Chapter 10: Operation Keep PT Down: Steve Teaches at Art School

Steve woke me at 5:00 a.m.

“Hey, let’s go to breakfast before school!” I rolled over, it was my day off and I was getting up even earlier than when I had to be at work.

“Mmph,” I tried to roll over and get more sleep.

“I haven’t had such a good night’s sleep in years!”

“Umm gld..” (I’m glad), I mumbled.

“I must have slept more than five hours. Lucky if I get three.” Steve was amazed, and bright and chirpy thanks to being so well rested.

“And look, my hand feels better.” He lifted his right hand, his wrist hanging limp, then grunted like a motorbike engine, “Rroommm….” From the wrist, his hand rose significantly more than yesterday. I woke up. Why did I feel so tired?

“Anyone in the restroom?” I asked, getting up.

Steve went out to the living room where the bunk bed futon was, then came back in.

 “It’s clear.”

While we were driving to the Art Institute where Steve worked, he said, “You know that Macy was convicted of rape.” Was that a question? “His father told me.”

“Really? He seems a bit intense.” I answered.

“Yeah, his father was supposed to come  and pick him up yesterday, but he didn’t. always flakes out on Macy. He gets real upset. Mopes around.”

“I don’t know, I kinda’ got the feeling that Macy was--”

“Gay?” Steve answered for me.

I laughed, “Yeah, he cooks even if he doesn’t clean up after himself, he uses an apron, not that that’s definitive, his gorgeous hair,

“and that feminine soap he uses.” Steve finished for me.

“the caress body wash? And Dove conditioner? Yeah,”

“Actually, I get the feeling the kid likes me.” Steve said. “Not that I’m interested.” He laughed.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. His mannerisms are so--”

“Flaming?” Steve suggested. We laughed. We had nothing against Macy. Nothing against homosexuals. “You know a lot of people think I’m gay,” Steve admitted.

This did not surprise me.

“Yeah, you know, after both my exes, I became a monk,” he laughed. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the female form. I like sketching and everything. It’s just that I'm so traumatized. My first ex cheated with at least half a dozen men and my second…” broke his leg, broke his nose, tried to choke him to death while he slept, and so on and so forth.

“That’s fine, I just need a place to stay until l have my own place.” I never thought I would be a couch surfer.

“My door’s always open to you.” Steve assured. “You don’t even have to call. Just come anytime.”

At school, Steve really got into teaching. Only half the students showed, and Steve gave them double the attention. Having taught myself, I could see how much he really loved it.

During class, I was writing my depo summary and got an email from the calendar girl at the firm asking me to substitute into a depo because a co-worker couldn’t make it. I immediately accepted. Work was booming. My boss said that as soon as there was a full-time position open, he would hire me.

After class, we stopped by Fred’s 62 in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. It was a Asian-inspired café Bistro with sketches of dozens of classic Hollywood stars from the Golden Age. I remember going there a long time ago and identifying each of them.

“You know, my family never gave me any respect until I started teaching,” Steve said, digging into his breakfast (it was lunchtime). “When I was living at home taking care of my mother, my family just took my things.” He passed one of the bacon strips over to me. “And I didn’t even have that much!” he laughed. Steve could laugh even at the sad things in his life. Funny, I remember how my things were shipped to D.C. one weekend without my permission. I dug into Fed 62’s Beret: a strawberry waffle with extra whip cream and a mini pitcher of café dulce de leche (instead of the less fattening maple syrup). There’s something about mixing bacon with dulce de leche.

Steve told me about some of the people that he had helped in Kentucky. Stan was one of them. Stan was part of a gang, joined when he was too young, and couldn’t get out. Steve somehow took on the gang and got Stan out without getting either of them killed. He went on to talk about this other epic fights. He wasn’t really showing off, just liked to talk about how his adrenaline took over, and he would black out and often not  remember what happen, except that he got out alive and everyone walked around him as if on eggshells, full of respect and although Steve did not say so, they walked around him with a sense of awe and fear.

“You know when there’s an emergency and everything goes in slow motion?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” I remembered how I had to run to get a help a few times and it seemed forever before I could find someone and realized later that it had been only a few moments.

“It’s like that before a fight, especially if I’m outnumbered.” From his stories, Steve was always outnumbered.

“How is it that people always come up and pick on you?”

“I dunno. I remember fishing in Kentucky with my kids and some White Supremacists come up and basically threaten to kill me and my kids. There were like half a dozen of them and I called my sons over to hold on to me and after I had taken a couple of them down, the rest ran away. We were just fishing, dude, no one was around. It was a pretty isolated lake. It’s not a place you go to randomly. They didn’t even have fishing poles.”

Steve had bad luck.

“It’s not only when I’m about to fight for my life, though. I used to be afraid of presentations and once, during a really important project that I had to present at Art Center, I black out. And afterwards, everyone came up and told me what a great presentation I gave and I didn’t even remember it!” Steve laughed, and so did I. Everyone sitting around us looked at Steve because everyone around could hear him. I didn’t mind and was glad Steve didn’t notice.

“I had this idea for a new engine that I did. I was supposed to give a presentation when Bill Gates came to the school. All the top designers in Hollywood, you know, Michael Bay and stuff, graduated from Art Center or have some sort of connection to it. Asra was in the hospital and I missed it. One of the major car companies had it in one of their cars a year later.” Steve was always so close, but never there.

Why did I believe him? The details of his description. Steve could not recall time and date when it came to events that destroyed his life, but he could when it came to the details of his inventions, his art, his fights (the ones where he did not black out). He was definitely full of it. People who have a chip on their shoulder definitely spew a lot of bullshit. The problem was figuring out when Steve was bullshitting because he was guarded against someone hurting him and because he didn’t want to let anyone in and the glib stories he told of his epic fights. I knew that no one could really fight like that except for maybe a few…mutants. Like that Asian guy who had those commercials breaking a concrete cinder block with his head. He would smash it with a sledge hammer and let a stranger randomly pick one out of a stack and then break the cinder block that was randomly chosen with his head. Hey, it could happen.