Good Man

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still.
- William Shakespeare



Music was pumping, liquor was running like rivers of clear and amber-colored confidence, and bodies were brushing up against each other on the dance floor of Oakland's dimly lit with red lighting The Ruby Room as a pair of best friends stood side by side on the dance floor, drinks in hand, as they danced with a pair of young ladies in the most platonic of ways.

The pulse of the music reverberating from the floor below them and in the particles of air surrounding them was like an infectious disease that seeped into their every pore while the liquor did its own special brand of magic to boot.

Now, the reason for this occasion was not just to get drunk and have a general good time. Heaven knows these two best friends hadn't had one in nearly two years. It was a celebration, an honoring of a friend gone before them.

Billie Joe Armstrong and Tre Cool looked at one another for a moment, eyes slightly glossy from the liquor tapping into their five senses. They smirked, laughed, took a sip of their drinks, and continued to gyrate with the lovely ladies before them. Again, in the most platonic of ways.

While Tre was technically single, what with Giselle having been gone nearly a year at this point, despite him not wanting to fully accept it, Billie Joe was very much not. Thankfully, he had a wife who was trusting and loving and knew the sort of hi-jinks he'd get himself into by going out, barhopping with Tre, on this of all nights.

She knew he wouldn't cross any lines. She trusted him with her life. And he also knew that no amount of booze in his bloodstream would make him cross any lines, either.

Even though tonight was a special night.

Tonight would've been Mike's 42nd birthday.



It was about midnight in Downtown Buffalo, a few thousand miles away from a barhopping Billie Joe and Tre, when the door to a tattoo shop opened; the sound of the bell above the door, dinging. When the tattoo artist behind the counter looked up from some magazine he was flipping through, his eyes widened, not at the sight of two good looking ladies entering into his establishment but, at the sight of one of WKBW Channel 7 news reporter, Valerie Cooper, and Buffalo-born rockstar and widow of Green Day's Mike Dirnt, Caroline Pritchard.

They looked good and were dressed to kill for a night on the town.

"Uh...hey," the tat man greeted. "How can I help you ladies? Looking for some ink or a piercing?"

Val flashed him a smile, then shook her head. "Not me."

"Me," Caroline remarked, turning her face from the different designs of tattoos on display on a wall and looking at the tat man. "Two tattoos for me, please."

The guy grinned. "Sure thing." Buffalo wasn't exactly a celebrity haven as the big cities, like LA or New York, so to say he was more excited than a pig in shit, well...it goes without saying. "Know what you want?"

Caroline nodded. "Yeah," she replied, diving into her purse and withdrawing two sheets of paper and setting them down on the counter by the cash register, and on top of the guy's magazine.

The man looked down at both sheets, spreading them out side by side to inspect them. Jabbing his finger on the corner of one of them, he looked at Caroline. "This one looks familiar to me. Not one I ever did, but like I've seen it before."

"My husband had the same one, on his upper right arm, near his shoulder," she explained. "It was a face from an album he put out back before his band went mainstream. I want the same one, only smaller, on the inside of my right wrist." She then gestured to the second sheet. "The other one, I want that written or whatever on my lower back."

The tattoo guy looked at Caroline, swallowing a lump in his throat. "You're wearing a dress," he pointed out.

"Yeah."

"You'll have to lift it up for me to tattoo something there."

Caroline shrugged. "Well, obviously."

The guy didn't press the issue any further. He was just a bit surprised to be have the opportunity to not only tattoo two things on a famous musician, but to see her rear end when she lifted her dress.

He wondered if she wore a thong...



Back at The Ruby Room in Oakland, Billie Joe and Tre had finally migrated from the dance floor and found some seats to occupy as they sipped their drinks a little more slowly this time as their entire faces were bathed in a dim red light.

"You think Mike woulda been proud on how we're celebrating his birthday?" Tre asked, knocking back what remained in his glass.

Billie Joe stared straight ahead, considering. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Yeah, I think he would. Especially since we started at Gilman first to see that band he was always getting on us to go see," he remarked, ruefully. "What are the chances they were playing tonight of all nights, you know?"

"Tell me about it." Tre looked down to study the residual drops of amber liquid clinging to his empty glass. "I know it's a stupid question and all but, how do you think life would've been like if he didn't die?" he wondered, casually looking at his best friend, as if suddenly sobering up. "Do you think he woulda been here with us tonight?"

"Yeah," Billie Joe replied simply. "Or, well, it's a Sunday night, so maybe we would've been doing this last night instead, and tonight he would've been at home with Care and the kids."

"Well, it's not like Mikey and Chloe are in school. Yet."

"Estelle is."

"True," Tre conceded. "Do you...do you think Giselle woulda still died? I think maybe getting through losing her would've been easier if Mike was around like you've been. I mean, I don't know what to do anymore. Well, as a dad and whatnot, I know. I'm gonna be there for my kids. All of them. But as a man, you know? How do I move on as a man, how do I think about other women?" he gestured to the ladies on the dance floor. "And what about us? I don't know about you, Billie, but I'm going stir crazy. I hate it, but I wanna play again. I wanna make music, but I feel guilty even thinking about it, as if moving on like that is betraying Mike's memory and what the three of us had."

Billie Joe frowned. "You're not alone, Tre. I've been thinking the same thing a lot lately. I miss playing, the three of us together, and I know we'll never have that again no matter how much we want it to be so. And I feel guilty about it to. I mean, Mike would wanna be here, wanting the same things; to be with his family, his band...making music."

"What do we do? As far as the world is concerned, we're retired now, with Mike gone. Do we...I dunno...look for a new bassist and start a new band? Maybe not a threesome? Maybe we take on Jason White full time as a second guitarist along with a new bassist...call ourselves...The Old Farts?"

Not able to help himself, Billie Joe emitted a snort. "You can hardly say we're old. Forty-two is the new thirty-two."

"One, you're forty-two, I'm still forty-one. Two, we both have kids out of high school. I'd say that makes us old enough to be considered old farts."

"Says you," Billie Joe quipped, bringing his glass of scotch to his lips, though hesitating to drink. He stared off, just kind of holding his glass there like a retard as his smirk faded away and a frown replaced it. "Tre, I...uh...I need to tell you something and you gotta promise me you won't say anything to anyone, especially Adrienne."

Tre looked at the older man and gave him a look that appeared as he were wincing. "I can barely hear us talk as it is with this music pumping in my ears. I doubt anyone is gonna hear what you gotta tell me." Off Billie Joe's withering expression, Tre shrugged. "Okay, okay. I promise. From your lips to God's ears or whatever."

Billie Joe hunched forward, dropping his glass down without taking a drink after all, holding it in both his hands between his knees. He leaned closer to Tre. "It's about when I went to Buffalo last summer after Caroline took off. When I went to see what was up with her and why she left, to convince her she should come back, that she had people here that loved and needed her."

A flash of a recent memory popped into Tre's mind of when Ramona told them about Caroline being pregnant and one if his inklings of who the daddy could be. "This have anything to do with the father of her twins?"

Yes, Estelle had returned a week before and informed the others she had a new brother and sister, by way of in vitro fertilization: that apparently Caroline and Mike had privately gone to a sperm bank somewhere in the event that if something happened where they couldn't get pregnant for some reason, they had other options. And with Mike gone, she suddenly decided she wanted more of his children.

Part of that disturbed Tre. He kinda felt that Caroline was being selfish, wanting to have more of Mike's children, but those children would never know Mike. Then there was another part of him that felt that, yes, more of Mike would live on. But why wouldn't Mike have mentioned something like that to him and Billie Joe before he died? Was it just too personal of a matter? Perhaps that was why.

"Did you know Caroline had done the in vitro thing?" Tre asked further.

Billie Joe shook his head. "No, not at all. That's not really what I was getting to," he muttered sheepishly. "See...she had gotten upset about whatever it was at that moment. I can't remember now. I followed her up to her room to talk sense into her and she kinda broke down a little. I think part of her sorta left the building. Long story short, she started to kiss me and well, she's really strong when she wants to be. Something you wouldn't assume by looking at her."

Tre nodded. "Yeah, I know," he commented from his own, past experience.

"Well, she pushed me down on her bed and, Tre...I honestly thought she was gonna rape me. But, I dunno, when it changed...that I gave in. I think I finally let go of all of my own grief I'd been holding in, and she was clearly letting go of hers, again, and it just kinda happened. I think I took advantage of her. Or maybe we took advantage of each other," Billie Joe rambled, frowning, as he looked downward at his scotch glass. "Care and I had sex."

Tre just stared. "What?" It was rhetorical, of course. "Uh...well, what happened afterward?"

"Afterward, I went to leave to go back to the guest room, but she asked if I'd stay. She didn't want to be alone. So I put my pants back on and just laid there beside her. She curled into me and fell asleep, but I stayed up for a while after that, just thinking. In the morning, when I woke up, she told me she was gonna take a shower and when she got out, I shouldn't be there and that she didn't want me to stay at the house, but wasn't saying she wanted me to leave Buffalo."

Letting this all sink in, Tre sat back. "Are you telling me this now because you think maybe you're the dad of her twins?"

Billie Joe shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, she apparently went to an in vitro specialist with a fistful of Mike's sperm or whatever. But, I can't help but thinking..."

"What if it's a ruse?"

"Yeah," the guitarist nodded. "What if she was worried about the truth of the father coming out so she made up a more acceptable story? I mean, if that's the case, maybe I am the father. But, maybe I'm not. She was seeing Gerard, right? They broke up right before she left. That was a couple weeks before I went to Buffalo. And Dave was in Buffalo just before I was. Is it possible she slept with him and he's the father?"

Tre had already considered all these options months before when Ramona first mentioned what she'd seen while being a weird little peeping Tom. He still had no idea why his daughter chickened out like that and didn't just knock on Caroline's door like a normal human being.

"Are you thinking about what Mike's reaction would be?" the drummer wondered. "Like, what he'd say about all this if he could..."

Billie Joe shrugged again. "Yeah. I feel like maybe he'd be angry at me for what I've done, or maybe I didn't do enough to make sure Caroline was okay."

"I don't think he'd be angry. I think he'd understand, considering. Though, if he were still alive and you bonked his bride..."

"I'd be dead," Billie Joe laughed, despite himself.

Tre laughed as well, reaching out his right arm and patting his friend on the back, just as Billie Joe's laugh suddenly turned into a sob. Tre's blue eyes widened and Tre moved closer and bent his head down toward the older man. "Bill?"

Billie Joe was crying now, hunched forward more than before, to hide his tears from any passing club-goers. "I just miss him so goddamn much, Tre. I want him here with us, celebrating his birthday, not just the two of us, celebrating what would've been his birthday."

Setting his empty glass down on the floor by his feet, Tre turned his body a little more and brought his arms around Billie Joe, pulling him into a hug. Billie Joe returned the gesture and suddenly both guys were crying silently against each other's shoulders, seemingly unnoticed by anyone at the club. After a few moments, the two men seemed to gather themselves and began to laugh a little once more, wiping their eyes and looking around to see if anyone saw their small emotional breakdown.

"Well, I guess we both needed that," Tre mumbled, snatching his empty glass back up. "What say you and me, head out and hit the next bar in our night of celebrating Mike's would've been 42nd birthday?" he suggested, a small smirk dangling at his lips.

Nodding slowly, Billie Joe stood up with his younger friend, placing a hand on Tre's back and holding his glass of scotch which he proceeded to finish off in one last swig. "Lead the way, my good man."



It was near two in the morning when Caroline and Val were standing near the bar at Pure Nightclub with drinks in hand and trying to chat over the invasive din of the loud tunes being spun by the DJ.

"Do your tattoos hurt?" Val spoke into Caroline's ear.

The brunette looked down at her right hand which was holding her sex on the beach, the same hand on which her wrist was wrapped to cover the smaller version of the tattoo of the weird face Mike had on his upper right shoulder. Underneath her dress, on her lower back, was another tattoo which went unseen that said 'Michael Pritchard, my love.'

"It's fine. Not the first tat I've ever gotten. I also have a triquetra on the back of my neck, Mikey and Chloe's names on each of my ankles. I'll be getting Rhiannon and Lakota's names eventually, too."

Val smiled. "Speaking of that...so, now you beat me. You're one up on me in the kid department."

"Yeah, with the twins it was a two-for-one," Caroline smirked, sipping her drink, while trying to avoid the stares from people in the club noticing who she was, pointing and talking among themselves.

"How are they, by the way? The twins, that is."

Swallowing the liquid down her throat, Caroline gave a nod. "They're good. Still not sleeping through the night yet, but I'm just thankful my dad Alex flew back here to Buffalo with me last week to help with them. Mikey and Chloe I can manage on my own, but twins on my own on top of it, flying home, would've been impossible. And he was great to take care of them on his own tonight so I could go out." Caroline smiled, letting out a small laugh. "I can't remember the last time I went out like this."

She knew when. She just didn't like to remember it. She didn't like thinking about how the last time she went out to have a good time, she had left home to go to dinner with Mike, only to return home later that night a widow.

"Well, you definitely deserve it," Val spoke adamantly. "Hell, even I deserve it. I never get out anymore, either. Doesn't make you feel old?" she giggled.

Caroline nodded. "Oh, yeah. I mean, we're gonna be thirty-four soon. We're practically ancient."

Val laughed some more. "I gotta say, Care. I've missed this. You and me hanging out and getting our groove on. It's kinda like when we were at Villa Maria and we were old enough to get into the clubs, but not old enough to drink."

"And we had to walk around with those stupid stamps on your hands like a pair of goobers, marking us as underage," Caroline continued the recollection.

"Or when we'd perform with the band at the Tralf or Nietzsche's with Dave, Nef and Nick..."

"Yeah, back when you were the lead singer for, what, five seconds?" Caroline teased.

"Yeah," Val replied lamely, remembering the days of being an original member of The Sinners, a few years before they left Buffalo for San Francisco to make it big.

Caroline's mind wandered off at that moment, thinking about those days when she was about fifteen years younger; years before she was a famous musician, before she met Mike and became his wife, before she became a mother...before she lost Mike.

Suddenly a tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away with her free hand.

"Are you okay, hon?" Val inquired soothingly.

Caroline shrugged. "Better than I have been, I suppose. Still trying to take it one day at a time. I mean, today would've been Mike's birthday. I just can't help thinking about how him and I would've celebrated if he were still here, you know?" Caroline looked at her friend with a rueful smile, her mind reeling with thoughts.

"Well, I think I can safely say Mike would be honored that you got not one but two tattoos for him. Though, he might've gotten jealous of how the tattoo guy was ogling your ass the entire time he inked you with Mike's name on the small of your back," Val laughed.

Caroline couldn't help but laugh at that, as well. "Yeah, well, I thought I felt drool on my back," she joked. "At least he got a Polaroid of me and him together to remember the experience by and he can tell all his tattoo artist buddies he was inches from my ass."

Val watched as Caroline sipped her drink, just as a few young women approached with digital cameras in hand.

"Excuse me," one girl spoke. "You're Caroline from The Sinners, right?"

Caroline nodded. "I used to be," she replied simply, offering a smile.

"We just wanted to say that we love your band, uh...when you were with The Sinners, that is. And, uh...we know you're probably tired of hearing it, but we're really sorry for your loss and all."

Giving each of the girls a grateful smile, "Thanks. It means a lot." She then gestured to their cameras. "Did you girls want a picture or something?"

They all nodded in unison as Val stepped forward, holding her hand out. "Here, let me take the pictures for all of you." Taking the first camera from one of the girls, she stepped backward again to make sure they were all in frame as they huddled around Caroline. "On the count of three, say 'Happy birthday, Mike,'" Val said, which garnered a couple confused looks mixed with Caroline's more pleased smile toward her friend. "One, two, three..."

"Happy birthday, Mike!"