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

changed here in two hundred years, but not because it stood outside time, like the Bauer place (in Mickelsson’s admittedly queer opinion): in Montrose one had the feeling that time had been stubbornly resisted, refused lawful entrance, with the result that, somehow, nothing was secret here, nothing more mysterious than a Baptist’s sweet smile or a banker’s jovial “Good morning.” Nothing to be learned.

It was odd, a sympathetic observer might say, that the great white houses stirred in him no emotion. If the house he was buying were ever brought back to its former state, it would be much like one of these. Professor Mickelsson smiled, thinking of the warped, peeling shutters of his house, the dangling eaves, the knotty, slanting floors of native chestnut. It made him feel a little like a secret agent, standing here—a tall, stout scholar spy, pipe in hand, hat level now—thinking of his battered old shadow-filled monster in the presence of these proud, white, Christian homes.

Well, he was glad Montrose existed. He turned, bowing to Lake Avenue, touching his hatbrim, excusing himself, then walked to where his rusted, dented car was parked, down on the sidewalk in front of the lawyer’s office. Charley Snyder, Mr. Cook, and tall, wide-hatted Dr. Bauer all stood looking more or less in Mickelsson’s direction, laughing uproariously—too far away to hear—teetering, hanging on to one another’s elbows. He blushed, then on second thought nodded in their direction and touched his hat. There was no reason to believe they were laughing at him. He climbed into the car, switched on the engine, and covered his nose and mouth with his right hand while with his left he hastily rolled up the window against the foul-smelling cloud that exploded all around him, a great shameless blast of yellow-gray luminous pollution from the Chevy’s rear end.

Driving back to Binghamton, he noticed for the first time how many slag-heaps there were on the road out of Montrose, how many signs reading FILL WANTED—STONE ONLY, and NO DUMPING!

When he reached his apartment, late that evening, the first thing he saw was the dark, completely unornamented car parked, more or less in shadow, under the trees across the street. For some reason he did not think about it, merely registered its existence, as he pulled the old Chevy up the driveway to the back of the house. He got out, noisily closed the car-door, and crossed the pitchdark back yard to the door opening onto the stairs up to his apartment. He heard a car-door close, like a belated echo, somewhere in front of the house, and then footsteps. Even now he did not quite understand, though some animal part of him came alert. He climbed the stairs more quickly than usual, hunting in his trouser pocket as he did so for the key to his apartment door. Then he knew there was someone on the stairs below him, and his mind came fully awake. He turned, craned his head around, and saw in the stairwell’s dimness two men in suits. Fear flashed through him, and he imagined himself running up the stairs for dear life, reaching the boxes of books outside his door and hurling them down at his pursuers, then going in for the silver-headed cane. The same instant, the man in the lead—small and wiry, dark-haired; the other was larger, almost fat—called up to him, “Professor Mickelsson?” They stood frozen as in a movie still, or one of his son’s photographs, the smaller man with his hand on the bannister, the larger one just behind him, his hand flat on the opposite wall, both of them looking up at him as if in fear. Both of them wore hats. The one in front was holding something up for Mickelsson to see. Crazily, he thought at first it was something he’d dropped, which they’d come running to give back.

But the man was saying, “We’re with Internal Revenue, Professor,” and Mickelsson saw that what he held up was an identification card. Now the other man had his out too, holding it up as if Mickelsson might be able to read it in the dim yellow light, from twenty feet away.

“I see,” Mickelsson said, and touched his left cheek with the back of his right hand. At last he said, “Come on up.”

He did not bother to listen to their names as they introduced themselves, nor did he bother to look carefully at the cards they insisted on showing him up close, standing under the plastic-shaded light outside his door. When they told him their business he said “Fine,” obligingly—assuming he had no choice in the matter—cleared his typewriter and books from the table, and sat down beside the smaller man. The larger one stood over by the window in the kitchen, looking out at the wall of leaves, occasionally moving a little, leaning on the sink, walking over to read the calendar on the wall, bending his head to watch carefully as he cleaned his fingernails with a silver nail-clipper.

They had photostats of every check he’d paid or received over the past ten years, and a large, leatherbound notebook full of neatly penned words and numbers. Mickelsson’s job was to identify, insofar as he could remember, what each check received had been for and whether the checks he’d written were “business” or “personal.” Somehow, though Mickelsson wasn’t conscious of panic, his mind substituted “pleasure” for “personal,” so that he would say, stupidly, as he went through the photostats, “Pleasure, business, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure …” Once he said, “Pleasure—not that paying an electric bill is much pleasure, ha ha!”

“Actually,” the man said, unamused, coolly polite, “it’s ‘personal,’ not ‘pleasure.’ ”

“Yes. Yes of course,” Mickelsson said, but instantly his mind returned to the mistake. The man did not bother to correct him again.

They sat for hours—he had no idea how long—Mickelsson turning over photostats, the small man, expressionless, taking notes. They did not explain to him, nor did he dare ask, why it was necessary to