The Two-Knock Ghost

by Jeff Lombardo

  As time passed, the runaway mother communicated less and less with John, their children, or the judge. Nearly three years into their relationship, John, Amanda, and the children were living as a very happy family. Amanda was an even happier woman these days because John had proposed to her the week before, for the sixth time, and she had finally said, “Yes, John, I’m ready now.”

  I couldn’t have the success I have had in my relatively new St. Pete practice without her. She has been a tireless and selfless worker on behalf of me and my clients. I noticed that her hair color was a reddish brown today and cut short, whereas the day before it had been blond and beyond her shoulders. She looked like a completely different woman, except for those glorious eyes and that inviting smile.

  “Your hair looks stunning,” I said, forgetting all my problems in the moment.

  “My sister, Melissa, did it last night. John told me it’s like being with a different woman. I told him that it’s more fun that way, no?”

  “I almost thought you were a temp. Even though I know it’s you, I almost feel like I should give you another job interview.”

  She giggled for an instant then turned totally professional.

  “Here’s your schedule for the day, Doctor. And here’s your phone messages in the order of importance. I’ll bring you your hot chocolate in a few minutes.” We were back to our basic routine. I said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and headed for my office.

  My schedule had changed. One of my patients had cancelled because of the flu. That was perfect because it would free up some time for me in the early afternoon to look through the phone book for a psychologist.

  The first part of the morning flew past. I saw two clients before Mary Bauer arrived at 11:00.

  “Mary’s here, Doctor,” Amanda said after she buzzed me.

  Mary Bauer came into my office looking tired and withdrawn.

  “Good morning, Dr. McKenzie,” she said softly.

  “Good morning, Mary. How are you feeling?”

  There was a long pause before she spoke again. Her eyes scanned the items in my office until they raised themselves to look out my window longingly toward Tampa Bay.

  “I wish I felt better, Dr. McKenzie, but I don’t. I worry every day whether those three guys who assaulted me will find me again and do worse things to me. I feel violated 24-7. I don’t feel strong. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like I’m being a good wife to my husband. I still have nightmares of the event as it happened and morbid variations of it, and there is no doubt that I am not as good of a teacher as I was before all this happened.”

  It was my turn to take a long pause. What could I say to her now that I’d not said to her before? I had taken so many different tacks with her so far. But once again I would try something new that I hoped might help her.

  “Mary, so far in our journey, we’ve approached this as you in the role of the victim, that something priceless and irretrievable has been taken away from you. What if we turned this whole thing around and look at the event as you’ve been given a great gift.” She looked at me as though I might be crazy, but her eyes were curious and hopeful.

  “Go on,” she said.

  I spoke tenderly as a father to a daughter. “The event you endured changed you forever. Of that there is no doubt. But there is no doubt, as well, that you have gained so much experientially. No one wants to be a victim of a brutal crime. But if you survive it, you have gained a keen sense of what it is. It becomes part of the very bag of your life experiences. When you teach in the future, think of the wise attention you can give your little third grade boys that may be the attention that helps to dissuade them from growing up to be bullies or pursuing a life of crime. People often say that sometimes the love of one adult in a child’s life can save them from souring as an adult. Because of your experiences, your heart is more intuitive about the true power of teaching, with genuine love behind it. With your husband, think of all the kindnesses that he shows you. His touch is soft and affectionate. You’ve told me he is patient. These qualities are the antithesis of what you experienced in the store that day. Now, you have even more need and reason to seek out his physical love. The tenderness and passions that flow between a loving couple have intrinsic healing properties that are greater than almost anything else that life has to offer.”

  She sat silently. I wondered if I should continue sermonizing or whether I should draw her in with a question. Before I made a decision, I thought about how everything I ever said to a client was conjecture, my opinion. I wasn’t God. What I was saying wasn’t absolute truth. It was more like a stream of consciousness. Most of all, I didn’t want to hurt or confuse this sweetheart of a human soul. She was staring at me silently with eyes that yearned for something to believe in, verbal medicine that she desperately wanted to help heal her. I decided to continue.

  “You have become a specialist of sorts because you have had a rare firsthand training that has impacted you profoundly. If you look at it as something you have gained, it can immediately be labeled a strength.”

  “How so, Doctor?”

  “Mary, my mother always used to tell me that everyone is your teacher. When she first told me that when I was a teenager, I thought of it as just more ‘Mom speak,’ but I kept thinking about it for days, weeks, months, years even to this day. Long ago, I concluded she was right. Then when I was in college, I had a wonderful teacher who taught me that if I ever really wanted to understand an event in its entirety, that I should keep looking at it from as many angles as I possibly could. Like this cup on my desk here.” I lifted the cup and held it in the space between us. “It’s the entire cup that is the cup’s reality. Both of us see different aspects of its reality as we peer at it from our individual perspectives. Neither of us can see the whole cup. The way I am holding it now, we can’t see if it’s empty or full or partly full or what’s in it. From my perspective, I can’t even see if there’s a chip on the opposite lip of the cup from me, and from your point of view, you can’t tell if there is a crack in the handle that I am holding. So we keep turning it and raising and lowering it until we see the cup from every angle. Only then will we see the true reality of what the cup is.”

  I paused again, this time shorter than a moment before.

  “Could you elaborate a little more please, Doctor?”

  I was on an extemporaneous roll. I liked it. It was fun. These were some of the best moments of my life, but even after all the years of being in practice, I hoped I wouldn’t lose my train of thought, get tongue-tied, screw up. All of those negative things had happened to me before, and it was always an unpleasant moment each time it happened. But I really didn’t want anything illogical or downright stupid to come out of my mouth right now because Mary was counting on me. I wanted to be at my best, so I dug more deeply from within myself than I usually did.

  “Do you remember when John Walsh’s son, Adam, was kidnapped?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “John was your basic average loving dad and husband a couple of decades back when his little boy, Adam, disappeared. An extensive search lasted quite some time until they finally found a singular part of his son’s body—his head.”

  Mary gasped. I continued.

  “You can imagine the heartbreak John felt and the anger as he experienced a father’s worst nightmare. John Walsh was a victim. Every negative emotion imaginable must have been coursing through his veins. He could have retreated into a shell and suffered deeply for the rest of his life but he didn’t. He turned that anger and rage and sadness into something absolutely positive and tremendous.” I paused only long enough to take a breath, but before I could begin speaking again, Mary asked a question.

  “What did he do?”

  “Have you ever heard of the TV show, America’s Most Wanted?”

  “Sure I have. In fact I’ve watched it several times.”

  “The
John Walsh I’m talking about is the host of that show.”

  “That’s the same John Walsh?” Mary asked incredulously.

  I nodded a couple of times.

  “I had no idea.”

  “That’s because when it happened you might have been just a little girl or not even born yet. I’m not exactly sure what year it happened. But the point is that John Walsh took something that could have been eternally devastating and turned it into a nightmare for a multitude of really rotten men. And when you keep looking at the cup that is that story, you can see the countless fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends that were spared similar heartaches because John Walsh had figured out a way to get these thugs off the streets.”

  “But, Doctor, a few minutes ago you told me that your mother always used to tell you that everyone is your teacher, then you told me the analogy of the cup and its reality and I get that, but what do you think that the man that killed John Walsh’s son taught him, especially since they probably never met.”

  “First, Mary, you know already that you don’t have to meet someone to learn from them. Think of all the literature that you’ve read and poetry. You never met Jack London or William Faulkner or Shakespeare or Jules Verne or Ernest Hemmingway or Emily Dickinson, but think of what they have taught you as well as the joy they have given you. Think about all of the textbooks you have read over your years in school. You probably never met a single one of those authors.

  “Second and most importantly, I’d like not to answer your question about what Adam Walsh’s killer might have taught John Walsh but instead, I’d like to ask you to tell me what you think that murderer might have taught Mr. Walsh because I think that the answer might be much more beneficial to you if it came from you rather than me.”

  Mary swallowed hard and assumed an expression not unlike she might have had when posed with a difficult question by her teacher as a school girl.

  “Doctor, you’ve just asked me a type of question I’ve never been asked before. It’s a kind of question that I’ve never even pondered before.”

  “Can you give it a shot?” I said lightly and encouragingly.

  “I’ll try,” Mary said then raised her eyes again toward Tampa Bay as if the answers would come from the serenity she was seeking by looking at the water.

  “I think Adam Walsh’s murderer taught John Walsh never to quit on life, no matter how deep the pain is that you feel.”

  I sat silently, hoping for more.

  “He taught John that evil can inspire good.” She paused and thought as I remained silent.

  “That murderer eventually taught John that the world can be beautiful despite great tragedy. He taught John that his crime didn’t have to limit John’s potential in life, but could increase it a hundredfold or more.”

  She was rolling now.

  “He taught John how to change his rage into a form of creative revenge. He taught John that love of family and humanity doesn’t have to stop because of personal heartache. In fact, love can and must increase after these kinds of events or the parents who are suffering from it will fall apart, as will the marriage and the other children involved, if there are any.”

  She sighed deeply, not as if she had completed answering my question, but as though she was beginning to apply those lessons to herself and it was an enlightening moment. She lifted her eyes again to the water. Our silences filled the room. We were both deep in thought. I couldn’t have anticipated what she said next.

  “I’m still afraid, Doctor.”

  It was then that I decided to take a leap of faith. I asked her, “Mary, do you believe in angels?” I asked not because I believed in angels, but because if she believed in them, what I was planning to say next might give her comfort.

  “I do,” she said softly, speaking in almost dulcet tones as she had the entire session.

  I leaped.

  “Mary, I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you have an enormous guardian angel standing directly in front of you. You have looked into his eyes before and you have not only seen the protective love he has for you, but the sadness he feels that you were hurt under his guardianship. You have prayed for him to come to you and show you himself and he has obliged. You have seen his face, again, a countenance of complete kindness. He spreads his wings, an invitation to come next to him. Once more you look into his beautiful caring eyes, but though you see the care, you also see a fierce determination to protect you from further harm. Slowly he closes his left wing around you, while his huge right wing remains open like a giant sword waiting to strike down any entity that would attempt to harm you. You feel safe beneath that wing in the presence of that magnificent enlightened being. When you leave here today, you can take those images with you and think of them. Maybe they will help you.” I chose again to be silent as I watched Mary pondering against her closed eyelids. A few seconds later, she reopened her eyes and spoke gently as always.

  “Thank you for that, Dr. McKenzie. I actually feel better, and I know better what I need to do to get my life back on track.”

  Our session was drawing to a close.

  “Mary, do you remember that at the beginning of our session today I shared with you that my mother always told me that everyone was our teacher?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though I was just a teenager when she told me that, I thought it was interesting. I took that concept and kept turning it over and over in my mind the same way we both turned that cup many times over. It took me years to see that we learn so much from one another. But as I continued to ponder it, I one day realized that each of us too is a teacher as well. I am a teacher, you are a teacher—I don’t mean our professions, I mean in everything we do, everything. Our behavior truly and absolutely affects everyone with whom we come in contact. I know you’ve been hurting for many weeks now, Mary, but you know what I’d like for you soon?”

  She shook her head no.

  “I’d like for you to shed your cloak of pain and fear and become the happy productive woman that you have always been. Then, at some point after that, without even trying, I’d like you to teach people how resilient you are. I’d like you to teach your students the powerful effects that having love behind whatever you are instructing can have. Beyond that, I hope for you to be the wonderful happy person that you are at your core because everyone who sees you will benefit from that. And lastly, and I’ll shoot for the moon on this one, I want you to change the world by being happy. If you can reclaim that intrinsic joy that you have for life, you will change the world merely by existing.”

  I don’t know if I had said the right things to her, but my advice had come from deep within my heart and Mary had sat there patiently intently taking everything in and analyzing it.

  “That’s a tall order, Doctor, but I understand what you’re saying and it makes sense. Now all of it has to forge its way into the parts of my heart and soul where the worries and fears and hurts still live. What you’ve said today makes sense to me. But it will take some time for all of this to percolate inside me. I admit I feel better and I can’t get that image of the angel, with his wing around me, out of my mind. Thank you for that and for everything else we talked about today.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She stood and extended her hand to me with her usual elegance and grace. “Thank you for your kind and thought provoking words, Doctor.”

  We shook hands, each smiling genuinely and warmly at one another, then broke our grasp and walked together to the door. Then as I reached to open it for her, I thought about the Two-Knock Ghost. Never before in my life had doors been a problem for me, but now and for the past few weeks I had often become apprehensive when approaching a door. Since I didn’t know what the Two-Knock Ghost was, it could be anything or anybody. I told myself not to worry. The Two-Knock Ghost had previously only invaded my dreams. I needn’t worry ab
out waking doors.

  I opened my office door and Mary passed through.

  “I’ll see you again next week, Doctor.”

  “Till then, Mary.”

  “Good-bye, Amanda,” she said as she passed through the reception area.

  “See you next week, Mary.”

  And she was gone. I hoped at least she was a little bit fortified by some of the things I had said to her. It wasn’t the first time I had used a dream I’d had to comfort a patient. I believed in the power of dreams and how they could impact a person’s life. I believed how perfectly, timely and appropriate they could be or how badly timed and horribly terrifying. I seriously hoped that sharing the dream had given something for Mary to take with her to refer to if she needed it on occasion.

  It was lunchtime. Amanda had already pulled her brown paper bag from one of her desk drawers as soon as the door closed behind Mary. Most days Amanda “brown bagged” it and often continued to work although we had a service to take phone messages for us between noon and 1:00 p.m. Sometimes Amanda would opt to take a quick walk to one of the little cafés that dotted Central Avenue. Once in a while she would walk to one of the many downtown hot dog vendors for a hot dog or a Polish sausage and a soda.

  “She’s really sweet, Dr. McKenzie, isn’t she?” Amanda said.

  “She sure is, Amanda. Enjoy your lunch.”

  Once inside my office, I decided to do two things in the next hour. First, I would call my oldest son. Secondly, I would find a psychologist. If my alcoholism was the cause of my devil dreams then I was going to start attacking it immediately, first by making amends with my children, if I needed to. I wasn’t at all sure but I knew full well about making amends and if I started doing that right away, I might put myself further onto the right path of beating my drinking and diminishing the devil dreams. What to do about the Two-Knock Ghost was a different story entirely. I knew what the devil was. But a Two-Knock Ghost? What in the hell was that? Where did that come from? And how absurd was even the thought of it? I forced all thoughts of ghosts and demons out of my mind and reached for my Rolodex and my son’s phone number. Next to the silver Rolodex was a picture of Christine, me, and the three kids when they were all under the age of ten. We were on one of our summer vacations. In the picture, we were at Disney World. How ironic. Disney World was only ninety miles away now and Florida was my home. How beautiful we all were then. How young. All together. I wiped the nostalgia from my mind and called Robert Phillip. He was working in San Francisco as a dentist in the Medical Arts Building on Van Ness. He loved that city. It was 10:00 a.m. in San Francisco, and I realized that he might be in the middle of a procedure, but I called anyway. I was determined to knock down all of my problems related to alcoholism and the Two-Knock Ghost, as if they were a series of lined up Dominoes. Robert Phillip was one of the first Dominoes and my heart yearned for it to fall right now.