Good Man

If music be the food of love, play on.
- William Shakespeare



It was August 12th, the day after Mike's memorial, and Caroline was seated in her usual booth in the back of Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe with Chloe and Mikey in tow, seated on either side of her while Tre sat across from her with Avarielle in a high chair. Caroline's twins were at her parents' home, where her mom could get her baby fix. That, and Caroline felt her older two needed some mommy time. It was clear they were feeling indifferent because their mommy was more busy with their baby brother and sister and feeling left out.

Tre had met up with Caroline at Rudy's because he had some things he needed to talk to her about, along with Billie Joe who was apparently en route, as of his last text message to Tre's cell phone. And since Ramona was had headed back down to LA that morning and Frankito was with his mother, the only child that he was responsible for that day, and of course every day, was Avarielle. He chose to bring her with him and not leave her with Ellis or Care's parents.

He was determined to stick to his involved father role.

"I want more chocolate milk, mommy," Chloe muttered, turning her head up toward Caroline, as she picked at some cheese from between the sourdough slices of bread of her grilled cheese sandwich.

The 34-year-old woman looked down at her daughter as gave the three and a half year old a withering look. "You hafta finish your first one to get a second."

Chloe frowned and caught the eye of her Uncle Tre. "Don't look at me, squirt. Your mother's word is law."

Caroline flashed Tre a smile and returned to her own food; the Mile High Club. Taking a sip of lemonade, she looked over the rim of her glass and to her right when she noticed a figure approaching their table. At first she assumed it would be a fan of either hers or Green Day's come to the restaurant as if it was their Mecca. Instead, it was just Billie Joe with his car keys jingling in his hands as he greeted them all and took the empty seat on the right of Tre.

"Sorry I'm late," he muttered, reaching across the table to grab one of the fries off of Mikey's plate.

"Hey, Uncle Billie. That's my French fry," Mikey scowled and pouted at the same time, looking more like his mother than his father when he did so.

"Want it back?" Billie Joe inquired as he stuck out his tongue and showed his godson the soggy, smushed up fry.

Scrunching his nose, Mikey shook his head. "Ew, Uncle Billie. That's bad manners."

Caroline just shook her head at Billie Joe and Tre laughed as the three adults met each other's gaze at about the same time.

"So..." Tre began lamely as he suddenly became distracted with Avarielle throwing a French fry onto the ground and smushing some others with the palm of her hand. "Hey, no. Don't smush your food, Avrie. Eat. Yummy." He picked up a fry and shoved it in his mouth to show her what she should be doing. Instead, she threw another fry to the ground, and Tre rolled his eyes. "I give up."

"So," Billie Joe repeated. "We should probably talk about what Rob said last night."

Caroline nodded. "Yeah, we should." She looked between both men and smirked. "I mean, do you think it's plausible? The three of us? A band? I mean, Green Day is retired. I announced I'd retired from the industry..."

Tre glanced across the table at Caroline and pointed at her as if to illustrate a point. "Yes, Green Day ended when it became just Billie and me. But the three of us wouldn't be Green Day. We'd be something new."

"Yeah," Billie Joe agreed. "And, no, it wouldn't be the Foxboro Hot Tubs 2.0 or any of our other side projects, altered. This could very well become something new. Mainstream, I mean, you know? Kinda like combining two parts Green Day and one part The Sinners," he smirked, grabbing another of Mikey's fries.

"Uncle Billie!"

"If ya stopped fartin' around with your half-eaten quesadilla, maybe you could finish your fries and I wouldn't be able to get at them..."

"So, kind of like Velvet Revolver, with several parts of Guns-N-Roses coming together with Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots who, by the way, Velvet Revolver? They were pretty bitchin' together."

"Yeah, too bad Scott Weiland was such a douche and left the band to return to STP."

All three nodded at the comment and turned their attentions once more to the three children in their midst. Chloe was leaning into her mother's right arm, holding her cup of chocolate milk carefully in her hands, and on instinct, Caroline reached her arm around her daughter and placed a hand on her little girl's shoulder as she leaned to the side to kiss the top of her head.

"Getting stuffed?" Caroline asked, but Chloe shook her head. "Well, sit up and finish your grilled cheese and your chocolate milk. You still want another one, right?"

"Mmhmm," Chloe nodded.

"Well, then..."

Chloe did as her mother told as Billie Joe seemed to be battling on the table top in front of him with Mikey over trying to steal another fry. Tre rolled his eyes at his older friend as he tried to wipe Avarielle's mouth with a napkin.

"Dude, if you want fries, just order a plate. Someone in the kitchen will be more than happy to accommodate you."

Billie Joe made a face. "Yeah, but Mikey's fries are better."

"Wow, and here I thought Mikey was the five year old."

"I'm not five yet, mommy," her son spoke up while reaching his small hand out and actually slapping his Uncle Billie's hand quite hard. "No!"

Raising his eyebrows and throwing his hands up in surrender, Billie Joe leaned back and laughed a little. "Alrighty then. I'll get my own."

Caroline snickered at Billie Joe and looked down at her son, "I know you're not five yet, honey, but you're very close to it. I'm just rounding up." She waited for her son to ask something about what rounding up was but he simply pulled his plate closer to him and mock scowled at his godfather, guarding his fries like a watch dog.

"Anywho," Tre interrupted the shenanigans. "So, are we gonna try this? The three of us as a band? Maybe have a few jam sessions at one of our homes, bang some shit, I mean stuff, out," he corrected his profanity, remembering the little ears. "See what we come up with and how it feels."

Caroline met Tre's gaze and they all took turns looking at one another, trying to speak with their eyes, register what the other was thinking and consider what they themselves were thinking. "I think...yeah. I think we should give it a try. I mean, what's the harm in it, right? We've nothing to lose."

"True," Billie Joe agreed. "We've probably already been at the highest points our careers will ever get, so there's no real fear in failing."

"Speak for yourself, old man. I'm only thirty-four. I've got more years on me," Caroline remarked, picking at her Mile High Club; pulling a piece of lettuce from within the sandwich's confines and popping it in her mouth to chew on. "Look at Stevie Nicks. She's sixty-five and still going strong."

Billie Joe flashed her an amused grin. "Look at you knowing Stevie Nicks' age like some obsessed fan."

"Always have, always will be."

"Well, at least you can admit it."

The two smiled at each other while Tre began to pull Avarielle out of her high chair. Caroline looked at him and laughed.

"What are you laughing at? Me?" Tre asked without even looking at either Caroline or Billie Joe.

"Yes, you," she replied. "Did you almost forget how much a pain in the butt it is to deal with a toddler?"

Tre sighed and flashed Caroline a look. "Something like that." Setting his one-year-old in his lap, he pushed his plate and anything throwable or breakable out of her way. "But it's like riding a bike. It doesn't matter how long since the last time you rode one, you never get how to do it."

"Dude, did you just compare raising a human life to riding a bike?" Billie Joe leaned away from his best friend and snickered.

"The metaphors are the same."

"Still funny."

Caroline cleared her throat and took a sip of her lemonade. "Being in a band is like riding a bike, too. I told Rob as much last night when he said how great we all performed together," she spoke, looking back and forth between both men while her children began to clean their plates of their remaining lunch. "Yeah, granted it was just the one song, but it was enough to impress our families and friends. And Rob wasn't the only one who said something about us playing together. He was the first one to bring it up, but not the last."

"Yeah, Jason White came up to me right before Adrienne and I went home with Jakob," Billie Joe informed. "He said something about how he missed playing with us and how it was still weird to not have that in his life anymore, but he was moving on all the same, yada yada...and then he said that the three of us would make a pretty awesome super group."

Caroline and Tre looked at their older friend.

"His words, not mine," Billie Joe continued, raising one hand as if solemnly swearing.

"He's right, though," Tre agreed. "We'd kick some ass. After all, I know how much Billie Joe and I can rock with all the groups we played in together, mostly as Green Day, of course, and we've seen you sing with The Sinners, before and after you took up bass," he added, looking at Caroline. "Who knows where this venture could lead us."

Billie Joe shrugged. "Maybe we'll end up being bigger than either Green Day or The Sinners. Or maybe nothing will come of this and we'll remain retired."

"We'll only know if we try," Caroline put in her two cents.

The three of them looked at each other and slowly, one by one, they began to smile.

Tre, gripping his left arm around Avarielle's waist, reached his right arm out. "All in favor of starting a band?"

Billie Joe gave the drummer a sidelong glance and nodded, placing his right hand on top of Tre's. "I'm in."

Both men looked at Caroline who looked back and forth between them, and then down at their hands. "We're not about to do a '1, 2, 3, Go Team!' cheesy type of thing, are we?"

"Just shut up and do this," Billie Joe stared Caroline down with narrowed eyes and a smirk.

Smiling and shaking her head, she bit her bottom lip and reached her right hand out and placed it on top of Billie Joe's. "I'm in," she repeated.

The threesome began to smile even wider than before and their stack of right hands moved up and down in, yes, that cheesy type of thing.

"1, 2, 3, go us!" Tre exclaimed.

Caroline laughed, as did Billie Joe. "So, it's official; we're gonna start a band?"

With an assertive nod of his head, the green eyed guitarist sat up straight and removed his hand, as did the other two. "Yes. We are now officially a band," he spoke. "Unnamed for now, but a band all the same."