The Two-Knock Ghost was gone. Perhaps never to return, behind a door that I could not access no matter how diligently I might try. How I wished that I could see them again, if only for a moment, to tell them what I had done with their information. But now it was my turn to find out if what they had told me was the truth or merely the absurd fiction of a dream.
CHAPTER 19
THE NEXT MORNING I told Christine everything I had dreamed the night before. She reacted both skeptically and cautiously, telling me that even though the Two-Knock Ghost had revealed itself and shared all the information that it did, that wasn’t reason enough to believe that what they said was true. I told her, “But, Christine, what if I find out that Sister Timothy and Lena were real?”
“I’d be very shocked indeed,” she answered.
After breakfast, I realized that upstairs in one of our closets in a guest bedroom was a huge box with all of my report cards in it, along with some of my elementary school drawings, special awards—mostly for winning spelling bees and trivia related to my class subjects. The awards were mostly what we called Holy Cards, with pictures of saints on one side of them, with usually a prayer on the other side, or a story about that particular saint whose picture was on the opposite side. Sometimes we would win cards that we were taught were Relic Cards, cards that had a piece of a saint’s clothing or a fragment of one of their bones or a piece of something they owned. I loved winning those cards until a classmate that I admired told me that if someone added all the wooden pieces of the True Cross that the Catholic Church had given away in Relic Cards, the total would be as big as the Empire State Building. Whether that statement was true or not, it ruined my love of those cards. She might as well have told me that if they added all the pieces of bone fragments of the saint that they had given away, the saint would have been as big as Paul Bunyan or King Kong. My friend’s statement just destroyed it for me because I looked up to and admired her, because she was smarter than I and her Holy and Relic Card winner’s collection dwarfed mine by about three to one. I think her name was Marilyn Minko. Anyway, I saved the cards, mostly because I had won them and I liked the stories of the saints.
I found the box easily, though I hadn’t looked into it for years. I carried it onto the bed, sat my back against two pillows and opened the box. Exactly what I thought was in there, was. There must have been fifty Holy Cards, an old scapular, a couple of text books, some poorly graded art work from my elementary years, and every single one of my report cards from first through eighth grade, sitting right on top of all that stuff in no special order. I picked them out of the box as I felt my heart begin to beat faster in my chest and a multitude of butterflies flit like crazed pixies in my stomach.
I didn’t care about looking at my grades or to see my bad marks in deportment. I only wanted to see who signed the front of each card, who my teacher was. First card, eighth grade, Sister Ann Therese. I figured I’d check all the grades and signatures in case the Two-Knock Ghost had been right about the name, but mistaken about the grade. Second card, sixth grade, Sister Mary Mark. I remembered that she was pretty and that I liked her, probably because she liked me. Then I took a moment to reflect on the beauty of Sister Ann Therese. She was the loveliest nun I had ever seen. I remember that once a handsome priest came to see her at school. They were about thirty-two years old. She had told us they were friends in her life before the convent and his life before the seminary. They played a duet on guitars and sang together as though they had done it a hundred times. I remembered how she looked at him nostalgically, almost romantically, while they were performing for us, looks that made me wonder then and they made me wonder now, all these years later.
Next report card, third grade, Mrs. James Olek. She was pretty too. She had been my only secular teacher. I met her daughter one summer when I was working at Benton House and asked her if her mom taught third grade at Saint Anthony of Padua’s fifteen years ago. When she said yes, I felt happy. When she told me that her mom would be at the Benton House Bazaar in two weeks, I was ecstatic. When I saw Mrs. Olek at the bazaar she recognized me immediately, came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek affectionately. I was twenty-three and married. She was thirty-seven, married and gorgeous, with long blond hair and deep blue eyes and I melted into a tiny grease spot on the floor. She told me that she always thought I was a good boy with a big heart because I would always fight the bullies when they would start beating up on the weaker kids.
“I had to admonish you for fighting back then because it was my job and you were quick to your fists. But secretly I was always proud of you for standing up to and decking a few of those guys because they deserved it. If I remember right, you never lost a fight, and when you beat up a bully, you became friends. Do you remember that, Robert?”
“I do, Mrs. Olek.”
“About my last name, Robert. It was originally Mrs. James Oleskevich. We shortened it to Olek back in the day because Polish people were being prejudiced against and were having difficult times finding jobs.”
“I remember you were pregnant most of the school year and you left school in March of 1956 to have your baby. Was the girl that’s enrolled in the summer school program here at Benton House that baby?”
“It sure is, Robert. That’s my oldest daughter, Jane. I also have another daughter and a boy.”
I only remember two other facts that she told me that her husband Jim was a lawyer and that about half of those bullies that I fought in the Third Grade went into organized crime in Chicago and wound up in prison with lengthy sentences. When she left, she kissed me again, ever so gently with great affection. I can still smell her perfume in my memory. Oh how deeply I was in puppy love with my third grade teacher, Mary Jane Olek for nearly the whole school year in 1956 and for one glorious hour at the Benton House Bazaar in 1971.
Report card number four, second grade, and there it was, in tiny little chicken scratch but to me the most important signature I had ever seen—Sister Mary Timothy. The Two-Knock Ghost had been right. Suddenly, the images of Sister Timothy besieged me. She was the antithesis of Sister Ann Therese and Mrs. Olek. She was old and wrinkled with ugly buck teeth. She had a penchant for falling asleep in class and would say, “Huh?” When somebody would go to the front of the class and wake her. Her mouth and eyes would open at that instant. Her buck teeth would thrust forward when she blurted, “Huh?” And at that very same instant the entire class would erupt into laughter. I had forgotten that scene for many decades, but in this present instant of remembrance, I recalled that I had witnessed the scene with different student wakers at least one hundred times.
Poor Sister Timothy, I thought. She was old, bitter, frail, and in failing health. I envisioned her living a loveless childhood, never dating as an uncomely young woman and finally falling in love with and marrying Jesus because He was the only One who would have her. I suddenly remembered her nearly goose stepping awkwardly back and forth in front of the classroom like a frustrated Nazi when she was on one of her devil rants. I saw her now in my mind’s eye and she was frightening. I wondered how many children’s nightmares she contributed to with her devil tales. And I wondered how many of those children grew into adulthood still dreaming the nightmares and wondering where the Hell they came from.
But again, there she was, Sister Timothy, the perpetrator of the origins of my nightmares, proving that half of what the Two-Knock Ghost had told me was correct. Monday, I would find out if Lena was real.
Five minutes later, I was telling Christine what I had discovered about Sister Timothy, Mrs. Olek, and Sister Ann Threse. I showed her my second grade report card and Sister Timothy’s signature but for some reason, Christine was more concerned with my Mrs. Olek story.
“Do you remember that I was there that night at Benton House and that you introduced me to Mary Jane Olek?” she asked me playfully.
I said, “No.” I really had no clue.
Then she tease
d me when she said, “I could tell by the look in your eyes that you were really smitten with her, so I asked you if you were in love with her and you said, ‘Yes, since I was eight but even more so after tonight.’ But I let you keep your crush for her because I never thought it would interfere with our marriage and it never did.”
We both laughed heartily then kissed what I would call a “happy kiss,” separated and continued with our day.
My mind was focused and poignantly directed. I wanted to find out now if Lena was real. I didn’t want to wait till the public offices opened on Monday. I wanted to know now. But I wanted to be attentive to Christine too. She had told me that she wanted to go to quiet little Gulf Port Beach for the afternoon, then have dinner at the Back Fin Blue Café. That was fine with me. Hanging out with my wife today was the most important thing in the world to me, but finding out about Lena was priority too. While we were getting ready to go, I silently pondered how I could find out about Lena. I wondered whether I could find an older relative who might know the answer. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that everyone from that era was either dead or forgotten. I remembered, joyfully, how we used to have the most wonderful family get-togethers in the mid and late 1950s. I’m talking huge family gatherings with second and third cousins coming and distant relatives I might see once a year. My cousins’ fathers, my uncles, all great guys, would drive up in their big beautiful straight eights or their snub-nosed Studebakers or their monstrous Hudsons, park, exit their car with chests puffed out with pride for their automobile and their family. They would play baseball with us and toss a football around. I still remember Uncle Philly playing the catching positions during our baseball games while smoking his ever present Garcia Vega Palma cigars.
I thought of all the old times, of someone who might know of little Lena’s existence. But as I recalled the old timers, I realized that the ones that had been forgotten by me were forgotten because when we had those huge family gatherings I’d usually be hanging out with the little kids about my own age and a few uncles and my grandpas and grandmas. But as the sixties rolled through, the enormous family gatherings became fewer and fewer. By the 1970s they were virtually nonexistent. In fact, the last of the mammoth family gatherings I remembered was at the funeral for my mom and dad and Dad’s mom and dad in 1972. I strained deeply to remember those faces from thirty-two years ago. But I could not remember anyone who could help me.
Then, while I was putting on my bathing suit and feeling better about losing a third of my paunch, my mind recalled when Toby told me how he had looked through his old address and phone book for possible informants. I decided to get my old black phone book which was still in my bedside table drawer and look through it on my way to Gulf Port. I told Christine what I was doing and she wished me good luck genuinely.
I asked her to drive, which she did happily. As we drove, I began looking through my old phone book hoping to find someone beyond my conscious memory who could help me. I began with the As and chuckled that the last time I did this kind of thing was when I went through the Yellow Pages and found Dr. Banderas. This time, however, I sailed quickly past A, B, C, and D, amazed at how many names I no longer remembered and how many of my family had passed away.
E, F, G, H, I, J, K—nothing. Ten letters into the alphabet of names, I was feeling a bit disconsolate, but I continued. L, M, N, O, P. Still no names jogged my memory. Q, R, S. OH MY GOD, MONA SILVERI! I had not thought of her in years and I had not seen her since my parents’ funeral. My mother’s mother, Rita, had a sister, Maria. She had a beautiful daughter. Her name was Mona. She was my cousin. She was a tall, beautiful, flaming redhead, who I loved dearly when I was a child because she was always so kind to me. She had married an Italian fellow named Anthony Silveri. Everybody used to call him Tony Sil. He fashioned himself a cowboy and farmer. He married Mona in Oak Lawn in 1958. Mona was twenty-four then. He was twenty-eight, well-educated and tightly connected to Mayor Daley and the awesome Daley Political Machine. He held an extremely well-paying job with the City of Chicago in finance and every election season, worked tirelessly to help Richard J. Daley become Mayor once again. Tony Sil kept his city job till he was forty-five. He had saved every penny he could since he started working as a bus boy at El Bianco’s in Cicero at the age of fifteen. His dream was to own a horse farm and raise corn because his favorite food was corn on the cob. Sounds strange, but that’s just the way it was.
When Tony Sil had enough money to pursue his dream, he bought eighty-six acres outside of Grass Creek, Indiana. A modest five-bedroom house rested near the middle of the property with a long winding driveway that led up to it. The five bedrooms worked out perfectly because by the time he and Mona purchased the farm, they had four children and they all lived at home. Each one got their own bedroom. Mona was as excited to have a corn and horse farm as her husband because any dream of his was her dream also.
I remember it was big news in the family when the Silveri’s bought their dream farm. I also remembered that Mona had worked strenuously, mostly waitress jobs, and had contributed thousands of dollars to their marital dream. She was the rare woman who could raise her children well, work a ten-to-twelve-hour shift five or six days a week, be a great wife, sleep four and three-quarters to five and a quarter hours each night, and get up and do it again day after day, year after year without complaint. Joyfully even. Thankful to the God she believed in for everything that she had.
I thought Mona could help me because she had known me my whole life. When I was two, she would have been sixteen and the birth of a baby girl in our family in 1950 would be huge news that would have dwarfed the news of when Mona and Tony Sil bought their farm—and everybody knew about that. Certainly Mona would remember if Lena had been real.
It had been nearly two decades since I had communicated with Mona. I had heard that Tony Sil had passed away at age sixty from a massive heart attack while riding his favorite horse, Fire Brand. Christine and I took a ride through Grass Creek to the Silveri farm and attended the funeral. Mona was still pretty, but of course she had aged and looked pale and drawn from her recent sorrows. Still she was very kind to me and I remember thinking at the funeral, which was held in her living room, that Mona and I had a real bond between us and we would always be friends.
But I did nothing over the years to nurture that bond or our friendship. The result was that we fell completely out of touch. I knew nothing now about her life or even if she would still be alive. She would be about seventy now, and I wondered when I looked at her address and phone number if they would be the same after all these years.
But I had found it, and I would dial that number when Christine would be taking her usual nap on the beach. For a moment, however, I closed the old address book and started to show Christine some quality attention. Two and a half hours later, Christine was asleep in her beach chair. I grabbed my cell phone and walked about a hundred feet away to a free-standing silver metal swing which rested under the branches of a couple of trees. My place on the swing felt kind of private, even though there were a few people around. I began dialing the number with a mixture of trepidation and joy in my heart.
“Hello.” My god, I recognized her voice. “Mona, it’s Robert McKenzie.”
“Good Lord, Robert, where have you been?”
She coughed about twenty times.
“Just living life, Mona. How are you?”
“I’m doing great. I just bought a house as an investment property.”
It was 2004 and the average person could still do that and make some money. Sadly, in a couple of years she would find out just how upside down she would become with that investment. But in this moment she was happy, so I was too.
We spent the next few minutes talking pleasantries about how everyone in each family was doing. I kept my answers short because I only had one question to ask her that had any real import other than how she was feeling.
When
I felt that the basic pleasantries had been answered, I began my exploration.
“Mona, I had a bit of a selfish motive for calling you. I need to know if you know something about my distant family history.” I felt myself pause, an almost literal nervous lump in my throat.
“What is it, Robert?” she asked and coughed again about ten times.
I couldn’t believe how stressful asking my next question was.
“Did I have a baby sister when I was about two years old who died about the time I turned three?”
It was Mona’s turn to pause. I could sense the stress that she was beginning to feel through the silent line. Then she proved it a moment later when slowly she began to answer my question.
“I don’t really begin to know where to start to answer that question. As simple as the answer is, there is a secret attached to it that makes the answer complex.”
Mona paused again. I could feel more stress within her, more hesitancy.
“Why is it complex, Mona?”
“Because in 1951, my parents asked me never to talk to you about something very important because they wanted to spare you from any emotional hurt.”
“Was it about the fact that I had a sick baby sister and she died when she was about one?”
There was no pause.
“Yes.”
“Was her name Lena?”
“Yes it was, Robert. How did you know that?”
I told her that my parents had told me the details in a dream. I chose not to tell her they were the Two-Knock Ghost.
“It must have been an awesome dream,” she said while coughing.
“It was.”
We talked for a few more minutes. She told me that Christine and I would always be welcome to come and stay for as long as we liked; there were four bedrooms not being used because the kids were all grown and living their lives elsewhere.
The Two-Knock Ghost Page 27