The Two-Knock Ghost Read online

  “Are you all right?”

  I roused enough to see an angelic young woman’s face, which was illuminated by the not-as-blurry moon behind her left ear.

  “Can you stand up?”

  “I think I can.”

  And as I tried, I could feel the cold worse than I ever had in my life.

  I couldn’t do it. I was still woozy, unable to stand, weak, and nearly frozen.

  “I think I might need some help,” I said through chattering lips.

  Two tiny hands reached out to mine. The angel planted her feet as best she could and tugged with all her might. I rose slowly and completely. At fully standing, I was looking down at the tiniest of angels. She was five feet two inches tall with long, straight blond hair and the kindest and prettiest eyes a human being could possess.

  I liked her immediately.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the dorm.”

  “I’ll drive you there,” she said. “You’re in no shape to walk.”

  I told her thank you as I held her right hand with my right hand and held my left arm across her back, with my left hand squeezing her left shoulder tightly. For some reason, maybe because my body was sore from its earlier fall to the snow, I was afraid of falling. I also didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of this beautiful young woman more than I had already.

  My unknown benefactor led me to the passenger side of a yellow Volkswagen. I plopped my butt onto the seat with my feet still in the snow outside. The lovely woman pushed my feet into the car, closed the door, and headed for Northwestern.

  “What dorm are you going to?”

  I said, “Kendall College men’s dorm.”

  “Kendall? So you’re not Northwestern?”

  “No,” I said then corrected myself and said, “Yes, I’m not a Northwestern guy.”

  She chuckled and turned the bug around on the silent street.

  I don’t remember what we talked about those fleeting three blocks to the dorm. I mainly remember that looking at how cute she was was the one thing that was keeping me awake. But that part of my brain won out over the other part of my brain that yearned for sleep. She was adorable and now that I was awake, I felt a powerful attraction to her. Her features singed their way into my mind. No amount of alcohol could stop that. I also realized that she was not an angel, but a genuinely strong, caring young woman, who was in the process of doing me the biggest favor anyone had done for me in my lifetime.

  Altogether too quickly we arrived at Kendall. Again she was at my door in a flash to help me out of the bug. I held her hand and shoulder the exact way I had a few minutes earlier, and we walked to the front door of the dorm.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “They call me Turf,” I said.

  We knocked on the front door and the nighttime security guard went back behind the front desk while keeping a watchful eye that little coed didn’t go upstairs with me.

  I said, “Thank you, ma’am, for helping me.”

  She said, “You’re welcome, Turf.”

  I bent down and hugged her gently, still having enough sense not to kiss her.

  Then she turned and walked out the door.

  Little could I have known in that instant that on the night of my first drunk, I had met the love of my life—Christine.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE NEXT DAY I woke at noon with a banging hangover. It was my first and I didn’t like it. I shaved and showered and headed downstairs, hoping to avoid Robert Workman and both having to explain to him what happened last night and try to say no if he offered me another drink of rum and Coke. After all, I had, in fact, enjoyed the taste of the blend of liquor and soda. Thankfully, he wasn’t there, so I headed out of the dorm once again into the frigid Evanston air on my way to see Kathy Blazer. We had made another friendship date a week ago for 1:00 p.m.

  When Kathy came downstairs she had on a red-and-white short summer skirt. It was totally inappropriate for this time of year. On a pretty girl with a good figure, seeing that outfit would have turned me on. But on Kathy, it looked rather odd. But no matter how the dress looked being worn by her it was still a thing of absolute beauty. Kathy strode proudly through the door from the stairway to the lobby doing the best she could to wear that dress well. I had never seen her like this before. She had a smile on her face the size of Texas and her eyes were literally sparkling. Something wonderful that she was feeling on the inside was manifesting itself significantly on the outside. As she approached me, I saw that she was wearing the reddest shade of lipstick I had ever seen. And she wasn’t walking toward me, she was bounding. She was obviously ecstatic about something. Kathy Blazer almost looked pretty. “Hi, Turf,” she said as she continued making a beeline straight into my personal space. She grabbed me confidently about the shoulders and kissed me with an odd blend of passion and affection right smack on the lips. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. And it had tasted good.

  “Why are you so happy today, Kathy?”

  Immediately the look of happiness and joy on Kathy’s face evaporated.

  “You don’t remember?” she said.

  Suddenly I felt a pit in my stomach.

  “Remember what, Kathy?” Looking back, I might have seemed insensitive to her feelings in that instant, but I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.

  “You asked me to marry you last night and I said yes.”

  Instantly, I was both saddened and terrified. I was saddened because I had hurt her feelings and terrified that maybe she would figure out some way of forcing me to go through with a marriage.

  “Oh my god!” I said. “I sincerely have no recollection of having asked you that.”

  “We were in the restaurant. It was about eleven o’clock.”

  What had I done? All I could remember about last night was acting goofy, being loud, eating an occasional bite of pizza, and falling over repeatedly into Kathy’s sweet-smelling lap. I also remember her fingers tugging at and playing with my hair and gently massaging my scalp. Had the memory numbing effects of the alcohol been so strong that it had blotted out events that apparently had ranked among the most important of a young woman’s life?

  “Turf, don’t you remember that we kissed over a hundred times and you were rubbing my calves and thighs when you were lying in my lap?”

  I could have been cruel and said, “But, Kathy, surely you realized I was blitzed out of my mind.” But I didn’t. I only apologized repeatedly and profusely. I didn’t want to hurt her any further.

  Not only had damage been done to her, but it seemed to be increasing as she lobbied for validity to whatever happened last night with snippets of heart-wrenching explanations.

  “Do you remember you said you loved my lips?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t, Kathy.”

  “Do you remember saying you loved the feel of my legs?”

  This she asked a little too loudly, and before I knew what I had done, I looked away from her to see if anyone was in earshot. Kathy’s eyes became sad before I could answer yet again, “No, Kathy, I’m sorry but I can’t.”

  She looked at me deeply in that intense instant; I peered into her not pretty eyes and saw how I had caused harm to a good human being.

  I honestly had no recollection of anything I had said or done that evening except what I have already acknowledged. Still, that did not assuage the guilt I felt at having hurt her. She was my friend and a friend of my family. I hadn’t planned to hurt her.

  Damned alcohol.

  A few more snippets emerged from her lips as well as more apologies from mine. Suddenly, she got up slowly from the couch. Her cheeks were now a two-lane highway of tears. She was sobbing.

  “I’m sorry, Turf. I’ve got to go back upstairs. I don’t think we should see each other again.”

  What had I
done to have possibly hurt Kathy this much? I analyzed the questions as quickly as possible. What I concluded was that she had been a damaged human being before last night. Somehow, I had lifted her up and, within fourteen hours, dashed her further down than she had ever been before.

  Again I told her that I was sorry—meaning it with every fiber of my being, hoping she would forgive me, shrug it off, and smile again.

  But she didn’t. There was no reasoning with her.

  Kathy Blazer turned away from me and headed to the door at the end of the dorm’s lobby, wearing the saddest face that I had ever caused to that point in my life.

  I sat there stunned, speechless, embarrassed, lonely. Somehow, I had hurt a friend. And I felt like crap.

  Then she opened the door and disappeared behind it.

  I never saw Kathy Blazer again.

  At that moment, I didn’t know what to do with myself. For several minutes I sat there almost crying, desperately trying to visualize any of the actions Kathy told me that I had done. I couldn’t remember a single kiss or rubbing her legs and thighs. I could imagine it. And I could imagine how that pronounced attention could have affected her. But I simply couldn’t visualize any of it, except falling repeatedly into her lap.

  Was that what a blackout was? It certainly seemed like one. I had never had anything like that happen to me before. I was going on logic. In fact, I concluded that that is exactly what had happened. In the middle of my first drunk, I had blacked out for hours and had wound up hurting a friend of mine terribly. And she had not forgiven me when I asked for her forgiveness. That was another of life’s lessons I learned that day—that people don’t always forgive you, even when you ask for it sincerely from the deepest part of your heart.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  AFTER SITTING IN the lobby near the old Steinway Grand Piano for several minutes and pondering what had just happened, I decided to pour my heart out by playing a few songs. I had never had a lesson on the piano, but beginning at the age of sixteen, I began fiddling around with a piano in a small dark piano practice room at Glenbrook North High School that was barely large enough for the piano and the bench. I had been upset about a beautiful tiny girl named Jane Rosene and initially wanted to find a quiet dark place to cry my sorrows away. But while I was asleep with my head in my arms on the piano, I had a dream. It was simple—that I could write a song that would express my feelings for Jane. When I awoke, I started tapping keys, listening to whether when I tapped them they made me feel happy or sad. That part of it was easy, and I realized early on that those notes that I played would always be happy or sad notes.

  The hard part was creating a melody or, as I was thinking at the time, a musical story of how I was feeling. I knew what a melody was. I liked music. Instinctively, I knew how a song was structured and balanced. I believed I could write music by osmosis. Even without formal training, I believed I could create a tone poem of what was occurring deep in my soul.

  The next hard part was putting chords to the little sequences of melodies I was writing. It was terribly difficult at first. But it came. I forced it to come. There was a logic to it. If I wrote something that didn’t sound right, I eradicated it. But if I put something together that I liked, it sounded as if those notes had existed there for all time just to be put into the exact sequence that I had placed them.

  It took me four months to write my first song. When I finished it, it was lovely, powerful, frisky, classical sounding. I named it “For Jane.” I couldn’t wait to play it for her. I was pretty sure the song wouldn’t make her love me; she was already enamored with a handsome young stud who was a national skateboard champion. But I wanted to impress her. I wanted to give her something she had never had. A song of her own, written for her from deep within the heart of somebody who loved her.

  We were friends already and I told her one lovely May day that I had written a song for her and I wanted to play it for her. I asked her if I could play it for her in that same piano practice room in which I had written the whole thing in almost absolute darkness. Don’t ask me why I did that. It is probably just something that started that first day and I merely kept it going from a wintry January day to a near end of the school year day in May.

  But Jane said no to the dark, tight practice room. “I have a grand piano in my living room at home. Why don’t you come and play it for me there?”

  Now, the pressure was really on. Here I was still a pimply faced, relatively awkward kid and Jane Rosene wanted me to come to her home and play for her on a grand piano. I had never played a grand piano. The mere thought of it intimidated me. And what if her mom was around and wanted to hear the song too? And what if her dad was there? Or she had brothers or sisters? Or what if she had friends over and they wanted to listen to the song. And God forbid she asked her boyfriend to come over and listen too. Suddenly, an intimate moment I had wanted to share with Jane in a darkened room had turned into a concert with a possible audience of several people. My God, this was the first song I had ever written. I had wanted it to be for her, not for her whole family and their friends.

  For once in my life, fate smiled upon me.

  “We could do it tomorrow after school about four o’clock. My mom and dad will still be at work. They don’t get home until 5:30. That will give us plenty of time.”

  I was still nervous about brothers and sisters. I asked, “Will anyone else be there? A brother or sister maybe?”

  “No, Turf. I’m an only child and we don’t even have a maid so it will just be you and me.”

  My confidence came surging back. It was a beautiful song. I wanted to play it only for her. It was a sacred event. My wish, with some key variations, was coming true.

  Tomorrow came altogether too quickly. The school day dragged while the nervous pit in my stomach grew. At 3:15, the school bell rang and I was out of the building in a flash. I had to catch a different school bus that day, Jane Rosene’s bus. She lived five miles away from me in a different direction. I hadn’t even anticipated how I would get home from Jane’s. I simply wanted to play my song for her. I would gladly walk the five miles home, practically fly it home if she liked it.

  When we got onto the bus, Jane said, “You sit with me today.”

  Oh my god, was this really happening? Of course there were numerous curious onlookers wondering first of all what I was doing on that bus, and secondly what I was doing sitting next to the most stunning girl at Glenbrook North, all of Northbrook for that matter. (Although, my mother and my sister ran a close second and third to Jane.)

  So Jane decides to stop them all in their tracks with a single sentence said loudly enough that everyone could hear. “We’re going over to my house where Turf’s going to play a song he wrote for me on the piano.”

  Here we went again. All anonymity was now gone. The pit in my stomach grew into a canyon of nerves. Now everyone on the bus knew what was going on. In minutes, when kids started arriving home, phone calls would be made and within hours all the cool kids including Dick Whatever-the-heck his name was would know my once hoped for very personal business with Jane.

  The Rosene residence was the sixth stop of the route. We got off the bus to a few lighthearted giggles and even a touch of applause. It actually made Jane and me laugh.

  In a moment we were inside her enormous home after she first pulled out a large stack of letters from the mailbox. We headed straight for the living room past numerous pieces of lovely art, statues, and a blend of antique and modern furniture, all remarkably compatible.

  And there it was—the Steinway Ebony Grand Piano. The centerpiece of the room. The only item on it was a Liberace style sterling silver candelabra adorned with eight unlit pure white candles. This was to be my instrument in a matter of moments.

  “Who in your family plays?” I asked her.

  “All of us,” she answered. “My mom’s the best. My dad’s r
eal good, too. I’m the least accomplished. I’ve really slacked off the last couple of years because of school and cheerleading. Would you like something to drink?”

  “Do you have cream soda?”

  “I do,” she said, and she headed for the kitchen. While she was gone, I went to the piano bench and sat. The piano was huge—twice as big as the console upon which I had written her song. I played a few simple chords and played parts of a couple of scales with my right hand. My left hand was dead to scales, just there to provide simple chording. The keys were firm and springy, nothing like the old slow keys of my dark room piano.

  Jane returned with my cream soda and a coaster. I took a much needed sip then placed the coaster and the drink on the piano.

  As she moved to sit on the couch she asked me, “Are you ready?” The house was quiet. The living room was almost like a sanctuary with the piano being the altar. I said, “Yes I am,” and then I said, “Here I am, Lord,” and immediately offered a quick prayer to God to help me make it through this.

  I began … the first notes. No mistakes. The passion was immediately there as was the beauty and the depth of boyhood love that I had for this young girl.

  From the corner of my sight line I saw her lean forward and rest her head in her hands that were supported by her elbows on her knees. A smile came to her face as the notes became playful and suddenly it almost seemed as though she might cry when the notes became pensive and evocative. She was with me and the song, every inch of the way, feeling what it was saying to her with each of its phrases. I had purposely put a multitude of segments into it to illustrate all the elements of love that I felt for her as well as characteristics that she had.

  The song began to end, phrases of powerful notes that could be likened to the end of a love story film of great magnitude in which the lovers had conquered a multitude of challenges. It was a progression of dynamic musical elements. I’ll never know how I wrote it except that wild wonderful things were flowing inside me for this girl and somehow they made their way through my system out the tips of my fingers then almost magically into the logic of the song. And then, it was over.