Good Man

"Shit."



The next morning, Caroline woke up in her room at the bed and breakfast with a cool Kansas breeze that was blowing through the white chiffon curtains and delicately dancing off her tanned skin. She stirred for a moment and then opened her eyes, blinking away the sleep before flopping onto her back and stretching her arms up into the air. Mewing noises permeated from within the cavern of her closed mouth until a yawn forced it open. And like the days prior, she had to sit up straight in bed and take in her surroundings and remember just where she was.

Rose Vine Inn. Right.

Stretching and cracking her neck from side to side, Caroline moved from off her bed and wandered out of her room into the hallway, trying to remember which way the bathroom was. With her hair pulled up into a haphazard bun on the top of her head and her bare feet padding against the wooden floor, she blinked the sleep away while and when she came upon the right door, she locked it behind her and took a piss.

Since reaching into her thirties, this had become her morning ritual. If her bladder didn't wake her up during the night, then it was the first thing she had to do upon waking, before anything else could be accomplished.

Three minutes later: Urination, complete.

One minute after that, hands lathered with soap and washed, then dried on a towel.

Another ten seconds passed, she was stumbling, still sleepy-eyed, back toward her room where she decided to climb back under the sheets and sleep away the better part of the morning.



Sometime later, Caroline awoke again, this time feeling more refreshed and alert. She stretched, cooed quietly and smiled as she literally slid off the bed like a child would off a couch while watching TV. She cracked her neck from side to side again, along with her fingers, wrists, and ankles. She didn't bother looking at the bedside clock for the hour and simply went to her suitcase and dug around for her toiletries, successfully finding her toothbrush in its traveling case and taking the brush and a small tube of Colgate to the communal bathroom to brush her teeth.

Three minutes later and feeling minty fresh, Caroline was reentering her room and looking in the mirror above the dresser, trying to brush through the snarls that had accumulated in her hair while she'd been tossing in her sleep. Amidst this chore, her phone began to vibrate on the nightstand. She set the brush down, giving up for the moment and looked at the phone's screen.

It was Billie Joe.

"Hello," she greeted upon answering the call.

"You're awake."

"If not, this is a pretty advanced voicemail service provided by my cell phone. Or I'm still dreaming and this is all a figment of my imagination."

"Definitely the latter," Billie Joe quipped before continuing on. "Tre and I were up earlier and had breakfast with Iris and those old folks staying in the room next to mine. We didn't want to bother you by waking you up to join us, but considering it's now after one in the afternoon, we thought you might be hungry for lunch."

Caroline's eyes widened. "Holy fuck, I slept that long?"

"Yeah. Probably all the driving we did the last five days and going into different times zones. Plus we were up pretty late last night playing pinnacle with Iris which, by the way, I still don't understand how that game works."

"Neither do I. Probably why she won every time."

"What a swindler. It's a good thing we didn't play for money."

Caroline smirked a smirk he couldn't see as she held the phone to her left hand to her left ear while commenced brushing through her hair once more with her right hand. "Where are you now?"

"My room. Tre went for a drive to see what else is around Abilene to do since all we did was hit up Pizza Hut for dinner last night and then came back here." Caroline listened to Billie Joe rattle on as she heard a door creak open from down the hall, followed by footsteps. "I was thinking we could see if there's a bowling alley nearby. We should bowl. When was the last time any of us did that?" he asked just as there was a rapping of a fist upon her door.

Caroline turned. "Is that you?"

"Yeah." Billie Joe turned the knob and poked his head of disheveled black hair inside her room. "Can I come in?"

Gesturing yes with a bob of her head and by hanging up her cell phone, Billie Joe entered and hung his phone up as well.

Dressed in a pair of khaki, knee-length shorts, a white T-shirt and a pair of black Vans Vulcanized Rubber Canvas shoes with a white Jolly Roger on each of them, but no socks, he looked quite comfortable. Tilting her head to the side, Caroline studied the picture and words emblazoned on the chest plate of his shirt.

"Is that appropriate for Kansas?"

Billie Joe looked down at his chest and smirked when he looked back up. "It's not really appropriate in most place. Isn't that the fun of it?" he asked with a laugh in his voice.

"Makin' Bacon. Really?" Under those words were two cartoon pigs, one male and one female. The male was on top, behind the female, giving her a little pork for a lack of better words. "You certainly know how to class things up."

"If it makes you feel any better, this is Tre's shirt. He lent it to me."

Caroline stood there stunned for a moment, her mouth slightly agape. "You're telling me Tre is the one between you two who actually opted not to be the clown today?" Turning from him, she walked over to the window and peered out as if deeply intent on finding something unseen.

"What are you looking for?"

"Just checking to see if hell froze over."

Billie Joe rolled his eyes. "Oh, har-di-har har."

A moment of silence passed over them wherein Caroline took the opportunity to grab some clothes out of her suitcase.

"Well, I'm gonna take a quick shower, but after that, we'll call Tre and have him head back here because I am starting to feel a little peckish," she commented as she made her way toward the door, not minding whether or not Billie Joe stayed behind in her room.

"And bowling. We gotta find a bowling alley."

"Then you look into that while I'm showering."



One hour later, the trio were sitting in Taco Bell chowing down on quesadillas and sipping their soft drinks while Tre was chuckling over and over about the stupidest shit. Caroline and Billie Joe didn't necessarily find what was so funny about it but Tre thought it was the bee's knees.

"Pioneer Farm & Ranch Supply, seriously...that's the name. I just can't get over it," Tre remarked for the umpteen millionth time, shaking his head and pushing some wayward cheese from his quesadilla back into his mouth.

"Clearly," Billie Joe spoke with boredom. "I forget again, why did we decide on Abilene?"

"Aww, come on, Billie, it ain't that bad," Caroline chided, nudging his shoulder with her own since they were sitting side by side at their booth. "At least we found a bowling alley."

The door to Taco Bell was pulled open just then by a couple of teenagers; two guys and three girls. The girls were dressed like any other female teenager in America while one boy, the taller of the two, wore a pair of jeans and a white wife beater and the other boy wore jeans and a school jersey.

Tre turned slightly to catch a look and turned back almost immediately to hide his smirk. "This just gets better."

"What does?" Caroline inquired.

"The tall kid's all covered in dirt like he's been wrassling a couple of pigs on his daddy's farm," came the drummer's response in a southern accent.

"Or, he works hard on his father's farm and has built up an appetite and didn't have time to wash up so he could meet his friends for a bite to eat."

Tre just stared at Caroline, his smirk gone. "Don't be a killjoy. You're ruining my buzz."

Caroline simply grinned back at him. "Well, fuck you too."

"Guys, we've been spotted."

Tre and Caroline looked at Billie Joe who was gesturing with a slight nod of his head in the direction of the teens.

Sure as shit, all five teens were warily headed their way and, much to Tre's dismay, they didn't have southern accents.

"You guys are from Green Day, right?" Tall Boy questioned, more rhetorically. Then pointing limply at Caroline, "And you used to sing in The Sinners."

"Yeah," Billie Joe spoke up first, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "We're neither of those bands anymore though."

"Yeah, yeah, I heard 'bout that. You got a new band going on, right?" Tall Boy questioned further as the girls exchanged grins of excitement with each other.

"TBC, dumbass," the shorter boy said, smacking his friend on the arm. "We saw it on MTV."

"Why are you called TBC?" one of the girls asked.

"It's the initials of our first name; Tre, Billie and Caroline," Caroline answered. "And it's an acronym for 'to be continued' because we're moving on with something new, the three of us."

"What's an acronym?" came the dumbfounded questioned from the small brunette girl typing something into her cell phone.

Tre, Caroline and Billie Joe looked at each other and smirked for a brief moment.



"Wow, I take back being a killjoy," Caroline said as they were tying up the laces of their bowling shoes a few hours later. "That girl at Taco Bell who didn't know what an acronym was, the guy at the gas station without his front teeth and wearing overalls..."

Tre pointed his finger with purpose and with wide eyes. "I know, right?"

"And how about the sidewalks being rolled up by five," Billie Joe piped in as he typed their names into the scoreboard that appeared above their heads.

"Seriously, Bill? Cletis, Joe Bob and Big Bertha?" Caroline remarked as she saw the names. Then, with a laugh, "Which one am I?"

"Cletis," Billie Joe laughed back. "Ladies first."

Caroline shook her head as she walked over to the bowling ball return device and picked up the turquoise bowling ball she had chose with big enough holes for her fingers and was the right weight.

"Which one am I, then?" came Tre's voice as she stepped up to the lane.

"Big Bertha, obviously," she quipped, eying up the center of the lane, dropping her right arm down in a curling motion, pulling back, leaning her body forward slightly, and then throwing the ball down the lane. Caroline watched it roll and roll and roll, teetering off toward the left before ca-clunking into the gutter only a foot before the ten pins. "What the fuck!"

Billie Joe snorted. "Looks like Cletis is a bit rusty at bowling."

"I get another try on this frame, so shut your lips," Caroline barked playfully as she walked back to the ball return and waited for her ball to pop back up. Her hazel eyes wandered for a moment, her brow furrowing soon after. "Where'd Tre go?"

"I think you mean Big Bertha. And he went to go get us some beers from the bar," Billie Joe replied, leaning back in his seat as Caroline's ball reappeared with a suction sound.

Grabbing the ball once more, she made her way back to the edge of the lane and went through the same steps again. This time, the ball stayed straight down the middle and as soon as it smacked the center pin, all others went flying.

Except the 7 and 10 pins.

"Bedposts!" Tre bellowed from behind them. Caroline turned to find him holding up three bottles of Budweiser and making a field goal gesture.

As she walked back toward the guys, she grabbed one of the long-necks and uncapped it. "It's better than another gutter ball."

"I missed your gutter ball? Aww," Tre whined, passing Billie Joe his beer. "Who's next?"



The night went on for several more games, each including a drinking game within to take a swig of beer each time Caroline got a gutter ball, which happened more frequently as more beers were consumed. By midnight the bowling alley was getting ready to close and the threesome was too bombed to drive anywhere and were fortunate enough that the owner called them a cab. Twenty minutes later, they were outside, standing beside their rented Prius, with Billie Joe smoking away at a Marlboro Red as the cab pulled up.

The driver stuck his head out. "Where to?" he asked as they moved toward the vehicle to get in.

"How late are the bars open around here?" Tre wondered in slurred speech.

"Till two."

"Well, then...take us to the nearest bar, lickety split."

Tre clamored into the front seat with the driver while Caroline and Billie Joe filed into the backseat and the driver started the meter. Not five minutes later they were outside a bar called Maddy's Pub. Caroline shuffled through her purse and found the amount for the fare which was only came to $2.59 -- and that's including the 15 percent tip! -- so she rounded up, a lot, and handed him two twenties.

"Keep the change," she smiled lazily afterward, patting his shoulder before stumbling out, then literally falling on her ass in a fit of giggles.

"You okay, ma'am?" the driver called out, concerned; especially now since he'd been tipped so handsomely.

Tre and Billie Joe staggered over to her; Billie Joe offering his hand for her to get up.

"I'm fine. I got enough padding."

"Oh no! You broke you ass!" Tre hissed. "There's a big crack in it!" Then cackled as he turned and headed into the bar.

Within twenty minutes, they were on their way to being happily out of it, with Caroline pulling a Coyote Ugly move and dancing on the bar with two other women she pulled up there with her, as Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" pulsed from the jukebox. Tre and Billie Joe stood amidst all the other guys, nursing long-neck bottles of Budweiser, and somehow Billie Joe had happened upon a cowboy hat and was now wearing it.

There was even a point just before two in the morning when the bartender shouted about it being last call that, on purpose or by chance, Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" began to play and the trio of TBC began to snort with laughter.

"I know this one!" Billie Joe called out over the loud din of chatter and music, then preceded to sing along.

At 2:15, the same cabbie arrived outside the bar and TBC filed in once more.

About ten minutes later, they arrived back to the Rose Vine Inn, quietly staggering inside after Tre paid the fare this time, more than he needed to, but not as much as Caroline had. Only twenty bucks.

A minute after that, they were upstairs and wandering toward their respective rooms.



Nine hours and forty minutes later, Caroline began to stir awake and rolled over to the left side of the bed but was blocked by a heavy but somewhat soft mass. Opening her eyes fully, she found herself staring at a bare chested Tre, sprawled out on his back; one arm under his head, the other across his chest and snoring deeply.

Bolting upright, Caroline whipped off the blanket and was staring at her naked body. And his.

"Shit."