Psychic Receiver

Psychic Receiver

         My experiences with supernatural phenomena first manifested themselves when I was a child, and have occurred off and on ever since, though only rarely do I now feel the touch of the unknown.

         I don't consider myself to be psychic; but rather I feel that I am a good "receiver" of psychic vibrations.

         At the age of five, while staying with my great-grandmother, or Little Nanny as I called her, I was using the bathroom when I caught something move from the corner of my eye. There, fully clothed, sat an elderly lady in the bathtub. I asked who she was and where she came from, but she only looked at me.

         Not really afraid, I went to the kitchen where Little Nanny was fixing supper. She was chopping onions by the sink. "Little Nanny," I said, "there's a lady in the bathtub."

         She never missed a beat while chopping. She simply said, "That's Mrs. Jennings. She used to live in this house, and she still visits from time to time."

         That made perfect sense to a child my age, but I still had doubts. "Why's she in the tub, though?"

         "That's where she died, Honey," Little Nanny said matter-of-factly, wiping her blue-veined hands on her apron and kneeling in front of me. "Don't be afraid of her. She won't hurt you. Just talk to her if you like -- she seems to enjoy that. But if you want her to leave, just ask her politely and she will."

         Born in the mountains of Arkansas, Little Nanny was raised around beliefs in ghosts, witches, spells, curses and other supernatural happenings. Nothing came as a surprise to her. As she always told me, "The dead can't hurt you. It's the live ones you have to watch out for."

         Over the next four years I saw Mrs. Jennings several times while visiting Little Nanny, and I talked to her each time. She never answered, but she did smile and nod as I told her about something new in my life.

         When I was eight, I was preparing to go stay the weekend with Little Nanny, waiting for my grandfather to drive me there as he had so many other times. As we left the house, I had a strong feeling, and I blurted out to my grandfather, "I'm not going to Little Nanny's tonight."

         "Sure you are," Grandpa said, giving me an odd look.

         The feeling grew stronger, but I told myself if I kept my fingers crossed everything would be OK. Three blocks from Little Nanny's house we stopped at a neighborhood drug store so I could buy a few comic books to read over the weekend. Back in the car, anxious to start reading, I flipped through the pages of a Batman comic -- and forgot about recrossing my fingers. A block from our destination we were T-boned on the passenger side by a car running a stop sign. I was right. I didn't go to Little Nanny's that night. Instead, I spent the night in the hospital with three deep lacerations to be sutured up in my scalp.

         After that, I listened to such ominous feelings I might have.

         Years later, I awoke beside my wife in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and with a horrible premonition chilling me. "Geemaw" was in danger! The problem was, I had no idea who "Geemaw" was. I put the feeling off to a bad dream and tried to return to sleep. But the feeling grew ever more urgent.

         I shook my wife, Kathy, awake, and she stared at me with sleepy eyes. "What?"

         "Who's Geemaw?" I asked her, feeling like an idiot.

         Kathy rose up on one elbow, her eyes now wide open. "Geemaw's my grandmother in Oklahoma. You've never met her. What . . ."

         A shiver raced up my spine. "Call her. She's in danger," I said.

         "It's four in the morning, Danny! What are you talking about?"

         "Just call her! Or give me the number, and I'll call!" I nearly yelled, the uneasy feeling now slapping me full force.

         "She lives with her son, my Uncle Jim. I'm sure she's OK, Honey."

         "Please!" I begged.

         Rolling her eyes at her husband's weirdness, Kathy threw back the covers and got out of bed. She went to the kitchen, where she kept her book of telephone numbers. A moment later I heard her say, "Uncle Jim? This is Kathy. Yes, I know what time it is. Look. My husband has a feeling something is wrong with Geemaw. Is she all right? I don't know, he just has a feeling. Would you just go look in on her . . . please?"

         There was silence as Kathy waited. Then, "Oh, my God! Is she going to be OK? S-sure. Call me back. Bye."

         Kathy came back to the bedroom in an almost zombie-like state. She looked at me as if I had grown a second head.

         With a shudder, the feeling of dread fled from me. "She's OK now," I said. "What was the matter?"

         Still giving me a disbelieving look, Kathy said, "Uncle Jim went to check on her. She had fallen out of bed, Danny, and the sheet had become twisted around her neck. She was hanging inches from the floor, slowly strangling."

         I nodded, and started to roll over and go back to sleep, tired and drained from the experience, but Kathy slapped my shoulder. "How did you know!"

         I shrugged. "I've always been a receiver of psychic vibrations. I just picked it up."

         "How? You don't even know Geemaw!"

         "I don't know her, but you do. Her call for help must have been sent out to you. Since you and I are close, I picked it up from you, I guess. I don't know how this stuff works . . . just that it does sometimes."

         I became somewhat of a celebrity, albeit a scary one, among Kathy's family.

         The most memorable event, however, occurred three years later. An old friend of mine was in town with his new bride and wanted to get together for a visit. Kathy and I invited them to our home. Ron and Gina arrived that evening and, after introductions were made all around, we settled in the living room with chips, dip and wine.

         Kathy asked Gina where she was from, and Gina named a small Texas town some two hundred miles away. As soon as the words were out of Gina's mouth, I had a mental picture. "The house is on the east side of Interstate 45, an old two-story place up on a hill. You can see it from the Interstate," I said.

         Ron's and Gina's mouths dropped open. Kathy, having experienced my feelings and visions more than once, waved her hand and said with a sigh, "He's strange. He thinks he's a "receiver" of psychic energy. Don't pay him any attention."

         Ron nodded. "Gina's like that, too. She scares me sometimes. I don't understand it, and I'm not comfortable with it."

         But Gina was interested. "That's right. That's where I was raised. And that's where . . ."

         And I was there -- standing in the yard of that farmhouse. At that instant Kathy and Ron ceased to exist for me. Only Gina's voice and feelings could be heard and felt. "I'm at the back door," I said.

         "What do you see?" Gina asked quietly.

         "A covered porch running the length of the house. Four steps up to the porch." I turned in a circle. "Behind me, there's a tall oak tree. To the right, and farther away, is a barn."

         Gina's voice trembled as she said, "Go into the house and tell me about it."

         I climbed the steps, opened the screen door and walked inside. "I'm in a huge living room. There is a mounted deer head on the west wall, over a flower-print sofa. There's a brown recliner with one of those old standing ashtrays beside it, and I smell cigars. A glass-fronted display case holds dozens of china figurines. The floors are hardwood, with throw rugs spread in all of the high traffic areas."

         I heard Gina's sharp intake of breath. "Yes. Exactly. Go to the left."

         "Wow! The kitchen is enormous! And yellow," I said. "The linoleum, cabinets, tile counter-tops are yellow, as are the gingham curtains in all of the windows. A cheery kitchen, home to many happy times and memories. The appliances are avocado green." I walked to the stove, where a large pot was boiling, steam rising from beneath the slightly canted lid, and lifted the lid. "Chicken and dumplings cooking on the stove," I said. "Smells delicious."

         "Through the door to your left . . ." Gina whispered.

         "A short hallway leading to a staircase,"
I said,

         "Go up the stairs," Gina said.

         I put my right foot on the bottom stair, then backed away, chilled. "No. I don't want to go up there. There's something bad. Death is up there. Something I don't want to see. Your mother . . ."

         Suddenly I was back in the yard. The oak tree drew my eyes. Now there was a rope tied around one of the thick, leafless branches. At the end of the rope, a noose around his neck, dangled a thin, middle-aged man wearing denim coveralls and a plaid flannel shirt. His face was purple and bloated. Several inches beneath the toes of his boots lay a short milking stool, overturned onto its side. "Your father. The oak tree . . ." I said.

         Gina sobbed, and I felt her pain and, with it, embarrassment and hatred for her father.

         A movement by the barn caught my attention. A short, heavily built Hispanic man walked from the barn to the tree. He carried a broom, and proceeded to sweep away footprints beneath and around the hanging man. Satisfied with his work, he crossed himself, and backed away toward the barn, erasing his footprints with the broom as he went.

         "Don't hate your father, Gina," I said. "He didn't do it. Your mother was killed, and your father made to look like a suicide, by an Hispanic man. He thought your parents kept cash hidden in the house. He tortured and slit your mother's throat in the upstairs bedroom when she wouldn't tell him where the money was."

         A strangled cry escaped from Gina's lips.

         "He surprised your father as he returned from town, and hit him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. He wanted people to believe that your father killed your mother, then hanged himself in remorse. But the milk stool is too short. The man tied off the rope too high. He had to stand on the stool and bodily lift your father higher to get the noose around his neck, then drop him. Then he tipped the stool over. But your father's feet were at least six inches higher than they would have been had he been standing on the stool himself."

         Then I was back, sitting in my own living room, dazed. The air was cold and heavy around me, but with a noticeable "whoosh" the chill and blanketing feel in the room was suddenly sucked out, leaving me slumped in my chair.

         Gina's arms were around Ron and she cried into his shoulder. "What the hell was that?" He asked, swallowing hard. "Did you feel that, Kathy? Like something rushing out of the room?"

         My wife nodded. Goose flesh covered her arms, and the blond hairs there stood up as though electrified.

         When Gina finally calmed down, she said,"Everyone thought my father killed my mother and then himself. I wouldn't accept it for years, but eventually I couldn't deny the evidence. He did have a bruise on the back of his head, but the medical examiner figured Dad got it in his struggle with mother. And it was noted that the stool seemed too short for Dad to have stepped off of it, but there was no way to explain that. A neighbor even mentioned that he thought Dad had hired a Mexican fellow to help around the farm for a few days, but no one ever saw the man. The case was closed, my dad disgraced, and I came to hate him over the years. Now I know the truth," she finished, again burying her face in her husband's chest.

         Did I see the events unfold as they actually had, or did I simply receive the repressed memories, thoughts, and doubts within Gina's mind?

         I like to believe the former in light of other incidents. I once rejected a home my wife and I were thinking of buying because I felt such pain, sadness and death in the master bedroom. The real estate agent finally admitted, after I made my feelings known, that the owner's husband had died in bed, in the master bedroom, after a long and painful fight with cancer.

         I went into one of my reception states while playing cards with friends one evening. As one woman reached for a card in her hand to discard, I said, "Jack of hearts." She froze, then laid the card on the table. The jack of hearts. Of the six other people at the table, I named the cards five of them held for me to "guess" correctly. The other person was apparently a very poor transmitter.

         My last encounter with these feelings and visions that come to me was last year. I was at a casino in Louisiana playing a slot machine about fifteen feet away from a roulette table. The impression of a roulette table, and the ball settling into the green single zero slot flashed into my head. At first I shook it off. Then I remembered the other "hunches" I'd had during my life. I left my slot machine, with credit remaining on it, and dollars in the tray, and walked to the roulette table. I peeled a twenty and a five from my wallet, tossed them on the table and told the dealer, "Single zero."

         She converted my cash for chips, placed them on my selection, and spun the wheel. The lady beside me put a five dollar chip on three, then looked up at me questioningly. I shook my head and nodded toward my bet. She moved her bet to the single zero.

         Needless to say, I got an enthusiastic hug from my fellow player when the ball dropped into the single zero slot. And I walked away from the table, back to my slot machine, with $875 dollars compliments of whatever forces roam the universe and which, just occasionally, favor me with a visit.

The End?