The Meaning Of Love, chapter 3
Billie Joe cracked his eyes open and quickly squeezed them shut again as bright white light momentarily blinded him. He groaned as he curled himself up closer to the bed sheets, trying to fall asleep again, but something unpleasantly wet rubbed against his face as he did so.
"OH HOLY FUCK, NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN!" exclaimed Billie Joe in frustration as he leaped, fully awake, to his feet, running his hands through his black hair in anguish. His face and bed were, once again, smeared with eyeliner, though he couldn't recall putting it on again after last night's 'incident'.
He kicked his bedside cabinet to try and get rid of some of his self-anger, but yelled in pain. He clutched his foot, and then yelped as the heavy piece of furniture fell on top of him (I mean, he's not very tall, is he?). Kicking madly with his left leg, he managed to crawl out from under it and rearrange all the papers that had spilled out. Then he put it back against the wall, put the papers back on top of it and, cursing under his breath, gathered the covers for the second time.
In a moment of 'deja vu' he put the red-and-black-stained bed sheets into the washing machine, went downstairs for some food, saw Addie's note and picked it up as he tried to gulp down some orange juice, which was a difficult feat seeing as he had half an egg, two pieces of toast, four or five spoonfuls of cereal, half a mouthful of rice, and a huge slice of cake all mashed up together in his mouth, AND he was trying to sing 'Redundant', too.
Suddenly, his green eyes became as wide as Tre's and he went all pale as he chocked and gagged, dropping the pink sticky-note to the floor: the phone was ringing. His hands flew over the table, knocking over the milk carton, a pack of cigarettes, the cereal bowl, the rice bowl and the cereal box as he tried to reach the cell phone that was ringing and the honey bottle at the same time. He clicked the little green button on the phone and said "Hello, who am I speaking to?". Well, that was what he meant to say, but it came out sounding like "Ugh-wakum-ful-noo-wacky-santoo?" "Ooh, la la, pardon, vou noh parley francai; wee, je parley uh puh de francai, not much."
Billie Joe forced both the honey bottle and the ketchup one (with major difficulty) into his already ridiculously over-stuffed mouth and squeezed as hard as he possibly could; his eyes rolled and he gagged worse than ever. For a second or two, he thought he would die, but then he miraculously managed to gulp the colossal mountain of edible items into his esophagus, and he shouted "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT, FRENCH PERSON!!?"
"Oh, sorry, I though you were French" said the French person, with only a little bit of a French accent.
"Yes, well, I'm not, does the sound of someone choking sound like a French accent to you?"
"No, not really, but we called to inform you of your wife's whereabouts."
Billie's eyes widened as he clutched the small phone closer to his ear. He wanted to scream that where was his wife, or better still: murder the person on the other end of the phone—he had an ominous feeling that this could not be good news. Then came the stranger's voice again: "I will let you speak with my master."
There was a short pause and Billie feared for a few moments that the next thing he would hear would be Addie's terrified voice saying that she had no idea where she was and desperately pleading him to find her, as commonly happened when people were kidnapped. Billie didn't reason that the person had said 'master' and thus could not possibly be referring to Adrienne.
A harsh male voice came from the phone now. "All four of them are here. Go out of your house and walk exactly three blocks straight away from your front door, where you'll be promptly escorted here. Don't make any phone calls; we're watching the phone lines. Don't e-mail anyone, for we'll know. Speak to no one on your way here. If you're not here in 3 minutes-"
The man suddenly stopped speaking, but Billie Joe immediately heard Joey's voice saying something very quickly, but then he gasped and screamed in pain.
"JOEY!" Billie screamed, but an insane burst of laughter came from the cruel man, and Billie was left crying with a phone that would say no more than 'beeeeep'.
Billie quickly dried his tears and thought about calling Tre' and Mike, his best friends, for help, but he didn't—he didn't want to risk his children being harmed.
Billie was feeling desperate. He knew he was all alone, but he also knew that his family needed him.
Feeling frustrated, and not quite knowing what to do, Billie's emotions overcame his logic and he screamed "YOU LITTLE FUCKING BASTERD, ROT IN FUCKING HELL, DAMN YOU!" at the useless cell phone. He didn't know if those damn people had Adrienne or not, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna sit around and wait for them to call again. He could only hope for the best. Or worst.
Billie Joe got ready to run out of the house as fast as he could, and he did indeed run to the door, but he reached his hand out to open the front door and instanly froze all over. He had never felt so completely helpless—or desperate, for that matter—in all his life. He felt like screaming in frustration, but couldn't, and at that precise moment, everything went black.
Billie could still think, so he knew he must be conscious, but the world had never suddenly turned completely black in the middle of a bright day before—particularly if he knew his eyes were wide open. He had no clue what to do, but in any case he couldn't have done anything even if he had known, because he now heard something peculiar.
From nowhere and everywhere came a woman's voice: 'Billie, let me help you.' she called. Billie forced his mind to relax, for something told him that this being could help him a lot, but he found it very hard to do so. 'Yeah, voice-person, whoever you are, I seriously need some help right now, please. I need to see Addie and the kids again.'
Billie though he heard a faint whisper of assent; felt a vague breeze as something gently drifted past him, but it might have been nothing, and within seconds everything was normal once more; he had whipped the door open and was sprinting away down the street, not exactly sure of where he was going, but knowing he couldn't possibly be going in the wrong direction. After what seemed forever, he stopped, breathless, and fell to his knees on the street, gasping for breath. When he got it again, he saw the two people (apart from his family) that he most wanted to see.
They were standing across the street, and they could hardly have been looking more lost a and put of place if they had been a pair of buffalo that had been dragged away from Africa and been dressed as clowns and trying to eat bricks in the middle of the street.
One was Tre' Cool, who was indeed dressed in a clown outfit so big for him that he had to wear 3 belts tied tightly around each other in order to keep his pants from falling off. He also had a colorful hat (squised atop his rainbow-colored wig) with an obscene symbol in the front (which was facing backwards) and he had a lot of badly applied make-up on.
The other person was Mike Dirnt, and he wore a white suit that had repulsive yellow rectangles all over it, and a hideous bright orange tie. Something unpleasantly bumpy and brown-colored was smeared on his shoes. Billie somehow thought it wasn't mud. To finish Mike's eccentric look, he had a shiny purple cloak with large pink flowers arranged randomly all over it.
Billie hurried over to his two friends as quickly as he could, which wasn't very fast, considering the distance he had just run. As it turned out, his friends had stepped out of their houses and run a long way to get there, too. Neither had a reason for doing so, except an abnormal urge and a feeling that they just HAD to.
Billie Joe didn't feel like explaining everything to them, and anyway, he knew he was probably late for going where the strange man had wanted him to go, so he just told them to follow him and ran all he way back to his house, and then three more blocks.
By the time they got there, Billie was feeling as if all hope was lost. After all, he had taken at least thirty minutes as he ran all through the city like mad—he wouldn't be surprised to hear police sirens right now—not that he minded, but he did need all the time he could possibly have right now to look for his family.
He sat down, barely able to breathe, and closed his eyes. Out of nowhere, an ethereal female voice was heard coming from somewhere Billie Joe couldn't quite place. 'Billie Joe' she whispered 'don't lose hope. They are coming, and don't forget: they may be here.'
"OH HOLY FUCK, NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN!" exclaimed Billie Joe in frustration as he leaped, fully awake, to his feet, running his hands through his black hair in anguish. His face and bed were, once again, smeared with eyeliner, though he couldn't recall putting it on again after last night's 'incident'.
He kicked his bedside cabinet to try and get rid of some of his self-anger, but yelled in pain. He clutched his foot, and then yelped as the heavy piece of furniture fell on top of him (I mean, he's not very tall, is he?). Kicking madly with his left leg, he managed to crawl out from under it and rearrange all the papers that had spilled out. Then he put it back against the wall, put the papers back on top of it and, cursing under his breath, gathered the covers for the second time.
In a moment of 'deja vu' he put the red-and-black-stained bed sheets into the washing machine, went downstairs for some food, saw Addie's note and picked it up as he tried to gulp down some orange juice, which was a difficult feat seeing as he had half an egg, two pieces of toast, four or five spoonfuls of cereal, half a mouthful of rice, and a huge slice of cake all mashed up together in his mouth, AND he was trying to sing 'Redundant', too.
Suddenly, his green eyes became as wide as Tre's and he went all pale as he chocked and gagged, dropping the pink sticky-note to the floor: the phone was ringing. His hands flew over the table, knocking over the milk carton, a pack of cigarettes, the cereal bowl, the rice bowl and the cereal box as he tried to reach the cell phone that was ringing and the honey bottle at the same time. He clicked the little green button on the phone and said "Hello, who am I speaking to?". Well, that was what he meant to say, but it came out sounding like "Ugh-wakum-ful-noo-wacky-santoo?" "Ooh, la la, pardon, vou noh parley francai; wee, je parley uh puh de francai, not much."
Billie Joe forced both the honey bottle and the ketchup one (with major difficulty) into his already ridiculously over-stuffed mouth and squeezed as hard as he possibly could; his eyes rolled and he gagged worse than ever. For a second or two, he thought he would die, but then he miraculously managed to gulp the colossal mountain of edible items into his esophagus, and he shouted "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT, FRENCH PERSON!!?"
"Oh, sorry, I though you were French" said the French person, with only a little bit of a French accent.
"Yes, well, I'm not, does the sound of someone choking sound like a French accent to you?"
"No, not really, but we called to inform you of your wife's whereabouts."
Billie's eyes widened as he clutched the small phone closer to his ear. He wanted to scream that where was his wife, or better still: murder the person on the other end of the phone—he had an ominous feeling that this could not be good news. Then came the stranger's voice again: "I will let you speak with my master."
There was a short pause and Billie feared for a few moments that the next thing he would hear would be Addie's terrified voice saying that she had no idea where she was and desperately pleading him to find her, as commonly happened when people were kidnapped. Billie didn't reason that the person had said 'master' and thus could not possibly be referring to Adrienne.
A harsh male voice came from the phone now. "All four of them are here. Go out of your house and walk exactly three blocks straight away from your front door, where you'll be promptly escorted here. Don't make any phone calls; we're watching the phone lines. Don't e-mail anyone, for we'll know. Speak to no one on your way here. If you're not here in 3 minutes-"
The man suddenly stopped speaking, but Billie Joe immediately heard Joey's voice saying something very quickly, but then he gasped and screamed in pain.
"JOEY!" Billie screamed, but an insane burst of laughter came from the cruel man, and Billie was left crying with a phone that would say no more than 'beeeeep'.
Billie quickly dried his tears and thought about calling Tre' and Mike, his best friends, for help, but he didn't—he didn't want to risk his children being harmed.
Billie was feeling desperate. He knew he was all alone, but he also knew that his family needed him.
Feeling frustrated, and not quite knowing what to do, Billie's emotions overcame his logic and he screamed "YOU LITTLE FUCKING BASTERD, ROT IN FUCKING HELL, DAMN YOU!" at the useless cell phone. He didn't know if those damn people had Adrienne or not, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna sit around and wait for them to call again. He could only hope for the best. Or worst.
Billie Joe got ready to run out of the house as fast as he could, and he did indeed run to the door, but he reached his hand out to open the front door and instanly froze all over. He had never felt so completely helpless—or desperate, for that matter—in all his life. He felt like screaming in frustration, but couldn't, and at that precise moment, everything went black.
Billie could still think, so he knew he must be conscious, but the world had never suddenly turned completely black in the middle of a bright day before—particularly if he knew his eyes were wide open. He had no clue what to do, but in any case he couldn't have done anything even if he had known, because he now heard something peculiar.
From nowhere and everywhere came a woman's voice: 'Billie, let me help you.' she called. Billie forced his mind to relax, for something told him that this being could help him a lot, but he found it very hard to do so. 'Yeah, voice-person, whoever you are, I seriously need some help right now, please. I need to see Addie and the kids again.'
Billie though he heard a faint whisper of assent; felt a vague breeze as something gently drifted past him, but it might have been nothing, and within seconds everything was normal once more; he had whipped the door open and was sprinting away down the street, not exactly sure of where he was going, but knowing he couldn't possibly be going in the wrong direction. After what seemed forever, he stopped, breathless, and fell to his knees on the street, gasping for breath. When he got it again, he saw the two people (apart from his family) that he most wanted to see.
They were standing across the street, and they could hardly have been looking more lost a and put of place if they had been a pair of buffalo that had been dragged away from Africa and been dressed as clowns and trying to eat bricks in the middle of the street.
One was Tre' Cool, who was indeed dressed in a clown outfit so big for him that he had to wear 3 belts tied tightly around each other in order to keep his pants from falling off. He also had a colorful hat (squised atop his rainbow-colored wig) with an obscene symbol in the front (which was facing backwards) and he had a lot of badly applied make-up on.
The other person was Mike Dirnt, and he wore a white suit that had repulsive yellow rectangles all over it, and a hideous bright orange tie. Something unpleasantly bumpy and brown-colored was smeared on his shoes. Billie somehow thought it wasn't mud. To finish Mike's eccentric look, he had a shiny purple cloak with large pink flowers arranged randomly all over it.
Billie hurried over to his two friends as quickly as he could, which wasn't very fast, considering the distance he had just run. As it turned out, his friends had stepped out of their houses and run a long way to get there, too. Neither had a reason for doing so, except an abnormal urge and a feeling that they just HAD to.
Billie Joe didn't feel like explaining everything to them, and anyway, he knew he was probably late for going where the strange man had wanted him to go, so he just told them to follow him and ran all he way back to his house, and then three more blocks.
By the time they got there, Billie was feeling as if all hope was lost. After all, he had taken at least thirty minutes as he ran all through the city like mad—he wouldn't be surprised to hear police sirens right now—not that he minded, but he did need all the time he could possibly have right now to look for his family.
He sat down, barely able to breathe, and closed his eyes. Out of nowhere, an ethereal female voice was heard coming from somewhere Billie Joe couldn't quite place. 'Billie Joe' she whispered 'don't lose hope. They are coming, and don't forget: they may be here.'
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