Morning was a joy, two senior citizens with similar problems of coping with life and loneliness after the death of a spouse.
At lunch I walked five blocks to buy a Polish sausage and Orange Crush from Joy, my favorite vendor. Always the ebullient soul, she was once again this sunny early afternoon.
“May I have a Polish sausage without the bun please and an Orange Crush?” I asked.
“But of course, but if you’re going high protein, then there’s a heck of a lot of carbs in that Orange Crush.”
“That’s right,” I said. “How about a bottle of water then?”
“Deal.”
In the next few minutes she filled me in on all the little and big things going on in downtown St. Pete. It was a hot as hell afternoon and she was dripping with sweat, but I hugged her anyway as was our custom, and I didn’t mind a bit as behind her thick glasses was a dear kind soul. She was a hot dog selling fixture downtown and by far the best one, in my opinion. She was yet another reason for me to live and to enjoy my life. I was so happy this early Wednesday afternoon. I felt like a kid in a candy store and all of downtown along my Central Avenue walk to and from my office was the store. I felt like there was something for everyone there. Three bites of Polish sausage and two swigs of bottled water into lunch, I said good-bye to Joy and walked a couple of steps across the street to the little antique junk shop run by an eighty-two-year-old Italian named Arturo. I asked him if he had any baseball cards and he turned around, reached up to a shelf behind him, about eye level, and pulled down a stack of about fifty cards. My first thought was that the cards couldn’t be very good because a cardinal sin among baseball card collectors is to rubber band your cards. My second thought was yuck. The first fifteen cards were from the 1990s—an era in which they made so many millions of cards, that I had little interest in any of them.
But then a 1981 Kirk Gibson popped up with the little baseball cap in the corner. Then a 1976 Carlos May, then a 1959 Brooks Robinson. Get outta here. You’ve got to be kidding me. That was his Rookie card. I looked at it carefully and quietly, so as not to draw any attention to the fact that I liked it. It did not have a crease of any kind on either side. Its only real flaw outside of the 60-40 off centering were two faint rubber band marks on the side. A few cards deeper, I found a 1952 Bowman Roy Sievers and behind it a 1957 Billy Pierce. I was ecstatic but I kept that emotion tightly in check. I asked the old guy, “How much for this little stack of cards?” Arturo who obviously knew nothing about baseball cards, answered “$20” immediately. I said, “Ouch.” And he said, “Okay, then $15.” “You’ve made a sale Arturo.” He took the money and I left the store matter-of-factly, knowing full well that the value of the Brooks Robinson Rookie card was worth several times the $15 I had paid for the whole stack.
As I opened the door, I realized I had one more question for Arturo. I said, “Hey, Arturo, do you know anywhere close by where I might be able to find some baseball memorabilia?” He said, “Yes, there’s a little alley way that goes all the way through the building from Central to First Avenue worth. The guy who uses that alley sells all kinds of stuff. That might be your best bet. It’s only about 100 feet toward Seventh Street.”
“Thanks, Arturo. I’ll stop back again.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”
“You too.”
I looked at my watch and noticed I still had thirty-two minutes before I had to be back to the office. I walked the one hundred or so steps to the alley which was super easy to find, and went in there to explore. Scores of baskets lined the walls, filled with mostly junk, I thought, but with some interesting items mixed in. There were brooms, pictures of all kinds, ice trays that went back to the 40’s, two wet suits, tennis rackets, baseballs, hats of all sizes for men and women, coloring books, new and older Golden Books, toy pistols and rifles. You get the idea. In one of the baskets I noticed an old baseball bat. I picked it up to look to see if it was a signature model. It was a Johnny Bench model. Here came the same excitement. The little boy in me was jumping with joy. The middle aged man in me was as cool as a cucumber. “How much for the old bat?” I asked the proprietor in the Hawaiian shirt and Panama hat.”
“Four bucks,” he said. I pulled out two two-dollar bills and gave them to him. “Don’t see these around much anymore.” He said, as though I’d given him a treasure. “Thanks,” he said happily. “Thank you,” I responded a little more appreciatively knowing it was I who got the real treasure.
I walked the one hundred steps to the end of the block, crossed the street as happy as I had ever been, knowing that I was finally moving in all the right directions to becoming a better man. And yes, that was important to me. I gave Joy another hug, wished her a prosperous day, then walked the five blocks to the Bank of America Building.
I greeted Amanda as friskily as if I was a college kid and she was a coed. Then I went into my office and felt like an encouragement king with my one o’clock appointment, a Yellow Cab driver who had been robbed at gunpoint by an unusually well-dressed yuppie couple. He had trust issues with everybody and was going through some serious post-traumatic stress.
When he left, I had a free hour between two and three and was working on my notes for my three o’clock client. At exactly 2:47 p.m. Amanda buzzed me.
“Dr. McKenzie, it’s Dianne from Dr. Banderas’s office for you.”
“Thank you, Amanda,” I said and went right for the blinking button.
“Hello, Dianne!” I said with a level of joyful energy I had within me all day.
“I’m afraid we have to cancel our appointment for this evening.” Her voice was quivering like I’d never heard it, so I altered my vocal level to match hers.
“What’s the problem, Dianne?”
There was a slight pause, as if she was clearing a lump from her throat.
“I’m afraid Dr. Banderas passed away today, just a little while ago while working in his office.”
“How did it happen?” I asked calmly, although the news devastated me.
“He looked like he just fell asleep in his chair. I’m guessing he had a heart attack or an aneurysm. I probably will never know. He had a break between his lunch hour and his two o’clock. I never bothered him while he was working that way unless it was an emergency. When I buzzed his office to let him know his two o’clock was here, he didn’t answer. I got up, knocked on his door—no answer. I went in and there he was, sleeping peacefully in his chair. When words didn’t wake him, I touched his shoulder. He didn’t move. I noticed an awful pallor in his face, so I grabbed his cold wrist, felt for a pulse and within seconds of finding no pulse, I dialed 911. Your file was open in front of him when he died. I must tell you that since he met you, he would often tell me that you were his favorite case.” I was almost in tears of profound sadness, but for Dianne’s sake I remained calm.
“I probably won’t be seeing you again, but you were a wonderful client and I want to thank you on behalf of Dr. Banderas myself.”
“Thank you, Dianne. It was a pleasure interacting with you and Dr. Banderas too.”
“Take care, Dr. McKenzie. You know, there’s a chance someone else will take over this practice. Would you like me to call you if that happens?”
“No, thank you, Dianne. I’ll go it on my own for a while.”
“God bless you, Dr. McKenzie. I’ve got to go now. I have so many more phone calls to make and the Paramedics are still here and want to ask more questions. Good-bye now.”
“God bless you too, Dianne,” and there was a click on the other end.
I buzzed Amanda immediately, still composed. “Could you please hold my calls till my three o’clock gets here, Amanda?”
“Yes, Dr. McKenzie.”
There were seven minutes before 3:00 p.m. that afternoon. Seven measly minutes to quell my raging grief and present my new client—an important deserving person—with an upb
eat therapist who owned a clear head.
Six minutes. Too late to cancel, but how could I possibly do this? I had imploded. Hooked inside and anything worthwhile left to give could not be seen within the black hole my heart had become.
Panic sped into an emotional black hole from which nothing seemed possible to escape. As the seconds ticked speedily past, my body began to literally shake. I was Jonesing for a rum and Coke to calm my nerves. For an instant I actually wondered if I had long ago hidden a bottle in the office and forgotten about it. I had not.
Then suddenly it hit me, with slightly less than two minutes to go on the play clock. It was a promise I made to Dr. Banderas whenever I felt compelled to drink, I first had to think of all my wonderful reasons to live. So I did, even though I was panic driven. I first thought of Christine, the wonderful, powerful, dynamic soul whose well-being had been entrusted to me by my marital vows which meant everything to me. Then I thought of my three children, how much I loved them, how different they each were and how worthy they were of my love, attention and encouragement as they journeyed through the ensuing phases of their lives. I thought of my clients and how much I cared about each of them. Then I thought about the memories of Toby and Dr. Banderas—how lucky I had been to have had both of them in my life, if even for a short time. Both men had cared for me. One gave his life for a cause I had asked him to believe in. The other had probably worn himself out by losing countless hours of sleep by pondering what the Two-Knock Ghost meant to my life.
And as the clock ticked down below the final minute before Amanda would buzz me for my next appointment, I kept my promise to think of how to be creative within the context of the things I cared about. I hit immediately on my next client, Nicholas Charles, a white kid from a tough part of South St. Pete, who was dealing with his affinity for all kinds of drugs. Charles was a quiet and shy boy. Because of that, he was an easy target to be bullied by several gangs at Gibbs High School. Those gangs, I learned from Charles, were very skilled at picking out the kids they thought were the weaker ones. But with my client they were gravely mistaken. Though quiet and shy, he had a penchant for fighting back and quite well. He had been the product of an abusive upbringing and did not like bullies. He had been living in Foster Homes since he was twelve. Recently, during a bullying session with multiple boys harassing him, one of them made the mistake of slapping him in the face. Charles put the much larger slapper in the hospital with multiple facial fractures. Because several witnesses backed up his story of being tormented then slapped, Charles did not face the discipline of a suspension. But the courts knew he had a leaning toward using his fists. That’s why they ordered him to see me. It was not only my duty to try to save him, but my sincere wish.
Then buzz. I shook in my chair when I heard the buzz from Amanda. Though the sound startled me, I wasn’t panicking anymore. I had work to do and a boy that needed caring. Life goes on, even immediately after you lose someone you care about. Sometimes life is moving so fast that you must grieve between the bursts of activities it sends you. The speed of life does not wait for you to overcome your sorrows. It does not care about you. It is not a living being, as you are. It is simply reality that must be dealt with. It has no soul.
“Send the young fellow in,” I said back to Amanda.
“Right away, Dr. McKenzie,” she said to me in her marvelous dual voice of professionalism and playfulness.
I was back to work again. I felt better. I thanked my Higher Power for helping me through another skirmish, no, a major battle.
Later I called Christine and told her Dr. Banderas had passed away. She asked if I wanted to come over tonight. I said no thank you. I told her I wanted to see if I could handle my grief on my own and not drink. I told her that this would be a big test for me and if I made it through successfully, it would give me a more solid baseline of confidence to face my future.
“Do you want to come over Friday night and spend the weekend?” she asked with a tone of hope in her voice.
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “I want to see how long it takes me to get through the temptations to drink because somebody close to me has died.”
“Will you keep me informed on how you are doing?”
“How about if I call you every couple of days?”
“Okay, Robert, if that’s how you want to do it.”
“Thank you for understanding, Christine.”
“I love you, Robert.”
“I know you do, Christine, and I love you more than anyone on the face of this earth. But right now I want to challenge myself to see how much I love myself.”
“I understand, Robert,” she said, speaking more formally than when she called me Turf.
“I’ll call you in a couple of days, honey.”
“Good-bye, Robert.”
* * * * *
I faced the next few days with some confidence but with more tentativeness. The temptations to drink were everywhere. They lurked in every crevice of my day. No matter what I was doing, I kept thinking about Dr. Banderas’s death as a terrible loss. I had just begun to interact with the man. With Toby I’d had several months to interact. With Dr. Banderas I’d only had far too few weeks and he really hadn’t answered many questions for me. His conjectures and surmising had raised more questions in me that now I would be forced to answer on my own. I would not elicit the services of another psychologist.
Over the next several days I realized that the only way to prevent myself from sinking into a pity pit when thinking about Dr. Banderas, was to think of everything that had gone between us as a game. Even the questions he had raised in me about the Two-Knock Ghost were gifts he had given me. When I realized that, I immediately thanked my Higher Power for anyone who ever raised a question for me to ponder one of life’s mysteries.
I called Christine faithfully every two evenings. Each time I told her that what I was experiencing was a slow process of self-exploration. And I told her most importantly that I had not drank alcohol. I continued my visits to the Serenity Club and to look at the live oak once every few days. There, I would mull over my life, which had gone through so many upheavals lately, and contemplate how to face my future with the courage and dignity not to be dependent on alcohol.
It was late one night while parked in front of the Church of the Ascension and looking at my favorite tree, that I began to look at the Two-Knock Ghost differently. First, I asked myself, “Aren’t ghosts something people see in their waking lives? Don’t they terrorize you when you have nowhere to run? Can’t they find you wherever you think you could hide?” At least in a dream if things got too bad you could wake yourself up. I didn’t even believe in ghosts. After all I had still never seen one in my waking life, I believe in the Two-Knock Ghost, but it had manifested itself only in my dreams. I asked myself, “Why had I named it the Two-Knock Ghost?” I didn’t have an answer. I thought about how Dr. Banderas had reminded me to keep turning the cup of an experience around and around until you see the experience in its entirety. Unravel the experience string by string until you see the experience through to its core.
For all the years of my adult life, I had not thought of Sister Timothy but she was in my mind, embedded in there with all her devilish terror tactics. Leaving Christine had freed those dreams to come squiggling up my emotional chutes from deep within my subconscious.
And what about my little sister Lena? No matter what my parents did to protect me from the pain of Lena’s death and to help me completely forget her, I remembered her, just deep within myself, unknown to my conscious recollections. And I hurt about her every day. Her loss was the first experience that sensitized me to how deeply death can impact even a small child. It possibly was my first step to becoming a psychologist because I hurt for people who have loss.
Was the Two-Knock Ghost really a ghost if it appeared only in my dreams?
After nearly three weeks and nine calls to Chri
stine, I called her one night and told my wife that I wanted to come home, forever. I had unintentionally used a tone of voice that Christine had never heard. It was strong, confident, determined, and undeniable.
“If you truly believe you’re ready,” she said.
“I do,” I answered with no change in my vocal tenor.
“When?” my wife asked gently without anxiety.
“I’d like to spend this weekend with you then go back to the Beaches of Paradise after work Monday, pack and move back home next Saturday.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
“You have enough to do. I can handle this on my own, although I’ve already decided to use Eight Brothers Helping Others because I like the name.” Then my mind shifted oddly to something Dr. Banderas had told me about creativity. And just as instantaneously as the thoughts of Dr. Banderas popped into my head, this popped out of my mouth to Christine. “As soon as I get home, I’d like you and I to start planning a vacation together. I’m thinking about a cruise. We’ve never been on one. Would you like that?”
Here came the little girl again and the girl I fell in love with.
“I’d absolutely love that, Turf,” she said in a voice not unlike a six-year-old getting news she was going to Disney World.
“I’ll see you Friday night,” I said.
“I’ll see you, Turf. Be well.”
* * * * *
The human mind has always amazed me. How deep it is, how complex, pliant, breakable, resilient, how layered. How impressionable. It seems as if everything you see, hear, taste, touch, and feel, leaves an indelible imprint upon you, whether you realize it or not. Everything comes into you from a slightly different angle making you the only one of your kind in the entire universe.
As I pondered the minds of others, I pondered mine. Something may have surfaced from an unfathomable depth to reveal itself and help me to identify parts of my being that were damaged. I wanted to believe with all of my emotional heart that my parents were the Two-Knock Ghost, but the ideas of Dr. Banderas that even I had known before meeting him, kept repeating themselves in my thoughts. “What about that theory that suggests that all of the characters in your dreams are you?” Now, I want you to understand this, I don’t believe that everyone in your dreams is you, as an absolute truth. Dreams are too complicated and even random to be explained the same way 100 percent of the time, and I do not think that Freud or Jung or the Sleeping Prophet has identified everything there is to know about dreams. I think humanity is still learning how to interpret dreams as each of us is attempting to understand our own. But if I did consider that the Two-Knock Ghost—my mother and father was me in my dreams. What might I think about it? I have my own interpretation. I have the right to my own, don’t you think?
The Two-Knock Ghost Page 30