Falling Apart
Chapter 1
By: Makena
Callie. She was the best reason to come home every time a tour ended and she was the hardest thing to leave behind when a tour began. She had dark brown hair and soft brown eyes that were so truthful and honest. She was the kindest, most beautiful they had ever known - and she was only four. Callie was the product of a one night stand a girl across the street had and couldn't remember who the father was - if she ever really knew to begin with. Callie's mother was - for lack of a better word - a whore and it was for that reason she had no idea who Callie's father was. Benji and Joel didn't mind, though - they loved her anyway.
It was the end of yet another tour and Joel couldn't wait to get home.
"Last friggin' concert and we're done!" he announced randomly on the bus.
"Friggin?" Paul repeated.
"He's "cleaning up his language,"" Benji explained. "Oh?" Paul said, slightly confused at first. "Oh! Callie!"
"You got it," Joel said. "I can't wait to see her! She's almost five."
"I wonder how big she is now?" Benji thought out loud with a smile.
"You guys are weird," Billy said.
"She is cute, though," Paul said, defending the twins.
"It's like you guys are her father or something," Billy continued, ignoring Paul's comment completely.
Benji and Joel shrugged. They were like her father - they were the closest thing Callie had ever had to a father.
"I really can't wait to see her," Benji said, a smile slowly spreading across his face.
"Me neither," Joel said. "Maybe we should get her something?"
"Like?"
"A present," Joel said slowly as if Benji was retarded.
"I got that one, dumb fuck," Benji said. "What should we get her?"
"I've been thinking about something and I think I need to talk to you guys about it," Billy said, tired of hearing about Callie.
Not that he didn't like Callie - he just had something a little more important than a four year old girl to talk about.
"A book?" Joel suggested, not paying much attention to Billy.
"She has books," Benji told him.
"It's mostly about Level 27 and some other things," Billy continued, trying to perk up their interests.
"Billy's trying to say something," Paul said.
"What do four year olds like, anyway?" Joel asked.
Benji shrugged. "Maybe we should ask some four year olds."
"And I was asked to re-join the metal band I was in before I joined you guys," Billy said, a little frustrated. "I wanted your input before I said yeah or no to 'em."
Billy looked at Paul who shrugged and looked at Benji and Joel again as they continued their conversation.
"I'm gay," Billy blurted out, simply just to see if some one would notice that he was trying to speak.
Nothing. The twins babbled on about gifts for Callie and Paul looked Billy over skeptically as Billy rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"FUCK!" Billy shouted.
Benji and Joel stopped talking and looked up at Billy. "What?" they asked.
Billy grinned sarcastically. "Nothing," he said through clenched teeth. He got up and decided to get himself something to drink - maybe they would listen to him when they weren't so involved with Callie.
-----
The sun was just visible over the horizon when the Madden twins pulled into their one-story house on the poorer side of Waldorf. They had lived there for a while and they rented it out when they went away, but they couldn't sell it. Not yet. Benji unloaded his things from the trunk of the car and tried not to let another yawn escape him.
"Jesus, go to bed," Joel told him, also trying to hide a yawn. "You can see Callie in a couple hours. You know - when she's awake?"
Benji just shrugged and started up the driveway to the front door.
"I can't wait to see her," Benji said. "Do you think she'll be awake now?"
Joel cocked an eyebrow that clearly indicated no. Benji just shrugged it off and went inside where he turned the coffee pot on, only to turn it off once he realized that they hadn't been home in such a long time and they had no coffee.
"Shit," he mumbled. "Joel, I gotta run down to the store and get some coffee."
When Joel didn't respond, Benji assumed he was asleep and he drove to the closest gas station he trusted and bought himself and his brother each a cup of coffee. He returned as the sun was making it presence known and people were starting to get into their cars and go to work.
"Mindless drones," Benji chuckled to himself, still knowing that his work life was probably a lot more tiring than there's was.
He pulled into the driveway again and struggled to get the door open with two steaming coffee's in his hands. Joel was up and about and apparently looking for Benji.
"There you are," Joel said, a little out of it. "I couldn't find you and I thought maybe..."
"Nothing happened," Benji said with a frown. "You did happen to realize that the car was gone, right?"
Joel just shrugged and happily took his coffee.
They sat around the house in silence for a while, unpacking a little, looking out the window a little. Finally, Benji noticed the little girl he hadn't seen in so long walking around her front yard in search of one of her toys.
"Callie!" he said.
He walked out the door and tried to resist the urge to run across the street and give Callie a hug. Instead, he walked over the the edge of her lawn and knelt down so that Callie could hug something other than his legs.
"Uncle Benji!" the little girl cried, running over to the man. "I knewd you were gonna be home today! I knewd it!"
"You did?" Benji asked her. "How did you know that?"
"I asked God, " she replied simply.
The door to Callie's house opened and a young woman stepped outside and folded her arms. Benji looked up and squinted a little from the bright sun that sat directly behind Callie's house.
"Hi Lily," Benji said, standing up a little.
"Benji," the woman said with an added smile. "You're finally back - Callie wouldn't shut up about you or your brother."
"Uncle Benji?" Callie asked, tugging on Benji's pant leg. "Uncle Benji? Where's Uncle Joel?"
Benji laughed at himself. Through his happiness and excitement, he had forgotten to tell Joel. "Uncle Joel's back in our house," Benji explained. "You wanna come over and see him?"
Callie nodded and took Benji's hand.
"I'll get her back later," Benji promised her mother.
Lily shrugged. "I was actually hoping you could watch her for a while today," she admitted. "I don't got much money for a baby sitter and I know you like to watch her."
Benji nodded. He loved spending time with Callie - more so when Lily wasn't there.
"Anyway, I'll just let you drop her off over here when it looks like I might be home."
"Okay. See you, Lily."
Benji took Callie's hand and they walked across the street, Benji stooped down a little so that Callie didn't have to walk on her toes to hold his hand.
----
Late afternoon found Benji and Callie on the couch, both fast asleep. Callie was snuggled between the couch and Benji's body, her head resting on his slowly rising and falling chest. There were books and some toys scattered on the floor around them and the TV was playing Sesame Street.
"Just like Benji when HE was four," Joel muttered, standing over the mess. "Only twice as messy, cause now there's two of them."
He chuckled at his own joke and began to walk over the mess in attempt to get to the kitchen when he paused and watched the pair of them sleep. Callie looked so peaceful with Benji and Benji never looked happier. He smiled and continued to walk to the kitchen.
Benji woke up when Sesame Street became Barney and decided to turn it off. He looked down at the still sleeping Callie and smiled, gently kissing the top of her head. She stirred and blinked a couple of times before opening her eyes and looking up at her uncle.
"Hi, Uncle Benji," she said, still a little sleepy. "Is nap time over now?"
Benji laughed.
"Yeah," he admitted. "It's over."
"Goody!" Callie said with a grin as she tried to wiggle herself free from the sofa and Benji. "I wanna go outside now."
"Again?" Benji asked. "What's outside that you wanna do?"
Callie smiled shyly as she climbed over Benji and stood upright on the floor.
"Oh," Benji said, getting what she was hinting at. "You want to jump on the trampoline."
Callie grinned again and nodded. "Can I pwease?" Callie asked, giving him the puppy eyes. "I won't fall off... honest!"
"Can she pwease?" Joel said from the door of the kitchen, adding a laugh.
"Sure you can... come on, I'll take you out there."
"Thank you, Uncle Joel!" Callie said.
Joel scooped her up and held her upside down as Callie laughed. Joel kicked the slider door open and marched outside with Callie still hanging upside down. Benji laughed at the pair and when into the bathroom for a shower. Even though he had just been with her and he knew he would see her in a couple of minutes, Benji still missed his little friend.
Feeling stupid about missing Callie, Benji got dressed and put a hat on his head without bothering to spike his hair up. He was on vacation and he didn't need to "look his best" for the masses of people that threw themselves at him day in and day out.
"Damn teenies," he muttered, walking outside.
"There's uncle Benji," Joel told Callie.
He was sitting on the edge of the large trampoline the twins had bought simply because Callie had told them she liked to jump on them. Callie was bouncing lightly on the black surface, making sure she wouldn't fall off or hurt herself.
"Hi again, uncle Benji!" the four year old exclaimed excitedly, stopping for a moment. "Where'd you go?"
"I went to take a shower," Benji explained, smiling as he hopped off the back deck.
"Because uncle Benji smelled bad," Joel added.
Callie laughed, jumped up once, and fell on her bottom so that she could sit down. "Come and play with us!" Callie said as Benji made his way across the yard.
Benji jumped up on the trampoline with Callie, grabbed her by her stomach, and began to jump with her. Callie laughed as they collapsed onto the black surface happily and full of laughter.
"I love you, uncle Benji," Callie told him, kissing Benji on the cheek.
"I love you too, Callie Ann."
"What about me?" Joel asked.
Callie got to her knees, crawled over Benji, and hugged Joel, added an "I love you too," and kissed him quickly on the cheek.
"And I love you too," Benji cried in a girlie tone of voice as he tackled his brother and sandwiched Callie between the two of them.
-----
It was past six when Lily came over to pick Callie up from the Madden's house. She had been out for a while, and it was obvious she had downed a couple of drinks and had probably been with a man she didn't really know.
"Thank you for watching her for me," she said when Benji welcomed her into his house.
"Is that what we were doing?" Benji asked her.
"You know what I mean," Lily said with a small sigh. "Where is she? I wanna get her home for dinner."
"We made her some mac'n'cheese - she almost ate the whole fucking box."
Lily blushed a little and grasped her purse strap tighter then she had before. "Where is she?" she asked again.
"In the kitchen - Joel should be helping her wash her hands..."
Benji trailed off as he led her into the kitchen and found Joel and Callie throwing cheesy noodles at each other. Lily stopped and watched her daughter take a hand full of apple sauce and fling it at Joel. Neither Benji nor Lily knew weather they should laugh or start yelling.
"Oi," Benji groaned, putting his right hand over his eyes.
Joel looked up and part of his smile disappeared.
"Thanks for feeding her," Lily said. "Now I have to get her home and give her a bath."
"I'm sorry," Benji apologized as Joel began to clear the table and the apple sauce from his face. "I had no idea that was gonna happen -"
"It's nothing," Lily said, walking over to Callie and helping her out of the chair she had been sitting in. "She had fun and I had fun."
"I had fun," Joel interjected.
Benji looked at Joel with a slight warning glance before looking over Lily and Callie.
"Come on, baby," Lily said. "We gotta get you cleaned up."
"But I wanna spend the night with uncle Benji and uncle Joel," Callie whined.
"We don't mind," Benji said.
"Can I pwease mommy?" Callie begged.
"No," Lily said, shooting Benji the same warning glance he had just given his brother. "You need to sleep tonight and god knows you won't get it here."
Benji gave a half smile and shrugged innocently.
"Say good bye, Callie."
"Bye, uncle Benji," Callie said sadly, hugging Benji's legs. "Bye uncle Joel."
"Bye kid," Joel called after her. "Sleep well!"
"Thank you, again," Lily said before taking her daughter's hand and leading her out the front door. "See you later."
"Bye!" Benji called after them. He let out a sigh and watched as Lily and Callie walked across the street. He loved Callie so much he was surprised he hadn't died yet.