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

was objectively wrong. It had no doubt been quite innocently that Edie had learned he was out of touch with Jessie; something Phil or Tillson had said, perhaps, about his failing to pull his weight; or some innocent question to Jessie: “How’s Peetuh, deah?” “I haven’t heard from him in weeks.”

Yet the materially irrelevant suspicion kept nagging him: the age-old conniving of women, Edie and Jessie in indignant tête-à-tête; Jessie proud and injured, showing perhaps more feeling for him than she meant to, and Edie rising to it, determined to fix things, drag the straggler back into the fold. Jessie bursting into tears, perhaps. (The imagined scene grew cloudy. He couldn’t picture her bursting into tears, though he could imagine anger.) Surely a man had a right to withdraw, shutter up his windows, bar his door—especially such a man as he was, unwittingly a destroyer—and to hell with the eternal soft conspiracy of womanhood!

He fixed himself another large martini. The problem was not that he didn’t understand what was wrong but that he understood too well. He had isolated himself, partly by accident, partly by intent, and now all that was normal, reasonable, unthought-out. …

“Just call her,” he broke in on himself. “Just pick up the fucking goddamn phone.”

Her phone rang and rang. He did not notice that it was now almost midnight. He had a fleeting thought—a flash of irritation—of the medieval courtly lover, poor miserable worm crying out in secret for miraculous grace. There was a difference, of course. The courtly lover, in his pitiful way, suffered for his lady, secretly served her with all his heart and mind. What they had in common, he and the goof with the lute, was despair.

“Hello?” she said, husky with sleep.

Now, suddenly, he did realize what time it was.

“Jessie?” he said. “It’s me. Mickelsson.”

“Oh,” she said, then after a moment, “Jesus. What time is it? Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry to call so late. To tell the truth, I didn’t realize …” Jessie said nothing.

“I got a call from Edie Bryant,” he said. “She tells me—”

She said, “Edie?”

He said, “I’ve written a couple of letters. I’m sorry I was out of touch.” His glass was empty, and the phone cord was too short for him to get to the bottle. “Can you hang on a minute?” he asked. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry. …”

“Listen,” she said, “Jesus, Pete—”

“Just one second,” he said. “Hang on.”

He couldn’t find the gin, though he knew it was there. He took the Scotch bottle instead and sploshed half a glass over the fragments of martini ice.

“I’ve written a couple of letters,” he said. “I have an appointment with the president tomorrow morning. We’re not going to let them get away with this!”

“The president’s out of town,” she said. “Why are you saying all this?”

“You don’t believe me?” He threw his heart into it.

“What’s the difference,” she said.

Righteous indignation felt so good he kept it up. “You think I’m drunk, don’t you. You think this is all empty talk!”

“You, Mickelsson?”

He clenched his teeth and stared for a moment at the wall, checked by her indifferent irony. “Lot of times people think I’m drunk when it’s something else,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you the truth. I hide behind this apparent drunkenness. Mental problems. I don’t want to go into it, but you can ask my psychiatrist. I’ll give you his phone number.”

“Pete, I really am tired,” she said.

“Did I tell you what really happened to me in Providence? I won’t take long; it’s just that I want you to know, so that you know you can trust me—as long as I’m not flat-out crazy. Or maybe you don’t want me to tell you, maybe you’re not interested.”

“Of course I’m interested,” she said. “I’m also gonna be sick if you don’t let me get some sleep.”

Quickly—making a show of how quickly and briefly he was doing it—he told her about his episodes, how he would put on the red hunting coat and put white on his face, as the mime troupe used to do, and how he’d talked with dead things, had seemed actually to converse with them, though he could remember no details. “Anyway, the point is,” he said at last, “with all that’s been happening out here—the ghosts, if that’s what they are, and these dreams I’ve been having—I’ve been feeling a little panicky and, well, I guess self-absorbed. That’s why I haven’t—”

“OK,” she said. “All is forgiven.”

“I know you don’t need all this,” he said.

“That’s true.” For all her effort to sound kind, she sounded distant. Alerted by his bullshit language, perhaps: “You don’t need all this.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there when you needed me.”

“It’s all right,” she said.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” he said.

There was a silence. He felt a crazy movement of the heart toward glee. She saw through him!

She said, “What do you mean, dreams you’ve been having?”

“Nothing really,” he said, “that is, they never quite come to anything. I dream about the old people, something awful is about to happen, but then I wake up.”

The line was silent for so long he wondered if she’d dropped off to sleep. Then she said, “Pete, you should come in to a party and get roaring drunk.”

“Just a minute ago you were telling me I drink too much.”

“Only that you drink alone too much,” she said, and gave a laugh. “Did the Bryants invite you to the brunch they’re having?”

“I’m not really up to the Bryants right now,” he said. He felt a pang at not having been invited. “All the politics and religion. Politics and guilt. Or worse yet, Art. I like it better when he talks about dying whales.” A nastiness had crept into his voice; he saw he must find his way back to something inoffensive. He mopped away tears with his handkerchief. “What was that play Phil was quoting, that night here at my place?” He mimicked the sepulchral voice: “ ‘When I consider life, ’tis all