Today is Steve Baran's 29th birthday. I wish I could call him to give him my birthday blessing, but I seem to have misplaced him. Things like that happen as you get older, and if - like me - you move around every year. We all have friends that we've lost touch with; people we couldn't find today even if we wanted to. There's a whole industry built around things like classmates.com, where the idea is to stalk and find the people you used to hang out with. I've tried it. He wasn't there. He isn't in the phonebook. He isn't on Google. There's no mention of him on the Yahoo group for our high school. And his father's number rings out when I call, and my Christmas card was returned unopened, which leads me to think his father has finally retired and moved out west to be closer to his wife's family. So I Googled his dad, hoping to at least track him down. I found a magazine for firefighters that he writes safety articles for on a regular basis. I contacted them with the request that they pass my details onto him. That was two months ago. Still nothing. Steve has vanished, at least from my sights.
A thousand lifetimes ago, when I was a completely different Right Girl, I had a friend named Steve. We used to say Dawson's Creek was ripping us off, because we actually lived like those two brats. Steve and I became friends the autumn after my mother died. As a matter of fact, Steve-o really put his foot in it the first time he came to our house for dinner:
Steve: So where's your mom?
Jeff (ex-boyfriend - shaking head): Shutup man.
Me: She's dead, Steve.
Steve: Yeah right. Like, you keep her in the freezer or something?
Dad: *snarfs spaghetti through his nostril*
Jeff: No, idiot, she actually is dead.
Steve (Looking toward my father): Oh shit.
That was the first "Dead Parent Joke (DPJ)". In later years, it became necessary to make a DPJ before you could be part of my in-crowd. It meant you were comfortable with who and what I was. You were comfortable with my sad and scary parts. Somehow, from that, a close friendship was formed.
He nursed me through depression that year, when I wouldn't leave my bed for days. He put up with the crying, the anger, the highs & lows. In return I took him shopping when I felt up to it, taught him not to wear white socks with black shoes & pants (what is it about boys that makes them do this??), and dealt with the fallout from his mother's various relationships.
We were inseperable - each finishing each other's unspoken thoughts. Well, perhaps inseperable is the wrong word. Every spring we would have some kind of spat that caused us to spend the summer months apart. It was like clockwork. He said we fought in the spring so that I wouldn't have to buy him a birthday present, and then got back together in September, just in time for my birthday in October. Heh, worked for me.
But then my father died in 1995, and my final shreds of sanity left me - at least for a while. A long while, in fact. Long enough that I didn't notice that while I was falling apart, so was Steve. I was self destructing in my own flamboyant way, while he was sitting quietly in a corner getting high. While I was "someplace" (they always call it "someplace") resting and putting my life back together, he was tooling around in my sportscar, with my credit cards. So when I came back from "someplace", I was mad as hell.
How could you? What were you thinking, you fuckin junkie!??It wasn't till years later, after I had been halfway round the world, sitting quietly in a Glasgow corner getting drunk, that I realized I may have played a part, too. I know I did. What gave me the right to fall apart - again - and not even notice my best friend doing the same? What made me so smug? Why didn't I see what was happening, and how could I be so selfish? If I had at least taken the time to notice what he was doing to himself, then maybe I'd have an argument for what he did to me. But I let it happen. I let him fall and hurt himself, and me in the process.
He'd never let me fall.
I last saw Steve in the summer of 2000, for a short lunch, where we talked about very little. His sister was with us, and neither of us wanted to drag out the dirty laundry in front of her. Then he moved, and we lost track. Next thing you know, I'm in Scotland, holding a bouquet and standing next to a man in a kilt. A man Steve had never even met.
My friend Kris had escorted me to the airport to being my new life with Mr. Right. As I passed through the security gates, not looking back, she walked into the newsagent next to the gates to buy a bottle of water. Steve was standing behind the cash register. So close, and yet so far. That was the last I ever heard of him.
Steve, wherever you are, whatever you're doing (good or bad), I hope you have a great birthday. I never really got to wish you a happy birthday before. Looks like this year isn't any different.
