As the sun rises over Chicago, Edge retires. Bono works a little longer, and then, spotting a guest bedroom in Edge's suite, collapses in his clothes.

While U2 is going under, candidate Bill Clinton is waking. He glances through his messages and the Secret Service men inform him that while he was sleeping some crazy hippie came bearing an invitation from U2. Clinton's response? "Why didn't you wake me?" As the government bodyguards shrug and mutter Clinton demands, "Is it too late? Where are they now?"

Suddenly it's the Secret Service's turn to run through the corridors on the whims of their king. They wake Paul McGuinness, who jumps out of bed, clears his throat, flattens his hair, and says, "Of course Bono would like to parlay with the governor! Please tell Mr. Clinton to head straight over to Bono's suite! I'll wake him!" Then the manager hangs up and tears through his bag for a necktie.

McGuinness rings Bono's suite and there's no answer. Okay, fine, don't panic—he's probably just passed out. The manager hightails it down to Bono's room, gets the hotel to unlock the door, and Bono's not here. The bed has not been slept in, the tub has not been bathed in, the spiral staircase has not been trod. There's no Bono, but here comes Bill Clinton1. The hotel staff are as desperately helpful as elves at the North Pole, the Clinton campaign honchos are ruthlessly friendly, the Secret Service are coldly professional, and the Next President of the United States is

 [97]

cheerful as he surveys Bono's fabulous suite. McGuinness, his welcom­ing grin frozen like rictus, says welcome, welcome, and then slips into the next room to get on the phone and wake every member of U2 to say: (I) get up, (2) get over here, and (3) where's Bono?

"We worked on a song here till dawn," says a bleary Edge. "Then I went to bed. I don't know where he is now." Edge hauls himself out of bed to brush his teeth and meet the candidate. On the way to the bathroom he notices a spare room and pushes open the door. There, unkempt, unshaven, and unconscious, lies Bono.

"Get up," Edge prods, "Bill Clinton's in your room."

Bono doesn't even know what time zone he is in. His mouth tastes like an ulcer and his head is swimming with "Two shots of happy, one shot of sad, you think I'm a good man . . ." His dyed hair is in his red eyes, and like Lazarus, he stinketh. "Clinton's in my room?" Bono tries to straighten himself. He looks in the mirror. Dorian Gray. Fine. "Okay," he mum­bles, "let's see how much of a politician this guy really is."

Bono weaves through the hotel and slips into his suite through the upstairs. He hears Clinton talking in the room below. Bono puts his beetle shades back on, rubs at the wrinkles in his red velvet suit, and lights up a tiny black cigar. Elegantly wasted, Bono then descends his spiral staircase into the candidate's company with the fuck-you aplomb of Bette Davis on a bad day. Clinton stops, Clinton stares, and then Clinton falls over laughing.

"Hey," Bono thinks, "this guy's okay."

Edge and Larry have drifted in and for an hour U2 sits huddled with the candidate. The blarney-hating Larry challenges Clinton: "Look, you know the system is corrupt. Why do you even want to be president?"

Clinton looks at Larry. He pauses and then speaks softly: "This is going to sound corny. But I do love my country and I do want to help people. I know the system is corrupt, and I don't know if the president can change it. But I know this: no one else can."

Touchdown! Gee, Larry thinks, what an honest guy. Wow, Bono thinks, he really is like Elvis (which is the candidate's Secret Service code name—big points with Bono). Bono talks to Clinton about ideas wat George Lucas, the flimmaker, has promoted about using high tech to get America's education system back on line.

"I have not met George Lucas," Bono says, "but I have from a distance sort of kept tabs on what he's doing, because he's a very

[98]

interesting man. Most of his energy for the last six or seven years has been spent on developing computer software programs for schools. He believes that America can be educated, and America's educational sys­tem is the biggest problem in the United States, and that the way to solve it is through video arcade type interactive study programs. I think he is right. And it's one of the important ideas out there right now."

Adam has wandered in, amazed to see the large room now full of political operatives and Zoo TV associates, all chewing the fat and exchanging road stories. Adam did not leap to his feet like Paul Revere when he got the word that Clinton was looking for the band; he had a bath and breakfast and made his way slowly over to what looks now like a busy campaign headquarters. The bassist joins his bandmates in the corner with the candidate as Bill's inviting U2 to play at the inaugura­tion and Bono's nipping through his foggy brain trying to think of something a socially conscious cat such as he should say to the next president while he has him buttonholed.

Ah, he's got it! One for the old folks at home. "Listen," Bono says to Clinton, "Ireland is supposed to enjoy this 'special relationship' with the United States, but it's murder for any Irish person to get a visa to come here! The British come and go as they please, but I can't even get my kids' nanny in, for God's sake. If you become president will you—"

"Aw, come on, Bono," one of U2's entourage interrupts, "you know if you let an Irishman into America he'll never leave!" Bono stares daggers at the speaker while Clinton laughs at being let off the hook. Tie one time, Bono thinks, I have a shot at scoring a point for Ireland . . .

After Clinton leaves, Bono reprimands his impolitic associate: "If the people back home ever find out you said that to Clinton you will be found swinging from a Dublin lamppost."

It turned out in the course of their talk that Clinton and U2 both had tickets for that night's Chicago Bears football game, so they agreed to combine their motorcades and share a single police escort (this being the royal equivalent of you or I carpooling). Now, as Adam points out on the way to the game, a band in U2's position does get a little sanguine about police escorts, but you know Clinton's playing in a different league when you look around and realize that the honor-guarded cars in this escort are the only cars on the highway. The Secret Service has blocked off all on-ramps until the candidate and his guests pass by. Not even Led Zeppelin had that in their riders!

 [99]

Watching TV a few days later, Bono is jarred to attention by a speech President Bush is making to a campaign rally: "Governor Clinton doesn't think foreign policy's important, but he's trying to catch up," Bush tells the crowd. "You may have seen this in the news—he was in Hollywood seeking foreign policy advice from the rock grop U2!"

Bono looks up. "Rock grop?"

Bush continues: "I have nothing against U2. You may not know this, but they try to call me every night during the concert! But the next time we face a foreign policy crisis, I will work with John Major and Boris Yeltsin, and Bill Clinton can consult Boy George!" Bush goes on to declare that if Clinton is elected you, too, will have higher inflation, you, too, will have higher taxes. You, too! You, too!

Bono doesn't get it. "Does he think I'm Boy George?" he asks.

"Nah," I say. "He's damning Clinton by association. He probably had a team of consultants sitting up all night trying to think of a rock star they could insult without offending any potential Bush voters. Madonna's too big, Springsteen—need those electoral votes in New Jersey. Boy George is foreign, gay, and no longer sells any records. He's perfect."

"Yeah," Bono sighs, standing up. "Poor George is a safe target. He's not popular."

On November 3, U2 watches the election returns on CNN before going onstage in Vancouver, Canada. Their crew cheers each time an­other state goes for Clinton. "Jesus, isn't that just like us!" Bono says. "It's a hell of a night to have just left America."

For U2 the U.S. presidential election is slightly abstract. But Bono begins to feel its weight the Sunday after the election when he goes to services at the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Fran­cisco's Tenderloin district. When he's in the area Bono is a frequent worshipper at Glide, an inner-city church built in the 1930s by Lizzie Glide, a wealthy philanthropist, which had few parishioners left when the Reverend Cecil Williams arrived there in 1964. Rev. Williams turned it into a church devoted to embracing society's outcasts, and over three decades has made it a jumping center of worship and social action tor sympathetic people from all levels of the community. "It's the only church I know where you can get HIV tests during service," Bono says. It's amazing, the singing's great, there's queues around the block on Easter Sunday. It's just a happening, really alive place."

[100]

This Sunday the church has a special day of thanksgiving for Clin­ton's victory, and Bono is caught up in the passion of the congregation. The reverend's wife, a poet named Janice Mirikitani, gets up and reads a poem about what this day means for American women and when she finishes about half of the 1,200 people crammed into the church jump up singing and weeping.

"That was the moment," Bono says afterward. "That's the moment when I knew how important this small victory was. I was looking around and I was thinking, 'Wow, if you're HIV, if you're a homosex­ual, if you're a member of the underclass or if you're a woman or if you're an artist—and that covers just about everybody in this church— this is no small thing.' This is not like a middle-class home where people say, 'Well, it's a new chance.' There's nothing small about this! This was from 'We don't exist' to 'We do exist,' you know? Whether the actual real impact of legislation on their lives will come into being, at least they know they are included. And that brought it home to me. If by having been a part of the Rock the Vote campaign we contributed to even a tiny tiny tiny part, then we did the right thing."

It was through Glide, in 1986, that Bono hooked up with C.A.M.P., the relief group that arranged for Ali and him to travel through Nicara­gua and El Salvador during the Reagan-backed war against the leftists in those countries.

"In Nicaragua I'd seen supermarkets where there was no food because of the blockade," Bono explains. "I saw a body thrown out of the back of a van onto the road, you know? We saw the blight that was the Bush-Reagan era. That didn't dawn on us when we first started getting involved with the voter registration campaign. That dawned on us at the end."

I don't know if Bono knows that Bill Clinton brought Hillary to Glide last Mother's Day, and later told associates that he felt sitting there as if he had found the America he wanted to see—an all-inclusive America. Clinton and Bono have more than loving Elvis and riding in motorcades in common.

Hopped up on the new president's victory, Bono allows himself to get carried away with the possibilities of a real new world order. Over a late dinner he indulges in a little postcocktail philosophizing with U2 s agent Frank Barsalona, the big wheeler-dealer who brought the Beatles to America and has been a great silent power in rock & roll ever since.

 [101]

The conversation takes a sober turn when Bono tells Barsalona that America must do penance for its sins. He quotes the Old Testament line about the blood in the ground crying out for vengeance. "You know," Bono says, "that's the reason America is so violent. There was an indigenous population that was wiped out. America just has to face that. The reason the Jews are so strong is that they record and memorialize their failures as well as their triumphs, their defeats and well as their victories. America should do the same. I truly believe in expiation. This inaugural address is important. If Clinton got up at his inaugural ad­dress and apologized for America's sins, apologized to the crack dealers, the gang bangers, the prostitutes, and junkies and said, 'I know you have not failed America; America has failed you! Forgive us and join us!' Whew! Imagine if he did that." Bono shakes his head in wonder at the possibility.

Frank Barsalona shakes his head too. "Maybe so," the agent says, cutting into his dinner, "but there's not a prayer it'll happen."

Vegas

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