The Correlation Between Peppermint and Eyeliner

When I Come Around

Part 1: When I Come Around

“Tre, what the hell!”
Billie Joe yelled from the bathroom in the hotel room. “You melted my eyeliner!”
Billie ran out of the door and into the room, looking for Tre, passing Mike on the bed with his guitar. Billie stopped and looked around. Where is he? Billie thought. Mike laughed and pointed to the second of the 2 beds. “Under the bed?” Billie mouthed to Mike. He nodded. Billie backed up, took a deep breath, ran and jumped hard on top of the springy bed. He heard a loud shriek, and Mike burst into laughter. “Billie! What hell?!” Tre yelled from the under the bed, a little hard to understand.
“You melted my eyeliner!” Billie yelled again and hung upside down from the top of the bed, glaring under at the culprit.
“Dude, now he’s gonna have to go without it!” Mike said to Tre, still laughing at this scene.
“No, the concert starts in a few hours!” Billie laughed and got up. “I need it!”
“God, it’s not like it’s pot, it’s eyeliner!” Tre scooted out from the under the queen sized bed. Billie always had to have his eyeliner for the show, but now an idiot had to go and melt it. He walked over to the table on his way to the door and grabbed his huge sunglasses and room key.
“Where are you going?” Mike asked him, just starting to settle his laughter.
“I’m going to go find a damn Wal-Mart.” Billie said.
“Wal-Mart?” Mike smiled sarcastically.
“Yeah, they have make up there, don’t they?”
Mike started laughing again. Billie rolled his eyes and went out the door of the hotel room.

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Billie walked through the doors of the local Wal-Mart superstore, surrounded by white and blue walls and huge yellow happy faces. He had on his huge sunglasses that practically took over half of his face. Even though it was particularly cloudy outside in the humid Huston air, he had them on so he wouldn’t have to pry teenagers off of himself. Well, actually, he just liked to wear the huge black sunglasses. Billie managed to make his way to the make-up isle, blending in looking like a freakishly tall teenager in black.
When he got to the eyeliner, he stood, looking at the different types. He stared, not in a hurry to make a decision. He finally came to a decision of Rimmel “Thick Color” in “Dark Black”. As he took it off the rack, a woman who looked about 27 or so with a Green Day shirt on, black long pants and hot pink converse walked into the isle. She had dark red, almost brown hair that was put into different ponytails with chopsticks. Her eyeliner was deep, revealing her bright green eyes. She reached over and took a bottle of black nail polish off of the shelf. She turned and smiled at him. He felt something inside of him, like a flash bursting into a dark night. The lady’s cell phone beeped twice, and she reached to find it. Before she grabbed it, the ring tone changed into the song American Idiot. Billie smiled and mentally laughed to himself. The lady picked it up, pressed a button and brought it up to her ear. “Hey!… Seriously?… Yeah! I mean, front row!… Tonight!… Seriously! I’m not shitting you, Jen! For real!” The woman got excited and jumped up and down. “Okay… Call me later!” After all, this was Texas; she had a little accent, but not so strong. She pulled the cell phone away from her head and dropped it back in her purse. Billie, who was fascinated with the whole ordeal, looked at her with a little curiosity. She looked back at him, still smiling excitedly, “I got front row tickets to the Green Day concert tonight.” She said a little calmer to him, fighting the excitement. Billie looked at her, and decided he’d play a little game with himself. “Me, too.” Billie laughed at himself.
“Green Day is like the most coolest band ever.” She expressed.
“I know. Seriously.” It was strange for Billie to answer a question about basically himself, without it being centered to him.
“I know, totally, right?”
“What’s your favorite song?” He decided to ask just for the hell of it.
“Uhmm…. When I Come Around.” She replied, and looked down at her watch. “Shit!” she said, not meaning to say it out loud. “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to pick up my tickets at 7.”
She went to leave, almost expecting him to follow her. She turned around and gave him one last look. “See ya’ll…”
Billie smiled. She took a few slow steps. Billie watched her sway while she walked, seeing her hot pink converse go back and forth. He didn’t know what had come over him, but he had to know. He walked fast up to her, lightly touched her arm and she looked at him. She tried to look behind the big sunglasses. “What’s your name?” he asked anxiously.
“Alex. Alex Chambers.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” He said awkwardly. She giggled quietly and continued on her way to the check out. When she got close to the first checkout, he ran to get in front of her, seeing her smile on her face. “Are you stalking me?” she asked flirtatiously, not being serious. He tossed the eyeliner he had in his hand onto the express lane checkout. The cashier grabbed it and scanned it. Alex walked foreword, he walked backwards facing her.
“Do you want my number or something?” she raised her eyebrows. He didn’t answer and gave the cashier a crumbled 5-dollar bill out of his pocket. He grabbed the purchased liner and looked up at Alex. “I’ll be the one wearing the guitar and red tie.” He whispered in her ear, leaving her with suspense. He turned around and walked to the door. She blinked blankly at his back, looking dumbfounded. The impatient cashier cleared her throat. Alex handed the lady her nail polish and money. When Alex looked up to see him again, he was gone, possibly lost forever.

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The first thing Billie did when he got into his blue 1967 Ford Fairlane he searched his car for something special. When he found it he yelled “Yes!” popped the case to Dookie open. When he put the CD into the player, he flipped to track 10 and cranked the volume. He had to restrain himself from singing along, which failed miserably. “No time to search the world around, ‘cause you know where I’ll be found. When I come around…” Lord, he hadn’t listened to his own music for a long time, besides the concerts.
On the way through the highways and roads, all he could think was her smile. It was basically burnt into his mind and permanently imbedded there. Her green eyes, her red hair, her pink converse; it was all there. He pulled into the parking lot of the hotel with the smile still plastered to his face. He made his way up to the room, and scanned the key through the scanner on the door.
He walked in, Mike still on the bed with his bass, Tre was banging around on upside down Tupperware from the tour bus. “Whoa, dude, are you stoned?” Mike laughed, seeing Billie’s smile on his face.
“Umm, no, Mike. They don’t have drugs at Wal-Mart.” Billie had to stop and think about that for a second.
“Oh, well, when you left you were like, pissed and now you’re like… not.”
“Yeah… well… I got new eyeliner.”
Tre looked up and raised a drumstick. “Yeah, sorry about that man,”
“It’s fine… whatever.” Billie shrugged. He walked into the bathroom.
Mike and Tre looked at each other when they were sure Billie was just about out of earshot. “Wonder what’s up with him,” Mike said, starring at the bathroom door. Tre was pondering a though other then Billie.
“There’s drugs at Wal-Mart?” Tre dumbly asked. Mike threw a pillow off of the bed at him.