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

the Marx brothers. Except for killing a poor half-blind, lonely and enfeebled ex-thief, what had he done worthy of mention in the past five years? Could he honestly say that if he himself taught the course on Karl Marx he’d do it justice?

He slept for hours, woke up with a headache, drank water and took aspirin then returned miserably to his bed and slept hours more.

When he went out to empty the mailbox, late that afternoon, he found, mixed in with everything else, a Pipedream—one of the university student papers—that someone had stamped and addressed to him. He hardly ever bothered with the student newspapers, but he was puzzled as to why anyone should have sent it, so when he’d dropped the rest of the mail onto the couch, he opened up the paper and put on his glasses to look at it. The headline on the front page was “soc. dept. battles.” Under the headline was a picture of a stodgy, middle-aged professor at his desk. Wide face, heavy-lidded, sleepy P.L.O. eyes. On the second page there was a large, quite striking picture of Jessie at a lectern, and beside the picture, in bold-faced italics, a quotation: “Sociology is basically nonsense, like philosophy or poetry. That’s why we have to be as alert and open-minded as possible.” Under the quote, the Pipedream asked, “should this professor be fired?” He moved heavily to the far end of the couch, opposite the mail, and sat down to read.

The article was blatantly pro-Jessie, which pleased him, though he’d been around universities long enough to know it didn’t mean much. Odds were, the writer was a student of hers—he looked at the by-line: Leonard Zweig—probably a male student, in love with her. Still, it was a good piece; the boy had done his research well—chosen witty quotations, quoted her enemies in a way that, without obvious manipulation, made them seem irrationally belligerent or doltish. He read slowly, intently, leaning closer to the paper than he needed to and gripping the scalloped sides tightly between his fingers. Facts: she’d gotten her Ph.D. from Harvard at twenty-two, had taught for three years at Washington University in St. Louis, had married E. Q. (“Buzzy”) Stark, and had taught with him at Indiana University, then Entebbe, eventually Binghamton. She’d earned numerous awards (one from the World Health Organization), gotten honorary degrees—mostly from unheard-of places presumably in Africa—and had published dozens of articles, no books. On the fourth page of the newspaper, where the article was continued from page 2, Mickelsson was startled to find a picture of Jessie at age twenty-five. She was wearing a white dress with large black polkadots and a wide white hat, her hands shyly folded in front of her, on her face the smile of someone uneasy in front of cameras but not unaware that she is beautiful. “Christ,” Mickelsson whispered, and drew the paper closer. Her face was like a child’s, not yet touched by the shadow of family deaths. Behind her there was a white, Spanish-looking building, large, spear-shaped fronds, and a wide, bright expanse of water. Sunlight fell everywhere, not least (one felt) in the young woman’s heart. He had never seen anyone more beautiful, he thought; he was reminded of those French art films of the fifties. Staring at the face, he felt baffled, suddenly depressed. The Jessie of the picture was one he would never know, and childish, irrational as the feeling might be, he felt cheated, a little angry.

He closed the newspaper, the photograph still in his head, and sucked in his lower lip, biting down, considering the idea of driving in to Binghamton and beating the shit out of some Marxist. Mickelsson the avenging angel. He would wear the red huntsman’s coat, carry the silver, lioness-head cane. At the thought his shoulders tensed a little, and his hands, of their own accord, made fists.

It was late. They’d be at home, maybe just finishing supper with their families. That would make it harder, but Mickelsson had the blood of Vikings in him. He could handle it.

The image of the dead fat man came into his mind, and abruptly, to get rid of it, he stood up, reaching down in the same motion to pick up the paper from the coffeetable for one last look at the wide-faced, stodgy professor on the front page. He imagined what the face would look like terrified, just before Mickelsson pushed it in. But he knew now that he wouldn’t do it. Without wanting to, he turned again to the picture of Jessie when she was young.

Then, with a sigh, he folded the paper, dropped it on the table, and made his way down to his basement workshop. He had decided to make an oval window for the high gable in front.

He was still brooding on Jessie’s Marxists when, hours later, he shut off the cellar light and went up to bed. He knew almost nothing, about them except that he despised Marxists in general—as, if he told himself the truth, he despised everyone with whom he disagreed—and knew them to be fashionable with fools. It was clear even from the pro-Jessie article in the student paper that they were passionately engaged in the work they did, concerned about making sociology not just a science (as they called it) but a force for change. How the two went together was a little hard for Mickelsson to understand, but never mind. They cared about the world and had strong, noble-hearted opinions. Like uneducated Baptists, or leather-jacketed knife-wielding punks, they turned deaf ears to even the best counterarguments. There was something (not much) to be said for that.

“Fucking swine,” he whispered in the darkness.

Once after a movie he’d had a run-in with the Marxist with the pockmarked face and the long, thick fingers. It was a pleasant, devotedly made little movie about stone-cutters and bicycle riders; he’d seen it in the grungy little theater in Endicott. In the lobby, accidentally pressed up close