Walking Through Walls (14 page)

My parents were overwhelmed by their circumstances—one lost in thought, the other lost in space—and at times their mutual disinterest in each other could make me invisible. As a result, I had an unusual amount of independence. At any time of day or night I would jump on my bike and explore hidden areas of Miami, including vacant lots filled with poisonous plants, coral rock mansions, and abandoned shacks. Sometimes I would collect fallen mangoes and avocados that served as my lunch. If it was getting dark and approaching dinnertime, I would ride through the poorer neighborhoods and collect discarded soda bottles for the two-cent deposit. Eventually I filled my basket with enough bottles to buy a small box of Quickin' Chicken for dinner. During these long, thoughtful rides I always hoped that by the time I returned home, my parents would have finally sorted it all out.

One morning, to my great surprise, my father offered to drive me to school. I hadn't seen much of him for weeks because of his new schedule of working and running off to séances, yoga classes, and metaphysical lectures. For most of the trip, we rode in silence. Neither of us had really spoken to the other in a while, and we barely knew what to say. Finally I said, “You and Mom have to get a divorce. I can't take it anymore.” He nodded his head. The following day he moved into the guesthouse next door, and my mother filed papers. Determined to make a clean start, she turned everything over to my father: the house, her jewelry, her car, her money. Everything except me.

At the time, divorce was really not that common. There was still the stigma of a “broken home” that hovered over my few friends at school whose parents had divorced. I thought it was cool and modern to have divorced parents and wore it like a badge of honor. However, society, along with banks and other financial institutions, did not look kindly on a forty-four-year-old woman with no income, no savings, no job—no nothing except a child to support. This was a time when banks did not issue credit cards to women directly in their name but rather as “Mrs. Robert S. Montgomery” or “Mrs. Lew Smith.” Single women simply did not have credit cards.

Unfortunately, Mom had not really thought this thing through. The vivacious spontaneity that once made her the life of the party had backfired and resulted in disastrous decision making. Her great strength of uncompromising character now made her life difficult. Suddenly we had no money. There was no child support and no alimony. I don't know how my father imagined we were supposed to eat, but he rarely focused on such matters even during good times. Mom quickly found a job as a bookkeeper at the Bahama Steak House, where drugstore blondes sat at the bar on the off chance that they might be saved, at least for the evening, by some desperate stranger. Along with her miserly paycheck, Mom brought home the low-class perfume of cheap meat, overused cooking oil, and stale liquor on her clothes. Even the powerful aroma of night-blooming jasmine could not erase the bad smell of the Bahama Steak House.

My rare attempts at helpful advice were insensitive and painful. One night during dinner, I told my mother that she should go out and meet somebody. She dropped her head and cried silently. I don't know if the tears were for the lost love of my father or the difficult reality of her situation. I wish I could have understood better what she was going through. My mother did everything she could to hold herself and our house together. It was a tremendous burden, and I was not of much help. She had given everything to a marriage that left her with nothing.

In a futile effort to create the illusion of stability, I would occasionally cook a surprise meal. As the young chef of the house, I whipped up a brilliant medley of canned Green Giant vegetables mixed with freshly cooked soybeans, soy sauce, and seaweed. It was nothing short of depressing. Mom was stunned and paralyzed by her state of penniless freedom and suffered quietly. Meanwhile, Pop continued to live next door, bringing home new girlfriends and cohorts for a little late-night chanting.

I would commute between the two houses, pretending that my parents were still one unit just separated by a few yards of grass. After school or after dinner, I would usually walk next door to visit with my father. For some reason, I volunteered to do his laundry and would sneak pillowcases stuffed with his dirty clothes around the back of the house and into the laundry room. If my mother had ever found out, I would have been labeled a traitor and sent to the isolation ward.

Trained by my father that the spirits were always watching and ready to help, I waited for the smiling Hindu deity to magically appear and transport us on a magic carpet ride away from all of this sadness. With the wave of a wand, presto change-o, we would all be one happy family again. All the pain and grief would suddenly vanish. But no spaceship landed to take us to a distant planet where money grew on trees and all the little children skipped with happiness, surrounded by rainbows of divine light.

I had no idea whose car I was in. Someone was driving me home from a party that had occurred two or three days earlier in the Grove. I wasn't sure why I didn't have my car or how I had gotten to the party or how I had ended up in this guy's apartment or what happened over the past few days. As he drove, he kept calling me Michael. I didn't bother to correct him. He was rattling on about the police and how his ex-girlfriend became a stripper so that she could earn some money to go to Jamaica and then she married a guy she met at the gas station and moved to Arizona but that didn't work out so he thought maybe they should get together again but he thinks she had a baby with the other guy but wasn't sure so he tried to call her but someone else answered and hung up on him so now he's thinking of driving out to Arizona but wasn't sure of her address or if he could find her so maybe he would drive to L.A. and try to get a job but before he goes he would have to sell his furniture but that would take too much time and maybe he should just leave it but then he thought that maybe his current girlfriend would rent the apartment from him but if he left to go to Arizona maybe she would meet someone else and besides he met this guy that he really likes and now they're into free love but he really digs this girl but this guy is like someone different and it's different with a guy but when his girlfriend lost her dog then he—

“Make a left here and then go straight up Miller Road.” The guy didn't notice when I interrupted him to give him directions to my house. “Okay, now make a right here, then to the end of the road, follow the curve, and it's that house on the right.”

“Hey, I think I've been here before. I remember this place, although it looked different at night.”

“No, um, I don't think so.”

“Oh, yeah, this cool cat lives here, or maybe the next house up, I can't really remember. Older guy; I think his name is Lew. I was having bad flashbacks from acid, and it was weird, he kinda put me in a sorta trance and waved his hands over me. I mean, it was like really weird. I can't tell you what I felt, but I never felt that way before. Like this crazy electricity in my cells. This guy has powers. I mean, look at me; I'm totally back to normal.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the ride.”

“Hey, man, do you live here?”

“No, I'm just visiting.”

It was getting to the point that my father was always around. I couldn't escape him. Either someone knew him, or through his psychic powers he knew where I was and what I was doing. It didn't matter if I was asleep, in the shower, or passed out at some party, he knew it.

Recently Pop had exponentially expanded his psychic capabilities with the discovery of a new tool called the pendulum, which was the magic key that opened a world of unlimited knowledge for him—past, present, and future. The pendulum, a small opalescent glass ball about the size of a pea attached to a short length of chain, allowed my father access to any type of information he required. Mainly he used the pendulum for medical diagnosis, but he could also determine for the police where the murder weapon was, which insurance agent he should use, if he should move to Kissimmee, what the distance between Luxembourg and Luxor is, the temperature on Mars, where his glasses were, where the missing person was, all in a matter of minutes. He put the FBI, CIA, and KGB to shame with his ability to almost instantly gather hidden data about anyone or anything in the world.

My father liked to say that he had a complete hospital in the pendulum. With the pendulum, he didn't need a stethoscope, a pathology lab, or an X-ray machine; he could diagnose quicker and more accurately than all the MDs and their fancy machines combined. He would astonish patients and doctors by describing to them in accurate detail the exact nature of their illness. Certain doctors who were open to my father's methodologies would often call him in secret and ask him to help them diagnose a problematic case that they could not solve. Their patient might be ill, but all their tests were coming up normal. My father could usually find the source of and the solution to their disease. Now, with the use of the pendulum, he was able to take a much more empirical approach to his healing work by diagnosing exactly the problem and directing his healing with pinpoint accuracy.

Up until this point, Pop would just open his hands and let the energy pour out without any control. He didn't have to diagnose, he just had to show up. While he was achieving remarkable results, this wasn't enough for him. He was after empirical results. He wanted to deliver healing energy in exact doses rather than just blasting a patient with cosmic rays.

The art of the pendulum is based on the arcane science of radiesthesia, which posits that everything in our material world is a collection of atoms vibrating at specific rates. Just like in physics, flowers vibrate at a different rate than rocks, plastic spoons, or lungs. According to the laws of radiesthesia, each of these vibrations can be measured—and in the case of an ailing body, manipulated and returned to optimal functioning.

Radiesthesia was reportedly known and used by the high priests and magicians of ancient Egypt. The modern father of radiesthesia was Abbé Mermet, a Swiss priest who in the 1920s began to use it for the purposes of medical diagnosis. Radiesthesia is a close relation to the art of dowsing—using forked tree branches to pick up the magnetic pull of an underground body of water. However, instead of tree branches, radiesthetists use pendulums—flexible metal wands made from wire, or even their fingers—to read the vibrations emanating from any object, person, or natural body.

Through radiesthesia my father was able to measure a physical malfunction both before and after a healing. In this way he could document the change that occurred from his healing. Using the pendulum, he could look into the body without an X-ray machine or into stellar space without a telescope. I never asked him if he could have picked stocks or horses and made a bundle. Most likely his answer would have been no, this was a God-given power to be used only for the highest good.

In an attempt to make his healing more scientific, Pop created a detailed chart that would allow him to diagnose every facet of his patients, from their psychological profile to the mineral content of their body, or if they had shingles or worms. In a matter of minutes, he could do a complete workup on a person whether they were sitting next to him, having dinner in Paris, or sleeping in Buenos Aires. This enabled Pop to document his diagnoses and healings in a way that would give him credibility and acceptance. His hope was that he would not be dismissed as a nut and as a result could work with doctors to teach them new methods of healing the body. He was tired of being harassed by the authorities and constantly having to prove himself over and over again. All he wanted was to be able to share his gift and alleviate people's suffering.

The pendulum functioned in a binary fashion similar to a computer's method of thinking—it could provide only a yes or no answer to a question. For example, you could not ask the pendulum, “What color shirt is Mark wearing today?” The pendulum would not respond. You needed to phrase the question as, “Is Mark wearing a red shirt today?” If the answer was no, the pendulum would swing in a counterclockwise circle. Next you would ask, “Is Mark wearing a blue shirt today?” If the answer was yes, the pendulum would then swing in a clockwise circle. My father developed a kind of shortcut in using the pendulum. If he received a negative answer, he would then mentally list all the colors he could think of, such as pink, gray, black, yellow, green, white, and so on, and wait until the pendulum began to spin in a positive clockwise direction.

A similar line of questioning could be used to diagnose any illness in the body, including hidden tumors that a doctor had failed to detect. A typical diagnostic session to locate a tumor in the body would go something like this:

“Is there a tumor in the body that the doctor did not diagnose?”

Yes.

“Is the tumor on the kidney?”

No.

“Is the tumor on the lung?”

Yes.

“Is it on the right lung?”

No.

“Is the tumor on the upper part of the left lung?”

No.

“Is the tumor on the inside of the left lung?”

Yes.

“Is the tumor on the upper right-hand section of the left lung?” No. “Is the tumor one centimeter in size?”

No.

“Is the tumor two centimeters in size?”

No.

“Is the tumor five centimeters in size?”

Yes.

“Will a psychic healing dissolve the tumor?”

Yes.

“Is the patient receptive to a psychic healing?”

No.

“Because the patient is not receptive, will the tumor return after a successful psychic healing?”

Yes.

“Can I alter the person's receptivity before the healing?”

Yes.

“If I alter the person's receptivity, will the healing be successful?”

Yes.

“Does the patient need additional medical intervention?”

No.

All these questions would be asked while holding the pendulum and watching it respond either yes or no. This procedure could be applied to diagnose all aspects of a person's health. Even the best doctor would have required hours, if not days, to hopefully deliver the same diagnosis after using blood tests, X-rays, scans, and even exploratory surgery.

In the way that we now use calculators, the Internet, and cell phones, Pop used the pendulum to verify anything and everything. There was no limit to the type or amount of information that was now available to him. Suddenly there was no guesswork left to his healing or his personal life. The pendulum made every decision for him with precision.

My father also used the pendulum for such practical tasks as grocery shopping, or to determine the nutritional content of a tomato or which apple had the least amount of pesticide residue. His shopping via radiesthesia was truly where the supernatural met suburbia in broad daylight.

Pop refused to put anything—and I mean anything—into his shopping cart without first checking it out with the pendulum. Whenever he asked me to go shopping with him, I tried to fabricate an excuse not to join him, as the outing always turned into a spectacle. I couldn't bear the openmouthed stares of the Cuban stock boys or the housewives as he whipped out his pendulum and held it over every purchase, waiting for the pendulum to indicate whether or not it was a buy. This habit of his had come from a message from Arthur Ford, who expressed his concern that my father was not vigilant about maintaining his vibrations at a high enough level. In the message, Arthur said, “You must check out each food you eat. Nothing should go into the body that is not of a certain vibration. Remember, my friend, you must keep your thoughts, actions, and body as pure as you can so you can be ‘on call' at all times.”

My worst nightmare was the produce department. Whenever possible, I tried to slip away as soon as we headed toward the fruits and vegetables. “Uh, Pop, I think we're running low on detergent. I'll get some and meet you by the checkout.” As I scurried away, he would call out for me to wait for him so that he could run the pendulum over the bottles, as he didn't want to buy a detergent that might have too many phosphates, pollutants, or allergens. When I asked him why he would always use the pendulum to check the same brand of detergent he had bought last time, he told me that you never knew when they changed the formulation.

Acting as if he were completely alone in the store, Pop would hold the pendulum over a pile of cantaloupes and ask out loud, “Is this melon perfectly ripe, and will it provide optimum nutrition for my body?” He would then slowly scan the pendulum over the pile of melons, waiting for the pendulum to begin turning in a clockwise direction, indicating the perfect melon. Or he might ask, “Does this melon have the least amount of pesticides?” He would then wait until the pendulum gave him a positive response and nonchalantly place that melon in his basket. Sometimes I had to move twenty or thirty pieces of fruit until he found one that received a positive response from the pendulum.

Inevitably some widow would push her cart right in front of my father in an attempt to meet the man of her dreams. These ladies always assumed that he was really rich. After all, would a poor person have the nerve to hold a little crystal bead attached to a chain over a pile of fruit and ask out loud (too loud for me), “Does this bag of oranges contain the highest percentage of vitamin C?” They were always charmed by his eccentricity, and he immediately had another acolyte in the making. Pop had let his mustache grow into a professorial-looking goatee, which for some reason led perfect strangers to call him “doctor.” Widows and divorcees really went for this look.

My father would nonchalantly tuck the small end of the pendulum through one of the buttonholes in his shirt so that it was always available. The pendulum was not exactly the French Legion of Honor, that small red thread that gentlemen of a certain status discreetly tucked into the buttonhole of their bespoke suit, but it gave my father that je ne sais quoi of extreme eccentricity.

As we walked down the aisles, testing everything from Saran Wrap to yogurt for toxicity and protein content, I could hear the curious whispers behind us. Occasionally I winced at the metallic crash of shopping carts as two disbelieving housewives collided with each other while watching my father dowse the zucchini. Before we reached the checkout counter, he would guess the total cost of the items in the basket and ask the pendulum to confirm. If it indicated a no, he would throw out another sum or two until he got a positive response. When we checked out, if the total differed from his number, he would tell the cashier that she had made a mistake. She would give him a nasty look, then cancel the order, check him out again, and inevitably find that his number was the correct amount.