A Not So Sweet Fairytale

We walked down the stairs as he revealed to me a brief history of the band (how he and Billie Joe met, the establishment of Tre`, and the day they’d decided on the present name of the band, etc.).

“So how long are you going to be on this tour?” I asked finding it interesting I had so much in common with someone I’d never met before.

“Another month and a half or so,” he said holding open the exit door that led out of the staircase and onto the first floor. I nodded my thanks as I walked through the door with his arm outstretched, which I bumped into, and felt an awkward sensation and I realized a while later that I’d touched my father for the first time in my life.

“So what do you wanna eat?” I asked figuring he might as well pick the place since I couldn’t pay for any food since I had no more money.

“Hmmm… How would you feel about Mexican?” He asked after a moment to think about it.

“Sure,” I nodded as we walked through the entrance doors with the doorman smiling at us, probably knowing just who Mike was.

Mike walked up to the valet parking attendant and handed him a piece of paper (as well as a wad of cash) and the attendant beamed and told us that the car would be there in a minute. We sat on the conveniently located (as well as empty) bench that was right next to the entrance and waited. We sat in silence and I supposed he was trying to think of what to make of me, his newfound daughter, since I was trying to figure out what to make of him, my father. He sure wasn’t what I had expected. I’d expected he would be a stuck up rich kid who wouldn’t want anything to do with me, but after meeting him, he seemed kind and didn’t seem the type to take everything for granted, and he seemed to feel he had a responsibility for me (considering he’d already opened (or at least offered) up his house to me). A few minutes later while I was still deep in thought a taxi cab pulled up and Mike got up quickly to claim it as I scrambled behind him, trying to catch up. He opened up the back door just as I reached the taxi cab and I jumped in after him.

“Where to sir?” The cabbie asked diligently.

“Ahhh… I spose the best Mexican restaurant around,” Mike mumbled in response, but the cabbie heard it and off we went with a protesting squeal of the tires as they spun on the asphalt. The pondering silence continued for almost half of the journey. It was broken by the cab driver who asked, “Hey, aren’t you dat guy from dat band… Green Bay or watever?” He asked in a thick accent that I took to be from Chicago.

“Green Day… and yeah I am,” Mike admitted, rolling his eyes and looking aimlessly out the window on his left since I was on his right.

That’s when I remembered the napkin I’d stuffed in my pocket since I’d found it lying around in the park and it was the single piece of garbage in the entire park, so I’d grabbed it. I plunged my right hand into my pocket and rummaged through it until I successfully found the paper, as well as the pen I’d 'borrowed' from the front desk. Holding the piece of paper against the cabbie’s seat, I wrote Mike a message, hoping that this way of conversing might be a bit easier than if we decided to talk since the cabbie would be able to hear us. By the time we reached the restaurant, which was about another fifteen minutes, the napkin read:

So, do you get that a lot?

Get what?

The “oh, aren’t you that famous guy” thing?

Oh, that. Yeah I do. But you get used to it real fast.

So would it be incredibly lame and selfish if I were to ask you for an autograph right now?

You know it’s pretty pathetic when your daughter is asking for your autograph.

So… Was that a yes or a no?

That was an I dunno. But anyways, let’s move on… What do you like to do?

Listen to music and watch television. What about you?

I like to make music and be on TV.

Well, at least you enjoy what you do.

That is true. There could be worse things in life than being an international rockstar.

Oh shut up.

What did I say?

Nothing. It's just that you’re so full of yourself.

Oh, I don’t mean to be (not that I don’t have every right to be). But enough about me and my cockiness (I always did love that word), what about you? What’s been going on?

Well besides my mother’s suicide and that entire week, nothing really. I went to see my grandparents.—
I stopped right there though. I’d completely forgotten… my grandparents. I hadn’t seen them since that dreary morning of the funeral, where’d they cornered me and let me know that I was the reason for my mother’s suicide. That if she hadn’t had me she would have gone onto college, gotten married to a handsome man (with black hair my grandmother informed me), and would be happy as could be.

It was at that moment that I decided I wouldn’t ask them if I could stay with them for a little while until everything was cleared up, instead I decided my best option would be to find my father and… well here I was right now sitting next to him on faux leather in a cab going to a Mexican restraint.

Mike took my silence as a hint that I had finished my message, so he grabbed the napkin and read it. After he’d contemplated what to say, he decided silence would be the best option, so he ripped it up and scattered it on the floor of the cab and stayed silent the rest of the way. When we stopped outside the front doors of a spiffy looking Mexican restaurant, Mike hopped out before me and paid the cabbie with an autographed bumper sticker for his son and we worked our way through the crowd to the inside. We walked up the booth with a sign that read 'Host' and waited until someone came to occupy it. When they saw us, well more specifically Mike, they nodded to us and motioned for us to follow them to the protesting groans of everyone in the very long line that extended beyond the entryway.

“We’ve been waiting for two hours and they get to waltz right in, that’s-” A middle aged woman protested.

“Shut up dude. That’s Mike Dirnt and… I dunno,” the guy next to him said.

We were seated in a spacious booth and it seemed like they expected more to be joining us. However, at the moment we were the only two, sitting on opposite sides. After examining the menus in silence, the waitress came by and took our order, but told us that since it was a hectic night we were gonna have to wait for a long time for the food to come out.

“I take it you don’t get along with your grandparents,” Mike said cautiously, looking straight at me.

“It’s simply that they’ve never liked me. They blame me for my mom not going to college, getting married, and all. I’ve tried to get along with them before, but no matter what, they hated my guts. Eventually my mom gave up trying to get them to treat me like their grandchild, and we moved even further away when I was seven,” I mumbled, concentrating on loading my warm tortilla chip with the chunky red sauce, not really realizing it may be spicy.

I think Mike tried to warn me about the dip as I shoved the chip into my mouth, but it was too late. I paid for my mistake by downing all five glasses of water that’d they’d brought us.

“Hot?” Mike questioned, grinning ear to ear with a new spark in his deep blue eyes.

“Jush uh bit,” I said, fanning my extended tongue with my hand as fast as I could.

“Be careful next time,” he reminded me and I glared at him.

“Ew shulda tuld me that ewier,” I said, still fanning my still burning tongue.

“I did, you just didn’t listen, but anyways. Have you spoken to your grandparents since your mom died?”

I nodded, “At her funeral last Saturday. Later that day I got a plane ticket and flew here, I saw you guys later the next morning as the paparazzi crowded around you. If that tells you how that went,” I told him, not wanting to get into the threats or the screaming match that had erupted.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were then?” He asked.

“I tried, you just didn’t listen,” Sticking my still burning tongue back into my mouth since I was getting some funny looks from the elderly ladies and smiles from the younger folks who were around us.

“Yeah. Sorry bout that, although you saw how pummeled we were about to get if we didn’t get outta there right then and there. So they don’t even know you’re out here?” He asked, desperately trying to find out anything he could about my grandparents.

“No, but they figure I probably moved in with some guy I know who just got out of jail,” I shrugged, knowing that’s exactly what they thought I was gonna do next because they’d informed me the morning of the funeral that that was what I was planning to do.

“Sorry to disappoint them. I’ve been outta jail for a while,” he muttered.

“It’s not like they would even care. I’m sure if I died they’d celebrate,” I shrugged, knowing that was also the truth since they had been so kind to tell me that as well.

“Don’t feel bad. They hated me too,” he told me, flagging down the waitress and pointing to our glasses.

“Wait… They knew about you?” I asked taken aback.

“Yeah. That’s why they hated you, cause I wasn’t there to help take care of you probably. Knowing them, they probably thought I ran away from your mother when she told me that she was pregnant. But I didn’t even know about you, so that’s just the way they will always picture it,” he shrugged.

“Yeah. God, that makes a lot of sense. I’d never thought of turning to my grandparents to figure out who my father was. They probably would have told me right off the bat since they would figure I would be like a leech and stick with you and leave my mother alone,” I mumbled, more to myself than to Mike.

“Ah well. We’ll deal with them soon enough. Don’t give me that look; we’ll just have dinner in a restaurant so that they can’t stone us without the entire building noticing.”

“Whatever. Hey, what are they doing here?” I asked as I spied Jeffrey standing with Billie Joe and Tre` who were peering into all the sections of the restaurant, probably searching for Mike and I.

“I told them I would probably go out and get something to eat and they know Mexican is my favorite, so they’re probably here to eat whatever we don’t. So be careful and make sure you eat all you want before offering any to those three,” he said, finishing just as they spotted us and were heading over to us.

“Hey,” Jeffrey said me and I scooted into the middle as Mike did too since we were in a half circle booth and I knew I’d feel even more awkward sitting next to Billie Joe or Tre`, so I made sure Jeffrey was the one sitting next to me.

“And what have you been up to today?” I asked him once they’d all sat down and ordered their drinks since they 'weren’t hungry'.

“Well, we had lunch, walked into an ice cream parlor, had another lunch, then had dinner, and we just got though with supper when we decided to find you two to see if you guys were doing okay and all. They thought he’d be at the most crowded Mexican restaurant, so here we are,” he recapped, glancing back at Tre` and Billie Joe, but I could tell he wasn’t nervous around them at all, if anything, he seemed at ease. Although he seemed to be eyeing Billie Joe an awful lot.

“He’s married,” I muttered to him and he looked down.

“I know he won’t shut up about his kids and how things are going with his wife,” he whispered back, before taking a big gulp of his Coke that had just been set in front of him.

“I like to whisper too,” Billie Joe said shoving his face in front of us.

“Sorry,” Jeffrey muttered, turning just a bit red and I smiled.

“Anyways, Mike, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Tre` prompted.

“Oh yeah. Billie Joe, Tre`, this is Torrie… my daughter,” Mike stumbled, looking carefully so he could calculate their reaction. They both looked a bit surprised, but I was pretty sure Jeffrey had mentioned them that this would be the outcome, so they quickly regained control of their faces.

“For sure?” Billie Joe asked.

“Yup. Remember Charlotte, well Charlie I should say, right before Dookie when were going around everywhere and I met her?” Tre` and Billie Joe nodded, smiles playing on both their faces.

“Well, it turns out that she got pregnant and never bothered to mention it to me,” he informed them, with absolutely no emotion in his voice, but I could tell he was a bit pissed off anyways.

“How is good ol’ Charlie?” Billie Joe asked and in response, I looked down and examined the tablecloth and I could see out of the corner of my eye that Billie Joe and Tre` had turned to Mike for an explanation as to why I hadn’t answered them.

“She got into an accident about two weeks ago it sounds like, and she… well she died,” he said, and I could hear him holding back a powerful emotion.

“It wasn’t an accident,” I informed them, looking back at Billie Joe and Tre` with such anger in my eyes that they turned away.

“What do you mean?” Someone asked, though I was too angry thinking about how my mother had deserted me completely to see who.

“She was the one who ran that car over the cliff on purpose. She left me a note. And she left me on my own,” I said, a single hot tear caressing my cheek.

“No she didn’t. You’ve got me now,” Mike said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders in what I supposed to be a reassuring half hug thing. I sighed and then saw the waitress approaching at long last with our food.

“Bout time,” I muttered and Mike took his arm off of me.