Long Road to Ruin

Roughly two and a half hours later, we landed in Denver. I dragged my feet as I walked down the ramp. I was bored and the soles of my shoes made an interesting noise as they scraped against the non-slip material. Mike had been the first one to get off of the plane, and he had collected my luggage for me.

“Thanks, man,” I said, and my first positive comment in days brought a smile to his face. Seeing his smile had an extreme comforting effect on me. It gave me the brief illusion that nothing was wrong at all, and that normalcy would be restored to my life soon enough. I knew that believing that to be true would be believing a lie. There was no pretending that last night had been nothing but a bad dream. But for now, that’s what it was to me. I knew that I would have to face the music eventually, but at the moment, the only music I had the desire to face was the music I would be playing tonight.

A familiar commercial tour bus met us right outside the airport, complete with a driver holding up a sign emblazoned with the name Green Day. A trailer of the same monotonous colors-blue, black and white-was parked closely behind the bus. This carried all of our equipment. Getting back into the tour bus after a day on our own immediately relieved me of my stress. Again I felt like I was on tour, having fun like always, instead of just working for a paycheck. Everyone had their own separate areas on the bus in which they spent most of their free time, and mine was the brown leather recliner that sat next to the window in the far left corner. I headed there automatically and let myself fall into it. Everyone else scattered as well.

It was then that I noticed the faint electronic glow that was emanating from my pocket. I stretched out lazily and reached for my phone. It was a text from Adrienne, sent nearly three hours before.

Adie: Hi, hon. Hadn’t heard from you in a while & wondered how you were doing. I love & miss you. XOXO---80.

I smiled, pushing all negative thoughts into the caverns in the back of my mind. I found it amusing that she had started to refer to herself with the alias I had given her in Green Day’s second album, Kerplunk. That record had been released three years before I married her. That was a mind-blowing thought. It seemed like so long ago, yet I could remember those days like it was only yesterday when we were that young.

Billie Joe: Hey baby. We just landed in Denver, in the tour bus now. Getting ready for the show soon. I love & miss you too. Tell Joey and Jake the same. XOXO---BJ.

Not long after I sent my response, my phone rang and I saw that it was receiving a video call. I picked up, knowing that it had to be Adie, and I was right. I was absolutely delighted to see her bright, cheerful face displayed on the screen in front of me. She looked equally happy, because we hadn’t seen each other’s faces in several weeks.

“Hello, beautiful,” I said, flashing a wide grin.

“Hi!” she said excitedly. Her smile faded slightly after a few moments of looking at me, and her energetic tone of voice morphed into a quieter, more serious one. “Billie Joe?”

“Yes?”

“Are you alright?” she inquired worriedly. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” I laughed sarcastically. “It’s nothing babe, rough night is all.”

“What happened?

It was at that point that my heart began to beat faster in my chest. This was the moment of truth. Now was my chance to admit to my wife that I had made a terrible mistake, and that I was willing to make whatever amends she found to be necessary in order to gain her trust again. I felt like an awful man, ready to fall on my knees and beg for the forgiveness I longed to receive but knew I didn’t really deserve. Despicable, really, but that’s what it had come to.

“…Just a hangover,” I hesitated, replying as nonchalantly as possible.

Liar.

“Billie, you promised me that you wouldn’t go overboard with the drinking. You’re not twenty years old anymore, it isn’t good for you,” she said, her voice slightly elevated.

“I know, and I haven’t. It was just this one time, I swear.”

“‘Just this one time’ can make all the difference,” I thought to myself.

“Alright,” she said after pausing for a moment. “Just be careful, I don’t want another call from Mike saying that you had to get your stomach pumped again.”

I cringed. Memories.

"I promise you that it won’t come to that,” I reassured her, “But I have to go, it’s time to get ready to leave."

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The call was disconnected and anger began to replace the relief I had felt earlier. I threw my phone across the room and watched it bounce off the refrigerator with a dull thud and slide across the checkered linoleum. I had been given the chance that I needed to try and make things right, and I had turned it down without a second thought, without a second look at the consequences. I felt like nothing more than a coward.

“Filthy fucking coward,” I exclaimed to no one in particular, but Mike had been paying close attention the entire time without my knowledge. He appeared from around the corner.

“That was pathetic, BJ,” he said as he filled the coffee pot and turned it on. “This would be a lot less painful for you if you would just tell her the truth.”

I wanted to haul off and yell, scream, and possibly throw something at my friend, but through my frustration, I knew that he genuinely cared about me. He always had, and as he stepped over to put his hand on my shoulder, I knew that this time was no different. I was too mentally exhausted to be starting fights, anyway.

“I will…I have to,” I sighed, “And I know that. But this scares the hell out of me, Mike. I know that I’ve made a mistake, possibly the biggest one I’ve ever made. I want to fix it, but what happens if I can’t fix this one? I love her with everything I have. We’ve been married for sixteen years, and I’m thirty-seven years old now. I’m too old to try and start my life all over again. What if she won’t forgive me?”

“I don’t know,” Mike answered sadly. “All I can suggest is that you tell her what you told me. Regardless, you have to be a man and own up to this. Keeping it from her will just piss her off more and do even more damage if she ever finds out about it in the future.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I know.”

We played through our planned set list that night, and to the fans, it seemed like any other Green Day concert. That was the plan; to do my job and make sure that every single fan who was contributing to my paycheck got their money’s worth. This was done without letting my personal life affect my performance, which is something that every musician learns in time. I had learned to become one with my instrument, just my guitar and me.

This time, my heart just wasn’t in it.