and have to raise his arms once more to silence them. “They fuckin’ deserve it, ya know? They were two of the coolest people ever -- no pun meant on Tré’s name -- and they really fucking deserve something for all the trouble they went through for us and all their pain. I didn’t know anything ‘bout Tré’s life, but Billie Joe’s was hard -- tough as hell -- that’s why he ran away, y’know.”

Everyone nodded at him somberly. Mike went on, his voice rising in intensity. “And you know -- the riot -- the riot back there that caused all this shit to go down -- he was doing what he knew! I mean -- Whatsername -- Davey’d once said that if you’re point’s not being made, then light things on fire! It was the only fucking way he knew how to make this shit work and you know what? -- I’ll tell ya what -- it ended up killing him and his fucking boyfriend, okay?!”

Even Mike started to cry now, at least a bit. “You -- you know what? Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool were two of the bravest people I’ve ever fucking had the pleasure to know! They stood up for shit and they wouldn’t take no for a fucking answer! They -- they didn’t care what the fuck you thought about them! The only people that could hurt them were each other -- you know, the damn breakup and all -- then they got fucking killed, by such fucking cowards who burned everything down afterward! They were the real Class of Thirteen -- they were… they weren’t martyrs, they were fucking fighters. And they were brave -- so -- fucking -- brave! They were the bravest people I knew, and they didn’t run away! They would’ve come back if they were needed.”

There was a morbid, tearful cheer now.

“And -- well -- who the fuck are we?” Mike asked them.

“We are the Class of -- the Class of Thirteen!” they screamed once more to the heavens, a last tribute to their fallen leaders. “Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of nine -- teen -- sixty -- nine!”

And this time, no one gave them a disturbing peace ticket. No one told them to shut up. No one called them heathens, or anything else. They were just the Class of Thirteen then, damned as they all may have been, each of them pouring their heart and soul into these words that they screamed now. It was a last rallying cry, a last call to the leader called Gloria to save them all. It was their last hope. They were the last hope. And they were so pathetic…

Trying unsuccessfully to hide his freely flowing tears, Mike stepped down and blended back into the line as everyone present started shuffling to say their last words to the two deceased men -- to their ashes, anyway, as everything had been burnt after the shooting, and they couldn’t determine the remains of the pair who had died fighting, the pair who had died so very deeply in love.

Taylore Mishell passed by first, smiling bitterly. “Billie Joe -- well, Gloria, thanks for helping me figure my shit out. Thanks for helping me with my coming out stuff -- you were amazing at that. Thank you so much… rest in peace.” She passed by, followed by a girl called Ichigo.

“Thanks for being there, Tré. I really needed you -- well, you’d remember when… rest in peace, dude.”

A guy this time -- called Elske -- passed by and just nodded tearfully at the worn looking coffin, pale face obscured by ever lingering black hair -- rendering his expression unreadable.

And so this went on until the last person in the line stood near the coffin. He seemed to be around twenty four, and was wearing a grey tweed business suit, his general brown hair swept up under his very technical looking hat. He smiled and passed his fingers over the name of Frank Edwin Wright III.

Mike walked over to him, regarding his strange appearance. “What the hell’re you doin’ here, Mister Business Guy? Get the fuck out.”

The man looked up with a soft expression on his plain, very general face. “Oh, excuse my appearance.” His English was just right, his speech patterns boring and too regular to matter. “I was a… close friend of Mister Tré Cool’s, you see.”

“Oh? And your name is…?”

“Mr. Ian Woon,” the man stated, his brown eyes blank and emotionless. “And you are Mike Dirnt, yes?”

“So, Ian --”

“Please, call me… Mr. Ian Woon,” said the man mysteriously.

“So, Mr. Ian Woon, what was your relationship to Christian? -- well, Tré. Either way -- how’d you know each other?”

“Ah, that is -- rather classified business, sir. We were family friends, per say.”

And with that, Mr. Ian Woon winked at Mike, tipped his boring and plain grey hat, and walked away, carrying a neat looking, slim black suitcase at his side.

“There are some really weird people here, huh?” said Davey, walking toward Mike.

“Mmhmm,” Mike agreed.

“You ready to take the coffin out and bury it? I’ve got a small headstone -- Jade’s friend Adam made it -- and it’ll do for them… I think Billie Joe would have wanted something small, anyway. He never wanted to be famous.”

“I agree. C’mon Whatsername, let’s do this shit.”

Davey grabbed one end of the coffin and Mike grabbed the other, walking backwards out of the adapted room and following a well worn path deep into the very back of the graveyard. They carefully lowered it into a waiting, inviting hole, before covering it back up with all the dirt that had been dug up. Davey pointed to the small, white headstone. Its inscription read:

“Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool.
Lost, but never forgotten.
Beloved Friends, Lovers, and Vigilante Extraordinaires.
(February 17th, 1994 - July 7th, 2013) (December 9th, 1993 - July 7th, 2013)
We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen. Born in the era of humility. We are the desperate in the decline. Raised by the bastards of 1969.”

Mike smiled. “It’s perfect.”

“Yeah.”

“You ready to do the salute?”

“Mmhmm…”

“C’mon out, everyone!” Mike shouted.

And so nineteen of Mike and Davey’s closest and most trusted friends rushed out, each holding a cold, silver gun. They were somber, their eyes blank, as they circled the grave. In a circle, the twenty one assorted men and women, teens and twenty somethings, raised their guns to the sky.

“On three,” whispered Davey. “One… two… three.”

Twenty one gunshots rang out at the same time.

It was the twenty one gun salute, given to fallen military soldiers and now to those who especially deserved it. It was a tradition that had extended a long time, and it wasn’t like anyone there would remember -- all of them being high school or college dropouts, some of them never have been taught by the books. In the military, a lot of things had to do with twenty one. Now, it all had to do with the number of guns that had shot Billie Joeand Tré, the number of people who stood around their graves, and especially the nuber of the century. The twenty first century. And it was in fact, the midst of the twenty first breakdown when their fruitless war had broken out.

And the only people who had really paid were the two lovers who died in each others arms that fateful night of July the seventh, two thousand and thirteen. The two who had lasted through thick and thin, through years in the space of two months. The two who had broken up, and then had gotten back together. The two unlikely ones. The two who had, in a roundabout way, caused their own death, but the two who had meaninglessly died anyway for it.

Tré and Billie Joe.

Christian and Gloria.

Chapter Sixteen: 21 Guns

2009-11-24T15:32:00.001-08:00

(4431 words)

I walked into his room for the first time in exactly fourteen days (oh, don’t worry, I definitely counted -- I mean, every day I’d spent after the breakup, I’d put a giant black X over the date, just to torture myself -- misery does love company, you know), at the somewhat late but also regular for us hour of eleven thirty seven, post meridian. It was just like I’d remembered it, but so different, too. For one, the shockingly white carpet was actually clean for once -- clean as in I could see all of it. Along with that, the surfaces were a lot clearer. There were a few boxes in one corner of the smallish room, giving me the impression that he was moving out. The second thing I noticed was on the walls, and it was something that really drew your eye.

Large, messily Sharpied words. Poetry, really, or lyrics if you thought hard enough about it. They rhymed, and really, they had a distinct rhythm to them too. They didn’t seem all that professional, more like the rhythmic ramblings of some random teenager than the writings of an actual author. That fact in and of itself was true -- as they were some random teenager’s writings. They were mine.

The first one I noticed was from something I’d written -- really, something I’d written about my past experiences with drugs and how I stopped so I could keep going on -- called See the Light. What he’d put up there -- and I could definitely see why -- were the simple words: “I’ve been wasted -- pills and alcohol. And I’ve been chasing down the pool halls. Then I drank the water from a hurricane. And I set a fire just to see the flame. Well, I just wanna see the light. And I don’t wanna lose my sight. Well, I just wanna see the light. And I need to know what’s worth the fight.”

Don’t we all? I asked myself, reading the last line. Don’t we? Just look at what happened with you, Billie Joe -- what happened with Gloria -- with the Class of Thirteen. Maybe that would never have happened if you only knew what was worth the fight. Or maybe, you know, how to fight for something. Or what about the difference between something worth fighting for and something worth dying for?

I guess that might as well have been the question to ask me. Do you know what’s worth fighting for? Do you know what’s worth dying for? Would changing the government -- which, honestly, I don’t think I would ever have a chance at accomplishing -- be a cause worth dying for? It was certainly something that I thought was worth fighting for -- but how far did that go? I wasn’t sure how far it went -- I wasn’t sure if I would die for it, just like millions had before. I -- the same me who wasn’t just Gloria, or St. Jimmy, or Whatsername’s boyfriend, but also definitely intimate with the cause at question -- was doubting the one thing that had been my everything for, what, four years or so.

Tré, noticing that I had seemingly flown off to Wonderland in my thoughts once more, coughed. Concernedly, he said, “Billie…? Um, Billie Joe? You here?” His voice was soft and timid, and a bit scratchy as if he hadn’t used it in a while. He sounded just like I could remember him sounding, even though that seemed to be a far off memory. Despite the fact that he’d broken up with me exactly two weeks before then, he apparently missed me, seemingly almost as much as I’d missed him. I half hoped that he had felt the same pain, that same dull ache in your chest, that I had felt for those two weeks. Part of me knew he had -- well, the subconscious “oh I forgot to tell you this?” part of me, anyway.

“Yeah, I am… I’m just a little spacey today, well right now, ya know?” I answered, showing signs of life once more. “I mean -- it’s not every day that your ex-boyfriends text messages you and asks to talk things out.” Wait -- for me, that was a flat out lie. It had happened with both of my ex-boyfriends in a period of two weeks. “Well, um, unless you’re me, then Whatsername -- well, Davey -- calls ya and you end up pissing off your other ex-boyfriend.” Oh fuck. I was babbling again and I knew it. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

“That was Whatsername?!” Tré asked me, eyes wide in surprise.

“That was Whatsername,” I affirmed, simultaneously echoing him. “Well -- his real name is Davey, and ya know, he’s not really Whatsername anymore -- if ya think about it and… ‘nd all.” I sounded like a nervous freak. I sounded like I did when we first talked after the graduation, when I was torn between melting and screwing him. Actually, right then, I was in the same position as I’d been at the graduation: babbling, melting, horny, and lonely. And to add onto that, I missed Tré so much since I’d last seen him, that it almost hurt. Hell, it did actually hurt. It hurt like a mother--

“That’s kind of crazy. To add on to how crazy you and your life are already,” Tré said with a snicker. I glared at him good naturedly and shook some of my hair out behind my head, leaning against the wall near an old window. Noticing this, Tré stood up. “Here, I have a seat --”

“Don’t worry, Tré, I’m fine,” I said, smiling at him. This was already going well. Tré just shrugged and sat down in the aforementioned chair near the old, dented, stained antique mirror that was practically embedded in his wall. I shifted slightly, tucking some loose hair behind my ear, before I started speaking once more. “So… why did you call me here, again? I mean --” I paused, shuffling slightly with my nervousness. “-- you seemed pretty damn mad at me after the riot. And when I was, um, officially ending my relationship with Whatser-- Davey.”

“My head’s been a lot clearer,” Tré admitted.

“What do you mean by that?” I ventured, half expecting the answer.

“Well, soon after we, um, broke up, I ran out of Opal. I didn’t want anyone to see me out there -- out on the streets -- not looking how I was looking, anyway… not knowing hoe instrumental I’d been to the riot. So, I just laid down here and waited out the withdrawal,” Tré answered a bit slowly. He paused for a tactful moment, taking a quick breath in. “Um, it actually wasn’t all that bad -- I’ve not been using too long, and I take -- I took it in a less severe way than most -- Opal’s not meant to be smoked, ya know.” He laughed. “After that… I cleaned up my room a bit. I had nothing better to do, really. Whenever I remembered you -- our relationship -- I’d write the words -- your words -- on my walls. I, um, hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Why the hell would I, Tré?” I asked in shock and awe. “I mean -- really -- it’s a great honor. I feel… special, heh. But wow. That’s pretty amazing… I mean, I’m glad you were able to get over the whole Opal thing, ya know?”

“I’m still suffering from a bit of withdrawal symptom stuff,” he admitted.

“Oh, well. It’s better than nothing, right? It’s better than still being addicted.”

“Yeah, I’d have to agree with you there.” He sighed. “And sorry for reacting like that -- back at the café ‘n all. I was still pretty low from the Opal and shit. Just going out for ice cream and bam! Ya see your ex-boyfriend who you’ve been moping over kissing another random guy literally a week after the breakup. It kinda hurt, y’know?”

“Aw, Tré…” I said. “I really didn’t mean for it to be like that -- I mean, I didn’t mean for you to see it or anything. It wasn’t romantic. It was a goodbye kiss. It was closure, really. I wanted to make sure that we both know that it’s over… that what once was will never be again.”

“That makes sense, I guess. I mean -- I really didn’t know he is -- was? -- Whatsername. If I knew, I’d probably have blown up. Or something drastic and involving long words like spontaneous and combustion like that.”

“You know what, Tré,” I told him. “You are so cute when you’re clean. You’re all, like ADHD. And adorable.”

“No one’s ever said that,” Tré muttered darkly.

“I’m no one?!” I asked, faux hurt. “I’m hurt… I mean I just said it, too, ya know.”

“Oh, you’re definitely not no one,” he added quickly, smiling at me -- he was totally in on it, I knew it. “I just forgot about you for a minute there, that’s all.”

“How could you forget about me?! I’m fuckin’ Billie Joe Armstrong, bitch and I’m right in fucking front of you!”

Tré laughed, doubling over and grinning from ear to ear when he looked up. “Ah, and this is why I fell in love with you in the first place, Billie Joe Armstrong. Your fiery spirit and sappy poetic shit like that.”

“Awh. I love guys who complement me using flowery purple prose.” (so does the author -- it adds words, right? just like me breaking the fourth wall, like I am right here!) “I think it’s cute. You’re the cutest, though. The hottest, too. And the best in bed.” I winked at him. Tré grinned back at me, running his fingers through his hair. Damn, is he cute when he’s nervous.

“So, um, really -- it’s okay?” he asked quietly. “You’re not like, mad at me or anything? ‘Cause, I mean, I regretted it right after you left. I had a nightmare about it. I wrote your poetry on the walls -- your lyrics and shit like that. I mean, I thought it was a mistake. But I also thought that that could have been the… um… withdrawal talking, I guess.” He laughed nervously, continuing to be so damn cute.

“Not, well -- not really. I was being a serious bitching pain in the ass yesterday about us, but then again -- well, my internet bills haven’t been paid, I guess. The Class of Thirteen doesn’t trust me. I thought -- I was pretty damn convinces, actually -- that you fucking hated me. I dunno, I had serious male PMS or something,” I said, explaining the past two weeks to him in a matter of only a few run on sentences.

“I missed you,” I added in a whisper, “I missed you a lot, did you know that? You were my everything. I fell for you hard and fast and it stuck with me like a damn tattoo. I wasn’t sick of it, but… it felt like the tattoo was sick of me or something.”

Tré looked up at me, his eyes clear (however, I could see the beginnings of tears). “I missed you, too. I missed you a lot as I laid in bed, in pain and throwing up. I wanted you to hold me. I wanted to you kiss me full on the mouth and say that it would all be okay.”

“I wanted to, that whole time,” I assured him. “I wanted to hold you again, and feel your sticky, sweaty skin against mine, and I wanted you to say that you love me again. I felt like… like… I can’t even describe how it felt without you.”

Tré, smiling tearfully now, stood up. I pushed off the wall and started walking toward him, as he walked toward me. We wrapped our arms around each other, like every other time, like it was any other day before the riot and the resulting breakup. And I kissed him, and he kissed back, and it was beautiful. When we broke apart, both of us were crying just a little, of joy.

That’s when the phone rang. Tré picked it up, still holding my hand, and nodded worriedly. “Okay, um, here he is,” he said, passing the phone to me.

I can’t replicate exactly what was said in that short phone conversation to Gloria from an unnamed caller, but what was stated was, in fact, horrific. Threats. The end of the Class of Thirteen. Very damaging things about me and my mental health.

I hung up in a dreadful, thick like soup silence.

“Tré? We’re not… we’re not safe anymore. Tré… Tré, the Class of Thirteen is over. IT’s done with… it’s all my fault.”

I didn’t care that much, though, for some reason. I just didn’t.

“Well, you know what I’d have to say about that?” Tré asked in more of a statement than a question. “I think that as long as there are people who believe in this whole Class of Thirteen shit, if they believe in the Underbelly, if they believe in what they’re fighting for -- then I think that there will always be something like this. There’ll always be a Class of Thirteen somewhere. There’ll always be some sort of an Underbelly. A Whatsername, a Gloria. It’s like… it’s just a line of succession. You came after Whatsername. Now someone will come after you -- someone will be hailed as the new Gloria. It’ll never die as long as people keep fighting for this. As long as some are crazy and keep dying for it.”

“But…” I trailed off, thinking about my earlier questions. “But… how do you know what’s worth fighting for, and what’s worth dying for?”

“I dunno… it’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? I mean -- some people think it’s worth not just fighting for, but ya know, dying for this damn war. And we don’t, do we? They must feel the same way ‘bout the sacrifices in the Class of Thirteen, and ‘specially the Underbelly, right? They might think that this country, and how it is now is something t’ be protected, right? Some people do… some people really think that Bush ‘s the Second Coming… some people think he’s the Anti Christ. I mean, it boils down to opinion, huh?”

I shrugged and looked away. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Don’t worry too much about it. You can die for what you want to die for. But you can also fight for what you think isn’t worth dying for, but it is worth fighting for.” Tré paused before continuing, his voice much softer now, “Do you… d’you remember the ruins in the middle of the town after the riot? All the dead, old guns, grenades ‘n all? Did it take your breath away?”

I couldn’t reply. A few tears worked their way up to the edge of my vision.

“That’s when you figured out that the Class of Thirteen -- it’s not something worth dying for, is it? For some people -- yeah, it is. They’re the people who’ll eventually lead this kind of shit. You know, I’m betting that this was part of why Whatsername -- Davey -- quit, huh? He didn’t think that he would want to die for this -- right?” Tré asked. “At the riot -- in its aftermath, that’s when you realized that the pain… when the realization hit you that you did that all, it was your fault, the pain started to outweigh the pride, huh?”

“It… it did,” I admitted.

“You ran away… I think that part was my fault though… I mean -- I’d lied to you, huh? I told you that I’d stick with you through it all, didn’t I? Before the riot… I did. I said I wouldn’t leave you. Did that break your heart? It broke mine when I realized what I’d done. After the dream I had…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “You said that if you lost everything in the fire, you’d be sending all your love to me, right? That… that all your love… was -- it was for me, right? You said that in that one text. I didn’t quite get it, but I think I do now. That was when you first started to think about the riot, huh? And part of you… part of you know that something would go wrong.”

“M-maybe I did.” It wasn’t a lie.

“You were in ruins afterward, huh? Your mind. Your heart. You… you were worse off than me, huh? You had the guilt of the riot. You had the guilt of making me so mad at you that I broke up with you… oh, Billie… that must have been so much… so much… too much to handle,” Tré whispered, pulling me back into a warm embrace.

I looked up at him, grasping his hand tightly as we broke apart. “Then you… well, I know what happened there. You were mad -- so, so mad at me, huh? You lost all your control and kicked me out. I know it wasn’t you -- I think I knew it then, too. But… dammit, it hurt either way. We were both over thinking it, weren’t we? Your faith in me… it shattered. My faith in me, in everything I’d ever believed in then -- it all shattered too. I felt like… us… you, and me, and the Class of Thirteen… that none of it was meant to last. But… was it, now? Since were… back here, again?”

“I -- I dunno, Billie Joe… fuck, that rhymed. But I think we’re supposed to last… I mean… we would still be pissed off at each other for all this, right? We would’ve felt miserable… but satisfied, huh? I dunno. I’ve never really… this has never really happened to me… I bet… has it happened to you?”

“Not really. It was different with Davey -- with Whatsername. That needed to happen… we -- it just didn’t make sense for us to be together, I think. I mean… it may have been a lesson for us… that… I dunno. For me to not do drugs, certainly. It was, like, some sort of lesson, and um… I dunno what would‘ve become of me if I‘d never met him… you know, one of those really important events that just have to happen, you know?”

“When did you get all religious?”

“When did you get all philosophocl -- fuck, I can’t say it.”

Tré stuck out a tongue at my inability to fucking say philosophical.

“So much for your philo-fucking-sophocality, Mister Laughing at my Mispronunciationing. Fuck, that came our wrong.”

“Hm… it did.”

We just grinned at each other, kissing once more before the phone rang, again, sending shivers up my spine. We didn’t pick it up this time. It went right to the answering machine, the dark and daring message resounding through the room. It was twelve ante meridian exactly. Such a cliché and yet so perfect time to call us and make a death threat, am I right?

“Christian and Gloria… you aren’t safe anymore. They’re coming… we’re coming.” The voice was dark and dangerous with a slightly metallic hint to it, as if it was going through a soup can and some string. Well, that mixed with Darth Vader. So, basically, it sounded like Darth Vader talking through a soup can and string. “It’s the end of the road.”

They hung up.

My breath caught in my throat before I could scream, and the room started spinning.

“Oh my god, Tré.” I finally got my voice back precious seconds later, though it was a bare whisper. “Tré -- we’re -- we’re gonna die. Tré, Tré, Tré… I love you, Tré, I fucking love you.”

He sounded just as scared as I did when he replied with, “I love you too, Billie Joe. Fuck. I love you so much.”

That’s when we heard the sirens. And the lights flashed through the windows, cutting through the night and the glass like a bullet through tissue paper.

“Shit. We’re.. gonna -- gonna die, Tré.”

He nodded.

“And as Whatsername would say… then… it’s not over till you’re underground, it’s not over before it’s too late.” I paused, gulping. “It’s over, Tré, it’s too -- it’s too late.”

“Yeah. Billie Joe…” he trailed off. “Billie Joe… if there’s anyone who I’d want to die with, then… fuck, it’s you. I love you.”

A gunshot cracked the fragile silence, leaving it like broken glass as one bullet broke through the wall. It soared past us. I froze, pressing my self to Tré and crying softly into his shoulder. More bullets followed, from all over, shooting through his bed and through the walls. I heard yelling from outside the house. I heard yelling from inside the house.

“Tré…”

“I love you,” he whispered softly.

“I love you, too.”

More bullets rained in on us, shattering the glass and the mirror. Feathers dropped down from the ceiling, flying away from the bed on impact. And, somehow, we weren’t shot. I guess the guys had really shitty aim.

“I want one last thing before we die,” I whispered.

“What’s that?” he asked me.

“This.”

I stood up on my tip toes and wrapped my arms around his neck, my forehead pressing against his. Catching on, Tré wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed me flush against him. He pressed his mouth on mine and kissed me. I kissed back. The pounding of blood in my ears and our heavy breathing drowned out the sound of gunshots and the sound of bullets penetrating through the walls. One of them hit the light fixtures on the ceiling, shattering the bulb and plunging us into darkness. The red and blue lights reflected all around us on the broken mirror, refracting on the walls eerily.

Still, I deepened the kiss, adrenaline soaring through my veins at unprecedented speeds. My heart beat faster and faster and faster, pounding against his in perfect unison. Some of my hair fell in both of our eyes. We didn’t care as the seconds turned to minutes, and minutes into what felt like hours. Shattered glass and bullets lay at our feet like demented offerings to sacrilegious gods, although it was too late for all of us.

As we broke apart panting, I whispered between our close breaths: “We’re not safe anymore. I love you, Tré, and I’m so fucking glad that my last words are saying that to you.”

“I love you, too, Billie Joe. I’ll love you forever.”

I pulled him into yet another kiss, relishing our very last moments together. I didn’t care that we only had precious minutes left to live. I only cared that Tré and I were together then, in our very last moments, that we were kissing and that we were so very deeply in love them. I was satisfied that he didn’t hate me. The rest of the world could hate me for all I cared, but since Tré had forgiven me, I was just fine. Now that we were together again, nothing else mattered.

As the bullets kept on falling in there, and as we broke apart again, I looked up at him, everything blurry from my tears.

“Tré… will you still love me in the morning?”

“Forever and always baby, forever and always.”

As long as he loved me, I was going to be okay. Silently, I let go of his hand and walked to the window once more, looking out from the shattered glass. The night below was dark and showed me none of its secrets, just the heartbeat rhythm of the flashing lights and sirens. I looked back at Tré, walking back to him and wrapping my arms around him.

“If I lose everything in the fire, I’m sending all my love to you,” I whispered.

He smiled at me, trying unsuccessfully to conceal his tears.

“We’re goin’ down with a fight, Billie Joe,” he whispered in my ear, warm breath soothing over my skin. “We’re going down the same way everyone else before us did. We’re going down like the heroes and heroines before us. Our minds are clear. Our eyes are teary and we love each other.” He coughed before continuing. “I’m glad we’re together, Billie Joe, because I don’t know what I would do if we weren’t together as we died. I’d… I’d be alone if it weren’t for you. You’d be alone, too… you know that, huh? I love you, Billie Joe.”

“It is pretty fucking obvious.” Was all I could whisper in reply, kissing him once more, kissing him chastely this time. “I think… I think I saw twenty one of them. The guns, I mean. Twenty one exactly. Isn’t it weird? You know… the whole twenty one gun salute given to fallen soldiers in the military -- I mean, well, you know -- we’re like fallen soldiers too, in the military of the Class of Thirteen, dying at the front called the 21st Century Breakdown, right?”

Tré just nodded and I sighed, grasping his hand once more and interlacing our fingers smoothly. “One, twenty one guns,” I whispered to him. “Lay down your arms, give up the fight.”

Tré wrapped an arm protectively around my waist, pressing us even closer. I looked up at him once more, meeting his eyes full of fear and bravery. A few tears had already fallen down his cheeks, and I could tell that I’d been crying, too. I mean -- who wouldn’t? We were about to die, dammit, and even though we were both satisfied… honestly, who really wants to die at the age of 18? Or the age of 19? Neither of us would live to see the age of fucking 20.

One more gunshot cracked out, silencing us. “One, twenty one guns,” I whispered. “Throw up your arms into the sky. You and I.” Another one rang out -- as far as I could tell, the last one. And then -- all was silent. I was shaking, and Tré was shaking as every second that ticked by felt like an hour -- our precious last few seconds.

And before anything else could happen, before that last fragile silence could be broken by, well, anything, I whisper asked to Tré: “If I lose everything in the fire… did I ever make it through?”

Chapter Fifteen: The Static Age

2009-11-22T23:33:00.000-08:00

(2247 words)

Why didn’t he listen? Why didn’t Tré ever listen to me? Why couldn’t he just listen to a fucking word that I fucking said every once in a fucking while?!

Those three question plagued my mind as I walked back to my old house on the outskirts of the suburban hell that was temporarily my home. I wanted to know, dammit, why he was so insistent on his opinion. Why he never listened to mine. Why he seemed to think less of me… well, not that really, but more like he didn’t trust me.

I couldn’t get why -- well, I sort of could, but it was an accident.

The whole damn riot was an accident, and Tré should’ve known that. Dumbass.

It was bad enough that the only thing television and radio could be good for was static. But, seriously, our relationship was built on static airwaves of communication too. It was getting insane, this static age of really shitty communication. (fucking hell, am I redundant or what?!)

Sighing, I sat down at my desk and opened up my 10 year old laptop. The screen fizzed slightly as I turned it on, before a greenish sign came up:

"Batteries required. Please plug in your laptop or charge the batteries."

Goddamn it, I thought, grumbling as I pulled out my laptop cord and plugged it into the old hole in the wall. Little blue electric sparks cascaded in there between the metal and the outlet. I smiled as my computer booted up, smiled as the first signs of lights flicked onto it. It was perfect. I loved being on my computer, because I could just get lost in pointless internet memes and weirdness in general. It was a lot of fun to read the really, really fucking strange news articles that came up once in a while... you know, like the weird cow ones. It was also fun to browse around on Amazon for the really strange products, like the weird Jesus Milk or whatever. You know, the stuff that was supposedly Really Good and cost a whole fuckin fortune for one gallon -- more or less a hundred buck a pop.

Totally not worth it for the milk, but totally worth it for the lulz.

Wait -- you don't know what LULZ are?! You must be crazy. Like, seriously crazy... and out of touch... and you must live in a hole. I mean, I have a fucking summer home in Narnia (I'm still mostly in the closet, bitches!) but even I know about teh lulz.

Lulz is the vocalized pronunciation of LOL -- as I explained in chapter nine, "laugh out loud." And so we got teh lulz from the lovely forum of 4-chan. Which is the asshole of the whole fucking internet, but still pretty damn funny to look at -- well, unless you're looking at /b/. /b/ is scary. Really scary.

Okay, well I can't hate on 4chan too much -- I mean, we get most of our memes from there. You know, so i herd u liek mudkipz, and O RLY (and YA RLY) and LOL cats (I Can Haz Cheezburger?) and stuff. Oh, yeah, and "all your base are belong to us." And Rickrolling. And I'm pretty sure that they introduced The Game (hahahahahahahahahahah you just lost it!!! -- well, I did too... fail) and epic fail, I think. And, you know, half of the rest of the internet funnies. Like Rickrolling.

You know, if you don't know what Rickrolling is, you need to like kill yourself. Or get online more. Either or, or one might as well lead to the other... people have died of starvation while playing World of Warcraft (seriously, your damn raids are not that fucking important). But really, Rickrolling is only the biggest funny lulz ever.

Basically, someone sends you an email with a YouTube link -- saying that it's the best video ever, right? You click on it and you get...

...

"Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. The whole damn music video. It drives me batshit whenever I get one of these damn emails. Well, it's funny -- since I always make them lose the Game right afterward. It is kind of funny to watch them say "GODDAMMIT I should never Rickroll this dude ever ever again. I HATE LOSING THE GAME." And well, they better not try again... oh, yeah, don't you fucking dare steal my tactics -- I mean, they're not even mine. I got them from the author's mom... I'm not kidding. I got it from the author's mom... and so what, I'm kinda crazy... but this is supposed to get Suki to her word count today, right? Right. Back on schedule...

So, basically, the whole ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US thing came from a shittily translated Japanese video game. It was translated to fast that the fucking words got all screwed up. Resulting in a hilarious conversation including the famous (infamous?) line -- ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

By the way, all your soul are belong to us.

... back on schedule now, right?

And so, reflecting on the memes of the then current internet society -- everything from harmless things like "so i herd u liek mudkipz" all the way to painful, nightmare inducing screamer videos -- I watched as my computer turned on and glowed like a fucking orange sunset in my dark and crowded room. Oh, yes. I logged onto it -- username Gloria, password amereul-2013 -- and waited for it to load. Barely thinking, just going through the motions considering how distracted I was, I clicked the little Mozilla Firefox button and opened up my internet browser (well, everyone knows that Internet Explorer -- and Microsoft in general -- is awful) to Google.

Whoops, well, AT LEAST I FUCKING TRIED.

I came up with a "Page Not Found" blank tab thing. And looked in the corner of my computer to see the issue. Oh, great. My internet must have been shut down. Goddamn internet bills... goddamn no money... goddamn friendlessness. I barely let my friends cover my internet costs, but seriously here -- they wouldn't now since the riot. They flat out wouldn't. It stung -- and still stings a bit to this day -- how they just brushed me off like that and said "pshhh, screw you for being a fuckin' liar, Gloria. you're one smart dumbass. not." It wasn't funny. It hurt and made me sink further into my depression. I was so seriously broke and running out of minutes on my phone. Great... I'd need to get a job soon, I realized. Oh, yeah, not like anyone would hire me between the display at my graduation and the riot, and being Gloria. And I was definitely not going to the next town over just to get a goddamn job -- I mean, I was desperate, but not that goddamn fucking desperate. I wasn't crazy. Besides, they'd just turn me down, too.

Oh, sweet, sweet rejection and loneliness and heartbreak.

Sighing to myself, I stood up and walked into the so called living room, where Mom normally hung out, somewhat drunk and mostly catatonic. It was crazy how dysfunctional my family was, even though we never talked. As far as I knew, as far as I was told, my dad had died -- or killed himself, maybe -- right after he's left, when I was ten.

It was seven years ago at the time, but that coming September (September of 2013, smart people) it would be eight years.

I could almost taste the twenty year anniversary of his death, when I would be 38. Assuming, you know, I'd live to be 38... again, much more likely that I'd die at 37 than live to see 100. The drugs, the fucking up my body in general, not to mention me possible killing myself before then, or actually on then. It was crazy, but with Tré it was an escape -- I almost believed that we'd grow fairly old together, throwing hand grenades and exploding sporks at retirement homes.

Just thinking of Tré and our former, our beautiful, romance made me choke up, so I forced myself to sit down and so I laid back on the small, tattered loveseat. Oh the fuckin' irony. I was moping on the loveseat of all damn seats. Loveseats... Tré never sat there with me -- hell, he'd only been to my place once, right before the riot -- but still. Just thinking about the word loveseat -- well, love, really -- made me want to die. Or cry. Something tingly and sad that rhymed with those to words. I also wanted to throw Tré off a cliff then, but I couldn't. For one, there were no cliffs in that city. For second, he was somewhere -- somewhere I didn't know where the hell my ex-boyfriend was. And third, he was much stronger than me, and much heavier (oh, trust me, I knew by then exactly how mush pressure his weight put on me). I'd be more likely to fall off the cliff than to throw him off it.

But still. It was fun to mentally maim him for all he'd done to me.

So, trying to distract myself with news that would infuriate me in a totally different and hopefully more healthy way, I turned on the television. You see, there wasn't very much normal programming -- mostly news. Well, propaganda. Evil, evil propaganda infiltrating the faith fanatics and turning them against honest people -- you know, like me. Compared to them, I was a fucking saint.

So what, I used to be called the Patron Saint of the Denial (with an angel face and a taste for suicidal). The so called Saint Jimmy was never a real saint anyway.

I meditated on this as I watched the TV flicker on, watching as the images came into focus.

A low pitched, whining beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep sounded from the TV and I plugged my ears immediately. The noise still penetrated, reverberating in my skull, as the automated woman's voice announced that this was just a signal test. In case a riot like, you know, the one that made me lose like everything, ever happened again. To be completely honest, I'd rather have killed myself than to relive that humiliation. I hated what happened... I hated what I'd, what Gloria'd, become in the eyes of the public. In the eyes of my friends. In the eyes of my ex-boyfriend.

Of course, Mom didn't care. I was glad, because otherwise, I don't know what could have happened to me following the riot. I'd probably be forced to feel the pain of the hundreds. You know -- also known as she'd kill me. Or she'd make me kill myself. I shuddered just thinking of that. I wanted to live my life for as long as I could, because I knew that I had much shorter a time than everyone else who existed... you know, the normal people who never did Novacaine, who didn't dabble in every drug imaginable, who never threw a hand grenade or had tried to change something as drastically as I had. It was all kinds of insane, my life, and it was crazy just thinking "hey world, I lived through it all."

The TV's image was a rainbow of flickering, epileptic seizure inducing static. Rainbow static. Beautiful static in this fucking static age, where consumerism was emphasized. Where you were judged on how you looked, how much money you had -- which went hand in hand, as you could buy fancy schmancy three thousand dollar dresses with all your fucking money.

Remind me again on why I was so pissed off all the time about the state of people -- oh yeah! -- because they were materialistic bitches and judged so harshly based on how you acted, appeared, loved, looked, where you were born. They did it in the name of their gods, sometimes -- but I never got it, because weren't they taught that only the fucking Lord could judge, and that those who judged would go to Hell? Oh, wait, same God that said if you believe in him, you'd get a one way ticket to Heaven, even if you were a fucking, I dunno, serial murderer child rapist who was convicted and pleaded guilty to countless crimes that were also again common morality (and, supposedly, the Bible).

Oh, yeah, that's why I was so damn pissed off at the world. The static and the damn people.

I sighed and walked back to my room, laying down on my bed and flipping open my cell phone that was switched off. I turned it on, pressing the red hang up button till I saw images on the screen.

Low battery, read the little graphic in the corner. Yep, just like my laptop.

I sighed once more and flipped it closed, closing my eyes and. --

Being shocked back awake by an all too familiar ringtone. Tré. Dammit, why the hell would he be texting me at two ante meridian? I guessed that he'd mistyped the number, or something. It couldn't be him.

So I opened it... and it was definitely for me.
Oh shit, I thought. Oh shit. No way in fucking hell...

I groaned, and flipping of my phone, I fell asleep once more, severely pissed off and feeling like an overly hormonal girl.

Act Three: Horseshoes and Handgrenades :: Chapter Fourteen: Horseshoes and Handgrenades

2009-11-18T06:20:00.001-08:00

(2138 words)
(Davey/Whatsername’s POV)

I was looking down at the Starbucks cup that held my soy chai latte (you know, only the best things ever) when I heard the little bell above the colorful doors rig. I paid no mind to it, just staring at my neon blue painted fingernails. Quiet, unsure footsteps increased in noise as they came closer to my table. My head snapped up as that figure stepped in front of me.

“You better not be fucking around Whatsername, ‘cause I didn’t come out here for nothing.”

Whatsername… no one had called me that in years, not since I had cut my hair and actually went to high school. I knew immediately who stood in front of me, even though he looked much different.

“Of course I’m not fucking around, Saint Jimmy.” I paused. “Or, should I say Gloria, now?”

“Dammit, you’re starting to sound like Tré.”

I watched as Billie Joe Armstrong, my ex-boyfriend and now apparent equal, pulled out a chair and sat down across from me, green eyes focused beneath a shock of greasy blonde hair. Then, quietly, he spoke once more: "Why'd you call me up here? I've been kinda trying to hide out, you know."

I sighed and looked back up at him from behind my long black fringe. "You know, I just happened to be around, so I wanted to talk to you... I mean, I broke up with you over a damn letter."

"True enough," he stated calmly.

I sighed and looked up at him. “So, um…”

“What about?” he asked, and even though his voice was casual and somewhat subdued, it felt as if he was challenging me to tell him.

“Well…” I started. “I’m sorry.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I’m sorry,” I admitted. “The letterbomb… it was sent on a destructive, hateful, self protecting impulse.”

Billie Joe nodded solemnly. Silently, he pulled out a crinkled piece of worn notebook paper – a piece of paper that I immediately recognized as the so called letterbomb that I’d sent him. My eyebrows shot up, my eyes widening as I gently took the letter. This paper was indeed the letter bomb, covered in tearstains and what appeared to be dried blood. My real name was scratched out, illegible – and it seemed to be signed by only Whatsername.

“Wow, you still have this?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I do… I mean… I just can’t get rid of it. It’s the last thing I have… I had from you, you know? And you were my first real thing… my first real love. Dammit, I sound so fuckin’ sappy.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry, I feel the same way.”

“I mean --” he continued. “-- I mean, I even wrote a song after what happened… well, lyrics, a tune, but a song all the same.”

“Really…? Could you, um, sing it, maybe?” I asked.

Billie Joe sighed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s called Whatsername… obviously, heh.”

And so he started to sing it to me. It was soft at first…

“Thought I ran into you down on the street. Then it turned out to only be a dream. I made a point to burn all of the photographs. He went away then I took a different path. I remember the face but I can’t recall the name… now I wonder how Whatsername has been.”

The beat continued through the second verse stanza thing…

“Seems that he disappeared without a trace. Did he ever marry, oh, whatshisface? I made a point to burn all of the photographs. He went away and then I took a different path. I remember the face, but I can’t recall the name. Now I wonder how Whatsername has been…”

He paused for a moment, as if counting out beats or a guitar solo in his head. His singing started again, crescendo-ing to an epic sound…

“Remember, whatever, it seems like forever ago. Remember whatever… it seems like forever ago. The regrets are useless in my mind, he’s in my head, I must confess. The regrets are useless in my mine. He’s in my head, from so long ago…”

His singing voice calmed again, heading into one last peaceful declaration, directed toward me…

“And in the darkest nights… if my memory serves me right. I’ll never turn back time.” He paused. “Forgetting you but not the time…”

“You wrote that?!”

“Um, uh huh. Yeah.”

“Wow… that’s just… amazing. You’re also really, really good at singing.”

He smiled at me, sadly this time. “I’m glad you like it.”

“And, by the way, yeah. Me and Jade are, um, official now.”

Billie Joe laughed faux lightly. “I coulda guessed.”

I smiled back at him, flicking some of my long black fringe out of my face. “So, you know Billie Joe, you’re like… well… Gloria’s like the new Whatsername, almost.”

“I can tell. Did you really fail as badly as I did, your first time around?” he asked. I just nodded.

“I did,” I confirmed with another short nod.

“A thousand, like me?”

“Well, more like two and a half thousand,” I laughed, “but yeah, pretty much.”

“That’s… wow… just… wow. Heh. Yeah. I didn’t expect quite that much, but you know, yeah… couldn’t say that I really… dammit, I’m babbling, right? Not again.”

“Naw, don’t worry. It’s one of your endearing traits,” I said, smiling at him. That’s when I noticed the tired black bags under his eyes. “Don’t worry. It’s not too noticeable… I mean… well… how tired are you? Have you been sleeping okay?”

“Yeah. Well, I guess. I haven’t been able to sleep well since… well, um… since…”

“The riot?”

“You could say that,” he answered. “And I stopped taking the sleeping meds because they made me forget stuff and really screwed me up.”

“Try melatonin or something. It’s natural.”

He just smirked. “Nah, it’s fine… the sleeping pills are. Ambien. You know. Pretty damn terrible but not as bad as Novacaine, at least.”

“I can understand,” I agreed with a nod. “Well, sort of. I only really do, ya know, natural stuff… I mean…”

He laughed quietly. “You’re still that suspicious of poisoning?”

“No,” I whispered, barely audible to anyone outside of me. “I mean… you know, Novacaine’s a doctor’s medicine. You wouldn’t expect to get hooked on it, not as bad as you were.” He tensed. “I mean… you’ve made me sorta paranoid, Billie Joe Armstrong.”

“That’s just… plain… weird. I’m sorry, but… I’m more sorry to me for… um. Yeah.”

“It’s okay,” I told him, quietly covering his hand with my own. “I get what ya mean. I mean… it was pretty damn traumatic, huh?”

“Must’ve been.” He just shrugged, slipping his hand away. “I mean… I was so fucked up back then, I mean… I’m still so fucked up now but in a different way. It was bad though, really bad. This bad addiction and the other me, you know, St. Jimmy… you saw St. Jimmy more often than you saw me, didn’t you?”

I didn’t reply. But in truth, he’d practically read my mind.

“… it drove you over the edge, didn’t it? And you left. With a simple letter -- a letterbomb. Just askin’ where all the excitement went. And then you told me what I needed to hear to get better -- did ya know that? When you told me that I wasn’t the Jesus of Suburbia… that I wasn’t the Saint Jimmy either… I recognized what’d happened to me. It was a moment of clarity, brief but true. And… and before I went clean -- I…” He trailed off, looking around suspiciously. “I tried to kill myself. I thought I’d dug myself a hole so deep that I couldn’t get out of it. I took a gun. I almost shot myself. Right. Here.”

He pointed to the clear center of his left temple, and I shuddered.

“I threw the gun -- it was my gun, remember? The Saint Jimmy’s… I threw the damned gun into the water. And that’s when Jimmy died. And I was finally free. I was finally me again… and then I started home on foot, getting cleaned up on the way with a few more members of the Underbelly. Jimmy… he haunted… my steps, he followed me until I was back here.” Billie Joe smiled, pained. “Back here in the town that don’t exist… the land of make believe… the city of the dead.”

“Wow,” I breathed. It was the only thing I could say. He looked at me, then away from me, and continued describing what had happened in the three years since we’d last seen each other -- when I was just over 15, and he was on the edge between 15 and 16. Now he was 18, and I was still 17 until the coming November.

“After I fixed myself up, I went back to school. Barely finished 9th grade, scraped through 10th and 11th, barely lived to see 12th… I mean, I graduated with a fuckin’ C-, Grade Point Average of two.”

“Wow…” It seemed like it was the only thing I could say.

“I started the Class of Thirteen at the beginning of twelfth grade. I mean… I was still wondering what you’d been wondering. Where have all the riots gone?”

He directly quoted my letterbomb goodbye, and it was unnerving to hear his echoing voice, his slightly older but still the same vocal chords reading out my departure.

“If you were wondering,” he muttered, “then yeah. I’ve memorized the letter.”

I didn’t question him. It seemed like he had.

“And… graduation night. That’s when Tré came along. We got together. He became Christian. And then, after the riot…” Billie Joe just cut off abruptly. He took a deep breath in, trying to restrain tears, to no avail. They streamed quietly over his cheeks, bringing some of his eyeliner with them.

He couldn’t continue what he was saying.

I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around him, yanking him out of his chair and pulling him into a real hug.

“Billie Joe Armstrong… you know what I have always wanted but never asked for?”

Before he could answer, I answered my own question. “I’ve always wanted a real goodbye. A goodbye kiss. It’s all I need, you know… just give me this. Just give me something cold and clear. The love spent there, as I had feared, means nothing… dear…”

I pulled him into me, before he leaned up and chastely kissed me on the lips, hugging be in return. It was soft and simple, more of a courtesy than true love. It was closure, the closure that we both needed to move on with our lives. Neither of us hated each other.

“Billie Joe?” a shocked and angry, a hurt and betrayed voice asked. Billie Joe pulled away from me and turned around, just as shocked.

“Tré!” he shouted.

“What the fuck?! How -- how the hell did you replace me, so fast?” the other man, who had slightly greasy and half slicked back reddish hair and wide blue eyes, asked. “How?! I mean… just wow…”

“Tré, this isn’t what it looks like…!”

Before Billie Joe could explain, the one who had been called Tré spun around angrily on his heel and left. My once boyfriend’s expression softened, and he turned to look at me one last time.

“Give me something I can take to make the memories fade… poison kiss, remember this: I never was meant for this day,” he whispered, sliding a slip of paper into my hand and walking out, hiding his tears.

Shocked, I opened the paper.

It was the letterbomb…

“Dear Billie Joe, or St. Jimmy,

Nobody likes you, everyone left you, they’re all off without you having fun…
Where have all the bastards gone? The Underbelly stacks up ten high. The dummy failed the crash test, collected unemployment checks, he fucking only went for the ride. Where have all the riots gone? As the City’s motto gets pulverized. What’s in love is now in debt, on your birth certificates, so strike the fucking match to light this fuse.
“The town bishop’s an extortionist, and he don’t even know that you exist. Standing still when it’s do or die -- you better run for your fucking life. Because it’s not over till your underground. It’s not over before it’s too late. This City’s burning. It’s not my burden.
“Where will all the martyrs go when the virus cures itself? And where will we all go when it’s too late?
“And don’t look back.
“You’re not the Jesus of Suburbia and the Saint Jimmy is a figment of your father’s rage and your mother’s love -- maybe the idiot America.
“I can’t take this place, I’m leaving it behind.
“I can’t take this town. I’m leaving you tonight.

“xoxo Whatsername…”

Act Three :: Horseshoes and Handgrenades

2009-11-16T15:33:00.000-08:00

Chapter Fourteen: Horseshoes and Handgrenades
Chapter Fifteen: The Static Age
Chapter Sixteen: 21 Guns
Chapter Seventeen: American Eulogy
Chapter Eighteen: See the Light

Well, you missed me, kissed me
Now you better kick me down
Maybe you're the runner up
But the first one to lose the race
Almost only really counts in
Horseshoes and Handgrenades...

Chapter 13: Restless Heart Syndrome

2009-11-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

(2706 words)

I sighed as I walked through my damp smelling, dreadful and dreary dark hallway, heading toward my room. My heavy, purposeless steps echoed off those walls in a depressingly muffled way. Finally, I reached the end of the hall -- and thus, my old bedroom.

Why did Tré break up with me?

For the same reasons that I would have broken up with me.

It was the riot, the sheer number of those who had died -- it was that, plain and simple. He felt like he couldn't believe me anymore, not after what I'd done, after what I'd been the cause of. I could barely trust myself, for that matter. I still didn't know whether it was rational, however, considering the fact that he said he'd be with me through it all. How rational was Tré, and how rational was I?

I sighed and flopped down on my old, creaky, lonely bed. It felt colder and emptier more than ever now, as my only blanket was the sickening knowledge that Tré was not only a text message away. I felt so lonely and isolated now, as seconds trickled by like slow raindrops pattering on a window in April. It was simply unbearable, to be so alone now. And this was just the first stage of grief -- denial, pretending that it never happened, that we were still a couple, that we were the unstoppable Christian and Gloria, the resistance leaders Gloria and Christian.

Of course, as I stated, this stage was called denial. I was just playing make believe, hoping that if I thought it hard enough, that it would become real. That is a reasonable enough belief to hold, honestly, but I knew it wouldn't work on me, for I was far less attuned than most people, and I could tell that it wasn't going to help me. It was useless to hope for something you knew would never happen.

He'll never really get what is wrong with you, said the majority, booming, pessimist side of my mind. He'll never understand.

I agreed with my brain just then, as my heart was telling me to do the impossible -- to go back to his house and try to make amends, or at least patch it up enough to be a so called friendship. It seemed to not know the fundamental rules of all breakups, gay or straight:
1. Don't try talking to each other until at least a month has passed.
2. Don't try to be friends; and
3. Don't try to get together again.

Well, at least I didn't just disappear like Whatsername had. At least I was still around, albeit reluctantly. At least I didn't leave him a good bye and or breakup letter (make that, letterbomb) and just go away. I wanted to go away, but I really couldn't, not then. I couldn't leave until the news of the riot had passed and I looked sufficiently unrecognizably different.

I sighed and stood up, my legs and arms feeling like they were rusted in place, and stepped out of bed onto a pile of thick clothing. Thick, dirty, clothing. Deciding that the shirt I'd been wearing for the past twenty four or so hours was ruined enough already for it to be worn while dying my hair, I kept it on as I trudged out of my room. I slid my bloody, torn, half burnt jeans off as I did so, deciding to just go through with it half naked. I didn't particularly want to wear them anymore, anyway. I could just remember Tré's rough hands running up and down the dark denim as he kissed me.

I shuddered as I stepped over... well, I don't know, but I stepped over something big and dark in the hallway as I walked down to the ever familiar bathroom. I turned right mechanically, opening the door and flicking on the light. In front of me stood the shower and to the left of me was the sink and toilet. It was a decent bathroom, not too clean, but not too dirty either. I reached under the sink and grabbed, at random, a small, unopened box of hair dye.

Just my luck -- it was blonde and blonde was the stark inverse of black (like my hair was at the time). It would be perfect to conceal my identity with. To just let my hair grow out a bit and to have it be blonde. Not spiked black hair. Smooth blonde hair and much less makeup than before. No one would recognize me as either Gloria or the Saint Jimmy if I walked around randomly. It was the perfect disguise, and from then on (I decided) I would be just Billie Joe Armstrong.

Smiling to my reflection, I opened the box and pulled out the bottle of peroxide. Shaking my hair a bit, I decided to take a quick shower to not just wet it, but to get the hair gel out. It was a good idea, really -- it would be awkward trying to dye my hair if it was stiff and very dry, not to mention quite greasy and covered with sweat at the nape of my neck.

I turned on the water, letting it flow and warm up, as I undressed. All I had to do, really, was pull off my tee shirt and yank down my boxers.

It felt weird to be naked in my own house again. To be naked and very much alone, here.
I felt vulnerable and still very lonely.

The good thing about showers was that no one could tell if you were crying in a shower. I pulled the curtain aside and just stepped in, feeling the hot water run over my skin and wash off the caked on dirt, my sweat, and the mixed blood of myself and others from the riot. I put my dusty, soot covered hands under the stream and watched them as the black stuff slid down the drain, watching as the marks I'd received in the riot were cleaned up and watched as my dark but somehow still pale skin was slowly revealed under the shower.

I smiled as it all went down the drain, smiled as the blackish reddish brown gunk drained out of the small pool at my feet washed down the drain, swirling slightly and leaving no mark. I smiled as the marks of that damned, bloody day washed away. I smiled as the marks of my martyrdom slid off my arms and cycled down into the sewer. I smiled and I washed clean.

However, it was a bittersweet and lonely smile as I remembered being alone. It was almost as if I had been pretending that Tré was next to me as it all washed away, that in a minute, his arms would snake around my waist and I would turn around and kiss him and we'd have sex right there, under the stream of hot water. I remembered that that was unlikely to happen anymore, that I'd probably never see Tré again, that I would be alone again... alone for what felt like the rest of my life. A few tears, cold against my water warmed cheeks, slid down and into the drain, followed by a whole stream. I choked and coughed and tried to breathe through my sobs as the water around me slowly grew colder. I could tell, from the limpness of my hair, that all the gel was washed out, but I didn't care and I just stood under the spray. As my sobs grew in intensity, I sank to my knees.

Now, the water seemed to be at its coldest, but I didn't care. Nothing could be warm again unless Tré was there with me, either in body or in spirit. I could feel the water falling over my skin and splatter onto the floor like blood from an open wound, but I could really care less. I just stood there, feeling sorry for myself.

Once my sobs had subsided enough for me to stand up without my legs giving out on me, I stood and turned off the water. I stepped out from behind the closed shower curtain, being hit by a wall of sudden cold wind. I shivered but ignored it, quickly drying myself off with a probably dirty towel and putting my shirt and underpants back on. I dried my eyes as much as I could and walked back over to the mirrored sink, picking up the hair dye and opening the first bottle.

Hair dye smells terrible.

Carefully as I could with my shaking hands, I mixed it all together into a small bowl that I kept in the bathroom for that specific purpose. It was a creamy off white color -- and once it was in my hair and set and everything, it would be perfect. Wiping my eyes once more with the sleeve of my black shirt, I put on the two flimsy gloves. I carefully started to smear the dye into my dark (for that moment) hair like I would with shampoo, conditioner, or any odd mix of the two. It smeared in quietly and as soon as I finished putting it all in, there was none left and I made sure that I got all of my hair. I stood there and waited for what felt like the sufficient ten minutes, and I was sure that it was.

Smiling even though I was about at the edge, I turned the shower back on and grabbed the tiny bottle of conditioner that was specifically for hair dye setting in stuff, I stripped once again and stepped back in, washing the excess dye out. Once it had all drained out, I took off the gloves, watching them hit the ground with a sickening splash. Then, I ran the conditioner through my hair, pouring the bottle of white stuff through each strand and coating it all in whole. Once I thought it was good enough, I waited for about five minutes, quietly singing to myself. I washed it out then, running my fingers through my hair and making sure it was all out.

The water was frigid, but I didn't care.

Once it was all out and my hair was perfectly clean, I stepped out of the shower and dried off once more, with the same dirty towel, and then used an old, holey washcloth to wrap my short hair with. I got dressed once more before in the boxers and the white splattered black shirt before stepping in front of the mirror and letting my hair down.

It was perfect. I looked different -- in fact, I could barely recognize myself.

I smiled once more, feeling a bit more confident, before running my fingers through my still wet hair. I put all the hair dye stuff back in the box, only lightly closing the bottle, before switching off the light and walking out. I shut the door and went into the musty old kitchen, throwing the stuff away.

Did you know that if you close a bottle of mixed hair dye, the chemicals and gases and stuff trapped in there will make it explode? It's true -- I've seen it before, it's not pretty -- and so I'm always careful to make sure that it will not explode.

Confident that the used hair dye would not explode, I walked back to my room, almost tripping over the thing that was barricading the hall -- just an old box. I vaguely wondered what it was doing there.

I laid back down on my bed, wet hair spread around my face like a halo. My pillow slowly soaked up the water as I closed my eyes and thought over the day.

Tré... he was a fucking moron for having broken up with me. I couldn't believe how easily he went back on his words. Fiery rage against him ripped through my veins and I shot up, looking around the dark room. Stumbling to my door once more, I just turned on the light and looked around the room for a sufficient murder weapon. My head suddenly cleared and I recognized what I was doing.

I was still mad at Tré though, mad that he could just abandon me like that. Mad that he wasn't there right now, helping me through my self loathing. I was mad that he was just as mad at me as I was at myself. I grumbled incoherently, sitting down at my desk and pulling out some loose paper.

I determined then that he would never really understand me. He... would... never... ever... understand... what I had gone through. Between trying to get my hands on anything I could to Whatsername leaving me, to having no parents, not really, and always being alone... he would never understand, he could never comprehend what I had endured and what I still endured every day then.

It felt impossible, since he caused me so much pain.

It seemed impossible.

I stood up and walked to my small dresser. I picked up a small container of sleeping pills and grabbed two. Two. Just two... I really, honestly did not want to kill myself. I was upset, but I didn't want to die.

I sat back down at my desk, grabbing a pencil and putting it to the paper.

The burning still raged through my veins, from my heart. I still couldn't sleep. Not yet.

It was half angry, half soft, half blaming him and half blaming me. It was what I decided to call Restless Heart Syndrome. I smiled to myself... yes... and started writing down my feelings.

"I‘ve got a really bad disease. It‘s got me begging on my hands and knees. So take me to emergency, cause something seems to be missing. Somebody take the pain away… it‘s like an ulcer bleeding in my brain. So send me to the pharmacy, so I can lose my memories.
“I‘m elated, medicated. God knows I‘ve tried to find a way… to run away…
“I think they‘ve found another cure for broken hearts and feeling insecure. You‘d be surprised what I endure… what makes you feel so self assured?
“I need to find a place to hide -- you never know what could be waiting outside. The antidote that you might find… it‘s like some kind of suicide.
“So what ails you… is what impales you. I feel like I‘ve been crucified… to be satisfied.
“I‘m a victim of my symptom. I am my own worst enemy. You‘re the victim of your symptom. You are your own worst enemy… know your enemy."

It was perfect... it was just how I felt. I scribbled down a title to this half poem, half song at the top of the paper... I called it Restless Heart Syndrome, just like the disease that I thought, that I knew I had.

I smiled to myself, sadly, bitterly, I smiled over the paper as the tears began to fall again.

It seemed impossible, but I still loved him.

As the sleeping pill started to take effect, I stumbled over to my bed and collapsed, my thoughts drifting off to sleep.

And yet, I still loved Tré.

*

I awoke the next morning, groggy and still depressed. I was only half awake then, and I had temporarily forgotten why I was so damn upset.

My cell phone was next to me, on for who knows what reason, showing low battery -- and a new text. I plugged it in and opened it, looking at the text.

The sender was Davey Havok, a name that sounded only half familiar to me. The message itself read: “Billie Joe -- meet me at the ice cream parlor café thing, next Monday (July 1st). 4 PM. We need to talk. xoxo Whatsername.”

Oh, yeah. Whatsername’s name was Davey. I knew that.

I shut down my cell phone after setting the date on its internal calendar. I was still groggy and depressed, but half awake so I decided to just wake up for the day.

Then I remembered why I was depressed, groaned, and laid back down, effectively falling asleep.

Chapter 12: Viva La Billie Joe? (Little Boy)

2009-11-16T15:29:00.002-08:00

(2682 words)
(Tré's POV)

As I walked into his room, I could see him shying away from me, as if knowing what I was going to say, as if knowing how fucking pissed off I was. Quietly, cautiously, he looked up at me, his normally clear and calm green eyes dark and cloudy, not to mention bloodshot. Thick rivulets of eyeliner ran down his cheeks, like the black tear mark like images on the face of a cheetah or other large cat. I glared at him for a moment, before he looked away from me and sighed silently, to himself.

"Tré..." he muttered faintly.

"Billie Joe." My voice was certain, hard and stony as I confronted my ex-boyfriend to be.

"W-well, that went pretty badly, huh?"

"Damn right it went pretty badly. Pretty bad is a fucking understatement, in fact. You know that, don't you, Gloria?" I called him his alias almost mockingly, too tired to truly mock him but too angry to say it softly.

"I guess..."

He started fumbling with the hem of his dark and burnt at the edges shirt. At the edge of his ragged sleeves, I could see the hardening red scabs.

Serves him right, I thought as I looked at him. He's a wreck. He deserves it, what, for killing all those innocent and gullible people.

He looked up at me once more, biting his lip nervously, his eyes glassy with tears that were about to fall.

"This was all your fault. You know that, right?"

"Y-yeah. I know that. I know it so damn well. It's all my fault... I can't--!"

I cut him off quickly. "Can't what? Can't believe it? Well, I sure as hell can't believe that you could actually do this! Where the hell did you get the idea to do this?" I was almost yelling now as I said that. "Why did you go through with it?! I mean -- what the hell? Seriously... I thought that you were a peacekeeper, not a fighter. I thought that you wanted to fight fire with --!"

"Fight fire with a damn riot," he muttered darkly. "And for the fucking record --" His voice was bitter now. "-- it was Whatsername's idea. He was the creator of the Underbelly, and all... he's my inspiration..."

"Oh, let me guess, you've fucked him, haven't you?"

Billie Joe glared back at me and stood up, fire in his reddened eyes. "You don't know the fucking half of it!"

"So I was right?" I asked him smugly.

"Fucking hell you were right. And you don't even know what happened!"

"I figured out you used to be the Saint Jimmy tonight -- actually, I didn't know that, till I talked to your old buddy, Mike. Dirnt. You know him, don' t you? I asked him about you when everything started falling apart at the riot. He told me. He told me that you were the one who drove Whatsername over the edge--"

"Shut the fuck up!"

I ignored him. "And you made him break up with you over a letter, right? Didn't you?"

"So what if I did? Back then -- you don't even know what I was on back then!" he shouted back at me.

"Novacaine, hm? Wasn't it, Billie Joe?"

"So what if it was? It's not nearly as bad as, I dunno, smoking fucking Opal!"

"Novacaine, right to your arm. Injected, right there, right?"

I grabbed his arm and turned it over, looking at the scars -- the tracks, really -- that ran up and down his veins. Roughly, I ran my fingers over them, even as he cried out in pain. "So it was true. I never thought that I'd meet someone nearly as crazy as I am, but apparently I've found him, and his name is Billie Joe Armstrong. He stands right now in front of me, and he's about to become my ex-boyfriend and all out fucking good times are going to be swept into the closet with our pictures."

I dropped his arm then, disgusted. "I can't fucking believe you. I thought you were a good person."

Billie looked back up at me, his tears dangerously at the point of spilling over. "I thought you were, too. You also supported this idea at the meeting the other day! Or do you not remember, Mister Tré fucking Cool, the guy who smokes Opal with his pot!"

"Oh, yeah. Right. I was going with it because in theory, it's a great idea. Isn't it?"

"It worked for Whatsername!" he argued, his voice torn between a sob and a full out angry scream.

"And what was Whatsername, I wonder?! Was Whatsername a fucking con artist, like you seem to be? Was he a fraud? How do you know that he was really for real? He never revealed his actual gender, did he? I bet you never knew his real name, did you? Did you?!" I screamed back at him, my hands curled into fists at my sides.

"I knew it!"

"Knew!" I yelled. "You knew it, but do you know it now?! No?" When he didn't respond, I just added, "Well, that's what I thought. You obviously don't remember his real name, like I won't remember yours. You'll become a face without a name in my hall of nameless photos of good and bitter times."

"Oh fuck you!"

"I wonder what happened to our plans to do exactly the same thing tonight, Mister I'd Gladly Fuck You."

"I wonder who started this damn argument in the first place!"

"Oh, really? Well -- I wonder whose grand idea it was to go out with a bunch of random teens, some hand grenades, and a few guns. You know, just to have some fun, right? To try and make a fucking difference?" I glared down at him. "I really wonder whose fucking idea it was to stop being a pacifist and burn half the damn town down!"

"Whatsername's idea, moron! Have you been fucking listening to me?!" he screamed back. Spurred on by the adrenaline (and other substances) flowing through my veins, I started to yell back at him.

"And Whatsername was a faker. He wasn't a saint. He was a whining martyr, hanging from his self-made burning cross and heading to his own self made destruction!" I screamed, stepping forward quickly and glaring at him eye to eye.

"What the hell are you saying? Whatsername --" Billie Joe's voice caught on saying Whatsername. Like always, it seemed. "--Whatsername was the most sincere fucking man I've ever met... I thought you were, but as far as I can see -- you're not!"

"What the hell are you saying, Armstrong?"

"What the hell do you think I'm saying?!"

"I think you're fucking defending a charlatan masquerading as a saint, huh?" I asked him, still screaming.

Billie Joe glared defiantly up at me as I accused his former boyfriend -- or, well, as far as
I could tell, his former boyfriend and possibly his only other outside of me -- of being a fake. I didn't believe it, of course, but then again, I was trying to reduce him to tears over this. I was so mad at him... I was so mad that I honestly didn't know what to do outside of taking it out on him. The cause of my misery, it appeared.

He looked up at me for a few more seconds, before his glare turned into more of a softly questioning stare. Quietly, slowly, he fell back onto the bed -- my fucking bed -- and buried his head in his hands, sobbing frantically, which was exactly what I had wanted.

"Little boy, why are you crying?" I spat. "It's all your fault this happened. You know that. I know that."

He didn't reply, he didn't even look up at me as he kept sobbing.

"Little one, your soul's just purging... of love and razor blades, your blood is surging."

Softly, demurely, in a way totally unlike him, he stood up and started walking across the room. "It's just like when he -- when Whatsername broke up with me, huh? I must have been screaming at him like this. I must've passed out drunk, and he must have written me that letter -- the letterbomb. He must've hated me for what I'd become. He did. I'm sure he did."

"I'm not surprised! It's so easy to fucking hate you and all your fucking guts, Saint Jimmy. Not much of a saint, are you now?"

"I'm surprised to be in the position he was in then," Billie Joe whispered, leaning against the closed door, looking down. Tears still streamed down his face. "It's a lot worse than I thought it would ever be. It is... it's so... I feel so hurt, Tré -- I'm beyond hurt, in fact. I thought you were the one, even more so than I thought that Whatsername was the one."

I ignored what he was saying. "So what? So... fucking... what?!"

He didn't reply.

"I guess you know how I feel. Betrayed. Angry. Like killing the person who stands in front of you, like killing the one you once loved dearly. It's that bad, isn't it, little boy? Isn't it, Gloria? Isn't it, Saint fucking Jimmy?"

"Yeah. I do..." His reply was barely over a whisper.

"Huh. So I guess you can see why I'm so mad at you."

"I guess you can see why I'm so mad at myself."

"I can see it, in fact -- it's written all over your damn face, little one."

"Little one? What the hell?"

I ignored his question. "Is it your calling to follow the charlatans and saints? You seem to love them. You worship them, don't you?"

"I don't." He didn't even say that, he mouthed it. I could barely see what he'd been saying, but I could just barely make it out.

"Hmm... really?"

Billie Joe nodded once more, tears still falling down his face.

"You're one of them, now. Everyone looked up to you. I did, too, and you deceived all of us... looks can be deceiving, huh? They sure can be deceiving... it's your escape, isn't it?" He still refused to reply to me. "It's like a lifeboat, built of deception and lies, or trickery and blood. Without rhyme, without reason."

He looked up at me now, and I looked directly into his bloodshot eyes. "Your bloodshot eyes will show your heart of treason."

"I didn't want anyone to die, Tré --!"

"You dirty liar. You're... you're -- you're just a junkie preaching to the choir. Run away now, won't you? You coward."

"At least I'm not saying my final goodbye in a damn letter."

"So what? You're just the same as Whatsername was! You're a coward. Except you gave up far too easily. You lied to us, then you gave up right away," I answered his challenge quite darkly.

"I was planning on staying over here tonight. But, you know..." He looked at the door, then back at me. "I might just go back home."

"That's your only option."

"Oh, is it really?" he asked sarcastically. "I really had no clue."

"You're not welcome here anymore."

"I'm fucking glad!"

"Well, so am I."

Harshly, Billie Joe flung the door open and turned away from me and muttered something that I could just barely hear. "There is no place like home... when you've got nowhere to go."

"Oh yeah, I'd agree with that."

"Bye, Tré, have a great life. I used to love you."

And as he said that, he ran out and slammed the door shut, leaving me aslone. I could hear his angry footsteps down the hall, and the sobs that started to tear from his throat as he left my shoddy apartment. At the pit of my stomach, I could feel the beginnings of regret. I shook it away and walked over to my desk, grabbing a black Sharpie and going to the plain, off white wall.

"Remember to learn to forget..." I murmured. "Whiskey shots and cheap cigarettes."

As I said that, I wrote it down on the wall. His words, on my wall.

It was the beginning of an obsession. The words from what I assumed was some sort of poetry that he once wrote was a reminder to forget him.

After I wrote that on my old wall, over peeling paint, I threw the foul smelling Sharpie to the ground and lay down on my bed and stared up at the popcorn ceiling, my thoughts drifting between angry, pensive, and slightly guilty. I wasn't sure if the guilt was from breaking up with him, or from actually being part of the riot in the first place, but I still felt guilty.

Eventually I fell asleep, dreaming of atomic bombs and a sinisterly cross-dressed Billie Joe. His spindly, spider-like arms were wrapped around a further demented version of Whatsername. Billie Joe, his freakishly vampire pale face made up in darkened pastel colors, grinned at me with a sickeningly sweet and sharp smile. Slowly, he turned back to Whatsername, and they kissed.

Behind them, a bomb went off in a rainbow of twisted colors, all bleeding into each other like a wound or a sunset. Billie Joe and Whatsername just deepened the kiss, twisting around each other. My former boyfriend's bright leather boots reached up under his short denim skirt, the skirt melting into a black striped dark hot pink shirt that was underneath a familiar leather jacket. However, the jacket was cut and now only reached just below his arms.

In sharp contrast to Billie Joe's more modern appearance, Whatsername was dressed traditionally, in a gothic style. A flowing black skirt pooled around his ankles, glimmering in the harsh light with what appeared to be silvery spider webs. He also wore a thin black corset, and long, curly black hair spilled over his shoulders and down his back.

Their kiss lingered, as they ripped at each other's mouths, alternating between soft and forceful. It was more than I could bear, even before people I recognized as the dead from the riot started running around the pedestal upon which Billie Joe and Gloria stood. Mike -- who hadn't died at the riot -- walked out from the crowd, blood dripping like sweat into his eyes.

"It's like I told you, huh?" he whispered, his voice like a raspy dead leaf. "He's Saint Jimmy. And that... next to him, that's Whatsername. He was only the best... the best, and still he failed before.

Everything faded to something cold and black, and then in front of me stood my now ex-boyfriend, dressed the same as he had been before, except his hair was now a shocking whitish blonde color. His red lips moved.

"That's what you get..." a voice whispered from between those deceitful lips. I recognized it as my own, my own voice from my abandoned love's lips. "That's what you get... what you get..."

The nightmare version of Billie Joe walked toward me, black mascara tears running down his cheeks again, red rivers of blood spurting frantically down his arms from his wounds. He reached out, and he leaned toward me, leaning in for a kiss.

"Remember whatever... it already seems like forever ago... so long ago... the regrets... are useless... in my mind... from... forever... ago..." Billie Joe whispered into my mouth. I recognized it as a tentative song he'd shown me, about a past love, about betrayal. "From so... long... ago..."

He leaned in further, pressing his lips to mine...

And before my subconscious could reveal anymore cryptic wisdom to me, I awoke in a cold sweat. I stood up and grabbed the Sharpie again, writing the word's he stated on my wall, opposite from the poetry I'd already written.

"Remember whatever, it seems like forever ago.
The regrets are useless in my mind.
He's in my head, from so long ago."

I capped the Sharpie and laid it down on my bedside table, before laying down myself.

And still, Billie Joe's distinct smell lingered on my sheets.

2009-11-16T15:29:00.001-08:00

Chapter 11: Murder City

2009-11-16T15:26:00.000-08:00

(2011 words)

“I can’t believe it! Can you, Billie Joe?” asked a half drunk and somehow familiar sounding voice from a few feet behind me. I looked up from the blood soaked, shrapnel littered ground and turned around to see who had been talking to me. The man was tall, and he had tannish skin, bright blue eyes, and spiked blondish brown hair. A slightly rusty, bloody shovel was half dug into the ground, leaning against his arm. He smiled at me, revealing yellow and crooked teeth. The man wore torn jeans over imitation army combat boots, a spiked belt looping around his waist. Half tucked into his jeans was a black tank top that was splattered in mud and blood. Dangling from his other arm was a reddish brown bottle of some liquid, its label torn off.

Mike… it was Mike Dirnt, who I’d known a few years before then. The Mike Dirnt who had a rock and roll life (including a girlfriend, a car, a house, and probably even more). The Mike Dirnt who I schemed with about running away from suburbia, to the City. The Mike Dirnt who I’d never loved but who had taken my virginity all the same.

“Ohhh Billie?” he asked me, since I appeared to have flown off to Wonderland or something. I snapped back into focus upon hearing my name once again. “Billie Joe Armstrong are you there, man?”

“Holy fuck. Mike?!” I exclaimed upon realizing all that stuff above.

“Who else could I be?” His smile turned cocky and he started half leaning against his shovel.

“I haven’t seen you in ages, man!” I was faking happiness at this point. It was hard to actually be happy when you just, basically, killed hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of people. “I thought you were still in the City with Alice or whatever the hell her damn name was. You two were gonna get hitched, right? And what the hell is up with the damn shovel? The damn bloody rusty shovel?”

“Eh. You know, stuff happens ‘n all. Oh! The shovel?” I nodded. “It‘s my Traveling Shovel.” He said it in a way that made it sound Very Important. “I use it to kill people… but how have you been, anyway, dude? I mean -- like, you’re the new Whatsername.”

I ignored the strangeness of his shovel and answered his question. “Well, you know, good, I guess. I have a boyfriend now. His name’s Tré… you know him as Christian, probably. We’re together.”

“Oh yeah, I know him. Didn’t know you two are together though.”

“I may be the leader of the Class of Thirteen, but my private life is actually private -- not all public like Whatsername’s was.”

Mike smiled again in reply. “Yeah. You know, he’d be really proud of you. Whatsername -- he would be so proud of what you’ve done, taking inspiration from him and all. I think that D--”

Mike was cut off as Tré wrapped an arm around my waist. “Hey, Gloria. Let’s go back, okay? I’m getting kinda tired.” That close to him, I could hear the strain in his voice. He was struggling to keep his cool (pun not intended) just as I was struggling to keep from crying. I nodded and forced a smile.

“See ya, Mike.”

“See ya, St. Jimmy!”

I cringed as he used my former alias, waved, and simply walked away with his shovel -- I mean, of course, his Traveling Shovel. Thankfully, Tré didn’t seem to have heard it as he half dragged me back to the bike and climbed on. He gestured for me to follow suit, and so I did, and in silence, we left.

As we passed the city limits and rode down to the highway, I could hear the old church clock striking midnight -- I even counted, twelve times exactly -- from the center of the town of murder and depravity.

*

I sat on Tré’s bed, my face buried in my hands as I heard my boyfriend sob from beyond his closed bathroom door. A few tears of my own streamed down my face and left black streaks of bleeding thick eyeliner. My legs were crossed in front of me, just about dangling off the side of the bed; my elbows were leaning on my protruding knees. Everything felt like it was spinning around me -- mental vertigo, almost -- and I felt like throwing up. How could it have all gone so wrong?

I saw people killing others, explosives going off in the midst of the crowd, firearms firing out of control. People had died, and it was because I told them to go out and protest with all they had. People had been arrested, because I told them to try something different. I hadn’t been arrested -- no one wanted to rat me out, no one had wanted to reveal who their leader truly was. I didn’t know whether to be proud of that seeming loyalty, or further sickened by what I had caused.

Death. Destruction. Demolition. I felt like a corrupt military leader or something, leading my followers into the death match ahead. I was leading them in blindly, making them drink the poison fuckin’ Kool Aid rip off shit and die. The casualties, as I later learned, were somewhere in the 300 to 500 area. And it was all my fault.

Well… maybe it wasn’t, but I certainly must have been desperate, sleep deprived, and out of my mind when I decided to go through with it.

I guess I did it because of a conversation I once had with Whatsername, only a little while after we first met.

“You ever feel totally fucking useless, Whatsername?” I had been using his real name at the time, but I eventually forgot what he was really called.

Whatsername just pushed some of his long, curly, black hair behind his shoulder. “I do sometimes. That’s when I know that I have to switch tactics. That’s when I know what I’m doing’s not working.”

He looked at me, dead serious, a determined and somewhat grim look in his dark brown eyes, and said words that would inspire me to do what had caused so much devastation:
“When in doubt… when you think that what you’re trying’s not telling people something… when that happens, light things on fire. Destroy things and make a point. Make a statement.”

“That works?”

He just shrugged and added nonchalantly, “Well, it’s always worked for me. Just look at the Underbelly, we destroy things all the time and we definitely get our point across, don‘t we?”

“I guess you guys -- well, we, really -- do. It makes sense.”

“It just has to be organized and it has to have a reason. I’ve learned -- trial and error, it’s the best judge, really.”

I noticed the pained look on his face as he said that. “Whatsername? You okay?”

He smiled at me. “Don’t worry, Billie Joe. I’m fine.”

“Okay, good. ‘Cause I don’t want my new boyfriend to be upset,” I said, standing up and walking toward him. Quietly, I hugged him and we kissed.

He had been holding on my heart like I held on to a hand grenade, and I really didn’t care too much at the time.

I sighed and looked up and around Tré’s room. What I really needed then was a cigarette. My nicotine addiction was kicking in with stress, and I was getting antsy. I was about to crawl out of my fucking skin with anxiety. Insomnia had taken over my brain, and it felt like my mental vertigo had become real vertigo. Everything was spinning.

So what, this was a No Smoking building. Tré always smoked there. He smoked more than cigarettes -- much more than cigarettes, you know, marijuana. And, of course, as he had been seriously addicted then, Opal.

I found one at the bottom of my pocket, old, but still, I took the only comforts that I could find.

I really killed that many people. People had killed people in my name. Was it really Viva La Gloria now? Were we really fighting fire with a riot, now? Were we really the Class of Thirteen -- or just masquerading as the Class of Thirteen while trying to be a bad imitation of the Underbelly? Was I just a Whatsername rip off? Did I really screw up that badly?

I didn’t want to be Gloria anymore. I didn’t want to be Billie Joe Armstrong. I didn’t want to have ever existed. I wanted it all to be a bad dream.

I felt useless. We didn’t get our point across. We organized meaningless, random violence in the name of the Class of Thirteen.

There went any credibility I had left in me. I could almost hear it soar over my head.

I closed my eyes and leaned back, onto the wall behind his bed, as I took another drag of my cigarette. It didn’t help.

Nothing would help.

I knew that Tré was just as upset over this, and his anger was most likely directed to yours truly. I was in for something rough.

Now I was full out crying, as silently as I could, trying not to hurt myself as I did so. I’d already hurt too many people that night. I’d ruined families. It was terrible.

How had Whatsername dealt with this? All this fucking guilt and misery. How did he do it? In his entire career with the Underbelly, thousands had died. Under his command.

How. Did. He. Do. It.

I sighed and dried my tears on my now slightly charred black shirt, leaving wet black marks on it with smeared eyeliner. A few slowly healing cuts now accented my arms, lacing between my tattoos.

I was so fucking mad at the world just then. I was so mad at myself for screwing up so badly.

I was so useless. We were so desperate. And it was all wasted.

We were desperate, but not exactly helpless. Desperate, but for the majority of the then diehard members of the Class of Thirteen, certainly not hopeless.

I sighed again and grabbed a piece of paper. Murder City, I called this poem… a poem that I might have been able to turn into a song.

“Desperate, but not helpless. I feel so useless in the murder city. Desperate, but not hopeless, the clock strikes midnight in the murder city.
“I’m wide awake after the riot, this demonstration of our anguish. His empty laughter has no reason, like a bottle of your favorite poison… we are the last call, and we’re so pathetic.
“Christian’s crying in the bathroom, and I just wanna burn a cigarette. We’ve come so far, we’ve been so wasted. It’s raining all over our faces… we are the last call… and we’re so pathetic…”

As I wrote that last line, I heard the bathroom door open and shut again. Hesitant footsteps crawled through the hallways. The door to his bedroom opened, and there stood Tré.

He looked like a mixture of angry, morose, and just plain depressed.

And he certainly didn’t seem happy with me.

I was in for it, that was one thing I knew for sure.

And it was all my fault for going with what Whatsername had said.

Maybe what he had said didn’t always work.

He did say that trial and error are the best judges, didn’t he? Why hadn’t I paid more attention to how he seemed to feel about that after his comment?

I was a wreck, too, and I just wanted to die (as I stated earlier). I wanted, not to kill myself, but to just die and let it all be over with all fucking ready..

Gloria deserved it.

I deserved it.

Vaguely, I can recall having thought: Man, I hope I have some Novacaine left at home for after this… I’ll need it… dammit… I fucking need it now.

And even though I didn’t do Novacaine then, I totally felt that statement.

Chapter 10.5: Death to the Ones at the End of the Serenade

2009-11-16T15:23:00.001-08:00

(1007 words)
(Mike's POV)

It was just like the good old days with the Underbelly, I realized as I stood in the crowd full of rebellious and armed teens, my Traveling Shovel slash weapon leaning on my arm next to me. We were gonna fuck shit up and not take no for an answer. We were gonna do something and make it happen… not just sit back and passively resist, like the Class of Thirteen used to do.

And maybe it was just the drugs, but I was pumped, sure as hell. I was ready to keep making my point.

Damn Sara, forcing me to withdraw from the Underbelly. I never really liked her, anyway.

Filled with anticipation, I ran my hands over the familiar grooves and splinters of my old Traveling Shovel of Death. The metal shovel diggy part was covered in rust and caked on blood, and a few chunky brownish things that looked like flesh that had never really separated from the metal at the end of the handle.

I got that shovel ages ago -- well, three years before, give or take some. It was the only thing I’d brought with me when I ran away to the City. I knew it would be good luck for me in the coming years, and it was.

It was my good luck charm and my weapon. Beat that.

Then he stood up at the steps of the town hall, his echoing footsteps in front and to the left of me alerting me to the beginning of the riot. The one I once knew as the Saint Jimmy, who was now Gloria, and who was always Billie Joe Armstrong. His hair was somewhat slicked back, and as dyed black as always. Thick eyeliner reminiscent of Whatsername ringed his passionate green eyes. A wide grin marked his thin lips as he raised his hands above his head, ready to start the chant that everyone knew all so well. The anthem of the Class of Thirteen. Our rally call. Our mark of faith.

“You all know me! I’m Gloria! But who are we? We!” he screamed above the noise of the crowd.

“We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen! Born in the era of humility!” we shouted as one voice, as a hive mind. “We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of nineteen sixty nine!”

“What?!” Billie Joe shouted. “I couldn’t fucking hear you!”

We shouted it again, louder, much louder this time, like a military call, a crashing wave of sound: “WE ARE THE CLASS OF, THE CLASS OF THIRTEEN! BORN IN THE ERA OF HUMILITY! WE ARE THE DESPERATE IN THE DECLINE! RAISED BY THE BASTARDS OF NINETEEN SIXTY NINE!”

That’s when it hit me that the whole thing, the riot, was a very, very bad idea. I mean, giving three hundred teenagers guns and grenades? The hundred pissed off, passionate teenagers, nonetheless. Most of who were probably drunk and or high at the time. And probably some of whom were mentally ill… and off their meds, of course.
Yeah! Let’s all give guns to three hundred pissed off, passionate, drunk, high, not in their right minds teens! That’s a great idea!

Whose fucking bright idea was that, anyway?

Then I remembered – Whatsername. It was his idea, you know – with the whole Underbelly thing and all. This riot was practically that, really, just like the Underbelly except a few years older and not all that much wiser. It was the Underbelly all over again.

Damn nostalgia.

Whatsername had always said that trial and error are going to be the best judges, with everything, all the time. I personally knew – and I still know, for that matter – how many people had died at the Underbelly’s first few violent riots. I knew how hard it had hit him, and I knew how he struggled to pull it together enough to try again.
I didn’t know why Billie Joe hadn’t picked up on what – well, to me, anyway – seemed obvious… that Whatsername had failed his first few times. It had all gone wrong, and – like all of Whatsername’s first tries, and like anyone’s first tries -- it would all go wrong here.

The catalyst that shook me – literally, shook me – out of my thoughts was the first bomb that went off, somewhere in the middle of that crowd. The ground rumbled beneath my feet, the concrete an angry monster. I could hear people’s screams as they fell, metal and other “who knows what”s embedding in their skin and probably going deeper.

I darted out of the way of the guns’ aim and made a Mike shaped beeline to the edge of the crowd, carelessly parting the Human Sea (and cracking a few bones in the process) with my shovel. My panic button had been pressed and I knew something was direly wrong now.

Get the fuck out of here, Dirnt… run run run away… it’s not gonna end well Mike, not gonna end well…

My thoughts were a non-stop repetition of, basically, get the fucking hell out of here or you are going to die. Alone. With a piece of metal through your heart and lead in your veins.

“Mike, you fucking pessimist,” I muttered to myself as I kept hitting people blindly with my shovel.

I heard the police sirens then, and saw a flock of these morons running toward it. No! They’re gonna gas us or something!

I still knew, in that severely pessimist part of my mind, that all of us -- or, at least, a lot of us -- were going to be killed in this mess. At that point, I didn’t know whether I’d live to see the next day, or even the next few hours as the crowd thickened with armed officers, but thinned with the constantly falling dead.

You know what it was?

This riot was mass hysteria, plain and simple. It was hysteria, a mob like hive mind lead by a severely screwed up teen who believed in Hell and that Bush was the Anti Christ or some shit like that.

Which was fairly close to the truth. But, oh well, it didn’t matter since I was determined that we were all gonna die.

Is this what Billie Joe called having fun? Or was it his way of making a point?

Oh yeah, we were having a fucking blast.

You know, since no one there was gonna get out alive. No one would live to tell the tale.
So said my brain, which lied. I’m still alive, but so many people died that night…

A few more hours of this goddamn mass hysteria passed. The battlefield cleared, and I had already walked to a nearby bar to get a cold drink. I needed it.

And I trekked across what was now no man’s land to where Billie Joe stood, alone, looking out at the ruin and devastation.

All of which he had caused.

Chapter Ten: Last of the American Feminine Guys

2009-11-10T21:55:00.000-08:00

(2447 words)
(Tré’s POV)

That little light bulb went on over my head as I figured out to dig through the closet to find my weapons of choice, completely ignoring my half naked boyfriend who was undressing in the corner. I went through old pictures, mold pieces of pizza, random pieces of clothing, some old torn up shoes, broken discs and vinyl records, and even a few old needles (yikes!) till I found what I’d been looking for. A somewhat beat up, but carefully encased so that its fragile contents would not break (or explode. Whatever) shoebox that read Converse on the side.

“I kid you not, Sir Armstrong,” I announced as I grabbed the old shoe box of carefully wrapped explosive eating utensils (and I still don’t know, to this day, why I called him “Sir Armstrong”). “Explode upon impact -- well, explosive sporks.”

Billie Joe looked over from where he was now getting dressed (his undressing was much nicer, let me tell you) in the corner of what was then my room. He dropped his black tee -- emblazoned with a dark red logo reading NIN (the second N was backwards, oddly enough) and a long, pixilated red line next to the logo -- and walked over to me shirtless (I could barely keep myself from staring, let me say that now). I carefully opened the box, revealing the top row of metallic grey (also known as silver) half spoon half fork hybrids that were filled with… um… some explosive stuff -- gunpowder or something, I guess. Well, whatever it was reacted violently on impact.

“Holy fuck, they are really explosive sporks!” Billie Joe exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Yep!” I answered happily.

He just looked back up at me, his thin brown eyebrows still raised in a very “oh wow,” type of way, and then went back to put on the old shirt. I watched as his muscles flexed, as is not as tanned torso (well that makes no sense) was slowly covered by the thin, dark fabric. I was practically drooling along with starting by the time he walked down the hall and into the bathroom, presumably grabbing his small makeup kit and his hair styling stuff.

“Do you think I should spike my hair or -- well, wait, that’s probably not a good idea. I’ll just tie it back since I don’t want singed hair or a singed head -- ouch. I think the gel would make it more flammable, anyway…”

I smiled quietly to myself as he half talked to himself. It was so damn adorable.

“You’re such a girl, Billie Joe, or --” I began to say, smirking once more as I backtracked. “Should I say Gloria?”

“Yep, you should -- especially if I’m so much of a girl that I always top,” Billie Joe retorted from the bathroom.

“Always?” I asked. “You mean twice?

“Always with you, bitch.”

“Oh, who’s the real bitch here, Mister I Will Only Shut Up If I’m Frenched In Front Of An Audience Billie Joe Armstrong?”

“Fuck you.”

“Gladly. When should we… Gloria?”

“After the riot sounds nice, Christian!”

“Sexy. So fuck me when we get back. Kay, thanks.”

“I will.”

I smirked once more, smirking a self satisfied smile. “I’m glad.”

The old, scummy faux porcelain tiles tiled bathroom encircled us, the scuck and mildew of your average shitty bathroom all too obvious. Grimy, covered in water splatters mirrors (only three of them) lined up in front of Billie Joe, reflecting his perfect face clearly through their grit and filth. A small, battered, metallic green -- the same color as his eyes -- box was placed to the right of the soap scum filled sink, glittering dully under the too bright fluorescent lighting. When I looked over at him, Billie Joe was carefully and quite tastefully styling his hair, working through the dirt on the mirror with ease that I envied.

He slicked back the shortish long black locks, his fingers covered in hairgel and sliding all too easily over the mess of charcoal fluff he called hair. With perfectly aimed precision, he pulled a few ends out at the sides of his head, just along his jawline -- making the illusion of the beginnings of a soft and pliable five pointed star. When he finished with his careful messiness, his particular style of hair, Billie pulled forward some hair, creating a rectangular chunk of uneven black strands covering his right eye. As he moved his arm up, I noticed a small tattoo on his arm -- well, actually, a few. Three multicolored stars. I knew not to ask him about them, because it was obvious that he'd give me a roundabout answer (not that I hadn't given him one before).

Instead, my eyes traveled along his arm to his dark tee shirt. It was simple, but stylish and made its own kind of point, its own way of resistance by saying "fuck you, I like music" in a way. It was a very Billie Joe-like thing to go, and not to mention -- it made me thing Gloria. On the closed toilet seat in the corner, his soft leather jacket lay (I was already wearing mine; just waiting for Billie to finish up before we left). His shirt, quite uncharacteristically but very... smartly was tucked into his thin dark blue jeans, and they accentuated his lean legs, even though they weren't necessarily skinny jeans. Last, but certainly not least, he wore his "trademarked" custom designed pair of "Gloria" Chuck Taylors.

As I heard the peculiar song of a metal box opening, I looked back up at my boyfriend's reflection as he put on his makeup for the riot. As he was fully in his persona of Gloria now, he used quite a bit more of the goo than usual -- his eyeliner was also more defined and less smeared, more blended with a light cover of dark green eyeshadow that was coated over his lids and made his own vivid green eyes stand out. When he was satisfied with his appearance -- after some blush and foundation and holy shit, even a smidge of pale lip gloss, he felt ready and turned to me, hands on his hips, fully in Gloria mode now. So I had to go into full Christian mode -- and I did as he picked up his jacket and slung it over his shoulders.

"So -- you ready to head out, Mister Exploding Sporks Christian, or what?" he asked me, grinning lightly.

"Is hell yes an acceptable answer to that question?" I questioned in reply.

"Hell yes it is."

"Well. then, hell yes I am," I stated finally, grinning back at him.

"Fucking awesome. Let me just grab my stuff..."

By his stuff, of course, he meant his hand grenades. His weapons of mass Gloria awesome. His one last resort.

I guess he was pretty damn desperate.

Billie Joe walked back out into the hallway and beckoned to me. I grabbed the careful box of my own weapons and slid them in my equally as padded backpack.

"Let's go," he stated, finally.

Together, we walked out of the house and to my bike, which I had modded so that Billie Joe could sit behind me on it, if he basically freaking held on for dear life to my back, that was. I didn't think he’d have a problem with it -- I mean, it'd be kinda useless if I thought he wouldn't handle it... but no. He was Billie Joe Armstrong. He was Gloria. He could kick more ass in one day that I could count on one hand. I knew he was going there to chew gum and kick ass... and he was all out of gum. I was ready to see blood. And gore. And death... I'm sure the author's all ready to write it, too. And I was going to be proud that it was my boyfriend -- yeah, my boyfriend's idea. Not anyone else's boyfriend's idea, but mine. And that was one hella crazy paragraph.

"So... how do you feel about going all violent on everyone’s asses like that?" Billie Joe asked me out of the blue, bringing my thoughts back down from the clouds and other odd things such as that.

"Um... I guess... well, I'm fine with it, y'know? I can see why we're doing this. Why you chose to make it happen." I hoped that he'd take that as a reasonable answer.

"Yeah... okay. I just feel weird switching tactics. But... it's too late now, huh?"

"Yeah. It is. And don't worry --" I wrapped my arms around him. "I'll always be there for you."

Oh, how wrong I was.

We walked in silence, hands interlaced, until we reached my aforementioned bike. It was like rust on circular, black eraser rubber wheels, unstable and prone to losing balance. The original seat had been too torn and just destroyed from years of use that it was no longer even salvageable, so I said "screw that" and made a new, extended one out of a strong tree branch and one of my pillows, before wrapping it in the remnants of my so called dad's thick leather jackets. It was pretty fucking hardcore now, for a 200 year old bike that had been to Hell and back, and had even flown through a hurricane. Probably.

I let go of Billie Joe's hand for a second, straddling the bike and gesturing for him to follow me. Only somewhat reluctantly, Billie Joe walked to my side and also climbed on, his leather-wrapped arms hooking around my... well, my backpack, since he couldn't reach around to wrap his arms around my stomach. I smiled and looked back at him for a second. He read my eyes as the question of "Are you ready?" and nodded. Yes, he was ready. Yes, we were more ready to head to destruction than we ever were before. Even more than we ever would be ever again. It was now or never let's got now. Call it quits, and forever hold your peace and lost chance at taking part in what was going to be a monumental event.

I pedaled down the slowly, but ever so quickly darkening streets, heading out from between buildings and out of well worn, well traveled alleyways. The sun sank behind us, warming our backs with its dying rays as it lowered below a distant, flat horizon. I smiled, a few beads of sweat slipping down my face as I biked faster, curving quickly onto the sidewalk as we got to the so called city limits. More like the limits of hell. Suburban hall, to be precise.

I found myself pondering all of this as we half rode, half flew downhill toward the end of the road. I hit a hard right, continuing onward, on our 3 hour long by bike journey. We turned once more, now facing the late evening sun with some certainty as to where we were going.

"Hey, Gloria. Are you standing close to the edge?" I whisper asked Billie Joe. He didn't reply, just kept staring forward, unblinking against the softly hard red and orange mottled glow. "Look out at the setting sun, the brink of your vision. Eternal youth is the landscape of a lie. The cracks in my skin can prove, as the years will testify." I was kind of half singing now. "Say your prayers and light a fire. We're gonna start a war. You're slogan's a gun for hire... it's what we've waited for."

It was a sort of half lullaby. It was also everything I wanted to say on our first date. "Hey, Gloria, this is why we're on the edge. The fight of our lives’ been drawn to this undying love..."

I continued to think about, well, Gloria. Not really Billie Joe, but Gloria. Gloria as the hero for a lost cause, hailed as the last of the truly American girls, the saint of all the sinners. The girl who was going to outlive the end of Western civilization, listening to 80's vinyl records the whole way there. Gloria, who wouldn't go down without a fight, who knew what was wrong and knew how to stand up for what was right. It was odd to think of her in a separate context than my boyfriend, really, but I honestly could not help myself.

I sighed, looking out over the sky scrapers of the City that gave the horizon a choppy, torn, pixilated edge. Weak rays glittered and shone over the darkened glass windows of the buildings, streaming purple where the colors collided. We went down another dip, another small hill, bringing us more even with this sight. I was surprised at how delicate it looked, how transparent and clear and glassy it was. It looked like red sun's rays streaming through a high up stained glass window in a church, fragile and artistic and oh so easily breakable. I felt like if I reached out, the image would shimmer and die like a reflection on a pool in early fall, when summer melds to autumn and lively greens turn to fiery reds.

I shook those thoughts from my head -- I knew just how much blood had been spilled down there, in alleyways, in forests, in riots. It wasn't that beautiful, really. It wall all a mere illusion.

After what felt like a few minutes, I drove the bike into a sharp left, downhill a bit more and into the city limits of the town we were supposed to be at for the riot that would make history. For the Class of Thirteen, for the vigilantes and Christian and Gloria. We were going to do it.

I was sure of that as I parked and chained my bike in the pre-designated site, looking out over the pavement and walls. "Gloria!" and "Class of '13!" seemed the two most popular forms of graffiti, however the largest was a near mural reading "Viva La Gloria!" I looked at it in shock an awe, remembering something Billie Joe -- Gloria -- had said once.

I turned toward him.

"Remember what you said to me, only last week? 'Remember to learn to forget whiskey shots and cheap cigarettes?' Well, I've been working on it, Billie Joe... I have..." He looked up at me, squeezing my hand one and directing his vision to the crowd in front of us.

Holy shit was the only thing that went through my mind as I looked out on the crowd.

There were guns, canons, small bombs, hand grenades, hell -- even shovels.

I guess we really were desperate.

Chapter Nine: Peacemaker

2009-11-09T22:06:00.000-08:00

(3309 words)

“Hey, baby.” I was hugged from behind as Tré said that. I twisted around, hugging him back and chastely kissing him on the lips. He smirked at me. “Is that a tease or a promise for later?”

“I dunno, but I sure as hell think it’s a promise for later.”

“I, for one, like the sound of that.”

“I do, too.” Just as I said that, I smirked and grabbed Tré’s arm, dragging him out into the basement that served as the meeting place for the Class of Thirteen. Dark grey concrete walls were lined with old band posters and images of revolutionary figures. A few newer newspaper articles plastered the smooth walls, mostly reports on us, but some detailing the exploits of Whatsername and the Underbelly. There was one image up there, one that always made me wince, of a younger me standing with Whatsername, one arm wrapped around his waist.

Back then, however, I looked very, very different, so I was able to slide through without question of whether I was the Saint Jimmy or not. And for that I was grateful.

The article’s headline read “Whatsername Continues Wreaking Havoc in Northern California,” and the photo was captioned as, “Whatsername and her current boyfriend, the Saint Jimmy.” It was an article that I’d read dozens of times, first in pride and then in shame. It was practically engraved in my brain by that time in my life, two or three years after it had been published.

I was not at all proud of anything that’d happened with the Underbelly, and I always tried to direct the conversation in another direction if that time was ever brought up. I hated thinking about it, let alone remembering or talking about what had happened when I was 15. No one knew how important I was, or how I was the one who drove Whatsername away, but still…

I pulled myself out of my old reverie as my feet stopped shuffling against the drab tiles and hit the creaky old wood and decaying cardboard and rusty nails of the makeshift stage that I practically performed (holy fuck was that a strange alliteration) on. Carefully as I could, I walked up the steps and onto the uneven wooden planks that were my lifeline at the moment. I stepped over to the shitty old mic and raised my hands in the air.

“Who are we?!” I asked them all into the microphone, drawing their attention through speakers improvised from ancient amps built with spare parts.

“We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen!” every single one of them chanted back at me. “Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of nineteen sixty nine!”

I grinned and lowered my hands, shaking some loose hair that had evaded my search for spikes out of my eyes. “Who are we?!” I asked once more. “I couldn’t hear you!”

This time, their roar was deafening: “We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen! Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of Nine! Teen! Sixty! Nine!” Their chanting music faded out after the emphasis at the end.

“I fuckin’ heard you that time!”

The Class of Thirteen, in unison, cheered and slapped each other high fives. I silenced them by saying, “Well, I hope you’re pumped for the riot this weekend!”

They stopped speaking immediately, listening with rapture to every word I said, some of the faster ones scribbling words down on old sheets of notebook paper half covered in physics equations, the others just staring at me.

“We’re going to show the world all we’ve fucking got tomorrow! No longer will we be second best after the Underbelly and the run away Whatsername! No longer will our words and thoughts and speeches be censored! For tomorrow,” I was silent for a minute, building up the tension that gathered and sounded like a million buzzing, waiting bees. “Tomorrow, we shall fight!”

Everyone screamed and chanted and simply fucking roared now, in triumph and in protest. Our legendary, notorious chant rippled through the room again, like a choir badly singing a chanted round. “…the bastards of nineteen sixty nine!” shouted the last part, throwing us back into a sickening silence (fuck all these damn alliterations).

“We won’t be hailed as a poor imitation of the Underbelly, not after tomorrow! Tomorrow, it’ll be bigger -- better! -- than ever and tomorrow we’ll fuckin’ show ‘em all that we’re not damn write offs! Bombs and guns, fire and blood! We’re gonna show ‘em that the Class of Thirteen can and they will fight back! Who’s with me?!” I shouted into the mic.

Yet again, the deafening roar filled the room, bouncing off the walls and assaulting our ears. However, I didn’t care and just went with it. “So, y’know, there’s a few great site with instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails, and bombs, and some on making Fourth of July firecrackers into lethal weapons! We’re gonna burn it all down, we’re gonna stop these fuckin’ pickpocket, prejudiced thieves from running our government! Remember -- they don’t have our consent to rule and we were all too young when Bush -- the worst president the United States of fucking America’s ever had -- was voted in! We’re gonna tear it all down and they can’t stop us!”

I grinned at them, throwing my arms back in the air and looking up at the sky, as if in prayer. “Anyone who disagrees, anyone not with us on this, you better leave. Leave now -- or forever hold your fuckin’ peace because this is your first and last and only chance!”

No one moved. Every single member of the Class of Thirteen stayed where they were, faces looking upward at me and confidently at each other, ready to wreak havoc on the establishment, on Starfuckers Inc., on Californication. We were going to hit a nerve in the government if it took all that we had.

It reminded me of an old rhyme sung about St. Jimmy, “…here to represent the needle in the vein of the establishment.” I guess I was partially embracing my old, more violent persona with this decision. It’s not like I could have gone back on my words once I’d said that, anyway. We were going to bring it all down or die trying. Just like Whatsername, just like St. Jimmy, just like the Underbelly. And at that point, I really didn’t give a fuck as I melded into the energy of the Class of Thirteen and prepared us all to tough it out and create the storm. A season we’d all remember, that would go down in history textbooks -- good or bad.

They quietly start to talk amongst themselves, and I coughed quickly into the microphone, grabbing their attention immediately.

“How many of you have guns?”

Hands shot up. “You all willing to donate them to the fucking cause?”

A chorus of cheers and shouts and affirmations rained out from the crowd. I grinned at them. “Great. Let us rain fire on this hell of a world and show ‘em that we’re not taking it for granted!”

There was yet another cheer that deafened the room.

“This is a poem I wrote,” I said. “It’s called ‘Peacemaker,’ ‘cause even if they get a damn peacemaker on the scene -- it’ll be useless!”

I read the first few words, “Well, I’ve got a fever, a non-believer. I’m in a state of grace. For I am the Caesar, I’m gonna seize the day! Well call of the banshee -- hey, hey -- as God is my witness the infidels are gonna pay!
“So call the assassin, the orgasm, a spasm of love and hate. For what will divide us -- the righteous and the weak. Well, call of the wild --!”

They answered me this time: “Hey, hey!”

“And death to the ones at the end of the serenade! Vendetta -- sweet vendetta -- this Beretta of the night! This fire, and the desire -- well, shots ringing out on the holy parasite!
“I am a killjoy from Detroit, I drink from a well of rage. I feed off the weakness with all my love! Well, call of the captain!”

Again they answered: “Hey, hey!”

“Well, death to the lover that you were dreaming of. Now this is a stand off! Molotov cocktails -- on the house! You thought I was a write off, you better think again! Well, call the PEACEMAKER!”

“Hey, hey!”

“I’m gonna send you back to the place where it all began! Vendetta -- sweet vendetta -- this Beretta of the night! This fire, and the desire -- well, shots ringing out on the holy parasite!”

I paused for a moment, catching my breath before I launched in to the last few stanzas. “And now the caretaker’s the undertake so I’m gonna go out and get a fucking PEACEMAKER! -- this is a neo Saint Valentine’s massacre! So call of the Gaza!”

“Hey, hey!” the Class of Thirteen chanted once more.

“And death to the ones at the end of the serenade! Well, death to the ones at the end of the serenade!” I slowed down for my last line: “Oh, death to the ones at the end of the se-re-” I paused for a moment here, before picking up my pace and screaming the last part once more: “--NADE!”

I threw my arms up in the air once more as I held the scream and everyone started cheering. Already I felt a beat in those words, and I grinned as what I perceived to be a song began forming in my head. My triumph was only spurred on by the gleaming eyes and sweat soaked hair of the Class of Thirteen. I felt truly unstoppable, now.

“They won’t be able to stop us!” I shouted. “Say it with me!”

It was more than deafening now: “WE ARE THE CLASS OF, THE CLASS OF THIRTEEN! BORN IN THE ERA OF HUMILITY! WE ARE THE DESPERATE IN THE DECLINE! RAISED BY THE BASTARDS OF NINE! TEEN! SIXTY! NINE!”

“And you know who I am?” I asked them. Before they could answer, I started singing a short song I’d written, well, just the beat of since I knew (and still do not know) a single thing about music theory. “My name is No One, the long lost son! Born on the Fourth of July! Raised in this era of Heroes and Cons that left me for dead or alive! I am a nation, a worker of pride -- my debt to the status quo! The scars on my hands and a means to an end, it’s all that I have to show! I swallowed my pride and I choked on my faith -- I’ll give it my heart and my soul! I’ve broken my fingers and lied through my teeth, the pillar of damage control! I’ve been to the edge and I’ve thrown the bouquet of flowers left over the grave. I’ve sat in the waiting room, wasting my time, waiting for judgment day.
“I praise liberty. The Freedom to Obey is the song that strangles me… well don’t cross the line…”

By the end of it, everyone was really screaming, saying all they needed to, giving it all they had. I threw my arms up in the air one last time before screaming a “THANK YOU!” and jumping off stage. Before anyone could assault me, I darted through the door, shut it, and locked it. Tré stood there, and caught me in an embrace.

“That was fucking spectacular, Gloria!”

No one ever called each other by their real name, not here.

I gave him a hard kiss on the cheek. “Thanks! You ready to fuck shit up tomorrow?”

“Hell yes I am,” Tré answered. He grinned cheekily and I raised an eyebrow.

“You actually have a weapon that you can use?”

“My trademark -- fuckin’ exploding sporks.”

“Exploding sporks?! What the fuck…?” I trailed off, my mouth hanging open.

“Close your mouth or flies’ll go in there,” Tré said quite happily. “And yep, exploding sporks. You throw ‘em and they go kablooie on impact.”

I just looked at him for a moment. “Where the fuck do you get them -- wait… I really, really don’t wanna know.”

Tré answered me anyway. “Mr Ian Woon.”

“Who?” I asked, even through I knew quite well who this Ian Woon dude was.

“My… um… dea-- a family friend,” Tré improvised. I knew he was lying, but I didn’t want him to know that I read most of his diary right before we had sex. I nodded.

“So… um… why exploding sporks?”

“Well,” Tré stated, “because I’m cool.” Cutely and dorkily, he crossed his arms and faux coolly grinned. “Tré Cool.”

I started laughing uncontrollably. If someone had a camera and caught my picture then, it would end up as one of those faux Motivational posters on the ever infinite Internet, the caption being “LOL: Sometimes, you can really laugh out loud.” It’s true that I was the epitome of the term Laugh Out Loud at that moment.

Before I collapsed on the floor and became the epitome of ROFLMAO (Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off, for those of you who are computer illiterate), Tré grabbed my arm.

“Jesus, Bi-- Gloria,” he laughed. “People will think that you are having a seizure or something, dude!”

“Well --” I managed to choke out between laughter. “M-maybe… I -- I am having a seizure, dude! That was fucking hilarious, did you know that?!”

Tré looked at me, faking innocence. “What was hilarious? I don’t recall ever being hilarious. Just high, but then again you act high too.”

I raised an eyebrow and, keeping my face completely straight, I said, “I’m not stoned, I’m just fucked up, dude.”

“Oh, I could say the same thing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yah, really!”

“OH REALLY?”

“YEAH REALLY, BITCH!”

“Bitch?! Who’re you calling a bitch, bitch?!”

“You!”

Then, out of the blue (not that I can say I wasn’t half expecting it), Tré pinned me against a wall and kissed me, with not much aggressive force but with enough to keep me from wriggling away… not that I’d wriggle away or even want to, that is. He did it just because it was hot and he liked having me up close to him.

When we broke away for a minute, I smirked. “Oh, I could get used to that.”

“What?” Tré half panted.

“You randomly kissing me. And the fucking hot sex that follows.”

“I think I could get used to it, too,” he agreed.

“I think you already are used to it, Mister I Kissed A Random Guy To Shut Him Up Tré Cool.”

“I was used to it before I was born.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Would I ever kid you, Mister I Am So Sexy And Passionate That Nothing Can Stop Me But A Kiss Billie Joe Armstrong?”

“True that.”

With those two words, I pulled Tré into another sudden kiss, sucking on his lower lip till he parted them to let my tongue slip into his mouth. His own tongue slid into mine, and it felt like every other kiss we’d shared, except oh so much better.

“Mmm…” I muttered. “You wanna head back to my house to… ehm… get ready for the riot?”

Tré pulled away from me and smirked in that deliciously Tré manner. “I like the sound of that, Gloria.”

“Then come on!”

I grabbed Tré’s black and white checkered tie, dragging him through the basement hallways and out into the cool, crisp night. Half alive from all the pollution mockingbirds ridiculously, raspily mocking the sounds of dozens of other birds. A few crickets chirped around us. When I looked up, I could barely see stars for all the haze and street lamp light.

I continued to drag Tré to the borrowed (read: stolen) car that I’d hijacked earlier that day to head down to this meeting. It was a shame that I’d sold my old bike ages ago, right after I first ran away, when I thought that I’d live in the City for the rest of my life. Then, I proceeded to spend whatever money I got from selling the damn thing on Novacaine and a number of other drugs.

I came back from my sour memories as Tré started the car. “Get in, you nimrod!”

I shot him a sweet smile and opened the door, dropping into the passenger seat and settling with sitting shotgun. Tré pulled out of the old driveway and started down the highway back to our little suburban hell of a town.

I knew that highway so well, from biking across it once and from walking across it back with the remains of the Underbelly, people who had eventually either wasted their lives away, went to college, or joined the Class of Thirteen. The ones who’d joined the Class knew that my past identity as the Saint Jimmy, as the previous boyfriend of Whatsername, was a secret they had to keep. I rarely saw them, but when I did, whichever former Underbelly member and I secretly smiled at one another and quietly, secretively did the Underbelly secret handshake type thing (fuck, I used secret way too many times in the last few sentences). High five, backwards low five, double criss cross high fives, then that fist bumping thingy.

“Billie Joe? You okay?”

I realized just then that I had been staring off into space, barely blinking, as I thought of my misadventures in the City. Tré was now poking my arm worriedly, half paying attention to the road.

“Tré… I’m fine, okay? Not stop poking me before we get in a fucking accident!”

He laughed quietly, a relieved tone in his voice. “I’m glad. Now… yeah. We’re almost back at your place. I assume you have lube, right?”

“I’ve always kept some on the off chance that I’d ever have a boyfriend again,” I laughed, answering him. “And a few condoms, too. I wouldn’t want you getting pregnant, now would I?”

Tré laughed. “I don’t think guys can get pregnant.”

“On the off chance that… I dunno. On the off chance that somehow, I’d get you pregnant.”

“It’d be one hell of a sexy baby, that’s for sure,” he commented off handedly. I laughed.

“Hell yes. We’d raise the most sexy kids and everyone would wanna fuck our babies.”

“Mmm… I like that. I really fucking like that.”

“I do too, Tré.”

Finally, we pulled up at a park near my house and I got out, walking a block down to my house, unlocking its door and opening it. “After you, Tré Cool, or Christian, or He Who Kisses Hot Guys To Shut Them Up.”

“Fucking narcissist,” he yelled from the car as he got out of it, carefully leaving the keys on one of the old and beaten up leather seats. He ran over the blacktop to me and literally swept me off my feet as he carried me indoors.

Inside, it was dark and musty, and smelled vaguely of mildew. “I hope you don’t mind the smell. It’s better in my room.”

“I don’t really give a shit.”

“Great,” I said as I dragged him down the hall and into my room, flicking on a light. It was bare but messy, and I shoved everything off my bed.

“Your mom won’t mind?”

“Naw. She’s barely alive down in her room. Now… let’s get down to business…”

And with that, I kissed him, pulling him down onto my bed as my right hand -- the one not attached to the arm hooked around his neck -- started unzipping his fly.

Act Two: Charlatans and Saints :: Chapter Eight: East Jesus Nowhere

2009-11-09T13:59:00.000-08:00

(1000 words)
(Tré's POV)

June 17th, 2013.

Today my parents forced me to go to church again. I don’t even see why, however, as I’m nineteen and they can’t force me anywhere now, or make me prescribe to one religion. Still, they made me on the chance of losing my internet and text privileges -- both of which I need to talk to Billie Joe with. So I reluctantly went along on what became a fucking nightmare. Too bad…

I wanted to burn the damn church down, and I swear, I almost did. I was tempted as all Hell (hahaha, get it?), that’s for sure, and I felt capable of murder there in those too neat, white, unstained aisles full of the echoing and irritating sound of so called angels singing. I knew -- well, I think we all knew -- that it was a hidden choir singing. Not damn angels. Not damn angels that don’t fucking exist.

I felt so ready to burn in Hell as I listened to them. If this God is so cruel and gives out cruel and unusual, ruled UNCONSTI fucking TUTIONAL punishment for loving people, then I don’t want to go to Heaven and spend eternity with that corrupt son of a bitch.

Today, they happened to be talking about premarital sex and gayness -- both so called sins that I was guilty, very guilty of (through I couldn’t help the sex before marriage thing, since I can’t even get fucking married). I felt like screaming, but I don’t think I could take it without any access to my boyfriend for months, at the very least. So I stayed silent and pretended to be a good little straight virgin Christian boy. Oh my God, don’t you get it? I am Christian! Hahaha…

Oh, yeah, they also sang a song with the repeating background line of “Gloria!” and even though I knew that it was for glory, I couldn’t help but think of my boyfriend and the Class of Thirteen.

These people were the opposite of the Class of Thirteen -- more or less the people yelling out against Billie Joe. Some of these kids I knew from the damn high school. Some of them had been right there as I had launched out and assaulted my then boyfriend to be with my mouth… they were the ones who had been disgusted by it… they were the ones being brainwashed into a corrupt army.

I knew it. They were all being brainwashed and I could do nothing to help them. They were being assimilated into a corrupt and religion ruled army, serving under a broken and discarded and poisoned and corrupt God. I was so angry that these people were being taken into this steaming pile of hatred and martyrdom, thinking it would be for some form of some greater good or some shit like that.

They were hiding their eyes, shielding them from the terrible, terrible truth and the horrid reality. In some sort of a promise of Heaven or something. Some utter bullshit like that, anyway.

Then, they ranted about the Holy Crusade that this damn War on Terror supposedly is. That it was good. They ranted like George W. fucking Bush is the Second Coming of Christ, which they no doubt believed, probably.

Then -- the goddamn nerve of them! -- they made me confess. All of my sins. And so I did.

“Heresy,” I said. “Disbelief in your God, in Jesus fucking Christ.” They jumped at my swearing. I just laughed and continued listing off my many sins. “Homosexuality -- except I can’t see that as a sin, since I was just born this damn way. Drug abuse. Sex before marriage, or fornication, or premarital sex -- but, really, what choice do I have since I can’t get married, not legally, not here, not in the US of fucking America, the glorious country it is.”

“But,” I continued, “my biggest sin of all has to be my gay relationship with Gloria, the leader of the Class of Thirteen. He’s really, really good at fucking, did you know that? That time, you know last night, it was my first time as bottom. I loved it.”

I watched as their eyebrows shot up. “Oh, yes, I loved saying all of that. I just hope, soon, that a fire will burn soon, of all your blasphemy and genocide. That the fires of decay will infiltrate the faith fanatics…”

It sounded like something Billie would write. I was proud, so proud of myself as I promptly walked out of the damn church and went home. I want to share those verses with him and see if he likes them. I think he will -- I mean, stylistically, it’s just like his stuff. It’s dark and opposite.

Like those lines he showed me earlier: “I pledge allegiance to the Underworld. One nation under god here of which I stand alone. A face in the crowd, unsung against the mold. Without a doubt, singled out, the only way I know.”

As soon as I finished writing my diary entry, I looked my watch, hitting light and looking at the black numbers seared onto the green glow. Two ante meridian. I sighed as I closed my diary and flipped my phone open for the first time that day, checking for new messages.

Two from Billie Joe. I frowned and looked at them.

The first one read, “If I lose everything in the fire, I’m sending all my love to you… if I lose everything in the fire… did I ever make it through?” I couldn’t quite get what it meant.

The second was from just a few minutes ago and said, “Class of Thirteen meeting, Friday. Be there or be square.”

I smiled to myself as I marked the date down on my calendar.

Then I flicked off my light and fell asleep, my old diary still open next to me and my cell phone closed but still on in my hand.

Act Two :: Charlatans and Saints

2009-11-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

Chapter Eight: East Jesus Nowhere
Chapter Nine: Peacemaker
Chapter Ten: Last of the American Feminine Guys
Chapter Ten Point Five: Death to the Ones at the End of the Serenade
Chapter Eleven: Murder City
Chapter Twelve: Viva La Billie Joe? (Little Boy)
Chapter Thirteen: Restless Heart Syndrome

Little girl, little girl
Your life is calling
The Charlatans and Saints
Of your abandon
Little one, little one
The sky is falling...

Chapter Seven: Last Night on Earth

2009-11-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

(2188 words)

My hands wrapped closely around his shoulders, hooking lightly around the back of his pale, pale neck as my mouth crashed upon his. He made a delicious moaning sound before kissing back, his lips soft and addicting on mine.

My heart pounded in my chest, adrenaline soaring through my veins at unprecedented speeds. His heart beat just as hard against me, beating now in sync with mine. Tré pulled me into him, pressing us flush against each other.

Heat encircled us as he pushed me onto his bed, the force of the impact sending the diary flying to the floor with a soft thunk on the thick carpet. Tré fell on top of me, his warm weight pinning me down. His breath pooled on my face as his kissed trailed up my cheek and he steered me so that we were vertical on his bed.

“So… tell me, Tré,” I panted, “you’ve… have you ever been… been bottom? I nsex, y‘know?”

“N-no,” he spluttered out, less of fear and more of lust. “I’ve not really… had much sex, really.”

“Well,” I whisper asked, “how would you feel about it?”

“Oh… yes… yes, please.”

“Fucking awesome.”

I looked up at Tré, at his heaving chest, his lust filled eyes, and his all too noticeable hard on. He collapsed next to me, allowing me to take off his tee shirt and throw it to the floor. Tré started to strip me, as well, taking every detail of my body just as I took in all of his. Clothing lay at the foot of the bed, falling off the corner of it, and some on the floor in heaps. Soon enough, we pressed together again, warm and slightly sticky skin against skin.

My eyeliner was definitely about to be smeared. And I really did not give a shit.

Our tongues twisted around one another as we shared this passionate embrace. Our hands touched anything in reach. Sweat danced in our eyes and glistened over our skin, quickly being absorbed and staining the sheets.

“You ready?” I whispered, biting the stiff cartilage of the tip of his ear then carefully around the small silver hoop in his lobe.

“Yeah.” Tré’s voice was slightly hoarse.

We were two very horny teenage guys in love, and I knew then that we were ready for this, especially once I asked and he confirmed. We were as ready as we’d ever be, and as ready as we would be for the rest of our lives together.

“D’you have lube.” I had to ask. I mean, we couldn’t continue without it.

“No.”

“Vaseline?” Second best, I guessed.

“Yeah. On the dresser.”

I climbed carefully out of our embrace, grabbing the small squarish ovalish pale tan container of Vaseline from Tré’s dresser. I popped the top open, and dipped my fingers in, scooping a liberal amount over my fingertips. Just as carefully, I lay back down next to Tré and instructed him to roll over.

Carefully, very carefully so as not to hurt my boyfriend, I prepped him, making sure everything would be perfect and as painless as possible.

And in short and sweet and fast glimpses of movements and sweat and love, it was over. Entangled in the other’s arms, we each rode out our orgasms, crying out and moaning, singing hormone driven eulogies of the other.

“I love you, Tré. You’re… you’re fucking perfect.”

I lay my head on the pillow, breathing in the smell of sex. A few quiet tears rose to my eyes and spilled over my cheeks. I’d been touched through this, even more than the drunken or high sex back when I was with Whatsername.

And people say that drunk sex is the best. Bastards and liars, all of ‘em.

I opened my heavy eyes and looked at Tré, whose greenish blueish teal eyes were glassy and distant. I reached over and wrapped an arm around him.

“I love you,” he whispered. My tears flowed more readily now.

“Tré… Tré… I love you so much, Tré. Christian. I love you, Christian.”

“I love you, too, Gloria.”

Tiredly, he kissed me on the cheek and we both fell asleep, satisfied and in love with the person that we fell asleep next to.

*

I pensively sat on my bed, my eyes red and puffy from crying so much. From crying of nostalgia, love, and just the bond that formed between Tré and I as we had sex for the very first time. I think now, that I knew then, that we were committed to each other now.

I hadn’t felt so much all at once since… definitely since Whatsername had broken up with me over letterbomb.

I still had the damn letterbomb, Whatsername’s name permanently scratched out, all my images of him burned to the ground, ashes buried deep beneath the Earth in the City.

And I was glad for that, too. It was hard enough seeing him, but not knowing his name. I hated how I could still picture that pretty face of his, the kohl lined blackish brown eyes, the pale pink lips, the tumbling black ringlets around his pale face.

I missed him -- or, the memory of him. I didn’t want to love him anymore. We weren’t meant for each other, quite obviously.

Our relationship was just a lesson in the world. We were only 15 then, anyway.

And then I sat there, 18, Gloria, and back in love.

I guess it was weird to go from the Jesus of Suburbia to Saint Jimmy to --

My old-ass, Class of Thirteen sponsored cell phone buzzed on my old desk, playing a pattern I recognized as Tré’s text message ringtone thing. I grabbed the phone quickly and flipped it open, looking at the “You Have One New Text Message” note with glee. Hitting “Read,” I looked it over.

Hey Billie. How r u?

I smiled at my phone. Tré was so cute…

Im fine. U? I texted back. Before hitting send, I added something. Love u, Tré.

Good. Love u 2, Gloria, he replied. I snickered a bit -- he was just so damn adorable sometimes. I could just imagine the look on his face as he texted me, the way his tongue would stick gut out the corner of his mouth, how he would quickly type his message to me and reread the message I’d just sent him.

He was the most damn adorable man on earth sometimes.

Damn, Tré, u r awesome.

What makes u say tht?

Becuz u r so damn cute when u txt.

LOL! I bet u r, 2.

U bet I am? Y rnt u sure of it?

Good question…

I laughed quietly and flopped onto my bed, checking the time.

Eleven thirty six post meridian. So I had quite some time, now that school was out and it was summer.

So how do u feel bout the war specifically?

I sighed again, rolling onto my back and looking up at the ceiling, tired energy pulsing through my veins as I anxiously awaited Tré’s reply.

My cell phone buzzed and I looked away from the ceiling, brining the arm that held my phone in it up to my face and readying my fingers. The soft glow of my cell phone’s screen was obscured by a wall of text.

Its bullshit. All it’s being used 4 is money. It annoys me to no end. U? he said.

Im Gloria, bitch, anti war enthusiast and the 1 who wants peace. :P

I laughed at my reply, allowing my hand to drop down next to me, waiting for Tré to recover from his inevitable laughing attack and reply with a --

There it went. The buzzy little pattern of buzzing. A new text message from Tré, of course, and some more conversation to continue on with.

Oh so Im a bitch now am I? I laughed as I read this.

Hella. But u r my bitch, kay? No one else! I laughed again as I sent my reply.

Ah. Sneaky little possessive jealous bf, r u?

U just wait. U will love it.

I like the sound of that, lol.

Oh, I bet u do. I fucking bet u do.

I could not wait to see Tré again. Hopefully, it would be soon enough as I’d started the beginnings of planning a Class of Thirteen riot… soon enough.

I was getting so fucking sick of being only second best to Whatsername. I was going to stop being such a pacifist and find my old obsession with hand grenades soon enough. We were going to light a fire this time if we had to. We would stop screaming for a difference, we’d burn it into the very Earth beneath out feet itself.

And by all hell, we were ready to wreak complete and utter havoc on the establishment. Or, as I liked to call it, Starfuckers Incorporated, fucking the world over one person at a time. The star part was added because it always started with the media and in Hollywood, a beautiful little process called Californication.

My thoughts were interrupted as my phone buzzed once again, signifying a new text message from Tré.

Hahaha. Can’t wait 2 c u again, even tho we were just together a few hrs ago!

Same here. I wanna make love w u again.

U r amazing, BJ.

BJ? What the fuck?

I laughed at our conversation. I think it may have been the same as any other pair of horny teenagers anywhere, but all the others would be, and almost definitely were, nowhere near as insane or political as ours was.

I sighed and our nonsensical conversations went on and on, teases hidden in or between political messages, sexy little love notes and assurances of sex and romance the next time we would see each other. I smiled and laughed at what both of us said, our weird little jokes and nick names. It was so sweet and simple that we could be texting about missing each other, despite having sex less than twenty four hours before our conversation.

Eventually, Tré just stopped replying to my messages. Sleep wore heavy on my eyes like a dark cloak as I looked up at my clock and checked the time.

Five oh five, ante meridian. 5:05 in the freaking morning. Tré and I had managed to talk over damn text messaging for nearly six hours straight.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep. Then, I dreamed of the death of my old mentality, the death and funeral of the Saint Jimmy.

I saw the old me, the me as I was at 16, the me as St. Jimmy putting a gun to his temple, my/his lifeless body falling into the water and staining it all red.

I saw Whatsername tear up the letterbomb, his makeup streaming down his face and leaving black marks on the bare carpet below his bare feet. I could hear him blaming himself for my death.

Then I saw the funeral itself. Whatsername was in the front row, head bowed over and a lacy black veil obscuring his blurred face. Black tears dripped down onto the simple black dress that my ex-boyfriend wore, the dress that blurred and melded with the obsidian tiled floors. My incorporeal feet slipped and slid against them as I walked toward what I assumed to be my casket. Past the minister, who wore and army hat with the cross etched into it. I looked down at the black box, seeing The Saint Jimmy carved into its side. I looked into the clear top, seeing a bloodied, younger version of me.

The world went fuzzy and white at the edges, like carefully torn paper. The entire scene slowly sharpened and brightened, looking like an over exposed picture of a demented funeral. The onyx glass beneath my feet half crumbled and half melted, sucking me deep into its depths.

I awoke in a cold sweat, quickly feeling my forehead for any bullet wounds or blood. Nothing.

Before falling asleep again, I texted Tré. I just wrote him a quick message.

If I lose everything in the fire, I’m sending all my love to you… if I lose everything in the fire… did I ever make it through?

He’d get it at the next meeting before the riot. I was sure of it. Though I was sure that he wouldn’t get the second line. Almost sure, anyway.

Shutting down my cell phone, I crawled under the covers in only my boxers and promptly fell asleep.

This time, I dreamed of sex and drugs, of riots and of Whatsername. Of the Class of Thirteen and of the Underbelly. Of Novacaine and Opal. I dreamed of a world where I was normal, having the minority opinion but not screwed up. I dreamed of the letterbomb, and of fires soaring throughout cities and churches.

It was no less demented than seeing the death of St. Jimmy, but I slept much better now.

When I awoke again at four in the afternoon, I still hadn’t received a text back from Tré.

Chapter Six: Tre's Inferno

2009-11-06T23:06:00.000-08:00

April 25th, 2013.

Today, all five colleges that I applied to sent out their replies. All five of them were rejections. My GPA is so bad that I got rejected from five fucking colleges. I’m officially college less. No job for me, eh?

Fucking great. I have to stay in the grip of this Hell for longer? I’d rather die!

When I opened them to go over what was wrong with my résumés, I found that they were all shredded neatly, strips of white paper at the bottom of my envelope.
I ripped the rest up.

You’d never be able to tell that they were ever whole!

I didn’t even apply to any colleges -- not with the Class of Thirteen to take care of, my spotty history, my criminal record, and my low GPA -- but I pitied Tré immensely.

As I continued to flip through his notebook, going April through May, my feelings of pity for my boyfriend intensified. Along with this pity, his words inspired me. Already, on a sheet of neatly lined paper torn out of the diary, I had started to write a poem that I tentatively called Christian’s Inferno:
“I got under the grip between this modern Hell. I got the rejection letter in the mail, it was already ripped to shreds…”

May 15th, 2013.

Something good finally happened to me, thank whatever higher power that may or may not exist.

I met Gloria.

I’d say that she’s nice, but Gloria’s actually a guy. His name is Billie Joe Armstrong (god. His name is so cute) and I met him at my graduation.

I kissed him -- I fuckin’ Frenched him -- to shut him up.

That was the best night of my hellish 19 years of existence.

We’re going out on a date on Saturday.

So he felt what I’d felt? I was so happy that he’d been just as happy as me, feeling just as perfect and wonderful.

Fucking glorious.

May 18th, 2013.

My date with Billie, or Gloria, went so well.

We ended up kissing and pissing everyone off, then we ended up screaming at everyone, arguing, et cetera. Then we kissed again.

I’m definitely falling for him.

I think I may love him already.

Is this just the hormones or Opal speaking, or is it really me? I wish I knew.

I wished I knew, too.

June 1st, 2013.

Billie’s been practically living here. He says that it’s a lot nicer than his house.

Today, I tried out some pill that my Opal dealer -- Mr Ian Woon, he’s called -- gave me. It was awful and bitter and shit like that. Then, the glass holding the water that I was drinking broke and shattered glass cut my mouth open.

I wish that I had a better handle on my life.

I want to be less gullible. Damn this Opal shit. I’m so fucking sick of it. I’m sick of feeling the heat travel underneath my skin whenever I take it. I’m sick of wanting to cut cut cut to get it all out.

But Opal makes it all go away… and I feel so much better… but so much worse at the same time.

Fuck my life.

“…Seasons in ruin and this bitter pill is chased by blood. There’s fire in my veins and it’s pouring out like a flood. This is Christian’s inferno…” Even more poetic words filled my head.

June 5th, 2013

Today I had to talk to my mom. And I pissed her off majorly.

I’m sorry mom, that I’m not perfect. I’m sorry I don’t have a job. I’m sorry I failed school. I’m sorry I’m not going to college. I’m sorry, mother, that I am your accident. You whore.

Except… I’m not really sorry now. I guess. Sadly enough, I guess, I couldn’t give a shit about either of my so called parents.

I feel good about that.

I’m glad I’m destroying this household from the inside out.

I’m glad.

I am fucking glad.

“…This diabolic state is gracing my existence. Like a catastrophic baby. Maybe you’re my chemical reaction. I am the atom bomb. I am your chosen one. Toxin your reservoir and then return man to ape. This is Christian’s inferno.”

All of it was based off of his diary entries -- except for the atom bomb/chosen one line. That was straight out of the Memoirs of the Jesus of Suburbia.

Still more things I didn’t like talking about.

According to his diary, Tré was raised in a Christian household. He knew about the religion, and started to stop going to church when he was 18 and actually could choose not to go. He didn’t agree with his parents.

Funny that I nicknamed him Christian now, huh?

I leafed through the inky pages of Tré’s most private and personal thoughts, peeking into his life, into his drug addled soul and heart and mind. He was insane, but then again, so was I. We seemed to be the perfect match. If I told him my story, maybe he’d become clean. He’d have motivation.

Then again, when you’re hooked on something to take your pain away, you don’t have motivation. It’s a numb and seemingly clear (although actually very foggy) mirror that you start to see through your eyes with.

June 15th, 2013.

Today is me and Billie’s first month anniversary. He’s gonna come over later. I don’t wanna go all withdrawal on him… I’m going to smoke some of my supply of Opal.

Damn, am I running low again? I’ll have to see Mr Ian Woon soon enough to get some more.

As I continued to look into his soul through paper, a few tears fell down my cheeks, almost definitely starting to smear my eyeliner. Tré’s life -- his inferno, really -- was so similar to mine that it was almost scary. He really had no father, and his mother was so emotionally distant. He practically raised himself, just as I had, and he’d ended up in a very similar situation to the one I’d been in -- well, except for the fact that he didn’t run away and fall in so called ‘love’ with the leader of the Revolution. Well, maybe him falling in love with me counted for that.

Suddenly, I was surprised by a warm presence behind me. Slim, familiar arms wrapped around my waist, and someone lay there forehead on the back of my own head. It only took me a second to realize that Tré stood behind me now.

“Hey, Billie Joe,” he whispered warmly in my ear, his hot breath snaking around my cheek and down my neck, raising the little hairs on my exposed skin.

“Hey, Christian.”

That was the first time I called him by his nickname.

I liked it, too.

“Christian? Where the hell did ya get that?”

“You know… I don’t know. I mean, it’s your Class of Thirteen code name. It goes well with Gloria, too.”

“Hmm,” Tré pondered for a minute. He was so damn cute sometimes, even though he was somewhat of a maniac. “I like it, too. Christian and Gloria. Gloria and Christian.”

He sighed, breathing onto my hair and ruffling the slightly curly black mop and blowing some into my face.

“What’s wrong?”

I could read him like a book, even when he was behind me. I knew something was up. I could tell he wasn’t mad at me anymore, too.

“I’m sorry that I blew up at you.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Tré insisted. “I really shouldn’t have done that. I mean -- well, it wasn’t me, really. Really. Do you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you, Tré.”

I could feel him smiling. “I’m glad you do. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Tré’s warm hands traveled lower, lightly over my stomach and down to my legs, soft as butterflies.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, either. I love you, Tré.”

And with that phrase, I smiled, gently placing his diary back on his bed, and turned to kiss Tré.

Chapter Five: Before the Lobotomy

2009-11-05T15:57:00.000-08:00

(2550 words)
(Billie Joe's POV)

It’s been exactly a month since we first met, I realized as I sat at the back of the old bus on my way down to Tré’s house. And we act more like we’ve been together for a year than for a month.

In the back of the old, rickety bus, the decaying leather seats smelled like feet and jizz. Old grey duct tape peeled off the worn holes, gross and damp looking brownish stuffing falling out of them.

Public transportation seriously sucked in that old town. I mean -- the windows were jammed shut in the hot summer and refused to close when it was pouring. Or snowing. Or hailing. Or hurricane-ing, if that were to happen in Northern California.

So, anyway, I was sitting in this hot, sweaty, smelly, awful bus in the middle of June, heading over to Tré’s house. Only two weeks before this date did he officially join the Class of Thirteen, and I had yet to give him a code name/nickname. I also hadn’t announced the fact that he was my boyfriend -- that would be once we were all organized and Tré was settled in to the Class and its antics.

I didn’t think it’d take him long to get used to them. He fit right in at the start, and everyone seemed to love him. He was funny, sweet, insane (in the good way insane, not in the he should be in a mental hospital insane), hilarious, and just fun to hang with.

Of course, that made me fall even deeper down this hole of being in love with him.

And that last thought seriously sucked, in phrasing and just some of the, erm, imagery. And it was a little purple prose-y.

But I can’t help it. I’m just human, after all -- despite what Tré probably thinks and how the Class of Thirteen probably sees me.

I sighed in relief as the bus slowed to a shaky halt, letting all of the stale air I dared not to breathe out on that fucking bus ride. Grabbing my stuff, I stood and walked down the greasy aisle, past half asleep druggie hobos, skimpily dressed sluts, and spitefully glaring recent graduates.

Ah, the pinnacle of modern American society, all crammed into this shitty little bus. So this is what they sing praises of, eh?

I jumped out of the bus just as it started moving again, the drive not caring about my health or safety -- well, I guess it was equal, since I didn’t particularly care about his. With my backpack slung over my shoulders, I walked down the sidewalk, passing derelict old buildings and dark, disgusting alleyways. I didn’t particularly want to know what happened in their murky depths.

Two blocks down from the bus stop, I was at the apartment complex where Tré lived. It always astounded me that Tré -- who had two functional, working parents -- lived in an apartment while I lived in an actual house. I think it may have been because he lived in a nicer part of the suburban hell town, while I lived on the borderline desert wasteland outskirts (gotta love Global Warming).

You know how I said that this town was small? Well, technically, it was -- but it sprawled. People were muy de claustrophobic here, and there were seven feet of solid dark and scary and rapeface alley material between every house, making this little town look much bigger than it actually was. Well, certainly bigger than it actually should have been in the first goddamn place.

Shaking some of my loose and newly sheared hair out of my face, I walked into the building. As I climbed up the steps to floor thirteen -- the elevator was, has always been, and probably still is broken -- I fingered the chilly silver key in my pocket. It felt like I hadn’t seen Tré in forever -- he’s been down with a flu of some sort for a week, and he just fully recovered.

As silently as I could, because there were grumpy, evil old apartment neighbors who yelled at the slightest bit of noise, I slid the key into the lock and opened the door. Letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, I stepped in, only to be greeted by Tré being -- well, Tré.

“BILLIE!!!” he half screamed, running across the puke green colored, faux plush carpet. He practically tackled me as he hugged me, sending us both to the floor with a thunk. Giggling madly, he kissed me once on the nose, softly and sweetly.

“Nice to see you, too, Tré,” I said with a grin. “How are you?”

“I’m good, since the damn flu is gone. And since you’re here.”

“Awh, you’re so sweet. Would you kindly get the fuck off me, though?”

Tré just grinned and stood up, extending an arm to help me. I grasped his warm hand and stood in front of him now, at least six inches shorter than he was. Half using his shoulders for leverage, and half standing on my tip toes, I kissed him on the cheek. As he took a deep breath in, he pulled me in tighter to him.

“Love you, Billie.”

“Love you, too, Tré.”

I smiled into his chest and breathed in that specifically Tré scent -- lingering cigarette smoke, the generic “clean” smelling 2-n-1 shampoo/conditioner hair stuff, strong & sexy deodorant, and the faint yet clingy perfume of pot.

“You are so damn sexy,” I muttered.

“I know.”

I could hear the self satisfied smirk in his voice, and I couldn’t help but giggle a bit at how self assured he was, whereas I, on the other hand, felt incompetent and loathed myself -- unless I was Gloria, of course. When I was Gloria. I was perfect. When I was Gloria, I knew exactly who I was. When I was Gloria, nothing could stop me. When I was Gloria, I was a fucking force of nature.

“Of course you know, Tré,” I said after a minute, somewhat peeling myself off of him. “It’s obvious.”

“Isn’t it?” he sighed, leaning against the wall.

We always had these mock arguments about his attractiveness, but it was all just us poking fun at each other. He wasn’t enough of a narcissist to be that obsessed with his appearance -- but I did think he was as sexy as he pretended to think in our faux arguing. And that was one hell of a confusing sentence.

I extended my hand. “I’m starving. Let’s get a snack.” Tré smiled at my random comment and grabbed my hand, following me into the kitchen. I grabbed some only slightly stale-ish chips and not so moldy salsa. He leaned against the fridge as I pushed myself onto the counter and made my way through the snack.

“So, Billie Joe. Tell me the story of your life.”

I looked up at him quizzically. “You can’t expect me to tell all of that.”

“Should I start with mine, then?”

“If you want. But I’m not telling mine. Never. It’s too… too complicated, really.”

He sighed, then seemed to ignore my statement. I just glared at him. I hated to be ignored, especially on things that were personal like, you know, my life.

“You know, my dad here’s not my real dad.”

“Um. What?”

“Mom… well -- I’m illegitimate. Mom had a slutty streak a while after she and dad got married. She thought he was cheating. He wasn’t, but she was, I guess.”

I raised my eyebrows. Maybe Tré’s always been more of an outcast than I thought.

“Geez. That must be tough.”

“Like hell it’s tough. That’s why they’re so…” He struggled to find the right word.

“Distant?” I filled in for him. Tré just nodded.

“Yeah. I mean, I got over it pretty fast. But no one else has. Especially not my parents -- they pretend it never happens. They pretend that the only proof it happened didn’t exist, and I’m the only proof.”

“Tré…”

I jumped down and hugged him tightly. “Don’t worry. No matter what, I’ll still love you.”

“I’m glad. Since you’re the only one.”

“You’ll never lose me, kay? We‘re in it all together now, Tré.”

“I know. You’ll never lose me, either.” Tré just nodded as I released him from my embrace. “Well, you know how my parents are and all. It just got worse when I came out… when I was 15 or so. I went from being the imaginary monster in the closet to being the sticky gum on their shoes. I’m just barely living here. They want to kick me out since I’m nineteen, but they’re waiting till I get a job.”

He sighed. I hugged him again, this time rubbing circles on his back.

“Mmm. That feels nice.”

“So. Tell me about your coming out,” I said, trying to keep him away from asking me about my life.

“Well… I came out loudly and with style. I mean, when I came out, it was just as attention drawing as me running through the streets naked, screaming ‘HEY WORLD, I’M GAY!’”

“Ooh. Well, I’d certainly like to see that,” I replied, winking mischievously at the end.

“I knew you were the right guy for me. I need someone who thinks dirty.”

“Well, then, you’ve definitely got the right guy.”

Tré smiled, a bit painfully. “That’s when my… my issues started.”

“Issues?” I did not like how he’d said the word ‘issues.’ Not at all. It was so similar to how I said ‘issues’ when I talked about my past drug issues.

Damn Novacaine.

“Issues,” he echoed. His voices sounded dry. “Drug issues, to be specific.”

Damn it, I hate being right sometimes. “Oh shit. What is it?”

“O-opal,” Tré whispered, looking down.

“Holy shit.”

Opal was the newest, most inexpensive, least tested drug on the market. A black, soapy liquid that came in 50 ounce bottles. Highly addictive, it was either injected (like heroin) or dropped into your eyes (but the stuff clean and pure enough to go in your eyes had higher prices). It quickly affected your serotonin and dopamine levels, giving you a soaring high that was reportedly as glittery as the gemstone it was named after.

“What -- how do you take it?”

“I smoke it.”

“Um, how the fuck would one go about smoking Opal.”

“It’s pretty simple actually.”

Tré looked back at me, and I squeezed his hand in mine. I smiled at him. “Don’t worry.”

“So, what about you?” he asked suddenly. “Why are you Gloria? What brought you here…?” He trailed off, not sure what he was asking.

“I’m -- Tré, I don’t want to talk about this. You know that.”

“Well -- well, why the hell not?” he asked me. There was a hint of force in his voice, the edge of anger.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that Opal can cause your hormones to turn against you -- and not just wreak havoc on your body, but make you act like a PMSing teenage girl?

“Because. It’s a very long story. A long story that I really don’t want to tell. Things I don’t like talking about that I’ve been forced to explain one too many times.”

“And then why not… why not explain it to me?”

“Tré. I love you. Please… don’t make me do this.”

Tré raised a thin, reddish blond eyebrow. “Why do you have to be so secretive, Billie? Why can’t you tell me what I’ve told you?”

“I really just don’t want to think about it.”

“Why don’t you like talking about it?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but my life up until now is a mass of bad memories and things that I’d rather not remember – let alone tell someone!”

Tré continued to glare at me. “Listen, Gloria, but do you know how hard it was to tell you all about me?!”

“I can understand!” I shouted. “And so you understand why I don’t want to talk about me!”

“You’re insane.”

“Me – insane?! I’m not the one who fucking smokes Opal, dammit!” I screamed.

“Just – listen. Shut up right now.”

With those angry words, Tré turned away from me and stormed out into the small hallway. I ran after him.

“Tré – just,” I said. I wasn’t yelling now. “Remember to learn to forget whiskey shots and cheap cigarettes.”

“Fuck you.”

Tré walked into the bathroom and slammed the door in my face. What he didn’t realize was that what I said was just as much about me as it was about him. Not to mention, it was a line from a poem I’d written about Tré and me, called Before the Lobotomy. The line was just as much about me as it was about him -- although, I didn’t really expect Tré to get it, as he didn’t know (at that point) about my past drug issues.

I still hadn’t given him a code or fake or nickname for the Class of Thirteen. It was kind of crazy that he’d been with me for a month and a part of the Class for a few weeks, but that he was still just Tré Cool – even though that was his own nickname, he still needed one from the Class of Thirteen.

I continued down the hallway, not even wanting to look in and see him smoking Opal – well, however the hell he did that. I threw open the beige with peeling white paint door ro his room and ran inside.

On his unmade bed, there was a fabric bound book that looked like…

Like a diary.

Ignoring everything people have said about not reading peoples’ diaries, I picked it up and opened it.

January 1st, 2013.
I guess I really should start using the damn thing. I’ve had it since my 14th birthday – so, like, since 2008 or something. It’s high time to start writing things.

I’m Tré, I’m 19, and I’m a fucked up drug addict… Opal. I smoke it.

I don’t believe in anything or anyone except for me. Everything here is screwed up. The world is going to Hell and none of us can do shit about it. Except there is the Class of Thirteen. They’re led by this girl named Gloria or something. They’re a protest riot group -- like Whatsername and the Underbelly, but more peaceful. They don’t fight fire with fire -- they fight fire with a riot.

It’s insane. It’s beautiful.

I wish I could join them, but they’d never let someone like me join their ranks.

Someone called Tré Cool who smokes Opal and who is fucked up beyond belief.

Oh well. I guess I’m stuck here till it’s all over. Not like it’ll be over anytime soon.

His messily handwritten words pulled at my heartstrings and made me think. Maybe Tré wasn’t as self assure as I had thought he was.

Then it hit me -- his code name, that is. Christian. The sheer irony of calling him Christian of all thinks when he believed in nothing was perfect.

And so, armed with a name to call my boyfriend in secret, I looked through the diary to find out more about Christian. About my love.

Some Humor

2009-11-04T15:39:00.001-08:00

Author-character correspondence!

Dear Billie Joe,
How the hell do you find the combined smell of cigarette smoke, cheap shampoo, deodorant, and pot attractive?
Confusedly,
Your Glorious Author.

PS. Yes, knowing you as well as I know you, I'll come back and post your reply to this. You really hate that fourth wall.

*

Dear Author,
Because he's Tre and therefore he is totally 100% sexy. And I'm weird -- you're the one who made me a little insane and got me hooked on Novacaine in the first place, remember?
~Billie

*

Dear Billie,
You were the one who I dunno let me make you stick that needle in your arm fifty times through the prequel.
AND the person you're based off of was the one who wrote a song about Novacaine, anyway.
~Author

*

Dear Author,
Fuck off.
~Billie

Chapter Four: ¡Viva La Billie Joe!

2009-11-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

(2507 words)
(Tré’s POV)

As I pulled the cold metal lever down, white and frosty looking soft serve ice cram poured into my chocolate lined waffle cone. The chill of the delicious vanilla flavored stuff seeped into my tightly gripping fingers. I let go of the handle and watched with fascination as the ice cream curled into an elf hat curly tip.

The seat I’d reserved at the popular old café was also cold as ice, having been unused for a few hours at the very least, and the whole day at the very most. But that, of course, was quite unlikely.

It was three thirty in the afternoon now. He was supposed to show up in fifteen minutes.

Twitching with anticipation, I cautiously picked at my vanilla soft serve, eating it fast enough so that it wouldn’t melt but slow enough so that it would last me a while. The sweet vanilla bean flavor was ignored as I anxiously waited for my first date in a while.

Three. Forty. Five.

I jumped as the little, old timey bell rung, signifying that the colorful glass door had been opened. I turned around slowly and yet impatiently to see who had just entered the ice cream centric café.

Billie Joe Armstrong stood at the door, awkwardly looking around and running the fingers of his left hand through his hair. A simple – although slightly wilted – red rose dangled from his right hand. His usually spiked hair was down and neatly combed back – actually, all of it except for some loose strands that dangled in front of his eyes. He was dressed in a clean dark red shirt and neat blue jeans, which were covered in odd designs and hand drawn band logos.

I smiled a bit. Time to win over my first boyfriend in who knows how long.

“Hey – Billie Joe! Gloria?” I called. He looked up at me, and I noticed then that his clear green eyes were lined in simple black eyeliner.

A grin spread over his pretty pink lips as he walked over to the table that I’d reserved for us. “Mr. Tré Cool,” he said, smirking. Billie sat down and somewhat nervously tapped his fingers on the table. “Fancy meeting you here, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’d say it is.”

I smirked back at him, self consciously smoothing my hair back once more. Under his steady cat’s eyes green gaze, I felt nervous and small. My palms began to sweat and I rubbed them on my coarse jeans under the table.

His smirk turned to a smile and I found myself smiling back at my date. I bit my lip, not knowing what to say, and he shook some hair out of his eyes.

“Um, sorry. I’m kinda -- sorta borin’, ya -- y’know?” I commented, just above whisper tone.

“Heh. Don’t worry. I -- I am, too. Sometimes. Heh.”

I’d noticed by then that he tended to ramble when he was nervous, a trait I found extremely cute. Billie Joe swallowed quickly.

“Gah. My mouth’s so dry…”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You want me to get you some water or something?”

“Fuck, did I say that aloud? I have this weird habit of, um, thinking’ out loud -- I live basically alone, you know?” he half said and half asked quickly.

“’Course I know. I live pretty much alone, too.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. D’you still want me to get you some water?” I asked.

“Um… oh. Yeah. Sure. I mean… yes, please.” He laughed a little, nervously. I just smiled at him and all his odd cuteness as I stood up and walked to the bar. As quickly as I could, I got a glass of water and went back to our table.

It was awkwardly silent and the minutes ticked on monotonously once more. Billie Joe sipped his water silently across the table from me, and my fingers absently drummed a tuneless beat on the faux wood plastic in front of me.

“So, um, you’re good with, like, you know -- rhythm stuff. D’you play an instrument?” he asked nervously. Clearing his throat, he added, “Um, I sing, y‘know, just a bit. And play a little guitar, but I’m no good at either, ‘specially not guitar.”

“I, ah, I drum a bit in my spare time. Not that I have much spare time, well, um, I guess I do now, heh. Now that school’s out ‘nd all. I’m kinda sorta decent, in a way. But not really -- ya know what I’m sayin’?”

“You’re probably better than me at, like, anything.”

“You’re saying that to the kid who graduated with a C-.”

“You’re saying that to the only other kid who graduated with a C-.”

“Eh. I missed all of ninth grade and a bit of tenth. Long, long story. So I basically worked my ass off and graduated with a GPA of two.”

“Damn. That sucks.” I laughed a bit, “I got a low grade ‘cause I was damn lazy.”

Billie Joe also laughed, a quiet laugh that reminded me of happy music that would make you want to dance. It certainly made me want to dance -- want to dance with the freaking hot guy sitting only two feet (or less) away from me. I grinned sheepishly, laughed quietly, and watched as he tilted his head to the side.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s just that you’re really, really cute and really hot and… fuck. You’re awesome.”

Billie blushed slightly and looked away. “Um. I could, um, say the same about you.” Hurriedly, he looked up at me. “I meant that as in I really could. I wasn’t bluffing. Holy shit am I awkward.”

“You’re thinking out loud again,” I playfully chided. Billie Joe laughed a bit once more, before shuffling in his seat slightly and pushing some of his black hair out of his face. Just then, I noticed his black nail polish, a bit chipped but still mostly intact.

I sighed, having run out of things to talk about. I decided to pull something out of my ass, actually -- it was something I had been planning to talk about since his little speech slash rant slash yell fest slash argument at the graduation ceremony, two whole days ago at that point in time.

“So you’re -- you’re Gloria, right? Leader of the Class of Thirteen, and all that jazz?” I ventured.

He nodded. “Uh huh. I’m not as special as Gloria is, though. In a way, we’re separate people -- if you get what I mean.”

I nodded as he cleared his throat. Before he could add anything else to his statement, I cut in. “So, I mean, the whole Class of Thirteen thing -- it’s pretty damn amazing. I can’t believe you could pull it all together like that. You’re actually pretty damn amazing.”

“I -- what. Oh my God, I am?” he half exclaimed, biting his lip a bit at the end of his sentence. I just nodded once more, and grinned.

“You’re like… what we’ve been waiting for all along. Y’know? You’re just what we’ve needed since Whatsername ran away and the Underbelly called it quits.”

Billie Joe winced a bit at my mention of Whatsername and the Underbelly. “Well, ya know, they were -- they’re my inspiration. Especially -- ‘specially Whatsername. He was… he was pretty damn cool.”

“Wait -- you knew Whatsername? And Whatsername was a guy?”

He nodded and quickly took a large sip of his water, buying him time to think of an answer.

“Y-yeah. I met him a few times. Y’know, just said hi and stuff. He was really girly, too, ya know. Even more than me -- he had really long black hair and more makeup than I do,” he improvised.

I smiled. This wasn’t the whole truth, and I knew it, but I didn’t press. I wanted to date him, not probe into his life like a school counselor or someone trying to force feed you psych meds. Hah, I have this funny story about sporks and psych meds…

A story for another time, of course.

“That’s really cool. I mean -- Whatsername’s the biggest name in the revolution, probably.” I winked at him. “And Gloria’s probably the second!”

Billie Joe half blushed, half nervously grinned, and half laughed quietly. Wait -- three halves? What the…

“Anyway! As I was saying -- you’re amazing. You know, you’re just what we’ve needed lately. You picked up right where Whatsername --” He flinched again. “-- left off. You’re like the hero for a three years lost cause, man. You’re big. You are making a fuckin’ difference.”

He smirked and temporarily regained his confidence. “Oh, you’d bet I’m big. Just wait till you see me in a bedroom, when we’re alone… together…”

I rolled my eyes. “Wow.”

Billie Joe just laughed as I regathered my thoughts.

“So -- um, anyway -- you’re making the Class of Thirteen -- um, you’ll make ‘em go far. They’re gonna change something With your leadership and -- um, guidance, they might impeach Bush. Y’know? I bet they could.”

“No way in Hell we could do that,” Billie Joe muttered darkly, looking down. I smiled again.

“You can do it. Just look how far you’ve gotten the Class so far! Look how far Gloria’s taken the Revolution!”

“Yeah. That’s Gloria. G - L - O - R - I - A.” He even spelled out the name and all. “Not Billie Joe, the nobody from the middle of nowhere, from the town that don’t exist…”

Once more, I raised my eyebrow. “You. Are. Fucking. Gloria. Well, I don’t mean you’re fucking her, fucking her -- that would be creepy -- what I meant is that you, yourself -- you are Gloria.”

“I guess. I just don’t feel that important.”

“You are. Trust me. Billie --” I reached out across the table and put one of my hands on his warm arm, my pasty white skin standing out starkly from his darker slight tan. “-- you are very, very important. You are, you’ve met Whatsername, you’re Gloria, you’re the leader, the founder of the Class of Thirteen. If that doesn’t make you important, then -- I don’t know what would.”

“No. I’m just not -- listen. I’m not --”

I cut him off with an impatient sigh. “Shut up. Seriously. Do you want me to have to French you again in front of an audience to shut you up?”

“Well, that would be rather nice,” he admitted, grinning slyly.

“How’s this -- if you let me be your official one hundred percent real boyfriend -- and if I can join the Class of Thirteen -- and if you do admit that you, or Gloria, or whatever, just as long as you admit you’re making a difference. If you do all that, then I’ll kiss you,” I compromised, grinning.

“Um. Gah. Okay. Fine.”

“Say it.”

“You, Tré Cool, or Frank Edwin Wright III, you are my official one hundred percent my boyfriend. And you are now a part of the Class of Thirteen -- I’ll drag you along to the next meeting on Tuesday. And…” He dragged the word out for much longer than necessary. “And… I, Billie Joe Armstrong, or Gloria, the leader of the Class of Thirteen -- I am important and I have and I will make a difference.”

He smirked and stood, leaning against the table, his hips cocked seductively. “Now… kiss me, you fool.”

“Fine. I will.”

I stood up and full speed embrace attacked him, pulling him into me and pressing my mouth to his. He leaned up on his tip toes, wrapping his slender arms around my shoulders. I tightened my grip around his waist and leaned further into him, simultaneously deepening the kiss.

Most would call this going too fast. I called it teenage hormones, rebelliousness, and the Class of Two Thousand and Fucking Thirteen.

He quietly moaned into my mouth, our tongues writhing together in simple and pure and wonderful and delicious unison, exploring each other’s mouths and tasting each other, forever imprinting that flavor in our memory.

Maybe it was going too fast. But still, it was our white hot fury and romance that drove us forward.

Billie’s fingers entangled themselves in the short, gelled together locks of my reddish hair as my hands snaked up his back. We were both breathing at a nearly dangerous rate now, hot breaths escaping into the other’s mouth, onto the other’s face. We didn’t mind. We were one in that moment, and we were perfect.

After an eternity of beauty and passion, we broke apart. Out hands slid down and grasped each other, our fingers intertwined. I half leaned against a table, trying to catch my breath as Billie Joe did the same. Some sweat glittered on his forehead, illuminated in the bright fluorescent glow from the ceiling.

I looked up and smiled at him. He smiled back, warmly.

“Get the hell out of here and never come back.”

I looked up at the angry manager, surrounded by a practical horde of confused teens and angry workers. I laughed a little and pulled Billie Joe closer to me.

“C’mon, Gloria. Let’s head out,” I whispered.

“One more thing, though,” he said back, and I let him do his thing.

He was Gloria, of course.

“Well, you know what? Fuck you all. ‘Cause we are the Class of…”

I joined him: “The Class of Thirteen. Raised in the era of humility. We are the desperate in the decline. Raised by the bastards of nineteen sixty nine!”

We both grinned as we walked out, leaving stunned and angered people behind us. Billie Joe leaned up and kissed me quietly on my cheek.

“That was amazing,” I told him. “You’re a fucking genius.”

“No way in hell. But thank you anyway, Tré.” He grinned a bit, looking like he was walking on a cloud.

“It’s not every day you find a hot guy who is the rebel leader who is also gay,” I commented with a little bit of a smirk.

“Bisexual. But I catch your wave -- willing to kiss another guy, right?”

“Oops. But yeah, exactly.”

Billie Joe smiled further, before checking his watch. “Damn, it’s nearly five. I’ve gotta get home soon.”

“Oh shit. Yeah, same. See you around?”

“Call me tonight, okay?” he called, as he walked away. I ran after him.

“Hey! I will. Of course I will. But don’t I get a goodbye kiss?”

Billie Joe grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

He kissed me on the cheek again, before looking straight in the eye and saying words I’d never forget:

“Tré Fucking Cool… you know what? I think I may be falling, head over heels, madly in love. With you.”

And with that statement, he turned around and walked away, heading to his own house.

“Yeah. Billie Joe. Gloria. I love you, too,” I whispered, smiling and glowing with happiness, as I walked back to my house.

Chapter Three: Know Your Enemy

2009-11-01T22:48:00.000-08:00

(2676 words)
(Billie Joe's POV)

I awoke at my alarm clock prescribed time of 5 in the AM, ending up with only about an hour of sleep. My face was firmly planted on my speech, drool in a little puddle, blurring the words and sinking into the paper. If you thought about it, that was kind of gross that I drooled on pencil lead and paper for an hour straight. But I didn’t really care as I sluggishly walked through the hallways and into the kitchen, making some coffee before my mom woke up.

Not that she’d care, though. She barely knew who I was, which was partially because I was barely around anymore and partially because she was taking too many psychiatric meds to really notice what was going on.

It was a shame that I never really got to know either of my parents. Dad left when I was 8 or 9 -- and I didn’t see him much before that -- and mom basically disappeared around the same time as dad. I basically raised myself, learning how to survive the hard way. Basically, I was free to do whatever I wanted. That wasn’t always a good thing.

Being able to do whatever the hell I wanted to ended up with me getting hooked on Novacaine for a year or so. But the many addictions I experienced at the age of fifteen are a story for another time.

Except for some of the addictions, which stuck with me even until I was 18 and beyond that. Smoking, for one.

Quietly, I sat in my room, drinking my hot and shitty instant coffee and eating a three months stale Pop Tart. It was truly the good life, mine was.

I brushed strawberry flavored crumbs off of my shirt before undressing, grimacing at the dirt that covered the pale skin on my stomach and chest. Bandages that were once wrapped around my skinned knees were peeling off at the edges, and I roughly tore them off, ignoring the sting of raw skin.

A minute or so later, I’d dug up a somewhat clean pair of jeans and a decent looking, but full of holes, band shirt from who knows when that I’d probably gotten at a garage sale for two bucks. I haphazardly threw them on, not exactly caring how I looked.

I checked the time. 6 AM, so I still had forty five minutes to finish getting ready.

First, I grabbed my comb and my hair gel, walking to the hall bathroom and combing my hair at the same time. Once I had a (slightly dirty, I may add) mirror in front of me, I began to style my hair.

I teased my greasy black hair into long, pointed, gravity defying spikes, groaning as I realized that I’d have to cut my hair again soon. As soon as all of my hair was out of my face, I put on some eyeliner and called my overall appearance decent.

I slung my backpack over my shoulders and half tied my shoes as I walked out of the house, not bothering to tell my mom that I was leaving. Why should I, anyway?

I wanted to make a lasting imprint as that day was likely going to be my personal last day of school. Sure, the next day was grades day and the day after that was the real last day -- but I’d already gotten my grades and I just really didn’t care enough to stay there much longer.

I would make an impression on this godforsaken town that night at the graduation ceremony if it was the last thing I did.

*

It was 8 PM, finally, and I was walking into the old auditorium, ready to officially graduate and get the hell out of this school. I was ready to give my little speech on enemies and knowing your enemies, and had it all thought out in my head. All I had to do now was actually say it.

When I looked around the room, I realized for probably the fiftieth time that night that I was the least impressively dressed kid in the room. Just for the graduation, I wore a long sleeved black shirt with a freaking awesome red tie and regular black pants. I looked so informal that it hurt and I stuck out like a sore thumb even more than I usually did.

With a resigned sigh, I looked for my sear -- I was in the last row, but in seat A for my last name. It was fairly easy to find, and I sat down. The sections of cold metal chairs were fairly empty, except for one occupied chair a few rows down from me…

The guy who sat in the last row of what I estimated was section W wore fairly simple and casual clothing like I did, black standing out from his stark pale skin. His form captivated me, thick, but lean. My gaze traveled upward, from what I could see of sculpted abs to his face.

Holy shit…

Reddish blond hair was slicked back from his face, revealing a sharply curving widow’s peak and ending at the back of his head in a neat point. He had thin and high eyebrows that arched over slightly vacant greenish blue eyes. A slight and sexy half grin danced on his lips, raising his cheeks in a cute but seductive way.

It was official: this guy who I’d never seen before in my life who sat a few chairs down from me was totally hot.

He caught my gaze and looked at me with those piercing eyes. I blushed slightly and turned away, trying to feign that I hadn’t been staring at him. I felt his gaze as he looked at me, and I finally looked back at him. He grinned at me, and although my cheeks heated up again, I grinned back.

So I was falling for someone I hadn’t even met yet, whose name I didn’t know. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened.

We continued to just stare at eachother for a while, blinking every few seconds before the swarm of other graduating twelfth graders came between us and all the other teenagers filled the rows. I smiled to myself and squirmed a bit in my seat just thinking about the goddamn way he looked at me -- the same way no one had looked at me in two or three years.

He was damn attractive, and I think he thought that I was damn attractive, too.

Once everyone had filed into their seats, Ms. Alice Freaking Melare stood at the podium on the stage and said some random and boring speech about how proud she was of all of us -- well, she glared at me at that part. She explained to the present parents that it was such an honor and that we were all ready to go to college, blah blah blah.

Then came the diploma hand outs, my time to give my world changing speech, and when my life changed forever.

Melare called us all up, row by row, until the first seven rows had gone, sappy speeches and poetry and all.

“Eighth row,” she said, and I stood up, leading the eighth row students up the stairs that lead backstage.

“Billie Joe Armstrong,” announced my now former teacher with a slightly exasperated sigh at the end of my name. I walked out with pride, grabbing my diploma and standing at the student microphone.

“To the students, parents and staff of this simply wonderful high school,” I started with a self satisfied grin. “I have one question to ask you all: do you know your enemy?”

There were a few coughs and people rustling in their seats, but otherwise, no answer. I frowned slightly.

“I said -- do you know your enemy?!”

The jumped a little. Still no answer. I grimaced and decided to go on anyway.

“Well, you know what? Your enemy -- the enemy of all of you people -- it’s not different people. It’s not the Class of Thirteen, or the Underbelly, or Gloria or Whatsername. It’s not people who want to change things. You know who your enemy is?”

Crickets. A pin could have dropped and everyone in the room would’ve heard it.

“The government. The government, George W. Bush, they’re your enemy.”

I looked out on all of them, at faces that morphed from blank and uncaring into passionately angry.

“They have been lying to you all for thirteen years now! Bush took over and used 9/11 as an excuse, a scapegoat, to go to war with Iraq! It was all for oil -- I hope you know that, as it is pretty obvious, by now! Oil, and money, and the chance to brag to the original George Bush that his son can make a lot of fuckin’ money!”

They looked at me, shocked and really, truly angry now. What kind of blasphemer was I? Well, I was the kind of blasphemer who was right.

“You all -- learn to know who your real enemy is!”

“Mr. Armstrong, maybe you should --!”

I cut Alice Melare off. “I will not back down. These are the true facts, they are not freaking incorrect, as you would claim they are! You people need to take a stand for what is right, fight for what this country was built for -- putting the common welfare in front of your own selfish interests!”

I grabbed the microphone stand and stepped closer to the edge of the stage, still half yelling into the mic. “If you’re with me, take a stand now! Silence is also your enemy -- if we don’t do anything, then this will keep happening! Countless U.S. soldiers -- some of which are the same age as us, high school graduate just like us -- are being killed every day. For oil. For oil, and money, and power. How do you feel about that?!”

I was working so hard at this that I was panting by now, and the sweltering bright white stage lights were making me sweat under their intensity. “Take a stand against this greedy government and our bats hit insane, money loving president. Who is our enemy?”

“The Class of Thirteen.”

It was a quiet, but distinct murmur.

“What.” It was a statement, not a question. That wasn’t what I’d just said.

“Those radical teenagers think they’ll change something,” someone shouted from the crowd, “they can’t -- and we don’t need change. Our real enemies are the Class of Thirteen.”

I stared blankly into the audience for a minute before figuring out what to say.

“That’s just what they want you to think. You’re letting them think for you, now! That’s the vast majority opinion! Why don’t we go against it?! Because obviously, it’s wrong!”

I raised one arm to the sky and held the microphone close to my mouth. “If you want change, change for the better -- if you’re young enough to still think against the mainstream -- then come on. Join the Class of Thirteen. And you know what?”

No answer, once more.

“I’m Gloria, Gloria the leader. Gloria the fighter, Gloria who wants change! Gloria! G - L - O - R --!”

I was cut off as a warm and slightly heavy body rammed into mine, wrapping arms around my waist and pressing a warm mouth to mine. A million thoughts went through my head as I opened my eyes to see who had assaulted me so romantically.

Holy hell, I thought. It was the guy from before. The guy I was staring at, who had been staring at me. His lips, warm but rough and chapped, were pressed to mine as he feverishly kissed me. His warm tongue slid down my lip and I opened my mouth, begging for more. As his tongue penetrated beyond my lips, a warm and slightly smoky taste filled my mouth. An exotic feeling filled my veins, leaving me light headed and stirring my poor teenage hormones into creating a bit of a sticky reaction. I breathed through my nose, inhaling his clinging and close scent as he took in mine.

We broke apart a few minutes later, our chests heaving with a lack of oxygen and an overdose of adrenaline. He smiled at me, a real smile that was adorable and seductive and made me want to screw him right there on the stage.

“The name’s -- Tré. Tré Cool,” he whispered between panting breaths. I smiled at him. “And you’re -- you’re Billie Joe, huh? Or…or Gloria?” he asked with a smirk.

“You could -- you could say that, yeah.”

“You know, I kissed you to shut you up,” he admitted. At my surprised glare, he added, “I mean, you’re hot. Really, really hot. Shutting you up was just my second objective, but then again -- how else was I supposed to make you shut up?”

“You’re one sexy and sneaky bitch, you know.”

“Hell yes do I know.”

I grinned and wiped some sweat off my forehead. “You know, people are staring.”

“Like I care?”

“Good point.”

“Meet me after the graduation ceremony. I’ll be at the left exit door.”

“See you there, hottie!” I called to him as I stepped off stage.

Later, I learned that his real name was Frank Edwin Wright III, a fact that made me giggle a bit, as he was called up to get his own diploma. I liked both his real name and his fake -- well, preferred…nickname? -- name. I practically clawed up my think metal seat (Don’t ask how I could do that) just waiting for the graduation ceremony to end.

And finally, after long last, we were dismissed. I darted over to the left exit, looking around for him. Tré wasn’t in sight. Then, suddenly, I saw him -- casually leaning against the doorframe on the outside, smoking a cigarette in a way that made my mouth water.

Oh yes, I wanted him to touch me that same way he was touching his cigarette.

“Hey -- Tré!” I shouted. His name was actually quite fun to say. Tré Tré Tré Tré…

“Mmm, Billie Joe. What’s up?” he asked, stamping out his butt on the dead ground.

“Nothing, as per usual. I mean, I’ve just been sitting for the past hour watching people graduate.”

Oh my god, Billie Joe, you’re rambling. Stop rambling right now. Stop it stop it stop it stop it!

“Heh, I know. Same. It’s so boring, don’t cha know?”

“Uh huh. Hell yes.”

You’re blathering, dude. Stop it. Stop looking like a moron!

I grinned a bit shyly and he just smirked. He had ways of reducing me to being torn between screwing him right there and then, and melting into a pathetic little puddle of Billie Joe goo.

“C’mere for a second.”

I walked closer to him, my hands sweating and nervously twitching. I shook some of my loose hair out of my face, blinking rapidly and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I tried to ignore the tight throbbing in my pants and tried to focus solely on Tré Cool, the newest object of my hormone driven affections.

As soon as I was within two feet of him, he hugged me quickly, and put something in my back pocket.

“Call me and I’ll call it a date, okay?”

“Uh…okay.”

“See ya later, dude,” he said with a wink and another smirk, before walking off onto a sidewalk and away from the school, presumably toward his house. I took whatever he’d put in my pocket out. A soft, folded piece of paper. Hungrily, I unfolded it.

“Billie Joe -- you’re hot, and you’re sincere, and I agree with you. Go on a date with me? Tré.”

Next to his signature was his phone number.

I jumped in the air and squealed quietly before running home to call Tré and take up his offer on a date.

Chapter Two: 21st Century Breakdown

2009-11-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

(2890 words)
(Billie Joe's POV)

It was a dark and stormy night as I lay in bed, reminiscing about the year I had just spent in the twelfth grade.

Well, if I said that last line seriously, I’d be lying. Not that I haven’t lied before, but that would be a totally pointless lie. I don’t even know why I’d lie like that, with that particular lie. Those last few sentences were totally the product of the Redundancy Department of Redundancy, but I didn’t -- and I still don’t -- really care. They’re my thoughts, anyway.

Anyway, I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, totally random thoughts running through my head at a million miles an hour. Who I was and who I was becoming. How the hell I was supposed to get into college with a 2.0 Grade Point Average.

As I remembered that essay, I groaned and sat up, rubbing non-existent sleep out of my eyes and further smearing my eyeliner. I stumbled across the room, three fourths awake and zombie-like, before flicking on the overhead lamp and having my eyes burned out by the light.

“Damn bright lights,” I muttered, my voice rough from lack of water and sleep. On the corner of the desk that I was aiming for, a stack of old, coffee stained papers sat on top of my half dead, 10 year old laptop. The first paper on there was my essay -- the same essay that I wrote at 1 AM and ended up with a C- from. That bitch of a 12th grade director marked me down for “incorrect facts.”

Incorrect facts my ass. I knew that Alice Melare hated me with a passion through the year, and that my graduation essay was the perfect time for her to strike. She gave me a freakin’ C- on something I poured my heart and soul into, just so I could graduate and get into college. God knows how hard I had to work through 10th grade to make up for missing most of 9th.

…missing most of ninth grade. Not something I like talking about much, but, of course, Melare knew what I’d been up to when I was fifteen. For one, as soon as I came back, rumors of where I had been for a whole year spread around quickly. Had I finally committed suicide? Did I run off and join a circus? Did someone else kill me? Did I run away with a secret lover -- male or female? Of course, the principal of the goddamn school sat me down and made me explain it all.

I did explain it all, all of it except for the part where Whatsername was really a guy and I was his boyfriend for a year.

Yeah. More topics I really would rather not be talked about, thank you very much.

I looked over the essay again, and for something written at 1 AM, at the very last minute, it was a work of goddamn pure genius. Einstein’s 1 AM ramblings wouldn’t have been better than this piece of new classic American literature.

Well, you know what, Alice Melare could jump in a hole and die and I wouldn’t care. I would just point and laugh at her, celebrating in my own way as she fell to her death in a fifty foot deep hole. I wanted to see her go splat.

Unconsciously, I’d started to draw that on the back of my essay using a pencil that I’d gotten out of nowhere -- well, off my desk, I assumed. A badly drawn hole, with a badly drawn splattered version of my evil teacher at the bottom of it. A badly drawn stick figure version of me stood on the edge of the hole, pointing and presumably laughing.

Yeah, I’m kinda a little insane sometimes, but that’s why people love me.

With a sigh, I put the paper back down on the mountainous stack of crap on my poor computer and sat back down on the bed, burying my head in my hands.

How the hell was I supposed to ever get into a respectable college -- no, not even a damn respectable college -- with such shitty grades? I worked my ass off for three years straight and I ended up graduating highschool with a freaking C-. A Grade Point Average of 2. I was severely screwed in the aspect of college and ready to kiss my scholarship to UCLA good bye.

Good bye, dreams of a decent future. At this rate of decline, I’d either end up flipping burgers for some corporate giant trans fat run company like McDonald’s for the rest of my life, or I’d end up as that one hobo on the side of the road who looks like a gay emo kid.

Well, there was always the Class of Thirteen to fall back on, and my so called friends -- more like acquaintances -- that I could hang with for a while. Or, you know, the rest of my life.

Yeah, I could live the last 82 years of my whole life as a worthless piece of crap in someone’s basement, kinda like my mom. Well, you know, assuming I’ll even live to 100. It’s more likely that I’d die at the age of 37 than live to see fifty. Kind of sad, but, you know -- die young and save yourself, right?

I sighed again and looked up, glaring at the lamp that glared back with retina burning and eye killing intensity and light.

“Burn in hell,” I groaned as I sat down on my creaky wooden desk chair. Okay, I technically was burning -- well, my eyes were, anyway -- and this goddamn town might as well have been Hell, so I was actually close enough to burning in Hell. All I had to do was stay glued to this seat for the rest of my life, and never move, and hey! I’d be burning in Hell for all eternity!

Yeah, fat chance of that ever happening.

For the moment, however, I was perfectly fine with just sitting there and waiting out my usual insomnia. I didn’t dare check the time, just in case it was really three in the morning and I was still only one fourth asleep. It was just too hard to sleep. The anxiety for the coming day weighed on my chest like that damn house weighed on the chest of the Wicked Witch of the East.

Because in around 15 hours or something, I was going to finally graduate and be done with high school, also know as the worst four years of your life. Well, it is the worst four years of your life if you happen to live where I did and think like I do. That would make it the worst four years of your life. It would make you want to run away and never come back.

Well, some people do that. Some people also run away and end up coming back a year later. Some people run away and get hitched and have kids and never come back. Some people run away and get killed. Some people flat out commit suicide.

Yeah, this old town has the ability to drive people mad. It also has the ability to empower the true idiots and let them take charge over the actually intelligent people. The other idiots who aren’t yet adults are hailed as the top of the class, or grade, or whatever the hell the favoritist teachers decide they should be on that particular day.

I never got anything like that. Since I was brave enough to speak my opinion, I was the worst student as this goddamned highschool. I was probably the worst student in the whole town. I was probably the worst student in the whole world, in their eyes.

Just because I thought differently than all of them.

Well, I guess I had a small advantage in the fact that there was a group of students that were all my age in the next closest town who all thought along the same lines as I did, and along the same lines as I still do. And I was like their leader in this Revolution that we’d started.

It was my idea. Modeled after the Underbelly from the City, I created the Class of Thirteen. No one in this godforsaken suburban hell wanted to join, so I biked for a few hours and made it with like minded people in the other town. I became their leader, and in the style of being a rebel guy who wears eyeliner (like Whatsername is or was), I took on a female alias.

And thus I became Gloria. Latin, or Spanish, for ‘glory’ and I became the shining light of the Revolution, the avatar for change, and the leader of the slowly becoming iconic Class of Thirteen.

Once Whatsername completely disappeared in early 2010, the Underbelly disappeared and faded out of the eye of the mainstream media. It left a vacant hole that was empty for a few years before I made the Class of Thirteen.

The Class of Thirteen…we had taken that name from the year all or most of us were going to graduate high school, 2013. A few of us were younger, a few of us were older, and the spectrum ran from around 15 to around 21, give or take a couple years on both. The average, however, was 18, the ones in classes that were going to graduate in 2013. And that’s where we got our name, and thus our chant.

“We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen! Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of 1969!”

We chanted that at all of our protests, screaming mean averages about our group. We were truly desperate, all trying to get jobs in this era of economic decline that was getting close to the harshness of the Great Depression. Most of us were raised by parents born in or around ‘69.

So, just imagine 200 or so teenagers chanting that as one huge crowd, holding signs and looking angry. Imagine this group with a short 18-ish guy, wearing more makeup than a regular 18 year old guy should be, at the front, leading them. Once you can see that, then you can see one of our average protests. And, of course, I’m the 18 year old at the front, so unselfishly leading them all.

I looked across my messy and cluttered desk at a rather recent group photo of us all. In it, I stood at the front of them all, grinning this stupid grin and throwing my arms in the air. Everyone else behind me was also grinning, some in totally stupid poses and others also throwing their arms in the air. A banner held by a few members in the middle said, “The Class of Thirteen!” and was thrown in the air with pride.

Looking more closely, I noticed the rainbow wristband on my wrist and smirked at the photo of myself. The Class of Thirteen certainly did not discriminate. I noticed, again, the diversity of the people standing behind me -- all different skin tones, all different religious beliefs (or lack thereof), all different sexualities and gender identities.

For what it was -- a group of like minded but minority thinking teenagers -- the Class of Thirteen was pretty freaking amazing. It was open and everyone was at least semi decent to eachother. We were a somewhat functional family, and to me, more functional than dysfunctional. It was a relief for most of us who had come from severely dysfunctional families, or had raised ourselves. Some of the members had been kicked out of our families when we were younger. Some of the members were kicked out as soon as they joined the Class of Thirteen.

It was sad how families were deteriorating so quickly over such small thing as religion (or lack thereof), political beliefs, and sexual attraction (or, sometimes, lack thereof as well). Divorce rates were soaring, and same sex marriage still wasn’t accepted. People were marrying for money over love, or sometimes for sex over love. Some people married and divorced to steal from their ex-spouse for all they were worth.

It was a shameless and repeating cycle of sex, pain, heartbreak, and greed, with the occasional prison sentence resulting from death that came from a BDSM session gone wrong.

It was sickening, saddening, and maddening how wrong the country had been running at that point in time. And that is exactly why I created the Class of Thirteen -- to try and change something, to try and change anything. We were trying to stop the government from becoming even more dictatorial than it was. The government was destroying the nation, the whole world one corrupted person at a time. I thought that it was high time for us to stop that from happening.

So, as one cohesive group, the Class of Thirteen would go out into a public place -- any public place, really -- and yell and scream and kick and try to bring it all down. We would fight it all until something was done.

By then, there were hundreds of YouTube videos on the Class, even though we had only been active for half a year at that point. We were quickly attaining celebrity status. In particular, so was I. Not as Billie Joe Armstrong, some naysaying nobody from the middle of nowhere, but as Gloria, the world and life changing leader of a huge group that bordered on a political party in its own right.

Yeah, look out for it on the next census: the political party option of "Class of Thirteen."

But really, it wasn't me. I had to owe it all to Whatsername and her group. They were my inspiration (not to mention the fact that Whatsername was my first real boyfriend), but an inspiration that I preferred not to talk about. If it wasn't for the Underbelly and some of the stuff that they did, the Class of Thirteen wouldn't exist. The persona of Gloria that I donned whenever I left this hell of a town wouldn't exist. I would still be an 18 year old nobody who had just barely -- and by barely, I mean by one freaking percent -- graduated the twelfth grade.
So, I really truly owed it all to Whatsername.

The Class of Thirteen was really a force of nature in its own right, and by that point in time, it was reaching the heights of closeness to changing something and the heights of popularity and reach as the Underbelly.

Just thinking about the Underbelly, and not even Whatsername in particular, made me feel sick, so I put the picture away and stood up, pacing the room and passing all the random band posters on the way. It really was strange, that only three or four years ago I'd been a delinquent in the City, fighting in what really was the largest revolution to ever exist, and that I was now in my room, looking around and wonder where I screwed up so badly that I just barely passed all of high school.

Sometimes, even years later, I still think of the contradiction of those two people -- the person I'd been in 2009 compared to the person I was in 2013 -- well, Gloria, really.

Willing myself not to think about the Underbelly or Whatsername at all, I just thought about what had driven me to run away all those years ago, as a fairly young and quite insane 15 year old. It was really the persecution I had faced in the suburban hell that I would sometimes call home -- or my fake home. It was the intolerance of people who were different from them that had driven me to run away, the sheer force of hatred that rained down on me from all over, that seethed out of the pores of my peers and teachers. Especially the hatred and contempt held for me by my old counselor, Doctor Diana Crawford. Well, I was the reason that Dr. Crawford ran away -- not exactly ran away, but left nonetheless -- this little town in the middle of nowhere.

I still felt an odd sense of pride thinking that I had been the reason that she'd fled the town.

I sighed and turned off the light -- whose radiance I had finally gotten used to -- and flopped down on my bed, resigning myself to staring at the ceiling once more as darkness pressed down on my like a thick, silencing blanket.

Then, I had an idea of what to do with my insomnia.

I grabbed some paper and my old flashlight, along with the pencil that lay on my beside table, and sketched out what I would say as my graduation speech. It was going to be simply brilliant, and everyone here would know I was Gloria. Everyone would finally know that their enemies weren't people like the Class of Thirteen, but the government and their lies.

It was an essay about knowing their enemies, and I fell asleep at 4 AM while writing it.

Act One: Heroes and Cons :: Chapter One: Song of the Century

2009-11-01T01:29:00.000-07:00

(1671 words long)

May 1st, 2013
Billie Joe Armstrong
Highschool Graduation Essay
Prompt One: Write about the government of today.

The reign of President George W. Bush has lasted us a -- seemingly endless -- 13 years, beginning with a cheating win in 2000, a vast majority vote in 2004, and another vote to keep him in office (until the war is over) in 2008. Thirteen years of one president, and no one has cried heresy or wolf. No one has come out of the grain and tried to denounce this fool for what he is. No one has mentioned that this war -- fought for money and gas -- has been going on for too long. The only people who have tried to bring attention to these hard, cut and dry facts are small revolutionary groups, the most popular of which was called the Underbelly and lead by one girl named Whatsername.

But the way that the progress of the protests created by the Underbelly were halted in immoral, unethical ways that used to be ruled “unconstitutional.” But since the movement began, and was rooted, in the year 2009, the rules were bent to the liking of Bush’s lackeys. The values of the First Amendment -- the freedom of speech and peaceful petition -- were violated as soon as armed forces stepped out to stop the movement. People were killed at multiple peaceful protests, and no one except for the survivors tried to stop it.

It was not just that. Bush began to send out huge, unneeded, drafts of American citizens. Anyone who was healthy, straight and over 18 was sent overseas. Some went willingly. Others didn’t. Not a single person tried to stop this unnecessary loss of life over something as simple as gas, which is something we could drill for right here in the United States of America. In some parts of the country, rich oil is just under out own feet, but everyone is still obsessed with oil from overseas. People are dying in unprecedented numbers each and every day, far away from their homeland, never to see their families again, just to benefit some rich white men in Washington, D.C.

This war shows no chance of ending -- at least, not until we completely crush Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. It should be obvious to everyone by now that this war isn’t because of 9/11. It’s for oil and money, and for George W. Bush to prove his so called ‘worth’ to his pathetic dolt of a father.

It’s sickening that we’re losing so much life so quickly for oil and for bragging rights. Shouldn’t we be trying to improve relationships with other countries, instead of ruining them with all of the Middle East. Last time I checked, we haven’t really made it up to Japan for releasing the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe we shouldn’t even threaten to release another on Iraq until we’ve proved our worth as a country, our strengths as a superpower in the world, over again to disappointed countries.

We don’t really have strength right now, not when political parties that oppose our current president -- read: dictator -- are being oppressed and silenced by that same people who we did not want to become three hundred years ago during the Revolutionary War. In fact, it was George Washington himself who said that political parties will weaken the nation. And didn’t good old Benjamin Franklin say, “united we stand, divided we fall?”

Thomas Jefferson and the other anti-Federalists, or the Democratic-Republicans, created the First Amendment to the Constitution because their opinions and reasoning were being silenced as harmful to the state. And what are we seeing now but that same response, even though we’ve had the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America for over 200 years now.

Isn’t it a shame that the very rights our first president fought to protect are being destroyed by out forty third president, who (quite unfortunately) is named after him? It’s really a disgrace to our country and the people in it that such an imbecilic monkey full of bullshit is running the nation. What we have now is almost a dictatorship, and ‘President’ Bush’s power is nearly unlimited. No one is enforcing what we have written against absolute power and autocracies.

Did I mention that, before his majority vote win in 2004, Bush cheated his way into office? Thirteen years ago, Al Gore should have won the election, and I am not just saying this from a Liberal point of view. He technically did win the 2000 election, but the votes got skewed and Bush was able to weasel his way into office.

George W. Bush was somehow able to cover a war fought for oil with the hasty remark that it was to avenge the bloody deaths on September 11th, 2001. He was able to coercer the British in to giving us troops and help, and he was able to be voted back in to office in 2004. Four years after that, after what should have been the total end of his term, Bush was able to sneak his way in to becoming a dictator over this bloody war.

And America, outwardly, took it without a fight. The people who wanted a fair country tried to stop this madness from occurring, but they were silenced on threat of imprisonment. Protesters, waving their signs and completely defenseless, were taken to jail simply because they thought differently than everyone else. On the other side of the same metaphorical street, supporters with cocked and loaded guns had a blast announcing their victory. They weren’t arrested, even though they could have drunkenly shot and killed somebody.

No, the police were more concerned with the dissenters who weren’t trying to harm anyone. They were with the lunatics who toted heavy guns and wanted to pump lead into the hearts of people that they thought were wrong. Now, those pesky Iraqis would be conquered, America’s power would spread, and we would get more oil to boot!

The way the nation has been run for thirteen years has sickened me. It started when I was five, so not that I had cared much at the time, but as soon as I realized what was going on, I wanted to stop it. For a year or so, I was actually a part of the Underbelly, which was a supportive group of peaceful rebels who just wanted change. I can recall one protest where we all stood in front of a forest that was set for demolition and refused to move, even as the heavy killing machines moved toward us. Whatsername, who was short and didn’t look all that strong, stood at the front of us, shouting our slogans and completely ignoring the buzzing noise of the machines that threatened to kill her and the rest of us.

I just turned 18 in February, and the only reason I have not been drafted yet is on account of my so called ‘mental illnesses’ and my bisexuality. If those are the only things keeping me at home and not in Iraq, killing innocent people, I shudder to think of what people who aren’t ‘anomalies’ like me have to go through with all of the other so called ‘normal’ people.

That protest ended after nearly 100 people were killed as the cutting machines advanced toward us, ignoring the people and going for the trees. Human life was lost, even as we were protesting peacefully. And our government has been condoning this activity since the total Bush takeover that began in 2000 and had sprung into full bloom by 2008.

This essay went off on a huge tangent, but if our president allows and encourages the killing of people for lumber, for oil, for money in general and silences the other opinions -- well, doesn’t that seem a little unreasonable? Over five million Americans have been killed since the so called ‘War on Terror’ started 12 years ago. If this truly is a war against terrorists, doesn’t that mean that we’re sinking into the threats of the terrorists, allowing them to scare us? They want to inspire fear in us and that is why they are called terrorists.

But it isn’t about the terrorists. It is about the oil in Iraq, and it is about Bush trying to increase his own wealth. The mere thought of that is sickening, how much life we’re losing over things as greedy as money and power.

And so, in conclusion, the current government of the United States of America is one run on power and money. Our current government is a autocracy, it seems, and the powers that run us have absolutely no problems with killing supporters of the opposing opinions. This is the kind of government that the United States were created to prevent, not to create. This is the kind of government that the people have a First Amendment right to abolish.

Grade: 72%, C-
Teacher’s Notes: This essay had quite a bit of effort placed into it, and it was fairly well written. The anecdote of the protest at the end was an interesting touch. The same goes for the other little testimonies on your life. You went off on a few tangents, however, and that made you lose a few points. Other factors that made you lose points were the brevity of the overall essay and the rushed feeling it has. In this essay, you answered the prompt and very good except for incorrect facts. Double check some of the reasons for the War on Terror and the definitions of ‘autocracy’ and ‘dictatorship.’ All in all, this is reason enough for a passing grade. With this essay, you have passed 12th grade and you may enter college. Your overall grade for the year, 70%, has left you with an average grade of 71% (a C-), a GPA of approximately 2. Good luck finding a college!
-Ms. Melare, Director of 12th Grade Classes.

Act One :: Heroes and Cons

2009-10-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Chapter One: Song of the Century
Chapter Two: 21st Century Breakdown
Chapter Three: Know Your Enemy
Chapter Four: Viva La Billie Joe!
Chapter Five: Before the Lobotomy
Chapter Six: Tre's Inferno
Chapter Seven: Last Night on Earth

Dream, America, dream
I can't even sleep
From the lights early dawn.
Oh scream, America, scream
Believe what you see
from Heroes and Cons...

Some Songs I Listen To

2009-10-28T17:34:00.001-07:00

Here's some songs I listen to while I work on my outline and when I'll eventually write it...

All of 21st Century Breakdown & American Idiot by Green Day.
"Minority," "Burnout," "Basket Case," "Long View," and "I Fought the Law," by Green Day.
"End Transmission," "Beautiful Thieves," and "It Was Mine," by AFI.
"March of the Pigs," "The Day the World Went Away," "We're In This Together," "The Hand That Feeds," "The Line Begins to Blur," "Not So Pretty Now," "1,000,000," "Echoplex," "Down In It," "Head Like a Hole," "Discipline," and "The Beginning of the End," by Nine Inch Nails.
"Jane Says," by Jane's Addiction.
"Dosed," "Californication," "Otherside," and "Dani California," by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
"Savior," by Rise Against.
"Zombie," by The Cranberries. And...
"Closer to Fine," by the Indigo Girls.

55 songs. Wow.

200 Word Warm-Up

2009-10-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is just a scene I threw together to get a feel for the characters. Note the third-person, the actual story will be all first-person (the POV worked better for this scene, though). It's 184 words long.

Billie Joe sighed and leaned against the wall, lighting his cigarette and passing the plain blue lighter to his companion. With a tired glance at the other man, Billie inhaled and drew the smoke into his lungs.

“What’re you majoring in again?”

“Me? I’m gonna try something like…I dunno, something probably like English,” Billie Joe responded, gazing out at the horizon. “What ‘bout you?”

“I’m probably going to try for music theory or somethin‘,” Tré responded, shaking some loose hair out of his face and pocketing the lighter.

“Damn, that’s way more exciting than English.”

“Lot less useful, though.”

“Eh. Ya win some, ya lost some. Y’know?”

“Yeah. ‘Course I know.”

Billie Joe just smirked and took another quick drag of his cigarette. “Can ya believe that college’s starting in a few months? I mean, it’s like just yesterday I was fifteen.”

He winced at the painful memories of that time. “Not that I’m glad that I’m not 15 anymore,” he quickly added. Tré just laughed.

“Same here,” the older of the pair stated, “I wouldn’t relive that time for a million bucks. Ouch.”

21st Century Breakdown (a summary of events)

2009-10-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

Billie Joe and Tré met in the middle of chaos, the middle of the twenty-first century breakdown, and kissed where everyone could see.

2013. It seems like the end of the world...as we know it, that is. Billie Joe is a revolutionary, striving to fix everything and failing. Tré is a delinquent, on too many drugs to even tell that something's happening. A kiss at their graduation changes everything, for both of them.

Sing us the song of the century. It sings like an American eulogy. The dawn of my love and conspiracy. Forgotten hopes and the class of '13...

Sing Us the "Song of the Century"...(an introduction)

2009-10-10T18:23:00.001-07:00

Hello! I'm Suki and this is the blog I'm keeping for my NaNoWriMo fic, 21st Century Breakdown (based off of the Green Day album of the same name). It'll be mainly for posting the actual chapters (blogs about the fic, as in progress, will be posted up at Closer To God, my general writing blog).

Um...that's really it.

The chapters will be posted rather sporadically, according to when they're finished and stuff, and they should be around 2778 words long on average (that's just 50000/18, so...). They will be completely unedited -- that's for next March and NaNoEdMo! So...
Note: if I don't finish this novel by the end of November, then YES I will, in fact, continue writing it until the end.

Thanks to my awesome mom for doing 10k goodie bags for me.
To Green Day, for Trè Cool, Billie Joe Armstrong, and the album this is based off of.
To the NaNo dudes who make this thing happen.
To my brain, for giving me this goddamn idea in the first place.

~S. Self-Destruct