A Man Named Dave

you, pack your lunch, write you letters. I love you. And you … Mr Perfect, Mr ‘what happened to my money’ … you can’t even say the words. Just three fuckin’ words!” Patsy stepped forward, waving three fingers in my face.
    “It’s not like you have women beating down your door. When I met you, you were just a skinny bookworm geek, reading at the pool.” Patsy stopped for a moment. “I’m with a geek. Me, with a geek,” she announced, as if she had discovered a revelation. “I can be with anyone, you know. I was with someone before you, and I can be with someone else in a heartbeat! I see your fly boy buddies lookin’ at me, I know what they want. You take good care of me, but why can’t you say the words?”
    “Why can’t you be responsible?” I fired back. To me, everything was either right or wrong. To me life was not that complicated. If I saw a problem, rather than brush it aside, hoping it would simply disappear, I addressed the situation head-on. At the same time I’d make sure I did all that I could to prevent the problem from occurring again. To me, those who kept sweeping their problems under the rug were fooling themselves. A serious, unsolved issue would sooner or later suck a person into a black hole. That was one of the many lessons I had learned from living with Mother.
    Battling Patsy whenever I was home, I came to believe that she thought it was all simply about money and all I had to do was “take care of it”. But our core problem was that I didn’t trust her as much as I wanted. At times, in the middle of a heated argument, I wanted nothing to do with her. But while alone overseas, I’d miss Patsy dearly and felt I was being too hard on her. I knew I drove her crazy with my idiosyncrasies. Maybe, I thought when I played back the arguments in my head, my standards were too high. After all I had been through, Patsy was the only person who had ever shown me any affection. Deep inside, I knew I didn’t deserve any better.
    But as much as I wanted to, as deceptions and confrontations continued to mount up, I could never trust the one person I wanted to love.
     
    Because Patsy and I were so far behind in our rent, I moved from the condominium and into a smaller apartment that was closer to the base. I tried to break up with Patsy, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Whenever I came close to explaining that we were just two different people, Patsy and I would both cry and make up, promising each other we would indeed, this time, work things out.
    By Christmas of 1985, as I drove Patsy to the house of Alice’s daughter’s, the feeling from the year before had completely evaporated. On the way to the Bay Area, I yelled at her until she cried all over her new dress just moments before I pulled up to Mary’s home. Recently I had found myself becoming petty, cold, and resentful. My feelings came from how I felt about myself, but I had begun to take them out on Patsy. Even after I erupted on her, blaming her for all my problems, she didn’t say a word. After I parked the car, she took my hand, saying I worried too much and assuring me everything would work out. Of all the things I disliked about Patsy, at times she carried me when I fought myself.
    Hours later, as I hugged Alice good-bye, Patsy leaned close, whispering, “Oh I forgot to tell you, Alice is coming with us. She’s gonna spend a few days with my mom. Alice has been looking forward to this for a while now.”
    By the look on Alice’s face, I knew it was another lie. For some reason I could not understand, I felt Patsy was beginning to manipulate, of all people, my foster mother. But after blowing up at Patsy just hours ago, I thought maybe once again I was being overly paranoid. After all, Alice and Patsy’s mother Dottie Mae had been friends for some time, taking trips to Reno, and Alice had stayed at Dottie Mae’s apartment for weeks at a time. My only fear was having Alice sucked into Patsy’s and my bizarre world.
    “My mom doesn’t even have an overnight bag,” I quietly stated to Patsy while trying to read her true intentions.
    “Loosen up, you worry too much. If you must know,” Patsy said, smiling, “I’ve been planning a surprise birthday party for you, and, well, Alice wanted to come.” I felt like a complete idiot. Suddenly everything made sense. The last couple of weeks I had known Patsy was up to something, to the point that some of my friends at the squadron were acting strange. Now more than ever, I knew I needed to let down