‹ Prequel: Union

Communion

The Birthday Bash of Mike Dirnt

On a humid spring afternoon, two days later, a twenty-five year old Rose basked out on the sun absorbed grass of Mike Dirnt's front lawn. The breeze blew her hair over her shoulders, only to be caught back by the strap on her black and white polyester halter top.

She ran her fingers gently over the dull blades of green carpet underneath her; listening calmly to what she knew to be the sound of her daughter playing in the backyard with Ryan and Estelle.

Things could not be more perfect, yet imperfect at the same time. Especially when every so often she was forced to look over her shoulder and witness her husband and cousin mingling with her one time love affair. This brought much awkwardness to the young woman's life; whose secrets were bottled up and known to no one but her and that 'marriage interfering, homewrecking guy', as she thought of him now.

She brought her head back to face the driveway's front gate, and lowered her eyelids over her jade pupils to an eyelet. She heard a man's voice faintly call her name from the westerly direction of the house. Choosing to ignore it, she brought her legs to her chest, her bare feet floating over the ground; her white cotton skirt draping in a coinciding manner.

"Rose!"

Turning her head 90°, she sighed at the sound and feel of trollopping footsteps on the ground behind her. She cowered her head; vowing the want to ignore whomever it was approaching her.

"Rose?"

"Hmm?" she replied with a breathless whisper.

"How come you're just sulking over here by yourself?"

"Oh, umm hi Billie. Umm, I-I'm not sulking. What makes you think that?" Rose spoke with a forced smile, and without a single glance up at her cousin. Billie stood behind her, his hands untidily stuffed in his front pockets in a turbid manner.

"I don't know," Billie Joe replied, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment. "You comin' back up to join the rest of us? We're about to have some cake!"

"Cake..." Rose exclaimed, her tone changing for the better.

A forty year old Billie Joe, very much starting to look his age; came 'round his cousin and stared down at her. He watched her bow her head again, down into the depthly shadows created by her skirt and close-knit knees. He began tapping his foot and bobbing his head rhythmically to The Ramone's, Blitzkrieg Bop playing up at the house.

Rose without notice began doing the same. And unintentionally started to giggle once she heard Billie Joe begin to sing. "Come on Rose!" Billie Joe egged her, grabbing his cousin's hands and pulling her quickly to an upward stance. "Hey ho! / Let's go! / Hey ho! / Let's go!" Billie Joe shouted, and began swinging Rose and himself around in a dazing spin. "They're forming in straight line, they're going through a tight wind! / The kids are losing their minds, the Blitzkrieg Bop!

"Billie stop! You'll make me sick!" Rose shrieked, before beginning to laugh hysterically. She gazed her cousin head on, grinning and singing he was; their surroundings appeared to move nearly at the speed of light.

"They're piling in the back seat, they're generating steam heat! / Pulsating to the back beat, the Blitzkrieg Bop! / Hey ho, let's go shoot `em in the back now what they want, I don't know!" he continued. "HEY! TURN IT UP!" Billie shouted up at Mike and Tre, both comfortably sat up the hill at an outside picnic table. "Sing it Rose!"

Rose squinted her eyes shut, avoiding the sickening sensation of continuous spinning. "Hey ho, let's go shoot 'em in the back now! / What they want, I don't know they're all reved up and ready to go! / They're forming in straight line, they're going through a tight wind! The kids are losing their minds, the Blitzkrieg Bop!" she sang, nearly half in tune to that of her professional vocalist cousin.

"FUCK YES!" Billie Joe laughed.

Tre watched the two cousins play in the sunhine like joyous young children. A smile came to his face, seeing his wife appear happy for what seemed like the first in an unaccountable amount of time. He sat admiring each detailed aspect of her beauty: her long cotton skirt, wavering in the wind with the grace of a flag of patriots. Her lengthly raven hair, doing something much of the same. And, not to go unmentioned; everlasting rich eyes of emerald. Glinting greener with the fertile lawn's vert illumination.

"Go easy on 'er Bill!" Tre called across the lawn, before giggling and turning to look at Mike. "God she's beautiful..."

"Hah, yeah..." Mike replied suddenly, snapping out of a trance of looking at his best friend's wife; ironically noticing the same things about her as he. He grazed his chest-plate nervously, as though he wanted to loosen a choking neck-tie, that he wasn't even wearing. The humid afternoon brought no less persperation to his forehead than his stress level already was.

Tre placed his hand over his mouth suddenly with surprisement. Watching gravity force cousin and cousin apart, Rose and Billie flew back on the ground on their own seperate perimeters in a fit of laughter.

"WHOO!" Billie shouted at the top of his lungs.

"DAMN!" Rose laughed, dizzly pulling at her skirt to ensure it hadn't flown up over her head or nothing. "Frank!"

Tre grinned and got up from the picnic table. He made towards his wife, across the massive front lawn. "I said go easy on 'er!" Tre laughed, as he walked past Billie laying on the ground; he gave him a gentle kick in the ass.

"Hey don't!" Billie giggled, knowing one of the five hundred headspin producing Tre's he was seeing had tapped him.

"Ack! I'm so fuckin' dizzy," Rose chuckled. She lay on her back watching the clouds float in the most peculiar of jerky motions.

"Hey ho, let's go," Tre joked as he scooped his wife up off the ground, standing her upright beside him.

"Hey!" Rose laughed and smacked Tre gently on the arm. She placed her hand on his shoulder as she struggled to regain her normal vision. "You friggin' blinded me Billie!"

"You're not the only one!" Billie laughed as he rolled over on his side and groaned.

"Come on hun, let's go get some cake!" Tre giggled immaturily with excitement. He began leading his wife back up towards the house; acting as a crutch to her temporarily disabled cognitive and physical abilities.

"Wh-what 'bout Billie?!" Rose cooed.

"He'll find his way. Eventually..." Tre said, giving a playful laugh that sounded borderline maniacal.

"Bye Billie!" Rose called back with an overrated mischievious laugh of her own. Tre lead her up to the picnic table and sat her down on the seat across from Mike. She regained her vision substantially and finished off her adrenaline with a quick nervous glance at Green Day's bassist, sitting there bearing his tattoos in a cotton-white muscle shirt.

Mike looked at Rose, smiled nervously and turned his gaze back to the lawn where Billie was just beginning to pick himself up. "Nice one Bill!" he laughed, wetting his lips and wiping persperation from his forehead with the Adeline logoed sweatband adorning his wrist.

"Mmm...give daddy a kiss," Tre muffled, already closed in over his wife's lips. The two began a passionate serenade of their undying undeniable love for each other.

"Ah, I'm going to go call the kids!" Mike concluded, jumping up from the table the instant his drumming friend took to kissing his wife in front of him.

"Mmm...Frank..." Rose giggled, too wrapped up in her husband to take notice of Mike.

"You like that?" he whispered, flicking his tongue against hers erogenously.

"Mmhmm..."

"Are you kids done yet?" Billie piped in, as he took a seat next to the pair and eyed his own wife coming out of the house with a candlelit Birthday cake.

"Where's Mike and the kids?" she whispered, adverting her eyes around outside with an expression of paranoia.

"Mike's just gettin' the kids to come to the table," Billie answered with a radiant face; his gaze turned back to Rose and Tre, who had now temporarily broken up their mini-makeout session.

"How you feelin' today sexy?" Rose asked, looking her husband in his amazing eyeliner-free sapphire eyes.

"I'm feeling better," Tre croaked assuringly.

"Wadaya mean better?" Billie asked, lowering his eyebrows and scratching his head with confusion.

"Oh, Frank was feeling sick a couple of days ago," Rose confirmed. "I think he just had a sprout of the flu."

"Ah...shitty deal..." Billie pouted his lips and turned back to look at his wife, holding a cake with impatient candles dripping wax all over it.

Adrienne spotted the bassist finally, sauntering back over to the picnic table with all the kids; rounded up and raring to eat some good ol' fashioned Birthday cake. "Mike Dirnt, sit your butt down, now!" Adie shrieked stressfully.

"I'm goin', I'm goin'!" Mike laughed.

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday dear Mike!

Happy Birthday to you!


"Right on, thanks guys," Mike smiled thankfully, as a mocha icing covered coffee cake was set down on the picnic table in front of him. "Who made the cake?"

"I took the liberty," Adrienne replied confidently, taking a seat next to her husband on a near side of the table. "Happy Birthday old man..."

"Jeeze, thanks Adie," Mike teared shamefully. The sudden realization that he was now really forty years old taking ahold of him.

"Make a wish..." Adrienne directed with friendliness.

"I know what I'm wishing for..."

* * *

After cake, Rose had excused herself without word from the unusually sober, drug-free Green Day member Birthday bash. But not so unusual anymore, to three men who had grown to realize their families were the greatest high they could ever feel.

Mike, like Tre, had taken notice to Rose's sudden absence. Yet Tre didn't seem too worried or curious about it, quite like Mike was feeling. So Mike took it upon himself to go search his villa out in seek of the mysterious missing Rose.

The house was near silent, besides that of the sound of the kids and the bass of the stereo system which continued playing outside. Another noise did catch his attention though. Yet he couldn't exactly explain what it was, or what specific room it came from.

Instinct overtook the bassist and lead him straight outside the downstair's bathroom door. He stood there for a minute in silence, before turning his head and placing his ear up flat against the oak-made room divider of elegance.

He brought his eyebrows downward, tightening the muscles in his forehead. He was sworn by what he thought he was hearing. He became overly comfortable with his rested stance, and the door caved in on him.

"Holy shit!" he shouted, stumbling forth into the bathroom.

"Ahhh!"

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!" Mike yelled, quickly shielding his eyes with his hands; in case he should have accidently caught Rose with her skirt down.

"Get out!" Rose shouted instinctively, wiping her mouth with the back of a single hand as she dropped her hair loosely out of the other.

Mike uncovered his eyes curiously, once realizing the twenty-five year old woman was clothed and decent. "Whoa...what are you doing?" Mike asked, gazing down at the toilet with a half dropped jaw.

"Nothing! Get out!" Rose shrieked, and once again wiped her mouth.

"Oh My God..."

"Mike, fuck off!" Rose shouted to the volume of a whisper.

"Y-You-You're not?" Mike stuttered.

"I'm not fucking bulimic!" Rose retorted, angry and quick without any thought whatsoever.

"Whoa...what?"

"I mean...fuck!" Rose shouted, before turning around and stomping her foot on the floor. She ran her hand through her long hair with embarrassment.

Mike stood in awed silence for a few moments. Silence that was soon shattered with the sound of Rose quietly weeping as she placed her back against the wall and slowly slid down it.

"Oh God...I'm such a fuck up..." Rose gasped.

"Rose..." Mike whispered.

"Leave me alone Mike. Please, just leave me alone..." Rose begged. She buried her face in one hand and wiped the other on her skirt.

Mike tiptoed nearer the drummer's wife and knelt down beside her on the bathroom floor. "Let me help you..."

"No," Rose replied firmly. "No..."

"Rose, please..." Mike pleaded, placing his hand under her chin, he raised her head; her eyes remaining adverted downwards.

"You don't know what it's fucking like..." Rose began, feeling disgruntled about sharing her emotional whoa's, but nearing readiness to do so.

"I don't know what what is like Rose?" Mike asked softly.

"The torment..." she gasped. "So much torment...all because I'm his fucking wife. What the fuck do they want from me? I don't know what else to do..."

"Rose...h-how long have you been...you know?"

Rose sighed nervously, rolling her eyes as neverendng tearlets fell with ease. "Longer than you've known me for," she finally admitted, after a thirty second nerve-racking pause.

"Oh my God. What th-the, umm...does Tre know?" Mike celloed with curiousity.

Rose lowered her head and turned her gaze to an upward glance. She shook her head subtly, yet quite noticible to a concerned Mike Dirnt. "Please don't tell Frank...or Billie...please don't tell anyone...please...promise me?" she begged with fear as she shook her head irratically.

This was a vital time for Mike to make an important decision. Should he keep Rose's secret in the dark, and win over her interest with trust? Or should he tell someone, a twenty-five year old woman was hurting herself and in serious need of help?

With a heart of selfish lustful desire, Mike was quick to decide what he should do in this unprecendented situation.

"Mike?"

"I promise..."