With or Without You (#1)

 

1985

We saw the marquee as we approached. “U2”, the sign read. Underneath it, “The Waterboys”. All with little fanfare.

We had been under the impression that The Alarm was opening, a spectacular double bill that brought me and four friends to downtown Detroit from Ann Arbor.

The music hall was not a big venue, nothing like a stadium, not even like the Q here in Cleveland.

I was enamored with U2’s last album, The Unforgettable Fire. Imaginative, a sidelong glance at how they felt, encountering America. Passion, grief, longing. The Alarm was a newer band with just one EP out. They were equally fascinating to me, evoking a sense of revolution, punk heroism.

I had heard some from The Waterboys, was disappointed by the fact that they were opening. It’s not that they weren’t intriguing, just that…this was not what I had come down here for.

I told my friends I was going to get some food and would be in the car when they got out.

They were disappointed, but not shocked. At 18, I was known for my odd behavior, impulsiveness. As they stood in line to enter, I went to the corner, scalped my ticket for fifty bucks.

In search of the perfect sausage sandwich, I found a late-night deli.

There was no seating inside. There was a dent in the bulletproof plastic sheeting lining the inside of the restaurant. I enquired of the cashier sitting behind the hole, like it was a clandestine drug deal. I was soon handed off a piping sausage in a soft roll, piled high with onions and peppers.

Walking back to the parking lot, sucking down my quarry, I passed a movie theater. The next film playing was Under the Cherry Moon, a Prince movie. I could easily have made it in time for the end of the concert. I equivocated, but decided to pass.

Finding the car, I curled up in the back seat, sleeping until my friends returned.