A Man Named Dave

quiet street, or at nighttime, after we barbecued hot dogs, I’d hold him in my lap as we gazed up at the stars. When Patsy picked Stephen up, the magnitude of our separation exploded like a bomb in the pit of my stomach. As Patsy and Stephen drove off, part of me ached to race down the street, tear open the car door, clutch Stephen in my arms, and plead with Patsy that every problem we had could be worked out. But I could not, and would not, move a muscle to chase after them. All I did was try to capture the slightest trace of sound from Patsy’s car, long after it disappeared from sight.
    I stood in the middle of the street for what seemed like hours. After I began to tremble, I returned home, closed the door behind me, and cried for days. For nearly a week I shut myself completely off from the outside world. My days consisted of waking up at four or five in the morning, so I could scour every inch of every object within my surroundings. Every day, after more than nine hours of cleaning the house, I’d remove, wash, and restack the virtually empty refrigerator shelves; then on my hands and knees I’d scrub the baseboards until the paint nearly rubbed off. I thought if everything around me was perfectly immaculate, somehow my life, too, would be in order. I wouldn’t stop until late into the evening and only after I’d scrubbed the telephone. With my body layered with sweat, I’d collapse in my chair with the sanitized telephone glued to my hand, as if I phoned Patsy she’d somehow take me back. Many times I dialed her number, but I always hung up before the number could ring through.
    If I felt good about myself and felt I deserved it, late at night after a long shower I’d open the door to stand on the deck for a few minutes and search for the group of stars Stephen and I had found together. Sometimes as I listened as the tops of the redwoods swayed, I’d catch a whiff of someone’s fireplace or the sweet scent from the trees before passing out on my leaky air mattress. On a good day that was enough to get me through.
    After a week of solitude, I called the Lincoln office in the vain hope that I had some upcoming work so I could somehow get away from my life. With each call my manager, Jerry, assured me he was only days away from being flooded with work. All I could do was thank him for believing in me and pray for a breakthrough.
    Then in the afternoon I’d sit and wait for Stephen to return from school so I could call him and talk about his day. I thanked God that with each conversation, he seemed upbeat and happy. As Patsy had promised, she kept Stephen busy, while letting me see or talk to him at any time.
    Every time I hung up the phone with him, I could not help but feel like a traitor – that somehow I had abandoned my son. Even though my home was plastered with photos of Stephen and reams of his artwork from school covered the refrigerator and every inch of the kitchen cabinets, I still felt I had deserted him. My guilt consumed me to the point that several times when I dared myself to see a movie, I’d instead return home, as if I could not allow myself to escape my reality for just a few hours. Somehow I thought the pleasure of seeing a movie took something away from Stephen.
    My saving grace was the Rio Villa Resort in nearby Monte Rio. For years after getting out of the service, Patsy, Stephen, and I had been guests there, and I became close friends with the owners, Ric and Don. Since my first visit, Ric and Don knew of my passion of wanting to live on the Russian River. And now, rather than keeping myself in a self-imposed exile, they were kind enough to allow me to work on their grounds. Whenever Stephen was not with me, I now felt some form of purpose. After completing whatever assignment I had with the speaking firm, I’d throw on a set of work clothes and race over to the Rio Villa, where I’d pull weeds, trim the rose-bushes, or spend hours watering the grass in the late afternoon sun. Slowly, with the passing of summer, I began to feel a sense of worth and accomplishment.
    But my shame never escaped me. Since my separation, whenever I spoke at a program and gave suggestions about facing issues and overcoming adversity, I felt like a hypocrite. The only time I felt halfway decent about myself was when I made the audience laugh. In humor I could forget about my pitiful life.
    But when alone, even right after speaking, from deep within I felt as I had as a child – no matter how hard I worked, no