Good Man

As the remainder of August wore on, the days seemed to blend monotonously together. There were no more emotional bursts of tears and screams of pain from Caroline as she tried dealing with her grief. Instead, she kept to herself and avoided contact with the outside world.

However, despite her lack of socializing, she couldn't keep those closest to her out, considering the majority of them had their own key.

During the first week of September, while Caroline was in the midst of one her many catatonic moods, Billie Joe and Tre both arrived together at her house in hopes to coax her out of her self-imposed shell, even if for just a little while. With brown paper bags full of groceries from the local Safeway cluttered in their arms, the duo came sauntering into the kitchen and set the bags down on the countertop before giving the room a look around.

It was a complete mess. They hadn't been over in about three days and in that amount of time dishes, cups, silverware and crumbs had accumulated in and around the vicinity of the sink.

"My god," Billie Joe frowned. "I don't think I wanna know what the inside of the fridge looks like."

"I don't think she's bothered to do the dishes since the last time we were here. And it's a good thing we came over today, even though she told us not to," Tre added with a frown that mirrored his friend's.

The older man nodded and stepped away from the counter and moved to the nearly inaudible noise he'd suddenly heard from the living room. Leaving the kitchen and making his way through the downstairs hallway, he turned left around the staircase and stood still in the archway that connected the front hall to the living room. Sitting closely to the TV was nearly three-year-old Mikey, with a handful of grapes in his hand and on the floor.

"Mikey," he muttered to his godson. "What are you doing? Where's your mommy?" Closing the distance between him and the boy, he crouched down.

Mikey turned and smiled up at his Uncle Billie and then shrugged. "She sleepin' an' I got gwapes."

"Yeah...I see. Did you get those grapes all by yourself?" Mikey nodded. "Okay...uh, Mikey honey, where's Chloe?"

"Upstairs."

"Where upstairs."

"In bed?"

"With your mommy?" Billie Joe questioned, growing more concerned by the minute.

Mikey shook his head. "No. In her cwib."

"If your mommy's sleeping and Chloe's in her bed, did you come downstairs all by yourself and get yourself grapes, then turn on the TV?"

Mikey nodded once again and Billie Joe frowned, just as Tre walked into the living room behind him.

"Tre, go upstairs and check on Chloe."

Tre didn't miss a beat as he turned on the heels of his feet and went back into the front hall to climb the stairs to the second level.

"Do you know how long you've been down here by yourself?" Billie Joe continued. Mikey simply shrugged. "How many shows have you watched?" That question might be easier to help him figure out the time lapse his godson had been alone.

The blue-eyed boy paused as his mind reeled. He began to shrug but then surprised Billie Joe when he answered. "Four."

"Four shows?" Billie Joe repeated before Mikey confirmed it with a nod. He thought about how long four shows on the Disney channel lasted. A half hour a piece, times four shows...that was two hours. Billie Joe shook his head. "Here...come with Uncle Billie, okay? We're gonna go find Uncle Tre and check on your sister."

"Otay," Mikey muttered, getting to his feet and holding his arms out so that Billie Joe would pick him up.

Doing just that, Billie Joe carried his godson out of the living room and into the front hall where they ascended the staircase together. When they reached the second level, they turned left and were immediately outside Chloe's bedroom door, which was open.

Setting the boy back down onto his feet, Billie Joe stepped inside the little girl's room and saw Tre grimacing at the changing table where he was changing her diaper. When the younger man noticed the extra presences in the room, he looked up and over to his right.

"She was soaked," he commented. "My guess is she hasn't been changed so far today. She was crying when I got up here. She might be hungry, too."

"Mama," Chloe whined. "Wan' Mama."

Running a hand through his hair, Billie Joe took a step backward and poked his head out of the girl's room. "I'm gonna go check on Care. I'm getting a little nervous."

For a fleeting moment, a disturbing thought entered both men's minds as they looked at each other.

"Do you think she--?" Tre cut himself off as Billie Joe shook his head adamantly.

"No, she didn't...I mean, I hope not. No, no she didn't." Turning, Billie Joe exited the room. "I'm going to check on her. Mikey stay with Uncle Tre."

Leaving the boy behind with his uncle and sister, Billie Joe walked quickly down the hallway and opened the bedroom door without hesitating or knocking.

The curtains were drawn closed the bed was lumpy with its comforter and other blankets that had clearly been pulled out of storage as if Caroline was cold.

Swallowing back a lump in his throat, Billie Joe inched closer to the right side of the bed and touched his hand down upon the comforter. Holding his breath, he slowly pulled it back to find Caroline curled up in a ball, holding Mike's urn closely to her chest and her eyes open.

She was unmoving and Billie Joe feared the worst.

"Care..." he spoke in a shaky voice.

She didn't reply and Billie Joe's nerves began to buzz.

But then she blinked.

With a sigh of relief, he closed his eyes momentarily and sank down onto the edge of the bed, "Fuck, Care. You scared the shit outta me. I thought you were dead."

"Might as well be," she replied almost inaudibly. "I feel it."

"Please don't say that. It's just gonna be rough for a while. But I know you'll get through this eventually. We all will."

Placing a hand on her shoulder he noticed that she was absolutely naked. There wasn't a stitch of clothing on her body and he hadn't noticed at first because she was balled up so tightly with Mike's urn in her grasp that nothing private was visible.

Pursing his lips and feeling all kinds of empathetic for Caroline, Billie Joe moved his hand from her shoulder to her cheek to brush the hair off the side of her face and out of her eyes.

"Mikey and Chloe need you, Care. Mikey went downstairs on his own, got grapes and was watching TV. He's okay, but he could've fallen down the stairs or choked on a grape," he informed. "Chloe was full of piss. Tre thinks she's crying 'cause she's hungry." Pausing for a few moments, Billie Joe asked, "Have you gotten up at all today?"

Caroline's eyes shifted a little as she looked briefly from the floor to Billie Joe's knees.

"Yeah," she finally spoke up. "Once."

"When?"

She shrugged. "A while ago."

"To do what?"

"I had to pee."

"You didn't bother to check on our kids?" Billie Joe didn't mean for it to come out sounding harsh, but that's how it sounded. And it caused tears to well up in Caroline's eyes.

"I'm a bad mom."

"No, you're not. You're just grieving and distracted by your pain. But you can't let it eat you up. Mike wouldn't want you to wallow."

"Mike would also wanna be alive," she bit out. Turning her face to bury it in her pillow, Caroline closed her lips firmly together and held back a sob wanting to escape.

"Care..." Billie Joe rubbed her shoulder soothingly. "C'mon, now. Don't...it's been almost a month. I mean, it hurts me just as much to have lost him but I can't stop living my life either. I know if he could, he'd kick my ass if I stopped answering the door and buried myself under the covers."

"Friends come and go. I won't ever have my husband again."

Sighing, he didn't know how to get through to her because, honestly, he felt the same longing and the same aching grief to have Mike back. But he needed to be strong. Strong like his wife, Adrienne, who had been his pillar through all of this mourning process.

"He loved you so much..." Billie Joe began to say, trying to do anything to comfort her.

"Just stop. Just go away and leave me alone."

"Not when you're ignoring your kids, I can't."

"So take them."

Billie Joe was stunned by her reply. "Wh-what? Take them? Take your kids?"

"I can't look at them. I see their faces and I see Mike. And then I have to be reminded of what I can't have anymore and I can't accept that, so please...take my children."

"Forever?" Billie Joe was a little confused.

"No, just...I can't see them right now. Just take them for a while. Please."

Leaning down, the godfather of her eldest child encircled both arms around her body and pulled her up against him in a hug, resting his chin on her shoulder. He kissed her cheek briefly and sighed.

"If that's what you need me to do for a while, then that's what I'll do."

"It's what I need," she repeated, nodding against his chest.

At that moment, Tre entered the room with a whimpering Chloe in his arms and a curious Mikey at his side, sucking his thumb. The younger man's eyes scoured the image of Billie Joe holding a naked Caroline who still seemed to be quite beside herself with grief.

"Where's yer cwothes, mommy?" Mike asked innocently, pulling his thumb from his mouth for a second to speak.

Billie Joe turned his head to look over his shoulder at the boy. He pulled the deep purple bed sheet up to cover Caroline's body a little better as he then glanced at Tre.

"Uh, your mommy was gonna take a bath," Tre lied. "Can't take baths with your clothes on, can you?" he added with a smirk as he looked down at his nephew, giving the boy's small hand a light squeeze.

Mikey shook his head. "No."

Tre and Billie Joe's eyes locked momentarily before the older man glanced down at the young boy.

"Hey, Mikey. Do you wanna come to Uncle Billie's house for a couple of days?" he asked, referring to himself in the third person, as Caroline turned her face to peek at her son from the safety of Billie Joe's shoulder.

"Is mommy comin' too?"

"Uh...no. Just you and Chloe. It's just for kids. You can play with Joey and Jakob all you want when they get home from school."

"Why you not comin', mommy?" Mikey wondered, pulling out of Tre's grasp and sauntering up to his mother's bed to try and pull himself up. "I want mommy to come."

"Your mommy needs to stay here for a while. But she's gonna see you really soon, okay? You and Chloe gotta come home with me because Aunt Adie and I wanna spend a whole bunch of time with you and your sister." He looked at the child and smiled.

Mikey smiled back as his little hand touched gently to Billie Joe's leg.

The boy really adored his godfather to bits.

He seemed to be studying the man very intently as his little hand reached higher so that his chubby fingers could wrap around the wrinkles in Billie Joe's shirt and pull tightly so that Billie Joe had no choice but lean down toward Mikey.

The man expected the boy to mutter something in his ear, but instead pressed his little lips to the side of his godfather's face, kissed him gently and then blew a raspberry against the rougher skin of the adult.

A set of giggles rang out as Mikey backed up and scampered away before Billie Joe could reply or even retaliate.

"Hey, no fair," Billie Joe laughed. A smile lingered on his face as he turned to look at Caroline and it faded. He raised a hand and brushed her hair out of her face again and kissed her forehead. "I'll be right back," he muttered to her.

Standing up, he joined Tre in the doorway with the kids and nodded for them to follow him out into the hall. He whispered to Tre what Caroline had asked of him and so Tre took Chloe to her room and set her down in her crib so that he could pack some clothes, diapers, toys and other things Billie Joe and Adrienne would need to have her stay at their house.

Billie Joe, meanwhile, was in the room next door, doing the same for Mikey, who was climbing up onto his toddler bed to grab his stuffed monkey, Mister Monkey.

When everything was set, Billie Joe stood waiting out in the hallway with Mikey talking gibberish about something or another while he waited for Tre to finish. And when the younger man finally rejoined him, both men took both kids back into Caroline's room where they stood beside her bed and brought her kids to her so she could kiss them goodbye.

Mikey was very grown up in how he pulled himself up onto the bed -- with Billie Joe's help, of course -- and kissed his mommy on the cheek and told her he loved her. He even added, 'Feel better, mommy' which made her whimper a little.

It was when Tre brought Chloe down to Caroline's level, however, that the grieving woman lost it.

Chloe began to cry because she sensed she was being taken away from her mommy. Her small, chubby hands sprung out and reached for Caroline and she started kicking her legs while trying to throw her weight around; the beginnings of a hissy fit.

Caroline, at least, held her daughter for a moment and kissed her pudgy cheeks but then quickly buried herself under her purple bed sheet to cry in peace, without anyone to watch her.

Frowning at each other, Tre and Billie Joe said their goodbyes to their friend's widow and exited the bedroom, then picked up the bags they'd left in the hallway.

Once they were downstairs and out of the house, they headed for Tre's car, but only after grabbing the car seats from Mike's BMW that was parked in the garage and had not been driven since it was brought back from Vallejo, where it had been parked near the Baylink Ferry, the day after he was shot and killed.

As soon as the kids were safely in their seats in the back of the drummer's car, Mikey craned his neck to look at his uncle and godfather.

"We gonna go see my daddy now?"

That question seemed to come out of left field and it choked Billie Joe up, who had to turn and look away.

Tre swallowed back the lump in his own throat and shook his head. "No, we're not gonna see your daddy. We're gonna take you to Uncle Billie's house."

"We not gonna see daddy?"

Tre shook his head again. "Nope."

"He wit angels now?"

Tre nodded. "Yep. Your daddy's an angel now, too."

"Does he got wings?"

Tre almost laughed at the innocence. "Yeah, he has wings. Big white, fluffy wings. And he can fly all over with the other angels."

Billie Joe was reaching for the passenger door as he listened to the next question and couldn't help but laugh as well.

"Does he gotta take naps from all the fwyin'?"

"Not in heaven, Mikey," Billie Joe spoke up. "You don't ever get tired in heaven. That's how your daddy watches over you, your mommy, Estelle and Chloe. He never gets tired."

Satisfied with the answers, Mikey sat back and began to play with Mister Monkey as Billie Joe finally slipped into the passenger seat and Tre shut Mikey's door and walked around the front of the car to slip into the driver's side.

As the car rolled down the driveway and headed a few blocks away toward the Armstrong residence, the two men were left feeling uneasy about leaving Caroline alone, completely; unsure if it was really the best thing to do or if it was.



The taste of Frito Lays corn chips lingered on Caroline's dry, chapped lips as she sat upright on the edge of her bed; the empty chip bag on her right while Mike's urn occupied her lap.

She was staring at her reflection in the full length mirror she'd repositioned so that it was parallel to the side of the bed, while her hands monotonously tapped the green, marble surface of the urn.

Her eyes studied everything the mirror reflected but she wasn't exactly registering anything she saw. It was as if she was there, but not.

There was a light on but no one was home.

Some would say she was on autopilot.

In the distance she heard her neighbor revving an engine to their car; probably working on it. Then, as nearby as her bathroom, she could hear the steady drip of water from the faucet that wasn't turned all the way off the last time it was used.

In her mind, it was a turbulent storm of catastrophic proportions. That's why she tried not to sleep, but simply lay there awake, staring at the underside of the bed sheet she was hiding under.

This was because in her dreams, she experienced nightmares; terrors even. In her mind's eye, she saw Mike in his coffin with the lid closed as he awoke. Then, as he tried to claw his way out, he began screaming bloody murder as the coffin was placed into the cremation oven where he was burned alive.

It was unsettling, to say the least.

As Caroline avoided reliving the memory of that particular nightmare, she blinked a few times and slowly let her bare feet touch the carpet below. Standing up, she rested the urn on her left hip as she placed her right hand on her stomach.

Still naked since Billie Joe and Tre had left with her children three days earlier, she tilted her head to the side and parted her lips as she focused on her middle section.

"You left something..." she muttered. "I can't...you shoulda taken it with you..."

Glancing at the bedroom door to her right, she turned on the heels of her bare feet and walked across the soft carpet, urn in hand and very much naked as a jay bird, as she headed out into the upstairs hallway, past her children's empty bedrooms and to the top of the stairs.

And for one fleeting instant, she wondered what it'd be like to throw herself down the steps. A lightning fast montage of images involving her breaking her neck, followed by her own funeral flooded her mind.

Then it was gone.

One by one, she descended the stairs until the toes on her left foot touched down to the cool tile of the front hall's floor. She turned right and walked through the downstairs hallway that led her into the kitchen.

On the island is where she set the urn as she sauntered up to the fridge, slightly on tiptoe, and opened the door as the cold air hit her like a truck. She shivered only a little as she crouched down and pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the bottom shelf that was hidden way in the back in the event of Mikey opening the fridge up and thinking it was okay for him to get at.

Sliding the bottle out, Caroline stood back up and closed the door as she turned and twisted the cap off.

Without missing a beat, she lifted the bottle to her lips and took a deep chug, letting the cold, strong liquid spill warmly down her throat. It caused her to choke a little from the taste and overall strength as tears burned her eyes. She blinked them back and pulled the bottle away as she returned to Mike's urn and lifted it back up into her arms.

With the bottle in one hand and the urn in another, Caroline headed for the basement door and carefully walked down the carpeted stairs into what had been refinished as an at-home studio; years before Caroline had even met Mike.

The hazel-eyed widow placed his urn on a small table in the corner as she plopped down at the control board and reached for a few switches.

In the hazed daze she was putting herself in from the alcohol filtering through her system, Caroline had somehow managed to bring the studio to life despite not being completely with it. And by the time the bottle of Jack Daniel's had about an inch left inside of it, Caroline had recorded herself on the guitar, strumming a few chords she'd learned since picking up the bass a few years earlier. She also recorded herself singing along to what she'd played on the guitar.

It was a short number; nothing over the top and long-winded. It was breathy, and the pain in Caroline's heart echoed through her voice as the lyrics escaped her lips.

If I wanted to cry, I'd cry
If I wanted to die, I'd die...die
If I wanted to sigh, I sigh
If I wanted to lie awake I'd daydream of you and I

If I wanted your heart, I'd take
If I wanted your love, I'd make...make
If I wanted your pain, I'd ache
If I wanted to break your heart I'd tremble for what I faked

When she stood back up to reach for what was left in the bottle, she stumbled and teetered, falling slightly only to catch herself by placing her hands on the edge of the leather couch against the wall.

Her world was spinning as the alcohol consumed her brain cells. When she closed her eyes, she became even more dizzy, so she was forced to keep them open and focus on one spot.

And that's when she saw the pack of Camel cigarettes laying on the floor, under the table she'd set Mike's urn on. Narrowing her blurring eyes, she reached for the pack and pressed her lips firmly together as she looked toward the control board where a few unlit and half-melted candles sat idly. Near one of them was a matchbook.

Caroline blinked once, then twice, and then she steadied her footing as she reached out and grabbed the matchbook.

Withdrawing one cigarette, she placed it between her lips and dropped the rest of the pack to the leather couch. She then ripped off a match and struck it against the gray, sandpapery strip as a small flame sprung to life. Lighting the cigarette, she inhaled, coughed a little from not being a smoker, but continued to puff as if having done it all her life.

As she slowly sank to the carpeted studio floor, she curled her legs up under her and leaned back against the couch and pulling the cigarette away from her mouth only long enough to finish off the last bit of Jack Daniel's before letting it fall to the ground beside her.

And, when the cigarette was gone, she put it out on the floor; smothering it and burning a small hole into the carpet. Watching her movements slowly, she desperately felt the urge to lay down again, but fought it.

Raising her head, she stood up on shaky legs and picked Mike's urn up once more and made the unsteady, drunken trek back upstairs as she eventually made her way into the living room.

Once there, she set the urn down again -- this time on the coffee table, and turned the stereo on as loud as it would go.

With Hole's 'Doll Parts' blasting in the background, Caroline staggered out of the living room and toward the downstairs bathroom where she sought relief for her spinning head. She opened the medicine cabinet and struck gold in the form of a bottle of Tylenol.

Satisfied with her find, the 32-year-old woman went into the kitchen while drunkenly singing along with Courtney Love as she took out a bottle of wine from the fridge. And, without registering what she was doing, she swallowed about four Tylenol with the help of wine to wash it all down.

However, it didn't end there.

She carried both bottles back into the living room with her; the wine bottle and the Tylenol bottle.

She stood in the archway to the living room, her eyes immediately falling upon her dead husband's urn and her eyes began to well up once more.

All sorts of thoughts pillaged her mind as she looked at the dark container of Mike's remains. She pictured how he looked up at her after he'd been shot -- scared and in pain. She pictured how peacefully miserable he looked in his coffin. She pictured the oblivious faces of her children; her children who looked a great deal like their father. More so Mikey who was his father's Mini Me. Then she pictured her reflection in the mirror from earlier.

Her stomach.

"What do I do, Mike?" she slurred. "I got...one, two...three kids to take care of. 'Cause I'm counting Estelle, even though she has her own mother. But I don't wanna see their faces. All I see is you. I'm...like...I'm, like, looking at the face of you. A dead you that's living and breathing and smaller, and two-thirds female because..." she rambled. "Because, uh...you got daughters. I..." Caroline trailed breathlessly. "I can't live with this loneliness. These reminders."

She looked down at the Tylenol bottle and frowned.

"I can't have another reminder. It'd be too cruel...a burden."

Taking one step further into the living room as the Hole song continued, Caroline lost her footing and went down fast; causing her knees and the palms of her hands to get very mild rug burn. But the bottles in both her hands tumbled away from her grip and she let out a questionable sob.

"Make it fucking stop!" she screamed.

Lifting her head, she eyed the bottles and crawled over to them. As she uncapped the Tylenol once more, she twisted off the top to the wine bottle which, to her luck, hadn't broken when it fell and rolled away from her grasp.

Keeping an eye on the urn, a rather depressed Caroline tipped the Tylenol bottle back and let the red and yellow capsules spill into her mouth before she brought the wine to her lips and chugged; forcing the pills down.

Once they were all swallowed, Caroline set the both bottles down and sank down onto the ground to lay on her side as she curled up into a ball and kept her eyes on the urn.

Slowly, her eyes drooped as her body twitched slightly. The lights in the living room became bendy, the music became indecipherable to her ears...

...And then, everything blissfully faded away.