Aingeal's Bedtime StoryCopyright 1996 Anne-Louise Hight
3 o'clock in the morning...it's quiet and there's no one around. Just the bang and the clatter... "LARRY! Can you knock off that bang and clatter for five minutes, please?" The drummer looks up across the studio at the little man sitting on the couch who has his hands over his ears and a menacing glare on his face. Larry drops his drumsticks and raises his hands, defensively. "Sorry, man, just practisin'," the drummer apologises. "Sawrigh'," his bandmate says, removing his paws from the sides of his head and returning them to the Powerbook resting precariously upon his knees. He taps furiously for a few seconds, pauses, reads over what he's just written, then promply deletes it. He does this three times before the thin, goatees, shaven-headed gent at his right looks up from the Gisbon he's fiddling with and gives him a concerned glance. "What's ailin' yeh, Bono?" asks the guitarist. "Ah, Edge, I can't seem to get inspired tonight," Bono laments, staring into the middle-distance of a blank computer screen. "Nothing's coming to me, and the label says we're to have this album to them in less than a month!" An eight-ball comes flying at Bono's noggin. He ducks, then shouts angrily into the room that was the source of the flying, blunt object. "And NO, we CAN'T delay it again!" The bass player pokes his head into the studio, brandishing a pool cue. "Aw, who says?" he whines. "I say," Bono snaps. "We've denied the fans long enough. We have to get our butts in gear and finish this friggin' thing. Soon. But..." He rests his bottle-black head in his hands. "That's provided I can become lyrically inspired sometime soon." Edge places a hand on Bono's shoulder in brotherly reassurance. "Don't worry, Bono. You'll think of something. And if you don't, the beatings will begin until you do." Bono swipes at the sniggering guitarist, who sprints away and proceeds to bother someone else. Bono decides to take a quick walk outside, to clear his mind of the smokey studio, the wine from dinner, the incessant bang and clatter of Larry's drums, flying billards and Edge's sarcasm. That's a lot for a small Irishman to take in on a Sunday morning! So Bono excuses himself, grabs his stylish, becoming sheepskin coat, slips it on and slips outside into the cold Dublin night. The studio lies on Hanover Quay, in East Dublin. The river is dark, chilling, the endless deep stretches into the glowing soul of downtown Dublin. Bono walks along it, watching his breath form delicate clouds of dancing steam in the freezing air. He pauses to reflect on the still of the night before the silence is broken by an earth-shattering, shrill, bloodcurdling scream... ...Bono turns to see several crazed Italian women barreling towards him, howling 'Bono, Bono' in their thick, accentuated voices. He stands perfectly still as the approach, growing nearer and nearer. Still he does not move. He remains steadfast until they are about to overtake him, then steps calmly aside and watches them leap and fly right into the river. Bono shakes himself out of the daydream and realises he's now surrounded by the oncoming gaggle of screaming girls. He talks to them, politely, obliging their autograph requests, hugs and ecstatic kisses. He turns and starts to work his way back to the now warm and inviting studio. More importantly, it's safe there, too. As he moves towards the bland building that, because it looks like every other fucking building on that street, could confuse even the most intelligent U2 fan, Bono notices a black Lexus parked down the street, lights on. He sees two people inside, watching him and his brood. The car makes him nervous as he recalls certain scary movies he used to watch, with Ali or his much braver daughters. "Daddy," Jordan would say after they would watch something like 'Unsolved Tales From The Crypt' on the satellite. "Don't be scared. It was just a TV show. That man really didn't lose his head." "Mommy!" Eve would shout down the hall. "Daddy's under the bed again and he won't come out!" "Atchoo!" Bono would say, as there were dust bunnies the size of bus tires under that bed. Probably spiders, too, and it was only after Jordan brought up this fact that Bono would come out. So now, Bono feels that sinister, 'where's-my-wife-and-kids-and-bed-when-I-need-them' feeling in his gut, he makes haste to the front door of the studio and manages to get in safely. He retreats to the back room, up the spiral staircase, and into another little room where he flops down on the couch, relieved. "What's wrong Bono?" Edge comes in. "Those pesky Greenpeace people try to tag and release you again? Or was it the fans this time?" Edge narrowly ducks a flying beer can aimed for his forehead. He chortles and moves behind Howie B, who is small but makes a good deflector shield of unwanted, high-velocity objects. They don't just pay him to be a DJ. Bono relaxes for only a moment when the front buzzer sounds. "Probably just fans," Adam mutters, as bass players are occasionally wont to do. "Someone will send them away," Larry says, parading his overly beautiful self into the room for a brief but memorable cameo. But someone doesn't shoo the visitors away. Instead they are escorted in by an unidentified but much-envied member of the reception staff for Hanover. "These folks insisted they see you immediately," the receptionist says before heading back downstairs into extras-oblivion. The two people were dressed in suits, the woman in Donna Karan, the man in Hugo Boss. The woman had short red hair, a small nose and delicate features. She matched the Irish and Englishmen present for pasty-facedness. The man could be held as a competitor for Larry as man-meat, his prominent nose and full, suckable lips demanding attention from all women present in the room. Unfortunately, there are no women in the room, and so his wares go unnnoticed. The two of them open their wallets and flash FBI badges from the United States. The woman steps forward. "I'm Agent Dana Scully, this is my partner Fox Mulder." Mulder speaks. "We've been monitoring your activities in this studio for the past few weeks through a close-circuit camera mounted in your ceiling. With the help of your guitarist, we've established that THIS MAN," she points to Bono, who reels back in shock. "Is not of this planet." He rushes to Bono, leans into his face, and stares him down. "DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ROSWELL?" he asks, loudly, as insinuated by the use of caps-lock. "NO!" Bono replies, frightened out of his size-8 shoes. "AREA 51?" "NO!" "THE GRASSY KNOLL?" "NO!" "THE WELL-DESERVED HARASSMENT OF GEORGE BUSH IN 1992?" "...MAYBE!" Scully steps up and taps Mulder on the shoulder. "What?" he turns around. "Mulder, I tried to tell you on the plane ride over here...this isn't the kind of little green man you think it is..." "What?" Mulder looks to the cowering Bono, then back to Scully, then back to Bono, then back to Scully. He pauses until the dizziness subsides, then sighs. "You're right," he says. "C'mon, let's go." The agents exit. Unfortunately they go out the wrong door and fall into the river. No, actually, they only fall down the stairs. No, actually Mulder falls down the stairs. Well, alright, Bono fell down the stairs. Last Tuesday. But I digress. Edge approaches the lead vocalist, holidng back a guffaw. But upon looking into the singer's fear-crazed eyes, the guffaw escaped and quickly raced around the room, until Larry whacked it with a drumstick. "So Bono, did that scare some inspiration into you?" "Yes, yes it did," Bono says. "It did indeed" "How so, small one?" Edge asks. "Well, first, I'll do this." Bono stands, whips down his trousers and aims a full moon at the ceiling camera. Lonely, bored computer geeks all over the world squeal with delight/disgust/indifference as Bono's arse is plastered upon the World Wide Web. Of course, he has no idea of this. He will, when Edge goes home, download the picture and use it as the album cover. "Then," Bono says, zipping up his Fly, careful not to catch his Macphisto, "I'll do this." And with that, he steals Edge's hat, which causes the guitarist to dry up and blow away. © 1996 Anne-Louise Hight |