Poor Dumb David

     The football game was about to start. I lounged in my lawn chair up on the hill, my favorite spot for watching the action at Henderson State University. Few fans came over here, well away from the bleachers. The first person to come my way was a nice looking lady, near thirty. She sat ten feet below me, on the hillside.

     For some strange reason, a thought from years past crossed my mind, and I had to smile. She looked like she could be one of poor dumb David's girls.

     I own an apartment house on 11th street. I'm the main fix-it guy.  Some of  my tenants seem to treat me like others do their bartenders. They talk to me a lot about the things going on in their life. It just so happened, at that time, that I had a lot of tenants there who were single women, twenty something. All were attractive, but there was an over-abundance of single women in Arkadelphia, but few single men. Over a period of time, several mentioned to me their boy friend, David. I was surprised to learn, over an even longer period of time, that it was the same David. Finally, I met David. He was tall, muscular, good looking, had a cool truck, a great smile, didn't talk much.

    " I like David a lot," she was saying as I unplugged her sink drain. "He's such a hunk. But he hardly ever talks. He's so good looking, I decided not talking was not such a bad thing. Well, last week, just after our vacation we took together, he finally loosened up and started talking. And, you know what? He just cannot string together five words without saying something dumb. I hate to do it, but I've just got to dump him. It's so embarassing when we're around my friends. I hope, eventually, he can find somebody else.

     I know poor David was crushed. But, I guess he was just too dumb to mourn too long about the loss. Someday turned out to be the next day, a cute redhead three doors down.

     A few weeks later, a male tenant called me with concerns about the young lady next door. Her car was in place, but she had just been gone for days. I checked the apartment, all her stuff seemed to still be there. I called her employer. "She's on vacation this week with David," he told me.

     I was beginning to see a pattern develop. It seems poor David was very shy when he began a new relationship. But, eventually, he loosened up, and poor David's fatal flaw showed up. He was then quickly dumped. At least, all those women felt bad about dumping poor David, and kept his flaw secret. He never seemed to have a problem finding yet another pretty woman quickly.

     The football game had started, and HSU was drubbing my old alma mater, badly, heading toward a 30-0 trouncing. The game was so boring, I could not help but notice the lady below me was on her cell phone. "Sure, Debbie, come on down and watch the game with us. David is coming too, and I want you to meet him! He's such a hunk. He doesn't talk much, but we're going to be spending a lot of time together at Dallas next week, and I promise you he will be talking a blue streak by the time we get back!"

     Could it be... naw, I haven't seen David around in years. I felt sure he had flunked out and left by now.  Yet, here he came, older now, but still a hunk. Still with a great smile, not talking much. As she wrapped her arms around poor David, a strange series of thoughts ran through my mind. Poor, dumb David is facing still another broken heart. Yet, he seems to be holding up well under all that heartache. Could it be that David is not as dumb as I thought? No, that could not be. But yet...

     I got my answer at graduation that next spring. David was receiving a Master's Degree. He was finally going to officially become what he had already been for many years. A master of Psychology.

This is a true story. Mostly.