Green Day Saves the Day

When Robb awakened Wednesday morning, he immediately felt his stomach twist into knots. In just a few hour’s time his face, as well as the faces of his bandmates, would be plastered on everyone’s TV, something they’d all become somewhat accustomed to. However, this time they would not be smiling and laughing and talking about their success—they would be trying to clear their names of the filth that the tabloids had caused.

He inhaled deeply, and then exhaled slowly. “Today is going to be a long day,” he said to the empty air before tossing his thick comforter aside, swinging his legs out of bed, and walking slowly over to Minty’s room next door.

After the groggy-eyed bassist was literally dragged out of bed, the two of them sat down at the kitchen table, but neither of them seemed interested in eating. Robb stared at the patterns on the wooden table, lost deep in thought, while Minty dozed lightly with his head propped on his hand.

“You think we should call up Albert?” Robb asked suddenly, referring to the band’s hired chef who lived in their guest house just a few yards away from the condo.

Minty awoke suddenly and his eyes opened wide. Wiping off a stream of saliva from the corner of his mouth, he stammered, “Mm, wh-what?”

“Albert. Food. Yes or no?”

“Oh, nah, I’m not hungry,” Minty grumbled.

“So you’re nervous about the news conference too?” Robb asked, somewhat relieved that he wasn’t the only one.

“News conference?” Minty scoffed. “I was talking about my date.”

“Right, of course,” Robb said quickly. “Wait, since when do you have a date?”

Smiling ever so slightly, Minty replied, “Since last week; and that’s all you need to know.”

“Oh come on, tell me something,” his friend said with a hint of desperation in his voice. “Who is she? Have I met her?”

“You mean him,” Minty corrected calmly.

Robb’s heart nearly stopped and his eyes grew to three times their size. “What? You mean you’re…”

Minty laughed hysterically. “No, but you should have seen your face.”

Frowning, Robb smacked his friend on the back of his head. “Don’t scare me like that again, asshole,” he said sternly, trying to hide a smile.

A few hours later, just two hours short of their news conference, Robb and Minty stood in front of Dré’s hospital room door with a robotic nurse between them.

“We just need him for an hour or two. I don’t see what the big deal is,” Robb argued.

“I’m sorry sir, but Mr. Greene needs his rest,” the robot beeped.

“It’s not like we’re gonna let him get hit by another car. We just need to borrow him,” Minty fired back.

“Mr. Greene needs his rest.”

“We’ll be really careful with him…”

“Mr. Greene needs his rest.”

“This…is pointless,” Robb concluded after five minutes of monotonous argument on the robot’s part. “We need to speak with a real nurse.”

“Just a moment, sir,” the robot chimed. It wheeled away, returned a few seconds later with a human nurse, and wheeled off once more.

“Can I help you two?” the blond nurse—Nurse Galton, according to her nametag—asked sweetly.

“I hope you can,” Minty began. He quickly explained their situation while Robb stood by his side, unusually meek and quiet.

“So, do you think we could borrow him, just for a few hours?” Minty pleaded.

The nurse’s eyes darted from the empty receptionist’s desk on her right to the vacant hallway to her left. “All right, you can take him,” she whispered, her restless eyes settling first on Minty then on the clipboard held in her manicured hand. “But we’ve got to move fast. The nurse he’s assigned to—Burton—just checked on him about 15 minutes ago and she’ll be checking on him again in another hour and 45 minutes, so he has to be in his bed by then. Got it? Good,” she said without waiting for an answer. “Stay here for a second,” she said. She nudged past him and Robb and went into Dré’s room. She emerged a minute later with a wheelchair-bound Dré. The drummer wore jeans beneath his hospital gown, which, while still blue paper-thin like the ones used decades ago, was completely closed in the back.
“Hey Minty,” Dré greeted his friend who nodded back in response. “Hey Robb,” he said, but he received no response from the absentminded musician.

“I would’ve put a shirt on him, but you know, with the cast and everything…” Nurse Galton started in an almost apologetic tone.

“It’s all right,” Minty smiled.

“And I would have gotten you a newer wheelchair but the technologically advanced ones have to be checked out and everything and I didn’t want to get caught—” she rambled on nervously before Minty interrupted her gently.

“Hey, it’s all right. I don’t mind pushing him around. How do we get out of here?” he asked.

“Right this way,” the nurse said, her voice still in a whisper though the group’s general area seemed deserted and the chance of being heard was slim to none. She started down the hallway to her left, her shoes hardly making a sound. Minty followed, pushing Dré along with ease, and Robb trailed behind, still lost in his meditative state.

As they moved closer to the emergency exit Nurse Galton began to quicken her pace, as if propelled forward by a guilty conscience. Fully aware of the fact that she could be suspended—or worse yet, fired—she continued to lead the band down the white-walled hallway. Inches from the door, she heard the sound she had been dreading: the soft whirring of a robot on wheels approaching them slowly. "Oh shit!" she screamed in her head. Hearing the sound, Minty and Robb, who had finally snapped out of whatever thoughts he'd been so engrossed in, froze. The panic-ridden nurse turned around slowly to her doom—or so she thought. Staring past Minty and Robb’s shoulders, she caught a glimpse of a robot nurse wheeling toward the nurses’ station. Letting out a muted sigh of relief, she quickly ushered the men out onto the fire escape. “Just press that button and the platform’ll take you down to the ground. ‘Bye, g’ luck, bring him back in one piece,” she said in a single breath. She shut the door before anyone could so much as thank her.

“That was…” Minty said.

“…interesting,” Dré finished.

“Yeah, interesting.”

“All right, are we just going to stand here all day or get to our news conference?”

Minty and Dré looked at Robb with looks of wonder and shock, respectively.

“Hey spaz, where have you been all morning?” asked Minty.

Ignoring his comment, Robb pushed a large red button behind him to the right of the door and the platform on which they stood immediately began to descend.

“Today is going to be a long day,” he said aloud to no one in particular.

After successfully hitching a ride with a young couple (who happened to be “huge fans”), the band found themselves across town in front of the news station.

Dré craned his neck upwards to absorb the sight of the building which towered over his head in its entirety. “So, are you guys ready to do this?” he said, his eyes fixated on the large yellow letters that read “CLN STATION” at the top of the building.

“Ready when you are,” Robb said.

Minty began to push Dré along toward the entrance, and Robb followed. They stepped into the station; the doors swung shut behind them with a whoosh of air and a barely audible click. They were pointed toward another door leading outside by a bored secretary who didn't care enough to tear her eyes away from the task of filing her pink nails.

Robb, Minty, and Dré suppressed a sudden bout of nerves and walked out into a parking lot where dozens of patient paparazzi, reporters, and cameramen awaited them. The instance the doors opened, cameras began to flash hysterically. Shielding their eyes, The New advanced toward a podium that was adorned with a half dozen microphones.

“It’s nice to see they went all-out for us,” Minty thought sarcastically in regard to the cheap set up the station manager had apparently thrown together in all of five minutes.

Robb tapped one of the microphones with his fingers and cringed when it squealed back in reply. It suddenly became quiet. The reporters stopped their murmuring and all that could be heard was the steady snapping of cameras and Robb clearing his throat.

“Um…” his shaky voice echoed in stereos unseen. “We’re a band. We’re called…um…The New. We…” he stopped abruptly and turned around to Minty and Dré. “Guys, I can’t do this,” he whispered. His words were picked up by the sensitive microphones and sent out to the cameras and reporters and paparazzi for the world to hear. He gritted his teeth.

“Yes you can!” a male reporter in the front shouted.

Robb looked up to the sky in disbelief. “You have GOT to be kidding me.” He turned around and saw Billie beaming up at him. He forced a smile and continued on.

“We’re The New and we’re here to dispel some rumors that have been floating around.” He paused to take a deep breath and then went on. “We live in a time where rumors aren’t just rumors anymore; where tabloids are taken more seriously by the public; where the fanatical stories of tabloid reporters can destroy a career. A few weeks ago my friend and the drummer of our band, Dr—Micky Greene, was hit by a car in Hollywood.”

Just as a reporter was about to question Robb, Billie hushed him sharply. While the other reporters looked at him in confusion and disapproval, Robb continued speaking.

“His unfortunate accident had nothing to do with a love triangle of any kind. He was only trying to warn my friend Minty and his…lady friend that they were about to be ambushed—by you,” he said, glaring at the eager paparazzi with a sudden edge in his tone and spark of hatred in his eyes. “If it weren’t for the paparazzi, Mick’s arm wouldn’t be broken and our careers wouldn’t be in peril.” Minty could sense Robb’s temper beginning to take a hold of his speech. He reached out and squeezed his friend’s shoulder, then pulled him away from the podium gently. Robb didn’t resist. Minty stepped up to the microphones. “Look, we’re not here to point the finger of blame at anyone. We just want everyone to know that these rumors that’ve been goin’ around are just rumors; rumors that contain absolutely no truth. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to get our friend back to the hospital,” he said, staring at the paparazzi. “And I’ve got a date to get ready for.” Looking into a camera to his left he said, “Love ya Joan!” then turned around and left, pushing Dré along. Robb followed and left the unsatisfied reporters behind.

“That was so cool!” Dré said giddily as they exited the station’s front door.

Minty smiled. “Looks like someone left the hospital bed too soon.”

Robb stopped dead in his tracks. “Minty?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t they have TVs at the hospital?”

“Yeah…”

“And wasn’t Dré caught on film?”

“Yeah…Oh, that’s not good.”