The Man Who Would Not Be King

“D’you think Tré really meant it?” Jason scampered after Green Day’s front man, sensitivity obliterated by excitement.

Billie Joe brushed his hair from his forehead; it was starting to get too long. All things considered, Jason was one of the only people Billie Joe wasn’t actively avoiding, yet irritation prickled his skin like he was being followed by a particularly tenacious mosquito. He ignored him and walked on.

“Maybe he only said it to get Mike off his case,” he volunteered. Billie Joe’s silence wasn’t encouraging. The guitarist pressed on anyway. “Hey, if he did mean it, people do change their minds. There’s always a chance—well, if you want there to be a chance. I guess I should ask. How do you feel about Tré?”

Billie Joe wondered how long he could refrain from answering before he burst open and laid his guts on the table.

“Because if you do still happen to love him, I could, um, offer my services. Help, I mean. I don’t know anything about brewing love potions,” he laughed nervously, “but I could maybe drop hints to him or something. Anything, really. Just say the word, man.”

Billie Joe smiled despite himself, although Jason didn’t see it. “Jason, why do you care?” His curiosity had roped him in. He couldn’t help but search for a motive.

Jason shrugged invisibly from behind him. “I’ll admit you guys intrigue me. Pete won’t spill, even though he let slip that he knew everything. The bastard is milking the privilege, holding it over our heads. And I don’t tell people this much, but I’m a closet romantic. At first I was rooting for Annabelle, out of pity or something, but then she insisted she was okay and that she wanted you guys together, so I switched teams just in time to witness the sound check fiasco.”

They found themselves outside as Jason’s explanation drew to a close. Billie Joe faced him finally, speaking in a low voice. “If I told you that I love him so much I haven’t felt a thing since he broke it off, would you still be willing to help me? I’m so numb, Jason.” Tears gathered in his lower eyelids. “I’m so numb I barely even cared when Annabelle was yelling at me. You know I can’t handle it when people are mad at me, but I took it. It didn’t matter at all. I couldn’t help but remove her from the entire fucking equation, ‘cause then Tré and I might’ve had a fighting chance. And I loved her too, Jason, but now it means fuck-all. I feel terrible about it, but it’s true.” He wiped his eyes, only to spill the collected tears rather than get rid of them. Thank God he hadn’t been to makeup yet, or they’d be furious.

Jason hugged him, something he hadn’t been expecting. He pressed Billie Joe’s face into his shoulder. “You are so pathetic, how could I not help you out?”

Billie Joe laughed quietly. He said, muffled through shirt fabric, that he didn’t know.
***

His in-ear monitors in, he was all prepared to take to the stage and sweat out some of his frustrations. Sweat, that’s right. He’d forgotten something. Shit, the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme was already playing. He didn’t have time to put it away properly, out of sight. But if he didn’t figure something out, the ink was going to run with his sweat and ruin the picture, already fragile enough on its flimsy magazine paper, if he left it in his pocket. A member of Green Day’s security detail in a smart suit. He slid it out from his pocket and handed it to him discretely. “Keep this safe for me during the show,” he commanded, barely above a whisper. A look that contained the importance placed on the photo’s protection passed between them, and he was confident that it would be kept away from harm. He joined his band mates, who hadn’t noticed anything, by the entrance to the stage.

Standing there, a brief flicker of worry grazed his temple, worry that the body guard would leak the photo once he realized what it depicted, but he then reasoned simply that it was about to be published in a big name magazine soon enough anyway. It didn’t matter in the least.
***

Someone had given Tré a bag of potato chips. That had been a mistake, because two minutes later he was halfway through the already half-empty (settling, the companies say) bag. He’d given up any hope that his headache would subside after the high volume concert, so the crunching couldn’t possibly make things any worse. His head hurt so badly he had given the migraine a nickname out of respect: the motherload. Perhaps she was the fault of a concussion, but he didn’t have any other symptoms, no memory loss or anything. He remembered everything right up to and including his fall, everything that Mike had said.

As Tré guiltily shoveled chips into his mouth in a steady stream, he played back the events of the day, something that was sure to happen again in his nightmares. He doubted himself. Mike was right, even if what he’d said, or rather implied, was born out of anger. Tré flipped the loud bag over and examined the Nutrition Facts panel: 150 calories in 20 chips, 20 servings per bag. He held off on multiplying.

He wasn’t good enough for Billie Joe. He was insensitive and self-absorbed. He would have never put himself aside to fuss over somebody else like Billie Joe had over his head wound. Annabelle might, but he’d be too caught up in his own shit to really care.

Three thousand calories? It looked like he was putting his diet on hold until after the tour again.

He second-guessed his own motives for helping Billie Joe out in the beginning. Hadn’t it really been to get closer? Did he even care about anybody but himself? Tré didn’t notice that his grip had tightened until he reached inside the bag again to find a bunch of jagged splinters. He threw the bag down, an exercise in futility because it only bounced weightlessly off the carpet. If only his skull had done the same earlier, he thought, cursing the motherload. Why one dressing room was slighted with a bare floor while the other one fully furnished he would never understand.

Goddammit. Before he could say no, his arm was retrieving the chips. He glanced down in frustration. They wanted him to eat them. He had never witnessed such suicidal intent coming from a food item before.

“Hey, Tré.”

The addressee dropped the chips again. “Holy Christ, Jason,” he said, heart sent into a thumping frenzy, “you scared the shit out of me. I didn’t hear the door open.”

“I could be wrong, but maybe that’s because you were having a weird staring contest with your potato chips. You were totally zoned out. Hey, by the way, what flavor are those?” he asked shamelessly, gunning for a handout.

Tré picked up the bag for the last time and thrust it in Jason’s direction without getting up from his chair. “They’re sour cream and onion. Have the rest, I can’t eat any more; I already demolished most of them.”

Jason grinned and took them eagerly. He made a show of sticking his nose in them and inhaling. “Ahhh, I love these. Thanks, dude.” In mid-chew he opened his mouth to inquire whether Tré had seen Billie Joe around. The former shrugged. He ruffled his hair, forgetting it was still damp from the show, then extracted his hand in mild disgust. He really should go take a shower before they were kicked out of the venue and exiled to the bus again. He didn’t get up though.

“You know, Tré…” Jason crumpled up the bag and tossed it into the nearest trash can, clearing the rim neatly before continuing. “I think—I mean, this is really just a hunch, but—I think Billie might still be interested. I could, uh, try and help you out, let him know that you’d be willing to try again if you are. If not, I’ll drop it. But I think you guys really had something and that if it worked out you’d be great together.”

Tré’s voice rang out sharply. “Dude, nobody asked you, alright? I’m fine, thanks, I don’t need to go through that again. I already know how it ends. Besides, it was stupid enough the first time. I’m not even gay. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I could never give him what he needed…

Jason’s earlier optimism faded. He didn’t know why he’d assumed that both sides would feel the same way. This wasn’t a movie where everything would come together and all parties would leave happily. “Okay, forget I said anything. You’re right, it’s none of my business. I wasn’t lying though, he cares about you. It’s just a shame that you apparently don’t give a fuck about him.” Self-righteousness inflated Jason. He was so blindingly correct in this situation that he could no longer stand being around someone else so fucking wrong. He shook his head the few steps to the exit, but couldn’t resist one last jibe on his way out. “One piece of advice. Stop wallowing if you’re pretending not to care. It’s more believable that way.”

Tré sighed, now left alone. Leave it to Jason to not understand that wanting something wasn’t the only prerequisite for gaining it. It was more complicated than that. If all he had to do was want it, he could go right up to Billie Joe and take his mouth by surprise, and that would be the end of things. But that wouldn’t be the end, no. He’d realize he didn’t know what to do next, that he would never know what to do next and then everything would go to shit. Again. No, it was best to wait until all of this blew over, then they could all get on with faking that nothing had ever happened. No stupid wondering what he was feeling suddenly, no disappointment or jealousy, no stupid kiss, no article, no photo… Erase all of it. All of it. Of it. It. Silence.

Tré stood up and crossed the room to a coat rack. He fished around in the pocket of a black sweatshirt that he’d brought into the venue that morning, only to leave it hanging unused all day. But it had been a good place to keep the photo he’d ripped out once he’d resolved that leaving it in his jeans would simply ruin it. He brought out the photo in question and, cupping it in his hands, examined it again.

Somehow it already bore the telltale signs of a photo creased and worn by a pair of eyes too attached to the subject matter, and a pair of loving hands attached to the body that held them. Tré ran his thumb over their faces, as if he were trying to bend space and time to be able to touch that moment, to live and breathe and die that moment. He withdrew it like a child experiencing static shock for the first time, a flurry of emotions including fear clamoring up his throat where they floated, shivering spastically in their dance for rain. He let out a cry and collapsed to the floor.
***

Billie Joe was stunned. The one time he had explicitly asked for a favor was also the one time that something inexplicable had happened to fuck it all up. Such an easy task, resentment screamed at him, as if he didn’t already know. As if the body guard who couldn’t hear it didn’t know. The night rewound, placing the singer once more in front of the large man.

Billie Joe, sweat dripping off stuck together strands of hair and into his eyeballs, where it stung, stood patiently, tired and content in his after-show high, not yet caring about the problems that assaulted him offstage. “You still have what I asked you to protect, yeah? Thanks, by the way. Do you have any kids? Think they’d want an autograph for your trouble?”

The body guard replied that he was all family man beneath his colossal frame and smiled, reaching a hand into his suit jacket. His face displayed alarm as his fingers closed upon air. Empty. “Heh, wrong side,” he reassured himself as much as Billie Joe. He paled as the left side of the jacket failed him as well. He grit his teeth, preparing to be thoroughly reprimanded, though with the added bitchiness of a rock star. “Sir,” he started, shifting into the detached style of speech he’d learned during his stint in Afghanistan, “it appears that the picture is gone. I do not have it.”

Billie Joe closed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening. “Are you sure?” he checked, eyes now open.

The body guard flinched, despite the fact that Billie Joe’s tone was soft and forgiving. “Sir, I am very sorry. I don’t know where it could’ve—please don’t get me fired, sir. My income is the only one supporting my family.”

Billie Joe cut him off. “What’s your kid’s name?”

“Kevin,” the other man answered, confused.

“Go get me a notepad or something he’d want signed. I’m not blaming you for losing it. Shit happens.”

Shit happens. Billie Joe repeated his own words back to himself. But why this shit? He was being irrational again. It was a fucking magazine cutout, not the Mona Lisa. If anything it would be a copy of the Mona Lisa since there were about to be thousands of issues printed, a picture to be scanned and put on the web, cheapened by copy and paste. But then why did it feel like that had been the only copy? For whatever reason he treasured it, and now it was gone, off in the place where all lost things go to rot. Just like their love.

No, he wouldn’t let it go that way. He had to find it. Billie Joe snapped out of his dazed reverie and caught Mike stepping out from the shower room, rubbing a towel over his head. “Mike! Hey, listen, I’m sorry about everything and I promise to talk to you about it all from now on, so do you think you can help me out? You know that picture, the one of me and Tré…”

Mike listened intently; he was cherishing his friend’s honesty. He watched Billie Joe become more and more agitated as he explained the loss of the photo. If he was this devastated by the disappearance of a simple reminder that they had been, maybe it would be best if he ended up happy with Tré after all. Mike hugged his towel, reversing his selfish stance.