The Ballad of Michael & Beulah

I hold in my hand a backstage pass from 2031; thirty-one years ago. I don't know if it was my grandma's or grandpa's, but it was for the show at the Staples Center where my mom and dad's band, Relative Chaos, which included Uncles Bailey and Vegas, performed. But that wasn't the greatest part of the evening. That was the night Grandpa Mike, Grandpa Wright, and Great Uncle Billie played together before a crowd for the first time in about a decade; give or take a year or two.

It was the announcement that Green Day would be getting back together for the new album they'd put together and would be promoting on their reunion tour which the press had proclaimed would be their greatest feat in the whole of their career as a band.

There was so much hope and promise for them at the time. Sure, they were each a year away from sixty, but they were -- as my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles have since recounted -- as exuberant and as full of life as ever.

They had the world in their hands and nothing could go wrong.

But apparently, they spoke too soon.

* * *

Bailey Mason Armstrong sighed heavily as he kept his eyes on the road as he drove mindlessly down Piedmont Avenue; passing Fenton's Creamery and suddenly getting the craving for the enormous 'Banana Special.' But, this thirty-year-old couldn't think of sweets. He had too much on his mind.

Relative Chaos was finally off tour as of three weeks prior when they played the Staples Center in Los Angeles. And the love life Bailey thought was thriving, was no longer even existent thanks to his finicky whore of a fiancee.

He was very much so looking forward to marrying her in the coming month, now that the band was off tour and would have some time to themselves for a good while. Perfect time to get married, maybe start a family of his own before going back into the studio. But no. The bitch had to drop the bomb on him that she couldn't be with a man who couldn't be there for her and was always away.

What the fuck?!

What do you call 'no longer on tour and not being in the goddamn studio?'

"Cunt," Bailey muttered under his breath as he let out an irritated growl and turned the car radio on just as he came upon a sudden road block involving a police officer directing traffic toward an alternate route; i.e., detour.

Rolling his door window down, Bailey -- green eyes shaded with sunglasses -- called out to the officer. "What's the road block for?" he asked curiously.

"Real bad accident up ahead," the officer replied grimly.

"Oh," Bailey shrugged the answer off without much concern. "That bites. Hope everyone involved is okay."

As he began to make a right onto the road which was the temporary detour route, he noticed the cop didn't answer him verbally but the look on his face was solemn to say the least.

Continuing on his way throughout Oakland, Bailey decided to stall in heading to his mom and stepfather's house only a mile or so away. He just needed some time to himself to sort through his thoughts before unveiling the news of his engagement and all-around relationship with the Cunt, Jennifer, being off. He new his mother adored Jennifer because, frankly, she was a great catch and it pained Bailey for more reasons that he could imagine as to why she had to leave him now, after all this time.

Why couldn't she wait just a little bit longer and he'd have her all to himself? No other road blocks to get in his way, so to speak.

Damnit.

Now that 'Banana Special' was beginning to be almost too undeniable.

Diet be damned, Bailey thought. I need me some ice cream.

* * *

It would be another two hours or so before Bailey finally arrived to his mom and stepfather's home. With his car parked behind Mike's, he walked up the driveway with his hands in his pockets as the evening sun beamed down on his currently dark brown hair.

Maybe I should dye my hair a shade of blonde. He began to think random thoughts as he walked up to the front steps. Did I miss that stop sign two blocks away? Ooh, the Oakland A's are playing the Red Sox tonight. I should watch that game. I think I'll order out, too...

Turning the doorknob, he walked right into the home that he had lived in for the majority of his childhood. Fifteen years. From the time he was five before he started kindergarten until he transferred to Long Island for college when he was twenty.

"Hey!" he called out as he dropped his car keys onto the table in the entrance hall that was beside the front door. "It's me!"

Stepping around the corner, he moved into the living room where he peered around and found it devoid of human life. He found the same results in every room on the main floor until he heard movement upstairs.

Ascending the stairs to the second level, he called out once again.

"I know you're home!" he spoke loudly with a grin no one but himself could see. "If you're doing it, cut it short!"

As Bailey started walking down the hallway, the movement at the other end, where his mom and stepdad's bedroom was, halted. Then the muffled sound of footsteps that weren't his own didn't last long as the door swung open and there stood a 59-year-old Mike Dirnt, who looked as if he had been run over by a freight train at least ten times.

His blue eyes were red and puffy from crying and he just looked as if he were a little boy and someone had shot his pet dog.

"Who died?" Bailey inquired, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh God," he heard his mother groan which was laced with the remnants of sobbing.

When Mike failed to crack a smile and instead opened the bedroom door wider, he suddenly let out his own sob and turned away from the man he had called his son for more than a quarter of a century.

His face instantly turning a shade of pale and a panic attack at the ready, Bailey walked quickly into his parents' room to find his mother hunched on the floor with her knees pulled to her chest as she looked up at him with traumatized eyes.

"Holy shit. What happened? What's wrong?" Bailey pestered, crouching down to his mom's level. "Mom...please, what happened? Is someone hurt? Are you okay?"

Mike's tall and lean frame turned to face his stepson who was crouching before his wife and holding her hands with his own.

How to break the news? Where to begin?

And then, Bailey just had to look up at him and take off his sunglasses so that he looked more like his father than ever.

"There's been an accident," Mike squeaked out. "You're..."

"Wha--my what?"

Swallowing back a lump in his throat, Mike's eyes flitted over to Beulah for a moment before he returned his gaze to Bailey. "There was a car accident. Your dad...he was driving down Piedmont when, um...a pickup truck went through a stop sign," Mike began to explain.

Bailey stared wide-eyed as his stepfather as he fell back onto his ass his knees gave out from his crouched position. He felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, and suddenly he felt very cold. And, for some reason, he began to shake.

"No..." was all Bailey could utter.

Mike licked his lips and slowly crouched down; reaching out a hand to place it consolingly on the shoulder of the man who was his son no matter what his DNA said.

"Bailey, honey," squeaked Beulah; her eyes imploring as she reached out for her son as well and was welcomed into his strong arms.

"What happened to my dad?" the 31-year-old demanded hoarsely. "Is he okay? I mean...I passed a road block a couple hours ago on Piedmont and the police officer I saw didn't seem too hopeful on the accident that was up ahead..." Bailey trailed off as tears began to fall down his cheeks like torrential rain. "Oh fuck...oh God, please no..."

All three began to cry together as Mike fought to keep a clear head to further explain what horrible thing had transpired.

"Billie, your father...he was driving home to Adrienne because he had apparently went to do something at 880. But on the...on the drive home, a pickup truck ran through a stop sign and blindsided him. He was hit on the front, driver's side of his car...the, um...the impact sent the car skidding through the intersection and..."

Mike trailed off again; unsure if he could recount what happened to his best friend of fifty years. But somehow, he had to continue. For Bailey's sake.

"Dad, tell me what happened," the younger man pleaded.

"The car flipped over a few times and rammed into another car coming from the opposite direction," Mike explained as steadily as he could. "The paramedics, they got there as soon as they were called."

"And?"

Mike looked Bailey in the eyes as Beulah began another fit of sobs and hysterical crying. All thoughts of trying to be strong for her son were gone.

"They said he died right away," Mike bit out as the pain of losing his best friend, his brother for life, seared through his heart like a sharp, scalding knife once again. "They say he never knew what hit him. That he didn't feel anything."

A sob became lodged in Bailey's throat in such a way that it looked as if he was choking on some unknown object. Not a sound emitted from his mouth as his lips and chin quivered as he tried to wrap his mind around what he had just learned. But his mind didn't want to accept the bad news.

With a heartwrenching and ear-shattering cry finally piercing the air after several pregnant moments, Bailey lurched as if someone had given him the Heimlich Maneuver. Sobs and wails of pain flowed from his heart-shaped lips as Beulah laid his head on her shoulder and ran her hand soothingly through his hair; rocking him like a mother trying to calm her upset infant child.

And if his response up to this point from learning of his father's tragic death hadn't broken his mother and stepfather's hearts already, then Bailey's spoken plea to the Gods above was.

"Please, no...not my daddy..."

* * *

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I can't even imagine the horror of what everyone went through that fateful day that Great Uncle Billie was killed.

The driver of the pickup had later been convicted of involuntary vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to six years of prison time at North Kern State Prison.

However, no sentence could ever bring a loved one back.

When the news of Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day's tragic death, everyone the whole world over who knew who he was and what he'd accomplished as a musician and then some, mourned for days and weeks, if not months.

The funeral procession had been televised with camera crews catching glimpses of Grandpa Mike and Grandma Beulah, dressed in black, walking hand in hand with Adrienne, Uncle Billie's widow. In tow had been Grandpa and Grandma Wright, my mom and dad, Uncles Bailey and Vegas, Aunts Ramona and Estelle, as well as Uncle Billie's other children with his wife -- Joey, Jakob and Ava Armstrong. And then there was the extended friends and family who filed into the church while security had been hired to keep the media and mourning fans alike, out.

It had been a spectacle and some compared it to a downscaled version of Princess Diana's funeral.

If ever there was a time for Don McClean's 'American Pie' to be relevant, it was the day Billie Joe Armstrong passed on to the afterlife, because that was the day the music truly died.

And, in this photo album I have picked up and have been sifting through, I have come across a page with the Green Day members with their families, on Easter Sunday 2011. They were all huddled around a picnic table at Uncle Billie's house and in the photograph, Grandpa Mike was staring at Grandma Beulah, and not the camera.

But then I realized just what picture I was staring at.

It was the picture that had later played a part in the demise of Green Day, for in this very capture of this one moment in time, Uncle Billie had been looking at Grandma Beulah with the same love, admiration and longing as my maternal grandfather.

Oh, Uncle Billie. Bless your wantonly wayward soul.

Billie Joe Armstrong
1972 - 2031