Changes

Billie hitchhiked across the country, and boarded a train when he reached New York. The train was quiet. Billie couldn't even sit down, just stood, jiggling his foot and holding an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

"You okay, dude?"

Billie looked around and saw a young man with outrageously blonde hair straight out of a Motely Crue video, wearing impeccably implied make-up with piercings in his lip, nose, eyebrows and guages in both ears. He was dressed in an extremely ragged pair of jeans, a ripped up t-shirt sporting an Aerosmith logo and over it all a dusty black tenchcoat. The boots on his feet were muddy and untied.

The young man saw his face and smiled.

"Welcome to the New York slums. I'm Jay."
"Billie Joe."
"You front Green Day." It was not the statement of a crazed fan, nor the statement of a person who hated the band. It was merely a statement, a fact.

"Yes."
"I have your latest album." Jay said thoughtfully, lighting a cigarette. "Great concept...good music..."
"Thanks."
"I'm thinking of doing something like that for my next show...theatrical...sort of Alice Cooper meets Green Day."

Billie took a moment to visualize it, and found the results weren't half bad.

"Sounds interesting."
"Doesn't it?" Jay looked sideways at him.
"You got a record deal?" Billie asked, and was slightly surprised when Jay burst out laughing.
"Let's put it this way. I could be chatting on TRL right now, if I wanted to."
"Why aren't you, then?"
"Billie Joe...Mr. Armstrong...I hate the system. I know it's cliched and tired, but I do. They take good bands and mold them into these cookie cutter rock bands that all sound the same, dress the same and act the same. I miss the 80's, I miss the 70's, I miss the 60's, and hell, I even miss the 50's. But when you think about it...whose going to miss the 90's? Whose going to look back and say, such and such band influenced the entire generation?"

Jay puffed on his cigarette thoughtfully. Then he looked over at Billie.

"Come to think of it...you're album the first modern one I've ever bought."
"I'm flattered."
"But...record deals, singing for money...it's not for me. Until the system changes, and I find a label that could deal with me and all my experimenting and bitchiness...I'm just another struggling musician..."

He trailed off, smiling to himself. Billie grinned at him, a modern day rebel who belonged more to the past.

"So." Jay continued. "What brings a man like you down to this...mud pit?"
"A woman." Billie answered wistfully.
"Good luck bringing her home in one peice. Woman down here..." Jay shook his head.
"As far as I know, she's only been down here a few days."

Jay shook his head again.

"You don't live down here, man. You can get fucked up in a matter of hours. Days...do you love her?"

Billie was momentarily thrown, but nodded.

"I do."
"You should pray that she loves you back...its damn hard to wean people down here off of drugs...off of the lifestyle...I only know one success story...if you could even call it that now..."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Jay began, and flicked his cigarette butt away. "There was this girl I used to date, I forget her name...it was definately a dude's name though..."

Jay paused for a moment, lighting a new cigarette.

"She bounced around, guy to guy, taking more drugs than I could count...and it was sad, because she was really talented with music..."

Billie's heart nearly stopped. Could this man be talking about Tony?

"Then she wound up with this guy, Andy. Nasty son of a bitch. He was into a lot of shit. And the chick...she just went downhill...she went down SO fast. And I truly believe that if Marty hadn't stepped in, she would have overdosed and died within a few weeks."

"Marty was my boyfriend, you know." Jay looked over at Billie, and smiled slyly.
"Really?"
"Yeah. We'd been together for a while."
"But..."
"Oh, I'm bisexual. Which my friends and I usually interpret as 'slut', but I;m in polite company, so..."

Billie Joe burst out laughing. Jay grinned and flicked the ash off the tip of his cigarette. Then he seemed to remember his story, and leapt back in to his tale.

"I think Andy wanted to kill her, because when she stopped cutting and drugging herself up, she started getting...better at things, you know? She started doing music and taking care of herself. And then, a few days after she played her first show with me..."

Jay paused. His eyes were dark, angry. He flicked a tear from his eye impatiently, not damaging his makeup in the least.

"Marty turned up dead in the fucking gutter. The police told ME that it was an overdose. But I know, man, I know that was a lie. Someone did something to him that LOOKED like an overdose."

Billie sighed as Jay finished.

"Andy killed him. And I'll bet you any amount of money he's fixing on hunting that girl down and reducing her to a weak, spineless sex toy...and it breaks my own heart that he's just that close to succeeding."
"WHAT?"
"Word on the street is that she came back. For some reason, she came back. Which is just what I can never understand. She was free and clear. From what I was hearing, she'd finally found a band, gotten a record deal...a person doesn't just give that all up, you know?"
"Yeah...I know..."
"She had a voice like I've never heard. You should have heard her sing...but she swore it off after Marty died. Penance, I suppose."
"Makes sense."

Jay laughed bitterly.

"Dude, when you've seen as much as I have, you'll know that NOTHING in this world makes sense."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Jay sniffled and brushed away the last of his tears. Then he looked at Billie seriously.

"So. You want a hand finding this girl?"
"You're...you're offering?"
"It's the least I can do. You sat here and listened to me bitch this whole ride."
"I'd...I'd really appreciate it."

Jay slapped his shoulder.

"Hey. It's what friends do, right?"

Billie stared at him for a moment, then smiled.

"Yeah. It's what friends do."