Communion

After a wonderful show played in Frankfurt hours before, The Wrights were about to check out of their hotel along with the rest of Green Day and their children. Walking from the elevator the happy couple gave a quick glance up at the chandelier shimmering high above their heads in the lobby.

“I’ll drop off the keycard honey,” Rose said, snatching it from Tre’s hand whilst he kept his gaze fixed upward.

Tre giggled, “I’ll wait by the door.”

After throwing the keycard down at the front desk, Rose came around the corner to the revolving doors of the hotel, dressed in a white Badgley Mischka evening dress and spotting a brawny good-heighted man.

He turned around at that very moment to find her in his field of vision. “I’m here honey,” he said, in case she hadn’t noticed him in the large lobby crowded with mostly Asian tourists and some wealthier white folk who were awake after having seen their concert.

“Coming Fwank,” she said in a mocked little girl’s tone. “Is ‘Chelle on the bus?”

“Yes, Adie brought the young ones down,” he said. “Why the concern honey?”

“I’m not concerned,” Rose insisted putting her hand in his. She gazed deep into his eyes for two seconds of forever and Tre’s eyelids flared up in response. A beautiful classical ballad with keys and strings was playing in the lobby and it made her feel like dancing, but she knew their schedule was tight and they’d best go. And which followed was her husband leading them both through the revolving doors together in one partition.

Out into the summer night they stepped, the petite heels of her flats clunking loudly on the cement. His dress shoes barely going noticed. Uproars of cheers began as a crowd of random fans stood outside the hotel watched closely by the minimal security the hotel offered. “Tre! Tre! Can we have an autograph?”

Tre kept his pace steady for the bus, his wife in tow, slow and pregnant. He contemplated whether to stop or not. “Hmm,” he said, under his breath.

“Let’s get on the bus Frank,” Rose said.

“Umm let me just sign quickly for them honey,” Tre replied, changing his direction to his left. “You can go to the bus if you like.”

“No, I want to stay with you,” Rose said for no apparent reason aside from feeling it the right thing to do.

“Hi ladies,” the drummer said, letting go of Billie’s cousin’s hand. Three girls in particular were the ones that begged all the attention.

“Hi Tre,” they said in unison smile to smile.

“You pretty ladies probably want me to sign something. And hmm…what can I sign,” Tre said, his eyes wide and his fingers folded under his chin like The Thinker. “I know, let’s use this.” To the fans’ disbelief, the older drummer loosened his tie and pulled it up over his head. Signing it for them and making small talk, finding out they were sisters. The drummer felt a hand smaller than his own grab his bicep to turn him around. “Rose?”

“Yes honey, let’s go,” she said, smiling at the young girls.

“Hi Rose,” one of the three German girls said.

“Hello,” she replied politely making contact. “Did you come to the show tonight?”



“Yes, it was awesome,” she said and they all agreed.

“Cool you guys enjoyed it,” Tre said. “Well me and the misses got to header, so thanks you guys. We’ll be in Berlin tomorrow. Take care!” Turning around and leading his wife away from the fans, the couple began to walk towards their bus.

Rose giggled feeling so very happy and complete in her life with very few things burdening her soul, except Mike.

Time got very slow suddenly when Tre turned to an angle at the driver’s side of the bus to look back over his shoulder and in the reflection of Rose’s deep green eyes, green like the waters of the Northern Pacific, he saw something very frightening. “I love you,” Tre said as an immediate reaction and he did a three-sixty and pushed his wife away from him very hard and fast and turned back towards the front of the bus.

“Ow!” Rose shrieked, stumbling over her Prada shoes and falling. “Frank!” she yelled. “The baby! Why the fuck...”

* * *

“Ladies and fucking gentlemen, welcome to The Germanic Roses Tour twenty-fourteen!” Billie Joe shouted out in the middle of their set in Frankfurt. “Tonight is very special…very special. Because tonight Green Day turns twenty-five!” The crowd cheered at his discretion. “And for our fucking birthday, we decided we’d try something a little different. Who here wants to crank Tre?”

“Whoo!”

“Nah nah,” Billie mocked, "that’s only for me." He turned around to look at Tre and the pair smiled at one another.

"No, what we're going to do is choose someone..." Billie continued and the audience got loud, each fan wanting to be that person for who knew what reason. "Someone..." he said, scanning the audience and pointing around with his finger, finally stopping on a young male about Joey's age. "You! Right there in the orange t-shirt! How the fuck would you like a ride in the limo us to the concert in Berlin tomorrow night?"

The audience cheered him on. The young man unreluctantly obliged.

"Come up here sir," Billie said as the security helped him to the front of the arena and over the barricade. "Come up here sir. Go wait backstage with our friends." The young male gave Billie a quick excited hug before running off in the direction he pointed him to. "Tre Cool everybody!"

As a surprise to the cheering audience, Tre hopped down from his drumset and walked up to the centre of the stage, holding a microphone. "Hi!" he said, in his usual jovial manner and a guitar technician quickly came and threw a guitar over his shoulder. "Thanks for coming out guys. This is a little song you might know as Das Lied der Deutschen or The German National Anthem - The Song of the Germans," Tre said, pausing for an expected applaud which surely came out powerfully from the crowd. "Entstehen. Arise." He began to sing like he never had before and the following morning the papers would be talking about it as the highlight of the entire show, along with some other news that had yet to happen.

* * *

When Tre and Rose had left the hotel after Green Day’s show, the drummer wanted to greet his fans. Having conversed with a few and knowing full well he should be on his way, he led his younger wife towards their bus parked near the curb of the road.

Rose was humming under her breath when Tre had turned to her quickly and shoved her with all his might back on the sidewalk. “Ow!” Rose let out then gasping, stumbling and falling onto the palms of her hands. “Frank!” she yelled. “The baby! Why the fuck…” Rising to her feet swiftly for late pregnancy and turning around, two flashes of light, energy and sound overtook her.

Tre holding his arms up in defense of a stranger was struck before his brain even processed what had happened. The blood that Green Day’s drummer gave to his children and kept his heart pumping everyday of his life flew in a thick spray over his wife’s face. In a third of a second immense pain seared through his neck and chest and instinctively he grabbed for the neck, seeing only the staring faces of his fans. Young and full of life, hopes and dreams, they were. “Oh god,” he gasped as he began the short fall forever, nonetheless landing with a thud on the concrete clouds below him.

Rose screamed at the top of her lungs for a good ten seconds, standing with her eyes closed tight, his vital fluid thick on her face and clothing. She only sensed when he had fallen at her feet and she opened her eyes slowly and stood frozen, looking at the horrified fans and then down at her husband. “Oh my God!”

“Get these people out of here!” some random man ordered in the background.

“Oh mein Gott!”

“Shit!”

“Frank! Frank!” Rose fell to her knees hard and fast, scraping them. “Frank baby? Oh God.” She propped up her husband’s head and removed his hand from his neck. He was choking. Quickly thinking to place his hand back and put pressure on the wound, Rose was terrified. “Help us! Please help us! Hilfe! Hilfe!” she shouted for someone to rescue them in German. “Honey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Rose looked up at the attacker from the ground, the assailant stood with an expression of anguish and disgust. He was an older man with a grey beard, baggy under eyes and a red nose, quite likely an alcoholic. “Heathen bastard,” he muttered.

“No,” Rose cried, holding her husband close to her and looking the strange man right in the eyes. “Why!?” She reverted her attention back to Tre and placed her finger against his lips, “Shhh…Frank be quiet.”

Tre tried to speak her name but he choked and gargled, the side of his neck pouring blood into his throat and airways and onto the concrete below him. Fear was alive in his eyes. His body was twitching against his will, seizuring if you should say. Terrified of his fate, he tried so hard to keep her image in his eyes, though a nightmare to see her so afraid and covered in his only means of life.

“Frank!” Rose said loudly, unintentionally yelling at him to obey her and stay conscious. Her body trembled and the tears just started to pour out like the Nile once she finally realized her husband was drowning. “Oh angel, you can’t breathe. Frank baby, please stay awake. Stay awake. Oh baby, be calm.”

“Tre!” Billie Joe called in disbelief from what he had witnessed out the window of their shared tour bus.

“Billie, stay on the bus!” Rose screamed. “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun! Stay on the bus!” She wiped one eye, her black river of mascara flowing amongst the fine hairs of her face and the rock drops of blood. A long sob followed suit and she held her husband close, knowing the gunman had began to walk away. Tre’s eyes were fixed right into hers and his eyelids slowly drooping from the original wide shocked appearance they had been before he fell.

“Someone get that guy!” someone shouted. “He’s going for their busses!”

“Oh God, help us,” the young wife whispered. The sound of screaming fans and her husband drowning in his own blood filled her ears. “I’m scared Frank, please stay awake. I love you, I’m scared.”

His forehead and eyebrows clenched up as though very concerned for her but his body just said no to him and his vision turned white, his face white, his eyes glazed, open and white. His gaze had been in hers at the moment when he had stopped seeing. His body became limp, his breath was quick and desperate when choking and wanting to breathe until the moment it became deep and didn’t happen again.

Rose hysterical by how quick it had all unfolded, watched him die in a matter of two minutes, very slowly and very painfully. “Frank, don’t please..." she cried. "Come back, I’m scared.” She began shouting and hitting him, but then calming and growing quieter. Unmoving she was, except for her very fast hyperventilating. The city seemed so silent for a few moments she swore she could hear the wind howl in her ears. “I love you.”



Turning her head towards the busses she heard violent smashing noises. Banging. Violence. She kissed him for the last time on the sidewalk, there in the city where he was born and rested her head on his bloody chest, squeezing him tightly. In disbelief for the sudden detriment on her life she soon remembered her children and knew they were her sole priority now. She had to be strong. She stammered to her feet as quickly as a nine month pregnant woman can, leaving the love of her life alone with God. She began running towards the busses, holding her pregnant belly to support it. “Adrienne, the children! Michelle!”

Gunshots blasted in the street again, this time sounding as though they were hitting the side of one of Green Day’s two tour busses.

“Stop! My babies are in there!” Rose cried, ducking down, unintentionally talking aloud about having more than one child. “Mike get Ryan! Ryan! Someone stop him!”

“Ahh!” Billie shrieked as the random madman tried to kick the bus door open, smashing the plastic more and more with each kick and firing rounds at it. “Oh, sweet Jesus of Suburbia. Joe, take your mom, Jake and Michelle to the back of the bus and lock yourselves in the bathroom.”

Joseph looked at his father in the face, knowing the look of fear from having been alive for nineteen years. “But Dad…”

“Do it.”

Joseph nodded. Turning from his dad he took his mother’s hand and began to pull her towards the back of the bus, all crawling on their knees or crouching. Their driver was hunched down under the bus dining table, trying to keep situated in a defensive manner.

“Who the hell is this psycho? What the hell does he want?” Billie asked the driver.

The driver named Albert shook his head. “Let us hope the police arrive soon sir,” he replied in a Manchester accent.

“Tre’s dead,” Billie said, a small tear falling on his cheek, “I know he is. Rose needs to get the fuck out of here.” The driver looked at him then looked down.

The kicking on the side of the bus continued and the angry gunman shouted in a very thick German accent, “Let me in fuckers! You take my only son from me? I’ll wipe out your bloodline too!”

“Oh god,” Billie said. “He’s one of the parents of those kids. He means to kill us all…”

“Billie, come down here!” Adie said from the washroom, her voice loud and panicked.

“Adie, there’s not enough room for all of us and Rose is still fucking outside!” he called back. Thinking to himself, he wondered why Rose hadn’t been shot along with her husband. He must not have known who she was.

“Ryan!” Rose called, coming around between the busses and over to the passenger side by the doors. In her field of vision was the gunman. “Hilfe! Hilfe someone! You fucking asshole, you killed Frank! You killed Frank!” Rose screamed at the top of her lungs, her vocal chords very strained.

Hearing his younger female cousin outside the bus, Billie raised his head enough to look out one of the tinted windows which hadn’t been blown out. “Rose, he means to kill us all, get away!” the singer shouted.

The gunman fired another quick shot at a bus window before turning back to look at the beautiful raven-headed woman whom he wasn’t familiar with. “You’re the wife,” he guessed. “You’re pregnant.” His face was deranged and enraging as he looked at her.

“Yes,” she nodded, her face covered in the blood of her soul mate.

“He killed my son,” he said. “And look at me! I’m an old fucking man! I cannot have another one.” He approached her quickly, his face red and on the verge of tears. Being fearless with rage, he placed the gun against her stomach.

One hand stayed tightly wrapped on her belly, the other raised in a negotiation type fashion. “Please, you don’t have to do this. My family is not made of bad people. Frank loves his fans and he would never want them to get hurt.” Staring down at the gun she trembled and cried, her breathing not yielding for a second. “Please, you don’t have to do this.” Placing both arms across her tummy she hugged herself and the baby. “Frank I’m so scared,” she whispered.

“I want to,” he said. “I want every member of this band’s family dead. You people deserve to die for taking my son. Fucking concert, the boy should have listened to me!”

Finally realizing what the motive of her husband’s murderer was, her eyes opened wide. He was a parent of one of the victims of the 21st Century Breakdown Tour. “No. No, we didn’t mean to do it,” Rose said.

“Yes you did,” he replied.

“No, we didn’t!” she retorted and took a short pause. “Billie was upset…he entrusted me his first guitar and I allowed it to get damaged. They ruined it! Those two men, they broke into our house, they hurt me, they robbed us and wrecked the fucking guitar.” Sobbing, Tre’s new widow continued on, “And then the new guitar technician gave my cousin a replica at that concert and it sent him over the edge!” Rose cried. “He never meant for this!”

“The singer is your cousin? Fuck you,” he said, “die!” Just as he called the word of death out, another gunshot was heard, but the strange stranger fell to the ground, not the green-eyed trauma victim.

Behind the deranged stranger at her feet, still in possession of a gun, Rose saw two police officers wielding firearms. Frozen momentarily, she turned and then ran for Mike’s bus. He let her in after she begged for safety at the door, still feeling vulnerable. Seeing her first son, born of Mike's blood down low on the floor, she collapsed in front of him in the aisle and then let out a shrill scream, “FRANK!”

Mike came to her and placed his hand down on her head gently and shakily. “Everything is alright now. Everything is alright.”

“He’s dead Mike,” Rose said. “He’s dead. He’s dead on the road. He's on the road! And he was so afraid…” she told Green Day’s bassist. “I saw it in his eyes. He was afraid to die. Poor baby couldn’t breathe. He killed him! Why couldn’t I save him? It was supposed to be me first. If I died he would still be here. He’d be alive. Oh Frank…”

Mike looked up at his son and his lip quivered for his best friends, victimized by tragic circumstance. Knowing in his heart that Green Day was finished forever, twenty-five years into their careers and Tre was dead, he couldn’t help but shed tears. Things would never again be the same. “Rose honey, I’m so sorry,” Michael Pritchard said and he stroked her hair. He looked at his son again and knew he was scared by the danger, but overall his father’s extremely upset expression. “Are you okay Cheerios?” the bassist asked. He nodded in reply, too impish to speak.

“I’m so sorry Frank, you were more important than me. It should have been me." She grabbed her tummy again. “I’m sorry too baby, you don’t have a daddy," she said and then paused. "Oh god Mike, my water just broke."