I began to wish I was at that AA meeting right now getting support for what I was realizing was going to be a bitter fight. When I grabbed for something to drink, I took out a half gallon of orange juice, drinking it right from the carton—something I never did when I lived with Christine and the kids. I finished two sandwiches, having felt hungrier, after the Cokes made me think of my rum. I washed my plate, put the orange juice back in the fridge, and then threw the Cokes away. During the moments that dark carbonated liquid was pouring down the drain, I wondered if I even liked plain Coke anymore. It had been decades since I had drunk a Coke without rum. I truly had no idea whether I would like it now by itself. The issue now was that seeing it not only made me think of rum and yearn for some, it had made me want to leave the house immediately and buy a bottle. I didn’t, but that tiny episode of seeing the cans of Coke in the fridge made me feel as though they were playing a mind game with me. The truth is they made me crazy. Crazy! I felt uncomfortable shudders course through my body. My stomach hurt and I already felt like I was in a losing battle, wondering if I could make it to sleep time without darting to my favorite liquor store like a mad man.
That was only the initial obstacle. In a night of usually normal transitions, I was about to find out that there would be many obstacles and they would be lurking everywhere. I was smart enough to know that by changing my normal patterns I might concentrate on drinking less, so instead of going to my bedroom after dinner and working on my client notes, as I had for years, I thought I’d go into the living room and turn on my seldom used TV. I didn’t even know the programs anymore. I could tell you all of the shows I watched as a kid. But now I only knew of the comedies that Christine loved watching; Seinfield, Cheers, Frazier. I had no idea what days or times those shows were on or whether they were current or reruns on cable. It was just my luck to turn on the TV and there it was, the Seinfield ensemble, Christine’s absolute favorite performers before my very expectant eyes. Seven minutes later I couldn’t stand it anymore. The actors seemed to be running around their sets getting all worked up about nothing. I turned the TV off without trying another channel, and within the first moment after, I felt a singular pang of missing Christine. Another obstacle. I immediately wanted a drink, again, to make the pain ease off. My body felt nervous as I denied it what it wanted. Then I felt my usual pull to go into my bedroom and work alone. As I did so, I wondered why I lived my life the way I did. Why did I always go to my bedroom, feeling sad most of the time? I had three great kids that lived with me for twenty-five years or so, but after dinner, I would always go to my bedroom and work. It was often the same thing on the weekends, except when we went on vacations as a family. If there was going to be sharing with my kids and Christine, it was going to have to be in the kitchen or the living room before or during dinner. After that was my special time to be alone with my thoughts. Even Christine hardly ever bothered me the first hour or so that I’d be in that bedroom. Why I was contemplating that now I didn’t understand. But I wondered why the pull to go to my bedroom each night was so strong. Unfortunately, my next reflection was whether that near addiction of going to the bedroom each night had somehow hurt Christine and the kids. How many thousands of times had I neglected to be with the kids when they were watching TV in the living room? How many times had I neglected to be with Christine when her schedule permitted her to share those TV programs with the kids? I remember hearing them laugh and thinking so often how lucky I was to have them. I now wished the four of them were here right now, laughing and watching TV. I would forego the bedroom and join them. And why did I feel sadness for the first few minutes every time I went into the bedroom alone? It wore off as I delved into my nightly work. What was wrong with me?
As I passed the threshold into my bedroom, I felt the familiar sadness but tonight I missed my drink. I might have missed it more in that moment than I missed Christine. How horrible was that? What kind of a man had I become? Being in my bedroom was suddenly an enormous obstacle for me. I missed my bottle and my drink and every time I thought about and missed Christine, I yearned for a drink even more. My body literally shook as I worked on my client files from today and my strategies for tomorrow. Fortunately, Mary Bauer was scheduled in the morning. She had made some progress decreasing her anxiety but her fears were still acute, especially since the St. Pete police had not caught the robbers who had assaulted her. Thinking of how I could better support her helped turn my mind away from rum and Coke and into work. I noticed that when I wrote that night, my hand was shaking. My writing looked like that of a schizophrenic and that made me want a drink. Another obstacle. They were everywhere. In fact, I was the greatest obstacle that I needed to overcome. I reflected that I’d taken my bottle of rum and my favorite eight ounce glass with six ounces of Coke in it nearly every night to my bedroom for the last twenty years or so. I never ever thought that I might be hurting anyone. I was working in my bedroom to help support my family financially and my clients emotionally. For all those years of living my life that way, I felt justified—until now.
It was difficult concentrating on my work notes. Moment after moment I would think of my rum and want to drink some, but I continued to work. Finally, about an hour into my bedroom time, I got up to pee. I went into the bathroom, did my business, and then went to the sink to wash my hands. As I did so, I looked into the mirror. There I was before myself, the real and true me, the man I had become was staring back at me. I looked myself over from head to toe. First I noticed that the effervescence of my youth was absent from my face. My skin was pale and sallow. There was no sparkle in my eyes and to my dismay, my nose had grown. I didn’t have wrinkles or a jowl yet, but I wasn’t as handsome as I once was. My eyes continued trailing down my body. I had a little belly. It wasn’t huge, but larger than it had ever been. I realized suddenly, that I had not run in more than two years. For almost all of my adult life, running had been a near ritual for me. Four or five times a week I would suit up in shorts and a tee shirt, if the weather was nice, or a sweatshirt and sweat pants, if the weather was chilly. I remembered the hundreds of times I’d wear multiple layers of clothing during my winter runs in Chicago. Then I reflected on the myriad runs I went on with Christine. What an odd pairing we must have looked like to the casual observer. Me at six feet two and Christine at five feet two. But we were together. That was the important thing. And we were having fun. It didn’t matter if it was freezing outside. We had learned early on that no matter how cold it was, we could work up a healthy sweat beneath our layers of clothing. I thought of Christine. I missed Christine. I wanted a drink.
I then began to see my thoughts as obstacles. I kept realizing things as suddenly thoughts and realizations began cascading from within like a waterfall. I realized that it had been over three years since I had asked Christine to run with me. Three years was a long time. Then I remembered that I had said “no thank you” to her the last six or seven times she had invited me to run with her. I seemed to remember that it was always the same scenario. She would ask and I would say, “I’m sorry, honey, but I’ve got work to do.” And I’d go into that goddamned bedroom and close myself off from sharing myself with her and the kids. Of course I’d have my glass of ice filled with rum and Coke beside me to help me through my oh so important work, but tonight I realized for the first time how many times I denied Christine the sharing of one of our most enjoyable activities together. Eventually, she stopped asking me to run with her. She continued running into her midfifties, but I gradually dropped off. That’s probably why she had a perfectly flat midsection and why I was developing a belly and a paunch. I thought about all the times I had denied her my company on her runs, and I felt like a heel. I wanted a drink at that moment for those reasons also.
I couldn’t stand my reflection anymore because looking at it made my new emanation of realizations more painful. Perhaps, if I crawled into bed I could shut out this world of new pain. I was wrong. I brushed my still strong healthy teeth
and headed for the bed and sleep. I got under the sheet, clapped the light off, and tried to fall asleep. Something was missing. Could it have been the sedating effects of alcohol? It most certainly was. This was the second night in a row that I had not had a drop of rum. My body, mind, heart and taste buds were craving the liquid like a starving man who had not eaten in weeks. I felt as though one of my best friends had died. I was struggling. I was in crisis. In a silent condo in a too quiet retirement complex, I could hear the beating of my aching heart and the nagging of the words inside my head.
“You are like those people at Toby Magnessun’s meeting house, Turf. You’re exactly like them. You’re an alcoholic, Turf. That’s what each and every one of them is. That’s what you are. Nobody drinks exactly like the next guy. Anybody can be one—priests, nuns, firemen, policemen, accountants, teachers, presidents. There’s no ‘those people over there’ and you in some safe place of personal exemption. You are all together in the same boat, fighting the same sea of sorrows. ‘Those people’ are not your enemies, they are not estranged from you. They are you.” I was scaring myself, as unfamiliar voices in my head were tormenting me more than a devil dream. I was fifty-five years old and like a small child trying to hide from thunder, I rolled over onto my stomach, grabbed the pillow to my right, and placed it over my head and ears.
For a single moment I felt more secure. But the tumbling waterfall of shameful thoughts would not diminish. For the first time ever, I thought that whatever the devil could throw at me tonight it could not hurt me more than the thoughts of the past thirty minutes.
I fell asleep in that position with my face buried into one pillow with my hands and arms squeezing the other pillow tightly to the back of my head. That night there were no devil dreams. Instead, two knocks occurred at 1:00 a.m., sounding like Howitzers and waking me from my sleep. They had come from the front door. I didn’t turn around from my facedown position to acknowledge them. I knew what they were. I knew at least part of what they were. They were coming from some asshole ghost who kept knocking but never came in. Punk! I lay there for a moment before I fell back asleep, contemplating what it was in my psyche that might be causing this two-knock phenomenon. Was some kind of chemical defect in my brain causing something that merely sounded like two knocks? And why always two knocks? Why not three or four or even more? I didn’t even believe in ghosts, so how could it be something I didn’t believe in that was annoying me this much? But then, I was dreaming terrifying dreams about the devil and in my conscious life I didn’t believe in him. I must have fallen deeply asleep because I was dreaming about Mary Bauer. I was an enormous angel, and she was her tiny self, looking much more like a child than she did in real life. She was shivering with fear, eyes filled with terror. As the angel I whispered, “Come here, my child.” She slowly came. I gently closed my left wing to protect her, as I stood a full eight feet tall, my eagle-like eyes scanning the countryside for danger, my face transitioning from a comforting smile to an ominous scowl. My right wing looked like a huge feathered weapon, waiting to swat her attackers into eternal hell if they dared show their faces.
But the beauty didn’t last. It happened again. Knock, knock—two more knocks, this time at my bedroom door. I awoke once more, wondering what it was and why. This time, I rolled over, put the second pillow over my face, and jonsed for a drink of rum and Coke. I needed it to help me sleep. I needed it to ease the pain of my fear and worry. I needed it to help erase the pain that my realizations of hours earlier had caused. I needed it more than comforting words or a tender hug. I needed it.
A third time I fell asleep. A third time I heard the knocks. This time they sounded like they were inside my bedroom. I pulled the pillow from my face and looked immediately to the door, wondering if this was the moment the Two-Knock Ghost would reveal itself. But there was nothing to be seen. Coward, I thought. But what would any ghost have to fear from me?
Over and over it happened the rest of the night. The two knocks were more frenzied. Though there were always only two, there was now a sense of urgency about them that had never existed before. It was as if the knocks were saying, “Let me in now, or else.” Then I would think, Or else what? Everything I thought about the Two-Knock Ghost was conjecture.
The ninth time I was awakened that night, the knocks on my door were barely audible. Why? Had the ghost exhausted itself with its sixteen previous knocks? Do ghosts get tired? I certainly was. There had been no continuity of sleep that night and why had the ghost’s frenzied knocks coincided with my second night of sobriety? Worn out beyond measure, I longed for one final segment of sleep before my alarm clock went off. This whole ghost business had convinced me that something was transpiring in my brain and psyche that was far beyond my alcoholism. In my quiet bedroom during the final hour before sunrise, I realized I needed to find a psychologist to help me deal with the Two-Knock Ghost. I closed my eyes and exhaled an exasperated whisper, “Come in, you son of a bitch and show me what you are.”
CHAPTER 11
THE NEXT MORNING I awoke, nearly completely exhausted, but more determined than ever to begin to change my life. The night before I had been filled with growth for me because I had begun to realize behaviors that had undoubtedly affected Christine and our very sacred union. I awoke again with shame in my heart for all the things I had done to hurt a totally undeserving woman. Next to the shame was fear—a lot of fear. I dreaded what other awareness of poor behavior on my part that impacted Christine and our marriage would come to me. My heart was already breaking this morning. I wondered how many more realizations I could withstand as I began looking inward and becoming honest with myself.
No matter how I felt, I had to go to work. Work was my saving grace. Even when I was burdened with my own negative emotions, helping others through their difficult times always pulled me upward to a better state of feeling. Today would be no different.
Mary Bauer was scheduled for eleven o’clock and amidst all my personal problems I had an idea I couldn’t wait to share with her. Today I would do two things I knew would set me on the path I needed to travel. I would attend my first AA meeting as an admitted alcoholic, and I would find a psychologist to help me with the Two-Knock Ghost and who knew what else.
For the first time in years, I felt like I was on the precipice of achieving something for my deepest self. For years I had been contributing to the betterment of everyone else, so I thought. And as soon as I thought that thought, I realized that if that were true, Christine would not have asked me to leave our home and maybe our kids would call me more.
Another realization. I determined that I would call each of my kids beginning today. With Robert Phillip, then Lena, and Shawn Daniel, I would take the high road with each of them. I would ask them not only how they were doing in their lives right now, but if they felt that I had hurt them in any way while they were growing up. However they would answer me, I would acknowledge it, own up to it, apologize for it, if required, and deal with it as well as I could.
It would be a busy day. As I entered into it, my exhaustion abated replaced by curiosity and hope. I felt a loneliness that morning too. It was the hole in my heart that I always felt even when I was the happiest with Christine and the kids. I often thought it got there after the crash that killed my family, but in these hours of prolific revelations, I realized that I’d always had that hole in my heart. I was always lonely for some reason. I couldn’t figure it out. I had great parents, I had great grandparents. I had a great upbringing in Chicago. Why should I have gone through life with a hole in my heart that couldn’t be filled?
As I drove toward my office in downtown St. Pete, I realized nothing ever seemed to fill that emotional emptiness. Not Christine, not the birth of my kids, not my educational or professional accomplishments, not even rum and Coke.
Was that hole my yearning for God? Had I made the wrong decision to leave the Catholic Church over thirty years ago? Was there something wrong w
ith my brain? I began to think that there was because the underlying feeling of emptiness that was plaguing me for years just didn’t add up. Did I need medicine? Did I need to see a psychiatrist, not a psychologist?
In the middle of myriad hypotheticals, I reached my office at First Avenue North in the Bank of America Building. I walked into my office reception area and greeted Amanda, my twenty-eight-year-old Italian office manager. She was a marvelous human being, already busy when I walked through the door at 8:15.
“Good morning, Dr. McKenzie,” she said with a smile on her face. I could not help but think her voice sounded like a mellifluous exotic bird singing an early morning greeting to the sun. It was impossible to look at her and be depressed.
“Good morning, Miss Amanda,” I said playfully.
She was a tall Italian woman about five feet seven and a half inches, very thin, but handsomely shapely. Her greenish brown eyes were beautiful and piercing. To merely look into their genuine captivating charm was enough to elevate one’s spirit. She was the perfect woman for her job. She was kind and sensitive to each one of my patients, somehow knowing what everyone needed from her during their interactions even though they came to my practice with utterly varied complexities. Amanda had just finished her bachelor’s degree in business from the University of South Florida. Three years prior to this point in her life she had fallen in love with a banker from Tampa named John Schiefele. John had three children ages six, eight, and ten when they met. His wife, Anntoinette, left him for a handsome stud nine years her junior to frolic in Europe. When Amanda first met John, John and Anntoinette were involved in a severe custody battle for their children. Anntoinette did everything she could to paint a horrid picture of John’s character. But after months of interacting with John and interviewing the children extensively, the judge did not buy into Anntoinette’s fiction.
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