Junkyard Steve was born in Riverdale on 25 October 1951 to Carl Arithmetic Steve, traveling vibrator salesman, and Fern Lee Steve (Cromwell), housewife. He was named for his maternal grandfather Junkyard Harold, a nature poet of local repute.
From early childhood, Junkyard Steve demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for experimental chemistry. At the age of five, he may have distilled a psychoactive compound resembling grain alcohol from paint chips, harvested from the walls of his family home. He documented the process, which he described as "helping mommy," in a journal, now lost. Accounts of Junkyard Steve's obsessive efforts to breed novel varieties of isopod for speed and "flavour" are corroborated by multiple sources. The degree to which these early endeavours point towards the more expansive projects for which he is better known is a subject of scholarly debate.
The major turning point in Junkyard Steve's career occurred in 1968, when his mother attempted to have him committed to the care of a local asylum for the possibly insane. Although her motives remain somewhat unclear, an examination of public records reveals that she had opened a line of credit and contracted to convert his bedroom into an apiary. As fate would have it, Junkyard Steve never entered the asylum, which was itself in the process of being converted into a hooligan hangout, and the apiary was never finished, as Fern eloped with the contractor to Brazil. However, it was at this point in his life, freed from restrictive parental influence, that Junkyard Steve's relationship with bees began to intensify.
His first contribution to the science of honey was an accidental one, but its effects in the field continue to be felt. By his own admission, Junkyard Steve began keeping bees not for honey but for revenge. In a rare interview, given over the phone in 1989 to a student journalist, Junkyard Steve outlined his terrorist plot in disturbing detail. By the summer of 1973, he was in possession of approximately three hundred thousand bees, half of them bred to carry in their stingers a deadly synthetic venom that would stupefy its victims before electrocuting them. To the redounding benefit of honey enthusiasts everywhere, and fortunately enough for Junkyard Steve's enemies, a fire broke out in the shed, perhaps caused by a faulty wire. While the mutated bees perished in the smoke, the black honey that they left behind would prove an awesome discovery.
Thus did Junkyard Steve make his fortune. Riverdale black honey, with its audacious notes of smoldering plastic, its bitter chalky residue, and the mild electrical sensation it brings on, best felt in the teeth, has won a grand slam of honey prizes and is enjoyed by young and old around the world. Long may Junkyard Steve continue in his reckless and brilliant career.
