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

his pockets. “So you’re the mysterious noisemaker,” he said. “I’ve heard you, my friend, knocking things down in the cellar. I must say, for a cat you’re mighty clumsy.”

The tail went on moving. The eyes, aglitter with pinpoints of colored light, never shifted from Mickelsson’s face.

“Look,” Mickelsson said, holding his right hand out. “I have nothing against cats per se. But you’ll have to get over the idea that you own the livingroom.”

Though they were fifteen feet apart, Mickelsson moved carefully, making his way to the chair by the stereo twelve feet from the cat. He could feel the quick ticking of some muscle or vein near his heart. His emotions were in a turmoil he had no time to understand. Slowly, carefully, he seated himself. For all his fear of the cat, he knew, with some part of his mind, that he was glad the cat had come.

“OK,” he said, “so you’ve decided you live here.”

The cat settled toward the floor a little, stating as clearly as he could have done in words that, sick and weary as he was, he was willing to deal. Abruptly but carefully, Mickelsson stood up again and moved toward the kitchen. The cat watched. Mickelsson went to the cupboard and took out a cereal bowl, then went to the refrigerator for the milk-carton, poured milk into the bowl, holding the carton with two hands to check the trembling, then put the milk-carton away and carried the bowl into the livingroom, watching that it didn’t slosh, never looking at the cat. He moved toward where the cat waited and, four feet away, set down the bowl of milk. The cat had had dealings with human beings before, it seemed. It watched the lowering of the bowl, the withdrawal of the human hands, then closed its eyes. It would drink in its own good time. Perhaps it was from cats, Mickelsson thought, that human beings had learned the proper way of dealing with gods.

“OK,” Mickelsson said, and sat down again in the chair by the stereo.

The cat went on watching him, eyes little slits, never glancing at the bowl of milk. His tail was still now. Then he turned his head away and, after a moment, began to lick his paws as if he’d lived here all his life.

Mickelsson waited, cold gray light hanging around them like a fog. The cat went on licking its paws.

He thought of his ex-wife. “You’re my dearest, dearest, dearest,” she had said to him again and again, year after miserable year. Surely it had been true. “What a good, good face you have,” she had said, touching him. He’d felt the same about her. He couldn’t remember why the whole thing had gone wrong.

He turned to look out the window. Across the road there were two hunters starting down through the weeds in the direction of the pond. He closed his eyes.

He remembered for no reason something his son had once told him about whales, how the mother would sometimes swim for miles with the calf cradled under her flipper, not for protection, not for any reason but fondness.

Mickelsson, if he were a decent human being, would be a terrorist in defense of whales, yes. Nasty, self-hired gun to the untainted and lordly. But in fact he would never be a terrorist in defense of anything, not even a writer of vituperative attacks, like his mental life’s hero, the mad malicious cackler, dancing, screaming, blowing the cover of anti-Semites, whorish piety, and worshippers of the Reich—Fritz, crazed Fritz, whose dream of perfection was the wise, serene saint, but who himself achieved only the glee of the buffoon, maddening the devils of the moral majority with his cracked and fake-cracked murderous clowning, wisdom full of pranks: “Why I Am So Wise” “Why I Am So Clever” “Why I Write Such Good Books.” …

On the rug between the couch and the woodstove, the cat feigned sleep. Across the road, not far off, the hunters’ guns began blasting, POOM POOM POOM, like cannons.

9

Alan Blassenheim and Brenda were the first to arrive, triggering Mickelsson’s familiar guilt about Nugent. He should certainly have asked Nugent, if he was going to ask them. The boy had a desperate need of friends, as even Lawler had seen, and he’d certainly done everything to deserve Peter Mickelsson’s friendship. It was all very well to say, as Jessie had said when he’d mentioned his problem—but Jessie’s opinion was not fully informed; he hadn’t made clear to her the apparent extent of the young man’s desolation—“Look, Pete, it’s a party.” She searched his face, then said tentatively, “If you’re really convinced that this Nugent would be a wet blanket, then better to leave him out.” The question was, to put it in the mincing language of an ethicist, what would the probable consequences be when Nugent learned that Blassenheim had been invited while he, Nugent, had been excluded? One could give oneself a thousand excuses and palliations. Friendship was not duty, one should consider the good of the group as a whole, et cetera, et cetera—but the trouble was that Nugent, for all his brilliance, would understand none of those excuses in his heart: his portion of unhappiness would be increased. Mickelsson couldn’t even say with perfect honesty that in deciding against Nugent he had fashionably (however stupidly) set his own good above another’s. He would probably enjoy having Nugent here, getting to know him in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere. No, he’d given in to the side of his heart that was herd-controlled: Nugent would require an excess of attention, limiting Mickelsson’s freedom to dispense hostly blessings equally on all. Now, seeing Alan and Brenda drive up, he knew that he had made a mistake.

But Mickelsson’s self-excoriation was brief. By the time he opened the door for Alan and Brenda, he was already smiling, Nugent’s unhappiness almost banished from his mind. They’d started out early, they explained, blushing and laughing as they took off their coats. They’d expected