The Man Who Would Not Be King

Nervous green eyes flicked back and forth in front of him, searching for a way out in desperate retreat. Billie Joe’s mouth opened slowly, like a drawbridge lowering to usher forth a band of words. “…I’m sorry,” he said, voice trembling, panic darting across his face. “I just…it just seemed like a good way to make you listen to me?” His tone had turned questioning, confusion marring his articulation. “I don’t know why…I didn’t— it didn’t mean anything.” Billie Joe withdrew his hands from around Tré’s neck.

Tré was still and speechless like he’d been stunned in a sci-fi drama. He felt the scene before him like a rope unraveling. For a second he’d had what he wanted, but now whatever malevolent force was stopping him from diving over the edge to halt its descent. He couldn’t even say “Stop, I want you,” the words resonating within his every fiber. So he watched. And listened.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’m just gonna go, and, um, yeah, go.” He reached up with his right hand to grab a fistful of his hair, perhaps to ground himself, and turned away from Tré, swinging open the door that had closed behind them on its own. He shook his head sharply.

In the brighter light of the hallway, the safer side of the door, he groaned, “Or maybe hit my head against the fucking wall a few dozen times. Jesus Christ, Billie Joe, you have really fucking lost it. Kissing Tré suddenly…”

A few hours later, the turmoil of the morning was still making itself home in the pit of Tré’s stomach. It surely wasn’t helping that his Frosted Flakes had never actually gotten into his stomach, unless he counted the paltry bits he’d confiscated off the top before pouring the milk. He sat in the dressing room, scrunched into a pathetic bundle, face pressed into his knees. The faux darkness his position created suited his mood.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He squinted up at someone who could easily pass for Mike. It was Mike.

“You. Me. Come on, we need to have a chat.”

Tré’s stomach flipped. Apparently Billie Joe confided fast. He followed Mike wordlessly, all the way to a secluded spot around the back of the venue.

“What’s up?” he asked, weakly.

Mike sighed, hands in his pockets. “Look, Tré, I don’t want to be the bad guy here.” He paused, as if awaiting a response. When he didn’t find one from Tré, another sigh escaped his lips. “You can’t go around sending mixed signals. Billie Joe is a fragile guy. And you’re confusing him with whatever you might have thought you had for him… Now he’s worried that he stepped over some boundary when he kissed you and that he might have fucked up your entire friendship. And I heard through the grapevine that you guys had some sort of tiff at breakfast for God’s sake. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Tré swallowed, a million responses running through his head, each one entirely inadequate.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he repeated, “but you need to sort this shit out, because it’s not going to fly in my band, alright?” Mike squeezed Tré’s shoulder encouragingly.

Tré nodded dumbly.

“Okay, well I do believe it’s about time for wardrobe, makeup, all that. Let’s go.”

Tré scuffed the dirt as he made to pursue Mike once again.
***

“Tré, baby, you look gorgeous this evening.”

Tré cocked his head as the sound tech approached him. “Weirdo.”

“What, not even a thanks?” Pete made a face that screamed wounded. Or possibly just Picasso.

“Dude, seriously though, I think I need another therapy sesh.”

Pete eyed Tré dubiously. “I see you’ve adopted my term. What could this mean? Has shit hit the fan so hard you’ll say anything to get my counsel? Step into my office. Is now a good time? I think my crew can handle the rest of the sound tweaking from here; they’re smart, able. Yeah?”

“Mm, yeah, I think I’ve got a good half hour before people will start to miss me.”

They relocated to, as it would have it, the same place that Mike had delivered his lecture an hour before. They sat down, clouds of hot Texan dust puffing up around them. Pete took out a joint and lit it; he gave Tré first dibs out of sympathy.

Exhaling smoke, Tré broached the subject. “You remember that girl I was telling you about?”

“Yeah…” Pete accepted his pot back.

“So what if I told you that I made her up?”

His brow creased. “What the fuck, man? Please tell me you don’t have any imaginary friends because, guess what, I am actually not a real therapist.”

“No, idiot.” He started to laugh, unable to stop himself.

“Then what?” Pete asked, taking another drag.

“You might be freaked out by this,” Tré warned. In the back of his mind a parallel thought was illuminated: I’m freaked out by this.

Pete snorted. “What are you, about to tell a ghost story? Go on, I don’t scare easy.”

Tré took a deep breath. “Really I feel like I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I really need to talk to someone and I can’t go to Mike because he just doesn’t get it but he thinks he does, which is worse…”

Pete shot him a look of impatience.

“I have a thing for Billie Joe, man.” He’d said it, plain and simple. Every time it took to the air he felt his conviction grow.

Pete sucked fiercely at his joint, hoping it would make things make sense again. Faulty logic. He nodded. Then he shook his head. “Wait, what?”

Chuckling, Tré answered, “You know, like, romantic interest.”

“In Billie Joe? I’m confused. You’re saying…you’re not straight?” Pete almost went cross-eyed trying to process the information.

Tré shrugged, then reached for the marijuana dangling neglected from Pete’s hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I kind of only just noticed it, but I suppose it’s always been there somewhere, maybe in the little bits of jealousy I’d shoot Mike’s way for being better friends with him than I was…”

Pete rubbed his eyes. “Man, you are fucked. I honestly don’t know what the fuck advice to give you. I mean, I guess I did hear a rumor that Billie Joe’s not exactly straight? Is that true?”

“Yeah. Does it freak you out? What I told you?”

“Nah, dude, to be truthful, yeah, I don’t understand at all, but hey…whatever floats your boat, right?” He paused, chewing his lip in thought. “Does he know? And what was that about Mike earlier? You need to fill me in on what exactly’s going on, otherwise I can’t help.”

Tré obliged, running over the details quickly.

“Why the fuck’d you just stand there after he kissed you?” Pete fretted. “Seriously, worst response ever, no wonder he thinks you had a problem with it! Agh!” Pete slammed his fist into the packed dirt. “Sorry,” he apologized, sheepishly, “for some reason this pot is winding me up instead of relaxing me. But honestly, you should have said something. And I thought I was bad with relationships, but this, this really takes the cake.”

Grimacing, Tré responded, “I know…” He was awash with remorse. Pete didn’t have to tell him he’d been an idiot; his eyes had been propped open in front of that line since the morning. He spoke up suddenly. “But it’s not like I even know why he kissed me. Like did he just want to shut me up? Is he interested in me too? You should have seen the look he gave me afterwards. It was…it was terrified, Pete. Confused and terrified. I wish someone could tell me what that means…”

“I don’t know any more than you do, buddy. Since he kissed you, though, I’d say that indicates a fairly good chance, at least it seems pretty up there. You should just grow a pair and tell him, I think.”

Tré nodded, accepting what Pete was saying for what it was, something he should do but might not be able.

“It’s time to stop speculating and just do,” Pete added. He stood up and offered a hand to Tré. “Come on, we should get back inside.”
***

Tré wandered into the bathroom, eager to relieve his straining bladder. Unzipping by the urinal, he heard the tail end of someone puking his guts out in one of the stalls.

When finished and had washed his hands, he remained in front of the mirror, spotted surface casting his face back at him. Eye bags erased by the careful work of his makeup artist, Tré gave off the impression of smooth perfection. Beneath it all, he felt he was cracking. Like the paint on this sink. His carefully composed exterior was chipping. Or maybe he was changing shape and it didn’t fit anymore.

He was staring. The lock on one of the stall doors slid open behind him, metallic and loud, but somehow subtle. It went unnoticed.

“Hey.”

Tré jumped. “Holy shit, where did you come from?” he asked Billie Joe’s reflection, heart beating like a chorus of taiko drums. Billie Joe raised an eyebrow while Tré made the connection. “Wait, dude, was that you in the stall?” He wrinkled his nose.

“Yeah, nerves again.” Billie Joe rolled his eyes, almost mocking himself.

Tré saw through the mechanism; Billie Joe was worn out, and trying not to be. Pallid, clammy-looking skin betrayed him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Billie Joe replied briskly, assigning the matter little importance. “Anyway I just wanted to say sorry for this morning.”

Tré felt his eyes widen. Before Pete’s sage advice could intervene, however, the guitarist continued.

“You know me; sometimes I get carried away and don’t use my brain, y’know? Anyway I did some thinking…”

He felt frozen again. Tell him tell him tell him. Maybe he’d just say it? Was he thinking it too? Was he feeling it? Tell him first. “Yeah?” he prompted, breath withheld.

“I think I did it to help me figure out my feelings…you know how sometimes you get confused and you don’t really know what you want?” He shuffled his feet.

“Yeah?” Tré could swear someone was pinning an AED to his chest: electricity and blood and adrenaline and life, alarm, and anticipation, but most of all raging, crashing, breaking waves of terror. What next? What happens after?

“Yeah, so, I’ve decided to take my chances and ask out Annabelle.” Billie Joe relieved an itch on his nose.

All Tré could say in response was “What?” Cold. Damp underground cavern cold.

“Yeah, we’ve been really hitting it off, y’know? She’s funny, chill…”

I’m chill. Tré laughed inwardly at the pun that would never see the light of day. That one was for himself. Idiot.

Billie Joe paused. “You don’t seem happy,” he stated, resting a familiar hand on Tré.

Tré balked. “What? No. This is great. I’m glad you’ve found someone. Just hope she likes you back.” A forced laugh came on the heels of his flat voice.

Unconvinced, he asked, “You don’t like her too, do you?”

“No, no,” Tré shook his head. “No such thing.” When silence fell, he tried to fill it. “When you gonna ask her out?”

Billie Joe obliged to answer, eager to get over the awkwardness. “Don’t know yet, hopefully soon. Come on, though, why the fuck are we hanging out in the bathroom, anyway? Also we hit the stage soon; we should probably be there,” he joked.

“Right.” Tré thought he might follow Billie Joe’s example and throw up.
***

“Nobody likes you, everyone left you, they’re all out without you having fun.”

The recording of Kathleen Hanna’s voice soared out over the audience, and as it riled the fans into a frenzy it pierced Tré’s consciousness. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t entirely accurate in describing his feelings; those had been replaced by a certain amount of numbness.

Billie Joe’s accented guitar kicked in for one and a half measures, where Tré missed his cymbal crash entrance. His band mates jerked their heads instinctively around, the guitar and bass running naked. A pulse of horror hit Tré, and he readjusted his drumsticks in his hands to be ready for when the riff came full circle. Shaky and already slick with sweat, he dropped one. No time to reach for a new one before he’d missed his cue a second time. The music sputtered out.

Billie Joe approached the mike. “Hey. Hey you guys, you wanna meet my band?” A cacophony of yells greeted his question. “Alright, let’s start over here, shall we? This,” he began, walking back to the drum set, “this…is a man who formerly held the title of best drummer in the world. That is, ladies and gentlemen, until he missed his cue twice just now. But we forgive him, right?” Billie Joe flashed Tré a comforting smile as an overwhelming sound of affirmation reached the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tré Cool!”

Tré felt an enormous sense of relief as Billie Joe moved on to introduce Mike and the rest. Deliberately pointing out his mistake had somehow made it all right. At the same time, his despair burrowed deeper in his chest. It seemed simple, so cliché as to be stupid, but the kind gesture made him regret even more the way things had turned out.

He didn’t miss his entrance this time, and once he’d started, it was all muscle memory from there. Each beat on the bass drum echoed outward to knock loose memories of every missed chance.

“…the idiot America…”

…The idiot…

Idiot.