Steve the Stammer's Missing Painting

Steve the Stammer’s Missing Painting

Steve the Stammer didn't have many friends and I think he liked it that way. Steve was pretty sober when I first frequented his pad in Isleworth. The only reason Steve was sober was he didn't have any money. His dole allowance didn't allow him enough to both eat and drink so what he did was drink his dole money in a day or two and live off the vegetables he grew in his garden the rest of the month. 

Steve was thin, wiry and healthy for sixty-four years of age. He had thick white hair that used to be red. Steve had a bad stammer and when drunk he and his stammer could get pretty ugly, like the time he went to the local gallery opening and took advantage of the free wine. He didn't sip the wine. He slugged it. Drink didn't improve his stammer among strangers as he usually ended up offending people. His stammer had a sting to it and these local artists were on the receiving end. 

Steve woke up in West Middlesex Hospital twelve hours later after he passed out on the gallery floor in front of all the patrons. He was covered in his own vomit. When Steve drank it was a process of making up for the lost time. In these moments he drank at break neck speed and it usually ended up a train wreck. Luckily he was sober ninety percent of the time but his day of reckoning was coming. He would turn sixty-five in a couple of months and his post office pension would arrive and the seven years of poverty would end and the proper drinking would begin. 

Steve used to be a postman in Richmond upon Thames, a cushy number for a postman. He was a postman for twenty-two years before he got fired. He began to stumble in at five o'clock in the morning- check in time, drunk as a skunk, a bottle of vodka stashed in his coat for easy access. One morning he came into to work so drunk he shat himself. He then proceeded to insult the boss beyond reason for accusing him of coming in to work inebriated. Steve told the story with such regret. He missed the Post Office and how his life was so much better when he was on his bicycle delivering the mail. His life had purpose and meaning when he was a postman. 

Steve’s flat had that stale, damp smell of an old country home that suffered from not being heated on a regular basis in winter. The sofa where Steve sat and smoked had the stuffing coming out of it. You couldn't tell what colour it used to be. The arms were worn down to the wire, especially the side where he sat and rested his elbow. His kitchen was as barren as a ghetto parking lot- just dirty old plates with tacky designs, tea and coffee stained mugs, and old cans of Skol Super lined up on the counter like dead shoulders. The windows dripped with condensation due to the lack of heating.

Steve lived by candlelight at night. Some years earlier he fell asleep drunk on his sofa.  His roll up cigarette was in his hand dangling, still lit. It slipped (still burning) from his fingers and fell down into the heart of the sofa. Steve woke back up some moments later. He forgot about the cigarette, stumbled to his bedroom at the front of the house, took all his clothes off, and passed out on his bed naked. The neighbours in the flat upstairs noticed the smoke and called the fire brigade. Steve finally heard the banging on the front door and staggered to open the door. There he stood stark naked to greet half the street in their pyjamas shivering in the cold- smoke billowing out the door from his flat on fire behind him. 

‘What can I do for you today?’ he asked with a large smile on his face.  

‘Fire! There is a fire in your flat. Can’t you see and smell the smoke? Your flat is on fire.’ 

Steve liked to tell this story and how all the neighbours ignored him after that. The neighbours in the flat upstairs put it on the market immediately, fearing for their lives and their children’s lives. 

When Steve’s pension money finally arrived the collection of Skol Super beer cans surrounding the sofa began to increase by the day. Each time I visited Steve there were more and more cans accumulating along with the odd bottle of whiskey or vodka standing tall among all the cans. It got to the point that you couldn't walk around his front room without kicking over an empty can of Skol Super. I told Steve that the worst thing that ever happened to him was the pension. He was better off without it as the money was killing him. I'm not sure he cared. I tried to talk him into painting again, as it would give him a reason to live but he wasn't interested in anything but drinking now that he had money. His once gorgeous garden was now beginning to go the way of his living room. 

Steve still didn't have electricity or gas now that he had money. He couldn't be bothered to sort it out. He was so used to living in the 19th century he saw no reason for modern creature comforts of the 21st. No TV, computer, no music. Nada.  No friends either. I wasn't even a friend really, just someone to drink with for a change, instead of drinking alone as he usually did. 

I asked Steve one afternoon if I could see his paintings. He got them all out of his closet for me to look at. He propped them up against the walls around the living room and we sat and looked at them. The paintings were inspired by ancient Persia and geometric symbols, except for one that was different from the others, it was simpler, more naive, but my favourite of the lot.  He drew it in art school when he was seventeen. The painting was a faded green armchair with two tennis sneakers on it- one with laces, one without. It had a cartoonish look about it. In my drunkenness I said to Steve that I thought I could sell it. 

‘Th th a aaa at thing? You’re having a laugh. I did that one in art school with F..FF r….Freddy M..MM… Mercury.  He liked that one t..tt.too.  Everyone likes that one.  . .  I d…d…d… don’t like it much.  Ah, it’s k... k... kid’s stuff.’ 

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I just like it. I think that you should paint in this style, instead of the Persian geometrical style of the others- this is simple, straight to the point and in my drunken opinion the two tennis shoes on the sofa represent the state of relaxation and movement as both shoes are on the sofa, yet only one has laces.’ 

‘I d… d…don’t kn...kn…know wh…wh…what you’re talking about. N..None of the…these things p…passed through my mind wh…when p… p…painting it.’

‘It was subconscious then.’ 

‘W… w… w…well if you think ya…ya…ya…ya… you can sell it. How mu… mu… much?’

‘I don’t know, at least a hundred quid. I’ll try and get more.’ 

I suddenly saw myself an art dealer, Steve’s agent. I stumbled out of Steve’s flat with the painting and carried it home. I showed it to the ex wife hoping she would like it, but I knew she wouldn't as she has horrible taste in art. Of course when I walked in the door and hung it on the wall she demanded it come down. I hung it up in the shed next to the window looking on the garden. In the morning I wasn't quite sure what I was thinking when I took the painting as I had no idea who I could sell it to. That was a tough period in my life financially. Hanging around at Steve the Stammer’s place was not really a good thing for me so I stopped going around there so much and time passed and I never did get around to selling Steve’s painting. I bumped into Steve a couple of times in the neighbourhood and he didn't say anything about the painting. I figured no big deal, no rush to get it back. I had a dream one night that Steve died and the painting ended up in a trash heap, a big gaping hole right through the middle of the armchair. I reasoned it wasn't such a bad thing for the painting to be hanging in the shed. It was appreciated, instead of sitting in the darkness of Steve’s closet. 

Pete the Tooth and I were throwing back some real ale on the other side of town at the Red Lion Pub. The Tooth knew Steve the Stammer for years, much longer than I knew him but the Tooth hadn't seen the Stammer for years now that he moved across town. Their paths didn't cross any more. The Tooth asked me how the Stammer was getting on. I told the Tooth the Stammer was really going downhill fast with the drink now that his post office pension came in. The money was literally killing him. The Tooth and I talked about the sadness of it all, the shame that Steve didn't paint or garden any more or do something to keep himself busy so he didn't drink so much. He was spiralling down the vortex of the bottle at break neck speed, making up for lost time. 

The Tooth said to me, ‘you know, I never really liked his paintings much, all that Arabic mathematical nonsense, painting by numbers, but there is that one of the green armchair with the two pairs of old white plimp sole trainers on it. You know, I would love to have that painting hanging up there on that wall.’

‘One hundred pounds and it is yours.  I have it.’ 

‘What do you mean, you have it?’ 

‘I have it. He gave it to me. I said I could sell it for him. It’s yours if you want it.’ 

‘Okay.’ 

‘Deal.’ 

I came back the next day with the painting. I needed the money badly and I figured I would buy it back when I was on better financial footing. To tell you the truth I forgot all about it after that as the Tooth actually hung it on a wall in his bedroom so it wasn't hanging over my head to remind me. Out of site.  Out of mind. I moved to the other side of town myself so I didn't cross Steve’s path much after that.  One day I was cycling through Twickenham and I saw him across the street and I shouted his name. He ignored me completely. I thought that is odd. Maybe he is upset I never pay him a visit any more. About a year later I popped into JOSEPH’S CAFÉ in Isleworth for a full English and there he was sitting down at a table- plate off to the side of the table, Sun newspaper spread out in front of him.  He looked about twenty pounds heavier. He had a beer belly and his face was now puffy. He shot daggers at me with his bright blue bloodshot eyes. 

I said, ‘hi, Steve.’ 

He wasn't having it. 

‘Any chance you returning my possession.’ 

No stutter at all this time. Crystal clear.

‘Steve, I've tried to drop it off a hundred times but you’re never there.’ 

I lied. 

‘Well I want it back.’ 

‘I’ll drop it off. Sorry about that.’ 

He didn't say anything, just returned to reading the Sun newspaper. I sat at the back of the café out of his line of vision. I felt like shit actually, like a thief. I met up with the Tooth and explained to him the situation with Steve and the painting. The Tooth wasn't too happy about it, that I was asking if I could buy the painting back. 

‘Does he know I have it?’ he asked. 

‘No,’ I said, which was true. 

‘So you never had any intention of giving the Stammer the hundred quid I gave you for it. You said he knew you were selling it.’ 

‘I know. I know. But I don’t have the money to give him.’

‘Then that’s not my fault- you sold the painting to me.’ 

‘Well if you spotted me a hundred quid I can pay him off for it.’ 

‘I am a little skint at the moment and you already owe me fifty.’ 

The conversation turned to something else and I forgot about the painting again.  Months passed.  The Tooth contacted me to meet him at the Red Lion. Our tides had turned completely. The Tooth was in debt to everyone he knew, including me. Even though I was financially fine and could pay Steve the money for the painting I still hadn't done anything about it. Out of site. Out of mind. The Tooth and I were in the garden of the Red Lion sipping a couple of real ales when he brought up the painting again. 

‘Hey, you know, I'm kind of short of money these days. Remember you mentioned the Stammer’s painting and buying it back. How’s fifty quid sound and we’re all square.’

‘Deal.’ 

I picked up the painting from the Tooth’s flat and awkwardly carried it across Isleworth to Steve’s flat. I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again, and again. Finally I heard some rumbling inside and the door opened and Steve saw me standing there with his painting. He was completely hammered, swaying back and forth. His eyes had the blood shot look of a five-day bender. 

‘So you couldn't s… s… s…sell it then?’ 

‘Sorry, mate.’ 

‘Come on in, I got some Sk… Sk… Sk… Skol S… S… S… Super.’ 

‘Okay, but just one.’

I carried the painting back into his house, leaned it on the paint pealed wall, cracked open the can of Skol Super Steve handed to me, sat down on the old disgusting sofa and counted cans as Steve began to tell me the same old stories again I’d heard so many times before.