This is how it ended (2004-06)

This is a memorial sort of slide show that I made for Steve back in 2006. It's a compilation of some of the photos that appear here on the blog and some others that were taken the last few months of his life.

It's been a long time since he died but I still miss his great stories and that optimistic charm. Sometimes I take my dog over to the cemetery and we have lunch there and I fill him in on all the fun stuff he's been missing. Stella reclines at his grave like a beauty queen and I'm always sorry they never got a chance to be friends. I know he would've fallen for her, much the same way I did. He had a soft spot for dogs.

Thanks for visiting this page and thanks again to Guy Clark for letting me use his song, Homeless. If drugs or alcohol have stolen your life, please get some help today.

Crutches

This is one of the first pictures I ever made of Steve. He's the one in the wheelchair. There are more, buried somewhere in a file cabinet downstairs. I haven't seen them in a while. According to Barney (also pictured), Steve was doing pretty well until he got hit by the car that broke his leg. Prior to that, he was working regularly and for the first time in years, paying forty dollars a month rent for his apartment.

When the accident happened, his status as an alcoholic meant they couldn't send him home with anything to kill the pain. So naturally, he used vodka and that worked pretty good except that he had the cast on for ten months.

The culprit

How would you rate your pain?

"I've been reading about cirrhosis of the liver."

"Did it say on there that it'll kill you?"

"Yes."

"Did it say it was a long, slow, painful death?"

"Yes."

"Nothing that a length of rope and one of them tree limbs out there wouldn't fix."

"You better be careful with those tree limbs. They're rotted. You'll hit the ground and that tree limb will follow you right down."

"Then I'll wake up and somebody'll be saying:
'Mr. Grady, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?'"

Responses

These comments followed the previous post, a day after it was originally published. They were some of the most insightful comments to date on the topic of alcoholism.

My name's Terry, and I'm an alcoholic. I first said those words eight years ago, so I think I qualify to answer your question.

You believe, because friends and family of drunks are often co-dependent. It's a vicious cycle that can't be broken by wishful thinking or self deception.

If Steve is as much an alcohol as you suggest, then he is likely beyond medical help. He has a spiritual malady that can only be overcome through spiritual means -- and, I'm sad to say, this kind of help is very rarely found in church.

As the book of Alcoholics Anonymous says so perfectly, "We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help."

Regrettably, this is a choice only he can make. When King Alcohol finally wreaks enough havoc in his life, he will find himself at the stepping off point. Let's hope he has the courage to ask for help. My prayers are with you.


A day later, Gunner added,

I was 13 so i cannot honestly say I saw my dad drink himself to death, but he did. He never made my 14th birthday.

The problem is that if you feel he cannot make rational decisions on his health and life then who does? American history is full of movements to control alcoholics who could not control their drinking. Do a basic google search for alcoholics and eugenics and see how badly society treated them..

I stand by Terry's comment above, He cannot do it himself and he needs higher form of help. Good luck

Denial

Steve was sitting in his friendgirl's truck (that's the way he's always refers to her) at the bar today when I caught up with him. He was eating a fish sandwich and debating with himself over whether or not to go in the diner and get some packets of salt. He didn't.

He seemed to feel a little better than when I left him yesterday. It may have been the forty ounce bottle of beer in his lap. His friends are determined to deny him vodka but that didn't stop them indulging in the late afternoon ritual.

The Crossbar Motel

Some may remember an early post about my friend Barney whom I picked up once from jail. He and I and his neighbor, Steve had a conversation about jail last week that I thought I would pass along just because it's pretty typical for some people and typically astounding to others.

Steve had just spent twelve days himself in Nashville's city jail (CJC), a place not unknown to him. He said he ate more there in two days than he had in the two weeks prior to his being arrested and although he hadn't any desire to go, upon seeing two police officers heading toward his room, asked them if it was him they'd come for.

It was, indeed.

Steve knew before he went to jail that a friend of his had signed a warrant for his arrest in a vain effort to deny that she'd lost a fight with a girl on the street. She ended up though, with ring marks in her bruises and Steve doesn't wear any rings (a fact he hopes will clear him when he comes before the judge).

I wouldn't lie about it, he said I've beat her before, but not this time.

To address the look on my face he added,

When somebody smacks you awake with a saucepan Sue, you get up and whip their ass, it doesn't matter who it is.

Will she change her mind and clear you of the charge? I asked him.

She's in jail too, he said. They arrested her for having two FTA warrants (failure to appear) so she won't show up in court.

I asked him how many cell mates he had and to my utter amazement, he said fifty.

Part 2

Twice now, I've walked along with Steve to the liquor store. It's a straight shot up the street about a quarter mile, placed thoughtfully, between the Drake Motel and the projects; one of those liquor stores where the cashier sits unaffected and smiling, behind bullet proof glass. He and his neighbors pool their money, and buy half gallons of vodka. If Steve doesn't happen to have money, he (or anyone, for that matter) is afforded a drink simply for doing the walking.

The first time we made this trip, he noted the place where he'd most recently been hit by a car. Upon discovering that Steve had been drinking, the man who hit him pretended to call an ambulance on his cell phone and then drove away.

On both occasions we've talked about homelessness and addiction, and about a life he had once and lost. A life erased by a $1500. a week cocaine habit that cost him his wife, his children, and his livelihood.

I don't blame her a bit for leaving me, he says. I'd have divorced myself if I could've. She probably saved my life.

He speaks with reverence, the name of an eight month old baby that he missed out on knowing and for a brief moment, his tough demeanor dissolves into what I like to call the dad face.

Steve moved in at Mercury Court Apartments, having been homeless, with two plastic bags of someone else's clothes. He splits his time now between his street family and his motel room apartment, which he admits is mostly a storage closet. He works day labor whenever he can and even though it's warm and comfortable there, he tries hard not to check in at the Crossbar Motel.