NO BONUS VI/VI

By JAKOB SNOREWELL

I II III IV V

And then, just from thinking about it, weak me, I couldn't help to pass a giggle, so in fact I didn't say anything, I just giggled, and the door opens and as he walks by me and into a huge room full of half-built sofas Bono touched me with this look that I can only describe as benevolent, as if he actually was forgiving me for being nervous in his presence, as if he was saying, "It's ok my child, it's ok to be nervous, after all, I am The Bono", and he goes out first, followed by the girl, who looks at me with a funny smile while twisting the corners of her mouth downwards and moving her plucked eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx, and then the fat guy, who blinks at me and presents me an accomplice smirk, like saying, "Yup, all in a New York minute! (now you can go and die!)" and the door closes and opens again one floor up and I'm out into the Colombian upholstery shop and, oh boy, am I excited, and I say, "Hola señoras" (because it's an all-woman shop full of Colombian and Mexican ladies in their mid-fifties) "You wont believe whom I've just met in the elevator!", and they all look very interested, because, who knows, maybe it was Vicente Fernández!, but nope, what I say it's: "Bono!", and they all look really puzzled. "Bono Vox!", I say, and they start looking at each other, twelve or fifteen of them ladies, looking disconcerted, as if my riddle was something they were supposed to know about but just don't (which is Ex-Act-Ly what's happening): "Bono Vox from You-Too!"... "El Bono de Ooo-Dos!!!". Nothing, there's no reaction but some sideways head shaking. They just don't have a single clue about who the Bono is Vox, have never heard of the band, and that's all.

Another time I saw Willem Dafoe buying a pint of celery juice on Houston; another time I saw Iggy Pop paying for a package of noodle and a box of tea at a Chinese super- market on Canal, and pretty much that and an apartment lease with a ten year-old price tag on it is all I've got for spending all these many millennium years of nonsense in that shithole town that never dreams.