ABOUT JOHNNY

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AMERICAN IDIOT

"dude, you can't be mario again. you were mario last night."[break][break]

"what? no i wasn't! i was toad!" [break][break]

"no, fuck you. you were mario." [break][break]

(your friends bicker, as they always do. unlike usual, however, you don't join in. your mind is elsewhere.) [break][break]

"we have to get the fuck out of oakland," you blurt. your heart is pounding. you've debated this for ages, practically since you were out of diapers. will and tunny don't know, they've never known. their bickering diminuendos, fading into silence. "think about it," you add. "we've been in this shithole our entire lives. don't you want to get out? fuck the patriarchy, that kind of thing?" [break][break]

(you can see their minds working. they stare at you, brows furrowed. they've never been the brightest, but you're willing to wait for them to get it.)[break][break]

"we're only eighteen," tunny mentions finally. "we can't even afford to get our own gas. how would we leave?" always the reasonable one, tunny. he leans forward, like he's about to take flight. [break][break]

"we could...we could borrow some money from my mom." you say, hesitantly. you watch as your friends flinch backwards, giving each other a glance. "no, really." you say. "i can do that."
[break][break]
(you can tell they don't believe you. you've always hated your mother, hated her ceaseless charity. but it's the only way out: your destruction becomes your saving grace.) [break][break]

tunny and will duck their heads and whisper amongst themselves. it takes a while, but you're patient. you're always patient. [break][break]

will tips his head back and smiles. "we've reached a verdict." [break][break]

you almost shout. what is it? you want to scream. because you won't do this — won't do any of it — if they don't come with you. [break][break]

tunny's smile spreads. "we're in." [break][break]

HOLIDAY

"i can't go," will says.[break][break]

(what?!) [break][break]

your guitar is slung across your back, your mother's debit card burning a hole in your pocket. tunny's beside you, a backpack on his shoulders. you stare at will, dumbfounded. in that moment, he looks absolutely stupid, with his spiked up black hair and his ripped t-shirt and his girlfriend standing hesitantly behind him. [break][break]

you're so shocked, you can't form a coherent thought. it's tunny who speaks up instead. "why the fuck not?" [break][break]

will coughs into his hand. "it's heather." he says, gesturing over his shoulder. "she's..." he pauses, swallows hard. "she's pregnant. i can't leave her." [break][break]

you blanch. blink. once, twice. and then — [break][break]

your mouth splits into a snarl and you shake your head. "let's go, tunny. we have a bus to catch." tunny looks conflicted, but in the end he follows you. you take the seats towards the back and as the greyhound pulls away from the bus stop, your breaths fog up the glass as you watch will — and your home -- fade to a pinprick in the distance. [break][break]

ARE WE THE WAITING?

your life moves quickly from that point on. you find an apartment with tunny and promptly start the next chapter of your own personal saga, going out each night and writing songs and partying like there's no tomorrow. tunny is content to stay at home, of course, watching television, but you're restless. often, you'll take yourself out on the town with nothing but the clothes on your back. you walk for hours upon hours, scoping out new hangouts and hideaways, a spot to replace (gone, but never forgotten) your old haunt, the 7/11 in oakland. [break][break]

and tunny stays home.[break][break]

one night, after a particularly exhausting bout with the friday night party crowds, you come home to find tunny sitting quietly on the couch, a piece of paper fisted in his hand. "what's that?" you ask him, even though you don't really care. [break][break]

and then -- and then he looks up at you, his eyes so haunted, and says so quietly you almost don't hear him: "i enlisted." [break][break]

and a white-hot spear of rage claws its way up your esophagus. "what the fuck?" is all you ask tunny, and he glares at the television hungrily, as if it has all the answers he can't bring himself to say.[break][break]

your voice cracks as you say, "the good guys don't wear red, white, and blue. they don't." [break][break]

tunny's mouth twitches, and you know you've hit home. [break][break]

(you've lifted your middle finger to the fucking white house with him before, and now he's going to throw on his fatigues and fight a pointless war? fuck george bush, he thinks. what rewards did they offer that made tunny side with a man who only went to a good school because of his wealthy father?) [break][break]

"what did they tell you?" you seethe, voicing your thoughts. because you have a right to know. to be betrayed so harshly, cut so deeply... you can't even fathom a good reason. [break][break]

but tunny gulps down a breath. "a future. a wife. a family. when i come home, i'll be a hero." he risks a glance upwards. "this isn't my life. the drugs, the filth, the anger. that's your life. your future. [break][break]

and then — and then — your unbridled rage simmers down to sadness. because he's right. he's always been the most family-oriented, always been the one to hold his future on a leash so it can't slip through his fingers. you blink, then shake your head. "and if you don't come home at all?" is all you can think to say. [break][break]

tunny drops his head into his hands. "then i'll be happy to have had served." [break][break]

you want to punch his lights out. but you don't. instead, you back towards your bedroom. "whatever," you say. "whatever." [break][break]

the next morning, tunny is gone. [break][break]

BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS

"i am the arm of your execution," read the scrawling letters on the back of your guitar. and underneath them, etched in black sharpie — "i am the trigger of your gun." you run your finger over the words, eyes unfocused. you turn your head into the wind, hum a tune. tunny has been gone for three weeks. you want to write, to tell him you miss him, but that fire in your stomach burns up your postcards and your american flag postage stamps. tunny's memory blows like ash around you, nothing but cinders and coaldust in the wind as you dangle your feet off the fire escape, heels glancing off of the rusted metal as you swing your legs.[break][break]

(what you fail to realize is the woman leaning out of her window just above you, listening to you play your guitar. she's dressed casually, her black hair a sheet around her head. she's speechless, beautiful in her silence.) [break][break]

but your reverie doesn't last long. you swing the guitar behind your head, adjusting the strap so the instrument is secured, and turn to head back down. when you reach the final level, you jump to the pavement and stir up alley dust. the back of your neck tingles, like you're being watched. you turn around. [break][break]

she's the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. even from a distance, you can sense her beauty, her aura of pride. she's leaning out the window, arms crossed, and who knows how long she'd been there? you blink incredulously, sucking in a deep breath. you don't believe in love at first sight, but for her -- you could certainly make an exception. [break][break]

she sees you watching and she gives you a wave, waggling her fingers with a small smile. a smile of your own (rare, nearly unheard of) fills your warm cheeks and you make a grab for your guitar, lifting it over your head in a triumphant pose. she laughs and covers her mouth, ducking back through her window. it slides shut with a soft click. [break][break]

LAST OF THE AMERICAN GIRLS

you don't wait for reason catch up with you the next time you walk down her alley. jimmy has overtaken your subconscious, and this is the only time you'll be brave enough to confront her outright, so when you climb up her fire escape and knock on her window, you smile and introduce yourself as jimmy.[break][break]

(what she doesn't know is that you're just coming off a high. you're an addict without impulse control, a man walking on a fraying tightrope over a bed of spikes. over time, she'll come to recognize who you really are; what you really are, and everything crumbles away when you take it one step too far.) [break][break]

you're high out of your mind when you threaten her with a pocketknife. you've just finished winding up the crook of her elbow with a rubber strip and you're preparing the path for your needle when she calls you jimmy, and something within you snaps, like a rubber band stretched too far. [break][break]

your racing mind isn't strong enough to quell the sudden rage that rears like a horse in your throat. you bellow and throw the needle down, fumbling for the pocketknife that lay just next to you. you flip out the largest blade, stab it at her blindly. it's a miracle she isn't hurt, but then your fevered mind switches gears. you howl and hold the knife to your own throat, threatening.[break][break]

you didn't remember her departure. you remember abruptly passing out on the bed, facedown, limbs sprawled. you remember her slamming the door. four hours later, you sit up slowly, eyes bleary as you recall something she muttered — something about giving up, something about laying down, something about fighting and dying.[break][break]

you don't feel good anymore. and you're angry. you push yourself up from your bed and stagger to the old desk by the far wall, where you scoop up a pen and a crumpled piece of paper you'd previously been writing her a song on.[break][break]

"life before the lobotomy," you write, letters scrawling and messy. your hand shakes like a leaf, the remnants of the drugs still sloshing through your veins. "johnny sang the eulogy. it burned your dreams into the ground." the words ran away from the thin blue lines on the paper. they go crooked for a moment, then straighten back out. "johnny's lesson is what he's been told. remember to learn to forget."[break][break]

hot, angry tears drip, against your will, onto the paper. "i'm not stoned, i'm just fucked up. i'm not cursed because i've been blessed." your hand steadies. "i'm not in love, because i'm a mess." you grow more ferocious the more you write, your anger and your shame and your pride crashing into one another like water to rock. "i never liked you anyway." you write, words in bold, written over many times. "saint jimmy rules." you blink the tears away, shoving one fist into your eyes to scrub away the salt and the sweat. you stop writing, taking a deep breath. "p.s.," you finish, mouth hardening into a firm line. "don't wait up."[break][break]

HOMECOMING (THE DEATH OF SAINT JIMMY)

your lifestyle as a dealer and a user quickly fizzles out and saint jimmy is pushed into the shadows, an old chest in the back of your inner attic. pieces fall like dominoes and soon you're evicted from your apartment. you make the short journey to the pawn shop, sell your old guitar. you have just enough money to buy a bus ticket home. [break][break]

the greyhound is quiet. [break][break]

you've been sitting on this bus for two hours now, staring out the window, watching the landscape flash by like an old movie. you find yourself thinking of your father (your real father, the hero, not the piece of shit brad you have now), your mom, your old friends. it's hard to believe you'd spent only ten months in the city. not even a whole year had passed since you'd walked out the front door of your dirty brown house, brad bellowing, "you'll be back, you hear me? you'll be back and you won't be allowed in this house!" [break][break]

but that won't matter, right? will is still home. he has heather, his baby. they wouldn't have a problem with you moving in, because you and will are like brothers. you lift your head, bleary eyed, and glare at the seat in front of you. there's a little map stashed between the arm-rests, so you grab it, along with a pen you'd been storing in your pocket.[break][break]

"dear dad," you write, on the edge of the california bay. "or god, or whatever." your handwriting is messy, thin, scrawling across the cities and towns. "i sold my guitar to get a bus ticket home." brad had made a big fucking stink about the initial purchase of the guitar. "i met the girl of my dreams, but i'm dead to her now." brad would be happy to hear that, you assume. any pain to you was a drug to him. "so," you write, "i'm coming home in victory!" you scrawl this next to san francisco, letters darker and bolder. the pen trembles in your hand. "arms open wide, sitting next to a greyhound toilet."[break][break]

you chew on the end of your pen, brows furrowed. after a moment, you continue, hand steadier against the thin lines of the map. "first stop, the convenience store." brad hates the 7-11 hideout. he had claimed it belonged to neanderthals, and to that, you said, look in the mirror. "i got lies to tell. glory never felt so good."[break][break]

you keep writing even though the bus is stopped. "justice was served," you write, handwriting stronger, less shaky. "you were just too stupid to notice." you finish with a flourish, writing as you rise from your seat to grab your duffel bag from the baggage compartment above you. "but that's why i'm here." you finish the note on the way down the stairs, your final words marking up the edges of sacramento. "p.s.," you add for good measure, "take a fucking shower." as you step off the bus, you breathe in the dingy oakland air.[break][break]

you're home.[break][break]