I shall call it Bob!
Call Me Reese
I drive into San Francisco and then turn on the On Star to help me find Ashbury Drive. I get there to see a girl with chin length, bright red hair. She's wearing a black tank top, black skater shorts, a studded belt, black high tops and she's holding a black and white bag. I pull up in front of the building and get out.
"You must be Theresa." I say heading towards her, she looked so much like Ali, except her eyes, they were bright blue like mine.
"And you must be Frank." She says looking me over. "Love the chucks." I look down at my green converse sneakers.
"Thanks." I look up at the building, "Is your mom home?"
"It's Tuesday, she works." She says shrugging. We get inside Blueberry and I start er up.
"Does she know you're with me today?"
"Yeah." She says nodding. "I kept bugging her about you and she finally gave me your phone number last week."
"Umm okay." I say nodding.
"Frank?"
"Yeah."
"Are you married?"
"No, I'm twice divorced." I say scratching the back of my neck.
"So you have another daughter?"
"Yeah her name is Ramona, she's eighteen." I manage to stutter, "I also have a son, his name is Frankito, he's twelve."
"That's cool, can I meet them?"
"Uhh yeah." I say thinking, "Might have a bit of trouble meeting Ramona, she lives in New York with her mom."
"Oh okay."
I pull up to a pizza restaurant, I figured pizza was a safe bet for teenagers.
"Love this place." She says as we get out of the car.
"Good, I was bit worried." I say laughing, "There no real protocol for where to take your long lost kid." She laughs. We take a seat at one of the tables.
"Hey Frank, why'd you name your son Frankito?"
"Well, I'm third in the line of Franks." I say chuckling, "Thought I'd keep it going so I named my son Little Frank."
"Must suck for him."
"Not really, we don't really call him Frankito, we usually call him Franky." I say shrugging as I look over the menu, "You can call me dad if you want."
"I rather not, I'll stick to Frank for now."
"At least call me Tre then, I hate being called Frank."
"Why Tre?" she asks looking up from her menu.
"How much has your mother told you about me?"
"Well she said you were a small time musician, you already had a daughter, umm, says we have the same eyes, I somehow have your sense of humor and that you have the maturity of a twelve year old." I can't help but burst out laughing, I look over at her and she's giggling.
"Well, she lied about one thing."
"And what's that? You have the maturity of a five year old?"
"No, well maybe, I'm not a small time musician."
"So you sold out then?"
"Not really, well depends on who you're talking to."
"I'm actually a big time musician." I say carefully, "Ever hear of a band called Green Day?"
"I've heard of them, have one of their CDs."
"Well I'm the drummer, Tre Cool." She bursts out of her chair.
"Damn! I knew you looked familiar!" she says pointing at me. She lifts the short sleeve of my shirt a bit to reveal my tattoo of the TV falling out of the window.
"S-so, William, is Billie Joe and Michael is Mike Dirnt?" she says rhetorically.
"Yeah." I say nodding. "So now that's cleared up can you call me Tre?"
"Yeah sure." She says with wide eyes. "Oh and by the way, stop with the Theresa crap, everyone just calls me Reese."
"Reese, cool." I think back to when I dated Ali, sometimes she'd tease us and give us girly names, like Mike would be Michelle, Billie Joe would be Belinda Joan, and I would be either Francine or Therese. She named her after me.
A waitress comes to our table and takes our order before disappearing again.
"So Reese, what's your mom been up to?"
"Well she just broke up with another boyfriend."
"Has she had a lot of boyfriends?" I ask hoping she didn't grow up with a string of crap father figures.
"Well she only started dating again when I was about five and since then," she pauses to think, "She's had about six boyfriends, but she never really minded being single."
"Yeah, I remember she's very independent."
"So you should be about fifteen right?"
"Yeah, I turned fifteen in April."
"Jesus, this is so unreal." I say looking into her blue eyes.
"Must've been a pretty big shock when I called you, huh?" she asks as our pizzas are place in front of us.
"Was it ever." I say shaking my head.
"And you didn't think I was some sort of obsessed fan?"
"Well your mom and I didn't make our relationship public, only my band mates and a couple of your mom's friends knew we were together." She nods, "Then she left without explanation after getting the flu."
"Yeah the flu." She snickers.
"Well after you called, I called Mike and he said before your mom left she was asking a lot of questions about his daughter Stella. She's about a year or two older than you."
"So you never suspected anything?"
"Well no, I've been dumped suddenly several times because of our touring schedule."
"That must suck." She mumbles.
"So I've got fifteen years to catch up for, so umm I guess tell me about yourself."
"Umm, I like punk music, I've never had a boyfriend despite my mother's suspicions, I like eating strange stuff, I don't get homesick and I've never had a cavity." She lists and I can't help but laugh.
"Punk music's good, but you can't expect me to believe you've never had a boyfriend."
"I'm dead serious, I freak the shit out of everyone out of my school."
"Why's that?" she shakes her head.
"I don't want to tell you."
"Why not?"
"Fine, I sing raunchy songs in the school lounge, I have this interesting tendency to moon my gym class and well basically I will do most dares." I can't help but burst out laughing.
"You're like mini-me!" she blushes. "Raunchy songs? What songs?"
"Dominated Love Slave and Longview are two of them."
"Are you fucking serious?!"
"Yeah, well when I was little my mom used play the song Food Around the Corner for me, and well now it makes sense why. Anyway, I came across that song about a year or so ago and found it pretty funny so I looked up more Tre Cool songs and found Dominated Love Slave." She says obviously embarrassed.
"What about Longview?"
"Oh my friend came across that song, her older brother has several of your CDs and we decided to go through them one day, got in shit for it but hey."
"Alright." I say calming down, "What about the weird food thing?"
"Well basically, I get bored easily so I go into the kitchen and make ham sandwiches with whip cream or ice cream with bacon."
"Yeah, I do that too." I say shifting my eyes. "Grosses the hell out of people."
"Yeah, did you ever try french fries and chocolate?"
"No."
"Awe, well that's an awesome combination." She says with big eyes. "Don't try ketchup and orange juice; that nearly made me gag."
"I'll keep that in mind." I say laughing.
"So punk music, who do you listen to?"
"Uhh well, basically whatever my mom listens to."
"Really?"
"Yeah well Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash. Oh and then the sell outs."
"Sell outs?"
"Yeah, well people call them sell outs like Blink 182, Angels and Airwaves, Offspring and Good Charlotte. Oh and last month we went to the MCR concert."
"Cool, I guess, so you don't listen to Green Day."
"We have the American Idiot album, but we don't listen to it all that often."
"Why's that?" she shrugs. "Okay."
"Mom usually changes CD if I'm listening to it."
"Okay, Angels and Airwaves are crap by the way." She laughs.
"I found when he was in Blink 182 the songs were better."
"That's because Mark Hoppus wrote most of the songs." I say proudly, "Tom is an ass hole."
"Very judgmental of you."
"Hey! I had to tour with them for nine whole weeks!"
"You toured with Blink 182!"
"Yeah, in 2002 or 2003." I say thinking back, "We kicked they're asses on stage."
"That's awesome." She says high fiving me.
"What about Green Day? Are you guys planning to be like the Rolling Stones?"
"It looks like it." I say laughing, "We're releasing another album soon and we get to tour!"
"So is like till death do you part with Green Day?"
"Well Billie said the only way one of us is getting out of Green Day is in a body bag."
"Wow, that's commitment."
"Yup, we've lasted longer than most marriages." She laughs at my really old joke.
"Well I guess you all have a passion for music, that keeps you together."
"That's an understatement, we live for music. And great sex also helps keep us together." She bursts out laughing.
"Well of course, something has to get you through those touring days."
She looks at her watch.
"I need to get to work." She says getting up and putting her bag over her shoulder.
"I'll drive you." I say getting up.
"Alright, I guess." She says as her pace slows down. I pay the bill and we head back to blueberry.
"Where do you work?" I ask starting up the car.
"Simon's Mall."
"Oh, I know where that is, when Ramona comes she loves shopping there. What store do you work at?"
"Hot Topic."
"Cool." I say looking her over, "Let me guess, for employee discount."
"You can't prove anything." She says glancing around casually.
"Wanna bet?" I say challengingly, "Is that or is that not a pair of chucks on your feet."
"I actually got this at a ware-house sale, my aunt took me."
"Oh." I say laughing. "What about that belt."
"Birthday present."
"Damn, you purposely wore clothes from other stores in spite of me." I pout.
"No, I just started working there, so I haven't had a chance to take advantage of the discount."
"Well okay then."
"Maybe I'll buy some really hot bondage pants." She says evilly.
"Trying to scare me?"
"Maybe."
"Then I'll scare you! I used to wear bondage pants! Green ones!"
"Ew. Now I can never wear green bondage pants!" she says laughing, "There's always the slimming black ones."
"Are you trying to be daddy's worst nightmare, because Ramona already pulled everything possible."
"Not everything, there's always something."
"Oh yeah? She's done the tattoo thing, piercings, bad boyfriends, awkward girlfriends, pot, umm what else, make-up fiascos."
"Yeah I get it." She says rolling her eyes, "What did she get a tattoo of?"
"Skull and cross bones on her lower back."
"Suh-weet."
"I may have just met you but the answer is no." I say shaking my head.
"What about spacers! I bet Ramona hasn't done spacers."
"Don't get spacers, they're nasty, they make me want to gag."
"Okay, then I'll get my nipple pierced."
"You're crazy." I mutter, "I took mine out for a reason."
"You had one!"
"Yeah, but it kept getting infected. People would pull on it." She laughs hysterically.
"I want to get my nose pierced, but mom says I should wait till I'm sixteen."
"That sounds fair."
"Cha, whatever."
We pull into the parking lot of the mall.
"Thanks for lunch." She says stepping out of the car.
"Wait! Reese!" she turns around, "Can you tell your mom to call me?"
"She won't call." Reese mumbles as she comes up to my window, "Here call her yourself." She writes a phone number down on my hand, "That's her cell number."
"Thanks." I say looking it over.
"You must be Theresa." I say heading towards her, she looked so much like Ali, except her eyes, they were bright blue like mine.
"And you must be Frank." She says looking me over. "Love the chucks." I look down at my green converse sneakers.
"Thanks." I look up at the building, "Is your mom home?"
"It's Tuesday, she works." She says shrugging. We get inside Blueberry and I start er up.
"Does she know you're with me today?"
"Yeah." She says nodding. "I kept bugging her about you and she finally gave me your phone number last week."
"Umm okay." I say nodding.
"Frank?"
"Yeah."
"Are you married?"
"No, I'm twice divorced." I say scratching the back of my neck.
"So you have another daughter?"
"Yeah her name is Ramona, she's eighteen." I manage to stutter, "I also have a son, his name is Frankito, he's twelve."
"That's cool, can I meet them?"
"Uhh yeah." I say thinking, "Might have a bit of trouble meeting Ramona, she lives in New York with her mom."
"Oh okay."
I pull up to a pizza restaurant, I figured pizza was a safe bet for teenagers.
"Love this place." She says as we get out of the car.
"Good, I was bit worried." I say laughing, "There no real protocol for where to take your long lost kid." She laughs. We take a seat at one of the tables.
"Hey Frank, why'd you name your son Frankito?"
"Well, I'm third in the line of Franks." I say chuckling, "Thought I'd keep it going so I named my son Little Frank."
"Must suck for him."
"Not really, we don't really call him Frankito, we usually call him Franky." I say shrugging as I look over the menu, "You can call me dad if you want."
"I rather not, I'll stick to Frank for now."
"At least call me Tre then, I hate being called Frank."
"Why Tre?" she asks looking up from her menu.
"How much has your mother told you about me?"
"Well she said you were a small time musician, you already had a daughter, umm, says we have the same eyes, I somehow have your sense of humor and that you have the maturity of a twelve year old." I can't help but burst out laughing, I look over at her and she's giggling.
"Well, she lied about one thing."
"And what's that? You have the maturity of a five year old?"
"No, well maybe, I'm not a small time musician."
"So you sold out then?"
"Not really, well depends on who you're talking to."
"I'm actually a big time musician." I say carefully, "Ever hear of a band called Green Day?"
"I've heard of them, have one of their CDs."
"Well I'm the drummer, Tre Cool." She bursts out of her chair.
"Damn! I knew you looked familiar!" she says pointing at me. She lifts the short sleeve of my shirt a bit to reveal my tattoo of the TV falling out of the window.
"S-so, William, is Billie Joe and Michael is Mike Dirnt?" she says rhetorically.
"Yeah." I say nodding. "So now that's cleared up can you call me Tre?"
"Yeah sure." She says with wide eyes. "Oh and by the way, stop with the Theresa crap, everyone just calls me Reese."
"Reese, cool." I think back to when I dated Ali, sometimes she'd tease us and give us girly names, like Mike would be Michelle, Billie Joe would be Belinda Joan, and I would be either Francine or Therese. She named her after me.
A waitress comes to our table and takes our order before disappearing again.
"So Reese, what's your mom been up to?"
"Well she just broke up with another boyfriend."
"Has she had a lot of boyfriends?" I ask hoping she didn't grow up with a string of crap father figures.
"Well she only started dating again when I was about five and since then," she pauses to think, "She's had about six boyfriends, but she never really minded being single."
"Yeah, I remember she's very independent."
"So you should be about fifteen right?"
"Yeah, I turned fifteen in April."
"Jesus, this is so unreal." I say looking into her blue eyes.
"Must've been a pretty big shock when I called you, huh?" she asks as our pizzas are place in front of us.
"Was it ever." I say shaking my head.
"And you didn't think I was some sort of obsessed fan?"
"Well your mom and I didn't make our relationship public, only my band mates and a couple of your mom's friends knew we were together." She nods, "Then she left without explanation after getting the flu."
"Yeah the flu." She snickers.
"Well after you called, I called Mike and he said before your mom left she was asking a lot of questions about his daughter Stella. She's about a year or two older than you."
"So you never suspected anything?"
"Well no, I've been dumped suddenly several times because of our touring schedule."
"That must suck." She mumbles.
"So I've got fifteen years to catch up for, so umm I guess tell me about yourself."
"Umm, I like punk music, I've never had a boyfriend despite my mother's suspicions, I like eating strange stuff, I don't get homesick and I've never had a cavity." She lists and I can't help but laugh.
"Punk music's good, but you can't expect me to believe you've never had a boyfriend."
"I'm dead serious, I freak the shit out of everyone out of my school."
"Why's that?" she shakes her head.
"I don't want to tell you."
"Why not?"
"Fine, I sing raunchy songs in the school lounge, I have this interesting tendency to moon my gym class and well basically I will do most dares." I can't help but burst out laughing.
"You're like mini-me!" she blushes. "Raunchy songs? What songs?"
"Dominated Love Slave and Longview are two of them."
"Are you fucking serious?!"
"Yeah, well when I was little my mom used play the song Food Around the Corner for me, and well now it makes sense why. Anyway, I came across that song about a year or so ago and found it pretty funny so I looked up more Tre Cool songs and found Dominated Love Slave." She says obviously embarrassed.
"What about Longview?"
"Oh my friend came across that song, her older brother has several of your CDs and we decided to go through them one day, got in shit for it but hey."
"Alright." I say calming down, "What about the weird food thing?"
"Well basically, I get bored easily so I go into the kitchen and make ham sandwiches with whip cream or ice cream with bacon."
"Yeah, I do that too." I say shifting my eyes. "Grosses the hell out of people."
"Yeah, did you ever try french fries and chocolate?"
"No."
"Awe, well that's an awesome combination." She says with big eyes. "Don't try ketchup and orange juice; that nearly made me gag."
"I'll keep that in mind." I say laughing.
"So punk music, who do you listen to?"
"Uhh well, basically whatever my mom listens to."
"Really?"
"Yeah well Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash. Oh and then the sell outs."
"Sell outs?"
"Yeah, well people call them sell outs like Blink 182, Angels and Airwaves, Offspring and Good Charlotte. Oh and last month we went to the MCR concert."
"Cool, I guess, so you don't listen to Green Day."
"We have the American Idiot album, but we don't listen to it all that often."
"Why's that?" she shrugs. "Okay."
"Mom usually changes CD if I'm listening to it."
"Okay, Angels and Airwaves are crap by the way." She laughs.
"I found when he was in Blink 182 the songs were better."
"That's because Mark Hoppus wrote most of the songs." I say proudly, "Tom is an ass hole."
"Very judgmental of you."
"Hey! I had to tour with them for nine whole weeks!"
"You toured with Blink 182!"
"Yeah, in 2002 or 2003." I say thinking back, "We kicked they're asses on stage."
"That's awesome." She says high fiving me.
"What about Green Day? Are you guys planning to be like the Rolling Stones?"
"It looks like it." I say laughing, "We're releasing another album soon and we get to tour!"
"So is like till death do you part with Green Day?"
"Well Billie said the only way one of us is getting out of Green Day is in a body bag."
"Wow, that's commitment."
"Yup, we've lasted longer than most marriages." She laughs at my really old joke.
"Well I guess you all have a passion for music, that keeps you together."
"That's an understatement, we live for music. And great sex also helps keep us together." She bursts out laughing.
"Well of course, something has to get you through those touring days."
She looks at her watch.
"I need to get to work." She says getting up and putting her bag over her shoulder.
"I'll drive you." I say getting up.
"Alright, I guess." She says as her pace slows down. I pay the bill and we head back to blueberry.
"Where do you work?" I ask starting up the car.
"Simon's Mall."
"Oh, I know where that is, when Ramona comes she loves shopping there. What store do you work at?"
"Hot Topic."
"Cool." I say looking her over, "Let me guess, for employee discount."
"You can't prove anything." She says glancing around casually.
"Wanna bet?" I say challengingly, "Is that or is that not a pair of chucks on your feet."
"I actually got this at a ware-house sale, my aunt took me."
"Oh." I say laughing. "What about that belt."
"Birthday present."
"Damn, you purposely wore clothes from other stores in spite of me." I pout.
"No, I just started working there, so I haven't had a chance to take advantage of the discount."
"Well okay then."
"Maybe I'll buy some really hot bondage pants." She says evilly.
"Trying to scare me?"
"Maybe."
"Then I'll scare you! I used to wear bondage pants! Green ones!"
"Ew. Now I can never wear green bondage pants!" she says laughing, "There's always the slimming black ones."
"Are you trying to be daddy's worst nightmare, because Ramona already pulled everything possible."
"Not everything, there's always something."
"Oh yeah? She's done the tattoo thing, piercings, bad boyfriends, awkward girlfriends, pot, umm what else, make-up fiascos."
"Yeah I get it." She says rolling her eyes, "What did she get a tattoo of?"
"Skull and cross bones on her lower back."
"Suh-weet."
"I may have just met you but the answer is no." I say shaking my head.
"What about spacers! I bet Ramona hasn't done spacers."
"Don't get spacers, they're nasty, they make me want to gag."
"Okay, then I'll get my nipple pierced."
"You're crazy." I mutter, "I took mine out for a reason."
"You had one!"
"Yeah, but it kept getting infected. People would pull on it." She laughs hysterically.
"I want to get my nose pierced, but mom says I should wait till I'm sixteen."
"That sounds fair."
"Cha, whatever."
We pull into the parking lot of the mall.
"Thanks for lunch." She says stepping out of the car.
"Wait! Reese!" she turns around, "Can you tell your mom to call me?"
"She won't call." Reese mumbles as she comes up to my window, "Here call her yourself." She writes a phone number down on my hand, "That's her cell number."
"Thanks." I say looking it over.