The Truth/Jimmy, chapter 3

"So, you two argued, and you went off and got yourself a new friend?" Tre asked, looking at Billie with a confused expression. "What's the big deal about that? How can you write an album like American Idiot from that? And why are you nervous to tell us?"
"Jimmy wasn't his friend," Mike said, as though figuring it out as he spoke. "Was he?"
"Jimmy was my drug dealer," Billie mumbled quietly, looking down at his feet. He noticed absently that his black converses were somewhat tattered and falling apart, just like a million pairs had done before.

You study the shoes of the man in front of you. You don't think you've ever seen anyone able to make old falling apart converses look so cool, and you make a mental note to get a pair yourself. You realise that it's not just this man's shoes you admire. His hair, his height, his tattoos; it's the overall vibe his body gives off. You want to be like him, you want to cool like him. More than that, you want to be his friend. "Billie man, what can I do for you?"
"Nothin' much," you mutter. "Just wanted to talk."
"Dude, I don't really have time to talk in all honesty. People to see...things to do," he tells you, and your heart falls again. You know that the only reason he puts up with you is because of the money he gets off you when you buy your next fix.

"Jimmy...you think I could help you?" you ask, not wanting to be left alone with the knowledge of an eight year old friendship shattered to pieces. The older man looks you over, surveying you with bright blue eyes that see through you.
"How old are you, kid?" he asks in a voice that somehow doesn't make you feel young despite the fact he called you a kid.
"Eighteen," you tell him, standing up straight and wishing you looked even older so you could lie about your age. You wonder how old Jimmy is.
"Eighteen," he muses, and you decide he's probably about twenty. "Why do you wanna come? What about your friend? You know, the tall one that doesn't like me."
"He doesn't not like you, he just doesn't like me being on drugs. And...we fell out," you say, not wanting to go into detail. You can feel your cheeks burn slightly with the memory of your argument, because there's no denying the fact that Mike was right and you weren't; and there's no denying the fact you miss him.

"So you want a new friend?" Jimmy grins at you. You look down at the floor and say nothing, feeling immature and wishing you'd never sought out his friendship because everything he says makes you feel awkward and childish. He seems to pick up on this. "Tell you what, you can hang with me today. I don't have a whole lot to do. You wanna grab some food?" You nod and follow him, although you're not really that hungry. You've noticed that lately you're not hungry, and Mike kept telling you that you were losing weight, but it didn't matter. You found that the cocaine was taking away your appetite, and it didn't bother you one bit. You have a feeling that that should worry you, but it doesn't at all. All you can worry about right now is whether the man you're following thinks your annoying or genuinely wants to spend time with you.

"He's the one you got cocaine off." Mike said. It was a statement, not a question, so Billie didn't answer.
"You used to do cocaine?" Tre gasped. He hadn't known about that; no one did, except Mike. Billie was ashamed of his past, didn't like to even think about it, let alone talk about it.
"It was a long time ago," Billie said, feeling defensive. He knew Tre wasn't angry or disappointed; he was just shocked at Billie's hidden secret. Billie felt his insides squirm and had a brief image of his intestines tying themselves in knots at the nervous thoughts he was having - if Tre found that shocking, how would he react to the rest of the story? "But yeah, I did."
"So... this is what you're telling us about? Cocaine?" Tre asked.

"No." Billie sighed, suddenly realising that he'd have to explain it all to Tre. "But Mike and I stopped speaking for a while when we were eighteen, because I was doing cocaine and he wanted me to stop. He's always been the smart one, huh?" Billie said with a small smile. "And that's when... this stuff happened. The whole Jimmy thing, it happened when we weren't talking and I had no one else."
"But what is the whole Jimmy thing?" Tre asked. "Because I'm not getting it. You got cocaine off him, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Billie sighed once again, glancing back down at his shoes. He didn't know where to start. There was so much that had happened and changed in such a short space of time back then, and he didn't know what to begin with. He looked up at his two friends. "I admired Jimmy. He was two years older than me and the coolest guy I ever met. He was funny, and sure of himself, and knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. He was tall and well built, and he has amazing black hair and bright, bright blue eyes. I looked up to him, and I wanted to be like him," Billie said, trying to explain exactly how the whole thing had began. "Then me and Mike weren't friends, and I wanted him to be my new friend instead. Because I liked him, and because I felt cool with him. He didn't take any crap, and while I was with him I didn't either."

You're walking along the bay with Jimmy, relishing the way people move out of his way because he's so tough; loving being with him because it made you tough too. You look closely at the way he walks. He's confident, cool, without a care in the world; he's just how you want to be. He stops suddenly, dead still, and you almost crash straight into him. You can tell he's looking closely at something, but you can't tell what. You try to follow his gaze but you can only see a man talking on his cell phone in the direction he's looking. "What?" you ask, quietly, because you sense something's wrong.
"You see that guy there?" comes the quiet reply. He nods in the direction of the guy with the phone before turning around to look at you. You nod slowly. "He's the one. He's the one I'm meant to be selling some...stuff to." You can tell by the way his eyes narrow that the 'stuff' is cocaine.

"And? You do it all the time," you ask, trying to work out what the problem was. You find yourself wishing you did know, that you could tell him, because then you'd seem smart, worthy even.
"But he's different. See the guy behind him?"
"What guy?" you ask, looking desperately for some glimpse of the man you're meant to be seeing. You feel stupid, blind, because you can't tell what the man you admire so much is talking about.
"By the tree," Jimmy says, barely moving his mouth. Your eyes roam around the street until they fall on a tree, and you spot a man leaning against it casually. Too casually.
"Him?" you ask, and Jimmy nods. You look into his bright blue eyes and see something - almost a flicker of pride flash through them. You feel happiness swell inside of you, because you know he's impressed with you.
"Yeah. He's a cop."
"What?"

"He's a cop. Trying to bust me, I'll bet. Come on kid, we're not dropping this," Jimmy tells you, turning sharply on his heal and walking away so quickly you have to half run to keep up with him. He doesn't stop his furious pace until the two of you reach the old run down apartment he leaves in. You've never been there before; he hasn't trusted you that much. You walk in there slowly, not wanting to knock anything over or move anything from it's place. It looks a mess in there, but you guess that everything is in it's place, like an organised mess. You look around with wonder. To you, it's an amazing place. It's grown up and independent and you want your very own place like it, rather than living back at home.
You've been living at home because when you were at the place you stayed in with Mike, you had to think about the fact he wasn't there anymore. You had to remember that he didn't like you, and you had to remember why.

Jimmy's ignoring you. He points vaguely in the direction of a cluttered couch and you sit down on it gingerly, perching on the edge. You don't want to knock anything off or break anything. You want to make a good impression, because you think that finally Jimmy might really like you. You might actually be becoming his friend.

"I don't think Jimmy liked me to begin with. He let me stay around him because he felt sorry for me, and because I had nowhere else to go," Billie explained. He looked up to find Tre and Mike staring at him as though he was a wide screen cinema, and almost smiled. "But then one day, he was...well, you know. He was out dealing cocaine, and he was letting me go with him. I was almost learning from him. I think he liked that. I think the only reason he let me hang around him to begin with was because I liked him so much...I practically worshipped the ground he walked on. But then one day this cop was there, trying to catch him in the act. He spotted the cop and I did too, and he was impressed with me. Imagine how I felt then - my idol was impressed with me. And then he let me go to his house...well, apartment. It was a pile of shit in all honesty, but I thought it was so cool and independent. I was so happy, because I thought that he liked me, and that he was inviting me to spend more time with him, because I picked up on the shit so fast. He...well, he only really wanted me there to prove a point to someone in the end."

"I gotta make a call, just...wait a second, okay?" Jimmy says. The tone of his voice makes you feel awkward, as though you're intruding on something he wanted to keep private. You tell yourself that that's not true, he wouldn't have invited you back here if it was, but there's still something there that makes you feel on edge. You nod at him, not wanting to disturb him. He picks up a phone that's been buried beneath a pile of rubbish and dials a number, punching the numbers in angrily.

"Hey, it's Jimmy," he says when someone answers. You know you shouldn't, but you can't help listening in, even though you can only hear Jimmy's side of the conversation. "Listen, there was a cop. Yeah, of course I'm sure! No, no, I'm not staying here right now. It's dangerous, and there's a kid involved." As he says that you feel a ripple of excitement pass through you - you're involved. You're involved with Jimmy's life. "No, he's hanging around so I'm training him up. For you! So I'm not staying here anymore, not for now. I'll go away until things cool down, yeah?" You look up, startled. He's going away? You don't want him to go away, you don't want him to leave you. You're mind spaces out at the thought, and before you know it Jimmy's sat down next to you, looking into your eyes with concern. "You alright, kid?" he asks.
"You're going away?" you ask, feeling childish and dependant, but you can't help it.
"Yeah, just for a few weeks...what's up?"

"I don't want you to go!" you burst out, even though you'd promised yourself you wouldn't let him see how much you admired him.
"Kid, listen to me. I can't stay here, the cops are looking out for me. I've gotta get away. It's not just that, either. This town...it's driving me crazy, you know? It's suburbia, that's all it is. I wanna experience the city for a bit, and this is like the perfect excuse."
"But...but I've got no one here while Mike's not talking to me," you say quietly. There's another thought that's popped into your head. "And where will I get my... stuff, from?"
"Billie... " Jimmy says, and it's the first time you think he's used your real name since you started hanging around with him. "I can't help it, okay? Unless..."
"Unless what?" you ask, a glimmer of hope shooting through you at the tone of his voice. You sense he's unsure whether to say his idea, and you nod. You're trying to be encouraging, but it comes across as slightly desperate.
"Unless...you want to come with me?"

Billie sighed as he felt Mike and Tre's eyes bore into him. He was regretting ever deciding to tell them this - perhaps Jimmy was a secret best left buried in the past? He was beginning to feel uncomfortable now; the confidence he had gained at the bar was long forgotten. "He wanted me there because he could use me as an excuse to get away from it all for a while. I was young; I couldn't be left in danger. He called his boss and he said he could go away for a while...and Jimmy said I could come too."
"That's where you went?" Mike asked, comprehension dawning across his face. "That's where you were...do you know how much I looked for you Bill? Do you know how worried I was?"
"I know. But Jimmy was my new friend - where Jimmy went, I followed."