Reggo
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2007
- Messages
- 26,992
Okay, so it is the last chapter. I think. 
There may be more.Very strong language warning. Very strong.
Disclaimer: Not true, never happened, all bollocks.
Thanks, girls, for encouraging me to continue this.
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The concert almost didn't happen, and I guess I should take responsibility for that. They all thought I had left the venue and Stuart was getting ready to go on for me when I calmed down enough to go onstage. Lucy didn't report directly to me when she showed up. As a matter of fact, I had to seek her out once I heard that she was there. And I found her (I guess I shouldn't have been surprised) snogging Larry. And that was when I walked outside and considered going home and started smoking half a pack of cigarettes in an hour. I considered getting Stacie from my sister's and moving somewhere far far away. Upper Mongolia or something. Childish, I know, but I was hurt. Lucy said she would be returning to me, returning home, when she got out of rehab. And to see her with Larry, actually see it, see him touching her and kissing her and seeing her respond to him in ways she never did with me, I realised I had been kidding myself for ages. How does that lyric go? I love you because I need to, not because I need you. She stayed with me because she got pregnant, because we had Stacie. And she did the things I asked, maybe only because I scared the hell out of her. Not because she really loved me, but because of her problem dealing with male authority figures. Yelling, screaming, treating her the way I did, it should've been perfectly obvious that I was going to end up losing her if I kept that up. She was miserable with me. And that was the point where I almost considered not taking Stacie with me and vanishing to Mongolia. Maybe my daughter would be better off without me as well.
"Adam?" I hear Lucy's voice behind me. I wanted to turn around and see her the way I had planned to see her, and there she was, in the light green dress, one that matched her eyes, the one I knew she'd look so devastating in, and curly ginger hair. I can't say...well, anything. I don't want to snap at her, but that's what I'm afraid I'll do. "Hi." She walks across the asphalt to me, but still keeping a bit of distance between us. "Bono's wondering where you are. He got worried when it seemed no one knew where you were."
"Well, here I am," I say, trying to keep my cool.
And that's when she walked close and put her hand on my shoulder. "Adam." I shrug her off.
"Don't. Just get Stacie and go to Dublin and I'll see you when the tour's over, okay?" I light another cigarette.
"No. I want you to talk to me," she says. "I don't like seeing you like this. I'm worried about you. I don't want you to make another mistake."
"Mistake?" I turn around and face her. "What mistake?"
"Relapsing. Drinking again, falling back into that lifestyle, that trap. Adam, I still care about you. Don't you realise that?"
I shrug. I hadn't. "I thought you hated me."
"No," she cracked a smile. "I could never hate you. I may get incredibly frustrated with you, but I could never hate you, Adam. Why? Do you hate me for what I've done?"
"Of course not. Just--I guess I can't understand it. Why did you stay with me for all that time if you didn't love me? Why didn't you just say, 'It's been fun, but I love Larry Mullen. See you' and leave once you figured it out?"
"Because I thought the marriage was real. It was Las Vegas. We could've gotten married anywhere. I stayed with you because I did develop feelings for you. You're a charmer. Worse than Bono, trust me. I grew to love you and we had Stacie. If I hadn't gone to Paris with Larry, none of this would ever have happened. I'd still think our marriage was real and legal. I'd be trying to put my relationship with Larry behind me and be happy to spend the rest of my life with you. But when I found out you lied to me, that was the turning point. I couldn't trust you anymore. And I can't be with someone I don't trust," I let her put her arm around my waist.
"And you trust Larry?"
She nods, "With my life. He's always been completely honest with me. Even when the truth is something I don't want to hear."
"And if I'd told you that the marriage wasn't real when I brought you home to London?"
"Who knows? Maybe if I thought about it, I would've stayed with you. You're a surprising person, Adam. You're not what you want people to think of you," she hugs me. "For what it's worth, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Our time together is something I'd never want to take back."
"Lucy, I feel like an idiot asking, but please don't leave me. Will you give me another chance? Will you stay with me? Will you marry me? For real?"
"Adam," she purses her lips and I hold her in my eyes. If she blinks or looks away, I'll lose her forever. "Love, I just can't. I'm sorry."
"I didn't think you would," I look at my feet. "Hope springs eternal, though."
She kisses my cheek. "Tell you what. If things with Larry don't work out, you'll be the first I ring."
I sigh as I look in her eyes. This is the end. This is it for us. I hold her to me. I don't want to let go. Not yet. But I do. "I think this is the part where I kiss you good-bye."
She straightens up and creases her brow. "What? No, Adam." She puts her hand up, signalling me to stop. "Look, I came here to tell you I've made my decision. I'm staying with Larry. And I'm suing you for custody of Stacie. I'm not going to let you keep my daughter from me. I'm not the idiot you think I am."
I stare at her, my jaw setting and everything suddenly feeling very cold. And then a little bit of warmth in my stomach, anger.
"So this pebble is getting out of your shoe. I plan on sharing Stacie with you. I don't want her to be deprived of her father. However, if I find you ever treat her the shitty way you treated me, you can damn well expect not to see her again," Lucy finishes. And I lose control. My hand goes from her waist to my shoulder, and then across her face. She didn't flinch. She should've grabbed my wrist and kicked me in the bollocks, but she didn't. She let me slap her. Kind of an appropriate parting gift. Bruise on her cheek will match my bruised heart.
"You bitch. You fucking bitch!" I scream.
I watch rage boil inside of her and she shoves me backward. "I'm a bitch? I'm the fucking bitch? You go around intimidating and abusing me, and I'm the fucking bitch? No, fuck you. You are. You're the fucking little coward bitch." I sticks my nose in the air and start to walk away. "I'm not done with you, Clayton."
"How dare you fucking accuse me of mistreating my own daughter? I wouldn't dream of it," I say, fuming.
"So why'd you do it to me, you bastard?" Lucy asks flatly.
I look at my feet. "It's not like I'm fucking proud of it. I've just had enough of women fucking me around and I thought that if I set in place certain rules, you wouldn't. And then you did anyway. I can't catch a fucking break."
"I'm sorry that Naomi and Susie and those others didn't appreciate you. I did. I appreciated you and respected you and loved you very much. But--."
"Stop. I already know. I got paranoid and pushed you away," I sigh. "And I lied. I never should have lied to you."
Lucy takes a deep breath. "This is the end of it for us, Adam. We're finished." I nod and go inside. Larry's lucky I didn't punch his lights out when I saw him. Flinching, she holds her cheek as Larry walks over.
"Hi, honey. What happened?" He smiles and kisses her.
"Adam slapped me when I told him I was leaving him once and for all," Lucy sniffles.
"What? That fucking bastard," Larry takes her hand away from her face. "Jesus Christ. I'm gonna kill him." He pulls her inside, both of them running to the dressing-rooms. "Clayton! Adam, you fucking bastard, get out here. You wanna push somebody around, try me. Fucking coward." Bono and Dave come out of their dressing-rooms to see what all the commotion is about. "How fucking dare you, you bastard."
"What set off Droomer Boy?" Bono asks Lucy.
"Adam slapped me when I told him we were finished," Lucy says.
Bono and Dave start helping Larry pound on my dressing-room door. "Adam, open up!" Bono yells.
"Fuck this," Dave sighs and kicks the door open.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Larry asks.
"Three teenage daughters," Dave replies, then goes back to his dressing-room, favouring his right foot. Seeing Larry and Bono fuming like that, I knew I was in trouble.
"Lucy, go to my dressing-room. Bono and I have some business to dicuss with Mr Clayton," Larry says calmly, kisses her cheek, then she vanishes.
"Business?" I ask.
"Yeah, like which half of your arse should I kick first?" Larry's testing the tension in his fist.
"Which eye would you prefer blackened?" Bono asks, testing his own.
"Look, gents, I'm sorry. I made a mistake and it'll never happen again," I try to apologize.
"Nope, not good enough. I still need to hit you," Larry says and punches me in the side of the head. "Stay away from Lucy, you bastard."
"No problem," I say, reaching for a cold bottle of water to help with the swelling where Larry's hit me. Larry and I stare at each other with so much hate, it's hard to imagine us the friends we once were. "I got the message, Lardence. Now piss off, will you?" Larry walks back out of the room.
Bono approaches me. "She needs to be appreciated for who she is, you fucking bastard. Lucy is a beautiful, amazing young woman. She's not a goddamn piece of your property. If I ever find out that you've hurt her again or any woman, Edge, Larry, and I will set you right." Then Bono sweeps out of the room. I hate to say it, but he actually frightened me with that. I don't know what 'setting me right' entails.
The gig starts well enough, Larry and I playing together, until I hit the completely wrong note during "Beautiful Day" and it flusters me and I start playing out of time. I walk over to Larry to try to get back in time with him and I read his lips, "Bitch." I stop playing at that moment and glare at Larry. Stuart comes out on stage, thinking something's wrong with the guitar and I hand it to him. I start walking around the drumset and Larry gets up and runs. The only place for him to run to is, unfortunately, one of the B-stages. I wait for him to realise he's trapped, then I walk down the ramp, pleased with myself that I might get in a few punches this time. Larry surprises us all by backing up to the far edge of the B-stage, then running straight at me. I brace myself for the impact and at the last second, Larry drops and slides through my ankles, then gets up and disappears.
"Bloody hell, that was amazin'!" Bono laughs. I go backstage, still in the mood to injure the drummer and I find him cowering behind Lucy.
"Lars!" I roar. Lucy side-steps and reveals him.
"Lucy!" Larry stands up, surprised she'd do that, then realising he's exposed. "Oh, shit. Hi, Adam."
I approach Larry and hold up one finger. "That's one." Then go back on stage.
"One? One what? How many do I have? Adam!" Larry calls after me. "I'm in big trouble."
"Yeah," Lucy nods, then kisses his cheek. "Good luck with that on tour."
"Oh, Jesus, thanks," Larry rolls his eyes, kisses her, then goes on stage. Intriguingly, the gig goes well after Larry's and my little diversion. Other nights on the tour do not go as swimmingly. One night I was in a particularly foul mood, and I tripped Larry as he was walking out to one of the B-stages to play "Love And Peace Or Else." I don't expect him to fall off the ramp, but it is an added bonus when he does and I start to chuckle to myself. He grabs the edge of the ramp as he falls and saves himself from another back injury. I'm rather pleased and start laughing out loud. I don't see Larry walking up behind me, but I do notice his foot in my arse. I set my bass on the stage and follow him as he struts down the ramp. I grab his shoulders and turn him around and as I do, he shoves me backward. "Get yer fuckin' hands off me."
"Guys, cool it," Dave insists, wanting the show to go well.
"Fuck off, Edge. This is between me and Larry," I snap. "Get out of the way or get hurt."
"Jesus Christ," Dave hands his guitar to Dallas and goes backstage.
I shove Larry as hard as I can. And that sets off a brawl that requires Edge, Bono, and four of our crew to pull Larry and I apart. He got a fat lip and I earned a black eye. I had to ice my knuckles the next day so I could play. I got banished to a B-stage for a few shows until I promised to behave myself on the main stage. And I did. Until Chicago where I broke Larry's nose and he blackened my left eye again. And Boston where I dove over this drumset at him in a rage and we destroyed it trying to kill each other. He made my eye worse and I broke his nose in another place, plus cuts and bumps and bruises on both of us from the drumset that fought back. I had to pay to replace it, and have it express-shipped to New York. Larry wants me to pay for part of his nose surgery when he gets back to Ireland, and an ophthalmologist has told me that I'm in danger of losing the sight in my left eye if it continues to be injured. So in New York, I've ordered the best steak available, raw, to nurse my eye and Larry looks like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, sans antlers.
"That's disgusting," Larry says, curling his lip at the steak on my face.
I lift the steak off my truly black eye. "Would you rather look at this?"
"Jesus! Put it back!" Larry squirms.
I put the steak back down and Bono enters the room. "Are you two gonna kill each other tonight? Should we finally allow weapons in these rumbles of yours? Or on the last night of our tour, may we please finish the concert without bloodshed?"
"Last night?" Larry asks.
"Yes, last. Edge and I are tired of your fighting and you both need surgery. We're postponing the rest of the tour until you both settle down and get over this."
"Talk to him, he's started the last three fights," Larry folds his arms and tries to scowl, but it hurts his nose.
"Oh, excuse me! Who called who a motherfucking bastard in Chicago?" I asks. And we start talking over each other, arguing.
"Shut the fuck up!" Dave shouts over us. Larry and I stop mid-sentence. "Look, until you two can play on stage in harmony, we're postponing the tour. People are coming to shows just to see the two of you fight. But the fans don't want to see that. They want to see U2 playing music for the full three hours. Not an hour or two of music, 15 minutes of you two being idiots, then a quick encore with the techs while paramedics decide whether or not one of you needs hospital. You both need the mental ward. Fighting over a girl. Cause that's what this boils down to. Lucy. You know what, Adam? Get over yourself. You're obviously not the man Lucy wants in her life. And Larry, you won her. Congrats. Stop rubbing it in Adam's face." I look over at Larry and he looks at the floor. "Quite the pair of idiots, you are."
Larry started the fight that night and it really doesn't matter who won or lost. Instead of the silence from thr crowd we're used to hearing when we get into it, they were cheering, booing, rooting for one over the other. Not that that stopped me from breaking what was left of Larry's nose nor him from kicking me in the bollocks. Good thing I'd already decided Stacie was the only child I wanted. Larry got rushed off to hospital for emergency surgery on his nose and when Dave called Lucy and she started screaming, the phone was handed to me, icing my...self down in the waiting room. She called me every name in the book and a few she made up and I did nothing to try to convince her otherwise. Larry was hurt very badly, and it was because of me and my pigheadedness. Larry came out of it alright and only had to spend one night in hospital. Dave caught a flight to Los Angeles after we were sure Larry would be okay (when he scowled at all of us for worrying about him too much) and Bono, Larry and I try to have a civil flight home.
We hit some strong turbulence that bounces most of the liquid from our glasses, "Whoa!" I shout.
Larry, enjoying the ride, starts singing "Peggy Sue." And Bono scowls.
"Larry, please. I think Lucy would prefer you getting home in one piece," I say. He glares at me.
Our pilot comes on, "It appears we've caught the edge of that electrical storm we were trying to outrun."
"Oh, my God," I am now officially scared. We're over the Atlantic with nothing but open sea below us.
" 'Electrical storm'?" Bono asks like it's some cruel joke.
"So buckle up tight. We're gonna do our best to get you out of this," the pilot finishes his announcement.
Larry shrugs. "Rock and roll."
"We shouldn't be here," Bono shakes his head and grips his armrests.
Another thunderclap shakes the plane and drops us about 100 feet in the air.
"My God!" Bono shouts.
"Whoa, baby!" Larry laughs and cheers, "Ireland, we miss you!" This is how he copes, I guess.
The co-pilot comes out of the cockpit and faces us. "Look, we're gonna try to land as soon as possible, but we're over the ocean and we don't have too many choices."
"I can't breathe," Bono is hyperventilating.
"So just sit tight. And we're going to get you out of this," the co-pilot stumbles back to the cockpit as another bolt of thunder slaps the plane.
"Everybody says, 'It's so glamourous out here!' " I try my own humour.
"Just told us we're gonna die," Bono is positively green. And Larry's face has gone very solemn.
Suddenly, we hear the pilot, "I'm trying to maintain, but the fucking thing won't--shit!"
"Oh, my God," I say again. And we hear the engines strain.
Larry speaks up. "If something should happen, maybe I never said this enough. I love all of you." The engines whine and thunder tosses the plane.
"I don't love you. I never did," I snap. "You act above me. You always have! You just held it over us like you might leave, like we're lucky to be with you. And we had to live with it. I had to live with you and now I might die with you and it's not fucking fair!"
"Please, enough!" Bono screams.
"Whatever happens, Clayton, you're dead!" Larry yells.
"Don't be self-righteous, Larry, not now. Not after you ruined Ann's life just cause you wanted to fuck a groupie," I reply.
"Shut up!" Larry shouts. Thunder rocks the plane again. "I'm gonna kill you!" Larry starts to climb out of his seat.
"A groupie?" Bono says, staring at both of us with mad eyes. "You would call Lucy a fucking groupie? What the fuck is wrong with you? We're always talking about the fans, the fans, the fans. She is your biggest fan, and you used her. Both of you. You used her, Adam, then you threw her away. And if you can't see that, then that's your biggest problem."
Larry and I stare at each other, then I look away. Bono lights a cigarette and suddenly the plane stops bouncing and rocking and the engines quiet down. The storm, poetically, has passed. The co-pilot opens the cockpit door. "Thank God above, we're alive! We're alive! We're gonna make it! Sweet relief!" Larry gets up and slams the door shut. "Hallelujah, dear God!"
The rest of the plane ride is silent. I don't dare look at Larry. What Bono said was right. I used Lucy and I threw her away, that's the best way to explain what I've done to her. When we land in Dublin, Lucy, Stacie and Ali are waiting for us. As we're walking off the plane, Larry vomits in a trash bin. Bono hugs Ali tight when he sees her. I think he was terrified he'd never see her again. Stacie runs up to me and when I look down at her, I pick her up and grip her as tightly as Bono is holding Ali. I realize that if the storm has been any worse, I wouldn't be here.
"Was the flight very bad?" Lucy asks.
"You might say that," Larry puts his arm around Lucy's shoulders and I watch them walk out of the terminal together.
"Bye, Mummy!" Stacie calls after her.
"Yeah, good-bye, Lucy," I whisper.
Hell of an unexpected ride there, but still fantastic. 
Good move Frankie!
factor. 
