Good Man

The funeral parlor was quiet and had an odd chill to it as a pair of sad, anxious eyes scanned the marbled design in the carpet spanning from wall to wall. With his heart pounding in his ears, Billie Joe Armstrong never heard the funeral director enter into the office until the other man repeated whatever it was he had first said.

"Huh?" Billie Joe muttered absently, looking up and across the mahogany desk.

"I said, those are some nasty bruises you have there on your arm," the man replied, gesturing to Billie Joe's arms which were sticking out of his plain, gray T-shirt.

"Oh, uh...yeah."

"Where'd ya get 'em from?"

"The widow," Billie Joe replied grimly, to which the director nodded in understanding. "I stayed with her last night so she didn't have to be alone, but when she woke up this morning she threw a fit and I let her take it out on me instead of somehow hurting herself."

"Where's she now?"

"Her sister brought her kids home, so she's there with them. My wife and boys are there, too. We're trying to keep her surrounded by people she loves and who love her."

"Sometimes that's all you can do." The man who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties smiled sympathetically as he pulled out a manila folder and sorted out some paperwork. "Well...should we begin?"

Billie Joe just nodded.

"I take it you're planning this alone?"

"Uh...no," the frontman shook his head. "Well, Caroline, my friend's widow isn't gonna be here. She can't deal with this. So it's gonna be me and my other friend, uh...Frank. Frank Wright. We're planning the wake and funeral. Paying for it, too."

"Your friend's widow can't afford---"

"Oh, no. She can afford plenty. It's just...well, we wanna do this."

The funeral director, Stan Loomis, nodded again and lifted up a pen to fill out one of the sheets of paper in front of him. "Well, first thing's first; how long of a wake are you looking at?"

Billie Joe inhaled a shaky breath and licked his lips. "Um...just, uh, all day tomorrow."

"Okay," Stan Loomis muttered, scribbling something down. "And you want the funeral the morning after tomorrow?" Billie Joe nodded. "Is ten, okay?" Billie Joe nodded again. "Now, is Michael going to be buried or cremated?"

His face feeling flush, the 40-year-old guitarist lost his voice suddenly. The words just wouldn't come and cottonmouth took over as his heartbeat sped up.

"Do you need a minute, Mr. Armstrong?"

Hunching forward, Billie Joe placed his head between his knees as he muffled an oncoming sob.

Am I gonna be able to handle planning Mike's funeral? Where the fuck is Tre to help with this?

"Sorry, I'm late. Chloe was clinging to my leg and Care locked herself in the downstairs bathroom so I couldn't leave right away."

Billie Joe looked up and saw Tre had entered the office. The younger man gave both his friend and Stan a nod.

Speak of the devil.

"I take it you're Frank Wright?" Stan asked rhetorically.

Tre nodded again. "Yep." Looking toward Billie Joe, he sank down into the chair beside his friend as he continued to speak. "I, uh, brought one of Mike's suits. I didn't know if that's what I shoulda done. Do you need it today or...uh...do you dress his body tomorrow?" Tre could barely choke the words out. Speaking of Mike as just a body was heartbreaking.

"We'll be dressing him today. The hospital delivered him earlier for the embalming."

Billie Joe held up his hand to Stan right then. "Can you please not say Mike was delivered? He's not a fucking pizza."

Stan flashed an apologetic look at the dark-haired man and nodded. "I'm sorry." Glancing at Tre who didn't seemed offended, Stan continued, "You brought the suit with you, yes?"

"Yeah," Tre nodded. "It's in my car because I didn't know when you'd need it. Do you need it right now?"

"No."

"I brought a dress shirt, socks and a pair of dress shoes. Oh, and a tie..." Tre rambled on nervously.

Billie Joe turned his head and looked at the younger man. "Which suit?"

"The black one with the pin stripes he always liked to wear," the blue-eyed man answered.

"Good pick."

"Yeah, I thought so."

Watching the interaction between grieving friends, Stan leaned forward slightly, dangling his pen about a quarter inch above the sheet he was still trying to fill out. "Uh...Mr. Wright, before you got here I asked Mr. Armstrong about how your friend Michael would be laid to rest. If he would be buried or cremated..."

Tre wasn't expecting the question but he seemed to be holding it together a little better than Billie Joe so he sucked it up and trudged on. "Mike always said he wanted to be cremated," came his reply, but not before adding, "Though I think it would be best, for closure's sake, to have an open casket wake so everyone can see him one last time..."

Stan nodded. "Alright." He jotted something down and looked back up. "In that case, the two of you can come with me to pick out the coffin you like best for the wake along with an urn for after the cremation."



The only refreshing and uplifting thing about such a grim occasion is always the innocence of children running underfoot at a funeral parlor, unaware of the symbolism of death. They're too young to fully understand that death is the end of the physical life; that a loved one is never coming back.

The following day was the wake for Mike.

Mourners including friends, family and record execs paying their respects for a client were all crowded into Loomis & Loomis Funeral Home in Oakland; a new funeral home opened within the past year by a relative of the Loomis family in Buffalo who also run their own funeral parlor. And considering Caroline was from Buffalo, it was a small world.

Sitting on a soft, wingback chair upholstered in soft, off-white material, Caroline could be found in a complete daze as everyone took their turns passing on their utterances of sympathy to her before making their way to where Mike was laid out in a black coffin.

Different assortment of floral bouquets were arranged around the casket and the lid was open to reveal the deceased bassist with his hand crossed over his abdomen as his eyes, which were actually sewn shut, gave the him the appearance that he was simply taking a little nap.

Estelle, at fifteen, was not oblivious like her toddler siblings and spent most of her time during the wake sitting on the floor, leaning against Caroline's legs for comfort, rather than seeking her own mother's arms. And while the teen girl did this, Caroline seemed just as oblivious as her children; but for different reasons.

Adrienne stood with her husband, not that far away from the widowed woman, dressed solemnly in black and with puffy eyes from crying earlier in private. She wasn't a public crier. She always felt the need to be the strong one. So, when Billie Joe stood beside her, with tears rolling down his face every time he glanced in the direction of Mike, it was his wife's comforting embrace that welcomed him.

Tre was standing on the opposite side of the older woman with his own wife who occasionally took breaks to crouch down beside Caroline and talk to her about this or that; consoling and comforting her when she saw the slightest ounce of emotion reached her sister's eyes.

But for the most part, Caroline was void of any expression. She was so far lost in denial that it was almost as if she was unaware of where she was.

Now, while there were your typical sniffles and quiet sobs from this person or that, scattered in and around the viewing room, the majority were keeping it together. However, there were only three things that could set anyone off at any given moment.

Seeing Mike's lifeless body.

Seeing Caroline react to anything around her like a zombie.

Seeing the Mikey and Chloe scamper about, unaware that their daddy was not coming home ever again.

And as the day wore on, a break was taken so the family could get something to eat, but they were right back at that funeral parlor afterward until the place closed for the night to prepare for the following day.

The funeral.

Needless to say, no one had a decent night's sleep that night.



Caroline had awoken alone the day of the funeral and had balled up so tightly under her covers that it took an hour for Adrienne and Giselle to coax the widowed 32-year-old out of bed to get showered and dressed. And once they succeeded in getting her that far, they sat her down and freshened up her face with a touch of make-up, but nothing around the eyes simply because it would just wash away if and when she cried.

A limo arrived to take Caroline and her children, including Estelle, to the funeral parlor. A second limo carrying the Wright and the Armstrong families followed. A third limo carried Mike's parents and siblings.

When all had arrived at Loomis & Loomis Funeral Home, they walked in step behind Caroline who had seemed to have found some will to move about on her own like a normal woman and not like a zombie widow.

They filed into the same viewing room as the day and night before, but this time there were chairs set up in two sections of several rows. Caroline sat in the front with Chloe on her lap and Estelle on her left, holding Mikey. Billie Joe and Adie were on the other side of Estelle with their boys while Tre, Giselle, Ramona, Frankito, Claudia and Giselle sat in the row behind. Mike's mothers, Cheryl and Lucy, along with his adoptive father and siblings, filled up the first row and a half on the opposite section. All other family and friends filled in the other seats and if they couldn't find a chair, they stood along the sides and in the back.

And if they didn't cry the day before at the wake, they were all crying now during the funeral.

The pastor who said a little ditty about Mike and read the 23rd Psalm was the same pastor that was supposed to marry Mike and Caroline before they decided to elope at the last minute. Afterward, Rob Cavallo got up to speak about Mike, followed by Billie Joe and Tre who stood together at the lectern.

The words they said about their best friend, their bandmate and their brother for life were so touching, the entire viewing room was left to cry a little harder. Even Billie Joe and Tre found themselves stopping halfway through to collect their emotions and dab their eyes with already soaked and tattered Kleenex tissues.

However, it was Caroline's surprise turn to speak which had the room in an uproar of sobs.

Standing up slowly, she handed Chloe over to Adrienne and walked up to the lectern, looking down at the slanted panel of wood to gather herself.

"Three days ago my world was shattered," she began. "I, uh...I don't know what to do now; what to say or feel anymore. I hear everyone talking to me and saying they're sorry and that everything will be fine, but how? How can you know everything's gonna be fine?" she snipped, lifting her head to scan the sea of sad faces. "Did you go into the future and see me laughing, smiling? Did you see Mike in that future somehow, because I will tell you right now that's the only way everything will be fine."

Her words cut deep with a sort of sorrowful conviction that captivated everyone with a sense of guilt.

"Mike was my soulmate. The love of my life, and he's gone. I wake up alone in my bed now. There are no arms to go around me while I sleep, there are no lips to kiss me hello, there are no eyes to smile at me from across the room to make me feel better when I'm sad," she continued. "There is no Mike."

Estelle's small sob escaped her lips and echoed through the viewing room, which caused a ripple effect of sobs to follow.

"He was my husband. There will never be another for me, and I can't accept that. It was him and me to the end. He promised me we'd live to be eighty, with silver hair and senile eyes," she remarked with a mix between a sob and a laugh. Her hazel eyes began to stare of into a daydream and she went on. "I loved his voice. When he stood behind me and whispered in my ear; wrapping his arms around me." She closed her eyes and smiled. "I can almost feel him now."

All eyes were glued to Caroline as she spoke. They were hanging on her every word.

"He didn't like people to know he actually had a good singing voice," she commented blankly. "He used to sing 'Sweet Caroline' to me all the time. But now I can't hear him." Her voice cracked and the tears began to fall torrentially now. "All I see are his eyes. His glassy eyes and his blood on my skin."

Tre was on his feet in an instant as soon as the last comment left Caroline's lips. It was as if he foresaw what would happen next like some kind of clairvoyant.

Caroline stumbled backward but Tre was right there behind her to catch her as she fell against his chest, writhing in his arms like a restless child while she cried for her husband.

"Somebody bring him back to meeeee!" she shrieked. "Bring him back!" Twisting in Tre's embrace, the brunette turned and reached for Mike who was lying in eternal peace. Jumping up and down as best as she could, it looked as if she were trying to dive over Tre's shoulders to get to her man, but her brother-in-law was stronger and began to pull her away from the lectern; kicking and screaming. "No! Take me back! Take me back!"

As Tre led her out of the viewing room entirely, Mikey had wiggled off his big sister's lap and started to cry, running after his mommy, which in turn caused Chloe to wail.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" Caroline screamed, pummeling Tre against the chest with balled up fists. She practically growled at him like a demon spit from the fiery pits of hell when she looked him in the eye through her burning tears. "I hate you," she repeated once more. "You should be dead...you should be dead. Not him. Not Mike. You..."

Caroline continued beating on Tre with tears rolling down her face like an out of whack kitchen faucet and he did his best to keep her wrists held firmly in his hands, to prevent anymore hitting, but when she was possessed by emotion like she was now, she was pretty damn strong.

"Whoa, hey...Care, hey. Hey," a slightly feminine male voice muttered behind her.

Lifting her watery hazel eyes up, Caroline followed Tre's gaze to the familiar man standing behind her and let out a breath of exasperation.

"Gerard..."

Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, fellow labelmate and also a friend, stood holding his arms out to console the grieving widow. "Don't beat on Tre," he spoke softly. "He's trying to help."

"I wanna be dead, too," she whimpered, which broke Tre's heart as she turned away from him and clung onto Gerard as he wrapped his arms around her and eyed the older man with a frown.

"No, you don't," the New Jersey native insisted. "You know that's not what Mike would want you to be, and you have two beautiful kids that need you now more than ever."

Leaning her face into his chest, she cried some more. "I wanna see his eyes...I wanna hear his voice..."

"I know you do, kiddo. We all do. Believe me."

"I want everyone to go away so I can be alone with Michael," Caroline whimpered, turning her face in a way that the black cotton of Gerard's dress shirt rubbed her face softly. "I don't want them looking at me." Her eyes met Tre's and he offered her a sympathetic smile as he reached forward and kissed her temple. "Tell them to go away, please?" she asked her former lover.

Tre nodded and left the foyer of the funeral home where Caroline was being consoled by Gerard; reentering the viewing room and closing the doors behind him.

When the older man had disappeared, Gerard pulled his face back and cupped Caroline's face his hands to get a better look at her. "All you can do, Caroline, is be happy that your husband still loves you, even in death, and that he's with you no matter what. That love you two had can't be stopped by a life ending. I know. I'm like the fuckin' king of macabre love."

That comment cracked a tiny smile out of Caroline. The first one to appear on her face since probably before she lost Mike.

"I know you are."

Slowly, the doors to the viewing room opened and people were starting to file out, heading toward the coat racks and flashing sympathetic looks at Caroline, mixed with looks that weren't appropriate considering her husband just died and this was his funeral.

Gerard noticed the small amount of rude glances and scowled at them. "Hey, fuckers, you got a problem? Take your scowls elsewhere. This woman has every right to kick everyone out of the fucking parlor."

Billie Joe stepped out into the foyer at that moment and raised an eyebrow at Gerard, who shrugged innocently.

"What?" The MCR frontman gestured to the rude few who were already out the door. "They asked for it. Rude fuckers."

Billie Joe approached Caroline and swapped places with the other man in order to give her a hug. "The immediate family is staying behind to say their goodbyes and then you got the viewing room to yourself afterward, 'kay?"

Caroline nodded as he pressed his lips to her forehead. "Thank you."

Leading her slowly back into the viewing room, she looked to her left and saw Estelle standing at her father's coffin, holding Chloe who was reaching down to hug her daddy goodbye but not understanding where daddy was going.

"Daddy go bye?" She mumbled quite eloquently for an 18-month-old.

"I want Daddy, mommy..." came Mikey's wail as his grandmother Cheryl walked with him down the small aisle between the two sections of chairs. "Can he come home wif us now? Is he done sleepin'?"

This broke Caroline's heart all the more and her legs practically gave out from underneath her as she looked at her mother-in-law and hugged her tightly.

"I can't believe he's gone," Cheryl cried.

Caroline simply nodded. She just couldn't speak.

Lucy and Shawn, Mike's biological mother and half-brother approached next, having said their goodbyes at the coffin as well. "I can't thank you enough for bringing my son back into my life, even if it was for only a couple years. I owe you forever for that," Lucy commented, pulling the young widow into an embrace.

Shawn was quite stoic and didn't say much; clearly holding his tears back, though his eyes were read and welling. He simply hugged Caroline and acknowledged her with a nod of his head.

As everyone began to finish saying goodbye to Mike and hugging Caroline on her way toward her husband, she couldn't help but feel increasingly lost and heartbroken; if that was at all possible.

"We'll leave you alone now," Giselle whispered to her sister as she joined Tre's side and followed their parents, and Caroline's birth father and half-sister Tiffany Michelle out of the viewing room.

Turning to watch everyone go and her real father close the door, Caroline was finally alone with her deceased husband for the first time since the ambulance ride to the hospital after he'd already died.

Her fingers fidgeting in front of her as she took very small steps toward the coffin, her eyes scoured Mike's perfectly still body; from the tips of his shined black dress shoes, up the length of his pin stripe suit, to his folded hands across his abdomen which didn't move from any ounce of breath, and finally settling on his expressionless face.

His skin was pale, she could tell, but the make-up they had on his face gave him that look as if he were fake; just a mannequin in a pine box.

Her chest rising and falling with anxiety over studying Mike's situation, she quickly closed the distance between the two of them and reached forward to place her hands on both sides of his cold face.

"Mike? Wake up. C'mon...the game's over. You win. Now wake up."

Nothing happened, as expected.

Pouting, she looked at his firmly closed lips and she couldn't help but think that his sleeping expression made him look pissed off.

"You gotta..." she trailed off. "Wake up now." Her eyes became foggy with tears blurring her vision and gradually rolling down her cheeks to fall onto Mike's chest. "They're gonna cremate you. You're gonna be all gone. Nothing but a pile of ashes..." she began to panic. "How can you be dead? How can you leave me and just...just go away like that? I can't survive without you, you know that."

Again, as expected...nothing.

"You don't look happy," she remarked. "Don't look comfortable." Bringing her right fingertips to her lips, she licked them and then lowered them to his face to gently rub at the flesh-colored foundation, wiping it off just a little. "I don't want to think of your body going into a big oven and burning down into nothing but ashes but I can't help it. Why did you want to be cremated? Why?"

Leaning forward more, her face hovered a few inches above his as she turned hers to rest down upon his chest.

There was no heartbeat, no sound of breath. No nothing. Her husband had been dead for three days and was not coming back to her.

Lifting her head, she hiccuped a sob and placed her lips to his. "I love you so much, Michael," she muttered. "I don't wanna leave your side. I vowed to be with you until death parts us, but I'm not dead, and I'm still gonna be with you. Vows be damned. Death won't keep me from you. I am yours until time itself ends."

She was blubbering at full force now as she kissed the tip of his nose, forehead and whispered.

"Oh my god, you can't leave me..."

"Caroline," came a calm voice behind her, slowly getting closer.

"Leave me alone," she growled to whichever person it was. Staring at Mike's cold face, she leaned in closer and whispered in his unhearing ear, "What about our baby?"

"Care?"

Steadying her breath, she turned toward the voice and flashed a look of terror. "When I walk away, he's gonna be burned up."

It was Billie Joe standing a few feet behind her.

"You can't stay here forever, Care. You have to say goodbye."

"No," she shook her head. "Never."

He frowned. "Then...say, 'I'll see ya later.'"

Hesitating for a few moments, Caroline finally looked back down at Mike's face and pined ever so painfully for him. "Mike...please..."

"Caroline," Billie Joe continued to pester for her own sake.

"Okay, okay! Just...fuck off, Billie..." she snipped. Placing a hand softly against the left side of Mike's face, Caroline smiled sadly and kissed his cold lips for the last time. "I love you forever, Michael my love. There'll never be another for me. Only you. Only me. Just the two of us...forever and ever."

Billie Joe swallowed back a lump in his throat as he took a few steps closer.

"See ya later," she murmured against his lips.

Pulling away from him, though she didn't want to, she turned to face Billie Joe and allowed him to place an arm around her shoulders to lead her out of the room.

Once the duo had exited, and Caroline's sobs kicked back in like torrential booms of rolling thunder, Stan Loomis and his son Raymond entered the viewing room through the other set of doors closer to the coffin. They moved the flower arrangements out of the way, placed all the items left for Mike in his coffin into the pockets of his suit coat and underneath his hands and then situated themselves at opposite ends.

On the count of three, they lowered the lid to the coffin.