TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: THE SCALES Pt. 2

TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: THE SCALES Pt. 2
Recounting the birth of The Last Session and the Rebirth of Steve

Los Angeles

June 1996

Read previous entry here.

Four days to showtime

The Saturday morning reading

One shot

His ears were still plugged up
He needed sound equipment
He needed a keyboard

They had one shot

David Robyn, his rocker friend,
Pledged mics, amp and speakers
His friend, Alan O'Day,
Drove over the hill with things
Alan O'Day -- Undercover Angel
Angie Baby, Rock and Roll Heaven

Alan O'Day
Who died of cancer last week

While AIDS-boy lives on

Steve Wilde and Marjorie Graue
(Buddy and Vicki)
Rehearsed songs
Between feedings from Louie
He peed a lot

Yve Evans

(Trysha)

Will drive in from the desert

Suddenly, Saturday morning
The theater is packed
The audience waiting

No keyboard
They've got one shot

Who knows if he'll live long enough
To get a second?

Yve says she'll go buy one
And return it the next day
The show must go on
She's on the way out the door
With a credit card

What he didn't know was that
Today was Gay Pride Parade day
The keyboard was late
Because Terence couldn't get thru the parade

The irony was not lost
On the gay dying songwriter
He was losing his shot

10 AM

No music stores are even open

His stomach was hurting
The bandage on his arm throbbed
From the port leading to his heart

Defeated by his own people

Then, as if from out of the blue
The keyboard arrives

Everyone scrambles
It works

The show starts
One shot

In his diary, the Songwriter notes
That he had almost no memory
Of this crucial performance
Apart from being scared
And then releasing himself
Into the emotions of the material
Because he couldn't hear it
His ears were more plugged than ever

But he remembered the hugs
The tears
The pledges of support

The next day he was too weak
To function
He stayed in bed
He let Louie feed him
He peed a lot

And then, the next day,

JUNE 10, 1996

He announces on his blog

That he has gained 10 pounds
After three years of diarrhea

Three years of not processing food
And narcotics to stop the flow

Three years of life slipping away
He had gained 10 pounds
(3/4 of a stone)

He was afraid to announce
That he just might possibly live
But he couldn't be sure

Not yet
He still felt terrible
But now he had graduated
To Thai curry chicken

No more BRAT diet

Next, they met with Gary and Linda
"What do you want to do with this show?"

He answered naively,

"I want to go to New York and

Be on Broadway!"

Gary and Linda looked at him
Looked at the skeleton
Sitting in front of them 

And thought,

"Is he even gonna make it
To the end of the week?"

No one knew.