The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs by Brennan Chrisann

Author:Brennan, Chrisann [Brennan, Chrisann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-10-28T18:30:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

SNAKES AND LADDERS

Steve often said that he had a strong sense of having had a past life as a World War II pilot. He’d tell me how, when driving, he felt a strong impulse to pull the steering wheel back as if for takeoff. It was a curious thing for him to say, but he did have that sense of unadorned glamour from the forties. He loved the big band sound of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. At the first Apple party he even danced like he was from the forties. So I could see the fit: Steve as a young man with all that American ingenuity from a less encumbered time, with that simple sense of right and wrong. But that’s not how I pictured him in 1977. Apple was taking off and Steve wasn’t in an airplane, he was in a rocket ship blasting out beyond the atmosphere of what anyone imagined possible. And he was changing.

It was around this time that Steve, Daniel, and I moved into a rental in Cupertino. It was a four-bedroom ranch style house on Presidio Drive, close to Apple’s first offices. Steve told me that he didn’t want to get a house with just the two of us because it felt insufficient to him. Steve wanted his buddy Daniel to live with him because he believed it would break up the intensity of what wasn’t working between us. Our relationship was running hot and cold. We were completely crazy about each other and utterly bored in turns. I had suggested to Steve that we separate, but he told me that he just couldn’t bring himself to say good-bye. I was glad to hear this but I was also, by this time, deferring to his ideas way too often.

Steve also didn’t want us to share a room at the Presidio house. He said he didn’t want us to play assumed roles and that he wanted to choose when we would be together. I was hurt by this, but reasoned that he had a point, that we both needed a sense of space and choice. And so I went along with it. But I wasn’t asking myself what I wanted. Nor did I know how to negotiate for myself with who and what Steve was becoming. I wasn’t a person who played hardball. I looked for consensus and I expected fairness. Despite all evidence, I didn’t get a read on the situation partly because I assumed way too much about his being honest.

Steve selected the bedroom in the front of the house. It was like him to want to position himself as the captain of the ship—in front. He was always vying for that superior position. I chose the master bedroom and settled in, knowing I had the best room. Daniel, who was sort of charmingly odd, slept in the living room on the floor next to his piano. But after a month Steve literally picked me up and moved everything I owned and took over the master bedroom.

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