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

great modern problems small. Life’s supposed meaninglessness was not an issue: the sunlight on her book was enough. Funerals, marriages, even torture in El Salvador, Argentina, and Brazil—the tyrannies the new man in the White House praised and aided, as had his predecessor more secretively—fell into place. One did what one could do, and what one couldn’t do was in God’s hands. Solemn thoughts on how God might perhaps not exist were of no interest, like the thought that, possibly, walking in pensive solitude through a field, one might be killed by a mysterious blue boulder—the discharge of a chemical toilet—fallen from an airplane full of businessmen, pretty girls, and academics, a mile overhead. She would brighten the place in a way the new wallpaper, paint, and sanded floors could not match. What would she feel about the ghosts? Not much. Perhaps she would engage them in conversation.

Thinking about his mother, he saw the house in a new way; that is, took new pride in how much he’d accomplished on, relatively speaking, so little money. True, he owed Owen Thomas his soul, and because of the house still hadn’t paid that five hundred dollars to the Stearnses for the Jeep repairs. All the same … Though more of the rooms than not were empty, he’d wonderfully brightened them—his father and Uncle Edgar would approve. So would the I.R.S., of course, if they decided to seize it. It would be worth far more now than when he’d bought it. For the first time he realized just how painful that would be. He was proud of everything about the place—the harmony of colors flowing from room to room, the professional neatness of his carpentry and painting. That he’d managed it all in so little time was astonishing. His first quasi-mystical feeling about the place had been right: it had become his expression, a projection of the self he meant to be, visible evidence that what he hoped for in his life and character might perhaps be attainable.

He closed his eyes to sleep again, and instantly his mood darkened. He remembered again all he ought to do—go in and help Jessie, if it was not too late; see the dean, perhaps the president, on this business of Philosophy Department courses usurped by sociology, make a call to the Garrets—he hadn’t spoken to them since the night of the party. He should call his attorney in Montrose, find out where he stood with the I.R.S.; deal with the once-again piling-up mail; figure out where his finances stood, how much he owed, how he might hope eventually to pay it, what he could do about the money due his wife, not to mention the fuel and electric bills. He relaxed toward sleep. It was hopeless, of course. He remembered the murdered fat man.

When he next awakened—he seemed to have slept for a long time, dreamless—it was still pitchdark. He had an immediate sense that some danger had awakened him. He sniffed for smoke, thinking that perhaps the woodstove downstairs had overheated and set the couch or the stack of newspapers on fire; but the air around his bed was cold and clean, and no hint of light came through the open door into the hallway. He waited, listening, but no, it was not fire. Then his scalp crawled and he knew—he had been through this before—there was someone in the room with him, a darker place in the darkness, and the next instant he knew who it was: Theodosia Sprague. Her rage was all around him, like a field of force. A slight weight pressed down on his foot through the covers and an icy sensation like snake poison raced up his leg: she was touching him! He would have cried out, but his voice froze in his throat. The hand lifted and, perhaps, moved away.

He was terrified now, weak as water all over, though he knew even in his fear that she would probably not harm him, would not wish to even if she could. Her rage had nothing to do with him. So he reasoned, not that he convinced himself. He was part of her world, therefore vulnerable to her madness. He waited, holding his breath, gazing at the solid black wedge in the surrounding darkness, both hands pressing hard on his chest to calm the surging of his heart. As his thought unclouded he realized that part of his shock and bafflement came from his feeling that her presence was almost a greater violation of natural law than the fact that a ghost might appear in the first place. Somehow without realizing it he’d settled it in his mind that now that he knew the whole story, more or less—assuming it wasn’t all madness or a dream—now that he knew of the death of the boy, the old woman’s long-delayed murder of her husband-brother and her subsequent hanging—the hauntings would end, their spirits at rest. Not so, apparently. She was here in the room with him, as angry as ever. Now he was feeling the familiar pain: arthritic fire in every joint. He couldn’t straighten his fingers or back. He should have known. Nu-gent’s ghost should have taught him, assuming that too was not madness or a dream. The Spragues’ tragedy would never end because their deaths had solved nothing: killing the old man had not in the least solved the old woman’s problem; even when the knot on the hangman’s rope snapped her neck, the silent welling of rage or howl to the universe for justice was still in her, stronger than before.

He sat up, his head painfully bent forward, his eyes straining to penetrate the darkness, but still he saw nothing, felt only the rage pouring out of her spirit like thick black vapors from a poisoned well. He felt some shift in things and struggled to understand it, every nerve alert. At last he understood. The center of evil was moving, drifting toward the door, perhaps vaguely searching for