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

“I know. I believe you. But how can I get in touch with you? Send you money, for instance.”

“I’m OK. I really am.”

“What if something happens to you? How do I find out?”

“Dad,” Mark said.

“OK,” Mickelsson said. “OK. Listen, honey”—he regretted the “honey,” or half regretted it, but urgently pressed on—“it’s all right to fight the bad guys, but remember, you’ve got a life—”

“That’s not true, really,” Mark broke in. “Nobody’s got a life if things continue as they’re going. I’m not sure you understand or, OK, agree; but it’s all or nothing. I think it really is. I might be wrong. People like me have been wrong before. But if I’m right, I have no choice—you know, Dad? Look, I’m not a terrorist. I’d never hurt a fly. But they have to be stopped, people have to see what’s really happening, and I’m not sure it’s possible to stop them in the way I’d approve of. They’re too big, whole federal government wrapped around them like eggwhite, feeding ’em. I think, well, it’s a war for life. You know how proud you were of your uncle that lied about his age and went off to fight in World War Two? Well, this is a war for the planet. That’s what I think.”

“You say you’re not a terrorist,” Mickelsson said.

“OK, I’m a terrorist. I don’t think of it that way.”

“Honey,” Mickelsson said. “Honey—!”

“It’s OK, Dad. Really, it’s OK. I haven’t changed.”

After a minute Mickelsson said, “I know. Listen. Be careful. OK?”

“OK.”

“Listen—”

After a long pause, Mark said, “I’ll call when I can. OK?”

“OK.”

“Bye, Dad. I love you.”

When he was able, Mickelsson said, “I love you too, Mark.”

The line went dead.

“Good-bye,” Mickelsson said.

In the morning he awakened pinned by his own immense weight to the bed, numb from head to toe, as if he’d gone to bed drunk and had never stirred all night long. It took him a good while to remember what was amiss; the phonecall. Then feeling flooded into him, the power to move. He thought at once of calling Ellen, then thought better of it. He thought of calling Jessie, then again stopped himself. “Christ,” he whispered, something like a prayer. He saw his son moving among dangerous, shadowy strangers far away—Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota … wherever the nukes were; but they were everywhere. Some deep misery pulled at him, nothing he could put in words, though in a way he understood it: his son, stepped back from the world as he himself was, but more terribly, perhaps more hopelessly. Mickelsson would never again be as innocent as his son, or as loving of poor stupid humanity. He, Mickelsson, was old and crafty, or capable of craft. He, not his son, should be the terrorist. Passive resistance; very good, conceivably helpful. But he knew now, though he knew no details, that his son was beyond that—rightly, for all he knew. The gentlest child who ever lived.

Against his better judgment, overcoming his cowardice, he dialed Ellen’s number. It was her friend that answered, The Comedian.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Willard?”

“Professor?” the voice asked.

“Is Ellen there?”

“She’s out right now. Can I give her a message?”

In his mind, Mickelsson saw the young man bent toward the receiver like a Japanese, his black beard shiny, his shirt puckered in by suspenders. His voice contained a slight tremble. Fear, or concern for Ellen’s welfare. Maybe hatred.

“Mark called last night,” Mickelsson said. “Tell her he’s OK.”

“He called here too.”

“Oh,” Mickelsson said. Irrationally, he felt betrayed. “OK. All right then.”

“Thank you for calling,” the young man said. He spoke gently, as if concerned about Mickelsson’s welfare too.

Not far away, Ellen’s voice asked, “Who is it?”

“Good-day,” the young man said.

Deliberately, almost without emotion, he struck the receiver hard against the wall to break the young man’s eardrum, then hung up.

On the desk in his office he found a note from Lawler, asking him to drop by LN227—Lawler’s office—at his convenience. After his Plato and Aristotle class (uneventful; they were working on their term papers now, and were content to let him lecture), Mickelsson went up to see if Lawler was in. He must try to make it brief. Jessie would be driving out this afternoon to help him set up for the party at his house. Would they make love? Desire and shame warred in his stomach. He took a Di-Gel.

By some computer mix-up, or perhaps by some odd preference of Lawler’s, the office was isolated from the rest of the Philosophy Department offices, surrounded by the messy, oddly gray offices of mathematicians. Lawler’s door was closed, as usual. No notes, sign-up sheets, or grade-lists were thumbtacked to the small, framed square of cork under the office number. No New Yorker cartoons, no posters or pictures, no decorative quips like the one on the door across the hallway from Lawler’s: What is the speed of thought?

Mickelsson knocked and, after a moment, as if slightly alarmed, Lawler called, “Come in. It’s open.” The voice was high and thin.

Mickelsson turned the knob, opened the door a foot or so, and poked his head in. In the dimness of the astonishingly cluttered, book-filled room, Lawler sat turned sideways at his desk, thoughtfully chewing a pencil, looking down at the large volume he had open in front of him. Though he did not seem to have glanced up from the book, he said, “Ah, Pete! Sit down.”

Mickelsson opened the door further and entered, gently closing the door behind him. Lawler was dressed, as usual, in his shabby black suit, his shiny steel glasses cutting into the sides of his pale, bloated visage. He was graying and balding—the gray hair unkempt, as if wind-blown—yet he was curiously baby-faced, as if nothing had ever happened to him, no griefs, no joys, no wind to dishevel him but the harmless wind of words. He sat in his old-fashioned mahogany deskchair with his lumpy black shoes resting on a low footstool—he was too short to reach the floor—and his posture was oddly prim, erect, a