The Man Who Would Not Be King

Tré understood; he did. He understood that in order to be with Billie Joe, he had to be patient. And here patience was synonymous with secrecy, for Billie Joe had to wind things down with Annabelle without tripping a wire that most certainly held an explosive dormant on the end. He understood it was necessary to live off of stolen kisses and the briefest touch of skin, a hand slipping uncertainly underneath the back of a shirt only to start back out at the rumble of dust settling.

How everything seemed related to thunder.

And while he was straining his ears for the hint of human presence, another sound reached him. A worm, wound tightly through his ear canal, murmured cold fear and doubt, much doubt.

Did they share the same plan, he and Billie Joe? Or did this arrangement have the kind of permanence of a juvenile record, something that haunts well after the fact? He wasn’t sure.

He couldn’t be sure that through the haze of passion Billie Joe could see ahead.

“Do you fucking see that? Tré, get over here!”

Tré groaned, unexpectedly sore as he pushed himself off of the couch. “Dude, I don’t know what last night’s show did to me, but I am dying,” he informed his summoner, wrapping his arms around Billie Joe’s middle from behind to look over his shoulder.

The item in question at the other end of Billie Joe’s outstretched arm appeared to be a wrinkly walnut stuck to the bus window. “I think that’s probably because you played with more energy than you have for the past week,” he said honestly. “No offense, but you pining after me doesn’t really work wonders for your drumming. What do you think this is?” He glanced left to where his drummer’s head was resting, and then squinted back harder at the mystery object.

Tré sucked in a breath and puffed out his cheeks before releasing the pressure like a blown out tire. “Uhh, what do you call those things, a cocoon or something,” he guessed, distractedly. “And pining, really? Couldn’t you have chosen a manlier word?” He didn’t move from his position, reveling in the warmth and closeness afforded by Mike’s absence.

Billie Joe snickered. “You don’t say anything about me criticizing your performance but you pick on my word choice? You are fucking adorable sometimes, Tré, you know that?” Turning around, he settled himself into the crook of Tré’s neck, a smile like a grace note adorning his lips.

“Well I don’t know if I’d say that,” he grumbled mildly, placated by the scent of Billie Joe’s shampoo and the feel of him in his arms.

The singer, with a breathy, “Oh, shut up,” raised his head and gazed unwaveringly into Tré’s eyes. “I like you,” he told his lover with conviction. “And you like me. So if I say you’re adorable, you’re adorable, and it’s not compromising your masculinity. It takes a real man to date a man like me.” He grinned and kissed him brightly on the mouth.

Coming apart, a weak, “And Annabelle?” molded itself like water to escape from Tré’s lips. He held his breath to stop anything else.

An acute grimace flashing across his face, Billie Joe struggled to play off reason for anxiety. “Tré…,” he began, “you know this is just to not hurt her, right? I like her a lot, but she doesn’t compare to the history I have with you, y’know, but I did just announce our relationship to the public and it would be a shitty thing to dump her so soon after for someone else. Believe me, all I want is you…” He leaned in closer again so that their lips brushed lightly.

Tré sighed. “Are you sure you’re not just telling yourself that? No ulterior motives for having her stick around?”

“No, no,” Billie Joe insisted, shaking his head.

Trembling inwardly, trying not to tremble, Tré pushed on. “Are you sure? I can take it, you know, I won’t be hurt.” Never had he told such a blatant lie. He was hurt already, as much as he didn’t want to be; he’d convinced himself the wound in his side wasn’t bleeding even as the phoenix red spilled out the edges of his palm.

Billie Joe swallowed and licked his lips. “I’m sure.” He massaged the side of Tré’s head with a thumb, and then whispered it again. “I’m sure.”

His words, and more so the confidence with which they were spoken, brought their faces together, and they kissed long, and they kissed slowly. Eyes closed, it was a staged cough that alerted them they were no longer alone.

Not the first time Tré had been caught in a compromising position, he transformed fluidly into a credible actor, laughter burbling up naturally from the deep well of his body. “Hey guys, Billie Joe was just giving me pointers on how to seal the deal with a girl later tonight. Fucking overconfident bastard, am I right?” He slung an arm tightly around Billie Joe’s shoulders while the latter smiled uneasily: a classic male bonding pose.

Mike rolled his eyes, swallowed by pale plum-shaded circles, at his band mates. His band mates, in turn, eyed each other with skepticism; a Mike too preoccupied to see through their flimsy performance was a rare thing.

Billie Joe ventured a guess at the source as someone walked out from behind him. Though he was seemingly unperturbed by and even uninterested in short, relatively inconsequential interviews, the uptight steward part of Mike’s personality emerged every time the fabled Rolling Stone cover story came to knock on their door.

Even Tré gulped. Replace the laptop bag with a briefcase and the man looked like a lawyer. Stiff, white collared shirt, tie—and not in the same spirit that Billie Joe wore his; that tie would never slip loose—, and a manner that could only be described as abnormally dull pieced together an impression not unlike the antithesis of any Rolling Stone reporter they had met previously.

He extended his arm, a curious glint in his eye as he looked from Billie Joe to Tré and back.

“Hi, I am Dennis Moore and I will be following you guys for the next few days for Rolling Stone. Pleasure to be working with you.”
***

Stark, hungry blue. That was the feeling that hit Tré whenever Billie Joe’s focus lay on Annabelle. They hadn’t gotten the chance to speak about it, but it was clear that as long as Dennis was around private was public, and so Billie Joe’s behavior changed accordingly. That blood, he tried to staunch it.

So he drank, even as Dennis monopolized him for an interview.

Tré sat, legs folded underneath him, leaning back onto an arm for support, on the front edge of the bed with a can of beer in hand. The reporter had placed himself next to him, feet planted on the ground and his shoes still on. His laptop perched on his thighs, Tré wondered how he was keeping it balanced. And how uncomfortable it must be to sit facing forward except for his head, which was alarmingly turned toward Tré despite the blurred movement of his fingers on the keyboard. Tré wrinkled his nose absentmindedly.

“Okay, sorry, but to give the most accurate portrait of Green Day that I can, I am going to have to get into the very beginning as well, although I am sure you have told these stories a million times.” He smiled at Tré ingratiatingly.

Something about the way he refused to use contractions, Tré noticed, was unsettling. “Yeah, sure, go ahead,” he obliged.

Dennis smirked, almost in victory. “At what point exactly did you first consider leaving The Lookouts and joining Green Day?” He typed something into his computer, and then tapped the keyboard lightly twice.

Tré scratched his head with a finger lifted off his beer can, leaving a small bit of sticky residue on the hair above his ear. “Well I forget what year exactly it was; I’m sure you can ask one of our fans for that info. But it was really just a combination of many different factors. Larry and Kain were both older than me, so naturally their lives hit the college point faster than mine did, and everyone being in all different places made things sorta slow down for The Lookouts. It was around the same time that Al was making his own decision to go study, and so it all just fit together, really.”

Nodding, Dennis pushed the topic further. “You had known the members of Green Day before?”

“Yeah,” Tré shrugged, “we’d all played at Gilman a bunch of times. There was no way we wouldn’t have known each other.”

“Uh huh, and would you say that perhaps there was something that attracted you to the band?”

Tré couldn’t get a handle on the journalist’s line of questioning, but he was more than capable of sensing the mounting agitation behind each successive question. The clacking of the keys crescendoed, his stare became more piercing, and somehow his rigid posture became even more so.

For scrutinizing him he almost forgot to answer. “Uhh, that’s a tough question,” he said, stalling for time to think up an interesting answer. He studied a painting hung on the wall across from him. It featured a chestnut Clydesdale bowing to a little girl with wispy blonde hair in a field of wildflowers. Tré blinked. “Um, well, you know, Billie Joe just had such charisma, even back then,” he replied haltingly.

A wide grin crackled into place on Dennis’s face; Tré was sure he saw cobwebs in it. “How would you characterize your relationship with Billie Joe? Friendly, I suppose?”

Unnerved at the specificity of the question, Tré balked. “Yes, friendly, we were friends. We are friends now!” he exclaimed, voice rising as he gesticulated wildly.

A click of the laptop indicated that Dennis felt it was time to stop pestering him for the night. “Thanks for your time. This session was a pleasure, and I hope we can continue things sometime later, but I am afraid I am still a bit tired from traveling over here so I must retire.”

He spoke as if his departure was entirely his own idea. Tré bristled, walking close behind him as he made his way to the door. After he’d slipped out, Tré blurted into the hallway, “Don’t you even have a fucking recorder or do you not need one because you’ve got your Quick Quotes Quill, Rita Skeeter?” He slammed the door as quietly as he could so as not to disturb the other guests and sat back down on the bed, glowering.

Had he just imagined that? Sure, he was in the best position to be paranoid, a career and personal reputation at stake. The progression of the interview had seemed natural enough, but Tré couldn’t escape the nagging suspicion that his volatile response hadn’t been entirely unjustified. How had Dennis met him, after all?

He’d warn Billie Joe tomorrow. He walked to the bathroom and freed a hotel-provided toothbrush from its plastic wrapper. Staring at himself in the mirror, the foam building up around his mouth, Tré tried on a journalist’s clothes. What was his goal? To find the biggest scoop. Create a headline to boost magazine sales. American Gay. Boulevard of Hidden Homos. Tré shuddered. Even if the title was better than his appallingly flat puns, he had no doubts as to the contents’ main theme.

He spit hastily. How could he be so stupid? Dennis would be with them in the bus all the next day on the way to Florida. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand after tossing his toothbrush onto the counter. He had to give Billie Joe the heads up now.

He sped over to Billie Joe’s room with the message on his lips. The door opened, and Tré was greeted by Annabelle dressed in her underwear and Billie Joe’s Ramones T-shirt. He froze.

“Uh, hi, Tré. What brings you over so late?” She yawned widely.

Tré forced himself to snap out of it and not think of the implications of her wearing his clothes to bed. “I need to talk to Billie Joe,” he stated.

Annabelle swept a strand of hair behind her ear. “Tré, it’s late and he’s sleeping. Can this wait or is it really that important?” She looked at him with concerned sleepiness.

“Yeah, sorry, I really need to talk to him now.”

“Okay,” she sighed, stepping out of the way. “Come in.”

Tré walked over to a confused and groggy Billie Joe with tousled hair. “What is it?” he asked with half-open eyes. He looked at Annabelle and she shrugged.

“Look, I need to tell you something, and it’s private.” He gestured at Annabelle, indicating that what he had to say was not for her ears.

“Ah, Annabelle,” he addressed her from a messy tangle of sheets, “can you leave us alone for just a sec? I’m sure it won’t take long.”

She nodded in a manner slightly downcast and left the room. Once they’d heard the door shut behind her, Tré began to talk at a quick pace.

“He knows, Billie, I’m sure of it. I mean, what a way to meet us, sucking face like that. But the questions he was asking, I think they—no, they definitely were leading me to talking about you. He knows, and now he’s just trying to get proof. He’ll be on to you next, so I just wanted to warn you.” He finished, breathless.

Billie Joe stifled a yawn. “Are you talking about Dennis?” he asked simply.

“Yes, who else would I be talking about?” He turned up his palms in exasperation.

“I don’t know, Tré. But don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

Tré opened his mouth in disbelief. “Okay, last time I checked you were the one always worrying about stuff for no reason.” Annoyance was evident in the inflection of his voice. “He is fucking bad news, and you should be glad that I’m getting to you before he does.”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Billie Joe said, rising to his knees to peck Tré apologetically on the mouth. “I’ll be careful around him; thanks for letting me know.”

“I’ll let you get back to sleep,” Tré told him, suddenly feeling guilty for waking him up. But a moment later that guilt was erased as Tré threaded his way through a trail of clothing he’d overlooked the first time. Surely his blood was blue as it seeped into the carpet.