Good Man

This is why we're on the edge
The fight of our lives been drawn to
This undying love



Red satin
Dark-haired man
Nagasaki
Do you want me?

The seductive trill of Caroline's voice wafted through the control room of Studio A as Butch Vig sat at the controls, playing back the recently finished recorded song from Billie Joe, Tre and Caroline's new band, which was still presently unnamed. He was tapping his foot on the floor and the threesome stood behind him and all listened to the completed playback. Billie Joe was leaning forward, his hands gripping the edge of the console as Caroline's voice disappeared and his replaced hers in singing the second half of the first verse.

My heart beat
City street
Okayama
Firecracker

Tre began to drum on the sides of his legs to the drum beats he'd laid down while he could see both Caroline and Billie Joe seemingly lip-synching to their parts.

Above the
Blue sky
Unaware that
They're gonna die

Caroline's voice crept up once more, almost ghostlike, but with a haunting anger behind her tone. This song was unlike songs either had been used to performing as either band they had each come from. It wasn't Green Day, it wasn't The Sinners. And, well, that was the point.

It was something new.

Something currently nameless.

A schoolyard
Luffballoon
Start the vigil
Keep it simple

And there was Billie's part in the second half of the second verse. The guitarist stood up straight and made an air guitar motion just as a guitar lick came out of nowhere to signal the start of a beautifully orchestrated and chaotically organized chorus with both lead singers singing lead. There were no harmonies in this song, just both their voices together, combined, to form a sort of musical, rallying cry.

Little Boy
Fall from the sky
Little Boy
Take your time
Little Boy
Hearts sublime
Little Boy
Take one look at what you're doing
Take one look at who you're destroying

Billie Joe turned to look at Caroline, who looked at him at the same time, and both mouthed along to the words, practically shouted, not sung: Hiroshima, Hiroshima!

Music, but not in an interlude sense, spun out of the speakers and twirled around the room with the typical Billie Joe flare and Tre's usual rollicking beats. Caroline's bass lines kept a steady pace while driving the music forward amongst the fusion of the other instruments.

That was until the third verse began with Caroline singing the first half, once again.

Manhattan
The project
Kumamoto
Time for a show

Caroline turned to face Billie Joe this time as he began to mouth his upcoming second half of the third verse, gyrating slightly to the beats Tre had so expertly provided.

Atomic
Bombastic
Shimonoseki
Radiate me

The last two words of the third verse came out in a practically garbled scream of frustration, similar to the most aggressive parts of death metal and Billie Joe just began to bop his head as the chorus bustled in again.

Little Boy
Fall from the sky
Little Boy
Take your time
Little Boy
Hearts sublime
Little Boy
Take one look at what you're doing
Take one look at who you're destroying

Butch looked up at the threesome, watching them react and interact to the playback of the song, and all three lip-synching to the last bit.

Hiroshima, Hiroshima

And a couple measures of music later, the same words, were spit out in a more hushed, desperate voice from both Caroline and Billie Joe, as if a dying pair, uttering their last words with mouthfuls of blood spewing from their bruised and battered, time-chapped lips.

Hiroshima, Hiroshima

A few bangs of the drum, choppy guitar licks and throbbing plucks of a bass later, and the song was over in a feverish climax that Tre literally dropped backward onto the leather sofa from, as if he'd had an orgasm of sorts; completely spent and satisfied.

"Have I mentioned yet how in love I am with our new band?" Tre beamed from ear to ear.

Caroline twisted her body enough to turn and smile down at the drummer. "Oh, I think we can stand to hear you say it again," she remarked, placing one hand on her hip and slapping her other hand down on Billie Joe's shoulder. "Now that is a number one single."

"Oh, totally," Tre agreed.

"That should be our first single off our album." Billie Joe looked between his two band members while he saw Butch, out the corner of his eye, farting around at the controls.

"We don't have an album yet," Caroline commented, pointedly.

"But you will at this rate," Butch finally spoke up.

All three looked to their new producer. The older man had come into their fold to help co-produce what the trio was working on since Rob Cavallo had taken himself out of the picture due to him deciding to leave Reprise, which Billie Joe, Tre and Caroline had all been 're-signed' to the label as a new, untitled band, but with the same 'seniority' and perks they had as members of their previous bands. And even though Butch had been unaffiliated with Reprise before now, the trio looked at the opportunity of working with a new producer altogether rather fitting, as they were a new band and needed something different to set them apart from where they were before this point.

Billie Joe nodded at the new producer's assurance on the matter, agreeing wholeheartedly. "We're only a month into recording and there's no time limit," he spoke, sinking down into the chair beside Butch; a glimmer of glee and mischief in his two, bright green orbs. "We can take the time we need to sort through what we want this album to sound and feel like; how we want it to best represent us..."

"And maybe, in the process, at some point, we'll find a name for this band. We can't exactly refer to ourselves as Billie, Tre and Caroline," Tre added to the conversation.

"Why is my name last?" Caroline quipped. "Isn't it supposed to be ladies first?"

"It would be if you were a lady," Billie Joe grinned devilishly, just before being hit upside the head by their female counterpart.

"I guess that makes me more of a man than you?" Caroline threw right back at him. "I seem to recall a night, several years ago where you complied with Adrienne and me and let us dress you in drag, complete with fishnets, heels and make-up..."

Tre immediately sat upright and leaned forward, eyeing his longtime friend with curiosity. "Where was I when this was going on?"

"It was that night after Mike was beating the shit out of you, here in this room, actually and Mike accidentally knocked me in the face with his elbow," Caroline explained. "Billie took me home to his house and let me stay the night in his extra bedroom. But in the meantime, him and I, along with Adie, all got pretty sloshed that night and had a good time..."

Tre raised an eyebrow. "Why is it one of us always ends up dressed in drag?"

Billie Joe suddenly frowned and leaned back in his chair. "I thought we made a pinkie swear to never bring that night up?" he asked of Caroline, pretending to be deeply hurt by her apparent betrayal.

Caroline shook her head. "I remember no such promise," she laughed. After a moment, she let her mind wander to that night and she smirked a little more than she already was. "You would've made a very hot woman. It's not like I'm mocking you. It's out of admiration." But her laugh that followed sounded more like she was, in fact, teasing.

"Hot woman, my ass. I am all that is man, little girl," Billie Joe snarled in jest.

"Fat chance at that, little boy."

"Speaking of 'little boy,'" Butch interrupted their shenanigans, "is that what this song is gonna be called?" he inquired, gesturing to the console in front of them.

Caroline was the one to speak up first. "Yeah, it's what Billie and I decided on," was her response. "Well, technically it's 'Little Boy' with 'Hiroshima' in parenthesis," she added, using air quotes.

"Alright," Butch nodded. "Just so I know what to label it as..."

Caroline then looked at her small, wrist watch as the conversation between all four seemed to die away a little, just as her eyes widened. "Oh, shit."

"What?" Tre wondered. "I gotta pick Mikey up from school."

"How is lil' Mike, Jr. liking kindergarten so far at Berkeley Arts?" Tre asked as Caroline headed toward the door to the control room. Her bandmates stood up and followed after her till she stopped momentarily to answer the question asked of her.

"He's enjoying it. I mean, he cried at first when I was about to leave him in his classroom, so I hung around for a few minutes, but as soon as he got talking with some of the other kids, he came back over to me and told I could leave," Caroline recalled with an incredulous laugh. "I was the one who wound up crying on my drive back home. I couldn't bare seeing him off on a bus, and I wanted to see him in his very first classroom, interacting. And leaving him anyway. God, it was hard."

Billie Joe and Tre smiled at her and looked over to Butch who was craning his neck in their direction. "You gonna need me anymore tonight?" the producer wondered.

"Uh...I won't be back tonight, Butch, the guys might," Caroline replied as she pulled the door open.

"Actually, I won't be either," Tre added. "Takin' Avarielle and Frankito to the zoo. Will you be staying here, Bill?"

Billie Joe shrugged. "For a little while longer, I might. Jakob's birthday is on Friday, so that gives me only two days to figure out what I'm gonna get him for his sixteenth birthday."

The threesome walked out of the control room and toward the lounge where there was a door that lead to their private secured parking lot. Caroline had found her purse and was digging her car keys out as Tre did the same; pulling his car keys from the depths of his back pocket.

"You haven't bought your son a birthday present yet?" Caroline asked, a look of disbelief on her face. "I could understand if he was turning six; you just go out to Toys R Us and pick up some action figure with karate chop features. But sixteen? More thought needs to go into a gift, which means more time." Unlocking her car door, she through her purse across to land on the passenger seat. "Slacker."

Billie Joe just waved it off, placing a hand on the top of her door as she slid into her jag. "I'm probably just gonna get him a car."

Caroline raised an eyebrow at him. "That's a big decision."

"Well, he's already got his permit and I'm taking him to where he has to take his road test in, like, two weeks, so..."

"Think he's gonna pass?" Tre asked, jostling his own keys in his hand.

"Yeah, I do. Pretty certain of it, too," the older man spoke with adamance. "He's more levelheaded than Joey is and more cautious on the road than his brother is, and Joey passed somehow, and Joey's instructor or whatever on his test was this total bitch, so...Jakob's test will be a cake walk."

Caroline just smirked as she started up her car and it revved to life. "Well, I'll be at your house on Friday for the party, that is if he's still having one with family and family friends..."

"Yeah, he is. Saturday he's having a second one with his school friends."

"Okay," Caroline nodded, then looking over at Tre. "Hey..."

"Uh, what?"

"Mind if me and my kids tag along with you and yours to the zoo?"

Tre shook his head and backed up slowly toward his SUV. "Nah. The more the merrier, I say."

Billie Joe threw his friend a questionable look. "I thought you always say you can suck your own?" A smile then spread to the dark-haired man's lips as his younger friend shook his head.

"That, too," Tre laughed.

"Alright, well, I'm outta here," Caroline interrupted the men's joke. "I'll call you when I get home, Tre, and we can either meet up at the zoo, or we can carpool it somehow."

"Okay."

Billie Joe waved to both his friends as Caroline pulled out of her parking space and drove off, and as Tre got into his SUV and did the same, driving off in the same direction as Caroline.

Left standing alone in the lot, Billie Joe looked toward the blue door with the stencil of a girl spray-painted on it. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his Dickies, the 42-year-old guitarist walked back into the studio, starting to hum the tune to his new band's song, 'Little Boy (Hiroshima).'