As many people have already pointed out, Steve talked when he was in the mood and stopped (or never started) when he wasn’t. It seemed like the internal tape in his brain would start up with something he found more interesting or compelling, which would simultaneously push the mute button for the rest of the world. Before his stroke, this was frequently accompanied by starting to read; after his stroke, turning on his headphones. Some examples:
About 10 years ago, Steven came with me to a dinner party given by a man I worked with and his wife at their home in the City. It wasn’t a large party, about 20 guests. I reminded him as we crossed the bridge from Berkeley that this was a function with people I worked with, so could he please be socialable. He said he would.
The house was a pretty Victorian, with a hallway from the front door straight to the kitchen at the back of the house. First the living room and then the dining room were off to the side as you walked back. It was a rare balmy night in SF, so the entire party was taking place in the kitchen and back deck. We got to the party, and Steve was chatting away in the kitchen with people he liked. Oh, good. I relaxed my vigilance. About 45 minutes after we had arrived and dinner was about to be served, I looked around. No Steve. I went out to the deck where the rest of the partygoers were. No Steve. I figured he had gone to the bathroom. But after a while, I got concerned and starting searching him out. I saw that the living and dining rooms had no lights on, so I knew he wasn’t there. No one was in the bathrooms either. I started down the hall to the front door to look outside. As I passed the living room, I saw a shadowy figure just sitting in the dark in a big arm chair. I rushed over, “Steven, what’s the matter? Are you OK?” He said, “Oh, I’m fine. I’m just all talked out.” And that was it for sociabililty for that night.
I always told Steven that he was like a walking Rorschach ink blot test. When we worked in the same firm, associates would regularly come into my office, worried that Steve was mad at them or didn’t like them because he'd ignored them when they said hi, or he had passed them in the hall without even acknowledging them, or he'd walked off when they were mid-conversation. They would offer up why that might be: Steve didn’t think they had gone to a good enough law school; he thought they were a bad writer; Steve thought they were dull, and so on. Whatever their insecurity, they just projected it right onto Steve. I had to explain the mind tape on/external world off phenomenon to them, which usually only partly calmed them down, because who actually does that?
Here’s how Jim McCabe (luckily, a secure guy), later told me he handled working with Steve when he was an associate. He’d walk into Steve’s office, and start in on what he needed to talk to Steven about. At some point in the middle of the discussion, Steven would start reading something he saw on his desk. Conference over. Mike would walk out and wait a half hour or so which would, as he put it, push the reset button. He’d go back in. Depending on the day, this might repeat several times before Jim had covered everything he needed to.
One time I ran into Peter Pfister on the bus or BART home. Peter told me that that day, Steven had walked into Peter’s office wanting his advice on something. Peter politely pushed the papers he was working on away from him, and turned his attention to Steve. In the middle of their conversation, the papers that Peter had shoved away caught Steven’s eye. He turned them around, and started reading them. As Peter (mock indignantly) said , “I’ve come to expect Steve to do this when I seek him out, but, I’m sorry, HE walked into MY office asking for help, and then not only tunes me out, but commandeers the document I was working on too?”
No comments:
Post a Comment