For Steve
A mate of mine is going through a rough time at the moment, and on the weekend he came too close to doing something really freaking stupid.
I want to write and tell you about him. He's awesome. Apologies for length and rennet content.
**********
We hurtle through Valencia in his rickety old van, chain smoking out the windows, our elbows baking red in the sun. He drums constantly on the steering wheel, in perfect time with the tinny rock seeping from the cracked plastic radio.
He is constantly distracted by his keen appreciation of natural beauty (especially in bikinis near the beach). He has been known to follow natural beauty for several blocks out of his way – he’s often late, that's always why.
I glance in the back, it's a veritable Tardis of useful crap. There’s nothing he hasn’t got in there. And I know, because I’ve asked for everything I can think of. I decide to try one last time:
“Steve, I need a bale of fencing wire, two onions and a clown makeup kit.”
He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Two out of three, I reckon."
"The clown makeup?"
"The onions".
Ha!
We’re on our way to the airport, it’s time for me to go.
***
I met Steve mere moments after arriving at my hostel in Valencia. Seeing him triggered a strange memory: when we were in primary school, we were asked to draw 'a typical Australian'. My friend Rachel, who is much smarter than I am, drew a woman in a business suit. I drew Steve, which was very odd, for two reasons. Firstly, I wasn’t going to meet him for another 20 years. Secondly, he’s from Newcastle.
[That’s home of the Brown Ale, not home of the silverchair, just to be clear.]
His hair is blond and long, his skin tanned and leathery from decades in the sun. Surf shirts and ripped jeans and sunglasses with neon-blue mirrors. Thick silver earrings hang in a row from each ear; his neck, wrists and ankles are heavy with shell jewellery and rope bracelets plaited in such a way that they have no beginning and no end.
How do you go from being a Newcastle boy to out-ockering the lot of us? You leave home at 16 and flee to the dockyards, where you sweet-talk your way onto a boat and work your passage across to New Zealand (it occurs to me that the phrase 'work your passage' is very multilayered). You spend the next 20 years in NZ and Oz, go everywhere, do everything. You become that guy.
That first night I arrived he welcomed me with open arms and bawdy jokes. I steeled myself, responding to the cliche, preparing to be bored, yet again, by the stereotype of my countrymen.
Except I couldn’t have been more wrong. He cracked my shit up right away.
***
We’ve got plenty of time, so we stop for a moment to pick up some stuff he needs for the job he’s doing later at the hostel. We run into Ben, this young guy Steve met last week. Ben's a Northerner, like Steve, recently arrived and wanting to set up his own business. Steve has driven him round, got flyers printed, taken Ben to meet his mate at the job centre who will give him a few leads. Ben's accent makes me laugh, and I like him even more for the genuine, unaffected gratitude on his face as he shakes Steve’s hand.
I’ve never met anyone with a bigger heart, a greater willingness to reach out and help others. He’s all bluster and bravado on the surface, but the soft streak is an inch deep and a mile wide.
He is so free of bullshit that when you talk things through with him everything is far simpler than you’d worried it into being. He talked me down from the edge of a meltdown after knowing me for two days. He convinced me to wear a toga on the streets when I was sickly, shaky-desperate for coffee and all my clothes were in the wash. He convulsed with laughter as we walked down the street, but stopped me and solicitously adjusted it to protect what was left of my dignity before we went in.
As we get back in the van, Ben asks ‘so what did you lot get up to last night then?’. I look over at Steve and there’s no sign on his face of the hangover that I know for a fact must be kicking his arse.
***
Last night was just like many others we’ve spent here – a pattern established as soon as I arrived and repeated over a blurry month of endless fun.
Steve cooked us dinner early – while Ville’s the chef, Steve has a signature dish that is inevitably a hodgepodge taste sensation known as 'Rolf', as in 'can you guess what it is yet?'
As had become our custom, we then adjourn upstairs to take our reserved places in the centre of the lounge, in two zebra-skin wing chairs that have become known as ‘the thrones’. Once settled, we chain smoke, and drink the deliciously light sixty-cent local red we’ve discovered, enthusiastically greeting newcomers and bidding them join our circle. Together with Ville, our comrade-in-arms, we are a three-person comedy act, ruling the conversation and keeping everyone in fits of delighted laughter.
There’s a cheeky glint in Steve’s eyes as if he’s lit from within by mischief, his laugh is one part filthy snigger, four parts delighted shout. When I ambush him with an excellent punchline he laughs with his whole body, hunched and wheezing in a disturbingly Muttley-esque fashion.
His stories are remarkable, and there’s a never-ending supply. We had a challenge amongst ourselves to bring up random topics to see what he would come up with. He never disappointed. The ones I remember best involved mass destruction: drowning his ute off Stradbroke; totalling a mint 1970 BMW moments after buying it cheap off a clueless old lady; that time an employee of his left the crane arm of the truck extended and took out 17 telegraph poles before he noticed; getting in with a mad crew as a kid in Newcastle, driving a truck through the doors of the local M&S to kick off a looting spree.
At first, I tried to match him, but soon I realised the folly of any such attempt. No matter how crazy my story, he can always top it. I told him about the time I interviewed the Tea Party, he told me about the time he drummed for Green Day onstage at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Maybe I need some crazier stories, maybe he's just had a remarkable life. Probably both.
And I’ve only ever heard him repeat a story once. I didn't even care, because it was really freaking good one (involving a justifiably enraged dolphin).
As it gets later, Valencia awakens and we head out to greet the night. At our favourite club, our new mate John is DJing, and he takes all our requests. Steve asks for Pearl Jam for me, because it cracks him up to watch me lose it like a teenager. I ask for the Cult for him, ‘She Sells Sanctuary’, the song he’s always whistling as he wanders about the world, as I want to see him air drum as he bounces up and down.
He dances like a pogoing dervish, with a flailing, manic energy that is highly contagious. I'm still carrying a leg injury sustained on one such night.
He offers me his jacket at one point in the evening and I decline, too warm from the dancing to want fleece anywhere near me. It won’t until I get home later that night that I realise I’ve torn my jeans all the way up the arse, and he was merely trying to make my wildly abandoned dancing a little less of a spectacle.
He warns me, again, against the Agua de Valencia.
“That shit will fuck you up.”
I ignore him and drink it anyway, and he’s there to wander along beside me as I stumble home.
***
He and Ville are the reason I’ve stayed so long. Driving to the airport, I can’t actually believe that I’m leaving. Together the three of us have come up with a dozen crazy plans for how we’ll all stay, how we’ll make it work.
As he drops me off outside the terminal, I remember the day that we went to check out a catamaran, Steve full of the idea of starting a charter day out for backpackers. He’ll be the Skipper, he wants me to be the Cruise Director.
"You'd be great, jLo!"
I smile to myself, other plans in mind. But his enthusiasm is infectious; and with Steve, it seems possible.
***********
I’m very glad to know you, my friend. You’re one of the reasons I’m here.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: I know it’s there. You know I know it’s there. You can’t fool us. You won’t let us help you, so know this: you are loved.
Stick around dude. I mean it. Don’t scare me like that. I want more stories.
And as for the rest of you? I love you very much and miss you every day.
Just so you know.
I want to write and tell you about him. He's awesome. Apologies for length and rennet content.
**********
We hurtle through Valencia in his rickety old van, chain smoking out the windows, our elbows baking red in the sun. He drums constantly on the steering wheel, in perfect time with the tinny rock seeping from the cracked plastic radio.
He is constantly distracted by his keen appreciation of natural beauty (especially in bikinis near the beach). He has been known to follow natural beauty for several blocks out of his way – he’s often late, that's always why.
I glance in the back, it's a veritable Tardis of useful crap. There’s nothing he hasn’t got in there. And I know, because I’ve asked for everything I can think of. I decide to try one last time:
“Steve, I need a bale of fencing wire, two onions and a clown makeup kit.”
He looks thoughtful for a moment. "Two out of three, I reckon."
"The clown makeup?"
"The onions".
Ha!
We’re on our way to the airport, it’s time for me to go.
***
I met Steve mere moments after arriving at my hostel in Valencia. Seeing him triggered a strange memory: when we were in primary school, we were asked to draw 'a typical Australian'. My friend Rachel, who is much smarter than I am, drew a woman in a business suit. I drew Steve, which was very odd, for two reasons. Firstly, I wasn’t going to meet him for another 20 years. Secondly, he’s from Newcastle.
[That’s home of the Brown Ale, not home of the silverchair, just to be clear.]
His hair is blond and long, his skin tanned and leathery from decades in the sun. Surf shirts and ripped jeans and sunglasses with neon-blue mirrors. Thick silver earrings hang in a row from each ear; his neck, wrists and ankles are heavy with shell jewellery and rope bracelets plaited in such a way that they have no beginning and no end.
How do you go from being a Newcastle boy to out-ockering the lot of us? You leave home at 16 and flee to the dockyards, where you sweet-talk your way onto a boat and work your passage across to New Zealand (it occurs to me that the phrase 'work your passage' is very multilayered). You spend the next 20 years in NZ and Oz, go everywhere, do everything. You become that guy.
That first night I arrived he welcomed me with open arms and bawdy jokes. I steeled myself, responding to the cliche, preparing to be bored, yet again, by the stereotype of my countrymen.
Except I couldn’t have been more wrong. He cracked my shit up right away.
***
We’ve got plenty of time, so we stop for a moment to pick up some stuff he needs for the job he’s doing later at the hostel. We run into Ben, this young guy Steve met last week. Ben's a Northerner, like Steve, recently arrived and wanting to set up his own business. Steve has driven him round, got flyers printed, taken Ben to meet his mate at the job centre who will give him a few leads. Ben's accent makes me laugh, and I like him even more for the genuine, unaffected gratitude on his face as he shakes Steve’s hand.
I’ve never met anyone with a bigger heart, a greater willingness to reach out and help others. He’s all bluster and bravado on the surface, but the soft streak is an inch deep and a mile wide.
He is so free of bullshit that when you talk things through with him everything is far simpler than you’d worried it into being. He talked me down from the edge of a meltdown after knowing me for two days. He convinced me to wear a toga on the streets when I was sickly, shaky-desperate for coffee and all my clothes were in the wash. He convulsed with laughter as we walked down the street, but stopped me and solicitously adjusted it to protect what was left of my dignity before we went in.
As we get back in the van, Ben asks ‘so what did you lot get up to last night then?’. I look over at Steve and there’s no sign on his face of the hangover that I know for a fact must be kicking his arse.
***
Last night was just like many others we’ve spent here – a pattern established as soon as I arrived and repeated over a blurry month of endless fun.
Steve cooked us dinner early – while Ville’s the chef, Steve has a signature dish that is inevitably a hodgepodge taste sensation known as 'Rolf', as in 'can you guess what it is yet?'
As had become our custom, we then adjourn upstairs to take our reserved places in the centre of the lounge, in two zebra-skin wing chairs that have become known as ‘the thrones’. Once settled, we chain smoke, and drink the deliciously light sixty-cent local red we’ve discovered, enthusiastically greeting newcomers and bidding them join our circle. Together with Ville, our comrade-in-arms, we are a three-person comedy act, ruling the conversation and keeping everyone in fits of delighted laughter.
There’s a cheeky glint in Steve’s eyes as if he’s lit from within by mischief, his laugh is one part filthy snigger, four parts delighted shout. When I ambush him with an excellent punchline he laughs with his whole body, hunched and wheezing in a disturbingly Muttley-esque fashion.
His stories are remarkable, and there’s a never-ending supply. We had a challenge amongst ourselves to bring up random topics to see what he would come up with. He never disappointed. The ones I remember best involved mass destruction: drowning his ute off Stradbroke; totalling a mint 1970 BMW moments after buying it cheap off a clueless old lady; that time an employee of his left the crane arm of the truck extended and took out 17 telegraph poles before he noticed; getting in with a mad crew as a kid in Newcastle, driving a truck through the doors of the local M&S to kick off a looting spree.
At first, I tried to match him, but soon I realised the folly of any such attempt. No matter how crazy my story, he can always top it. I told him about the time I interviewed the Tea Party, he told me about the time he drummed for Green Day onstage at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Maybe I need some crazier stories, maybe he's just had a remarkable life. Probably both.
And I’ve only ever heard him repeat a story once. I didn't even care, because it was really freaking good one (involving a justifiably enraged dolphin).
As it gets later, Valencia awakens and we head out to greet the night. At our favourite club, our new mate John is DJing, and he takes all our requests. Steve asks for Pearl Jam for me, because it cracks him up to watch me lose it like a teenager. I ask for the Cult for him, ‘She Sells Sanctuary’, the song he’s always whistling as he wanders about the world, as I want to see him air drum as he bounces up and down.
He dances like a pogoing dervish, with a flailing, manic energy that is highly contagious. I'm still carrying a leg injury sustained on one such night.
He offers me his jacket at one point in the evening and I decline, too warm from the dancing to want fleece anywhere near me. It won’t until I get home later that night that I realise I’ve torn my jeans all the way up the arse, and he was merely trying to make my wildly abandoned dancing a little less of a spectacle.
He warns me, again, against the Agua de Valencia.
“That shit will fuck you up.”
I ignore him and drink it anyway, and he’s there to wander along beside me as I stumble home.
***
He and Ville are the reason I’ve stayed so long. Driving to the airport, I can’t actually believe that I’m leaving. Together the three of us have come up with a dozen crazy plans for how we’ll all stay, how we’ll make it work.
As he drops me off outside the terminal, I remember the day that we went to check out a catamaran, Steve full of the idea of starting a charter day out for backpackers. He’ll be the Skipper, he wants me to be the Cruise Director.
"You'd be great, jLo!"
I smile to myself, other plans in mind. But his enthusiasm is infectious; and with Steve, it seems possible.
***********
I’m very glad to know you, my friend. You’re one of the reasons I’m here.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: I know it’s there. You know I know it’s there. You can’t fool us. You won’t let us help you, so know this: you are loved.
Stick around dude. I mean it. Don’t scare me like that. I want more stories.
And as for the rest of you? I love you very much and miss you every day.
Just so you know.
posted by jLo at 1:58 AM
3 Comments:
Apologies for length and rennet content.?
Have you been on B3ta too much by any chance?
Jules, thanks for all that..just read it..I feel alot better than I did, well just cant wait to see you...love ya loads...Steve...XXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's a beautiful post. I don't know Steve at all but I think he must be marvellous and clearly deserving of such fierce and honest devotion from the dancing queen jLo.
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