The Aerie
Just got back from Steve's Memorial. It went very well, despite being
somewhat hot, cramped and humid. The chapel is a small affair, a squat
domed marble building with an interior covered entirely with
astonishing mosaic.
The service was very simple: Gretchen Thompson, the hospice chaplain
(and alumni of my own First Universalist church) led the service.
"Everybody Hurts" by REM was played, and then those of us privileged
to speak were to do so.
Right before the service started Tanya handed me a poem that Steve had
written in high school and asked if I would read it. It was on a
mimeographed sheet, faded light blue, and full of typos. I had minutes
to prepare. Since Steve was known as and referred to as "Moldy
Ramone," I changed a couple of lines of his high school tribute to the
Rolling Stones into a tribute to the Ramones.
Tim went first, reading a brief piece from behind the pulpit. In order
to differentiate Steve's poem from my own writing, and in keeping with
the spirit of the piece, I began by reading in front of the pulpit.
They've done it to me again, dammit,
But I don't care.
The wrath knows no outlet
like the pummeling of eardrums
under the sweet sound of a wicked song.
My shirt is shed,
a makeshift microphone I clutch
in my clawed fist.
Performing to a mute audience
Gyrating, careening off the wall
Third degree carpet burns on my elbows and knees.
But I don't care!
"Rock rock rock 'n' roll, rock 'n' roll high school"*
Jump, kick, slam!
Potted plants and statuettes
vibrating to the music
Raw vocal cords spilling out
"I'm a teenaged lobotomy!"
Sweat-drenched locks
whipping my eyeballs into dripping redness
One last thrust!
One last valiant, ecstatic-
"Gabba gabba we accept you we accept you one of us!"
I pant, my throat is hot.
My tension is released.
But they want an encore.
*Originally the quoted lines were:
"Please to meet you, won't you guess my name"
"It's only rock and roll, but I like it"
and
"Brown sugar, how come you dance so good?"
Then I walked behind the pulpit and read my own selection.
We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need
to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and
cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone
to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we
might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands
prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.
The poet George Odell.
My name is Bob Alberti and when I met Steve in 1975 I really needed
him, because I had no other friends. My family had moved twice in five
years, from Queens and then from New Jersey to Minnesota, and Steve's
friendship was what helped me survive and grow. (I also had an awful
crush on his sister Connie, but she never knew...)
I joined theater club in high school at Steve's insistence, and I made
many friends including Tim Fay. Because of Steve my time in high
school, and theater club in particular, was where I finally took root
and bloomed.
There were a lot of special moments with Steve, like the time he
snorted a Gummi Bear through his nose at lunch. Yes, Steve, you STILL
haven't lived that one down. Or the time we were tear-gassed at an
Alice Cooper concert, and Steve was so mad that he beat up a car. But
there were other moments, too, like the night in his front yard when
we watched, descending around the entire sky, the most phenomenal
Northern Lights I will ever see. It was a magical moment.
I remember the night I was waiting for Steve when the phone rang.
Driving to pick me up, he had blown not one but BOTH right-side tires
on his car, and slid into a cornfield. He was calling me from the
farmer's own phone. I raced over and picked him up, leaving his car in
the corn for later, and we managed to get to St. Paul on time. When we
met and shook hands with the actor Vincent Price there were still bits
of cornhusk caught in Steve's hair, but he was ecstatic. It was an
exciting moment for him.
Steve and I shared many automotive moments like that. He was with me
when I used a Mazda RX-7 to knock down a telephone pole. And he was in
the car when I spun a Ford Galaxie 500 into the guardrail and stopped,
facing the wrong way in the fast lane of I-94 in downtown St. Paul.
Despite this record, in May he allowed me to drive him, his beloved
spouse, and three friends up to Elk River to see a movie. Climbing
into my car again after those accidents shows the kind of man Steve
was. Yes, he was nuts.
But he was more than that. He was one of those rare friends you can
rely on. He was a man whose integrity was so essential to his nature
as to be almost overlooked. Without trying, he commanded that kind of
integrity in return. Despite the fact that I had twice nearly killed
him, he climbed into my car again. Steve offered me his trust again
and again... and left it up to me whether I would disappoint him.
It goes without saying that we shall all miss Steve. But the challenge
for us is to remember what he taught us so easily and so naturally: to
show friendship towards one another without artifice; to give and
expect integrity from one another; to accept one another; and most of
all to appreciate one another.
The twenty-eight years I shared with Steve, my oldest friend, seem to
have passed in only a moment. Whether we who remain have only a day
more together, or another twenty-eight years, it will all seem the
same in the end, a mere moment in time.
For the sake of our friend Steve, whose moment was all too brief, let
us, who need one another so much, not squander our own moment
together.
_________________________________________________________________
Then others of Steve's friends spoke, and I learned more about Steve
that I had never known. Friends provided Steve's point of view when he
met Tanya... and Tanya's point of view when she met Steve. They played
the Ramones' [1]"Believe in Miracles", and after a final benediction
by Gretchen, bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" began to skirl out of
the speakers... except that after a few bars the screaming guitars cut
in and it turned out to be the [2]Dropkick Murphy's punk version. You
could see the older folk shaking their heads and hobbling a little
quicker to get out the door.
I liked it.
Finally, while looking over the mimeo of Steve's poetry, that Tanya
handed me, I found another poem of his a couple pages further back.
Our family is like the solar system.
Dad is Pluto.
Farthest from the rest, and the coldest.
My brother is Mercury, closest to mother Sun.
My mother Sun.
My elder sister is down to Earth no nonsense, very conventional.
My younger sister, like Venus, is always after the boys.
Mother, dear mother, is the Sun. She keeps us warm and is our light
in the darkness.
Me, I'm Saturn. I'm the oddball of the family.
But I didn't "planet" that way.
Some friends and I have scheduled a night at the local punk-rock
hangout the Triple Rock in order to raise a glass to Steve. And that
will be the final goodbye. And after that Steve will have been well
and truly sent off, and life will go on. Without him.
[3]Last
Posted by Albatross at August 9, 2003 12:00 AM