The Lost Boy

David Pelzer wasn’t shy – in fact, he was persistent in his friendliness. As I got to know David a little, I began to see he was bright and had a keen sense of humor, in spite of the fact that he had been kicked around in a dismal childhood and what was looking to be an even drearier adolescence.
    At first it was somewhat like housebreaking a pet. As we got more familiar, he was at our house more and more, asking about my Vietnam experiences, pursuing my aviation library and wanting to talk about almost anything. My wife and I began to require things from him – small, essential things like courtesy and consideration. He was to knock before entering the house. Some of his conversational manners were horrid, and his telephone and table manners were nonexistent.
    The day came when David left the neighborhood. His “foster parents” simply weren’t acceptable to him, and I still don’t blame him one iota for having the courage to pull up stakes and seek something better. But he stayed in touch and started showing up on weekends, wanting to be with friends he had made in the neighborhood and wanting to stay at our house. We finally told him that he would be welcome under most circumstances on most weekends but that he must call in advance, ask and make “reservations.” This he began to do, and some time passed before there was trouble. Trouble in a nearby park. Trouble with a pellet pistol. Trouble with neighbors who felt David was a bad influence on their children. These things were discussed, and I made it very clear to David that any more trouble, and it was bye-bye to the neighborhood that he loved to come and visit.
    When pressed about his past or his school, he was always purposefully vague, so we never really knew what was going on in his life. A couple of years went by with intermittent trouble and calls from the Menlo Park police. David was never an angry, rebellious individual – he was just thickheaded and had a penchant for finding trouble or letting it find him. Maybe it was from some sort of misguided sense of adventure; I don’t know. But there came the day when I asked him how his school was doing, and he said, “Oh, I quit.” I hit the ceiling and chewed his butt out for an hour. When I asked him what he was going to do, he mentioned he was going to sell cars. I went ballistic again. A skinny, wimpy, pimply-faced kid was selling cars in the Bay Area? Get real, kid. A week or so later he called to say he had the job and was looking forward to being “Salesman of the Month, ” which bore the distinctive honor of driving a Corvette for a 30-day period. Right, Dave … something to shoot for, all right.
    A couple of months later I received a telephone call from David, who said he wanted to visit. I said, “No, I have to go up to San Francisco International to pick up my paycheck.” “Great, ” he says, “I’ll drive you up there. I want to show you something.” What he wanted to show me was, of course, a black Corvette that he was the owner/operator of for the next month. A few months later David arrives in an El Camino – his company car – with a motorcycle strapped to the back. Dave mentioned that he might try a new job. I asked what he was planning, and he replied, “Well, I’m going to Hollywood to become a stuntman.” There was what a writer would describe as a pregnant pause, as the impact of his words crashed into my unbelieving psyche. I chastised him, focusing on his lack of athletics and experience, his clumsiness and, of course, the absence of other contacts in L.A. I then ripped into him for another half hour with heavy emphasis on the importance of a high school diploma.
    Months later, although wounded, David was considering another plan. He wanted to go into the military. So we went to the recruiters and began watching videos of paratroopers and rangers. They, of course, looked good. To the United States Army, however, David didn’t. No diploma? Sorry. Perhaps it took that letdown for the importance of a high school diploma to sink into David’s concrete-thick head. He called me a few weeks after and said, “I’m in! The Air Force will take me and get me a G.E.D.” He had pursued it
on his own
and was finally going out into the world. I was gratified, hopeful and proud of him for getting down to personal pragmatics, so to speak.
    Shortly after David joined the Air Force, we moved to Denver, Colorado. David had stayed in touch and ended up training at Lowry