A Man Named Dave

just, as of now, there’s a lot of changes, and I don’t know how it’s gonna affect us. So, we gotta use our heads, watch our spending, and at the same time save for our future, our son’s future. That’s all.”
    “You just take everything so seriously,” Patsy whispered with affection. “You worry too much. You need to pull back … just a bit.”
    “Yeah, I know. You’re right,” I confessed. “But let me say this: since the credit card thing, you’ve eased up. It’s like you’re a different person – the Patsy I knew when I first met you. That’s why it tears me up. When you hang around those half-wit neighbors who bitch and moan, all they do is bring you down. You’re better than that. Look at you: you don’t need them messing with your head. You live a good life, and you’re one hell of a mother.” I paused, aching to say the one thing that would make Patsy believe in herself once and for all. “I just want you to be happy. With me, without me, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need Stephen, your family, those ‘friends’ –anybody to make you happy. All you need is this!” I said, pointing at Patsy’s heart. “I know what a great person you are; all you have to do is make it happen.”
    With tears trickling down her cheeks, she nodded. “Thanks, David, for believing in me. Trust me, I won’t let you down. Trust me.”
    The next evening after returning home, minutes before midnight due to working the swing shift at juvenile hall, I found the house completely dark and Patsy missing. After searching every room, I began to fear the worst. I phoned one of her friends, who answered with music exploding in the background. After I asked for Patsy more than a dozen times, an inebriated voice screamed back that she wasn’t there, before dropping the phone. Covering all bases, I was about to telephone Dottie Mae when I heard Patsy fumbling at the back door. Rushing to meet her, I was knocked into the wall when she fell on top of me. “’Unny, I’m ’ome,” she slurred. “Like you said, gotta be me. But don’t worry, I’m happy. This is me, and jou,” – Patsy jabbed her finger at my chest – “jou gotta love me for who I am …” Suddenly her head rolled back. She opened her eyes wide a split second before she threw up on me.
    Hours later, after stripping off Patsy’s soiled and booze-soaked clothes, and assuring her she had nothing left in her to vomit, she allowed me to put her to bed. With Patsy taken care of, I cleaned the bathroom, threw our clothes in the washer, and showered off and got dressed to work the morning shift at juvenile hall.
    As I drove from the air force base to the city of Marysville, I chuckled to myself. I knew Patsy had dropped by her friend’s place and obviously had one too many. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t mean to. Yet as the sun began to appear in my rearview mirror, a wave of rage engulfed me. The only reason I was killing myself was to pay her bills, and, to top it off, here I was trying to earn the trust and respect of these teenagers at “the hall” who had been through hell, so they could get on with their lives and be responsible rather than live their lives as helpless victims. All the while Patsy would spend the day in bed sleeping off another stupor. “Godammit!” I screamed, pounding the steering wheel. “How could I be so stupid?” Every single time I swallowed my pride, thinking I was too hard on her, and reached out with all my heart, something always happened. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! You’re never gonna learn, Pelzer. She’s never, ever going to fuckin’ change, and you’re an idiot for taking her shit!”
    I fought to clear my head as I parked the Toyota at the juvenile hall parking lot. I didn’t have time to think about Patsy, or analyze the situation I would face when I returned home, or even how exhausted I had now become. As I went up the walkway, all I knew was that it was the beginning of the end. Patsy would never again have my trust.
     
    In August 1990, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait shifted my priorities. Whatever marital problems I was facing paled beside the prospect of fighting an actual war. For over a week every air crew at the base loaded jets with every conceivable piece of support equipment. We received countless briefings, varying from chemical warfare defense to our task of refueling the Stealth Fighters. Knowing full well that the KC-135 aircraft had no defensive capabilities and since the Boeing jet was a “force multiplier” – meaning the various