Walking Through Walls (15 page)

In addition to food shopping, Pop rapidly found other applications, which included spying on me.

Adolescence requires a certain amount of rebellion, secrecy, and privacy. My father's psychic abilities preempted any of this. If I was trying to masturbate in the shower or sneak a cigarette, he knew. Since I wasn't supposed to be smoking, I went through an elaborate ritual before I would light the cigarette. First I would try to scramble and block my thoughts about smoking from being scanned by my father or his spirit friends by running algebraic equations or a list of phone numbers through my mind. I figured that would throw them off my mental trail. Only after I had cleansed my mind of the thought of smoking did I then look around to see if anybody was watching before I lit up. Even though I couldn't see anybody watching me, I always ended up getting caught. As soon as I walked back into the house, I was met with “Philip, you were smoking again, weren't you?”

I averted my eyes and responded calmly, “No. No, I wasn't.” But there was no point in lying; it never worked and only made things worse.

“Philip, you are destroying your body. Your body is your temple. You don't own your body; it is a gift from God. Remember that the body never forgets an insult. You will pay the price for this later on. I don't want you smoking. You're killing yourself.”

“But Mom smokes.” I knew this was the wrong answer.

“Yes, and she's killing herself.”

“No she's not. She's still alive.” Being a smart aleck was not going to get him off my back.

“You know that I know when you're doing drugs or smoking cigarettes, so why do you make me lecture you like this? It would be easier if you would just take care of yourself.”

“Yeah,” I thought, “easier for him, but not for me.”

Like most kids, I thought that smoking made me cool and adult. That's all I wanted, to be like the other kids and not the son of a psychic decorator who could read people's minds and cure cancer. What I really wanted was a father who mowed the lawn, drank beer, and fell asleep in front of the TV. But that's not the father I had. Instead I had Clark Kent, who at a moment's notice turned into Superman.

As my father became more proficient with the pendulum, he used it to check out my health, activities, and whereabouts at all times. No matter what I did, I was under surveillance twenty-four hours a day. There was no privacy. It didn't matter whether I was asleep, in class, or kissing my girlfriend—my father could, through the use of the pendulum, instantly flip the “on” switch to his private camera, tune in to me, and monitor my every move. At times I could feel it when he was mentally in the room with me. Sometimes it was like a breeze whooshing by me as he left the room. Other times when he was listening in, I could feel a little click in my brain, like when an operator checks the line or interrupts a call.

I remember one such incident that occurred around dusk as I was hiding some pharmaceuticals in a hole in the backyard for future use. They had not been directly prescribed for me. After carefully wrapping them in a plastic bag that I sealed with masking tape, I placed the bag into a plastic storage container that my mother used for leftovers. Behind a tree on the far side of the property, I dug a twelve-inch-deep hole and buried them. I placed a few heavy pieces of coral rock over the box so that I could find it easily when I dug it up. Artfully, I camouflaged the area with a natural-looking spread of leaves and twigs. While I was digging, I thought I kept seeing a gray shadowy figure moving around the periphery of my vision. I sensed it was watching me. But when I turned around, no one was there.

The next day I was in the mood for a few capsules and went over to my storage facility. I was pleased to see that none of the leaves or twigs had been disturbed by raccoons or other animals. The fresh dirt from the day before was easy to remove. After a few minutes of digging with my hands, I could feel the rocks at the bottom of the hole. I knew I was close. I cleaned out the remaining loose dirt, lifted out the rocks, and looked into the hole. There was no Tupperware filled with pharmaceuticals anywhere in sight. Even though the rocks were there, the plastic container was clearly missing. I started to dig down a bit deeper but couldn't go any farther because I had reached a bed of coral rock. Carefully, I sifted through the dirt to see if I had somehow missed the box. Nothing; no box, no pills. Finally I gave up and walked away. I didn't even bother to refill the hole.

That evening I went over to the guesthouse to visit with my father. We talked about my day at school and how he had just treated someone with schizophrenia. He then opened his desk drawer and pulled out my precious pills. He turned to me and said casually, “No medication is ever free of a side effect. Unfortunately, once you start with one pill, it sets up a reaction, and then you need another and another until you are taking so many pills, and all the chemicals are at war with your body, and you get sicker than you were at the beginning. I would prefer that you stay away from all prescription medication, especially if it wasn't prescribed to you.” For emphasis, he picked up his pendulum to indicate that I had been under psychic observation. I felt a small jolt of electricity pass through my body and suddenly had trouble breathing, as if someone had just punched me in the chest. I didn't say a word. There was a deep silence after he had spoken. I didn't know how to respond. He had made his point loud and clear. I changed the subject and began talking cheerily about what happened in Latin class that day. Like everything else associated with my father's growing powers, I got used to it, the way that someone who has a chronic disease gets used to it; you wish it would go away, but it never will. It's just there, a fact of life.

Even though the pendulum had now become an indispensable diagnostic tool for my father the way a doctor uses X-rays, he would occasionally still perform healings the old-fashioned way in an emergency. With his gift, Pop felt it was his responsibility to help anyone he could at any time, especially if there wasn't a doctor around.

One late night in mid-May, we were driving home from an afternoon of visiting friends, and traffic was at a near standstill. As we crept along, I could see the revolving lights of the police cars flashing up ahead. There must have been about six cops on the scene attending to a three-car pileup. Two of the cars were intertwined, and the third had flipped over. Several bodies were lying on the ground. They appeared unconscious and were covered with blood. The rest of the passengers were pinned inside the cars. The ambulances had yet to arrive. As we passed the accident, my father quickly pulled his car off onto the shoulder of the road.

“Where are you going?” I asked. He didn't answer as he got out of the car. The police were too busy directing traffic and working their walkie-talkies to notice my father heading toward the accident scene. I watched as he stood there, looking at the bodies for a minute or two. Just staring. He stepped over one of them to bend down and take a closer look at the other, a man dressed in a red T-shirt and shorts. With his eyes closed and arms outstretched, Pop started moving his palms in a circular motion over the person's head and then slowly up and down the length of his body. I noticed the person's left arm twitch like a fish that had just been caught. My father then placed his right hand about eight inches above the person's chest. While he did this, the person's head moved slightly from side to side.

I sat in the car thinking, “Great. We'll never get home now.” I was hungry and wanted to call my girlfriend. Out of the blue, two cops came over, grabbed my father from behind, and pulled him away from the body. One of them screamed,
“What the hell d'ya think you're doin'?! Cain't you see this here's an accident scene?!”
He shook my father and yelled,
“What are you, Dracula?”
Then he said to the other cop, “Get this guy out of here. Book him.” I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

“For what?” asked the other cop.

“I don't know. Interfering with a crime investigation, somethin' like that. I don't care, just get this jerk outta here.”

The arresting cop quickly pulled my father's hands behind his back and said, “What do you think you were doin' over there? Huh?
Huh?
”

I didn't know whether to get out of the car and try to help or just sit there and keep listening. As usual, my father decided to tell the truth. “This man is about to die. I can save his life. Please let me get back to him.”

At first the cop's eyes opened wide and nearly popped out of his head. Then a look of disbelief ran across his face before he broke out laughing. He called out to the first cop, “Hey, Sam, we got the Wizard of Oz over here! Claims he can save that dead guy over there.” He started singing the theme song from
The Twilight Zone
in my father's face: “Doo doo doo doooooo, doo doo doo doooooo. Sam, you know, I think jail's the wrong place for this guy. Let's send him over to Jackson Memorial and get him in a straitjacket.” They both laughed.

Overhearing this, I thought, “Uh-oh, now we're in for some serious humiliation from the cops. This time he's definitely playing with fire.” I decided to get out of the car to see if I could help my father. It was one thing when my father argued with a doctor—there were few consequences other than bad feelings. But to argue with the cops, especially redneck Miami cops, was not a good idea. I thought my presence might let the cops reconsider their prejudice against my father—although with my shoulder-length curly hair and bell-bottoms, these cops would probably want to make it a double and throw me in jail as well. I noticed that the guy my father had been waving his hands over was slowly opening and closing his mouth as if trying to say something. By the time I reached the cops, they had my father handcuffed and were writing up a report. I said to the officer, “Excuse me, this is my father. My mom is probably worried, and we need to get home for dinner. Can we go now?” The guy ignored me. My father gave me a look that said, “Don't say anything. I'll handle this.”

The cop walked a little closer to me, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at me hard before he said, “Let me tell you somethin', son. Your daddy here is in a whole lot of trouble. He was messin' where he shouldn't a-been messin'. This here is police business. Now, I don't know
exaaaactly
what he was doin' over there with those people who are badly hurt, probably dead, but it's just no business of his. And we're going to make sure this don't happen again.”

“But he was trying to help the guy. What are you going to do to him?”

“I didn't see your dad try to help nobody. Looked to me like he was trying to pick the guy's pocket or take his watch. We don't like that kind of stuff. I don't think no judge gonna like hearing what your daddy just did—foolin' with the dead folk. I don't think he's gonna like it one bit.”

“The guy wouldn't be dead if you let him finish what he was doing. Besides, he wasn't picking anybody's pocket. That's ridiculous. Didn't you see that guy start to move? He probably saved the guy's life and could have done more if you hadn't stopped him.”

This little speech made the cop angrier than he already was. Without looking up from the police report he was writing, he said, “Son, we didn't stop your dad from saving nobody's life. Is your dad a medical doctor?”

“No.”

“Then how can he be helpin' that guy?
Huh?
That's the doctor's job. We only let medical personnel on the scene of an accident. Like I said, your daddy's goin' to jail for what he just done. I mean, it's a damn shame that people like your dad ain't got no respect for the dead.”

“But the guy's alive! I saw him move. Why don't you go have a look? I know the guy's alive. My father helped him. You're making a mistake.”

The cop laughed. “Son, we don't make no mistakes. Your daddy's the one who made the mistake. And quite frankly, if you don't shut your mouth, you'll be makin' a pretty big mistake yourself. How'd you like to spend the night over at the Krome Juvenile Detention Center?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Huh? Didn't hear you, what'd you say?” The cop put his hand to his ear as if he were hard of hearing.

“Uh, no sir.”

“Yup, that's what I thought you might say. So I suggest you just go on home now and leave us to do what we got to do here. This here is a bad accident, and we need to get it cleaned up mighty fast. And this here little diversion ain't helpin' us none. Hear?”

The cop was typical of the police at the time, who often made their own laws. Miami was just pulling out of deep segregation, and the cops still ruled the town as they saw fit. I knew if I provoked him, my father could disappear for a very long time on some trumped-up charge. I didn't know what to do and clearly wasn't being very helpful.

Pop looked over at the guy he had been working on, let out a deep sigh, and said to me, “He's not going to make it now. I don't think there is anything you can do. Take the car and go home. I'll be fine.”

By the time I got home, it was already pretty late. I was tired and had no desire to even try to figure out what I was going to eat for dinner. My mother had the door closed and the lights turned off. I didn't want to wake her up to tell her that Pop had been taken away by the cops. I had no resources to help my father—no attorney, no money, no bondsman. At sixteen you feel powerless about most things, and this situation was just reinforcing those awful feelings. I figured I would deal with it by just going to bed and it would all be better in the morning.