Best Man

The walls of Alexander Leveille's home were rustic at best.

Across from the green and tan plaid couch was a brick fireplace he explained was built by his father when he was a young boy, along with the rest of the house. The walls had been drywalled since the early sixties when the house was first built, and were painted a spruce green color with homemade wooden furniture, including a rocking chair from Pennsylvania Amish country.

With a fire crackling and no modern appliance in the room whatsoever accept for the overhead fan with it's single light bulb and the record player in the corner that dated back to the early seventies, the three men of Green Day and their host's long lost daughter, Caroline, sat around with cups of warm cocoa in their hands while they chatted about this and that.

And then the sound of a car skidding across the snowy road and turning into the driveway caused a change of subject.

Alex rolled his eyes with a knowing smile. "Well...that'd be Tiffany Michelle." Setting his own cup of cocoa carefully on the floor and placing his hands on his knees, the aging mountain musician stood up on rickety legs as the sound of excited footsteps came up the walk and onto the front porch.

Then, with what would've been assumed to be a gale force wind blowing the door open, in walked a young woman in her early twenties with medium brown hair and blue eyes like Alex's. She was tall like him and slim and, in an instant, Caroline noticed the similarities in her half-sister and herself; making her realize that despite being told she was a mirror image to her birth mother, she also looked somewhat like her birth father.

"Hey, Dad. Could you check my windshield wipers? I think I need new ones---" Tiffany Michelle began to rattle when she stopped just beyond the doorway, dropped her shoulder bag to the ground and stood in surprise at the guests in the living room. "Holy shit."

"Language," Alex muttered.

"Holy...shitake mushrooms," she amended lamely.

Tre laughed quietly to himself at the young woman's Austin Powers in Goldmember reference.

"Timmy, there's some people I'd like you to meet that I told you a bit about," Alex began, gesturing to Caroline and the guys.

"I know. It's just weird to think I'm, like, apparently related to a famous person," remarked with a grin that reminded Caroline of herself. "And, don't call me that in front of people I just met, Dad."

"What? Timmy?"

Tiffany Michelle -- or 'Timmy' -- simply cringed and then continued to smile as she clasped her hands in front of her; looking from person to person, then letting her eyes settle on Caroline. "So, we're like, sisters?"

Caroline nodded. "Looks like."

"So cool. I always wanted a sibling. Especially a sister, and would ya look at that," Timmy smirked, holding both her hands out to Caroline and gesturing to her. "I got myself one."

"And in a few months you'll have a niece or nephew," Alex added with a smile.

Timmy beamed. "Omigod, seriously? You're, like, pregnant?"

Caroline nodded.

"Can I hug you or is it too soon to get touchy-feely?"

"No, you can hug me," Caroline assured; leaning forward and getting to her feet and suddenly feeling like a midget compared to her new half-sister who stood a few inches over her.

As the pair embraced, Timmy muttered a well wishing of congratulations on the baby on board. And when she glanced at Mike she whispered in Caroline's ear.

"Not to be too forward but you're lucky to have such a hot guy."

When Timmy pulled apart, Caroline let out a laugh as she looked over her shoulder at Mike and bit her lip.

"Yes, I am," she replied.

"Uh, don't anyone bother to introduce yourselves. I know who you guys are," Timmy said to the members of Green Day.

"How old are you?" Billie Joe piped up; kinda slouching in the middle of the couch with both hands holding his cup of cocoa between his thighs.

"Twenty-two."

"So, no spring chicken, huh?" he teased.

"Nope. I'm very ancient."

Alex sat back down in his chair and picked his cup of cocoa back up as he gestured for both daughters to take a seat so they could all talk together. Clearing his throat of phlegm, the older man looked to Caroline and offered her a small smile.

"You probably want to know about who I am as a person now, don't you?"

"I guess," she shrugged shyly.

"Well, I was born in January of 1952. My dad, George, was forty-four at the time and my mom, Ouida, was only nineteen. She's Native American. Her name means 'morning star,'" Alex began. "My dad had two other sons in their twenties from a previous marriage when I was born; my half-brothers Roger and Wayne. And then my parents had two sons after me; my full brothers, Preston and Zachary. I was close to going to Woodstock, but my dad swiped my tickets and said I was too young, even though I was seventeen at the time. And, my childhood had its ups and downs."

Alex puckered his lips in thought and sat back; his eyes clearly reminiscing.

"My brothers and I used to go camping every weekend, every summer. Just the three of us. We'd pack our bags with food, our small tent and sleeping bags and lug them on our backs while we road our bikes into the woods about a half mile. And our parents wouldn't worry about us. Then come Monday we had to help Dad do some work. And he was a good guy. Great country musician. He had a band that I played in when I was a teen. We'd play in bars all over the county. But Dad was a bit of an alcoholic and could get violent. If we did something wrong, his punishment was swift and harsh, but after about a week, he was soft as a kitten and had forgotten all about it."

He looked down at his hands and his face darkened when he continued.

"He was generally an ass most of the time and I blame him for a lot of the problems I had," he spoke. "When I was sixteen he broke a 2x4 across my back and it's because of that moment of his drunken stupor that I've had back problems all my life. The last time I ever let him get the best of me was when I brought my first wife home to meet him for the first time. He was about sixty-five at the time; cranky, still drinking, just miserable at getting old, I s'pose. And he started a fight with me, but I caught his fist and forced him to sit down on the couch and I told him to his face he would never hit me again."

Caroline and the guys sat there in shock, listening to the story being told. Unlike Timmy who seemed more normal; obviously having heard this all before, many times, throughout her life in Alex's recollections.

"I took Sandra, my first wife, by the hand and we left. I didn't speak to my father for two years until we got married and he came to the wedding. That was in 1974 and four years later we got divorced because, like my father, I'd become a bit of an alcoholic and Sandra didn't want a husband who was an angry drunk; which is what I was. So, she left me and it was a year later that I met your mother," Alex informed, catching Caroline's eye. A soft, rueful smile spread to his eyes and he bit his lip in a very Caroline way.

So that's where she got it from.

"She was eighteen and bartending at a club I was playing at in Plattsburgh. I thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, and I fell in love with her right then and there. I knew she had to be mine," he spoke as Mike took Caroline's hand in his; giving it a light squeeze. "I didn't know she was only eighteen though, and even when I found out; it didn't matter to me that I was nine years older. I used to flirt with her constantly until she just gave in one night and agreed to go out with me, and boy, she was a little songbird. Always humming Patsy Cline's 'Crazy.' But she had a horrible case of stage fright and the only way I got her to sing with me on stage is if she had a few beers in her first."

Caroline smirked; trying to picture how her real mother had been like through her real father's memory.

"Not that long after she told me she was pregnant, and she admitted that she'd be completely happy to be housewife and raise kids all her life. That a career wasn't all that important to her. Family was; mostly because she had a bitter childhood herself. Her parents were strict and lacked the gene to show affection and affection was something she craved. And I loved her, so I was more than willing to give her some sort of life away from the one she'd known. So I proposed when she was about three months pregnant but we were gonna wait to get married till after you were born because she wanted to fit into a dress," Alex laughed. "Even though she didn't show until late in the pregnancy, and she didn't tell her folks until it became obvious."

"What happened?" Caroline inquired.

"They flipped their lid; demanding she go away to have the baby and then give you up for adoption so she didn't disgrace the family," he explained. "They wanted her to quit bartending and go to college to do something 'productive' with herself, but she thought having a family was productive. And, let me tell you, her folks hated me. They saw me as the snake in the garden of Eden. That I was the devil and no good. And we started arguing about her parents and the life we'd have. And I don't know what it was we were exactly arguing about, but the result of our last fight was me finding a Dear John letter she'd written; telling me she'd gone to Buffalo to have our baby and to live her life on her terms. That no one would compromise that."

"That was the last time you saw her alive," Caroline deduced.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. The last time I saw her, we were fighting and I remember being so angry at her. And then, a week after she left, I get the call that she'd been raped and found dead in a graveyard. And that the baby she'd been carrying was gone and assumed to have been killed and disposed of by the assailant. And I didn't want to believe any of it. Even that our child was completely gone. I called Connie's parents and begged and pleaded for them to get the Buffalo police department to keep her case open, but they wouldn't. They said she was gone and that was that. And when her body was brought back here, they wouldn't allow me to attend her funeral. Threatened to call the cops on me. But I visited her grave almost every day after for a couple years. And I started drinking again because I just couldn't come to terms with losing Connie. I loved her so much, even though I'd only had her a short amount of time."

"Then came mom," Timmy piped up with a rueful smile on her own lips.

"Yep," Alex nodded. "I met Tiffany Michelle's mother, Susan, about five years after your mother died. And Susan showed me there was more to life than my grief. She filled the void in my heart and loved me something fierce. She got pregnant and I married her right away; scared that I'd lose my chance at another marriage. And then in September of '86, Timmy was born. And I quit drinking that same day. Haven't touched a bottle in almost twenty-three years."

"Where's your mom?" Caroline asked Timmy after noticing a picture of a woman who resembled the younger woman on the fireplace's mantle.

"She died four years ago of cervical cancer."

"Oh. Uh, I'm sorry."

Timmy shrugged. "Shit happens."

"You can say that again," Billie Joe commented.

The six of them sat there in silence for a while; just letting everything that had been told sink in.

"Well, what say we take this into the kitchen?" Alex suggested, slowly getting back up to his feet. "I made spaghetti last night and that type of dish always tastes better the next day."

"I love spaghetti," Caroline announced.

"And there's plenty of it. I made a huge pot."

Caroline simply smirked. Wow, it's creepy how many similarities there are between Mike and Alex...er, my dad.

Caroline, Mike and Timmy all walked into the kitchen, following behind Alex, without waiting for Billie Joe or Tre.

The shorter men remained on the couch; about to stand up at any moment, when Tre commented on what they'd heard.

"And we thought our lives were messed up. Damn."

"No one's life is perfect. And we can't sit around and stew in some kind of woe-is-me/emo shit either. Life is for living and fuck me blind if Caroline's dad isn't living proof of moving on."

Tre stared ahead at the flames in the fireplace, hypnotically flickering away. "Sometimes people can't move on," he mumbled, not completely aware of the double entendre in his comment. "People shouldn't be looked down on because of that."

Simply turning his head and looking at Tre's profile, Billie Joe pursed his lips and, without any warning whatsoever, he lifted his left hand, balled it into a fist and socked Tre in the jaw.

Utterly stunned by the violent gesture, Tre practically fell off the couch as he turned to face his older friend.

"What the fuck was that for?" Tre hissed quietly.

Getting right in Tre's face, the 37-year-old guitarist scowled and just stared the drummer in the eye. "Because if Mike knew what you pulled the other night on Caroline, he'd have been the one to punch you," Billie Joe seethed. "And I'm not ready to lose him to a third heart attack over your fucking inability to realize when something's dead and buried."

"Bill---" Tre began to say but was interrupted by the green-eyed man.

"Give. Up. The. Fucking. Ghost."

Leaning back, Billie Joe took a hold of his now empty cup of cocoa and pushed himself up off the couch, and without another word he stalked out of the living room; leaving Tre to tend to his cut lip which was starting to bleed.