Pothead Poltergeists

“Why can I hear this? What the fuck is this? I can fucking see right through you.” It’s all a joke anyway. Why not play along just a little bit. I’m going to wake up anytime soon now anyway. About now…or Now! Hmm, NOW!

“But you can see me? No one has been able to since the accident happened.” Shit. Really wishing now that this meeting had happened before the accident. Hmm. Why does that line sound familiar? Oh yeah, Before the Accident is a Pinhead Gunpowder song. I am obsessed. Shit, focus!

“Who the fuck are you?” Billie looked up at me, not ready to believe what was actually going on. He looked as if he could not quite give it up, and at any moment, one of the guys would jump out of the closet with a projector and laugh about how they tricked him just like the villains of Scooby Doo. Meddling kids – um, well, yeah, there’re still kids…especially Tre. So he didn’t run, he listened, but the more he listened, the more nothing happened.

“I’m from the South Bay. Los Gatos.”

“And what are you doing here?” he said half laughing but still half uneasily.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re dead.” He looked up at me with his arms crossed.

“No, I’m alive. I’m in the hospital now.”

“How do you know that?” he smirked.

“I saw myself.”

“You saw yourself,” he said sarcastically.

“Yes, and I could not get anyone’s attention. And then, it was me. I’m not dead I think. Just asleep.”

“So, you’re really in a coma, and you’re a ghost.”

“Yes.”

“That’s very funny, Mike, Tre, get out of the fucking bathroom!” he stood up and walked around opening the doors of the closet, the bathroom and then behind the hallway door. Seriously, those guys were good at this game. Or maybe it was Joey and Jake. They were sneaky like that.

“It’s not a joke, Billie.”

“This must be a dream.”

He turned around and found me standing right before him. I grabbed his hand. He stood there silenced. “Can you feel me?”

“Um, yeah. You’re hands are warm.” Oh, well if the hands are warm she must be alive, right? Wait, holograms can’t be warm though. Or solid.

“Really, that’s weird. I always though all ghosts were cold,” I wondered out loud.

“You’re not kidding about this are you? You’re insane. You’re all fucking insane. Shit, I am too!”

“No, I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t know what to do, and I wanted to see you.”

“What do you mean? Err…why?” he turned around and started pacing again with his hand on his head.

I bit my lip. Then I put my hand on his shoulder to turn him around, and he looked straight at me again. He poked my arm as if to make sure this was still real. “Billie, I really wanted to meet you alive. All the way alive. I wanted to tell you thank you.”

“For what?” he asked sort of sweetly now. Almost like he forgot all this shit for a second.

“Thank you for your music; I mean all of it from the beginning. I can’t tell you how many times you have saved my life. I couldn’t have made it through high school without you. You and Mike and Tre are one of the greatest bands. Green Day is one of the few keeping the true spirit of rock n’ roll alive. And you Billie, you write the most beautiful lyrics. That all sounds really corny, but it’s true.” It all just flowed out of my mouth in one line. As if I were pleading with him for something. Maybe just pleading for him to listen. He stared at me for a second with a half smile, like he was listening to a fan rather than a…er, whatever I am at the moment.

“Well, thank you. I’m glad to know when people appreciate what we’re doing.” He breathed and took a look around before turning back to me. “I still don’t get this though. You’re telling me you’re ghost.”

“Yep. I guess so. I believe in them,” I shrug. “Ironic, now I get to be one,” I laugh and he smiles at me. Then he snapped back as if he remembered who or what he was talking to again and still looked uneasy.

“I should be freaking out right now.”

At that particular moment, Adrienne walked into the room with a couple of dresses on hangers. “You talking to yourself, Billie Honey?”

I had to bite my lip not to laugh when she said it so matter-of-factly.

“Uhh, yeah…” he was not so sure what to say. I was standing right between her and Billie Joe, and she obviously did not see a thing. Apparently, this was not all too out of the ordinary for the Armstrongs. Then again, we’re all a little crazy.

Adie seemed not to take any notice and held up the dresses. “Ok, so I am going out with the girls for dinner. Which one should I wear?” she held up one dress to her body and posed. Then the other. That made Billie smile. It was so not a thing she would normally do for anybody else, and he thought it was hot.

“I think the black one with the laces.”

“Ok,” she rushed past him giving him a kiss and into the bathroom around the corner. “I have to hurry or I’ll be late. It’s pizza night so Pizza My Heart will come in about fifteen more minutes,” her voice echoed back to us off the stone walls as I heard her pulling the clothing off her body and tossing it towards the doorway. I smiled. Coming from her, that is just...

Billie eyed me with an amused look on his face. Adrienne ran out a minute later after the fastest change I have ever seen, snatched a pair of classic black boots out of the closet and blew her husband a kiss on the cheek on the way out the door. “Bye Baby!”

“Bye! Have a good time!” he called after her. Then he turned to me.

“She’s really pretty you know.”

“Thanks. She is. She didn’t see you.”