Mickelsson''s Ghosts by John Gardner
Getting his keys out—letting his hand, inside his trouser pocket, rest longer than necessary against his partial erection—Mickelsson went suddenly still all over. The door, which he was sure he’d locked behind him as always, stood open. Fear crackled through him, and without thinking he stepped back at once behind the chimney, out of view. He listened for a long time, heart racing. It seemed to him he’d never heard the old house so still before. At last, slowly, stepping carefully on the flagstones, he moved back to the open door, then in. For a full three minutes he stood, hardly breathing, in the kitchen, listening with every nerve. It took another five minutes for him to move, freezing each time a board creaked, to the closet in the study, where he groped in the darkness until his hand found the silver-headed cane. Then, with the cane gripped like a bat, he switched on the study lights.
It was like a scene from some junky movie: books torn from the shelves, papers and manila folders everywhere. He could hardly believe he hadn’t sensed the condition of the room as he crept in; but of course that was not what he’d been watching for: every sense had been tuned for one thing, the dangerous intruder. He began to breathe normally—somehow he knew, the minute he saw the mess, that whoever had come was now gone.
And of course he was right. They’d looked for whatever they were looking for behind the couch cushions, in the bedrooms, everywhere. He touched nothing, intending to call the police—merely stood looking at the jumble, room after room. Then, with the telephone receiver in his hand, he began to think clearly. The police would know—like everyone else in Susquehanna, no doubt—where he’d been, and why his visitors had felt free to take their time. He saw again the crowded bar—men, women, and children, even dogs and, no doubt, cats, though he’d seen none. Nowhere in town could he have stood out more plainly, except possibly in one of the churches. The realization was comforting, in a way: it was not necessary to believe that Tim or Donnie had purposely set him up. Someone had seen what was happening at Tim’s table, had seen the professor go out onto the street with Donnie. …
He hung up the receiver, frowning, the call unmade, and began a more systematic, more intelligent search of the house. Nothing was missing—not his typewriter, not the stereo—nothing, so far at least, but three cartons of Merit cigarettes and all his pipe tobacco.
“Kids!” he said aloud, and almost laughed. He knew, suddenly—or so he imagined—what they’d been looking for. He was a professor, one of those strange outsiders you read about. They’d been looking for dope! Now he did laugh, self-consciously, oddly like an actor—so he thought even as the laugh poured out. He thought of their mad dream as they tore books from his shelves, their hope that one of the books would prove hollow, full of Quaaludes, or coke, or marijuana. On impulse he went to check the refrigerator. Sure enough, all his beer was gone. He went to the livingroom and opened the closet, below the stereo, where he kept his whiskey. Wiped out.
“Paltry!” he said aloud, raising his right fist at the lighted windows onto the porch.
All his body was charged with imperatorial scorn (the light in the sky was reddish yellow now, and the roar of the waterfall across the road was like a rumble in his brain), but, for all the acting, a part of him drew back. He remembered faintly, not in words, something odd about the bathroom, where he’d gone earlier to relieve himself. Now, in front of the toilet, bending close to the bowl, not quite sure what he was after, he got a scent of alcohol. The kitchen sink smelled the same, but more noticeably of beer. He went out, on a wordless hunch, to check the garbage cans. Nothing; but the hunch was stronger in him now. He walked to the cluttered, overgrown ditch behind the barn across the road. He stood with his head bowed, hands behind his back, looking down at new bottles glinting in the red morning sun. He made no careful count, but he was sure. They were here, all those bottles that had been stolen from him. He moved down, as if someone had suggested it to him, toward the burdock patch between the barn and the pond and waterfall, and began to bend down the burdock stalks with his right foot. Within fifteen minutes he’d found the three cartons of Merits.
There were more things to think about than he could possibly deal with, tired as he was. Someone had torn his house apart and had tried to make it look like the work of kids. He began to feel uneasy again about Tim and Donnie.
The worst part was humdrum. He needed a drink, and they’d poured out all he had.
He walked back up to the house, the world around him like a blurry old movie. He remembered mornings in Heidelberg. Drunk and hungering for a drink at 6 a.m. The grass gave gently under his feet as he crossed the yard. Birds warbled fiercely all around him.
There was no reason to think they’d had anything to do with it, Tim and Donnie. The bar had been packed. Who could know what crazies had been watching him through the gloom? Yet it was true that if he were a native here he might know. They all might know. He thought again of calling the police.
He was still thinking of calling the police when he lay down on the couch in the livingroom for a moment to think, maybe grant himself a few minutes’ sleep. When he awakened—from a series of dreams about Donnie—it was late afternoon.
9
“Hi, Pete! Finney here!” The line sputtered and crackled in protest. In his mind Mickelsson saw the bloated, lead-gray face, here and there suffused with a dark red blush, and the gray, swollen paw, also blush-splotched, with rings on the fingers and tiny curling hairs, the hand fatly clamped as if for dear life around the shiny black receiver.
“Hello, Finney.”
“Listen, we’ve talked with the lawyers of the lady—ehhh, thank you, Shirley, no, I’ll get back to him—we’ve talked with the lawyers of the lady, nothing fancy, just boilerplate, and I figured I better touch base with you, sort of see if you still got your socks on.”
Mickelsson waited. He was in the middle of the third page of the blockbuster book he was determined to write. The study around him was only partly straightened up. He had no time for fooling with housecleaning: his mind was wheeling, careening with ideas—thanks to Donnie Matthews (he’d finally remembered the last name he’d written on her check). Even when he was deep in thought about what he was writing, the memory of the girl was all around him in the air, and for all his weight and furious concentration he felt as if he were floating. He must see her again—he’d decided that even before he’d left her. Once, picking up his week’s supply of Di-Gels at Reddon’s Drugs, a scent drifting over from the rack of perfumes, colognes, and nailpolishes had caught him unawares and he’d believed he might have heart failure. He’d hunted through the bottles, trying to discover which scent it was that so powerfully brought her back to him, but before he could isolate it his nose had become confused. He wished he’d stolen something from her—a hankie; even a button would have served. She filled his writing with power and life. It was a strange and wonderful effect. Sometimes he would stop and, dreaming of her, would masturbate.
“You hear me all right?” Finney asked.
“I can hear you.”
“Good, good. I went over the settlement you proposed and they were very professional about it. They didn’t laugh.” Finney laughed, explosive. Mickelsson could see his chair yawing back precariously, his fat left arm flying up in the air as if inviting an audience to laugh with him. “They were brilliant, in fact, considering it takes three of ’em to figure out who should go pee. Ha ha! They listened to that dream-scheme from Candysville, offering the lady the Taj Mahal if it’s not too much trouble for her, otherwise you could give her the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, and after it’s over they have the alligator balls to look solemn, as if maybe it’s not enough.”
After Finney’s pause had lengthened for a moment, Mickelsson brought himself to ask, “What did they say?”
“Well, the lady lawyer—Lincoln, that’s her name, no shit—she folds her hands like she’s in Sundayschool and she looks very concerned. You offer your former spouse, free gratis, for just existing—a dubious virtue, all thin
“I didn’t forget.”
“Just playin with ya, kid. You’re offerin her more than you make, that’s the point, plus house, plus car, books, paintings, records, swimming pool—and your wife’s lawyer is very concerned that your wife might not be able to get by on that.”
Mickelsson sighed and, to keep himself from reading over what he had in the typewriter, covered his eyes with one hand. “Why not?”
“Well, you know how it is these days,” Finney said. “Kids in college, no scholarships—why should they need scholarships? Rich professor’s kids, right? And all the lady’s expenses, not to mention her friend’s—she sent me a breakdown; I’ll slap it in the mail. Heat bills, travel expenses, food and clothing, liquor, car repairs, doctor bills, life insurance—hundred thousand dollars on you, that’s how much she values you; I bet it makes you proud!—but of course she can’t pay it, where’d the little woman get money like that?—also lawyers’ fees, three of ’em, gotta be well-protected. Put it all together it comes to about double what you offered her, champ; otherwise no dice.”
“That’s crazy.”
“What the fuck does she care?” He laughed.
Mickelsson could see him, self-consciously chortling, blue eyes smouldering, angrier at his client than at his client’s ex-wife—not without reason, from a lawyer’s point of view.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Mickelsson said.
“Cancel the offer, the whole ball of wax, that’s my advice. The money you’ve been sending her, don’t send her another thin dime, drive her ass into court and let the judge decide.”
Mickelsson sucked his lower lip in. “Maybe I should give her a call,” he said, “try to reason it out.”
“Do that. Good luck to you!”
There was a pause.
“Probably not such a hot idea,” Mickelsson admitted. He leaned forward onto his elbows. After a moment he said, “I just don’t see why she doesn’t take it. She must realize it’s fair—more than fair—and the best I can possibly do.”
“That I doubt she believes,” Finney said. “What did you make on the speakers’ circuit—three, four hundred a night?”
“That was years ago, when I had a book out and people had heard of me.”
“So write a book. You forget how to type? And what about those summers? June, July, August you just sit on your can, go live in some fancy hotel in the Adirondacks and watch the birds and bees, maybe paddle a boat around and try to find some late Redskin ass. You could be doing your duty as a father and ex-husband, maybe get yourself a job with the merchant marines, a little highway construction. Take some inches off.”
“That’s bullshit, Finney.”
“Isn’t everything, ole pal? Listen, don’t yell at me. Lady’s got a right to dream, understand? And you gotta admit you invited it. You offer her the moon and a ton and a half of fingerpaints, no wonder she wants you to throw in a rag to wipe her hands on.” He laughed again. When he laughed, Mickelsson remembered, Finney’s face would begin to shine. One of these days he’d have a stroke.
“I just want to do what’s fair,” he said. “It seems to me she shouldn’t have to move to a smaller house or even cut down on expenses all that much. If she’d just be reasonable—”
“By what standard, Professor? You got a book somewhere tells you what’s reasonable and what’s not?” Mickelsson could see him bending forward in his chair, leaning on his desk, picking up a pencil, getting serious. Finney was breathing harder now, his belly crowding his lungs. “Maybe you found someplace in the Bible that tells you how much the Lord allows? Believe me, you’re dreaming! Two years now, you been dreaming like a baby. Little cottage in Eden, with a cleaning woman comes in two times a week—that’s what you think your wife deserves; she’s a human being, right? Little lower than the angels? What if the money to pay for it just doesn’t exist? Nowhere in the world? Never mind, what’s right is right, you’ve got your dream. Am I on to you? But what about her dream, since we’re ignoring reality and all its pigshit tedium. Why should she settle for a miserable fucking cottage, nobody interesting to talk to but a couple of big bossy angels, maybe a snake. You hearing me, Professor? You on my wave-length? In a perfect world you wouldn’t need me, that’s granted. But unfortunately we’re dealing with a world made of crap, world of cut or be cut, so if I was you I’d start listening to a little advice.”
Mickelsson said nothing. It struck him that it wouldn’t be easy to get back into his writing.
“Don’t send the lady another thin dime. Let her see you’re serious. She’ll negotiate—no choice! When she’s hungry enough she’ll go to court for a settlement and the judge’ll award her maybe ten thousand tops—probably less, all things considered. You can always send her a little more if you get conscience pangs. Hell, you can give her every penny you make, but as your lawyer I can’t let you commit yourself to going to prison if you should hold a penny out.”
“All right, I won’t send her any money for a while,” Mickelsson said.
“Now that I call reasonable.”
“But when we get her to court, the offer I’ve already made stands.”
“And that I call not so reasonable. But OK, OK. We’ll play it as it lays. Say, I see your kid got his kisser in the paper.”
Mickelsson sucked in his upper lip. “I didn’t catch it, I guess.”
“Yeah, one of those ‘protesters arrested’ things. I’ll slap it in the mail.”
“Do that. I’d like to see it.”
“I bet you would.” Finney laughed.
Mickelsson hung fire for an instant. “What does that mean?”
“Nothin, pal! It’s been a long time since you’ve seen him, right? He looks terrific, believe me. Peak of health!”
“I’m glad to hear it.” His mind remained snagged on Finney’s laugh. At last he said, “What was he protesting?”
“Nukes, I think. Seabrook or Yankee, one of ’em.”
“I see.” Mickelsson nodded. His fingers played absently with the phone cord. “Do send the clipping. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Will do, pal,” Finney said. “Keep fit, now. Anything else?”
“I guess that’s it.”
“OK, then. Keep in touch—I hate surprises. Bye-bye!”
“Good-bye,” Mickelsson said.
When he looked over what he’d written he saw that he’d been right. It had terrific drive, a quality one could only call magical, easily the flashiest piece of argument he’d ever pulled off. But the mood had left him. The very room around him looked dead, as if whoever lived there had moved. Again he reread his pages, struggling to get the feeling back. Rhetoric like a delicate tracery of ashes.
Late that afternoon it began to rain, a gray, smoky rain that moved back and forth against the mountains like curtains, and Mickelsson’s depression increased. For all his work, he’d gotten out only another half page, and he did not need an objective friend’s eye to know that it was worthless. He forced himself to quit. A day like this—lurid gray sky, gray rain, gray hills—would be a good one to waste on finishing the straightening up of the mess his visitors had left. He went to the cabinet under the stereo for the one bottle of Gordon’s gin and the one small bottle of Martini & Rossi with which he’d replaced all the liquor he’d lost, paying with a check he was pretty sure would bounce, though he had, really, no idea. He fixed himself a large martini, then moved dully from room to room, putting things back into their drawers or onto their proper closet hooks, shoving the furniture back where it belonged, then sweeping and dusting, stopping every fifteen minutes or so for a sip of his drink, finally putting his books back on their shelves, this time imposing, as he hadn’t done before, some measure of organization. The size of the stack of bills on his desk m
Housecleaning finished, he went down to the basement to look over the still-unopened boxes of tools he’d gotten from the hardware store in town, the great stack of wallpaper rolls, the paste and brushes. The basement—cellar was more properly the word—was damp, full of smells of decay. The beams overhead had patches of gray fuzz on them, like lichen or dampened ash. The stone walls literally dripped, probably not leakage from the rain outside, and the cardboard boxes, brand new a few days ago, were soft to the touch. Leave the wallpaper rolls here much longer and they’d be money down the drain. He carried them, armload after armload, up to the kitchen and nested them on the long, formica-covered counter. He must get busy soon at fixing the place up. He remembered as if from a different existence how eager he’d been to get at it all, just a week ago. Now his decision to write that blockbuster book made his plans for the house an annoyance, though of course he must carry them out; otherwise the waste of money would be criminal. He stood sipping the martini, finishing it off, his shoulders drooping, stomach falling heavily forward as in some Beardsley drawing (no doubt even now he was flattering himself: his trousers were limp, baggy, and soiled; his shoes were damp and shapeless and had a rancid smell), gazing wearily at the wallpaper rolls, their patterns hidden inside their white wrappers—patterns he’d brooded on, considering and reconsidering, though now he couldn’t remember which ones he’d chosen—and he was filled with such weariness and misery he could hardly understand why he’d left the apartment.