I began to wonder if there could be anyplace where I could sleep or even nap when I would be exempt from the obnoxious ghost. I first thought I might find a Catholic church and take a nap there. Even though I no longer believed in Catholicism, I surmised that maybe the Two-Knock Ghost would be frightened of bothering me when I was on sacred ground. Then I came up with what I initially thought was a great idea. The beach. Plain and simple, there were no doors on the beach … no place to knock. I was sure that I had figured out two places that I could go to escape my pesky nemesis.
I still wanted to contemplate my PTSD patient more. I decided on the spur of the moment to drive to the beach, bring my notes and a pen, pull out a beach chair, and continue my thinking.
I left my office and drove straight down Central Avenue all the way to Treasure Island. The beach was serene, the temperature about 70 degrees and the beach was nearly deserted. It was 7:15 and almost sunset by the time I got there. A gentle breeze lifted the waves just enough so that they made a soothing splash when they broke upon the shoreline. I was extremely concerned about my robbery victim, Mary Bauer. She was a pretty woman, five feet two inches tall, maybe 105 pounds, thirty-three years old with blond hair and gorgeous blue eyes, nearly comparable to Christine’s. She taught third grade at Melrose Elementary on Saint Pete’s south side. She was the perfect prototype for a third grade teacher. She was witty, creative, and engaging with her students. She did everything she could not only to teach her students the required curriculum but to help teach values that would fortify them throughout life. Most of them came from the immediate area surrounding Melrose. It was a rough area. Poverty and drugs abounded. She found that her students were nearly desperate for the love and attention she willingly gave of herself.
One day after work she noticed that her gas gauge was on empty. She decided to take Sixteenth Street and head for a little gas station/convenience store on Ninth Avenue and Fifteenth Street South. She had never stopped there before, primarily because it wasn’t her turf, and that fact was obvious. There were often four or five thugs hanging around there or directly across the street. They were often very animated, usually unkempt and scary looking. But this particular day nobody was hanging around the store or across the street. There wasn’t even anybody pumping gas. She decided to stop for gas and a Dr. Pepper. It would be five minutes in and out.
Pumping the gas was easy. She could have paid at the pump, but it had been a challenging school day and she wanted to indulge in the Dr. Pepper treat. She walked into the store, smiled at the Indian storekeeper, located the cooler, and made a beeline for it. She was about to pick up the can of her favorite soda when she heard a commotion a few feet from her. She turned to see three masked men racing into the store, each carrying a handgun and heading straight for the cash register.
“Give me the money!” one of the men shouted at the terrified man who stood in front of countless cartons and packs of cigarettes.
“Hurry up!” another man shouted.
Mary could only stare at the action, frozen in fear, wondering what might happen to her as well as the petrified store owner. She could not see any of the three robbers’ faces but she could tell they were black; their hands fully exposed as they wielded their weapons.
The attendant quickly opened the register and began pulling the bills from their individual slots within the drawer, implicitly complying with the gunmen’s demands. Unfortunately, he was too slow for the robber who stood directly in front of him. Without warning, the masked man raised his gun and in a single, swift unbroken movement reached over the counter and smashed his gun into the left side of the attendant’s skull. The impact was of such force that the recipient crumpled into an unconscious heap on the floor. Then the gunman leaped over the counter, grabbed the bills from the attendant’s clenched fingers, and returned to the cash register, pulling out every remaining piece of currency and coin from both the drawer and underneath it.
It was while this was happening that the third thug noticed where Mary was in the tiny store and hustled toward her. He placed his gun against her temple and yelled at the top of his lungs: “Give me that purse, bitch.” As Mary obliged, he screamed at her, “I bet you’ve never had a real man before, have you?” As if he actually expected her to answer. His left hand immediately went for her breasts while his right hand held his gun against her brain. When the other two robbers finished cleaning out the register while making certain the storeowner was still passed out on the floor, they immediately moved to their buddy and Mary. They expanded on the rudeness of their partner, raising Mary’s skirt and putting hands and fingers onto and into places on her quivering body they had no right being.
The first man to reach her snatched her purse from her left hand and shoulder while the other two men continued their groping. Even though Mary wasn’t sure she would have life beyond the next few seconds, she tried frantically to observe any facets she could distinguish about the three men. It was difficult. The only visible characteristics she could see were the similarities in the men’s heights and weights. Each was about six feet one and weighed a solid two hundred pounds. Beyond that there were no discernable differences. As much as she wanted to focus on the idiosyncrasies of each man, she felt herself closing her eyes through much of her ordeal. Though the abuse seemed to be flowing relentlessly, she was able to find a miniscule of comfort in the moments in the dark room behind her shut eyes.
What, in reality was taking only two minutes, felt like an eternity to Mary Bauer. The sum total of the negativity that had befallen the loveable teacher her entire lifetime did not equal what was happening to her these one hundred twenty seconds.
A car pulling up to get gas spooked the three robbers and as the last man to reach Mary bolted for the door, the first man pulled his gun away from Mary’s temple, brought it back toward himself then swung it with full force into the same temple he had moments before threatened shooting. Perhaps it was a good thing that Mary’s eyes were closed at the moment of impact. The thin flap of eyelid had protected her eyeball from being scratched as the gun slammed into the side of it. Mary dropped to the floor, hitting her knees first and then her chin and nose. Her neck snapped ruthlessly, tearing muscles all the way to both shoulders. Three thin streams of blood began to emanate from her head wounds as she lay on the floor oblivious to the robbers making their escape in a 1996 dark blue Saturn. She also had no clue as to the emotional pain that would assault her a few minutes later when she awakened in an ambulance on her way to Bay Front Hospital. Contemplating what to say that could help her was the primary reason I had driven to the beach. To avoid the Two-Knock Ghost, if I fell asleep, was my secondary reason. I knew myself pretty well in most areas of my life—so I thought. About one thing I was absolutely positive: that I could fall asleep anywhere and quickly. Since I had passed into my fifties, that fact had become even more real. And tonight was no different. As I thought about Mary, I watched a series of clouds pass silently in front of the three quarter moon. It was almost like watching a choreographed sky dance, except there was no music. It was, nonetheless, hypnotic and within the half hour, I had slipped from the conscious world into a wonderful dream in which Mary Bauer and Christine were best friends. They were driving through a desert in a 1967 Mustang convertible. Christine, who I was certain had never fired a gun in her life, was loading a .357 Magnum while telling Mary uncharacteristically: “We’ll find the sons of bitches, I promise. And when we do, I’ll make sure they suffer for what they did to you.” They looked like Thelma and Louise, except shorter and Christine was talking in a voice that sounded eerily like Clint Eastwood’s character, Dirty Harry.
As I was dreaming the dream, I was excited that I might get to see my tiny wife extract some vengeance upon the robbers who had hurt Mary. Instead, the two women pulled into a small gas station in the middle of nowhere. Christine had to use the bathroom, so while Mary pumped gas, Christine began walking to the women’s bathroom on the
side of the building.
“Don’t go inside the store until I finish my business and go with you, okay?” It was a gentle command.
“I won’t, Christine.”
But as my wife sat on the toilet, she became me and in an instant I fell asleep on the pot and began dreaming. I dreamed of an army of angels, all wearing uniforms and swords in the style of the Roman soldiers in the time of Christ. Their leader spoke to me, “We’ll help you find the robbers, Turf. And when we do, we’ll make them answer to a higher authority.” As quickly as the angels had materialized, they vaporized.
Suddenly and inexplicably, I was dreaming about how vulnerable I felt when my daughter, Lena, was a baby and I was worried incessantly whether she would survive and how I could ever survive if she did not.
It was then that I heard it. Knock, knock. It shocked me. My dreaming dream self jumped up from the toilet and bolted for the bathroom door. I opened it, but once again, no one was there. My dream self shouted “shit” loudly and frustratedly and my real self woke so abruptly that I almost fell out of my beach chair onto the sand. I was so angry for many different reasons. My first thought was that I had been wrong about the beach being a safe place to dream. I had not thought prior to this moment that dreams have buildings and those buildings have doors that a ghost can knock on. It didn’t matter that the beach was doorless. I was angry, as well, because I wanted to see Christine and Mary wreak some havoc on the three bad guys. I was angry because of the way this initially exciting dream had gone awry. Christine had morphed into me while sitting on the toilet. What was up with that? It was as if I stole a beautiful dream from the two women and made it about me. And then the Two-Knock Ghost stole the dream and put its frightening imprint upon it.
Lastly, I was angry that I didn’t come up with any ideas of how to help Mary. During the Thelma and Louise part of the dream, I thought something interesting might be revealed, but moments later, when the action of the plot was upstaged by Christine’s transformation and the Two-Knock Ghost, the only possible idea I came away with that could even remotely help Mary, was to suggest that she hang out with strong women in the future. I certainly was not going to recommend to Mary that she start packing a .357 Magnum.
The Two-Knock Ghost had ruined my dream. And I couldn’t help but wonder why Christine had changed into me. Was there something inside my psyche that made me change the dream, setting up the appearance by the Two-Knock Ghost? For the first time, after thinking that thought, I wondered if I could have any responsibility for creating the Two-Knock Ghost. Could the ghost be some manifestation of something from within me, some weakness or need?
Not only had the ghost ruined my dream, it destroyed any tranquility that being at the beach had provided. I actually wanted a drink right then. I wanted to leave the beach and stop at any one of a number of bars that dotted Gulf Boulevard. I wanted that drink badly. I grabbed my beach chair and headed for my car. I’d be having that drink in a few minutes. It was only about a six mile ride back to the Beaches of Paradise from Treasure Island, and I’d be picking a bar on the first half of the ride home as opposed to the second half. I didn’t have to go to a bar. I had plenty of rum and Coke at the condo. But I wanted to sit at the bar, think some more about Mary and some of my other clients, take my notebook with me and write down ideas while I sipped my drink. I knew if I did that at home, I’d be asleep by 10:00 p.m. I’d never fallen asleep in a bar before, and I had no reason to think that tonight would be different. I decided to go to the “R Bar,” a local favorite only two minutes from the beach. I ordered a rum and Coke from a tall, friendly, young bartender whose name tag said “Dan.” There were three other people at the bar other than me. Two were a distinguished-looking couple in their late fifties and the third was probably a local who looked like a beach bum, or maybe a fisherman, with rough hands, in his forties, sitting on the last stool at the far end of the bar at the opposite end from me. I made brief eye contact with the couple and we all smiled, gave a head nod and went on with our business.
My drink came and I began sipping and jotting ideas. I missed Christine. Though I was here to think primarily about Mary, my mind wandered continually to Christine. I was four months out of the house from her, and I still had no clue what I had done to hurt her so much that she would ask me to leave our home.
Every other night until tonight, alcohol had given me comfort. But tonight, after several sips, each time I thought about Christine I almost cried. A couple of times, I looked up to see whether the handsome couple or Dan was watching my eyes well up with tears. But nobody was looking. They were all very busy within their own little realms. I noticed that the couple was being very affectionate with one another. They were about the same age as Christine and I. And when I saw them exchanging tenderness, I thought of Christine again; then ordered more rum to try to achieve that point of a high where sadness transforms into tranquility or at least numbness.
I could not achieve that point on this night. Finally, nearing 11:30 p.m., I decided to pack it in and head home. I paid and tipped Dan, gathered my notes, and headed out the door for my car. It was only eleven or twelve minutes from the bar to “The Beaches” and I couldn’t wait to get home because I was growing tired. Slightly less than a mile away, a couple of hundred feet before the light at 140th Avenue, right in front of the Candy Kitchen (a wonderful retro candy store and ice cream shop), a bike darted in front of my path. I slammed on my brakes, while at the same time the bike rider panicked and squeezed both her brakes. I smelled burnt rubber emanating from my tires as I focused on the petrified face of the young woman on the bike. She was probably in her midtwenties and was wearing a terror-stricken face the depth of which she had probably never worn before. My car was stopped in the right lane in which I had been driving. I opened my door, quickly stepped out of the car, and mostly as a courtesy asked how she was.
“I’m okay, sir. I’m very sorry. I should have never cut in front of you like that, especially since there’s no traffic. I’m just tired and I wanted to get home.”
“It’s okay, ma’am. I’m just glad that I didn’t hit you.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry I scared you,” she said politely. Then she was off. She might have been shaken a little but the incident was probably over for her, except for an occasional reflection in her mind in the next couple of days.
For me, however, it was a different story. I had been lucky. But for a couple of feet and a second or two, I could have killed the girl. Between the moment I slammed on the brakes and my driving away from the near tragic scene, only two minutes had elapsed and only two cars passed us, both coming south on the opposite side of the street. Neither of them had been a Madeira Beach police car. That municipality was known for patrolling their streets strictly and giving out late night tickets. I reflected, as I made the right turn at 150th Avenue and headed toward Bay Pines, about what might have happened had a Madeira Beach police officer gotten out of his car at the near accident scene and inquired what the problem was. He would have seen a young woman shaken up and breathing heavily, and he would have observed a middle-aged man with a worried look on his face. He probably would have questioned the woman first and unless she had told him the truth—that she had darted in front of me from an unseeable angle and relative darkness—he might have approached me totally differently. Under any circumstances, he would have eventually come close to my person. I asked myself, “What would he have seen?” He would have seen my eyes. They would have been glassy, with some redness from being tired. Having been trained in such matters, he would have detected a slight slur in my speech. He would have quickly seen that I was nonthreatening and professionally dressed, so he would have allowed himself to come close enough to me that he could easily smell the liquor that was on my breath. He would have asked me: “Sir, have you been drinking?” And I would have honestly answered, “Yes I have.”
At that point, it would no longer have mattered that I w
as innocent of causing a near accident on the street. I would have been just another drunk that he would have to put through the paces of sobriety testing before hauling his ass off to jail.
By the time I reached Bay Pines Hospital, one hundred seconds later, I realized I had just done something I swore I would never do. I had driven drunk. And it wasn’t the first time either. I had become the person who had killed my family so many years before. I was a lucky monster. I could have killed an innocent woman whose only sin was that she had made a careless decision to dart in front of me to save a few seconds because she wanted to get home. I could have been arrested, gone to jail, been fined, gone to trial, been found guilty and gone to prison for several years of my life. Why? Because I couldn’t handle life without the crutch of alcohol.
By the time I reached the left turn lane at Bay Pines Boulevard and Park Street, I had begun to realize why Christine might have grown tired of me. I was not the same alcohol-free man I was when we had met. The decision to drive home high that night had been a bad one. I was already pondering what other bad decisions I had made around my wife that had made her less tolerant of me. Suddenly, I felt an emotional pit in my stomach, missing Christine immeasurably and feeling utter shame at the man I had become. These feelings, added to the fear of being pulled over by a cop for some driving infraction the last eight minutes of my ride home, ripped open that hole in my heart that had haunted and plagued me for years. I hadn’t lost Christine, but we weren’t together intimately, as we had been for decades. Suddenly, and for the first time, I felt our separation as nearly a death and my body quivered with a race of physical torment through my veins.
The Two-Knock Ghost Page 7