The Two-Knock Ghost Read online

  THE

  TWO-KNOCK GHOST

  JEFF LOMBARDO

  Copyright © 2016 by Jeff Lombardo.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914622

  ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-5245-4052-4

  Softcover 978-1-5245-4051-7

  eBook 978-1-5245-4050-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  Rev. date: 09/09/2016

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  CHAPTER 1

  THE KNOCKS ON the front door were so loud that they woke me violently from my sleep. With squinting eyes, I saw that the clock atop the TV said 3:36 a.m. “Who’s there?” I angrily yelled. No answer. I jumped out of bed shouting, “Hold on, I’ll be right there.” I quickly walked the twenty steps to the door. I peered through the peephole to be safe. I saw nothing but my long empty balcony stretching before me. I opened the door and stepped outside, looking down the stairs and up and down the walkways between the three buildings nearest to mine, hoping I might catch a glimpse of a prankster running away. There was no one. In fact, the night was still. Not a leaf was moving on any tree, not a blade of grass shimmering.

  My mind, already racing and upset, tried to calm itself by analyzing the situation. The conclusion it came to was that it had gotten itself all worked up over nothing. It was probably just a dream, but it had frightened me. Two mere inappropriately timed, rather loud clanks on the front door had awakened me, but rankled me as well.

  Sleep was important to me. So was quiet. Absolute quiet was the best. I had to get up in three hours. It had always been difficult for me to fall back asleep after I had awakened during the night, but tonight would be even more difficult because the knocks had sounded intrusive and unfriendly, and I had been awakened frightfully. Pondering for some moments when the last time was that a couple of nighttime sounds like that had scared me awake, I concluded I couldn’t remember a last time. It had never happened.

  * * * * *

  When the alarm clock blared on to sports radio 620 WDAE at 6:30 a.m., I didn’t wake with my usual ear tuned to the latest sports news. I was still feeling agitated about the thudding knocks on my front door a few hours earlier. Had there really been someone there? Was it friend or foe? If it was friend, had they been in trouble? But if they had been, why hadn’t they stayed? If it was foe, who was it that I had annoyed so much that they would have wanted to puncture my sleep time with such nasty behavior?

  I proceeded with my shaving and showering with my ears beginning to hear the baseball scores from the night before and, more importantly to me, how the Rays had played. Gradually, thoughts of my upcoming workday began to mingle with the scores and my conjectures of the night before.

  I had a busy day coming, six patients in my clinical psychology practice in downtown St. Pete. I had checked my calendar yesterday to see who was on the schedule for today. This is what I always did before leaving the office because I like to think about what I was going to say to people the next day during sessions.

  I’ve never been one to let things go easily, especially something wonderful or unique or unsettling. The dual knocks from the night before kept tumbling through my mind throughout the day. By the time I had seen my six patients, written some notes, and left the office, I was still pondering the origin of those knocks. I wondered if it was a prank or a friend in crisis or a loud random dream. Would any one of those be a one-time event? I wondered how long it would be before thoughts of the happening would drift from my mind and leave me alone.

  * * * * *

  I have a problem with alcohol. It started innocently enough in 1967 when I was a freshman at Kendall College in Evanston, Illinois. It was Christmas break and every boy except two of us had already gone home. I don’t remember why I was there, but I was. The night I had my first drink ever, I had a friendship only date with a young woman I had known in high school in Northbrook. Her name was Kathy Blazer. My dad, a pretty good musician, taught Kathy’s sister, Theresa, the clarinet. Dad, who had played in several bands and was still doing so, had met Mr. and Mrs. Blazer at one of his square dancing gigs and had befriended them. Not only did my dad teach Theresa but his friendship with Mrs. Blazer had helped me land a job in 1965 as an orderly at Eden View Convalesant and Geriatric Center in Glenview. Mrs. Blazer was the administrator of the place and I remember promising her to do the best job I possibly could to take care of her people, and I did.

  Kathy was not a pretty young woman. She was tall and gangly, prompting a great number of kids to derisively call her “the bird.”

  But I liked her. She was smart and funny and infinitely likeable once you got past her physical oddities.

  Kathy was attending Northwestern and living in a dorm a few blocks from Kendall. Our plan was to go out for pizza and fun.

  On my way down the hall near the exit sign, Robert Workman stuck his head out of his room.

  “Hi, Turf,” he said, calling me by my baseball nickname.

  “Hi, Robert.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “I’m going out for pizza with one of my friends from Northwestern.”

  “Would you like a drink before you go?”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “Come on, Turf, just one.”

  He was pleading, and I felt sorry for him. Earlier in the school year Robert had gotten into an argument with Kelly Stevenson, an extremely popular student and Kendall’s starting second baseman, over a pretty coed they both fancied. They were arguing in the parking lot near the dorm, things got heated and Robert, in his exasperation, threw a punch at Kelly. It wasn’t much of a punch, barely a glancing tap. But Kelly ducked and backstepped at the same instant and tripped over a yellow concrete parking bumper he had no idea was there. He fractured his left leg. About fifteen students, both boys and girls, had followed the argument as it spilled from the dorm to the parking lot where every one of the observers thought there might be a fight.

  Now the flimsy fight was over, but a great deal of damage had been done. Kelly, a gregarious, popular athlete was in jeopardy of losing his ability to play baseball for the upcoming season. Even before his fall, he had the favoritism of the onlookers. Kelly was easier to like. He was outgoing, smiley, happy-go-lucky. Robert Workman was quiet, studious, a nonathlete, slow to smile, shy. He wasn’t a bad guy at all, just more difficult to get to know and like.


  The broken leg broke Robert’s spirit, as word of what happened spread quickly around the campus. The far greater majority of kids not only sympathized with Kelly but they ostracized Robert Workman somewhat unfairly. What made things worse was that Kelly got the girl and Robert got a blanket of depression for the rest of the semester.

  Now it was only the two of us left on campus, and he was pleading for companionship. What could spending a few minutes with him cost me? I’d been a disciplined athlete all my life. The controls I had on myself were huge. I had never drank before in a social setting or even at home. I had never so much as opened a bottle of my father’s alcohol and tried it.

  “Do you like rum and Coke?” Robert asked as I seated myself on a chair at his desk by the window.

  “I never tasted rum,” I answered.

  “In that case, I suggest you try it first mixed with the Coke, otherwise it might be too strong for you.”

  So without ever having tasted plain rum, I had my first three ounces of it mixed with five ounces of Coke in an eight-ounce glass.

  I liked it. In fact, it was love at first taste. I was actually thirsty in that moment. The cafeteria was closed for Christmas break and I hadn’t had anything to drink or eat all day and it was nearly 5:00 p.m.

  I drank the eight ounces quickly, as if it were simply a glass of Coke. We talked about the fight and how sorry Robert was that he ever raised his hand to Kelly. When my glass was empty, Robert filled it again—same proportions.

  All of five minutes had passed since I had finished the first full glass. The second glass took about seven minutes to finish. The conversation continued to revolve around Kelly and Robert’s fight and the loneliness Robert felt when he was not only shunned by the entire student body, but dumped by the girl who had chosen Kelly.

  After twelve minutes, I had consumed six ounces of rum and ten ounces of Coca-Cola. I excused myself to pee, and when I came back three minutes later, my glass was filled again with what I’m certain were the same proportions because the third drink tasted identical to the first two. I was still enjoying the hell out of my new tasty drink, but during this glass, our conversation was broken repeatedly by some of the greatest belches I can remember making in my life. The conversation was still deep, almost soul searing, but it began to be punctuated by burps and giggles.

  Nineteen minutes in, I had consumed nine ounces of rum and fifteen of Coke.

  “Time for me to go, Robert.”

  “Oh please, Turf, one more.”

  “I’ll be late to pick up Kathy.”

  “Come on, it’ll take five minutes.”

  That made sense to me. As soon as he said five minutes, I looked at my watch and made up my mind to finish that upcoming drink and our conversation and be as close to on time for Kathy as I possibly could be.

  Belches and laughter were now the main activities of our final minutes together. I held true to my promise to myself, and five minutes to the second later, I had completed my consumption of twelve ounces of rum and twenty ounces of Coke and walked out of Robert Wickman’s room and the dorm, and I was on my way to see Kathy Blazer.

  The cold air slapped my face hard when I stepped outside.

  I began my six block walk to Kathy’s dormitory on tightly packed icy snow. I hated that kind of snow because I had to shorten my normal long stride and take much shorter steps, which always seemed to tighten my groin. Slipping and sliding from time to time also did nothing to help me feel like the athlete I wanted to be. But this walk to Kathy’s was beginning to be different from my other treks there. Within a block from my dorm, I began talking out loud to myself, “I’m on my way to see Kathy Blazer. Isn’t that going to be fun? We’re going to have pizza. I can’t wait because I love pizza.”

  I’m telling you, I was animated too, demonstrative and loud. The closer I got to Kathy’s dorm, the louder I became. The liquor was kicking in.

  When I got to the girl at the front desk of Kathy’s dorm, I told her in a flirtatious way who I was there to see. I remember that she chuckled—probably thinking something like “Kathy’s in for one heck of a wild night with this guy.”

  Kathy was down to the lobby a couple of minutes later, a little surprised to see me chatting it up with a group of three coeds.

  “Hey, Robert.”

  “Kathy, Kathy, Kathy, how the heck are you?” I asked.

  “I’m fine, thank you, but it looks like you’re doing a whole lot differently than you usually do.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  I began to stand, feeling the world spinning wildly. I turned to the three coeds I had been flirting with and said, “Excuse me, ladies, but my date has arrived and I must take my leave.”

  Immediately, I told Kathy, “Before we go anywhere, can you show me where the bathroom is please?”

  She started to give me directions, but I stopped her immediately.

  “I mean, can you hold my hand and take me to the bathroom?”

  Though surprised, she took my hand and led me to the nearest bathroom. For me, the hand holding was of necessity. I had no way of knowing that it was the first time Kathy had ever held a boy’s hand. Each of us was feeling quite different things in that moment leading to the bathroom. I had a bursting bladder a couple of feet beneath a head that felt like it had just stepped off the teacup ride at Disneyland. Although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, Kathy “the bird” was walking across the busy lobby of the girl’s dorm, hand in hand with the handsome pitcher for whom she had always had a secret crush.

  When we got to the bathroom, I went in by myself, but I was so drunk and woozy I didn’t trust myself to stand without falling while urinating the usual way into the toilet. Instead, I did my business into the sink, holding on for dear life during my emptying cycle.

  I remember feeling guilty for having done things this way, so I tried to make things right by running the hot water for about a minute while scrubbing the sink with toilet paper and soap. When my guilt was assuaged, I put my head near the sink and soaked my face in cold water hoping that would help me cope better with whatever these new sensations I was feeling were. It didn’t, although the cold water felt refreshing in the moment I was splashing it on my face. A moment later I opened the door and stumbled into the exceptionally receptive arms of Kathy Blazer.

  I don’t remember much more about that night. What I do recall is that we went to a restaurant, had a wonderful deep dish pizza, were joined by friends at times, and that I was a ridiculous idiot throughout the night. I remember what seemed like dozens of times that I slid from an upright seated position to lying on my left or right side on the booth bench with my feet planted firmly on the floor. Repeatedly, Kathy would reach over the table and pull me back to an upright position. As I look back through the haze of time, I recall that I was giggling hysterically each time Kathy pulled me back upright. She finally left her side of the table opposite me and came on my side to sit on my right.

  Most of the time I slid to my left, but several times I fell to my right, where her lap was invitingly awaiting me. It felt comfortable down there. Most of the times I slumped down there, Kathy was in no rush to raise me. In fact, she must have been wearing perfume down there because she smelled oddly sweet. Come to think of it, it might have been Jungle Gardenia—a popular fragrance of the times.

  I can remember her massaging my curly hair, tugging at it gently and affectionately. She’d scratch my scalp with the long fingernails that tipped her lengthy fingers. Her tenderness actually reminded me of my maternal grandmother and her loving nature. Only God and Kathy knew how many times I fell asleep in Kathy’s lap that night. I was not thinking negatively that Kathy wasn’t a babe and I was not having fun being with her. I was having a blast, albeit a rum-enhanced blast. It was a blast nonetheless, and it seemed to go on that way for hours.

  The last part of t
he evening was a relative blur, except that I remember that I walked Kathy back to the dorm long after our dinner was over. It had been six hours since I had begun the night by drinking twelve ounces of rum with Robert Workman. Even the frigid Evanston winter night’s air didn’t thrust me back to normalcy. In fact, I was more dependent on Kathy than ever for support. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees since we had entered the restaurant, so not only was I holding on to Kathy for support, but we were snuggling for warmth.

  To any passersby observing us as we hiked the six icy blocks back to her dorm, Kathy and I would have appeared to be another of thousands of Northwestern and Kendall couples. The fact that we weren’t didn’t matter or bother me at all.

  I insisted on walking her back to the dorm. I have no recollection of how long I might have stayed in the lobby with Kathy getting warm, talking, flirting with other coeds or whatever else I might have done. I do recall Kathy asking me about 1:30 a.m.—a half hour before her weekend curfew—if I thought I could make it home okay. I self-assuredly said yes and left a few minutes later. I do not remember kissing her good night.

  It was cold outside again, like a hard slap in the face. Instead of helping to sober me, to wake me, it exacerbated my drunkenness. I was seven and a half hours out from my drinking with Bob, and I was still shit-faced. I wobbled and weaved along the sidewalk laughing at my own lack of equilibrium. I longed to get back to my cozy dorm room and fall into the sack.

  Instead, I slipped on some ice and fell into the snow. It was ice, but I had a huge coat on, so that part of my body didn’t feel too badly. I wanted to get up immediately, especially when my hands slumped onto the snow. I looked into the skies to the spinning stars and a blurred moon and all my incentive to navigate away from my predicament dissipated. I was more dizzy and tired than cold. I fell asleep almost immediately.

  Through my sleeping stupor, I heard her gentle voice and felt her poking my shoulder.