Rebel Yell

Waking up was unbelievably brilliant and I think, I surprised even myself when I finally do decided to get up. It was such a different feeling to waking up alone because quite frankly, waking up and feeling the ultimate warmth radiate off that someone you very much loved was a feeling left better felt, than described.

I could hear him snoring away behind me and I chuckled as Debbie woke up suddenly from the big loud burp that echoed from Mike below. She rolled her eyes as I watched Mike turn on his side and fart again, I laughed out loud as she pulled a distasteful look.

“The downside to living with boys” I spoke quietly, hoping not to wake everyone else up and she smiled

“But I’m going to miss them, aren’t you?” she picked up her messy hair and let it fall around her face,

“Obviously but I can’t wait to have a shower and not have the feeling that someone is going to walk in” she nodded her head knowing full well the pure ciaos we had to manage with during our showers. Only yesterday Debbie had told me, how she fatal hadn’t completely locked the bathroom door and had a very embarrassed Mike staring at her.

“What are we going to do about the living arrangements and Louie when we get back?” her eyes dropped; even with the many attempts by Tre she was still heavily heartbroken. To be honest I hadn’t thought about what we would do once we returned back to Oakland, it wasn’t something that I would have predicted to do at the beginning of this tour.

“Well I haven’t really thought about it Debbie, I suppose that we could boot out the douche bag and keep the house for ourselves. After all we do have a baby coming” she smiled, half heartedly before nodding her head ever so slowly.

“Marci-“Billie grumbled behind me in his sleep and flopped his hand over my waist before returning back to his repetitive purrs.

“What was wrong with Billie Joe last night?” Debbie asked and I shrugged my shoulders, because I was still baffled at his weird mood he had been in. It was strange for any bad mood I have ever seen him in and without him telling me what the matter was, I was left being Dr Phil without any answers.

The facts were though shaky to begin with, Billie had gotten onto the bus followed by Mike with both of their attitudes scaling from pissed off to deeply guilty. Obviously, there had been something said previously, but Tre tried to calm the situation immediately by making a joke about some random fans he had spotted that night. However it was no use, Billie had kissed me quickly before climbing into bed and turned his back on me as I snuggled up to him.

“I don’t know, I’m just assuming it was some boyish bust up about something random. I’m sure everything will be fine today” I sighed and patted the hand around my waist as Debbie picked up a pair of Mike’s boxer shorts from the lamp next to her bunk.

“Men, what can you do with them” she laughed and tossed the pair of boxers below her, hitting Mike in the face with them,

“Look, do you fancy doing something later, with me?” I picked at the shabby woodwork around the bunk and she nodded her head madly,

“I’m dying for a girly chat with my best friend, we could go to the Chinese restaurant around the corner from the venue” she smiled at me before looking towards the clock behind her, “we are going to have to get up, start the ball rolling” she pushed down the covers from around her body and shivered,

“I’ll get up then” I slowly pulled Billie’s hand away and laid it next to him, before setting myself up to climb off the bunk, quietly. It had been a skill I had required during the brief time that I hadn’t wanted to speak to Billie.

The floor beneath was freezing cold and as I sorted out my pyjamas I had on, I wondered towards the kitchen to set the kettle off for the morning brewing. I could hear the light thud from Debbie before she came to join me, as I set out the cups of coffee. “Hot water again?” I asked her and she stubbornly nodded her head,

“I can’t wait to drink coffee again” she looked at the spoons of coffee being spooned into the cups and hung her tongue out at it. “But I don’t want a baby dependant on coffee” she smiled again. Suddenly, there was a static noise and a click before the on bored radio, that Mike had set, sounded with the tinny sound of Candi Station blaring through the small speakers.

“Young hearts!” I quietly danced at the sound of yet another one of my clubbing songs,

“What’s the sense in sharing this one and only life?” Debbie sang back to me,

“Well I’m up” Tre shouted as we danced in our 70’s disco diva style, making the bus wobble a little.

“just can’t break away, YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE” we danced around, forgetting our quite approach this morning and Mike shimmied a little, after finally waking up and heading over to the brewing coffee.

“Morning girls” he spoke loudly and we both nodded to him, as we banged our hips together, like we were the lead singer of Candi Station performing for MTV. Wait, MTV. Shit we had to get the interviews ready and they were due to start in; I looked at the clock on the wall and stopped dancing immediately after looking at the time. I had half an hour to go prepare for the mound of interviewers lined up to interview the guys today.
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CBS- had come and gone, MTV- had come and gone and now all they had to do was the rest of the waiting room, who sat anxious to interview Green Day.

I had to drag Billie Joe out of bed, with him having only five minutes left to get his stuff together before having to do hours of interviews. His mood hadn’t changed much from last night, it was a simple dawdle mood, without any traits of the Billie Joe I had seen for many weeks.

He hadn’t muttered much to me, as I tried to find him odd bits of clothes for him to wear, whilst forcing breakfast down his throat. He had kissed me only very briefly and I had thought that things were on the up once he began to joke with me about the dodgy room they had given us. That though took a sour twist once Mike and Billie entered the same room, Billie had quickly gone back into his strop, whilst Mike tried to act like everything was back to normal between them.

“are you ready for the next one?” I asked the three of them, after their brief interlude and they incoherently all mumbled a ‘yes’.

“brilliant, well this is Arnold and Arnold you have your first 30 minutes starting now” I grabbed the tall man behind me and pulled him forward to where the guys were sat in a little white room, with only a little desk and chairs occupying the space.

“Hey Arnold” Tre smiled as Arnolds colleague who was a small round man began to set up the recording equipment next to the guys. Mike was sat quietly, speaking to Billie and I quickly returned to my little seat next to the guys. I pulled out my long due tour paper work and watched as Arnold, shakily introduced himself before clicking the recorder on.

“Ok, first of all introduce yourself” Arnold spoke quietly

“What’s that?” Billie seemed to be taken by surprise by Arnolds abrupt start,
“Introduce yourself” Arnold spoke again, even quietly.

“o erm, My name is Billie, I play in Green Day” this was the first time today that I had seen him speak as much as he had done.

Arnold began to mumble something about Woodstock and the guys all looked at each other, bored of the same questions being asked and really I had gotten to the stage where, I too was bored of hearing the same antagonising story that the reporters would elaborate, ‘Hollywood style’ later on.

I had decided to shut myself away again, after hearing their first interview and then their second, I could easily predict what was going to be said this time. In fact I was even more preoccupied with what Debbie and I was going to do before the show tonight.
I used to love our days out back in Oakland where we would lounge around doing nothing more than cabbage out in the park and watch the world go by. That was when she had first started to date Louie and he seemed the nice boy, who had stolen her heart after moving next door to her.

I heaved another folder of paper work onto the floor, as Arnold began to ask Billie Joe about his shows,

“so are you guys getting tired of playing all the time?” I looked at Billie Joe and he seem to laugh with himself,

“o yeah it would be nice to stay at home for a little while, you know I have a girlfriend now and yeah” My heart seem to flutter and I gleamed madly at him for my little debut into his public life.

“you have a girlfriend?” Arnold seemed shocked and I turned my attention back to Arnold, glaring at him for ruining my glory moment. I could hear Tre chuckle quietly in the background before nudging Mike to look at my displeased face,

“Yeah and I thought it would be nice to stay at home a while, with her and the rest of my family” Billie briskly spoke breaking my glare away from Arnold and I looked back down to the pack of notes in front of me.

“is that the punk thing to do, get a girlfriend on your rise to fame?” fuck you Arnold, I screamed in my head but refused to look up, instead I simply raised my finger to him. Mike began to laugh aloud which was quickly followed by Tre’s screeching chuckle. I lowered my hand again quickly and appeared over the top of my work to gleam at Mike happy, that he had seen my action. Billie chuckled quietly,

“Well that’s not the issue right, many punks don’t have the guts to do what we are doing. So i think that, this is not anything relevant to the status quo in life” hoorah for team Green Day! Green Day 1, Interviewer 0.

The papers lay heavy on my knee and I flicked through them, stopping at the red marked paper. It seemed to lay heavy in my hand and my mouth screwed uptight about it. It was the final paper I would ever have to sign for this tour, for this band and I really didn’t want it to end. The paper had the finish date, that I had circled in red pen during my ultimate mute moment with Billie Joe but now it seemed to glare at me evilly. 25th September 1994 was the date on the list and with today being the 19th, it symbolised my last six days with the band.

The watch next to me, ticked to thirty minutes and I stood up abruptly dropping all the papers which were on my knee, onto the floor which, in effect, scared the interviewer.

“Well done Rhodes, full ten points from me” Tre blurted out, as Mike scuttled over to help me pick up the paper’s, which were scattered everywhere.

“That is thirty minutes up, thanks for coming” I smiled to Arnold and held out my hand, shaking it briskly. Douche bag!

I watched as Arnold, packed up all of his stuff and shook the guys’ hands goodbye before I turned to Billie Joe.

“Well done, another one down for the three amigo’s” I nudged Billie Joe and he smiled kindly, before kissing my hand. I was glad that he was slowly returning back to the normal Billie Joe.

“How many more?” Tre moaned like a child and I turned around, shrugging my shoulder to the green hair drummer, who had begun to rock on his chair legs. “I want to go see Deborah before she goes out with Rhodes this afternoon”

“oh, Deborah” Mike and I, cooed at him together, as we watched him go pink in the face,

“you’re going out this afternoon?” Billie asked, interjecting whilst still holding onto my hand,
“yeah we’re just going out for some food, to a random cafe just for a natter without you lot around us” I winked and a relief seemed to wash over his face. “Why?” I asked innocently, surprised by his reaction.

“No, I was just curious at your new plans” he squeezed my hand tightly, “will you be back before the show or after?” he never normally asks me things like this, but I conitunued, brushing off any doubt that could possibly arise.

“Hopefully before, why?” he shook his head and kissed my hand again,
“No reason, enjoy yourself and I suppose, send in the next one” he acknowledged the waiting room and I smiled, bending over and quickly pinching a kiss from him.

“Love you” I whispered into his ear and he gulped hard, making me pull a funny face. Shouldn’t I have had said that?

“Me too” he said, as I walked away and back to where the groups of interviews were sat waiting patiently. I looked at my list in front of me;

Gordon Salinger- All-star magazine

Sarah Thomas- Times paper

Jenny Fry- Kerrang Magazine

Cheri Rigby- The Oakland Press

I looked back at my watch and made a decision I knew, wouldn’t impress some people. Billie Joe had said previously that he needed to be out by 12:00, due to wanting to run into town for something and with that information, I decided to kick Cheri Rigby of the list. I knew she wasn’t going to be happy, having travelled from Oakland but the bands wishes are my commands.

I grabbed my pen and scribbled out Cheri’s name before sending in Gordon Salinger.

“Cheri Rigby” I shouted and a girl with chocolate curly hair stood up, pushing her hair out the way and smiling. She had gold hoops in her ears and her body was so slender that it had made a change from the rest of the other reporters here today. She was an outcast amongst outcasts and I smiled to her, as she walked up to me. She was so tall that I had felt inferior to her, as she strolled closer to me, wearing a very short dress and baring her long tanned legs. I suddenly felt everything was wrong with how I looked and as she cockily played with her tongue bar, I held my breath at her beauty.

“I’m sorry but the band cannot have an interview with you today because the bands singer is scheduled to be doing something else at 12:00. I’m really sorry but if you give me your card, I promised I’ll get in contact with you. I understand that you have travelled-“
“Hey girl, don’t be apologetic, things happen right” her accent was so smooth to go with her sultry look and I nearly died at the evil comparison, people surrounding us must have been making. “Look I’ll give you that and you get in contact whenever right” she passed me her smart looking card and I grabbed it.

“Sorry again and thanks for being so understanding” she waved her hand and walked back to the exit, as I rushed into the room to manage the interview happening in there.