Whenever I go home to Huntsville I have to brace myself to face the ghosts of failed romances and friendships. You may not be able to imagine that so much life can happen in a relatively small southern city, but it can. The lack of city activities fosters strong relationships and friendships. You get used to lazing around at people’s houses and get to know their families. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but you only realize the beauty in something when you no longer have it, don’t you?
When I go back now, I remember all the good and bad living I did, but there is one particular person that is present in almost every one of those memories, T. A 1998 wake was the setting of our first hook-up, so we joke. We held hands after paying our respects and that’s when it started. Maybe this was an omen, but we didn’t look at it in that way. We looked at it as two lost souls finding love via one of the most brutally honest events one can experience.
The next several years consisted of me telling him where to go, casual hook-ups, reconciliations, earth-shattering break-ups, him telling me where to go, casual hook-ups, reconciliations, and on and on. Despite the ups and downs, we were nothing but true to each other. Actually, we weren’t always faithful, but we never pretended to be anything but our true selves with each other. One of the things that we were true to each other about was the fact that we were both seriously music-obsessed. Together we spent a lot of time listening to music and talking about it. There is one band, however, whose music embodies our entire 8-year pathetic, yet exquisite on and off again relationship: U2. We were both lifelong fans, but his love of them trumped mine. He would get an itch and make me listen to a song like “A Sort of Homecoming” from beginning to end and then want to discuss its greatness. When this kind of mood would grab this 6’2” dude, his big blue eyes would widen and he would get a far-away look. It always made me smile. If he could do anything it was make me melt with his child-like love for this music. I always felt very safe with him. Even when, at hearing this from me, he would answer with the question, “what do I protect you from? Bandits?” He knew exactly what I meant, but he liked making me laugh. And this he did often, including in 2004 when I called him from a Sydney hotel room (one of many I lived out of) crying my eyes out because I was painfully homesick. Even in another hemisphere, through his humor and comforting words he could force me to rest my mind and stop the racing thoughts I would often suffer. This is a man who saw me anorexic, over-medicated, hammered, spoiled. Yet he still saw beauty and child-like innocence in me (though I was convinced the well was dried up there). We sought solace in each other, really, and that’s what always brought us back together.
Back to U2. One year, T presented me with a handful of mixed cds he made that contained several live performances of U2 music representing different phases in their career. Long before we had iTunes or Limewire, we had Napster!
1. Greatest Hits Live. This disc included Surrender, Bad, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and a great version of Whiskey in The Jar. This last piece is mostly sung by the crowd, which gives me chills even now.
2. Pop Life in Mexico. This disc included all of the songs performed on the VHS. “Miami” is a highlight. When you live in Huntsville, you hear tornado sirens often during storm season. Some of us, including T and myself, learned to look forward to this season. It had a way of shaking things up and reminding you that there was something bigger than you in this universe. The sirens in this song give me that funny feeling in my stomach that I always got when I would know it was time to seek shelter.
3. Zoo TV Tonight. Like Pop Life in Mexico, this disc includes the songs one sees on the VHS. My favorite is “Ultraviolet”, which I don’t believe is on the VHS. It’s my favorite song from Achtung Baby. T knew this and made sure to get it on the cd. Bono’s lyrics became a vehicle of sorts for T. Through him, T could express what he was feeling towards “us” when he couldn’t do it himself. This song is an example of that. I didn’t mind. Bono helped us communicate just fine when things were good and even more so when things were bad. In many ways, Achtung Baby’s themes of betrayal and redemption represent a huge part of our relationship.
In 2000, we drove across Arizona together and had the best and worst road trip of our lives. We listened to a lot of music together (Oh, the amount of Rush he subjected me to), but U2’s Pop was a constant part of the soundtrack. He had seen Pop Mart at Sun Devil stadium in Tempe during that tour. Miles away from Huntsville, T had a connection to U2 in that desert state and it would become that way for both of us.
When U2 took All That You Can’t Leave Behind on the road in 2001, T and I both saw them perform in Atlanta. We weren’t together at this time. In fact, we were both there with other people, but we knew we were there together. It wasn’t a week after that show that we were hooking up again. One song from that cd, “Kite”, stands out in this collection. Back then, he called me once to ask if I thought of him when I heard it. Of course I did. How could I not when I hear “I’m a man, / I’m not a child/ A man who sees/ The shadow behind your eyes”. I could never hide from him, no matter how much I sometimes tried.
A lot of life happened throughout our life together, which ended for good in March of 2006 (we even got involved with other people at some point). Throughout, U2 remained a part of our lives until the final end with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb’s “Original of the Species”. A couple of weeks ago on my way to California, when I was flying over the AZ desert, where we had once been exhausted and road-weary, I sat alone in the back of an empty plane and this song came on through my earbuds. For a couple of months, I had been running away from accepting the fact that I had said my final goodbye to a friend and lover who had always been there in life and in mind. Forced to slow down because of the plane, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as I watched the familiar desert landscape slowly roll away under me. I accepted that it was the end of an era for two people who for years couldn’t seem to resist each other. We had often saved each other from the darkness, even though at times each led the other sans apology into an emotional abyss. I will never understand exactly why he wasn’t the one for me. But, I know that I have to accept some truths, no matter how incredible they seem to be.
In the end, I’ve returned from my first trip back to Huntsville since the final breakup and decided I needed to write about how much U2 means to me with reference to T, now another figurative ghost in that town. The years I spent with him will forever be protected and locked away in my heart, but played out again and again with every U2 song I will ever hear. As I re-read this post, I feel as though I have failed at truly representing what U2 and T mean to me, but it’s been nice to sit still and finally say goodbye.
Goodnight, Dublin-city. -K
