The officer told me that the body was an 18 year-old kid who had been playing a perverse form of chicken with a buddy by mooning passing cars from the ocean side of the road. The competition had led each incrementally into the road itself.
A Porsche had come around the blind bend at 85 mph and turned the kid into puree. The driver and the mooners had been drinking - just like I had. In that moment of horror, a calm certainty came over me that I had to stop drinking. I felt very lucky, very ill, and very guilty at the same time sitting there in police custody.
I don't take any particular credit for this decision - it didn't even feel like my decision to make. It felt like unavoidable received wisdom. Not that there aren't people who make the other choice, or who refuse to choose, which is the same thing. I stopped completely for about eight years, and have found over the last several years that I can drink lightly, not want more, and be okay; but I needed all of that time off for my body, brain and soul to recalibrate themselves into something resembling "normal."
"For unknown reasons," A California Highway Patrol statement said, Howe's pickup truck — traveling westbound at about 70 mph at 5:30 a.m., April 28 on Interstate 10 near Cactus City — left the roadway, entered the median and rolled numerous times before coming to rest on its roof. Howe was not wearing his seat belt and was partly ejected from the truck. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Results from toxicology tests have not yet been released.
Dodger broadcaster Rick Monday, a former teammate of Howe's, told the LA Times, "He seemed to constantly struggle to figure out how to get his life in order. But no matter how bad things were, Steve always found a ray of sunshine."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matt Wardlaw
Eric,
I missed the news about Steve's death.
Quite a story you have presented here.
Glad that it has a happy ending on your end.
2 - Christopher Rose
When I saw the headline, I thought you meant the geezer from Yes.
3 - Eric Olsen
thanks Matt, so far anyway!
Chris, you are so not American.
4 - Phillip Winn
A masterpiece. Thanks for sharing.
5 - Christopher Rose
That is so true, Eric.
6 - Eric Olsen
thanks Phillip!
Chris, Recognition is half the battle.
7 - JELIEL³
Phew... I thought Steve Howe (The Guitar God) had died...
8 - Eric Olsen
he's way over 48 and probably can't hit 50 on the radar gun
9 - Christopher Rose
There's hope for us all, Mr Olsen!
10 - zingzing
you mean, it wasn't an over-the-hill, zonked out has-been who died? damn it, i really want Yes to go the way of the dinosaur. oh yeah... that happened 30 years ago...
11 - zingzing
no offense to the pitcher. fuck Yes. sheesh. cape wearing freaks.
12 - Eric Olsen
zz, so you're not outraged Yes isn't in the Rock Hall?
13 - zingzing
um... who cares about a hall of fame? i don't really think about the place.
14 - Eric Olsen
so you're a nihilist?
15 - zingzing
no... why do you ask? i don't care for Yes or the idea of a "rock n roll hall of fame..." but does that make me a nihilist?
16 - Eric Olsen
I have heard many nihilists often denigrate both the Rock Hall and Steve Howe, the guitarist
17 - Matthew T. Sussman
Much like Howe, who was himself in denihil.
18 - Christopher Rose
No, he was in Yes!
19 - Christopher Rose
Oh yes he was.
20 - zingzing
i am not your typical steve howe-rock hall hatin hater. but, really, i don't care if you want to label me a nihilist. whatever.
21 - DJRadiohead
EO, this reminds me of our conversation and your piece about your friends in TN: humanizing the tragedies in the newspaper. Well done, Sir.
22 - Eric Olsen
thanks Josh, or at least making it about me!
ZZ, just messing with you - joke!
Chris, you're talking to yourself.
Suss, classic line
23 - zingzing
e.o.--you must have missed the joke in mine... maybe it wasn't a very good joke... nope... it wasn't... oh well... i don't care anymore...
24 - Eric Olsen
ZZ, sorry, get it now, my bad! The Internet doesn't convey nuance very well.
25 - Dawn
I am so thankful that you were the observer that night, not the observed.
Great writing, as usual!