'Cause I'm a Million Miles Away, chapter 4
Billie Joe's House
June 7, 1990
Don't call me up 'cause I'm not home
My whereabouts are now unknown
I vanished from all your joy
I'm the disappearing boy
It sounded like Billie Joe had finally sat down to cool off and have a smoke. I sighed, leaning against a tree and lit up one of my own.
Nobody was home right now. Usually Mike, Billie and I were the only ones around at noon, with Ollie being at work and all. But this time, Mike wasn't here, and to be superficial, it didn't really feel like I was there either.
I took the final drag and left for the house, opening the back door and pulling up a wooden chair to pick at my fingernails by the light of the window. Just when I thought things would be safe for the afternoon, the blonde came into the kitchen with red eyes.
"I hate myself."
As you damn well should, I thought, not even acknowledging his presence. He sat down on the floor and held his head in his hands...
...and sniffled.
I looked up from my beat-up palms to look at Billie Joe, sitting pathetically under the phone hanging on the wall, crying like a baby. Like I'd cried enough already today, I felt my eyes sting.
"Billie, get up man," I said, sniffling as well, getting out of my chair to pull him up. He threw his arms around me and howled into my neck.
"We gotta find him. He'll do something stupid."
I nodded. "We'll find him. Quit bawling."
He broke away from me, rubbing his red face. "Let's go then. First place first... Parks."
---
And we were off. The park was a mere mile away. It was a park with an enormous fountain of three people standing in a row with tuxedos, sporting suitcases and monocles. The only good thing about it was the stickers and spray paint covering them.
"You check the east side, kay?" He said quickly, carrying a bottle of water. He must have thought it would take a while to find him...
I scoured every last centimeter of the park. All I could find were some hags walking their poodles and a bunch of babies throwing mud at each other.
"Fuck." I said, meeting Billie at the fountain. He frowned.
"To the next, I guess..."
The next park? It was the run-down park of East Bay's set of prestigious bullshit nobody cared about. The benches were carved with names, swear words, and sex offers with phone numbers. The gates were rusted, the grass a nasty brown color, and the trees... Vandalized.
Here all I found was some regulars with a loud boombox by the back gates and some kids skateboarding off the roof of the otherwise filthy restrooms.
"What you doin' here, fool? Punks don't get along with the city boys," One of the boombox kids claimed as I walked past, looking in their directions. I gave him a dirty look and left the park quickly to wait for Billie Joe.
"Goddamn fucking city black fuckers god damn!" Billie Joe said, stamping down the sidewalk. I was sitting against the outside part of the gate, shaded by a tree that seemed to be dying. He kicked the fence and laid down next to me. It was turning dark, and we'd only been to two parks.
"Maybe we should look for his truck?"
Billie didn't answer.
I felt like I was going to cry again. I could imagine it well - Mike, alone in his truck somewhere, ignoring the sounds of bottles breaking and people fighting, craving coffee. And it made me smile.
"I know where he is."
Billie's head perked up. "Really, now?"
---
We stood on the side of the road, holding our thumbs out, hoping one of the passing cars would stop to pick us up.
I bet we looked a bit out of the picture. A brown-haired kid in a Ramones t-shirt, plaid pajamas and socks, with a boy about 3 inches taller than her with a white button-up t-shirt three sizes too big. But we were lucky to see a boy about out age stop on the side of the road, smiling.
"Need a lift?"
We hopped in his car. I sat in the back seat, my head up on Billie's chair.
"So... Where you headed?"
There was something about this boy that just amused me to no end. His hair was brown and in every possible direction in 360 degrees and he was wearing a pink sweater. But hey, tough guys wear pink, right?
"Coffee shop." I said. Billie raised his eyebrows.
"Good idea."
The driver opened his mouth to speak.
"Our friend ran off and we don't know where he is. Billie Joe Armstrong, by the way..."
"Frank," the driver said, smiling merrily. "Commonly known as Tre Cool of the Lookouts," he said proudly. "Who is this beautiful lady I am pleased to have in my back seat? Pun intended?"
I snorted loudly. Hopefully, this kid wasn't as weird as he was perverted. "Sam." I held my hand out to shake his, but he took in his own and kissed it. I laughed again, but Billie Joe looked as if he was about to hiss at him.
I sat in the back seat picking at my nails some more, listening in on their conversation about Gilman for a while and then losing interest quickly.
"Lookouts... Never seen them play, but there's a lot of talk about them."
"Likewise." Tre Cool said, pulling into a parking space on the street in front of the coffee shop. "We're playing tonight, stop by if you wanna."
Tre pulled away, while Billie Joe dashed to the door only to find it locked. "FUCK!"
I smacked my forhead. I completely forgot that it was Sunday - the most godforsaken day of the week, where everything was closed for absolutely no reason.
"We'll look tomorrow, okay?" I said, putting an arm around him comfortingly.
---
For every mile of the ten miles it took us to get back home, I either tripped on my own feet or my legs collapsed under me. I knew I was going to be exhausted when I got home. Billie Joe, on the other hand, was nowhere near. Literally. He was fifteen or twenty feet ahead of me, dragging his feet and chain smoking.
When we finally got home, I was tempted to just buckle my knees and lay on the floor, but I managed to get upstairs and do that on my own bed.
Everything negative that ever happens to me manages to keep me awake half the night. I yawned, listened to quiet music, rolled around on the floor, and even tried to sleep on the empty bed in the room. But nothing worked. I swore in frustration.
"I gotta do something worth doing," I said to myself, not waking Billie Joe as I put on my brown high tops. I looked silently through my wardrobe and decided on a rainbow long sleeve shirt with a black shirt on top of it and jeans.
Right when my head hit the pillow earlier, I remembered Tre's invitation to the Lookouts show. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so now that my knees are rested, I could do something.
So I headed to Gilman Street.
I turned the corner on 7th street, a jump in my step with the music erupting from the small, run-down building. When I got there, Tre Cool was standing outside with the rest of the band.
"Larry," Tre said, pointing to a tall boy holding a guitar. "And Kain." Kain was holding a bass. I figured right away Tre was on drums. "This astonishingly perfect young lady's name is Sam, and she's friends with the Green Day guys. I gave them a ride, because apparently they were looking for their bass."
"Yeah..." I said, putting my hands in my jean pockets. "He got in a fight with Billie Joe."
The two guitarists nodded their heads sympathetically. "Hope everything is well soon," Kain said, looking through dark sunglasses.
Tre mumbled after a few seconds of silence. "Anyway, this is kind of an invitation only show, but since I invited you..."
He grabbed my hand and tugged me into the club. The was people moshing to a band playing their instruments very fast, soda flying everywhere, since it was an all-ages club.
Tre dragged me to the back of the club where it was quiet.
"No luck finding him, huh?" he said, frowning.
"No... We looked in every park in the East Bay."
"I can help try to find him, but I can't promise anything."
The words 'can't promise anything' burned at my heart. I know I'd only been around Mike 'intimately' for a day, but it hurt thinking we might not find him or he may not come back. Just thinking about him made my head pound.
"That'd be great."
Larry and Kain came into the room. "Tre, we need to finalize this, hurry up."
I looked at Tre, confused.
"We're thinking of breaking up the band. We think we're at our high point. I can drum, hey can beat their guitars, and we want to go separate ways. And Kain doesn't exactly live near here anymore." Tre frowned.
"Where's he living now?"
"Fresno."
I nodded. Fresno was pretty far away from here, I can tell you that much.
"When are you playing?" I said.
"Umm... We already played," Tre laughed, twirling a drumstick in his hand. I sighed and shook my head.
"I guess I should go then, since the show's pretty much over. I'm sure by now Billie Joe got a nicotine craving and woke up without me being there."
"Yeah. Good luck finding Mike, by the way."
Tre was a pretty sweet guy. But I knew it wasn't intentional, he was just a good-natured guy, meaning he wasn't hitting on me, but it was because he was always like that.
I walked around the back of the building this time. I got two feet before a hand was clamped around my mouth, pulling me behind a dumpster, concealed from other's eyes. I bit the person's hand.
"Ow, fuck, Sam!" a familiar voice said. I turned to see who it was.
It was Mike.
"Jesus fucking christ man!" I said, throwing my arms around his neck and squeezing him. "Why'd you pull the kidnapping act?"
"I figured Billie Joe was with you."
"Man, please come home, we looked all day today, he's sorry, he said it..."
Mike sat me down against the brick wall of the building and joined me. "Should I?"
I leaned on him. "Yes. He CRIED."
"Cried." he reassured himself. "He cried?"
"And I did too."
He licked his lips. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. I don't blame you for leaving."
He put an arm around me and smelled my hair. My heart fluttered, but I don't know why. It's not like I've never done anything like this before. It's just the feeling of your best friend being so close to you after all these years, and you never even knew how much you felt for them.
It's really fucked up.
June 7, 1990
Don't call me up 'cause I'm not home
My whereabouts are now unknown
I vanished from all your joy
I'm the disappearing boy
It sounded like Billie Joe had finally sat down to cool off and have a smoke. I sighed, leaning against a tree and lit up one of my own.
Nobody was home right now. Usually Mike, Billie and I were the only ones around at noon, with Ollie being at work and all. But this time, Mike wasn't here, and to be superficial, it didn't really feel like I was there either.
I took the final drag and left for the house, opening the back door and pulling up a wooden chair to pick at my fingernails by the light of the window. Just when I thought things would be safe for the afternoon, the blonde came into the kitchen with red eyes.
"I hate myself."
As you damn well should, I thought, not even acknowledging his presence. He sat down on the floor and held his head in his hands...
...and sniffled.
I looked up from my beat-up palms to look at Billie Joe, sitting pathetically under the phone hanging on the wall, crying like a baby. Like I'd cried enough already today, I felt my eyes sting.
"Billie, get up man," I said, sniffling as well, getting out of my chair to pull him up. He threw his arms around me and howled into my neck.
"We gotta find him. He'll do something stupid."
I nodded. "We'll find him. Quit bawling."
He broke away from me, rubbing his red face. "Let's go then. First place first... Parks."
---
And we were off. The park was a mere mile away. It was a park with an enormous fountain of three people standing in a row with tuxedos, sporting suitcases and monocles. The only good thing about it was the stickers and spray paint covering them.
"You check the east side, kay?" He said quickly, carrying a bottle of water. He must have thought it would take a while to find him...
I scoured every last centimeter of the park. All I could find were some hags walking their poodles and a bunch of babies throwing mud at each other.
"Fuck." I said, meeting Billie at the fountain. He frowned.
"To the next, I guess..."
The next park? It was the run-down park of East Bay's set of prestigious bullshit nobody cared about. The benches were carved with names, swear words, and sex offers with phone numbers. The gates were rusted, the grass a nasty brown color, and the trees... Vandalized.
Here all I found was some regulars with a loud boombox by the back gates and some kids skateboarding off the roof of the otherwise filthy restrooms.
"What you doin' here, fool? Punks don't get along with the city boys," One of the boombox kids claimed as I walked past, looking in their directions. I gave him a dirty look and left the park quickly to wait for Billie Joe.
"Goddamn fucking city black fuckers god damn!" Billie Joe said, stamping down the sidewalk. I was sitting against the outside part of the gate, shaded by a tree that seemed to be dying. He kicked the fence and laid down next to me. It was turning dark, and we'd only been to two parks.
"Maybe we should look for his truck?"
Billie didn't answer.
I felt like I was going to cry again. I could imagine it well - Mike, alone in his truck somewhere, ignoring the sounds of bottles breaking and people fighting, craving coffee. And it made me smile.
"I know where he is."
Billie's head perked up. "Really, now?"
---
We stood on the side of the road, holding our thumbs out, hoping one of the passing cars would stop to pick us up.
I bet we looked a bit out of the picture. A brown-haired kid in a Ramones t-shirt, plaid pajamas and socks, with a boy about 3 inches taller than her with a white button-up t-shirt three sizes too big. But we were lucky to see a boy about out age stop on the side of the road, smiling.
"Need a lift?"
We hopped in his car. I sat in the back seat, my head up on Billie's chair.
"So... Where you headed?"
There was something about this boy that just amused me to no end. His hair was brown and in every possible direction in 360 degrees and he was wearing a pink sweater. But hey, tough guys wear pink, right?
"Coffee shop." I said. Billie raised his eyebrows.
"Good idea."
The driver opened his mouth to speak.
"Our friend ran off and we don't know where he is. Billie Joe Armstrong, by the way..."
"Frank," the driver said, smiling merrily. "Commonly known as Tre Cool of the Lookouts," he said proudly. "Who is this beautiful lady I am pleased to have in my back seat? Pun intended?"
I snorted loudly. Hopefully, this kid wasn't as weird as he was perverted. "Sam." I held my hand out to shake his, but he took in his own and kissed it. I laughed again, but Billie Joe looked as if he was about to hiss at him.
I sat in the back seat picking at my nails some more, listening in on their conversation about Gilman for a while and then losing interest quickly.
"Lookouts... Never seen them play, but there's a lot of talk about them."
"Likewise." Tre Cool said, pulling into a parking space on the street in front of the coffee shop. "We're playing tonight, stop by if you wanna."
Tre pulled away, while Billie Joe dashed to the door only to find it locked. "FUCK!"
I smacked my forhead. I completely forgot that it was Sunday - the most godforsaken day of the week, where everything was closed for absolutely no reason.
"We'll look tomorrow, okay?" I said, putting an arm around him comfortingly.
---
For every mile of the ten miles it took us to get back home, I either tripped on my own feet or my legs collapsed under me. I knew I was going to be exhausted when I got home. Billie Joe, on the other hand, was nowhere near. Literally. He was fifteen or twenty feet ahead of me, dragging his feet and chain smoking.
When we finally got home, I was tempted to just buckle my knees and lay on the floor, but I managed to get upstairs and do that on my own bed.
Everything negative that ever happens to me manages to keep me awake half the night. I yawned, listened to quiet music, rolled around on the floor, and even tried to sleep on the empty bed in the room. But nothing worked. I swore in frustration.
"I gotta do something worth doing," I said to myself, not waking Billie Joe as I put on my brown high tops. I looked silently through my wardrobe and decided on a rainbow long sleeve shirt with a black shirt on top of it and jeans.
Right when my head hit the pillow earlier, I remembered Tre's invitation to the Lookouts show. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so now that my knees are rested, I could do something.
So I headed to Gilman Street.
I turned the corner on 7th street, a jump in my step with the music erupting from the small, run-down building. When I got there, Tre Cool was standing outside with the rest of the band.
"Larry," Tre said, pointing to a tall boy holding a guitar. "And Kain." Kain was holding a bass. I figured right away Tre was on drums. "This astonishingly perfect young lady's name is Sam, and she's friends with the Green Day guys. I gave them a ride, because apparently they were looking for their bass."
"Yeah..." I said, putting my hands in my jean pockets. "He got in a fight with Billie Joe."
The two guitarists nodded their heads sympathetically. "Hope everything is well soon," Kain said, looking through dark sunglasses.
Tre mumbled after a few seconds of silence. "Anyway, this is kind of an invitation only show, but since I invited you..."
He grabbed my hand and tugged me into the club. The was people moshing to a band playing their instruments very fast, soda flying everywhere, since it was an all-ages club.
Tre dragged me to the back of the club where it was quiet.
"No luck finding him, huh?" he said, frowning.
"No... We looked in every park in the East Bay."
"I can help try to find him, but I can't promise anything."
The words 'can't promise anything' burned at my heart. I know I'd only been around Mike 'intimately' for a day, but it hurt thinking we might not find him or he may not come back. Just thinking about him made my head pound.
"That'd be great."
Larry and Kain came into the room. "Tre, we need to finalize this, hurry up."
I looked at Tre, confused.
"We're thinking of breaking up the band. We think we're at our high point. I can drum, hey can beat their guitars, and we want to go separate ways. And Kain doesn't exactly live near here anymore." Tre frowned.
"Where's he living now?"
"Fresno."
I nodded. Fresno was pretty far away from here, I can tell you that much.
"When are you playing?" I said.
"Umm... We already played," Tre laughed, twirling a drumstick in his hand. I sighed and shook my head.
"I guess I should go then, since the show's pretty much over. I'm sure by now Billie Joe got a nicotine craving and woke up without me being there."
"Yeah. Good luck finding Mike, by the way."
Tre was a pretty sweet guy. But I knew it wasn't intentional, he was just a good-natured guy, meaning he wasn't hitting on me, but it was because he was always like that.
I walked around the back of the building this time. I got two feet before a hand was clamped around my mouth, pulling me behind a dumpster, concealed from other's eyes. I bit the person's hand.
"Ow, fuck, Sam!" a familiar voice said. I turned to see who it was.
It was Mike.
"Jesus fucking christ man!" I said, throwing my arms around his neck and squeezing him. "Why'd you pull the kidnapping act?"
"I figured Billie Joe was with you."
"Man, please come home, we looked all day today, he's sorry, he said it..."
Mike sat me down against the brick wall of the building and joined me. "Should I?"
I leaned on him. "Yes. He CRIED."
"Cried." he reassured himself. "He cried?"
"And I did too."
He licked his lips. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. I don't blame you for leaving."
He put an arm around me and smelled my hair. My heart fluttered, but I don't know why. It's not like I've never done anything like this before. It's just the feeling of your best friend being so close to you after all these years, and you never even knew how much you felt for them.
It's really fucked up.
