Communion

There was a room with a blue chesterfield a snack table and a seventeen inch television set sitting on a tacky microwave cart in the back of MTV Canada's Vancouver studios. Billie had found a place to lay on the couch and Mike, a wall to lean against. They had to be going out of their minds. They were to be on in five and their drummer was nowhere to be found.

The two best of friends had spent a time talking quietly amongst themselves when Tre finally decided to grace them with his presence. They couldn't note anything but the fact that he was readied in his maroon suit and had now inexplicably sported a bold green hairdo.

Billie Joe choose to ignore it. He had been feeling uptight about having to go out and do live TV after having been out of the spotlight for over half a decade. Ignoring Tre's egotistical cry to have all eyes on him was simply too annoying right now and he wasn't about to play into it.

Mike on the other hand felt about the same but for much different reasons. The maroon-vested bassist had a suave sense of sophistication about him nowadays. The notion of dying your hair green at forty-plus seemed ridiculous to him. But a big part of his harsh feelings he knew was a direct result of their personal dilemmas of the past and present.

Tre felt overly confident in himself. He not only sported gray-disguising green hair, but as well a smile that could make any young woman's heart melt. He felt no concern for himself and whom he represented himself as, but his band mate's seemed so unenthusiastic and he worried only that things might have been starting off on the wrong foot. Before he had much more time to dwell on that thought, the entire band was summoned to a sound stage .

The mood very suddenly shifted and Billie Joe ran out like a leader into a lighted studio where everyone knew his name. His band was not long to follow behind him like his whimsical disciples. The studio audience gave an uproar of cheers and applause to their presence.

"Hi guys, welcome to MTV Canada's Select, right here in beautiful downtown Vancouver! Always a pleasure to have you on the show," the hip thirty-something VJ, Brian Adler shouted into his mike.

"Thanks!" the band shouted in unison with one another. Mike came and stood center. He was second from the VJ, one behind Billie Joe, one before Tre. "We'll be here all night," the bassist said cocking his head arrogantly.

"I sure hope so!" the VJ replied. "We can't have Green Day leaving town without playing a kick ass show tonight!"

"Definitely not," 42-year-old Billie laughed with a world class smile that traveled to his dove-shaped green eyes and made them look decoratively happy. He crossed a single arm across his chest whilst levering a microphone under his mouth.

"So guys I realize it's been awhile since you've toured and awhile since you've come out with any new recordings and right now...if you just want to sort of introduce your new album...the airwaves are yours'," Brian said in a very happy relative way.

Billie choked before he found the courage to talk. "Well...our new album is called Germanic Roses," he started, "it came out in February. And as you said Brian, it is our first album in about six years. We had released a second greatest hits composition named Nameless in 2008 and that had a few previously unreleased tracks on it." Billie shuffled his feet and shifted his weight back and forth between his legs.

"We had a tour to back that one up too," Tre added.

"That's awesome guys. I've actually done a bit of homework on that particular tour - it was cut short. Do you guys want to talk a little bit about that?" Brian said, shining a new negative light on the interview.

"Oh, well..." Billie began, suddenly realizing this was the first brick wall of facing the music. It was very hard. "You know...fuck it. We were all just going through a rough patch, musically, socially...in our relationships and marriages. I just...well initially before..."

"I'm actually just going to stop you right there because we have to cut to a short commercial break. More with Green Day on Select, stay with us," the VJ said and the studio audience cheered as they were supposed to.

Billie nodded his head and the cameras stopped rolling for a few minutes, he took in the ages of everyone in the audience and the kind of people they were. A new generation had been born, not the Nimrods of the nineties or the Idiots of the zeroes, but the Roses of the tens. The three middle age men greeted their fans and signed autographs before a studio person called out the ten seconds until air. The band got back into their interview stance positions to the left of the hosting VJ.

"And we are back with the one and only Green Day! So Billie Joe, before the break you were talking a bit about the Nameless tour in zero-eight and why it just so happened to get cut short," Mr. Adler said leading the way back into the conversation.

"Yeah well there was an incident that took place in Germany that year," Billie explained and swallowed a hard lump in his throat, "and a lot of people were really upset about it afterward...including us."

"Yeah, they had some sort of riot over there, is that correct?"

"Yeah," Mike answered. "It was pretty crazy. We were all sort of thrown in the middle of it; our security team were almost virtually powerless. My then girlfriend got lost, Tre was trampled by fans and I got tear-gassed."

"Oh wow, really?" the VJ said with sincere amazement in his voice.

"I narely escaped and my wife..." Billie choked, "let me just say she was very brave that night."

"Wow!" Brian exclaimed and he turned to look at Tre. "So Tre, you were trampled, did you sustain any injuries?"

"No actually, but that's because my body is used to being abused," Tre replied with wiggling raised brows. They fell once he suddenly succumbed to what he was joking about. He had held Rose in his arms on their bus, she was bloody and had told him then that she was pregnant. Michelle was born some months later when he was in prison. Tre hoped no one knew he was in prison, or if they did they wouldn't talk about it. He decided he best be appropriate about the topic, "My wife took that pretty hard too actually, when we were getting out of the crowds, people were trying to beat us up and rip our clothes off - it scared the living crap out of me!" Tre exclaimed in pent up excitement.

"You guys are notorious for stirring up trouble wherever you go," Brian chattered, "it sounds like you definitely needed the long break."

"Did we ever," Mike laughed in a stress relieving manner.

"Okay so moving back to Germanic Roses, I noticed you've placed the words 'A Tribute' in front of the title. What is the reason behind this?" the MTV VJ asked looking quite quizzical about it all.

"From the get go this album has always been for the twelve teenagers that died in Berlin during the riot six years ago. Hence 'A Tribute,'" Billie explained and he let his eyelids droop over his green eyes as he did whenever he was trying to be sincere about anything.

"Okay that makes sense and I won't talk about it too much more because I can imagine it must be an upsetting thing."

"Yeah," Billie sighed in some sort of mild relief and gazed up at his 42-year-old self on a television screen.

"Okay, I know this is going to be a question a lot of people will be asking, so let me be the first to do so," Brian pleaded like a reporter trying to get their story for the big bucks.

"Alright," the three men of Green Day replied together in one harmonious breath.

"What exactly does the album cover mean? Because here, we see a woman who is obviously distraught, crying her eyes out, and below her...flowers, or roses rather. It's such a contrast, what does it mean?"



"If you actually examine the whole booklet through there's actually twelve roses in total. Each one is meant to represent a life lost," Billie Joe spoke up, telling the new story of the ballads to the lives of millions of youth. "The woman crying was actually taken from a painting done in Berlin back in the nineteenth century."

"Wow," Brian gasped, "that is deep."

"Yeah," Mike nodded with a smile, "we think these things through."

"So you guys have all written or performed pieces for the album - this is just a great album, I think. I got my copy last week and I've been listening to it non-stop. I think one of the coolest things on her is a cappella you do on Blue Day, Billie," Brian laughed out loud. "I haven't heard a note carried that long in quite a long time. You execute it very well."

"Thanks!" Billie laughed and purposely turned his persona and tone homosexual, "I had to stop drinking cream in my coffee for a month to get my vocals in line for that!"

The audience laughed.

"I'm sure, you're a true virtuoso my friend," the thirty-something TV personality commented and Green Day's frontman blushed. "Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed on Germanic Roses was Tre's Johnny Cash cover...tell us a little bit about that Tre before I ask you about the green hair!"

Tre's face beamed and he nodded his head slowly with his fists clenched tight for no apparent reason. He ruffled his hair in a mess and said blatantly, "Johnny Cash rocks."

"His music and the man himself when he was still with us," the music expert replied. "So I guessed after I heard this song and did a bit of homework that this was a song you did for your wife, am I correct?"

"Yeah, the CD is a little dedication to her as well," Tre said.

"Oh really?" Brian said, the interviewer feeling the opportunity to vere the conversation into a discussion about the band's family life. "How does the dedication go about?"

"Well Billie used to write a lot of songs about girls back in the day, I was only trying to bring that back to the scene...make it cool again," Tre said quickly and adjusted his striped green tie. "I like to sing songs for the ladies and songs about having no ladies." Every female member of the audience just about died at the mention of that and it made his complexion turn flushed. Mr. Cool shrugged his shoulders with a smile and pushed the sunglasses resting atop his do over his eyes, "I'm that good."

"By rights you are. You're a ladies man," Brian laughed.

"Of course," Tre said and he stared into the camera before his face in a very nonsensical way as he had become accustom to doing.

"That was sort of a last minute decision to be on the album. Tre just came to us and how it went down was he said, 'this is going on the album,' you know? We just sort of had to accept it," Billie giggled and hit Tre gently in the arm and the studio audience started up once again.

"Listen to your fans," Brian emphasized, "twenty years later, they still love you!"

"And we still love them!" Mike said blushing jovially as he scanned the studio audience and eyed the backdrop of Vancouver's downtown.

"Well this interview might just get more and more interesting. So let me just throw in a commercial break and I'll let you guys get back to signing some autographs for our studio audience than, because we're going to play a little question game after another quick break, and don't you forget Green Day's performance of Germanic Roses! Don't you go anywhere, we'll be right back!" VJ said and the studio started into another loud cheer like they were supposed to.

Tre, Mike and Billie shuffled off to the side of the room where they greeted more fans, signed memorabilia, shook hands and gave out free hugs. The three men were catapulted atop the zenith of the world and for a few moments out of their specks of life, nothing mattered except the music.

Tre felt his heart beating adrenaline, making him feel bold and outrageous like he always was. When he was signing autographs, he felt the urge to tap Billie on his shoulder roughly before running over to the window overlooking the city streets with crowds lined outside.

Billie noticed after the drummer had hit him, but Mike seemed too consumed in what he was doing to notice. His jaw dropped at Tre, the man had seemed too mature and too decent in recent years to pull off such a stunt, but the frontman witnessed him moon the entire city of Vancouver, making him realize that some things would never change. Billie smiled a cocky smile.

"At least he saved it for off air!" an unseeing male producer shouted from the far of the room, the tone in his voice making it obvious they could have half expected the show to turn sour because of the band that was being interviewed.

Tre stepped down off a step of a window sill with a satisfied smile on his face. He came back under the studio lights and looked at his 41-year-old self on a television screen. A part of him always felt stupid, immature or degraded even at the way he presented himself, but he had to admit that he had fun doing it. There were times when he would have to put on his goofy face to please a crowd, but he could foresee in the near future that his sincerity would be needed and loved even more, in this new world and era of Germanic Roses.

* * *

The guys never returned to the hotel that evening so Rose, Adie, Michelle and Ryan were all chauffeured to GM Place in a swank black limousine.

When they arrived, things were very busy. There were swarms of fans covering the streets outside the venue, some of whom grew loud and unruly at the mere sighting of another limo. Rose fully watched the action through tinted-glass windows and placed a single hand up over her face as though to pretend she only gave it half her attention. They were chauffeured into an underground parkade and Michelle was the first to search about with her eyes, busy as a bee and as curious as a cat. In the grasp of one of her little hands, mother's finger.

Rose found the underground parking chamber mildly familiar, but she couldn't have cared enough about that. She simply wanted to unite with her spouse and his fellow band mates before they were due on the stage in less than half a hour time.

"Where's Daddy, Mommy?" the youngest of the Cool children said rabidly more than once.

Adrienne wore on matching khaki skirt and tank from her new Adeline collection and she fumbled with the strap as she looked to her Cousin-In-Law's child. "I bet they're inside sweetie. Either that, they're on their way. Don't you worry."

"Okay sweetie? Daddy will be here," Rose repeated stroking her daughter's back and receiving a nod in response. She sat calmly with her daughter in the back of that limousine, stroking her belly and profusely trying to pay no mind to light-haired, freckled Ryan Pritchard. Their vehicle came to a halt at the right time and Rose let herself offload and everyone else, including the children find their own way out.

There was a black bus parked at the far of the parkade and Adie squinted her 45-year-old eyes at it. She couldn't be certain whose bus it was, but she felt it was worth noting to her counterpart Lady of the Band. "Hey, I think one of them might be here already?" Adrienne said sounding very unsure.

"Yes, I think it's Frank's bus," Rose answered and she held a hand back for her daughter to latch onto. At the gesture, Mother could feel the contact with her young one and she turned to her. "I think Daddy's here, Bugaboo!" When Rose turned back to watch where she was walking --her shoes tapping femininely on the concrete floor --her offspring had already discovered the whereabouts of her father and was from then running to him whilst calling his name at the top of her lungs. Rose smiled, only watching the little girl run into the embrace of her Daddy whom was suavely dressed in a hemmed maroon pantsuit. Her eyes became happy when her smile traveled to their outer corners of her eyes and she then came to them shortly after noting her husband's hair colour change.

"Green!" Michelle yelped spastic, jumping up and down at her papi's head level. "Cool Daddy!"

"Hi baby girl, how you doing?" Tre laughed and he picked her up and swung her around safely.

"Good!"

"You like Daddy's new hair?" Tre asked her already expectant of a very supportive gest.

"Yeah," she laughed hysterically, "it's so silly!"

"I know, and since Daddy's silly too me and my new hair like each other too!" The drummer swung his young one around again before placing her back down on her own two feet. He smiled and his wife came to him. "And there she is! My sexy little bleep goddess. Hello baby!" Tre sung to his wife in a very hyper manner.

"Heh, weirdo," Rose said as she approached him and quickly threw her fingers at his hair. "This is really unexpected."

"Yeah well...." Tre said letting his voice fade angelically. "I'm already almost ready but I have to go get make up and hair done. This is the first time I've ever consecutively bleached and then coloured again in the confines of one hour. But it worked out good, I still have all my hair."

"Let's go inside," Rose said, turning back to Adie whom was walking slowly in paces with a young and clumsy Ryan in tow.

The trio family went to find their places in the backstage and Tre had no problem escaping to a place where he had a vanity mirror and his own on-tour hairstylist come out of nowhere. A generally nice lady, Lila had done Tre's hair for him since Shenanigans and hadn't made any plans to quit soon.

"Well, before Mike gets here I just wanted to say what a good job you did of not bringing up the extra tour bus issue. I mean if Mike wants to have his own tour bus than that's his business, right?" Rose reasoned thankfully in the presence of anyone. But she let him answer, she quickly changed the subject, "Are you excited?" the drummer's wife asked cordially.

"Excited isn't the word," Tre murmured and he scratched the back of his neck. So many things went back and forth through his mind and an old addiction to alcohol seeped back into his nerves and made him shake. "I'm actually kind of scared." The man couldn't deny his true feelings, especially not to the woman in his life that knew him so well.

"Aw honey don't be," Rose cried figuratively. "You're going to do great, you always do great."

"Well, give me a hug and a kiss before I go on and I'll never be scared again," Tre caroled romantically with a smile and a finishing sigh.

Looking past her husband as they parted lips, Rose suddenly caught glance of a young Ryan jump off a bus parked directly in front of the one they'd been on since the airport and between a trip to MTV and the hotel. She loved that little boy as any mother loves their child, but his presence along with Mike made her absolutely shudder. When was the point where everything became obvious, or would it ever, she wondered.

She stopped in her tracks and knelt down to her lovely Michelle's level. When she did, her husband -- fourteen years her senior -- halted as if on cue and instinctively reached his hand deep into his pant pocket. The woman with useless Dolcé & Gabana sunglasses rested atop her lazy raven hairdo looked into the young girls eyes with concern.

"Honey, it's going to be loud inside so you need to wear earplugs, understand me?" the punk rock HRH said to the offspring of a legend nodding her head as she spoke. Her daughter nodded in acknowledgment and very much complied. "Thank you dear, we can't have you going deaf before you even develop a taste for music." Rose grinned and held her hand back and knowingly a bag of ear mutes landed in her possession.

"There you go hon," an aging drummer said after passing off a plastic baggy from the treasure trove of his back pant pocket. He watched Rose tear the bag open with her perfectly manicured but brittle fingernails and then slowly let himself drift away to Mike exiting his own bus across the median of the underground parkade with a young male child towing him. He ground his teeth when he saw that man he was always more than happy to call a friend, but things were just inexplicably different now.

At that moment the actual tour was going to begin so Tre had secretly vowed to himself to not let things start off on the wrong foot. If he thought Mike treated him with disrespect or even shunned him, he'd have to tell himself it wasn't true. If he thought his wife at times acted weirded out in a way he couldn't explain, he'd have to tell himself it wasn't true. This was a night to be cherished and everyday after it he wanted to be kept the same. So Tre promised to himself and for the sake of his marriage vows that this night meant the start of the rest of his life of bliss.

"...they feel weird," Tre heard his daughter complain as he returned his attention to her. The munchkin was tapping herself in the side of the head, annoyed with the lack of sound she could hear coming from anywhere.

"Honey you have to wear them or your ears will hurt," Rose promised her in a convincing manner. "Your Daddy and I are wearing them and so are Billie Cousin and Adie."

"Mike and Ryan too?" Michelle asked, her voice loud as though she were deafened by headphones.

"Them too," Tre cut in, telling himself to think nothing of nothing. He grabbed the baggy from his beloved and took a pair of orange earplugs and stuffed them in his ears. "See Michelle? Everyone's doing it, so it must be cool!"

Rose stood up abruptly and elbowed her hubby in the abdomen. "Do not teach our 5-year-old to follow trends..."

"I can't hear you woman it's too damn loud in here!" Tre shouted, covering his ears and catching a glance from a curious Billie Joe Armstrong -- when his tour bus had finally pulled into the parkade -- who was leaning out the exit with one foot. His eyebrows raised and lips pursed; he jumped off the vehicle before it came to a stop and he looked ready to run a marathon, Tre observed. "Hey Bill!"

"Leave me alone!" the eldest of the trio band said sharply and he started into the dressing room --without even Adrienne by his side.

"Meeyow!" Tre replied impersonating a stereotypical cat fight sound at Billie Joe's almost always vagrant mood swings.

Lighting diminished as expected. A vast crowd roared like thunder as a deep breath before the said implosion came into effect.

Billie, Mike and Tre held tight hands together, behind the veil of a stem-green and rose-pink curtain backdrop which has been selected the colours of the new era. They were intentionally soft colours of symbolism. Whether the new non-violent logo of a famous German painting of a nude woman crying, rather than others such as the heart grenade or Kerplunk's girl with a gun was to signify change, was quite questionable.

Their nerves jangled and their palms sweaty, Billie and Mike straddled their guitars and Tre grasped his drumsticks, with opposite hands.

Rose stood nonchalant and Adie whispered something in her ear she would never hear, through earplugs and a crowd's excitement. She scanned from left to right, the three middle aged men standing in front of her, their faces turned a shy yet clothed in classic stem-green suits with according assorted ties. First she eyed Billie's back, seeing his hair tall and black like it's been for nearly the passed ten years. This hairstyle had seemed to have struck a chord with him, Rose thought to herself. And then of course, her husband couldn't help but catch her attention; he was looking quite his brawny usual self, although he hadn't weight-trained in quite some years. Rose bit her lip mischievously and found herself assaulting Tre from behind with a squeeze so tight it would be considered unhealthy. All she knew was this is where her husband was going to be for the next couple of hours, giving his undivided attention to the fans and his music, none to her.

It gave her a subtle high of jealousy but likewise an enormous adrenaline rush of excitement for him.

Tre let out a nasally yelp as his wife tackled him mere moments before he was to run out on stage in a spectacle. He turned away briefly, throwing arms around her, to press his body up gently against her pregnant form. Their ears were each plugged, but call it soul mates or just the lover's connection, but each could truly hear the other's heart beat the rhythm of their thriving lives.

Their time was waring thin, Rose could tell. Mike glanced at her over her husband's shoulder as he stretched his arms up, high above his head. He gave a nod of his head, as if to say he could see how things still were between them. Rose tried to ignore it but the look on the bassist's face gave her nothing but a worry for the future and the words he spoke to her that day were very troublesome.

Tre placed his lips freely on Rose's cheek, trembling a hymn of words too quiet to be heard. "I got to go now, and this is how the world began..." he chanted, before snatching himself away from her and making haste after the band which had already

"You go make your daughter proud," Rose whispered to herself after he had already left them behind. And he did.

* * *

The city danced under the cold concrete of the alias, Mrs. Cool's balcony at the Hyatt Regency as she rested her feet atop a patio table and her chic black delicately-fabricated night gown made a nice place to lay her long plaited hair. There was a cool nip in the air, that washed over her breasts and the snow off the mountaintops she so intently looked at. Those Rocky Mountains were an extension of her lovely Berkeley Hills, seven hundred miles to the south.

Their toddler had been put to bed and her man's short bitten fingernails gently pinched away at the loose silver-chained bracelet she wore on her wrist. Without looking to him sitting across from her at their patio table -- suited to a Parisian sidewalk café -- she let him to his nimble fidgeting. It was so great to know that they had such a vast adventure before them, both of them thought in their rightful minds.

Tre was in a state of euphoria. The simple way he sat on his seat wouldn't tell you he had just performed in front of twenty thousand people. He could pretend he was the sugary filling in humble pie and at the moment anyone would have believed it in his calmed state. Her scent wafted in his nostrils, smelling quite sweetly of nectar florals. "I'm glad we're here," he sung metaphorically.

She gave a stiff nod and turned her attentive eyes that seemed to glow hazel under the dark blue sky. Behind him was a patio lantern of sort, and though his features were very much visible, he illuminated like an angel. She smiled very slowly, her chin turned down to her neck and her gaze through her eyelashes. "I think that's so cute you dyed your hair green for Michelle," Rose said admittedly in the moment and she couldn't help but run the brittle tips of her long fingernails unto the roots of his brassed-green hair.

"You think so?" Tre said, taking in her gentle touch on his languid head. He saw her nod and he gave her a small grinning smile. "She'll find it amusing for awhile. I think our following was a little bit surprised tonight though."

"I'll say they were. I mean, I was quite surprised," Rose chirped. "I always thought if you were going to change your hair again you'd say something. But you do look really punk rock handsome. "

"Hmm...punk rock handsome, huh?" Tre looked deep in thought. "Yes, I suppose it could be done."

"You've proved it can," Rose giggled, flirting with her spouse like she didn't have the right to claim him at anytime anyways. She bit her lip, pulled her seat closer in and laid her head down on his shoulder.



"This is one vast city," Tre sighed as the salty ocean came tumbling over him and his love followed by the sound of police cruisers in the distance.