Steve Fertal V

The other day I went to see Max Ophüls’ Madame De…. I understood the basic plot, but without subtitles, I couldn’t pick up the subtleties of the film’s comedic moments. Afterwards I met Jared for a drink. He told me things about Nietzsche. When we went outside to smoke a cigarette, I looked down at the curb and noticed all of the butts.

I was reminded of my old friend Steve Fertal V from middle school. (Of course we didn’t actually refer to him as ‘Steve Fertal the fifth,’ but in the year book his name was written this way, and when I asked him about it, he informed me that in fact he was the fifth Steven Fertal). When Steve and I and the rest of his unsavory crew used to walk home from school, we would stop by at this office building and look for smokable cigarette butts in the ash tray outside. We didn’t know anyone over eighteen, and asking people outside of gas stations always felt uncomfortable, so it was the best we could do. Unless of course Steve’s little brother Jared, who probably warrants his own entry, stole us cartons from Sim’s (where I worked all throughout high school). He would go in there, quickly get behind the ice cream freezers where the cartons where, and grab one or two and hide them in his big coat. Then we were set for a while. I remember many nights sleeping over at Steve’s house, which was only a block away, staying up smoking these cigarettes and drinking cans of A-Treat cream soda.

Steve was the local badass, at least among kids his age. I think maybe Ricky Murphy was the senior bad ass because he was older. He was 4 years older than us, my sister’s age. When I was just a toddler and my sister was five or six, she and Ricky Murphy used to collect cigarette butts at Fairview Park across the street from our house. Cigarette butts seem to be a theme of this entry. I also remember Ronnie Gaffney and Josh Weaver, and Johnny. I don’t remember Johnny’s last name.

Frequently, the police where at Steve’s house, either because of something Steve did, or because of something his brother Jared did. On the surface perhaps, Steve was just a typical neighborhood menace of sorts, getting into fights, smoking cigarettes, and in general sticking it to the man. When I first got to middle school, I was vaguely aware of him, and probably vaguely frightened of him, too. As it turns out, he was in my homeroom, because although he was a year older than me (exactly a year older, in fact), he had to repeat the sixth grade due to failing grades. So we made friends, and I was quasi-integrated into his crew, although mostly I just hung out with him.

Steve had a dynamic and precocious personality. Although he was small kid, relatively diminutive in stature, he was nonetheless incredibly cocky about his fighting prowess and his general street cred. He was also somewhat of a ladies’ man, at least among 12 to 14 year olds. He was not a stupid kid, either, and I really believe that he had a more sensitive and articulate side that in different circumstances might’ve flourished. In fact, I remember times when he got really frustrated with the idiocy of his other street friends. He probably was drawn to me because I was more cerebral, or at any rate less likely to want to do things that would get us in trouble with the police. In addition to the kinds of things he did with his unsavory crew, Steve also did things like read books, play computer games obsessively, play Magic the Gathering and D&D, and watch Charlie Chaplin movies (when I think about it now, it seems kind of odd for anyone that age to watch Chaplin).

In other words, he was an interesting mixture of qualities. He had a distinct, confident way of speaking, and he often introduced phrases with ‘in all honesty,’ which meant, my friend Jeff and I noted, that whatever he was going to say would be total bull shit. Two proclamations he made that I remember were, ‘Ninety percent of all Afghans are terrorists,’ and ‘calculators are smarter than people.’ Steve’s dad also made proclamations like these, such as ‘nine out of ten people abused animals when they were young.’ That one really stuck with me.

Well, I suppose I drifted apart with Steve after his parents separated and he moved to Allentown. After that, I only heard stories of him getting into trouble and being kicked out of different relatives’ houses who agreed to let him stay with them. That last time I saw him was my freshman year at high school, after that I think he dropped out. I heard rumors of him from my old friend Jeff, who allowed him to stay at his place briefly, although I think that ended badly. Just yesterday I searched fbook to see if Steve was on it, but to no avail. Now I’m trying to get in touch with Jeff, who also could be anywhere, to see if there is any news of Steve Fertal V.

Steve is somewhat emblematic of the fate of many of my old friends from middle school, although he is probably the most interesting, with the exception of my friend Nick Rohoman, who much more than Steve actually meant something to me. I could probably write entries about several of these people, but the truth is I don’t even know why I’m writing this one.

I’ve been recovering from my recent slump into malaise and listlessness. Alternately, Florence is deteriorating. She told me the other day that she has a serious health problem, I didn’t dare to ask what. The heat hasn’t been working for the past week (this was probably my fault, but that’s another story), although today it was fixed. Two outlets in my room still don’t work, but in addition to that Florence found out that there’s no electricity in her office. Almost every day I hear her moaning and groaning, either to herself or to someone on the phone.