Steve McQueen - Marc Eliot [7]
He didn’t care what they did to him because he was already planning another breakout, a great escape that would leave the others in his dust. That is, until he first became aware of Mr. Pantier, one of the school’s superintendents, who disdained physical punishment in favor of talking things out. He believed that all boys were redeemable, including Steven. Mr. Pantier talked to him without talking down to him, and spent long evenings trying to convince the boy he was worth more than the kind of life he was headed for.
Pantier’s kind words of encouragement touched something in Steven, and his transformation was swift. He became a model of good behavior and soon enough was elected to the same self-governing boys’ council he had been punished by. That victory meant a lot to him.
WHILE STEVEN was inside, Jullian had undergone some changes of her own, beginning with the untimely but not entirely unwelcome death of Berri, from a heart attack, even as Jullian was preparing to divorce him and move by herself to New York City to find a new and better life. After she buried Berri, she visited Steven one last time and told him that when he got out he should look her up. However, despite her determination to do better this time, she quickly slipped back into the familiar world of drinking, smoking, and “entertaining” men.
In April 1946, having finished his full fourteen-month term at Boys Republic, sixteen-year-old Steven left for New York to be with his mother. What he didn’t know was that one night while at a bar Jullian had met an old friend from Los Angeles by the name of Victor Lukens. They had quickly become lovers, and Lukens wasted no time moving into her tiny Greenwich Village two-room cold-water flat.
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1 Although the county records claim March 21 as his actual birthday, his mother insisted it was really March 24. Steve always celebrated on the twenty-first.
2 He was technically Grand-uncle Claude, but Steven always referred to him simply as Uncle Claude.
I’m from the Actors Studio but as far as any set method is concerned, I don’t believe there is one.… And I certainly admire Mr. Brando, but I wouldn’t want to be like him.
—STEVE MCQUEEN
FROM THE MOMENT STEVEN ARRIVED IN NEW YORK CITY, nothing felt right. As soon as he got off the bus at Port Authority Bus Terminal, he spotted Jullian waiting for him. That was good. He went to kiss her on the cheek and smelled alcohol. That was bad. She took him down to the Village and showed him the separate place she’d rented for him, a small alcove in a three-room apartment. That was very bad.
The problem, she explained to him as she helped him unpack his few things, was that she was involved with a new man who was an old friend, and didn’t want to screw it up by bringing her grown son into their small apartment. It wasn’t what Steven had bargained for. He didn’t want to share his mother with anybody else again and he wasn’t going to live with a guy he would have beaten up for fun back home, but he didn’t want to live alone either.
So there it was, new city, old story. He roamed the streets dressed like a West Coast hick, right down to his high-top shoes, denim jacket, and jeans with high cuffs. With nowhere else to go, Steven parked himself at the nearest bar and was soon engaged in conversation with a couple of drunk tough guys. Their names were Tinker and Ford. They were a little older but reminded him of his friends back at the institution. They told him they were in the merchant marine and talked of the romantic adventure of sailing the world, which struck Steven as not all that bad a way of