The Two-Knock Ghost

by Jeff Lombardo

  Christine never moved. Her hands were clutched around my back. Her head was tucked into the 90 degree corner between my head and shoulders. I moaned appreciatively as I felt the soft brush of her lips against my neck and smelled her fresh breath going in and out of her in a regular peaceful rhythm. I had no idea whether Christine was asleep or barely clinging to consciousness. But wherever she was between the two worlds, she was serenely comfortable. I would not disturb her. As a result, the “Unending Moment” continued. Holding my wife in this way was freezing time, as negative thoughts evaporated and my fading conscious mind could only focus on the profundity of the moment I was sharing.

  I had never felt more powerful in my entire life. It was determined power, the kind of power a person feels preceding a series of life altering actions. It was the power of knowing, of knowing the outcome of future events before their unfolding. During this “Elongated Moment” while enveloping Christine in my arms, I realized that this was the most real and important aspect of my life and that in my future I must cherish and nurture the woman on top of me with every fiber of my being. The devil dreams and the Two-Knock Ghost were just dreams. Obviously, though I didn’t know what had caused them, they were obviously the result of things from my childhood that had frightened and hurt me. I knew enough about psychology to know that much. And my recurring loneliness and my isolationist tendencies, could they all possibly be tied together somehow?’ I had never considered that before, but in the Moment of All Moments my mind was soaring. For a while it seemed free of all encumbrances. There was no doubt, no worry, no guilt or sadness related to Toby, no devil fears, not even curiosity as to the nature of the Two-Knock Ghost. I was trying my best to be in the moment, to participate fully. What was emanating from Christine to me was all the powerful energy of unbridled love. If it is true that God is love, then I was holding God tenderly beneath my hands and arms.

  Unknowingly, I fell asleep. It was dreamless until, after several hours, the live oak appeared in its idyllic scene amidst the resplendent green grass with the babbling brook in front of it under a clear blue sky. Christine and I were sitting on the swing holding hands. Her head was resting on my right shoulder. This time the swing was attached to the same branch, but it was much closer to the ground, the perfect height for us to scoot onto and off it. The tree was healthy again and thriving. The swing was new. Nothing was burned and the grass was glistening under a morning dew. The temperature bordered on the cool side, but overall was pleasantly mild.

  Our dream selves were not speaking to one another, but it was evident that we were communicating deeply, from a realm beyond the silence. A slight breeze gently moved the swing forth and back, forth and back. There was a finality to the picture, like it was the last scene to a happily ending love story where the character’s body language was saying: “And they lived happily ever after.” As I observed the dream, I thought it out of place in the sequence of my real life. Certainly this was too early for the seeming finality of this scene. Much work was left to be done by me to improve myself, and until tonight I had no idea what work Christine might have to do with her issues, many of which had been caused by me. I felt a flash of shame pass through me as I considered how selfish I had been with her, how spiritually unaware I was of so many things. I thought, while watching the lovers on the undulating swing, that it would serve each of us better if I could return home to Christine with a few more awareness within my being. What they might be, I had no earthly clue.

  That was the totality of one dream that night of “My Everlasting Moment.” There was no devil, no suspicious knocks, only the dream as I have described it. I took it as much needed and appreciated encouragement. I thanked my higher power for it. Eventually the scene faded to black and sometime after, I awoke. Christine was still above me, though she had shifted her arms. They were no longer around me, but rested against my sides with her hands upon my shoulders. With a momentary, yet pervasive sadness, I decided that it would be I who ended “The Hours Long Moment” and head for the condo.

  With utter gentility and tenderness, I shifted my weight from the couch as I carefully slid Christine from my body. I cradled her head in my hands and set it upon the same pillow that I had been sleeping on for the last seven hours. I had not awakened her. I checked my watch, 3:00 a.m. I felt remarkably rested, didn’t want to take a chance of waking Christine, so I didn’t even kiss the back of her head like I wanted. Instead, I tiptoed to the hallway by the front door, grabbed my travel bag and walked out the door, locking it before driving off. For as long as I could see the house, I kept looking into the rearview mirror, realizing that the woman I had left there might very well be my higher power. If not, at least my far better self.

  CHAPTER 18

  I THOUGHT ABOUT alcohol a thousand times a day, but every time I thought of it, the word no came leaping to the forefront of my mind. The word no became a soldier, a warrior of mythical proportions, there to protect me from myself and from any bottle of rum I might ever consider to procure. The soldier held his brilliant sword ready to swing it on my behalf against my weaker self. It was easy to continually implore the redundant no warrior to assist me. It was necessary and effective.

  More than the warrior no, my greatest ally was focus, a near God. From Monday morning until life would end for me one day, I needed to stay focused on behaviors that would make me a better man: Running, writing music, staying out of my bedroom to work on my client notes, conquering my addiction to alcohol, ending the devil dreams, identifying the Two-Knock Ghost, developing my relationship with Christine and my children, figuring out something wonderful to do for Toby’s wife and their children, and developing more insights into the true nature of myself and humanity. These were the multitude of worthwhile ventures I needed to focus on. How many things I had to ponder that held more prominence than whether I should have a drink.

  Soon it was Wednesday evening and my appointment with Dr. Banderas. Though I was not seeing him for his assistance in helping me conquer alcohol, I told him of my Thursday collapse immediately upon beginning our session. I explained to him that Toby had been my client and how I had solicited him to help me find Mary Bauer’s nemesis. I explained my guilt, although almost miraculously much of it had abated, and I told him of my visits with Christine and how they had helped me deal with my initially rampant angst.

  “Marvelous,” he said after I had spoken nonstop through 25 percent of our session. “If Christine had not come and given you her love and support, you might have gone on a four day binge, right?”

  “That’s what I felt like doing before she joined me at the condo.”

  “It is wonderful that you now know that you have that depth of support because you will be fortified by it as you face the difficult work that lies ahead of you.”

  It was a complete diversion from what we had been talking about, but I was so curious about his answer to my next question that I went right for it.

  “Have you thought anymore about my Two-Knock Ghost?”

  “I have,” he answered quietly while shaking his head. “And rather extensively I might add.”

  I wondered what he could possibly mean by rather extensively, considering the details I had imparted to him were so limited. Two knocks here, two knocks there, hard knocks, soft knocks, frenzied knocks, always two by two and no showing of itself, not even for a single instant, ever. Countless intrusions on the outer peripheries, but never an entry. How could he have pondered that extensively?

  “I held up what I knew about your Two-Knock Ghost as if it were a cup and I wanted to see it from every possible angle. I began looking at the cup not only as the actual ghost, but I factored in each back story you’ve ever told me about how hard it knocked, when it intruded, how many times it knocked, etc. Here are some of my hypothesis. Number one, the Two-Knock Ghost is particular to only you. No other of my patients has ever expressed anything close to being plagued by something like that. Next, there
is a reason for its existence. Until now, you have always considered the knocks as precursors of impending doom. What if the knocks are a sign of good manners?”

  “Good manners?” I was stunned.

  “How many times would you estimate the Two-Knock Ghost has infiltrated your personal space?”

  “Two hundred,” I answered.

  “And it’s never come in?”

  “Correct.”

  “In my thoughtful meanderings about the possible intentions of this shy ghost, I have considered that the creature may be knocking in order to ask your permission to enter your dreams.”

  I hung upon his every word. He had done it, not solved the riddle of my ghost, but he gave me a completely different perspective from which to look at Two-Knock. And it was both less frightening and spiritually refreshing. In fact, what he said might only have been one of countless possible clues, but it reminded me that sometimes the truth of something is the complete antithesis of what it appears to be. But Dr. Banderas had said it and suddenly I had something else to consider. A well-mannered ghost? Okay, but come on.

  “Any other thoughts about it?”

  “Yes. Do we both acknowledge the fact that most of the things that plague us as fears in our waking life and in our dreams are a direct result of situations that occurred in our youth?”

  “I agree that for the most part that’s true.”

  “Then let’s proceed. Is there anything you can remember about your childhood where someone tried to frighten you about ghosts? Before you answer, think very hard, take your time.”

  I began scanning my entire childhood beginning with my first memory of falling off a large purple tricycle and bloodying my face on the concrete when I was about four. I recalled my school days, my friends, my teachers, who were usually nuns, and they never talked about ghosts except the Holy one. I thought about the camping trips with my parents and my Boy Scout buddies. Lots of ghost stories came up. Some of them were horrifying, sometimes a little funny while they were scaring the daylights out of me, but I never put any credence in them. They were just stories. I allowed them to frighten and amuse me in the moment then I moved on. I didn’t believe in ghosts.

  “There’s nothing, Doctor.”

  “There is something, Dr. McKenzie, and it’s our job to find it together. Now if there is nothing that you can recall then perhaps our strategy in how we perceive the ghost must change. Have you ever considered that the Two-Knock Ghost may want to help you, that it might be friendly?”

  Well mannered and friendly? I kept the somewhat comical thoughts to myself.

  “What do you think about my last hypothesis?” he asked after the silence between us lasted too long.

  “I haven’t had enough time to analyze it,” I answered, telling the truth.

  “Let me help you. By applying some principles of logic, I might help you see the ghost in a different light. Tell me, how long has the ghost been bothering you?”

  “About four and a half months.”

  “Earlier, you said that it’s made its presence known in your space over two hundred times, correct? So about 140 days, 200 visits. Has the ghost ever physically hurt you in a dream or in real life?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re afraid of it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, most of the time I hear it, it’s accompanying a devil dream and it’s the most horrendous moment of my entire life.”

  “But the ghost has not hurt you, correct?”

  “But I know it will.” I answered his question like a frightened child.

  “I must challenge your assumption, Dr. McKenzie,” he said intensely, looking every bit and more of his seventy-plus years.

  “Right now you are projecting your greatest fears onto an entity you do not even know. You are fearing the unknown and have been doing so since the beginning. The ghost now knows that you consistently fear and reject it. If it ever had the desire to assist you in some way, but feels rejected by you, it may never get the chance to help you and it may keep knocking and annoying and frightening and haunting you forever.”

  Boy, this guy had a vivid imagination. I was speechless. He saw it immediately as the first second passed when he finished speaking.

  “I see you’re speechless,” he said after eleven more seconds had passed. “I must tell you that I have a reputation for getting my clients into this condition on numerous occasions,” he said with a twinkle in his eye and looking younger. “May I boldly suggest that you dig deeply within yourself to find your bravery? Then, once you have, you will be able to begin retraining your conscious mind to at least accept the possibility that the ghost is an ally and may want to help you and not hurt you.”

  “I can see the logic in your thinking, Dr. Banderas,” I said reluctantly. “But the difficulty lies in the fact that your idea is 180 degrees opposite of what I’ve been thinking all along.”

  “Therein lies the work that you will have to put in, Dr. McKenzie. It will not be easy for you to change your perception of your ghost, but the process of change is always started by a single thought. That thought doesn’t always have to originate with the person that wants to make a change. In this case, it has been I who has implanted the thought within you. Now, it will be your task to inculcate that concept into your thinking as something you embrace as viable. The next step will be to invite the ghost in when it knocks again. If it comes in, you will see it and know what it is and finally figure out what roll it has in your life. If it does not enter your dream, we will keep turning the cup and come up with new ideas and new strategies. I can assure you that my next ideas will be far less than 180 degrees from your rationale zone.”

  New material, I thought. I always liked new material. Whether it came from a comedian, a president, Christine, my kids, or in this case, my psychologist.

  I knew Dr. Banderas expected a remark from me. He very much deserved it. He had put a great deal of thinking into my behalf.

  “Dr. Banderas, I will go home tonight and begin thinking about everything you have suggested, I promise.” I was being 100 percent sincere.

  “Dr. McKenzie, there is one more topic I would like to share with you. No matter how expansive and limitless the human mind may be, where so many aspects are unknown to one another, it may also be compared to a tiny box where everything is intimately related, even intertwined with everything else within the box. There is nothing random, nothing that stands alone. This is one of many dualities which exist in the human mind. In your specific case, I am considering your ghost, the devil, your seemingly inappropriate loneliness, your isolationist tendencies and lastly your drinking. I am curious as to what your mind will ultimately reveal to you about how these elements of your life are related, or if they are related at all.”

  Dr. Banderas’s voice was fracturing as he spoke. I assumed he’d had a long day and was tired. During his last few sentences, the twinkle was gone from his eyes. His thoughts were deep and serious and when he spoke them, he looked every bit of the seventy-two years that he was. I noticed the lines on his face, deep furrows in some places. I wondered how he’d developed each of them. Were they the result of a half century of profound contemplation as he had been doing for me? Or had sadness put them there? Had his personal failures put them there? Or was it simply a fluke of genetics? I concluded that it was probably a combination of all these things and maybe more. I enjoyed looking at the man’s face. It was contemplative, intense, yet serene and kind. He had, only moments before, spoke of the dualities of the human mind and now I was considering the complex nature of his facial roadmap. In the next few seconds I searched the contour of his face. I felt honored to have chosen this man as my therapist. Then I spoke.

  “I am impressed with your thinking on my behalf, Dr. Banderas. I have no idea what will come of it, but I promise I will consider every aspect of what
you have told me.”

  “That is all I can hope for sir,” he said.

  There were a few more sentences that passed between us that Wednesday evening, but I’ve shared with you what was more important. Dr. Banderas had given me an entirely new perspective from which to look at everything that had been bothering me for a long time. Now, in good faith, and as directed, I would force myself to be open to his suggested possibilities.

  I felt so comfortable in the lush jungle office that I didn’t want to leave. But when I did so, I put a smile on my face and shook Dr. Banderas’s hand. I was looking down to his eyes that were several inches below mine. He was smiling a little Munchkin like smile. His eyes sparkled with the knowledge that he had contributed something unique to my thinking. Even though I stood a full eight inches taller than Dr. Banderas, as I walked out of his office I felt myself intellectually and spiritually looking up to him as if he were a giant of a man.

  Dianne was still working, obviously tired, but pleasant as always.

  “Same time next week, Dr. McKenzie?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  I wrote her a check, handed it to her, said good-bye and left, immediately heading for the Serenity Club. It was my first time to go there since last Wednesday. I had attended meetings Monday and Tuesday nights, but I had gone to a different venue, this one on Forty-Ninth Street North, much closer to my condo. I was afraid to go back to the Serenity Club because I thought that the memories of Toby would tear me apart and work against my sobriety. At the new place, there was a guy there with a big nippy dog. The first night I tried to pet it, but the dog growled, then snapped at me in the lobby. At break time, I watched the dog nip at six or seven people. It annoyed me. The next night the man with the dangerous dog was there again. I stayed away from them, but my curiosity kept my eyes glued to them. The dog nipped at almost everyone it passed. There was a viciousness about the animal and an “I couldn’t care less” attitude in the owner. I was appalled that the man was allowed to have the dog with him. It wasn’t a service animal. I didn’t want to speak up about it because I was the newbie. I decided Tuesday night when I left the Forty-Ninth Street meeting place that I would return to the Serenity Club no matter how I felt. I didn’t want to see that dog tear into someone one day.