by Dave Pelzer
“All we did was . . .” Mr. Ziegler said, downplaying the situation. “Anyway, anybody could see what she was doing. Back then there was nothing we could have done, or were allowed to do. Back then it was considered discipline, parental rights, but we had to do something. Any one of us could see what was going on. It’s something you don’t forget. Ever.”
Afterward, in the parking lot we hugged each other good-bye. “Thanks, Mr. Z.”
“Call me Steven.” He smiled.
“Thanks, but I can’t,” I said. “You mean that much to me. You’re my teacher.”
Months later, the week of the twentieth anniversary of my rescue, I returned to present Mr. Ziegler with the first signed copy of A Child Called “It.” The second signed copy I kept for my son, and the others were given to Mrs. Konstan, my fourth-grade teacher who still taught at the school, and Mrs. Woodworth, my English teacher who, because I had stuttered in class so badly, had encouraged me to communicate through writing. By dedicating and presenting the book to my saviors, I felt I was able to fulfill my vow of honoring them that I had made the day I was rescued.
Weeks following, I received a framed picture of my teachers taken the day of my visit. Engraved on the frame was WITH LOVE AND PRIDE. Like a child with a prized toy, I rushed to show Patsy, but she didn’t seem too interested. For some time her patience with my new profession had been wearing thin. I tried to tell her, but I could not get her to understand how hard it was to start anew, especially since for years I had given programs for gratis, for organizations that had little to no funds. Somehow, it made it that much more difficult to make a living. To calm Patsy, I told her that because I had not received many bookings, the firm was kind enough to loan me advances. But in order to pay the rent and other bills, when not on the road I worked part-time at juvenile hall and took another job sanding kitchen door cabinets. It seemed no matter how hard I fought to convince Patsy, for some reason she thought I was going to be an overnight success.
I knew there was something wrong back in the Lincoln office. By now I should have received more bookings. But I felt too intimidated to say anything to the owners, Carl and Rich, especially since they were helping to feed my family. I hated myself for the position I was in. For the first time I was receiving money without earning it beforehand. Since my time in foster care, I always had pulled my own weight. For the most part I kept my apprehension to myself. A part of me felt I was being overly paranoid. I believed if I worked hard enough, somehow, someday, with a little luck, I would succeed.
My only concern was for Stephen. At times I would rush home after either flying, driving throughout the night, working at juvenile hall, or from putting in a full shift at the cabinet shop, to greet Patsy, jump in the shower, then race off to take Stephen to the latest Disney movie or spend the afternoon at the park playing baseball. Whenever Stephen came home from school, I always put aside my work so I could be with him; then later, after tucking him into bed, I’d return to complete my tasks. As much as I struggled to take care of my family, I didn’t want to lose my son in the process.
For Patsy, the final straw came in July 1994. After waiting for me to break through, she had had enough. “It’s been nearly two years,” she said. “It shouldn’t take this long. And you’re still not making any—”
“I told you, it takes time.”
“Two years, you promised. You said two years and you ain’t made it yet. What about me? I had to wait around while you flew for the air force, and now, after two years, what do I have to show for it? We can’t even afford to heat the house.” Before I could defend myself, she went off in a different direction. “You’re such a wimp. I know you’re getting screwed from those—those speakers in Nebraska. They have no idea what the hell they’re doing. They can’t pitch you. For God’s sake, they plug you as the child-abuse guy, and who wants to hear about that? Whatever happened to you giving those motivational-responsibility programs you gave before?” I shook my head, indicating I didn’t have an answer. “You’re so smart on some things but completely stupid on others. I don’t trust them. Think about it: If you’re such a great speaker and if your book is so good, tell me, how come you can’t get any paid bookings?”
“Well, we got more than last year . . .”
“Oh, no, don’t you even go there with that. Even after your little outstanding-American-person thing, you got nothing.”
“Ten Outstanding Young Americans award,” I proudly corrected.
“Excuse me! Whatever!” Patsy rolled her eyes. “If your revered little award was all that, why didn’t you get anything out of it? It’s been, what, a year and a half since you got that thing, and I don’t see anybody beating down your door. Huh, come on, tell me.”
If I had a lifetime, I could never explain to Patsy the mix of unworthiness and absolute honor I had felt receiving the recognition on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of my rescue. The Ten Outstanding Young Americans trophy was the same award presented to my childhood idols Chuck Yeager, Orson Welles, the actor who played my all-time hero, Superman: Christopher Reeve, along with a league of others.
“Hello?” Patsy snapped her fingers, bringing me back to the present. “The point is, you still didn’t make it. You may have been hot then, but you’re nothing now. Those buttheads in Lincoln should have handled you better. We could have been rich!” Patsy cried. “After all you’ve done, after all these years, you don’t get it. It ain’t happening! You ain’t got it. You can act all high and mighty saying whatever it is you say, but it don’t pay the rent. And,” Patsy amplified, “if you want to know something, I think you’re full of shit. I read your book, if you can call it that. They made it look more like a pamphlet, and, it still didn’t happen. Ain’t no way no one could live through all that. I should know. Think about it; if you were that abused, if you didn’t die . . . you’d be psycho, messed up on drugs, an alcoholic, or whatever. I’ve been living in Marysville and Yuba City all my life, and if what you claim is true, I know the air force sure as hell wouldn’t let you enlist, let alone be involved with those jet planes. If you didn’t lie about that, too. No way!” Patsy shook her head. “No way! You’re too clean, everything’s too perfect. What’d you do, pay off those teachers so they could say you were abused? Oh, yeah, you tried to hide it, but I found out. The only reason why you wanted to hide your past from me is because it ain’t true. That’s why you can’t get paid bookings. That’s why that piece of shit book of yours ain’t in any, I repeat, any bookstores. So why you doing this? You wanna talk about trust? Come on, come clean, tell me, tell me the truth! After all the shit you put me through, I deserve to know!”
I had reached my boiling point. “You want to know what I do? Do you? Do you really want to know? I work with kids, begging them that no matter what happened to them, they can turn it around. At the ‘hall’ I restrain teenage girls who have so much meth in them, they want to kill themselves, ’cause they’re tired of their fat, sick pimp stepdad hooking them out. Oh, it gets better! I have to stand in front of police officers and social workers, whose jobs are to find kids, babies, locked in cages, beaten to death, chained to toilets, and convince them to put on their jacket and tie, blouse and blazer, every single fuckin’ day, and go out, eat shit, and see things that no one in our society wants to acknowledge. And these, these people are treated like the enemy!
“When I’m lucky enough to speak at the corporate gigs, I swear to you, I pray, I pray on my knees I don’t speak too fast, come off the wall with my humor and give them something, just one thing they can use to better themselves. To tell them that if I can swallow ammonia and learn to speak after stuttering for years . . . if I could bandage myself up after being stabbed . . . if I didn’t turn out, as you put it, psycho after all the shit I went through, what on God’s green earth is stopping them? And you want to know the damned of it all? I pray to God that they—all those people—never see . . . how I feel on the inside. I can’t even look into their eyes. Some of them think I’m all
that, and I don’t feel worthy enough to look them in the eye. Ever! I know I’m not smart. I know I ain’t all that. I feel like such a fake. Even now, after all the awards, flying for the air force, getting a letter from the President, . . . I feel so guilty . . . and I rack my brain and I don’t know why, after all of these years . . .
“I know I’ll never be a motivational speaker—I’m not cool, smooth, I’m not polished—but I’m the real deal. I try. With every ounce, every breath, I try to give my best. That’s why I land in Omaha, Nebraska, make the ten-hour drive to Bismarck, North Dakota, hit a deer that crashes through the windshield, so I can work all day and into the night, with a concussion, do a program for the kids in a youth jail, all the time hoping my insides don’t bleed ’cause I swallowed shards of glass, just so I can save my client thirty-three dollars on the airfare! Why? ’Cause I feel guilty, that’s why! You wanna know why I do this: reliving my past in front of my eyes every single day?” I fumed. “I work so you don’t have to. I get up from fleabag motels with no hot water to shower with, praying my underwear I just washed in the sink three hours ago before I went to bed is dry, so I have a chance of giving my son a better life! I eat shit every single day, praying I can plant a seed—just one, that’s all. I know I’m a joke, but I give it my all. I just want people to feel good about themselves. That’s it. I know what it’s like to be less than zero, and I want everyone I meet to feel they’re the one. The one person who can go out there and make it better. And sometimes in the midst of all this crap, I can make ’em laugh. I have a gift, and if I can use it to better people’s lives so they won’t have to go through the hell my brothers and I went through, well . . . I’ll do what I have to do,” I concluded.
Not even a heartbeat later Patsy retorted, “It doesn’t change the fact. You . . . you had your chance. You can pass off that Mister ‘high and mighty, holier-than-thou, give my word’ shit to others, but you’re a liar. No matter how you slice it, you promised two years. I’m getting tired of waiting. What about me? I’m tired of waiting for something better to come along. Don’t you get it? You’re a loser! You ain’t ever gonna make it. You’re a loser with a big L,” Patsy said, making an L sign with her hand. “That’s it. I’ve waited and I’ve had enough. So here it is: Do you love me?”
Still angry, I hesitated to clear my head. After a few seconds I slowly nodded.
“No,” Patsy insisted, “I want to hear it. After all the shit you’ve put me through, I deserve to hear the words. Say it!” she demanded.
Again, I exhaled before nodding. “I . . . I . . . love you.”
Cocking her head to one side. Patsy sneered. “Well, then, do you trust me?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, I replied, “No!”
After years of hiding it, gently treading around the smallest detail that might explode in my face at any second since I had known her, I said it. I finally spoke the truth that had weighed so heavily on my heart since I first knew Patsy. As much as I was astounded by my revelation right in front of her, I felt cleansed even more.
Patsy was paralyzed. As I waited for her to slap me across the face, she continued to stare at me. “I’m sorry,” I stuttered, “I love you . . . and I always will . . . I’m sorry, but . . . I just don’t . . .”
“Well, if that don’t . . . I can’t believe it! After all I’ve put up with. The sacrifices I’ve made. That’s it! I’ve had enough. I can’t live with anyone who . . . You broke your word!” she exclaimed. “Two years! You said two years. Trust? I don’t trust you. And I will not live with any man I can’t trust. That’s it!” Patsy shrieked, “I want a divorce!”
CHAPTER
14
RESOLVE
After eight years of marriage, Patsy and I separated late July 1994. We sat down with Stephen to tell him the news. Even though he seemed to take it in stride, my heart went out to him. Above everything, I never wanted Stephen to experience the loss and suffering that I had felt when my parents split up. Since the day I was married, I had fought so hard to protect my son from every conceivable source of harm, and now I had failed at the most basic element of my role as a father—keeping my family together.
After several private conversations with Stephen, I realized he seemed more comfortable about the separation than I was. I promised him that no matter what happened between his mother and me, our devotion for him would never change.
It took a broken marriage and nearly thirty years for me to fulfill my childhood dream of living on the Russian River. Even though Patsy hinted that our current state of separation might be temporary, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that once I moved out, there was no turning back for me.
Because I was on the road, working when Patsy and I had decided our fate, she surprised me by taking the time to find me a one-bedroom summer home near the Russian River. The day I moved to Guerneville, Patsy graciously drove the U-Haul truck over one hundred eighty miles to my new home. Later that day, as we hugged good-bye and wiped away our tears, I thought we both felt the frustration and anxiety that had built up over the years begin to fade.
Due to the small size of the house and only a desk, bookshelf, and bureau for furniture, it took me less than two days to arrange my new home. Soon Stephen came to stay with me for two weeks. We were inseparable, spending our time stacking wood, fishing at the river, playing catch in the middle of the 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 scrub 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 ream
s 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 matter how much effort I applied, I would never be good enough. I couldn’t make my marriage work. I threw away a career with the air force so I could chase my tail trying to prove myself as a speaker, just to end up being labeled as a victim of abuse rather than a person with an inspirational message. And I had hurt the one true love of my life: Stephen. No matter what the future had in store for me, I could only pray my inadequacies would not come back to haunt my son.