Dancing With The Devil ch. 22

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BlueSilkenSky

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Hello... anyone out there?
Long story short- I feel like my writing sucks here, but read it anyway. :p
And now I absolutely must go watch a movie... ta-ta!

Over the course of two concerts and all the time between them, I begin to perceive Bono in a way I haven’t before now. The more time we spend together, the more I notice the change. He becomes more real to me, less like a celebrity I admire and more like a true person. I catch glimpses of the human beneath his exterior. And I become more enamored with him.
There’s no specific time that my view shifts. It could have been there all along, lying dormant until now. However, I can think of three events that were catalysts in bringing about my new perception. First there was the night we stayed up late in Belgium…
“It’s a taxi again? Why?”
“I can’t think of anything easier for you.” Bono yawns quietly. “Or me for that matter… my brain’s too dead to think now.”
“Relax and I’ll write it,” I say. “The call should be prepared by tomorrow’s show. Come on…”
He gives me his paper and I read the words out loud.
“Off with the horns, on with the show… let me introduce you to my band! On my right we have our guitarist-“ I stop reading and look at Bono. “Our guitarist? Really?”
“Keep reading. It gets better,” he mumbles.
“…known to his close friends as Reggie the Dog- The Edge!” I laugh. “Is that why you call him Reg?”
“Yes, go on,” is Bono’s response. I scan the paper with my eyes and finish reading silently, mouthing the words to myself. When it’s over I flip the paper down and clasp my hands, staring over at Bono. He looks… well, exhausted. And no wonder- we’ve waited until midnight to do this. At the time I was glad I remembered, but now it just feels silly to be up so late.
“You should go to sleep,” I inform Bono. We’ve both had a long day, but he had more work to do.
“No, you were right earlier when you said we had to write this now.”
“I don’t think so anymore,” I say. “We have most of tomorrow. There’s the bed, now sleep in it.” Good thing we’re in Bono’s room and not mine…
He laughs. “You make it sound so simple.”
“I make it sound simple because it is simple. Go to bed.”
“No, no, now you’ve got me stuck on this phone call,” he insists. “I can’t sleep now…”
“Okay.” I hand the paper over. “I don’t like the “guitarist, bassist, drummer” part. You should write it differently.”
He takes a look. “How do you want to say it?”
I pull the paper back and make mental revisions as I read aloud. “Let me introduce you to my band. On my right, the man known to his close friends as Reggie the Dog- The Edge! On my left, Adam Clayton, the cat that got the cream. Behind me is the man who could put Bruce Springsteen out of a job- Larry Mullen Junior!”
Bono has a strange expression on his face.
“What?”
“Sorry… I’m losing my train of thought. Do you like watching me perform your words onstage?”
“It’s not always my words,” I say. “You do most writing. And sometimes there are surprises in the speech.”
“Well… I thought if you liked, we could get you a seat in the audience. Give you the full effect.” He rubs his hand across his eyes.
Now that sounds surprisingly great. I’ve missed being among my fellow fans in the crowd. “I’d do that.”
“Tomorrow?” he asks.
“Maybe… speaking about tomorrow, go to sleep! We can finish in the morning.”
“That’s a good idea,” Bono agrees. I collect the script and turn around as he changes clothes.
“How do I know you’re not going to join me in here once I crash?” the voice echoes from the bed behind me.
“I won’t do that,” I sniff, pretending to be insulted. I’m plenty tired myself, but not that tired. Turning around, I give the bed a glance. He looks so… inviting…
“No, you won’t,” Bono says, and opens his eyes as wide as they can go and grins creepily at me.
I roll my eyes. “Goodnight.”
“Night.” Shades pull over his blue irises and in a few minutes he’s gone.
Instead of just leaving right now, I sit down at the end of his bed. I’ve never seen Bono asleep before… It’s entrancing to watch him. Pretty soon I snap out of it, and silently exit the room feeling like a stalker.
It was the next day that I heard MacPhisto change the words of my little speech. Onstage he had introduced Adam as “A man with a ginormous willy!” making me almost fall over with laughter. Then MacPhisto had cockily added, “But it’s not as big as my one.” I’d blushed extremely and tried not to think about it.
I had been backstage at Werchter, because it felt wrong to steal a seat from another fan. In Frankfurt, however, I enjoyed the show from general admission and saw Bono open his heart to the audience, the second event I can recall which helped me view him as a different person.
“Loooove,” Bono sings at the end of Mysterious Ways, and Morleigh twists out of sight. I’m right by the stage in the audience, but it’s not as fun as I thought it would be. The fans on either side of me jostle and poke unintentionally as they try to get in a better position. And I can’t even speak German to tell them to bug off.
Bono makes his way to the front of the stag, shadeless, sweaty, and sexed up. Edge begins a certain riff. Bono slides a guitar over his head and fingers the microphone. It’s hard to focus on anything but how close he is to me, how the movements of his fingers and mouth are distracting and contradict the sentimentality of the song.
“Is it getting better?” Bono asks the audience. “Or do you feel the same? Will it make it easier on you, now you’ve got someone to blame? You say…”
He holds up a finger, motioning for us to sing along. We raise our voices. “One love… one life… when it’s one need in the night…”
Bono gazes out into the dark sky and leads us along. “One love… you get to share it… leaves you, baby, if you don’t care for it.” His voice grows harsher on that line, and his hands pull across his black guitar, strumming the strings. Even though I’m practically under his nose, I still can’t hear the notes coming from his instrument. We’re drowning it out with our voices.
“Did I disappoint you?” he wonders out loud without anger, just resignation. “Or leave a bad taste in your mouth? You act like you never had love, and you want me to go without!”
I sway back and forth and watch the video screens, which are showing a video of buffaloes running in a field. This takes away from the mood for me. What I find more moving is the word ONE, flashing quietly on the smaller screens in a few different languages. I concentrate on Bono and sing with him-
“Well it’s too late tonight, to drag the past out into the light. We’re one-“ Here he closes his eyes. “But we’re not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other, one…” His voice trails off, and he opens his eyes and forces himself to play the guitar. Edge’s own guitar rings out purely in a miniature solo.
“One,” I sing back, very softly. The fans around me are rocking from side to side, holding cigarette lighters aloft. I don’t smoke, so I thrust my empty hands in the air and join in without one.
“Have you come here for forgiveness?” Bono asks, coming back in. “Have you come to raise the dead? Have you come here to play Jesus?”
Looking down, he answers his own question.
“I did.
“Did I ask too much, more than a lot? You gave me nothing, now that’s all I got. We’re one… but we’re not the same. Well we hurt each other then we do it again.”
The entire audience seems to be on their feet, moving, swinging back and forth gently, breathing completely in sync. The song has brought us to be One.
“Love is a temple, love the higher law!” Bono sings with an almost sobbing quality, his voice much louder than us. “Love is a temple, love the higher law! You asked me to enter, but then you made me crawl… and I can’t be holding on to what you got, when all you got is hurt.”
“One love,” we sing together, as Edge’s guitar begins to ring again in the most beautiful way. “One blood. One life, you get to do what you should.”
“One life, with each other,” Bono cries out. He is inside the song now, his eyes staring out at something only he can see. “Sisters, brothers…” And he closes them again.
“One life, but we’re not the same, we get to carry each other, carry each other… one.” There’s no cheering in the stadium, only the sound of over a hundred voices singing along with Bono. Edge starts a solo once Bono stops singing. The latter man still has his eyes closed, beginning to sway with us.
Just now Edge’s guitar hits some notes that are absent on the album version, notes that I want listen to more closely. Too bad Bono starts shouting over them, raising his voice in a call to God. His words aren’t present on the album song either.
“You hear me coming, Lord? Hear me call? Hear me knocking, knocking at your door?” Emotion scorches his voice. “Hear me coming, Lord? Hear us call? See me knocking, but you made me crawl.” His eyes snap open at once, and I find myself caught in his gaze. He only locks eyes with me for a second, and then closes them again to sing in a falsetto tone, slowly drawing the song to a close.
“Yeah, love…” The buffaloes on the screen pause in their march, ending in a still of one buffalo falling off a cliff. Edge shakes his guitar a little before letting Bono take over with his rhythm guitar. Now I can hear his playing more clearly, and it’s really not bad.
“Oh, oh my love… oh my darling, I hunger for your touch. A long and lonely time.” I recognize the song- Unchained Melody, a tune I’ve always liked. This version is even better.
“And time goes by so slow… and time can change so much. Are you still mine?” Bono peers into the audience self-consciously, finally registering the ecstatic fans.
“I need your love… I need your love… Godspeed your love to me. Speed your love to… me,” he concludes, drawing his hand once across the strings of his guitar. We burst into applause. He looks at us wonderingly, amazed at our response, and smiles with a tired gleam in his eye.
No matter what Bono says about Zooropa, the song that stands for Zoo TV is One. It was only the third single off Achtung Baby, and got more plyas on the radio in Holland than any of the other releases. The next day I was invited back to the studio in Dublin, and that was the moment I finally realized who Bono the human is.
“Good to have you, Marieke,” Paul greets me as I stride down the hall. “The band called you in?” I nod. “Why am I here again?”
“They want your opinion on the album. We’re about to send it off to PolyGram and someone thought it was important if you helped decide tracklisting.” He follows me as I continue down the hall, guessing at who the someone is. “I’ve no idea why he chose you, but you should consider yourself very lucky.” Everyone’s been saying that about me these days.
At the end of the hall is the room with the soundboard that I was previously in. Bono is waiting for me with his head propped up on his palms. Edge, Adam, and Larry are all there as well, along with a few other people. I recognize them but never cared to discover their names.
“Marieke, hello! So glad to see you.” Bono rises and gives me a brief squeeze. “Now that we’re all in attendance…” I take a seat, ready to hear about the album.
Edge is the first to speak up. “One thing’s for sure- Zooropa is the opener.”
“May I hear it?” I ask shyly, folding my legs. I want to know what they’ve done with the song I practically created.
“Certainly.” Edge gets up and presses some buttons on the soundboard, and a second later the finished product of Babble and Zooropa is blaring out.
At first I only hear a mixture of voices “babbling” away. The familiar sound is pleasing to the ear. Slowly the voices become louder, more pronounced, and some piano chords are struck. Then Edge’s guitar riff on the wah-wah pedal enters, playing those four notes up and down and obscuring all else. With that riff comes a shift in the song’s expression.
“What do you want?” I don’t recognize that voice, but the question it asks brings a smile from me. It is answered by a phrase that I can’t understand- is that French? The first voice returns asking again what I want. I want to hear some singing!
Surprisingly my want is fulfilled. Bono’s recorded voice half-speaks the first word- “Zooropa. Vorshprung Du Technik. Zooropa. Be all that you can be…”
I steal a glance at Bono, and he grins. “Do you like it?”
“But yes!”
The song continues to speak of advertisements, and after the line “We’ve got that ring of confidence” Edge’s delayed guitar returns, playing alone. It sounds a bit deeper from the last riff.
The song erupts. “And I have no compass… and I have no map…”
The extreme euphoria of it all is just… explosive. Already a smile is playing around my lips, and I bring my hands together with a clap, closing my eyes. Just when I think that Zooropa can’t get any more uplifting, Bono’s voice comes up with the words “Let’s go to the overground… get your head out of the mud, baby!”
I snap my eyes open and stare over at Bono. He gazes back with impenetrable blue eyes.
“Plant flowers in the mud, baby,” he mouths to the recording. “Overground…”
The song is over too soon. It calmly finishes up with the words, “She’s gonna dream of the world she wants to live in. She’s gonna dream out loud.”
“Dream out loud,” Bono says, standing and cutting the song off. “How was that for you?”
I’m trembling, the smile stuck madly on my face. “THAT. WAS. INCREDIBLE!”
Everyone chuckles at my answer, Bono particularly loudly.
“So glad you like it,” he says. “You made it, you know.”
They start discussing what the next song will be after Zooropa.
“May I hear the other songs?” I ask. I am supposed to be helping out. Edge nods and presses some more buttons to let me hear different tracks. I listen to snippets of sound with unusually rapt attention.
“How many songs are on it?”
“We’ve evened it out to ten,” Edge says. “Cut out all the rockers and kept all the pop songs.”
“Funny, I thought Velvet Dress was a pop song,” Larry comments to no one. “I really liked that one…”
“We can use it for the next album,” Bono suggests. I snort with humor. No one wants to think about another album just now.
“ I should choose track five,” I let Edge know. “The… certain, special song… that will be the turn-around song on the album. It will be in the middle to make way for the next… half.”
“I’ve never thought of the importance,” Adam says, surprised. I tell him, “It’s even more important for a ten-track album.”
I let Edge play me some more soundbites. Then a breezy intro catches my ears. I say, “Stop. Let me hear this.” Ignoring the stares shot at me, I sit up and listen hard.
“Green light, seven eleven… you stop in for a pack of cigarettes… you don’t smoke, don’t even want to… hey now, check your change.”
My attention holds- so far so good. The voice continues, “Dressed up like a car crash, your wheels are turning but you’re upside down. You say when he hits you, you don’t mind.”
Sadness overwhelms me when I hear the next line. “Because when he hurts you, you feel alive. Oh, now, is that what it is?”
The song is so hypnotic. I motion for Edge to sit down and listen all the way to the end. My vastly improved English helps me to understand each word of the song- and each word brings another layer of grief. Where did this come from?
“Marieke?” Bono calls me back to reality. I startle at finding his voice to be the only sound in the room, the last echoes of a cymbal beat sinking into the walls. “Are you okay?”
“Er…” I don’t know if I’m okay, after hearing such an affecting song. “Yes, I’m fine. That… can that be the fifth track?”
Bono whistles. “Well, if we can find two halves to build around it, then Stay is track five… and if Babble-Zooropa is track one, we’ve gotten two down now.” He laughs at himself. “Let’s see if Marieke’s idea works.”
It does. The band explores the sound and feel of each song and slots two tracks between Babble-Zooropa and Stay. They choose a closer for the album very swiftly, and it confuses me. I can hear all the background music just fine… but who’s singing?
“Who-“ I begin.
“It’s Johnny Cash,” answers Edge, smiling a little when I make a face. His voice is too low for my taste.
“We’re closing the album with a musical joke,” Bono laughs. “Just to add to the feeling of completely alienating the listeners.”
We all stay in the room to hear the complete tracks and how they sound together. U2 is very pleased with it all. I am just happy to hear the songs in full, thinking, I don’t have to wait to buy the new album and listen to it then.
“Now the record’s about ready to be shipped off to PolyGram,” Paul says. “They’ll decide how to promote it from there. Thank you for your work, Marieke.”
“You’re welcome,” I tell him, shaking his hand. We exit the room.
“Who’s up for lunch?” Bono asks as he goes to get his jacket. “Treat’s on me.”
“Me,” Edge, Adam, Larry, and I chorus in unison.
Bono laughs at us. “Marieke, you’re just like part of the band now.”
What an honor! I like that very much.
Before we can all get outside, someone else comes in. We all turn at the sound of the door, and Bono rushes forward.
“Ali…? What are you doing here?”
Ali? Who? It’s a woman who has entered, someone who is smaller than me, with a kind face and raven black hair. She’s very pretty- statuesque, almost like a goddess.
And as Bono hugs her, I realize she’s very in love, just like me. Only she actually has a real claim on Bono.
“I came to see you,” Ali answers. “I knew you were working in the studio and I had to drop in before you left.”
“Mmm…” Bono kisses her forehead. “I’m glad you came.”
Turning around, he introduces her to me. “Marieke, this is Ali, my wife.” He says the words with such pride and love, as if polishing them up. I muster up a decent smile to Ali.
“And this is Marieke. She’s been helping us a lot on tour.” Ali nods politely and breaks free of Bono’s arms to shake my hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“And you,” I answer, all at once self-conscious. I haven’t brushed my hair at all today, and my voice sounds suddenly too foreign, with my Dutch accent… and what about my clothes? At once I regret wearing a tank top- maybe it’s too revealing?
Ali doesn’t look the least judgmental, but you can never tell. She smiles and drifts back over to Bono- “How’s your record going, love?”
“It’s finally finished. Thank God.” He embraces her again and takes her mouth in his mouth. I wonder why he’s showing off to me like this.
“Where are the girls?” he asks when they’re done kissing.
“I left them with someone. They’re all right.” She stares at her audience of the other band members and me.
Bono senses that she’s a little uncomfortable and lets her go. She goes to greet the rest of the band. Edge eyes Bono and asks in a low voice, “The lunch?”
“Ali, would you like to come to lunch with us?” Bono asks.
“Of course. Gosh, I haven’t seen you guys in ages.” We leave the studio with her talking away to them- but never again to me.
At the restaurant, Bono does all sorts of things to remind me that he and Ali are together. His hand over hers. His arm on her shoulders. The little glimpses into each other’s eyes, the words they exchange before eating- “I missed you.” “Me too.”
It’s enough to make me sick with jealousy. This is worse than the girls MacPhisto dances with onstage every night, because he barely knows any of them. As a result I spend the rest of the lunch ignoring Ali- and she ignores me right back.
When we leave the restaurant, preparing to go to the airport and fly back to Germany, Bono slips his shades back on and allows Ali to smooth his hair. God, I want that so badly… As they kiss for the last time, I can’t help noticing how well they match, and stumble away from the exchange, engaging Edge loudly in conversation. He looks kind of sick of it too, except for certainly different reasons than I.
“Say! You didn’t tell me the name of the new album.”
“Well…” Edge’s eyes dance. “You know, I wanted to call it Squeaky… there’s a line in Zooropa that uses that word, I love that line…” Seeing my obvious dislike of the word, he goes on- “But we’re just calling the album Zooropa.”
At this moment Bono catches up to us. “Hey! That was a nice lunch, wasn’t it? Impressed with Ireland, Marieke?”
I decide not to tell him that I couldn’t care less about Ireland, and swallow my pent-up, irrational anger at him. “It was good.” Good, good, good…
Yes. That the final moment where I stopped seeing Bono as a hot rock star and started seeing him as a human like me. And now I can’t stop noticing all the little flashes of him, small details in his words and actions that reveal his true self. I’ve discovered I don’t just love him for his fame and personas- I’m ready to fall in love with the man I know is there. But first I had to get a good dose of reality- Bono already has feelings for another woman.
But what if…

Yes it was supposed to end that way.
 
Okay, THIS was my favorite chapter so far. I felt jealous reading about Ali. It was so real. They've spent all this time together and she kind of forgot he was married. Yeah, it was always 'there'...but never in her face in the flesh. That was awesome - but you know how much I love angst and yearning. :D
 
I don't feel I'm too a good a writer, I'm glad you liked this one... heehee, angst and yearning, I thought you were a fan of it. :D
I kinda want to work in more of this plot...
 
I'll admit that it felt slow going at the very start. But most stories are when you start from the beginning instead of jumping into the middle and try to explain the past (like MW where there was history already there). I'm trying to figure out how Bono regards Marieke. I think he is still trying to figure it out. It would be interesting to see how is with her after lunch with Ali.

It feels like you are feeling more at home and it definitely finding its flow. I know I don't always add comments (then get bummed when I don't get feedback - silly, right?) but I do always read it.
 
I don't know why but everyone on here seems to be some kind of mind reader, they see right through me :ohmy:.
It was slow at the beginning, because I was trying to introduce everyone and establish the characters, their goals, what this story was to be about. This story just happened to wait for it all to come across. I'm still trying to figure out their relationship too, believe it or not...I know how I want this to go and how it should end, and yet this important fact remains absent... probably because I can never tell how my mood will change and if I really WANT this to happen... and if so, how will it all go down?
Hey, just one comment from anyone *cough*usuallyKatie*cough* is enough. If one person's reading, I assume it's good enough. And I comment on every one of your chapters...
 
It's weird to have so much of someone else's chapter in italics...I'm so used to them being flashbacks in my stories that I half thought Marieke was Cath before I got hold of my brain again...

Onstage he had introduced Adam as “A man with a ginormous willy!” making me almost fall over with laughter. Then MacPhisto had cockily added, “But it’s not as big as my one.” I’d blushed extremely and tried not to think about it

Thank you for that :giggle: I nearly fell out of my seat.

...shadeless, sweaty, and sexed up

Yes please :)

The improv end of 'One' sent little shivers down my spine; it was pretty vivid. I really like how you sort of carve a little window into Bono's thoughts, from the perspective of someone watching the performance, which normally you'd think would mean they miss everything. Marieke is very perceptive...and the little glimpses into Bono onstage vs. in normal life (good that she's getting more comfortable with him) are an interesting contrast of interactions between them.

Ahhh...Zooropa again :) I love the ending of that song...

Hey, just one comment from anyone *cough*usuallyKatie*cough* is enough.

:giggle:

The ending with Ali was really kind of heartwrenching though it was sweet. It's nice to see Bono so in love with her; usually the situation is he's out of love and things are easier that way...but he's less happy...he has an odd balance between happiness and melancholiness, like if he gets too close to someone, it hurts.
 
As everyone said, I really like how you've introduced Ali... she's not the bad guy, neither is Bono, so there isn't going to be an easy resolution. Mmm, angst. :evil:

:applaud:
 
I'm sooooooo glad y'all liked this chapter, I seriously thought no one would care! That being said...
Alisaura- Thanks! The thought of angst next scares me though... :rolleyes:
Katie- The part with One in it wasn't really going to happen at first, but then I watched the Zoo Tv performance and it was so excellent that I had to put this in the chapter... probably Marieke is very preceptive because I am perceptive, it's a lot different watching on your TV than in the staidum though. I'm not sure how different the stage Bono and the real Bono are, I think they are the same person. And I just had to make them be in love. As of now Bono does not seem too interested in Marieke, and I couldn't stand the thought of him not being interested in anyone... so I had to bring Ali up sometime. Besides, I really don't think it's fair how she never wins in stories! :(
 
Blue—you've got a lot more angst to put in to call it angst :giggle:

I'm glad you're being nicer to Ali, since I'm not at the moment...D: I kind of want there to be a good solution for her, and for Marieke, but I have no idea what it would be. And I was thinking stage Bono and real Bono were just different aspects of the same person, so there you go.
 
Eric for Marieke? Bono seems to be not interested romantically, but there's some kind of tension there. Like she sticks in his mind but he's not sure why.

Ali is winning in Please. She's not being cheated on at least.
 
I think you'd be able to, Blue (sorry for not asking if I call you that :giggle:) You get pretty close to it and seem to be doing fine.
 
I agree. It's not over wrought with heart wrenching angst. It was real. Marieke has spent a lot of time with Bono. She was in love with the rockstar and falling in love with the man. So, it wasn't forced. It was how I'd feel in her shoes. When a reader can identify with the character in a story, that's good writing.
 
Thanks, y'all. :giggle: :hug:
And now I've simply got to get to bed, I have a quiz to take tomorrow in school... and I will have to write some more of this story.
:)
 
You sound so much like my friend Kim...that's practically her motto :lol:

What can I say... angst can be enormous amounts of fun. :D

May I call you Ali? If so.. well, Ali, I just don't know! :giggle:
I don't think I'd write it very well!

Certainly! My name's Alison, but most people on here seem to find Ali easier. :wink:

And like GraceRyan said, you're doing pretty well so far!

I agree. It's not over wrought with heart wrenching angst. It was real. Marieke has spent a lot of time with Bono. She was in love with the rockstar and falling in love with the man. So, it wasn't forced. It was how I'd feel in her shoes. When a reader can identify with the character in a story, that's good writing.

This. Angst is what happens naturally when a character (or a person) is in conflict, especially internal conflict. If someone falls in love with a married man, who is clearly also in love with his wife, there will be angst... it wouldn't be realistic otherwise, and again like GraceRyan says, allows the reader to empathise with her.
 
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