The Man Who Would Not Be King

Tré awoke with his face mashed into his pillow, blankets twisted around his ankles, instantly on edge. It was light. Why was it light? He just wanted to screw up his eyes tightly and not have to face the day. Battery acid was leaking from his stomach upwards into his chest, ignoring nature’s flow. His heart wasn’t there, though he felt for its pounding.

He lay perfectly still. No one would notice, disturb him. He sensed, challenging this assertion, that the bus was in motion. It meant he was trapped. He tried to breathe even, sleep-like breaths.

As he focused on breathing, Tré’s tired inner dialogue resurfaced. The looming question had grown in size. Each time he performed a mental check on his actions, he found incriminating evidence to suggest that something was very wrong. He was avoiding an easy day lounging around the tour bus with his two best friends. Something he’d spent a lot of time avoiding recently. For what felt like the thousandth time since last night at least, he asked himself, what’s wrong with me?

His brain refused him a cognitive answer, leaving him to deal with the bodily symptoms associated with whichever terrible emotion it was that he was experiencing. The particular characteristics of what he felt remained elusive, shrouded behind mists of ambiguity, without a name. He was bound by his body. Whatever this was, it was oppressive.

Tré itched to turn on his side so that he could take in air better, weary of the battle the pillowcase was waging against his blocked nostrils. How anyone—never mind how he had—could sleep in a state so close to suffocation he didn’t know. But moving meant chancing discovery. He stayed still.

Gradually, even in this uncomfortable position, Tré’s muscles relaxed and he soon drifted back into sleep, retreating from wakefulness.

Muffled voices found him there a while later, and he opened his eyes. A spike in volume startled him further into consciousness.

“He’s alive!” yelped Billie Joe from a few feet away, sitting on his bunk with Mike. Both of them had evidently been monitoring him for some time. Mike was smirking.

He groaned in response. He thought for a moment. “What are you dipshits up to?” he rasped, voice unaccustomed to speech.

“Just marveling at the fact that it’s slightly past noon and you’re still in bed, you know, nothing too exciting,” Billie Joe replied, curving lips betraying his nonchalant answer.

“Why is it that I’m not entirely sure I believe you?” Tré looked back and forth from Billie Joe to Mike.

Mike began to whistle. A spark of annoyance flared up inside Tré as he watched the two of them sitting there, avoiding his eyes. “Evasive motherfuckers…do I get an explanation or are you guys just gonna ignore me?”

Exasperation. It was fanned by the easygoing smile tugging at Billie Joe’s mouth, no longer hindered by his pretend disengagement. The longer the silence, the more time the blaze inside Tré had to grow. Why was he smiling? Shouldn’t he be feeling regret about his one night stand like Tré, or had he really enjoyed himself that much? Had he…had he really?

But what was Tré doing wishing for Billie Joe’s mood to turn sour? Shouldn’t that be at the bottom of his priority list? His confusion only fed into his anger.

“Seriously?” he snapped. “What the fuck, just tell me already!”

Billie Joe bit his lip, having lost his smile, eyes directed downward. A few seconds’ pause later he stood up, gulped awkwardly, and threw out a weak “sorry” before leaving the scene.

Mike’s eyebrows were knit. “What’d you have to do that for?” he asked accusingly, and then hurried after Billie Joe.

Tré, who had been propped up on an elbow, let himself fall, stunned. He wanted to take refuge in his blankets again rather than face the band mates he had just managed to alienate. The possibility of this kind of thing happening was exactly what drove him to remain in bed to begin with. Sometimes Tré believed in a malicious fate.

As painful as it was, he figured he had better fix the damage he’d done sooner rather than later. Tré threw his legs over the side of his bunk, preparing to leave it for the first time in twelve hours. Finally on his feet, he stumbled slightly in the direction in which his friends had headed previously.

They were on the couch. Billie Joe looked pale.

Tré hesitated. He registered that it was a good thing the bus was on the road, because otherwise he might have listened to his instincts and run clean out the door without looking behind him. Opening his mouth, he felt fatigued. He coughed rather than spoke.

Mike raised his eyes to meet Tré’s, arm protectively draped over and around Billie Joe’s shoulders. The latter’s head remained drooping, lifeless.

Tré felt as though he had walked into a glass wall but couldn’t comprehend that it was actually there. He cleared his throat again. “Um…so, yeah, I’m sorry about that back there…maybe I slept too much?” He couldn’t resist making light of the situation while he waited for their reactions.

For once Mike looked at a loss, clearly over Tré’s momentary display of temper, but unwilling to let it go because Billie Joe had been hurt while he was already so vulnerable. There was also the small problem of Billie Joe’s lack of a response.

Tré, not at all reassured by the silence with which his words were met, conjured up some more words. “I didn’t mean to snap, really…” Much more of this and… Something started to prickle behind Tré’s eyes. Frustration.

“Hey, Bill, what do ya say we forgive him? Look at the poor sap, standing there looking all sad,” Mike prodded cautiously, close to his ear.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, no worries Tré, happens to us all sometimes,” Billie Joe said in an overly confident voice, looking up finally. His smile sent chills down Tré’s spine; it was unearthly. “I hope we stop soon, I could go for some lunch.” The subject change gave off a strained impression in combination with the false cheerfulness.

Just then, in a godsend to all three of them, the bus decelerated to turn, signaling a break from the highway. In minutes they would be somewhere they could all defuse naturally, rather than by forcing it in cramped quarters.

“I’m gonna go change,” Tré announced.

“Right,” Mike acknowledged.
***

“Oh, Pete, man, thank God,” Tré breathed.

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s up? You look pretty beat…I thought you’d be well-rested considering you didn’t come out with us last night. You sick?”

“You could say that…or something like that, anyway,” he replied cryptically.

Pete narrowed his eyes. “Is something going on in the Green Day camp again? I feel uncomfortable getting so close to this shit because if you guys ever split I don’t want it anywhere near to being on me.” He held up his hands to rid himself of responsibility.

“No, no, I mean, yeah, but no…not really. I think it’s mostly me. I know people don’t usually say this about themselves, but I’ve been weird lately and I don’t know what it is but I’d like it to stop,” Tré rambled.

Pete shoved his hands in his pockets and scuffed at a chunk of concrete loose from the pavement, face contorted in thought. “I don’t know what to do except offer you more pot, man.”

Tré chuckled. “Alas,” he began dramatically, “I don’t think that would help much.” His eyes made a sweep of the sky. Clouds were sparse; the flat landscape made it so that they could almost see where the sky curved around the earth. “You mind if I crash your bus again?”

“Guess not. I thought I overheard Annabelle say she was heading over to yours anyway so there’ll be plenty of space for you!”
***

A light, breezy sound escaped a gaping mouth. Bunched together at the end of one couch sat Bill, embarrassingly asleep although a block of glaring sunlight creeping in through the blinds to glint off of his bald head betrayed the correct time of day.

“You’d be surprised how often that happens.” Pete gestured to the ear buds visibly planted in Bill’s ears. “He just sits down with his iPod and—can’t be more than three or four songs in—passes out. Don’t know why he even has the thing, clearly doesn’t need the space if he only gets through an album a week.”

Tré shrugged.

Taking his indifference as a clue, Pete brought the conversation to other territory. “Okay, right, right, let the therapy sesh begin!”

Tré winced. “‘Sesh?’ And hey, who said this was therapy? You sure as hell ain’t my therapist.”

“That’s right; I guess you’d have to pay me for that, wouldn’t you? Come on, cough up some of that rock star moolah.” Pete beckoned with his fingers, winking. “Okay,” he said, suddenly turning serious, “so what’s up?”

Groaning, Tré reproached him, “Is that the best you can do? You definitely aren’t earning anything for that question. You know all the best therapists should have decent stock questions.”

Sarcasm slipped in with Pete’s apology. “I’m sorry I don’t live up to your standards. Really.” He picked some fuzz off of his jeans. His eyes wandered up to the bus ceiling, a better place to think. “Okay…first off, what’s the problem? You said you were weird…that’s not much to go on, really.”

Nodding, Tré silently agreed. Exactly how explicit he wanted to be he still wasn’t sure. The degree to which he could even be explicit remained unclear. Did he really know what was going on in his own head? Where should he start?

He swallowed to wet his throat, which had momentarily gone dry during his inner debate. He launched into it. “You ever find yourself wondering about what it would be like to be with someone that you know you shouldn’t want?”

Pete arched an eyebrow. “What, like my sister?”

Nerves exaggerated Tré’s laugh. “No, no, not quite like that. I guess, I mean, maybe more like someone who wouldn’t be good for you.” Is that what he was thinking? No, it was the other way around, wasn’t it? Tré wasn’t good enough…

“Ohhh, I see.” Pete stroked his beard. “Yeah, I’ve had that happen.”

Tré leaned in closer. “What happened? Did you go for it or just let it die?” He found himself holding his breath.

“I let it die,” he said, his voice flat. “She was my professor, so it was a no go from the start.”

Tré sighed. That had not been quite the answer he was looking for.

“But anyway, so you like this chick…”

“Yeah,” Tré said without missing a beat.

“So what’s the problem exactly? Is she not into you?”

Tré sighed again. “That’s where it gets complicated. We’ve known each other for a long time, so I don’t know how she feels, or if it would be totally inappropriate for me to suddenly make a move…or even if I really want to make a move. I’m just confused, Pete.”

“Ah, it’s one of those. In that case, why don’t you try to sort of feel her out? See what she’s thinking?”

“I wouldn’t know how…or if I was interpreting things correctly,” Tré countered.

“Yeah, actually, I’m not sure that’s ever worked for me. You said it’s someone you’ve known for a while, so I get that you don’t want to mess up your friendship. I dunno, man, I think you should just go for it. And on a side note, I’m surprised this means it’s not Annabelle. Seems like everyone’s got a thing for her.” He chuckled a little to himself.

Tré smirked. “Like who? You?”

“Me, Bill, some other crew guys you don’t really know I don’t think, and I might be reading too much into this, but possibly your very own Billie Joe,” answered Pete, oblivious.

Trying to keep a straight face through the bile threatening to burn all the way up his throat, Tré forced a laugh. “Ah, wow.” He smoothed his right eyebrow. “So there’s more that complicates this,” he said, bringing the conversation back to less volatile territory. “I slept with someone recently.”

“Oh yeah? Does she know?”

“That’s the problem. She does, but she didn’t really react. I don’t think it bothered her.”

“Ah. And you want it to bother her?”

Tré shrugged. “Well some jealousy would be nice, to be honest.”

“Yeah.”

“And then…then she slept with someone.”

“Oh no,” Pete gasped.

“Hey hey, this is serious.”

“So I’m guessing that you’re jealous.”

“Yeah. And I felt bad, you know, after my little adventure, but I don’t think she feels bad.”

“And your awkward love crush thing is interfering with Mike and Billie Joe somehow? I’m guessing they know her too, right? Are you guys all friends?”

Tré choked a smile before it spread completely. “Yeah, but they don’t know I have a thing for her. Please don’t tell them anything about this, by the way. I don’t want to make it more awkward than things already are. I snapped at them accidentally today because I was stressed out, and now I think Billie Joe is still kinda mad at me.”

Pete patted Tré on the leg from across the couch. “He’ll get over it. You guys have been friends for this long, right?”

“Yeah…Thanks, Pete.” Tré propped himself up from the cushion to be better able to fish around in his pocket. Extracting his wallet, he added, “Here’s a little something for your hard work.”

Pete’s eyes lit up. “Moolah!” he yelled, and across the aisle Bill snorted himself awake. He tugged on the cord attaching the ear buds to his iPod, and they fell from his ears.

“What’d I miss?” he yawned groggily.
***

The words had finally been let loose into the air. He had said it. Admittedly with a different pronoun, but Tré wasn’t going to hold that against himself.

He stepped into the revolving hotel door, glancing behind him to make sure that his backpack made it in as well. On the other side, he walked up to the counter and checked in. Clutching the key card, he made his way to the elevator, and then to the fourth floor.

He started to whistle, spirits lifting. The prospect of a legitimate bed for the night only made things better. They were spending three nights in Texas, all in different cities, and the relatively short drives between allowed them to crash in hotels. He loved when tour booking actually made sense, which it didn’t often because of venues’ prior commitments.

Tré turned a corner, following the arrow underneath the group of room numbers that included his. He had gotten a text from Mike about an hour beforehand, saying that their bus had arrived at the hotel; the two buses had gotten separated by an accident and the ensuing traffic. Tré assumed that his band mates were already settled in, and once he’d put his stuff down in his room he planned on suggesting a group movie or something similarly low key.

He came to another fork in the hallway and had to double check his room key to remind himself of the room number. Left.

He stopped.

Billie Joe stood a couple doors down, unlocking his own, but he was too preoccupied to notice Tré. A young guy with black hair, chiseled jaw, thin, stood next to him, fingering his belt loops, leaning in close, whispering in his ear. And Billie Joe was grinning, clearly struggling to get the card in the slot in his haste.

“Ah, fuck,” Tré heard.

“Here, let me get that,” the unknown man offered, giggling. That laugh destroyed Tré.

He took the key card from Billie Joe and wiggled in front of him, twisting back to tease him with a light kiss barely grazing him on the lips.

Tré knew from Billie Joe’s expression that he wanted more, and it pained him.

The green light on the door blinked on, and Billie Joe rushed in front of his guest, pulling him by the arm in after him.

Tré walked away in the opposite direction a few steps, eyes burning, and then went back. He pulled out the piece of paper with his band mates’ room numbers listed on it and stopped in front of a door that matched one of them. He knocked.

A few seconds later he was greeted with Mike’s curious face, which soon turned worried. “Tré?” he asked, pulling him inside the room. The movement only served to echo Billie Joe’s of a minute before, and Tré’s levee broke, sending hot, salty tears flowing down his cheeks.