Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

put paper into the typewriter. He stared at the paper, not turning the typewriter on, then at last laid his aching arms on the typewriter and the whiskery side of his face on his arms. He’d been sitting there for some while, waiting out time like his poor angry student Michael Nugent, when it came to him—a shiver of dread moving slowly up his spine—that there was someone standing behind him. When he held his breath, he could hear whoever it was breathing.

He fixed himself supper, a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk, then went into the livingroom to eat and, afterward, sit pondering. Even now he felt watched.

Perhaps, he thought, he should get Jessica to help him with the Christmas party.

He went into the new diningroom to look at the plastering job one last time, stood there for twenty minutes, arms folded across his chest, then at last turned off the lights and went up to bed. He fell asleep listening for the phone.

It was at something like two in the morning that the phone did ring, and Mickelsson, waking suddenly from some unpleasant dream, stumbled naked from his bed to answer it. He realized at once, as soon as he reached the wall where the telephone was, that he should have brought a blanket to wrap around him.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi, Dad.” His son’s voice was sweeter than ever to his ear, strangely cheerful—a cheerfulness possibly forced, he could never tell, but instinctively he accepted the pretense, if it was that. His heart lifted.

“Mark! Where are you?”

“I’m sorry if I worried you. Everything’s fine, I’m OK. I just wanted to call, let you know things are all right.”

“That’s good! It’s wonderful to hear your voice!” He was bent over, clinging to the receiver with both hands. “How are you?”

Mark laughed. “I’m fine. Really. Are you OK?”

“You know me. Like an old horse standing in the rain. How are you?”

“Dad,” Mark said.

“I know. I already asked you that. It’s so good to hear your voice!”

“I suppose Mom’s been pretty worried. Did she call?”

“I called her, as it happens. She has been worried, of course. You should call her. How are—” He stopped himself. “It’s so good to hear your voice!”

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Mark said, “but things got sort of—heavy.” He spoke the word apologetically, as if he’d gladly not use the street-talk if there were anything else. “I’m sorry about the Rollei. I guess Mom told you?”

“I saw the picture in the paper. Don’t worry about it. You looked terrific! I didn’t know you still had that hat. Do you need money? Is there some way the Rollei can be fixed?”

“I’ve got another camera now—an Instamatic. It doesn’t make art—it’s a real moron’s camera, actually; I should be ashamed to be seen with it—but it’s good enough for what I need it for right now, and it’s easy to hide. I’ve got a line on something better, actually. If anything develops maybe I’ll ask you for the money.” He paused. “It’s kind of a lot.”

“Whatever you need, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Dad. I will. Dad, you wouldn’t believe this stuff.”

“The police, you mean?”

“All of it.” Mickelsson could see him smiling, slightly drawn back, maybe fiddling with the phone cord. “There were these people that came to U.V.M., representatives of Yankee. Kids would ask them questions, and they’d say, ‘As representatives of a profit-making organization, it’s obviously not in our interest to answer a question like that.’ They were amazing. You expected them to lie, but they never lied about anything. They just refused to answer. It was a scary thing to see, all that arrogance—I mean the fact that they thought they’d get away with it. And the thing is, they do get away with it. A few kids may yell at them, but the nukes keep going up, and the alternatives—things like solar and wind and geothermal—they keep being blocked. Obviously they’re not in a position to talk straight; all the facts are against them. But they figure if they don’t talk at all they’ll win, and I guess maybe they’re right. Nobody really believes in Doomsday. People just go on, putting up with whatever they’re told to put up with. It’s suicidal.”

“Well,” Mickelsson said.

“I keep being amazed how hard it is to get people to listen. When we were at Yankee, sitting in, we’d talk with the oglers, tell them true horror stories—how the cancer incidence goes up fifty per cent in the area of a nuke plant for every one per cent elsewhere; how three of the nuke plants in New York State, and dozens elsewhere, are built on earthquake faults; how everything depends on the plant’s emergency core-cooling system, and the thing’s never really been tested—in this one small-scale test it failed six times out of six. You should have seen how the people we talked to reacted.” He laughed sadly. “Mostly they just looked at the ground and shook their heads. Talk about walking peacefully into the ovens!”

“It’s incredible all right,” Mickelsson said.

Mark laughed. “Sorry to rant. Anyway, we’re doing what we can.”

“Look, don’t do anything dangerous, OK?”

“You know me, Dad. Non-violent type.”

“But it seems you have found it necessary to disappear.”

“Don’t worry. No violence directed at human beings.”

“Buildings and machines?”

“Come on, Dad. They’re no good anyway. Radioactive.”

“That stuff’s catching, isn’t it? If a person gets too close?”

“Listen, Dad.” Mark seemed suddenly distant. “Are you OK? Really?”

“Am I OK. Jesus!” But Mickelsson grinned in spite of himself, shivering. “I bought a house. Haunted. I kid you not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, mainly I mean I bought this house. Let me give you directions to it, just in case. OK? You got a pencil?”

“What do you mean it’s haunted?” His voice was worried.

“Have you got a pencil?”

“Sure,” Mark said. “Just a minute.” His voice went far away, the words unintelligible; he’d probably put his hand over the phone. Then: “OK, what’s the address?”

Mickelsson told him, turn by turn. Then: “Mark, where are you?”

“I’m fine,