Billie Joe's Third Son

March 1995

I looked down to Adrienne who'd just given birth to my first.. No wait, second child. I ran my fingers through her beautiful dreads. She looked up to me and smiled slightly. Man I loved that smile.

Her chocolate brown eyes looked slightly tired after the birth. Her breath was heavy, but slowed down by the minute. Never had Adrienne looked so gorgerous.

"See baby, that was quick," I softly spoke.

The midwife came in, and in her hands she held a little dent.

"Mr. Armstrong. Your first son."

My second.

"How does it feel to be a father?"

Terrible. What if she leaves me like Regina did?

I didn't say anything, just smiled at her and nodded.

“It feels great.”

She smiled back, and gave our son to Adie.

"I'll give you some privacy, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong," the midwife said and left. I looked to Adie, holding our son in her arms. I leaned in to her, to take a closer look at him. He was so beautiful. She looked at me and smiled again.

"You think we can handle this?" she whispered.

Of course. I took care of my firstborn son for almost a year.

I didn't say anything then either, just whispered a little 'yeah,' and smiled. I looked down to my son, and the smile slowly disappeared from my lips.

Don't ever take him away from me, Adie.

*

2003

I slowly opened my eyes. The first thought that hit me was, 'where am I?' Oh right. I was in mine, Antonia and Michael's bedroom, in a random hotel in the middle of Oakland California. I looked over to their bed. Michael was still asleep, Antonia was obviously already up. Antonia, yes. She'd tried to speak with me last night, but I couldn’t remember what she was saying.

I sighed, and tried to sleep again, but as soon as I closed my eyes, the image of my Dad appeared in my mind. I wanted him to go away. He didn't belong with me, me not with him.

Go away.

I decided to get up, seeing as though I could not sleep anyway. I got up, and chose one of Michael's adidas pants to wear. I didn't know what it was with him, and adidas. I looked at him, and shook my head. He was such a rare spirit.

I opened the bedroom door, finding both Glen and Mum staring at me. Antonia played with her porridge, and didn't seem to notice anything, or anyone. Glen mumbled something I didn't hear. Mum looked tired, and angry. She shook her head at me, back I gave her an ugly look.

"Amanda is picking us up in half an hour, it would be nice if someone woke up Michael," Mum said, meaning me. Instead of replying, I opened the fridge to find some orange juice. Glen sighed, and got up.

"No no no no no, Glen. That's Joey's job. He has to learn to listen to me, or this family is gonna break apart," Mum spoke again. I pretended I didn't hear her, and sat down beside Antonia. Glen sat down again. It was him tearing "us" apart, not me. Mum made such a big fuss out of nothing.

I noticed Mum getting more and more annoyed with me every minute that passed. This vacation didn't really turn out great.

Fuck her. Fuck everything.

"Billie Joe Armstrong!" she suddenly yelled, which made all three of us, Glen, me and Antonia, to jump at least three meters of the ground.

"Go wake up your brother! Now!" I rolled my eyes.

"Jesus Mum, you're making a big deal out of nothing. Why don't you do it yourself?" I replied.

"Because you're going to learn that in this family, you're gonna obey orders from both me and Glen!"

You, okey that's fine and understandable. Glen, yeah right.. I don’t take orders from anyone, especially not my fake father.

I was just about to reply, but was surprisingly interrupted by Antonia.

"Mum, listen to yourself. You're so childish. Joey's definitely going through a hard time, it's obvious. If it's so important for Michael to wake up, I think you can handle it yourself, don't you?"

I can't believe I just heard that from you.

Obviously Mum couldn't either, 'cause she didn't reply, and went to wake up Michael. I looked at Antonia. She glanced back at me, then started to eat her porridge again like nothing had happened. I looked at Glen. He should be proud of his daughter, sticking up for herself, and me, like that, and she was the only thing he could be proud of. But the guy had fallen asleep on the chair. Too bad for him.

A minute later or so, a tired Michael and a confused Mum came out from the bedroom. I glanced at Mum. She woke up Glen. She didn't even look at me.

I was nothing but thin air to her.

Suddenly Mum's cell phone rang. It was most definitely Amanda. It was Amanda. Mum spoke to her, hung up and then went all crazy, screaming that Michael had to hurry up. Antonia went to brush her long, light brown hair, which nearly every girl in Glasgow envied her for.

"You don't have time for that Antonia," Mum said, panicking even more. She was running from one end of the room to the other. Michael came out of the bathroom, and gave Mum a confused look.

"Mum, would you start acting like a normal civilized woman?" he asked. She stopped running around, started yelling at him, then started running again. I rolled my eyes.

"Glen, help me over here," Mum said, pointing to our luggage. Glen got up, and together they carried our luggage down to Amanda's car. Michael sat down beside me. I could feel his blue eyes scanning me, but I didn't give damn. I knew what he was thinking.

"Bye guys, I'm gonna help Mum and Dad," Antonia said, adding lip gloss to her lips. What was it about female beings and lip glosses? She disappeared out of the door, leaving me and Michael alone. I knew what was coming. It was the big question everyone kept going on about..

"Why have you been doing drugs?"

Told you.

"Why do you care?" I asked, still not looking at him. He tried making me look back at him, but didn't succee. He didn't reply at first, just kept staring.

"Because you're my brother."

"Look, stop sweet talking. You're just like your Dad," I replied. I was not in the mood speaking with mini versions of Glen. Michael rolled his eyes.

"You're always so angry Joey, geeze, what's your problem?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," I mumbled.

"Alright kids!" said a familiar voice from the door. I looked up and looked directly into Amanda's shiny, brown eyes. She smiled. She had her curly, light brown hair up in a pony tail, was dressed in a green skirt and white top. Me and Michael both smiled back.

"It's time to go!" Michael got up, me following. I liked Amanda. She was nice and funny, and she did remember how it was to be young. I couldn't believe she was actually Glen's sister. It was a mystery her being related to Glen at all.

She took us outside, where Antonia, Glen and Mum already were sitting in her car, which had like eight seats or something, didn't bother count. Me and Michael got in. Amanda sat in one of the front seats with Mum and Glen. They spoke about the weather and how beautiful it was here and all, while Amanda drove.

We passed a sign that said "Welcome to Berkeley." When we did that, Amanda quickly turned around to look at us.

"You're probably never gonna believe me," she said. "But my next door neighbour's a rock star."