On the morning of August 15, he was sitting on his front porch, enjoying a day off from work. Sara was at a meeting at Appalachian State, and he had the house to himself. Later that day, he planned to go see Donna as she prepared to leave for Chapel Hill. The temperature was in the mid-seventies, and the sky was a cloudless blue. Ken was rocking slowly and really not thinking about anything when a new, strange feeling came over him; it felt like it was enveloping him.
He became very aware of sounds and smells surrounding him. His vision became ultra-focused, and colors became extraordinarily intense. He sensed his breathing deepen and his heart rate slow dramatically. Yet he felt no stress or fear, only extreme relaxation and peace.
Very slowly, a small area in his visual field began to waver and change. To Ken, it resembled a small cloud in the sky, growing larger and taking shape. The shapes in this vision sharpened, and the colors brightened. Then Ken recognized the vision and distinguished its message at the same time he heard a single word: “Now!”
As suddenly as it had come on, the vision disappeared, and what could only be described as an epiphany was over. Ken felt rested and relaxed but with a renewed sense of purpose. He bounded inside and scribbled a note to his mother, telling her that he had gone into Boone with some friends but should be home by supper. He secured the note with a tack to the family corkboard, ran down his long driveway, and headed for US Highway 321, where he could thumb a ride into town.
Ken caught a ride quickly with a local trucker delivering specialty food to the Piggly Wiggly in Boone. He walked the short distance to the Federal Building downtown and accomplished the deed his epiphany had set him out to do. On the way back home, he stopped at Melvin’s Eastern North Carolina BBQ on US 321 and picked up supper, consisting of a pound of whole-hog barbecue, pit-cooked with a vinegar base and without that ketchup-based sauce ubiquitous with western North Carolina barbecue, along with a gallon of sweet tea, slaw, two dozen hush puppies, and two servings of Melvin’s famous banana pudding. He had a story for his mother, and she did not need to hear it on an empty stomach. One more quick hitchhike, and he was home before Sara, although several hush puppies went mysteriously missing on the way.
Sara got home a little after 5:00 p.m., and Ken greeted her at the door, announcing, “I brought home barbecue for supper!”
Sara hugged him and offered her thanks because she was really pooped from the all-day meeting. She paused for a moment and then remarked on how good Ken looked. “You look so happy and relaxed, like you were on vacation all week.”
Ken beamed even more brightly as he led his mother into the kitchen, stopping at the bar to pour her a Jack on the rocks and to grab himself a PBR. They both sat down at the kitchen table and raised a toast of “Cheers!” before drawing in that first sip.
“Seriously, son, you look positively radiant! What’s going on?” she inquired.
“Let’s eat first. I stopped at Melvin’s and picked up some whole hog, slaw, sweet tea, paper plates, and hush puppies. There may be a few hush puppies missing from the bag.”
Sara cocked one eyebrow upward, took another pull on the Jack, and said, “I’m surprised any of them made it home!”
Ken laughed and then reached across the kitchen table to hold his mother’s hands and say the blessing. With the “amen” pronounced, they attacked the barbecue and slaw. Sara got up to pour two tall glasses of sweet tea and remarked that Melvin’s always did such a good job on their barbecue.
Ken agreed as he opened the two containers of banana pudding. “I never get tired of this,” Ken remarked.
After supper and a quick cleanup, they decided to go to the front porch and relax in the rocking chairs for a while. “You want another drink, Mom?” Ken called after Sara as she stepped outside.
“Two fingers, three cubes!” Sara called back.
Ken made the whiskey for his mom and grabbed another PBR for himself and went out to the porch.
“It is so nice out this evening,” Sara exclaimed. “Now I asked you earlier what was going on. You bought supper, fixed me two drinks, and look like you just hit the Irish sweepstakes, so I ask again—what is going on?”
“Mom, I joined the navy.”
Sara heard the words, but they made no sense. He had been accepted at North Carolina State. He was to leave in less than a month. Surely, she was misunderstanding something. “You mean you signed up for Naval ROTC?” Sara asked, almost begging him to tell her that this was what he meant.
“No, Mom, I enlisted. I leave for Great Lakes Training Center after Labor Day.”
Sara was quickly losing her composure and took a long drink to steady her emotions. “Ken, did your dad communicate with you today and tell you to do this?”
“No, Mom, this decision came from within me! I don’t know how to describe it, but all of a sudden, I became more and more relaxed and at peace with my surroundings. I swear I could see squirrels in the ash tree at the end of our driveway, and that is over three hundred feet away! I could distinctly hear bees buzzing in the backyard flower bed. I felt my heart rate go way down and my breathing slow.”
The clinician in Sara swooped in and asked, “Did you have any visions, son?”
“That was the weirdest part, Mom. A small area in the center of my visual field wavered and swirled for just a second, then cleared into the most fantastic thing I have ever experienced. I saw my entire life spread out before me, and it was all good! I will become the youngest master chief petty officer in the history of the navy. I will be sent to top universities and attain my BS and PhD in engineering. I will become a world-recognized expert on naval weaponry. I will perform an awesome task in defense of my country, and the best part—I will set my father free.”
Sara shook slightly as she took all of this in. After a moment she asked, “Did anyone or anything speak to you?”
“Yes. I heard a voice in my head, and it said the word ‘now.’”
“Do you know who it was that spoke to you, son?” Sara asked softly.
“Yeah,” Ken said with a widening grin. “It was me!”
CHAPTER 16
“I want you to come with me to the clinic tomorrow morning,” Sara said matter-of-factly. “I want Dr. Benson to run some tests on you.”
Ken rolled his eyes and said, “But I’m not sick. I feel great! I have never felt better!”
Sara narrowed her gaze to look directly into her son’s eyes. “Come on, Ken! You communicate with the dead; you have unexplained seizures. You saved a man from death with a little-known technique that you can’t explain. Dr. Ninomya touches you, and he starts seeing ghosts. Then you have some sort of trance that maps out your entire life. Who does these things, son?”
Sara realized that her voice had grown loud. She also could see that Ken was shaken, and she lightened up immediately. “I’m sorry, Ken. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I was saving my best howl for you telling me you weren’t going to State and had enlisted!” A smile crept up on her lips.
Ken was still visibly shaken but asked his mother if she thought there was something wrong with him.
“No! I think you are incredibly gifted. You are a rarity!” Sara said soothingly.
“Then how about a freak?” Ken barked.
Sara was somewhat taken aback by Ken’s sharp response, but she recovered quickly. “Freak? Not a damn chance!” Her smile widened. “Do you remember from biology class how some insects and other creatures can see light in spectrums that are invisible to humans? Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there! You know that dogs can hear sounds with frequencies that are outside of the human auditory range? How about echo location and ranging employed by such diverse creatures as bats and whales? Does anyone regard these creatures as freaks? Ken, you are uniquely tuned in to your environment, and this gift allows you to see, hear, and feel things that most people can’t. Did you notice that I sa
id ‘most people’? There are reports from all over the world of humans with very unique powers of concentration allowing them to control autonomic systems in their body like blood pressure and heart rate. I have studied savants who can hardly converse yet can solve multiple complex mathematics problems faster than any machine.”
“Okay, so you think I am special,” Ken admitted. “So what are these tests for?”
“I want to see what is going on in your brain and in your body when you have one of your spells,” Sara explained.
Ken squirmed a bit and asked sheepishly, “Will it hurt?”
“Absolutely not,” Sara cooed. “Dr. Benson will hook you up to an EKG and EEG, and he’ll monitor your pulse, respirations, blood pressure, and oxygen concentration in your blood,” Sara explained. “And none of these tests hurt!”
“Okay, I’ll go and be your guinea pig,” Ken chuckled.
“We will need to be there early, so plan on leaving here tomorrow about 7:30 a.m.”
Ken started to object, but Sara interrupted. “I’ll call Patrick tonight and get you out of work for a doctor’s appointment. By the way, have you said anything to Donna about your change of plans?” Sara asked with just a hint of sarcasm.
“No, not yet. I wanted to tell you first and see if I survived. Then I would tell Donna, I figured,” Ken teased.
“Well, you need to tell her soon and definitely in person. And as far as your survival is concerned, the night is still young!” Sara turned and headed toward the phone, leaving Ken alone on the porch with a very warm PBR.
Ken listened as his mom talked with Patrick and then hung up the receiver. He walked over to the now available phone and dialed Donna’s number.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
Damn, he loved the sound of her voice.
“Hello!” she repeated, this time more insistent.
“Oh, hi, Donna. It’s me,” Ken blurted out.
“I waited all day and never heard a word from you. We were going to spend some time together before I left for Carolina,” she said with a touch of hurt and a modicum of anger in her voice.
“I’m sorry, but I really need to see you tomorrow,” Ken begged. “I’m going into the clinic at Appalachian with Mom tomorrow morning and …”
“The clinic?” Donna interjected. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. She wants to use me as her guinea pig in an experiment,” Ken said in his most convincing tone.
“You are not telling me something, aren’t you? Are you breaking up with me?” Donna asked with definite alarm in her voice.
Ken tried to laugh off her question and said, “We have a lot to talk about, and I don’t want to do it over the phone. You know how my mom rags on about me being on the phone all the time. I promise to be at your house right after lunch. Now I gotta go. She is already giving me that look! See you tomorrow?”
Donna acquiesced to talking tomorrow, and Ken rushed in a “Bye!” before hanging up.
Tomorrow will be interesting on several levels, Ken thought as he headed back to the porch with a fresh, cold PBR.
CHAPTER 17
Ken and Sara left for Appalachian at 7:30 a.m. By 7:45 a.m., they were walking up the cobblestone pathway to the psychology building and ultimately to Dr. Edward Benson’s laboratory. Dr. Benson greeted them both warmly, hugging Sara and presenting Ken with a lumberjack-style handshake.
“Ken, I haven’t seen you in years. You look so grown-up!” Benson exclaimed.
Ken shrugged and shuffled his feet in acknowledgment.
“I spoke on the phone with your mother last night, and I am so glad you agreed to come in today.”
Ken scanned the room and saw several instruments that looked like they belonged in a hospital ER. There were also desks, tables, and a sinister-looking glass-faced cabinet containing small bottles of chemicals. On the far side of the lab was a leather couch with a small table and large leather chair beside it.
Benson saw Ken eyeballing the couch and laughed. “Don’t you love my sofa? It looks just like a psychiatrist’s office on TV, doesn’t it?”
Ken had to snicker as he asked whether Dr. Benson was going to play “headshrinker” on him.
Benson laughed again. “Absolutely!” he replied.
Ken loosened up significantly, enjoying Dr. Benson’s lively humor. He also thought that Benson just did not fit the stereotypical image of a psychologist—older, bearded, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and smoking a pipe. He was built more like a defensive tackle, with hands the size of catcher’s mitts. Ken thought he resembled a wrestling coach more than an academic in a laboratory.
Benson broke Ken’s chain of thought by asking that they all come in. He ushered Sara and Ken into the lab and toward an oval table with four chairs. After all were seated, Benson began. “What we are going to do this morning, Ken, is get some physical and psychological measurements on you. All are straightforward and simple, yet telling in the information they provide. The first are pen-and-paper instruments that will give us an idea of your current and predicted intelligence. Another instrument will ascertain capacity to learn and process information. The last one will give us an idea of your aptitude in certain subject areas. Then we will move on to the head shrinking!” Benson beamed, causing Sara and Ken to chuckle.
“We will let you relax on my couch,” he continued, “and I will ask you a bunch of questions, interview-style. Last, we will try to recreate the circumstances within which you had the awakening as to your career choices.”
“How are you going to do that?” Ken queried.
“With your permission, I would like to hypnotize you,” Benson answered.
“I don’t know about that part,” Ken said warily. “I saw that done last year at the county fair, and the hypnotized guy was quacking like a duck and doing all kinds of stupid stuff!”
Dr. Benson smiled and reassured Ken that what he had seen were parlor tricks and not clinical hypnosis. In clinical hypnosis, he said, he would help Ken get to that ultra-relaxed state again to see if any other visions or precognition events would be revealed.
“Precognition events?” Ken asked.
“In your last event, you perceived elements of your future and in some very distinct detail. You may have other details revealed this time. And last, I want to see if I can help you develop a methodology to recreate this ultra-relaxed state anytime you want or need to.”
Ken looked over at his mother as if to ask approval but turned back quickly to Dr. Benson. “I would like to try it.”
“Excellent!” Benson exclaimed in a booming voice.
Benson turned to Sara and said that they would first work on the pen-and-paper instruments. He would administer the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler first, followed by several general aptitude inventories and then Miller’s analogies.
Ken said he wanted to do the test with the inkblots.
Benson replied, “Rorschach? … Voodoo!”
Ken grinned and said, “Papa Baldwin would have referred to it as a certain object that one steps in while walking in pastures!”
Sara feigned a frown and sent it in Ken’s direction.
“After all that is done, we will try to recreate the circumstances surrounding Ken’s epiphany,” Dr. Benson concluded. He told Sara that she could go if she needed to, but he would like her to be present when Ken was hypnotized. “Give us a couple of hours for the pen-and-pencil exercises,” Dr. Benson advised.
“Two hours?” Ken groaned.
Sara hugged her son, admonished him to cooperate, and left the clinic for her office on the third floor.
Dr. Benson ushered Ken to a desk with a timer, and Ken sat down, ready to do his best.
“Now, Ken, the results of these tests are yours. They go to no college or university and play no part in admissions to anywhere. Do your best, but do not str
ess because I will set the results on fire if you wish at the end of the trial. Depending on the results, I may ask to publish a paper for a journal but will fully redact anything that identifies you or your mom.”
Ken considered Dr. Benson’s words and said he was ready to begin.
The Stanford-Binet was first, followed by the Wechsler. Dr. Benson gave Ken a bathroom break, followed by a trip to the vending machines for a Cheerwine and a pack of Lance peanut butter crackers. Miller’s analogies followed, which Ken particularly liked.
Benson gathered all the test materials and placed them in a file folder labeled “Subject.” He motioned Ken toward the couch and asked him to take a seat and relax while he called Sara. Ken lay back on the cool leather, and the couch reached up to envelop his body. Damn, this thing is nice! Ken thought.
Dr. Benson came over and sat in the leather chair next to the comfy leather sofa. “Now, Ken, there is no voodoo in clinical hypnosis. I will do nothing except help you get as relaxed as I can. At that point, it is all about you.”
Sara came through the door and joined her colleague and son in the headshrinker area.
“Are you ready, Ken?” Benson droned slowly.
Ken nodded and reached for his mother’s hand. She took it, caressed it, and let it drop to his side.
Dr. Benson produced a small pocket watch and began to swing it in front of Ken. “Ken, can you see the watch? It belonged to my father and is one of my most prized possessions. There is no evil or subterfuge associated with this watch. Only love and peace. Can you see that?”
A Final Broadside Page 6
