Fran's Death And My First Psychic Opening

       I was 24 years old.  I was a student in the second semester of my second year of Medical school at the University of Louisville,  in Louisville, Kentucky.  It was February, to be exact, Tuesday, Feb 16th, Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras.)

      I was on my bed listening to music as is my habit when I study.  I know I was studying something I did not enjoy too much, like Pathophysiology or somethinjg of that ilk.  The phone rings---I answer (this was before cellphones and "caller ID");  my friend Dan Anderson, voice sounding shaky, says "turn on the TV."  A bit rankled, I am like "what channel?  Why?  What is up?"  He was stuttering, which I had never heard him do before blurting out "any channel!"  I went over and turned on the small black and white TV I used in my room (hardly ever watch TV) and the news was on.  The big story was that a young man (our friend, high school and college classmate, Francisco Guerrero,) had been murdered, shot at point blank range between the eyes.  The killer, the ex-husband of Francisco's girlfriend, Rhonda, then shot himself through the head and died.  We later learned more grisly details.  He did this on Fran's front porch, in front of Rhonda and their son.

       But I knew why Dan was totally freaking out on the phone---I mean the news itself was horrible, tragic and inane, but it was weirder than most knew.  Dan, Fran (as he was called) and I had been out drinking two weeks earlier.  After sifting through some "pick-up bars" without success, we headed back toward the U of L main campus (Belknap Campus.)  There was a dive called Dino's Pizzeria, which served mediocre pizza but that night had some kind of special on "Little Kings Ale," which came in small bottles (hence "little")--we drank lots of them.  We were clinically drunk.  We, like many college, grad school, law school, med school students did this fairly often.  I cannot drink like I did back in school.  Now I can feel the next day's hangover looming after 2 drinks--the third often portends a hangover.

      We were going to be very hung over and it was about 1 a.m.  Fran was talking about his girlfriend, Rhonda, who was pretty and very nice (we'd all met a few times), but had a 3 year old son with her now ex-husband.  The ex-husband we'd seen, but none of us knew him.  When I did see him he always looked angry and a bit wild.  He had finished, like so many of us divorced fathers, "his weekend" with his son, and brought the child to Rhonda wherever she happened to be that night.  Francisco was the eldest male in his Filipino family.  He had a younger brother and a sister.  His family lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the South end of Louisville.  Both his parents were medical doctors.  When he was 16, his parents bought him a brand new red Chevy Z-28 Camaro.  A cool car to drive at 16--and we all liked to party in it--nice stereo etc.  Fran was naturally a bit flamboyant in his style.  I mean the way he did everything, he did it his own way.  I often admired the way he got to live (parents gave him money every weekend, gasoline card, etc) and felt a bit of jealousy.  But he suffered a lot as one of the few Asians in Louisville at that time, and children, even high-schoolers were quite nasty, racist and called him all sorts of names.  Usually he kept his cool and took the upper hand.  A few times he was forced to fight by bullies.  He was one of my all-time best friends.  He, Dan and I were all best friends, sharing most things, including women at times.

      Back to the point, I dropped the receiver of the phone and turned pale white as every hair on my arms and chest suddenly "stood up" at the heinous news.  My heart began to thump hard, and as I picked up the phone again, I could hear the blood pumping in my ears loudly.  I could not speak coherently, making grunts in between "fuck!" and "god-dammit!"
      Dan sputtered out---"remember Dino's with him 2 weeks ago?"  I was silent for a while, until, in sotto voce I  mumbled, "uh, yeah."  I was sitting in a booth that night looking across the table at Dan and Fran. I asked how it was going with Rhonda.  Fran said "great, she is wonderful and accepting regarding different racial stuff--even likes Filipino food."  (Translation: Lots of women in Louisville at that time, mainly white women like Rhonda, would never date "outside their race.")  So Fran had a tougher time sometimes finding nice women to date, and I was very thankful that he had met Rhonda.  I asked when he saw her last.  He said on Sunday night, the ex-husband, having used up his time with his son, brought him over and delivered him to Rhonda, at Fran's house.  I heard this and said, "hey man, that is not a very good idea Fran."  Oblivious, he said, "what?"  I said, "you (your parents) have a very nice elegant house, you drive a sports car, and now you are dating his ex-wife.  Making him bring the boy over to your house is like "rubbing his nose in it,"--dude, that guy is a red-necked hothead and you are really pushing it with him."  Fran considered this, apparently for the first time.  "Fran it is a good way to get your head blown off, man!" I said.  He characteristically laughed off my worries and continued to take Rhonda to his parents' house for the drop-offs of the little boy.

      Holy motherfucker.  Now I saw why Dan could not talk right and was totally freaked.  He reminded me of what I had drunkenly said.  I remembered looking at Fran while I was saying it.  At the time, I had no inkling this statement was prophetic.

      I felt confused, a bit scared, anxious and extremely sad all at once.  Dan and I agreed to meet after work/school the next day to talk about this.  Once together, we downed a couple of beers and slowly began to rehash that night at Dino's.  I let him first tell me all he remembered, so as not to color it with my memories.  He and I both had also seen Fran once (me, at a distance, in a parking lot--we mutually waved) since that night.  We both remembered the same things.  We both remembered my comment about "a good way to get your head blown off."
Strangely, since to my knowledge, this was the first instance of precognition I had ever had, and it felt simultaneously like "an accident" or a "coincidence" but also, the most wretched feeling that somehow, by saying it, maybe "I caused it."

       I felt an inner anxiety that would not go away.  I had trouble sleeping.  Over and over in my mind, the scene at Dino's played non-stop.  I shuddered when it got to the memory of looking him in the eyes and warning him about getting killed.  A female friend of mine in med school, who had dated Fran in high school, "found out" about his death in an "only-in-med-school-way," when during our Pathology class we had to attend a few autopsies.  Just in case someone might know the deceased they tell the students the names of the dead just before walking into the pathology lab/dissection area.  "Jerline" heard the name and froze.  She asked the professor to repeat the names.  This was how Jerline heard about his death (she was about to participate in his autopsy!)  She began to cry and ran out of the room, into the hall way.

      I talked to several other friends, hearing their stories about, "when they found out."  I kept my information to myself and Dan, and because I still felt so different, so "out of myself," I asked him not to talk about it to people, and he did not.  We went to the funeral and were pall-bearers.  Fran's family all wore little black pieces of jewelry, something like onyx on, as a sign of mourning.  They wore these every day for the next year.  I wore mine that day only.

       The next two weeks were unbelievable.  It was "as if" I were "accelerated" in time.  Not by much.  About ten minutes "ahead of reality."  Dan was with me much of the time in the next 2 weeks because he was the only person who knew about the "precognition" I had regarding Fran's impending death.  I slept very little and my mind was churning non-stop, wondering what this all meant.  Meanwhile, I'd say something out loud to Dan, and 10-15 minutes later, it would transpire in front of us.  It was kind of fun, but very weird feeling, like I was a "visitor from somewhere ELSE" and already knew what was going to happen.  I went through Catholic theological dogma in my head, physics, laws of chance, anything and everything I could think of to try and come up with an answer to what was happening to me (or had already happened.)  There was no easy answer to be found.
     
       Then everyday, everything started to seem to be "this is your life."  I would watch TV in the pool hall where we had gone to try to calm down.  When I listened to the news being read, my mind connected everything said to me and the recent strange events.  I asked Dan if he heard the same things.  He said he did, but his mind just accepted what was said at face value and did not feel it was somehow, "about me."  When I told him of all the constant "coincidences" I saw and heard, he indicated he understood.  (I now know I was seeing synchronicity as it constantly happens, but I had no clue then.)  It was easy to see Dan was very troubled by this, and was totally freaked out that I would say something, then in a few minutes, it would happen!  I began to worry about really watching what I was saying.  
      Then I began to feel Fran's presence when I was praying about this late at night.  It was as if his soul was actually contacting me.  Noises would occur strangely in my bedroom.  I asked God, to let the noises reflect a "yes" or a "no" depending on the noise.  I began to rehash the whole thing for the 99th time with God, and the sounds gave answers consistent with what occurred.  I felt a bit of relief, but since the sounds only did "yes" or "no" answers, I could not get an answer as to what this process was that had happened to me or what it meant.  Or whether it would ever go away.


      A bit of info about me at the time.  I was a believer in Christ, yet was an empiricist, using the "scientific method" to understand and test my world.  I had never gone to a "psychic" or "fortune teller," because everything I was taught said that kind of stuff was complete bullshit.  Up until that point, I saw life as normal "cause and event."  I believed God could do miracles, but what the hell was this about?  It was some kind of miracle (a BAD one) what occurred--exactly as I said it, and now, feeling like I was communing with his soul, etc, I was kinda freaking out.  I did not believe or know that I could do miracles.  But why this?  Why my best friend?  Shit, I cried hard for many nights.  I could not sleep so I studied all night many nights and would collapse asleep in the lecture hall when they turned down the lights for slides.  This was nothing new.  Medical school taxed you and challenged you more than anything I'd yet experienced.

       But I was changing--my mind was on overdrive.  I found I could do all sorts of new things with my mind that I could not do before.  I could read, study, remember, write out/draw out multiple complex ideas/theories simultaneously.  Studying, which I usually dreaded and hated, became a joy.  I could rip through books and retain the info faster and more efficiently than ever.  Also, I could "see into" people differently, by looking deeper in their faces/eyes.  I caught much more subtle messages, and developed "gaydar."  I realized a certain surgery student wanted me.  She was a beautiful Italian woman with bright blue eyes.  I had just gotten married Dec 26th 1987 to a woman I met while studying Spanish language and culture just before my second year started.  We honeymooned and she returned to Madrid to finish her last semester of her degree from La Universidad Complutense and I returned to medical school at Louisville.  I called her every day and we rung up huge long distance bills. She would get her visa and finish school and move over in six months.  Oh my God, six months of raging change, in the abilities of my mind.  I could tell who was coming around corners at school (hundreds of people moving about), before they made the turn.  Naturally, except for my friend Dan, who was there when it started, I did not tell anyone about this, as it was so weird it might scare them.  I noticed subtle movements in "inanimate objects," and I could watch flowers breathe.  [It was as if I were on, say, 300 micrograms of LSD, ALL THE TIME, without having taken any.  That last line, I say with many years of experience since those days (retrospectively speaking.)]  Everything was becoming more simple, more understandable to me.  I wondered why I had not understood it the first time.  The loneliness (missing my new wife, who was in Europe) and my horniness would drive me to give "the look" back to my Italian classmate. I do not mean to justify my actions, as what I did I feel was wrong, but I was on a roll and nothing could stop it.  I became a lot funnier--people got my jokes, and I began to finish people's sentences (which I now know is irritating.) La Italiana was an enigma, an exercise maniac who did 200 sit-ups a day.  Really.  We quickly became lovers, though she knew I was married, and I was certain this was a sin, according to the Church, since I knew I was married.  But it felt so good, so right, I did not see how it could be morally wrong.  It also helped de-focus my raging mind that had never slowed down since the phone call on mardi gras, as my mind doing all these things that later I would learn (15 or so YEARS later) were siddhis and what I was going through was actually my first psychic opening or "spiritual emergence."  By June, I had rented a small house and my brother Tim, and I moved from our apartment to this little house in the South end.  The plan was that Ana (my ex-wife) and I would have the back larger bedroom and Tim had his water bed in the front bedroom.

Beginning of Chapter Six, Apeshit!

At the pool hall by the railroad tracks on Preston street, just past the viaduct. The viaduct crosses Preston street and is painted a nasty blue-greenish combo, with lots of spraypainted graffitti. "REAGAN SUCKS!" people's names, names of their girlfriends, schools. John and I turned into Benny's poolhall, a grungy "guy-dive" if I ever saw one. I was extremely nervous. Glad he was driving, as I was going to try to calm down with a few bad beers. But, Benny's was the absolute CHEAPEST place to play pool and there were many (like 20) tables, so you could always get one for yourselves without having to "play someone for the table(a male macho ritual where ante is sometimes upped to buying alcohol). It cost two dollars per person, per hour to get a table. The only choice in alcohol was beer because in Kentucky there are beer licenses and liquor licenses and the beer ones only are much cheaper and easier to obtain. Benny's must have been there for 40-50 years at least. Tons on people had lost all their money due to the pool sharks who'd come in dressed scruffy, posing as a "nobody." Then you'd watch them chat someone up, and eventually say, hey mister, I got that table, you want to hit a few? The friendly stranger to the newcomer (read "sucker") insists on "buying the first round." Two Blatz Lights are retrieved and slurped in between breaks and calling pockets. I watch them occasionally from my table as does John because we know the one guy is a professional--we have seen him in action before and at other pool halls. We go to the bar and order the best beer they carried, Miller High Life. All the beers only came in cans at Benny's. Glass encouraged violence he said. He was likely correct.

This was the strangest day of my life. Playing pool was a way to focus the mind and calm the nerves. I broke; two ball went into the corner pocket. I kinda chugged my Miller, drinking about one half the 12 ounce can. I never do that. My hands trembled a bit and I was sweating even though it was not cold.

I was a medical student at the University Of Louisville (Kentucky) and John studied physics there as a grad student. We had gone to the same high school, St. Francisco de Sales....off Newburg road.  

Finally, another bit of Apeshit!

This is, finally, another actual chapter from my memoir, Apeshit.

Red lightning flashed, arcing in the sky over the Prinsengracht, making cosmic reflections for us all, as I took a huge lungfull of Nederweed Dutch Superpolm #47. My green glass hookah gurgled with all the gorgeous intonations of the borborygmi of the spheres. Strumming my ukulele, I sang "And the band played on." It was 3 A.M. At last, I was feeling no pain (finally!)

The black and white cat that hung out in the back courtyard of the Hotel Prinsen mewed melodically, as if, perhaps, he liked the song. Meanwhile, back in the jungle (of my hotel room) I was busy writing a screenplay for a bunch of rich, spoiled, silly-assed actresses and actors that will not be named here. They will, however be named in another chapter. The regen lovingly pelted the Japanese miniature oak trees and the pines in the terrace. I was fortunate enough to have a room on the ground floor (which is, like, the basement, in Europe)--my windows opened out onto the patio of the terrace. Windows slightly ajar, so I could smell the rain and the perfume of the jasmine flowers that were about 8 meters from the room. The fragrance, combined with the lovely taste and smell of the kif was ecstatically orgasmic. Truly. By this point I was getting pretty mellow and relaxed, feelin' good. The words were coming easily to my hand as I re-wrote the screenplay in longhand. My computer was too unreliable and "weirdly glitchy"--unpredictable in a predictable unfunny pattern, if you get my drift. I had just had fantastic sex with an alien-themed duo of beautiful escorts, and earlier that day I had a surprise visit from my Dutch girlfriend, who only had fifteen minutes, literally. She was being held against-her-will by a bunch of "Romulan"-sympathizer fascist assholes at a place called "Mentrum" on Tweede Constantijn Huygenstraat.

She had a 45-minute "pass" to go outside. I visited her there at the concentration camp ("Mentrum") as often as I was permitted and always smuggled her shaggies that I had previously rolled with good Lebanese hash inside. Back to the moment in the rainstorm, yours truly was doing the 97th re-write of the Star Trek screenplay for the ungrateful infidels (at Paramount Pictures.) Thunder erupted with a powerful magnitude (I estimated about 110 decibels--really,)---the sound, via my delightful cocktail of kif and shots of Bessenjenever, morphed into a thundercast of "Shut-The-Fuck-Up!", (a pop-song I heard in a disco on Leidseplein.) I was nearly nude, wearing nothing but my Georgio Armani silk underwear that I bought for 35 Euros at Magna Plaza. Nee, I also had the Japanese yukata I had just bought that very day in Zeedijk, on as well.

The sweet woman at the counter in the Asian store in the Zeedijk area told me "you have a green and orange penis," whatever that meant. To which, I replied, "whatever" and "bedankt." I had done my usual re-wiring of the hotel room, turning off/disabling all the usual moron-supervision devices. The sconce lighting fluorescent bulbs were still a bit too bright due to the 5 grams of Copelandia cyanescens I had for breakfast earlier that day. So, I put my purple "Eat It Raw" tee-shirt (from the Silver Bucket Oyster Bar that I had saved since I was 15 years old) over the top of the sconce. It added a nice hue to the visuals that were still playfully lingering. The bed was still wet and reeked of pussy and cum. The cool welcome humidity of this soaked though the yukata. Incidentally, FYI, these visuals were not kaleidoscopic fractal imagery, rather, strange black and white elfin-looking two-dimensional creatures that scurried playfully around the room, touching nothing. Re-starting the re-write of the third section of the screenplay, wherein I tissue-interview Seven-Of-Nine, with a cat-o-nine-tails, I, Andre, was startled suddenly (very suddenly!) from my reverie and peaceful oasis on my Amstel river of tranquility by a female moaning in Taiwanese-dialect Mandarin---loudly.

She was obviously orgasming and involuntarily howled this wonderful sound--which simultaneously struck me as beautiful and also caused me to do one of those cartoon-like "hybeea-hybeeah" double-takes, and quickly realize that I recognized that voice. It was Sabrina Lee, my former psychiatrist from California. I was dumbstruck! For once!

I had been living in Amsterdam for about three months and was currently experiencing "european cashflow problems." Sitting cross-legged, in the lotus position three earth-days prior to this, I had been meditating (literally) on a lovely bridge over a canal at Zeedijk. Tour buses had disgorged their loads of Asian tourists and they proceeded, led by a young woman holding little red flag, in a herd, to parade in front of me. Deep into meditation, I was not looking carefully at the people as they went by. De pronto, out of my right-eye peripheral vision I saw Sabrina Lee and her friend Huoung Ho moving to my right at a fairly quick pace. My head nearly exploded. I tried to yell, but I could not speak, and the din of the crowd chattering in 19 different languages along with the outboard motors of the boats passing beneath me under the bridge contributed to the impossibility of my being heard anyway. Quickly, attempting to get up and go chase after her, I found my legs were stiff and would not move fast enough, due to sitting in the lotus position for 1/2 hour. By the time I got to my feet, and regained speech, I ran in their direction, faster than most people move. But there were hundreds of faces, hundreds of Asian faces, hundreds of pretty and ugly Asian faces, but I could not find my lover. I searched in that direction and about the Chinatown area of Zeedijk for another forty-five minutes or so for my former psychiatrist, in vain. I was "barbecued." That really hurt.

Jumping back to three days in the future, I had just heard the "di'"(beautiful in Mandarin)--~sixty-second orgasm-moan-song. Then I instantly recognized the voice--because she and I had seen each other weekly from 1998 to 2004. I at that time was also a psychiatrist, and was seeing her for psychotherapy. Strangely enough, in June of 2004 we became lovers, but that is not in this book. However, hearing her wail, I was flabbergasted! And she had the frikkin' audacity and ovaries to track me (somehow) and rent the room above me and be fucking someone that I later learned through covert channels "allegedly" was Robert Kennedy, Jr! I stopped my writing project dead in my tracks and laid back in bed. I began to meditate and focus on the couple upstairs. I began to use some of Russell Targ's techniques. I got a vision of Sabrina's smiling face.

At first, I was homicidally angry! Then, I thought about her (and him.) Then, I just wanted to kill HIM. Then I laughed out loud. Because I always liked Robert Kennedy (his dad, except for his heinous decision in the Senate illegalizing LSD-25.) And, I had kept up with Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s legal work on the environment and liked what he had done. So, the progression of feeling-thoughts is: at first a strong urge to kill both of them with a "Klingon" Ba'Le'th, then just kill him, then maybe just slap her, but ultimately I decided to say what the hell and vowed I would never send RKF, Jr. any more money.

To this day I haven't given any more money to his organization, but I still admire his work, and I was happy that, at least Sabrina was fucking Democrats! That was a good sign. I took it as a Buddhist good sign. I may have been the first Democrat she ever fucked.....and I am glad I helped her see the light.