Jamie

$1000 From Your Hero

Jamie put the check down, uninterested to see who it was from. Child support? Why on earth is her mother receiving child support? Jamie's father was dead and has been dead ever since before she can remember. Maybe it was from her grandfather. Jamie picked up the check again, eyeing the signature.

She couldn't believe her eyes. Her stomach turned when she read the signature. She recognized it. Something revolted in her stomach and she found herself gagging on her mother's carpet. It read "Billie Joe Armstrong". 

In between pukes, Jamie was taking short gasps, mumbling to herself all the possible explanations behind the signature. Was this a sick joke her mother was trying to play on her? Maybe the signature said Bob James Amsterdam rather than Billie Joe Armstrong, and she was just misreading it. She considered the possibility. She was confused.

Five short minutes later, her mother stepped into the house to find Jamie curled up in a ball on the floor, next to her vomit. "Jamie!" Her mother removed the slip of paper from Jamie's hand. Her eyes became angry. "Why were you going through my shit Jamie? You think that's okay?" her mother shouted, scorching Jamie's eardrums.

"What...is...this...?" Jamie said weekly, motioning to the check in her mother's hands. Her mother sighed.

"Get up off the floor, baby," she said gently. She seemed as if she was almost disappointed in herself for letting Jamie find out about the check and not hiding it better.

She helped Jamie up off the floor, leaving the vomit. She helped Jamie over to the couch. "Obviously, there's something I have been hiding from you..."

Jamie felt nausea coming on, but tried to hold it inside of her. She was not sure what her mother was about to say, but she had ideas.

"Your, uh, hero, you say... well, he is your father. Billie Joe is, I mean," her mother said nervously, expecting a large reaction from her child. Jamie didn't know how to feel. A sensation of anger, astonishment, sadness, fear, and happiness overcame her, and she was not sure which emotion outweighed the other. She was furious with her mother for never telling her. She feared that this would distance her from Green Day, but was also happy because this could be her one escape from her mother. She was unsure.

"W-why didn't you tell me, mom...?" Jamie stammered.

"I didn't want you to absolutely hate me, like you probably do right now. That didn't go so well, did it? I've just been so moody lately! Look at this check! One thousand fucking dollars? That's it? Your father sings in the most popular band in the world, and that's all I get? What a piece of shit!" Her mother was talking to herself more than she was to Jamie.

"Mom, he saved my life. He is my hero, and you never told me that he is my father?" Jamie said, her vision getting blurry from a hot sensation of tears swelling up in her eyes.

"He walked out on you, Jamie! He didn't want you, don't you see that? He wouldn't even let me name you, for God's sake. I wanted to name you Katy, but he wanted to name you something with a 'J' as the first letter; God knows why..."

"I like Jamie better, anyway..." Jamie was also furious with her idol for leaving her. She was sure that Billie Joe knew how much of a...hm, basketcase her mother was, but he left Jamie with her anyway. She still felt the need to take sides with him, though. She was so confused. How could her savior be the cause of her misery? Yet he had still saved her from it? She did not know exactly how she felt about Billie Joe Armstrong anymore.

"You want to know the real story, Jay?" her mother asked, ready to tell it. Jamie nodded her head, though she was unsure of her decision, for she did not want to undergo any further disappointment. "Okay, well, I'm sure you've heard of the famou Amanda, correct? 'Whatsername'?"

"Of course I have," Jamie responded. Every true Idiot knew that Whatsername was really a woman named Amanda that Billie was madly in love with back in the early years, before he came across Adrienne.

"Well, I didn't pop up in no damn songs! We had a child together, yet he doesn't have any songs titled 'Katheryn'. But he writes shit about these whores named Amanda, Lady Cobra, and all that shit. And--"

"MOM!" Jamie yelled, impatiently. "Continue the story..."

"Well, in between Amanda and Adrienne, there was me. Katherine. Yes, there is no song about me; he's kept me and you in secret throughout his whole career. After Amanda moved to Europe, Billie and I had a short relationship, but a strong one. I thought he was the one. He was wonderful, indeed. Very charming. I got pregnant with you, and you weren't an accident either. It seemed like we were both ready to settle down together and make a family. But about a month after you were born, I figured out that he had been seeing another woman whenever he did gigs. He was madly in love with her. She is Adrienne Nesser, better known as '80 Armstrong'. Yes, I still do keep up with the music he writes... I know all his songs, and I hate them, only because he is the one who wrote them!

"Anywho, as you know, him and Adrienne had Jakob and Joseph together. You see? More 'J' names. Of course. Yet, he settles down with Adrienne, and they happily live in Oakland together. That's the truth behind all this, Jamie," her mother explained as she rolled her eyes repeatedly. 

Jamie was silent. "What do you think about all this, Jay?" her mother asked. Jamie got up and walked to her room to begin tearing all the Green Day posters off her wall.