About six years ago, I met my friend Steve. He was one of the regular morning gym-goers I would see every day, and he introduced himself after we both realized we were fixtures there. I thought, "Wow, he's a nice guy."
The next day after we 'officially' met, I was sitting on a bench, yawning and still trying to wake up. Steve came over and said, "Girl! Are you just sucking up air over here?" I thought, "Wow, I don't think you know me well enough to be calling me 'Girl!'"
Or maybe he already did. Probably so.
And I quickly learned that that was how it was with Steve. Strangers were a foreign concept to him; we were all merely friends-in-waiting. I guess he wasn't called the "unofficial mayor of the Castro" for nothing.
And luckily for me, he was like that, the counterbalance to my introvertedness. Back then, I was going through a rough patch and was very shy, almost to the point of not knowing how to be in a social setting. I didn't want to be that way; I just didn't know how to be any way else. Truth is, I never got lonely because I was alone. I got lonely because I sometimes felt like I didn't know how to be anything but alone.
Steve changed that. He would always approach me at the gym, always prepared with conversation and stories and questions to break me out of my shell. It came to a point where as soon as I would see him walk into the weight room, I would automatically adjust my routine to accommodate the extra 20 minutes of chatting we'd do. And that was a great thing. Seeing him kept me going consistently. I looked forward to it every morning, practically five days a week.
Soon, we started having lunch together, then movies on the weekends. Then he introduced me to many of his friends, and I started seeing how life could be different, and making new friends didn't have to be difficult. He arranged dinners and shows; we took trips to Napa and vacations to Vegas. And then, before I really took the time to think too much about it, he became one of my closest friends.
Of course, he was not without his flaws, one of which was his chronic tardiness. If we said that we would meet for lunch at a certain time, he would always be late. I would often stand by the railing of the Crocker Galleria, in our designated meeting place at our usual lunch spot, and watch our 12:00 meet-up time tick by, then 12:05, 12:10. When he finally showed up, he would smile and laugh in that rambunctious way of his, punch me playfully in the shoulder, roll his eyes and explain that he got cornered by his boss, or his co-worker had a complicated question, or he ran into a friend on his way over who talked his ear off. To this day, I think he had his facts wrong, and it was he who cornered his boss, he would talked his friend's ear off.
Because the truth is, the reason he was always late was because he gave everyone equal attention. If we saw John walking past, where most people would wave, say hi, and move along, Steve would introduce me to him, ask him about his children, his job, his childhood dreams and fears. If he saw Jane in line while waiting to get to the counter at Walgreens, he would pull her aside afterwards and make sure that he knew how things were going with her husband, the new dog, plans for future vacations. That was just the kind of person Steve was, interested in all that you do, and thorough to the core.
So it was fitting, then, that his first date with Jason lasted all of 50 hours or something like that and came to be known by us as the 'Longest Date in the World.' It makes perfect sense. If he could have gone on for 20 minutes or more with me at the gym everyday, a relative stranger then, why wouldn't the time he'd spend with a possible romantic connection be exponential?
Tonight, Sam and I are having dinner with Jason to commemorate this 'Longest Date in the World,' which of course got me thinking about Steve heavily for the last few days. He died about a year and a half ago, and it took me a long time to feel complete about it, meaning I couldn't even think too much about him at first, almost would prefer not to remember. I didn't want to wonder how things would be if he were still around. Jason once asked what my favorite memory of Steve was, and I couldn't even recall, much to my horror.
Slowly, though, I have come to remember his sense of humor, his habits, his sporadic but insistent east coast accent, the way he'd dance. Shortly after he died, I focused on the unbelievable, how only a couple of years prior, we had gone to a drag performance of an episode of the Golden Girls; a year prior, still meeting for brunch. Months before he died, we had dinner together for my birthday. And then he was gone, and I couldn't believe how much things can change.
I believe it now, but mostly, I feel OK enough to be able to think of him and remember with less sadness than nostalgia. I certainly remember how annoyed I would be with him while waiting for his late yet nonchalant arrival at the Crocker Galleria, but also how I couldn't help but smile when he finally got there. Steve just had had that kind of positive energy. And true to that, I can't help but smile now as well when I think of him, of all the memories that help me compose a complete and true picture of my friend, and who he was to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment