In Memory

In Memory by Anthony Rain Starez
His wife once told me I was his best friend. I never really knew. In fact, when I reflect on our friendship I think I was only allowed to visit areas of Steve for short periods of time, never letting me open certain doors to his soul. And he never let me know that I was very important to him, at least in words. But none of that mattered, I still knew we were special friends with a knack for understanding each other's thoughts, and sometimes bizarre sense of humor. Steve was a somewhat reserved person with his feelings, but there were those times when we'd share a pitcher of beer in a local bar, or attend a concert together that it seemed all the walls around Steve would crumble like they were made of sand. I remember us trading stories over mugs of beer with much laughter and interest. We both had many to tell, and I always considered our connection to each other a unique relationship rarely shared among men. We were almost brothers, although we lacked that kind of long history together. I'll never forget Steve's passion for music, and sometimes we'd talk for hours about bands and songs, and unusual music trivia. He was the best. Steve had a penchant for storing facts. And when it came to albums, songs and musical artists, especially the Grateful Dead he could dazzle you. I swear he knew everything there was to know about The Dead. Steve knew inside details and dates about every Dead-album, and many many underground tapes of concerts, which he had a whole library of recorded shows going back to the 1960s. He felt an affinity to his personal hero of the band, the much-celebrated guitarist Jerry Garcia who had grown old and grey yet continued to record and tour right up until the end of his life on August 9, 1995. I missed the point of such adoration, but I was always respectful.
	Local radio stations gave up numerous concert tickets to Steve, as he would answer trivia questions by being the right number caller with the right answer. How he managed to be the right number caller so often I never knew. Steve won so much that he used my name sometimes because the station would only allow the same person to win once every 60 days. Steve would call me up from his office and say, "Tony, we're going to (whatever) FREE." I'd just laugh and say, "Ohhhh no....not again.!"
Steve's love for facts kind of carried over for his same love for baseball. I was never much of a baseball fan, so I only knew a handful of things, but that never stopped me from being amazed as he would relate baseball stories of times past. Some that took place before he was even born. Nevertheless, it was evident through Steve's enthusiasm for these tales that he let a part of himself live vicariously through some of Baseball's greats, at least for a moment or two.
	Steve was the truest fan of music and baseball I had ever known with his keen attention to every detail. When I would buy an album or CD of an artist I'd just throw the music on and listen. Steve would plow through the lyrics and linear notes, and he always had an incredible sound system to listen to. Sometimes we'd get together at his house to just listen to recordings and drink imported beers, it was like attending our own private concert. The sound system was that good.
Steve had a conservative look with wire-rimmed glasses and dressed nicely, even when he was going casual. He worked as a boss for his father-in-law's wall papering guide business, and had done wonders for the business's growth since taking the reigns of business decisions. That was Steve, everything the guy did, he did well. I saw Steve go from living as a roommate in a small place on Clearwater Beach to owning a beautiful home with a pool, an expensive boat and driving a Lexus automobile, and I told him how proud I was of him. Now I wonder if reaching that height of success was part of his own demise. I was more outlandish in style with very long hair and always in a tank top shirt, but somewhere we found a comfortable common ground to always meet on. Actually, there was always a rebel inside Steve, I just showed it more than him.
	That rebel-side came out in the most comical ways sometimes. Occasionally on Friday afternoons I'd get a call with Steve on the other end saying let's go get that after-work beer at Personality's, the local strip joint. We'd laugh and drink our beers talking about everything under the Sun, including each dancer's physical pros and cons.
It was there that Steve revealed to me that he was unhappy at home. Never really understanding the details, I only knew he wanted out of his marriage, but he was tortured about it causing great woes to his wife, her family and mostly himself. Steve and Mary had no children, so in my own naive way I thought it would be a simple break. I was very wrong. As time went on, and Mary learned of his will to leave, things became very ugly. First thing that resulted was some incredible fights, I remember Mary beating him up with her fists in Steve's local bar where he had many friends. Steve was left bleeding and bruised. There'd been many fights over the years, but things were getting nastier than I'd ever heard of. Steve would never fight back. He'd just take the physical abuse without even calling the police. I could never understand that, and he would never explain his reasoning to me. Second, Mary moved out of the house, but continued to harass Steve in drunken fits of rage. One night she stole his car keys, and even stole his car on a separate occasion. She stole our concert tickets to see Jackson Browne. And there were other late-night beatings that Steve took without retaliation. Steve was probably not totally innocent in these ruthless dealings with each other, but it was clear now that the break up that we'd talked about almost a year earlier was going to be anything but simple. Next, Mary's father, who owned the business Steve ran, decided he couldn't look Steve in the eyes daily knowing he was divorcing his daughter. So, just as Steve speculated to me in private some time earlier he was to lose his job. In fact, Mary's father had the police come out an escort him out of the building. Just another way to strip whatever dignity Steve had by parading him out of his office in front of the people he supervised. I think this unkind act was the one that broke Steve's back. He told me over the phone how much that hurt him. You have to understand, Steve had a lot of passion wrapped up in that business. It was his baby. And he'd taken that business in it's infancy and nurtured it to growth, and it was continuing to grow at the time of Steve's departure. Soon after his dismissal Steve started becoming reclusive. He stopped returning my calls, and spent most of is time in the local bar where he knew everyone. When I was able to get him on the phone there was a coldness, and he had to go. I'll be honest here, I was very hurt. I couldn't figure out what was going on. He was hanging out with lots of people, doing lots of drinking, but I was lost as to why he suddenly stopped being my friend. Steve was the guy who held a graduation party for me at his house when I graduated the University of South Florida. I did get a call one time, a collect call from Steve. He was in jail on a DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. I rounded up the money for my friend and bailed him out. Steve thanked me, and I never heard from him again. Some months later I received a phone call from another friend, he said, "Tony call Mary...something's happened." My friend sounded so strange that I knew immediately something had happened to Steve. I demanded my friend tell me right there. He did. Steve was found that morning hanging in his garage....it was August 10th, the same date Jerry Garcia had died! I miss Steve to this day with all my heart. Sometimes I stop right in the middle of something and think of things we did, and things we talked about, and music we loved, and that funny dance he'd do when he was really feeling the music. Sometimes I hear him laughing. Sometimes I wish I could've gotten closer to him, give him something to hang on to. But now I realize Steve didn't want me to throw out that life-line, that's why he shut down our friendship. It was easier to say 'Goodbye' by not saying goodbye at all. And so I'll take what I have of Steve, which is only memories, and hold them close. I miss you, man!