Good Man

My lover's gone
I know that kiss will be my last
No more his song
The tune upon his lips has passed



Times like these are the ones you fear most in your life. When you're sitting around the dinner table with your wife and beautiful children, happy and laughing, when the phone rings. And despite your wife insisting to let the answering machine get it, you say no, and get up.

Because it could be important, when usually it could've waited.

You never expect the phone call to be anything out of the ordinary from all the prior times you've answered it, and it's nothing more than someone or another calling for some trivial reason.

And because of this desensitized stance for answering the phone, you're never prepared for bad news. It hits you like a Mack truck, standing there with your mouth agape, wondering if you heard right; going over it in your head.

You're disbelieving, in denial, and beginning to panic.

Then the horror of it all arrives.

Time slows down while everything and everyone around you is at full speed. You don't remember how you get from one point to another. You don't remember getting in your car and driving away from your home and you certainly don't remember arriving at your destination. All you know is that you're there.

You feel your body running as your heart beats like a lion excited to make its attack on unsuspecting prey. However, you're not excited. You're scared, nervous, upset. But you can't show it. Not now.

There are other people who need you to be strong; to be the shoulder they need to cry on.

You need to be their rock.

And then you're where you need to be. Standing before the one who needs you most at the moment. They're sitting there, staring straight ahead with tears stinging at their eyes; lost in their own world...



Billie Joe stood a few feet away from Caroline, who was in the waiting room at St. Francis Memorial Hospital, located on Hyde Street. Her eyes were puffy and red, worn and dull. However, the 40-year-old guitarist's own eyes seemed more focused on the woman's clothes and skin.

Her black cocktail dress was disheveled and there was dried blood all over her hands, arms, legs and even on her face.

When he took a few steps closer and murmured her name, she didn't look up. But he knew she sensed him. There was a slight shifting in her gaze which was fixated on the floor.

"Caroline," he spoke cautiously, crouching down on the ground to kneel before her. Placing his hands on her legs, he looked up at her face which was still avoiding any eye contact with him. "What happened? Is Mike okay? All you said on the phone was Mike was hurt and that you were here at St. Francis Memorial. Is he okay?"

He didn't mean to fling the questions at her all at once but he was panicking in his own right.

Caroline's slightly parted lips, closed. Then pursed together firmly before she stuck her tongue out enough to lick them.

"Care?" Billie Joe questioned further. "Please say something." His hand reached for hers, but she snatched them back and looked to the side. "Is he okay?"

Slowly, she lifted her eyes and met his; and Billie Joe had never before seen anyone look so forlorn and so completely void of expression. As she shook her head, her chest began to rise and fall as if she were starting to have a panic attack.

"Gone..." she whispered.

"What d'ya mean he's gone?" Billie Joe demanded, unnerved, gripping her legs a bit tighter. "What happened, Caroline? What happened to Mike?"

"He left me. The...the guy...he shot him in the...in the, um...right lung. Went right through him, the doctor said. The second one lodged in his stomach...he just bled, and bled...and he left me...alone..."

Billie Joe watched as tears welling in her eyes failed to fall for her. She simply sat here unable to cry anymore. She was like a hollow porcelain doll; ready to break from a fall with a blank stare that was painted on.

"No," he muttered, shaking his head insistently. "He can't be gone...the doctors took care of him, right? He's in recovery, right?"

"I held him in my arms," she spoke in monotone. "He said he loved you. To tell you that. You and Tre."

Billie Joe bit his lip but the blubbering sob he wanted to keep from escaping his throat fought its way up anyway. Dipping his head down, he sank back to the ground and let the tears flow down his cheeks as he wrapped his arms around his knees. The ten-year-old child who had lost his father thirty years earlier returned as he had to come to terms with losing the person who was there for him when his dad died.

His rock was gone. How was he going to be able to deal with that?

"Was he...was it...did he..." he stuttered, not sure how to ask his question. "Did he suffer?" Looking up at Caroline's distant eyes that were glued to the spot of floor beside him, Billie Joe stifled back more tears for the moment.

"Yes," was her simple and heartshattering reply.

Despite needing to know the answer, Billie Joe didn't really want to know. It was hard to accept and he wanted to pretend it was all a dream but the fact that Caroline seemed borderline catatonic and was also covered in what could only be Mike's blood was enough of a wake-up call for the guitarist.

"How can he be gone? Why?" the 40-year-old musician questioned, not expecting Caroline to answer.

And she didn't.

Looking up at her, Billie Joe clamored to his knees and knelt before the hollowed woman, and in a swift movement, he had his arms around her in a comforting embrace. And while Billie Joe cried a little on her shoulder, expecting her to do the same, she remained still and unwavering.

It was as if she knew what was going on around her but unable to participate. Just like a comatose patient. She saw with unseeing eyes, she listened with unhearing ears, she sensed with unfeeling touches.

When Billie Joe noticed as much, he stood up and forced her to her feet by way of taking her hands in his and pulling her up.

"C'mon, Care...you shouldn't stay here like this."

"No," she shook her head. "I can't leave him. He needs me." Billie Joe just stared at her. "In case it was all a mistake, I need to be here so he knows where I am. So he can find me..."

Billie Joe swallowed back a lump in his throat and the quickening heartbeat in his chest. "Care...he's not coming..." he trailed off; his voice cracking. "He's not coming back."

"Don't say that," she pleaded. "Please, don't say that to me. Just tell me he's really in a hospital room, recovering from surgery. That it was successful and he's gonna be okay. Please tell me he's not gone forever..."

"Caroline, he's---" cutting himself by staring into her pleading eyes, he frowned and bit his upper lip. Taking in a deep breath he cupped the left side of her face with his right hand as she looked down at the floor between their feet. "---he's okay. Everything's gonna be okay."

She sighed a little at his response and leaned into his chest. "I shouldn't be looking like a mess when he comes home, right? I should go home and change? I can shower and change, and come back here to check on him, can't I?"

Billie Joe couldn't find it in himself to shoot down her hopes at the moment. To shatter the fantasy in her mind where Mike survived and everyone was living happily ever after with rainbows and butterflies.

"Sure," he said cautiously. "Let me take you home so you can get cleaned up. You can see Mike later." He needed to say anything to her right now to get her out of the hospital. "Just do me a favor, though, and stay here for a bit while I find a doctor and, uh...check on Mike's condition."

Caroline wasn't looking at Billie Joe, but had heard what he'd said on some level, so she nodded her head and sat back down in her chair.

Giving her a once over, the green-eyed man left the waiting room and was gone for a few minutes while she turned briefly to a woman sitting a few chairs away, flipping through a magazine and looking just as harried as Caroline looked.

"My husband's okay," Caroline spoke to the other woman, leaning slightly in her direction. When the woman looked up with a questioning gaze, because she'd overheard and seen the conversation between Caroline and Billie Joe, she just nodded. "Yep. I'm gonna go home and clean up. It's been an exhausting night. I don't want him to see me like this."

Soon after, Billie Joe returned, looking quite broken, but clearly forcing a smile for Caroline's sake.

"What did the doctor say to you?" she wondered.

"He, um...said Mike was in no pain and he's...uh...sleeping right now."

Caroline just stared blankly at her friend and nodded. "Okay."

Standing up, she picked up her purse from the chair beside her and joined Billie Joe as he led the way from the waiting room and down the hall toward the elevators.

The ride down to the parking garage was a quiet one, and Billie Joe opted to keep the drive back the same way in the event that he turned on his Sirius radio and something about Mike's death came across the airwaves and threw Caroline into a tizzy.

His BMW just whizzed by the late night traffic throughout the city, across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridges and into East Bay in a sort of unsettling silence that was driving Billie Joe insane. No noise aside from the sounds outside his car were leaving him alone to his thoughts and he didn't want to think about anything.

Especially Mike being gone from his life forever.

He couldn't bare thinking about it in the least. The only thing that seemed good at the moment was drinking himself to sleep and dealing with everything tomorrow, in the light of day.



The door to the Pritchard residence creaked open like one out of a cheesy B-movie as Caroline walked inside with Billie Joe in tow; his car keys jingling in his right hand as she sauntered over to the light switch in the front hall.

"You should get some sleep," he spoke, breaking the silence for the first time since they left the hospital. "There's a lot we'll have to do tomorrow..."

Caroline stared at the staircase and looked up at the wooden steps before turning slightly and looking down at the floor, at Billie Joe's feet. She was registering what he said very slowly; considering it with caution.

"What do we have to do?" she asked naively.

She can't honestly still be in denial, was all that was running through Billie Joe's mind. "Care," he began. "Mike..."

Her worn hazel eyes shifting to stare at the mirror against the wall, the mirror she'd stood in front of so many times with Mike behind her, holding her close, Caroline's face began to contort in emotional pain.

Arching her back as if to heave deeply, Caroline's mouth fell open but no sound came out; her voice trapped in her throat as a silent scream rang out in her eyes alone.

Before the man a couple feet away from her had the chance to react, she was collapsing to the floor, to her knees and practically clawing at the wooden floorboards.

"No, no, no, no..." she started chanting over and over.

Twisting slightly so that she was in a sort of sitting position, she leaned back against the first couple of steps of the staircase and began to ball herself up in the fetal position as Billie Joe sank to the floor with her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Care, I'm so sorry..." he whispered in her ear.

"Noooooo!" she screeched in agony. "Oh god, no, please...no..."

The reality of losing Mike was all coming back again and it was hurting even more because she was aware that Mike was not home, and would not be coming home. Not ever.

He was dead and she was his widow. His children had lost their father, Billie Joe and Tre had lost their best friend, his parents had lost their child, his siblings had lost their brother, and she, Caroline, had lost her husband.

Everyone had lost.

Most importantly, Mike.

He'd lost his life to a man with a gun who crossed paths with Caroline years before.

"It's my fault," Caroline whimpered as Billie Joe held her like a vice. "I never exchanged my information with that guy...and I should've. If I would've maybe he wouldn't have come back into my life to take Mike's...it's because of me. Mike's gone because of me..."

"God, Caroline...it is not your fault. Don't think that."

"How can I not? I just..." a sob interrupted her train of thought and she shook in Billie Joe's arms. "I want Mike..." she cried like a little girl. "I want my Michael."

"I do, too, Care..."

Caroline clung to Billie Joe for dear life as he held her. "What do I do now, Billie? What do I do? I don't know how to make...to make the, um...the arrangements. I can't...I don't know..."

"Shh, don't worry, sweetie. I'll take care of it," he assured, brushing his hand soothingly through her hair. "Right now you need to get some sleep. The next few days are gonna be hard and you're gonna need as much rest as you can get." Helping her to her feet, Billie Joe frowned when she wouldn't stay standing on her own and was forced to hold her up like a rag doll.

"I don't wanna sleep," she cried. "I can't because I'll wake up and he won't be there..."

"You need to sleep right now, Care..."

"But I'll be alone..." Caroline remarked. "I don't want to be alone. I wanna be with Mike..."

"I won't leave you alone tonight, okay?" he assured. "I'll stay with you. Let's just get you upstairs first so you can get cleaned up and changed into some pajamas while I call Adrienne to give her a heads up, alright?" When Caroline didn't respond right away, Billie Joe held her face in his hands and made her look at him. "Caroline..."

"Okay," she said in a small, defeated voice.

As Billie Joe helped her upstairs, pretty much dragging her, he left her alone in her bedroom for a moment to clean off the blood in the master bathroom so that he could call Adrienne, but when he heard a loud bang, he hurried into the bedroom and saw Caroline sinking against the wall in the bathroom with the mirror above the sink shattered. In the sink below there laid a ceramic soap dish that was chipped from the force of it connecting with the mirror at a quick speed.

"Oh, Care," he muttered as he crouched down to help her up. "Watch the broken glass," he added, steering her away from a few stray shards that had flown and landed on the tiled floor.

Sitting her on the edge of the tub, he grab a washcloth and wet it. As he proceeded in washing off Mike's dried blood from her skin, he felt her posture give a little as she slumped forward. Frowning, he found that taking care of Caroline helped take his mind off why she was like this. It was a double-edged sword, almost.

Once she was washed up, he helped her to her feet and back out into the bedroom where he had her sit in the chair near her walk-in closet so that he could snoop around her dresser drawers for some form of nightwear.

"Gimme one of Mike's shirts," she spoke with the hollow tone reappearing in her voice once more.

Billie Joe simply nodded and moved toward Mike's dresser, pulling out a black T-shirt that had Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe's logo on it.

"Can you spray some of his cologne on it, too?"

It wasn't a weird request, given her situation, so the guitarist obliged. Sifting through the few bottles Mike owned on top of his dresser, Billie Joe gave the T-shirt a few spritz and handed it to Caroline. When she took it from him, he watched her smell it briefly and then he turned around for her to change with some privacy.

Billie Joe focused on the window and the night sky filtering in as his ears attuned themselves to the sounds in the bedroom; Caroline shifting around as she changed behind him, his own breathing, the hum of the air conditioner.

"I'm changed," came her announcement.

Turning around, Billie Joe gave her a small smile as she stood up, wearing Mike's T-shirt that looked like a nightgown on her because of the height difference between the couple, and that she had somewhat returned to her petite figure not long after giving birth to Chloe. She was swimming in the T-shirt.

"Here," Billie Joe muttered, walking up to her side of the bed and turning down the sheets for her. "Hop in and I'll be back. I just need to call Adrienne. I talked to her only briefly at the hospital after I spoke to a doctor."

"Don't mention the hospital right now, please."

"Sorry," he apologized. Then, "I'll be right back."

When he disappeared from her bedroom for a few minutes, Caroline sank into the coolness of the satin sheets. Bringing the comforter up to her chin, she stared blindly up at the ceiling. Rolling onto her side didn't help either, because it left her facing the spot Mike should be laying in, but wasn't.

Caroline wasn't sure when Billie Joe returned; it could've been a few minutes or even a half hour that had passed. She was in such a daydream that nothing seemed to matter. Time was null and void to her. Her chest ached from earlier sobs, and from the general longing for her husband. It felt like she was hungry, starving even, but couldn't eat. It was the same, familiar kind of ache in her chest.

All she was aware of was that Billie Joe had sat down on Mike's side of the bed and curled up next to her and instinctively, she reached out and grabbed onto him; resting her head on his chest and closing her eyes.

"Tonight I'm gonna pretend this body is Mike's..."

"If that helps you fall asleep, I'm all yours for the night."

"Thank you, Billie, for being here..."

"Don't mention it. Just get some sleep."

Sniffling slightly, Caroline nodded and snuggled closer to the dark-haired man. Her mind wasn't allowing her to fall asleep right away and she could sense Billie Joe was still very much awake as well, so that distracted her mind to some point. But slowly, the rhythm from his chest rising and falling and the sound of his breathing calmed her down.

Sleep seeped in.

"Goodnight, Care," Billie Joe whispered.

She didn't reply.

Caroline gradually succumbed to sleep and the nightmares that kept her tossing and turning all night long.



My lover's gone
His boots no longer by my door
He left at dawn
And as I slept I felt him go
Returns no more
I will not watch the ocean
My lover's gone
No earthly ships will ever bring him home again
Bring him home again