I felt anger well up inside me as I looked over the broken and torn canvases. I also felt a sense of loss and sadness.
I wasn't sad about what Steve had done to my work or what he'd done to me.
The sadness came from what Steve was doing to himself.
I'd read his journals. I'd seen the pain that he'd been through. I saw him at his most vulnerable. I also saw how he misguided his anger towards those who wanted to help him.
People like Hugo and myself.
I remember coming home to Steve's apartment after work and seeing him on the couch crying his eyes out.
At first he flinched when I put my arms around him. Then, he began to relax and weeped in my arms, his tears wetting my shirt.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "What happened? Is everything all right?"
He pulled himself free of my grip. "Nothing."
"Nothing? People don't usually sit on their sofa crying for nothing."
He wiped his nose. "It was nothing. Just some stupid movie on the TV." His eyes filled up again with tears as he spoke. "It was one of those 'Dead End Kids' movies. The one where they're in an orphanage run by an abusive warden. The warden uses the meat freezer as a method of punishment. One of the kids does something small, I don't even remember what, and the warden sticks him in the freezer for the whole day, killing him. The kid didn't do anything wrong. Why did he have to kill him?"
Steve broke down again.
I realized how it sometimes takes the smallest things to make us mourn. Things that everybody else would think were stupid or silly, we find truth in.
Donna and I, after checking the paintings, realized Steve didn't do as much damage as first thought. I had enough pieces for the gallery.
In Steve's act of destruction, maybe he remembered.
Maybe he didn't want to be the warden anymore.
