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

His intention had been to go to his office and, in the Campus Directory, find the addresses he needed, among others those of Jessie’s enemies. He had a vague intention of seeking out Jessie and Tillson, too—not to speak of what he’d seen. He wasn’t sure he was up to it; in any case he had no real plan. He had simply decided that it was time to act. It was a sign of how open his sea was that he’d brought along the shotgun: no malice was in his mind, no virulence in his heart; the last thing in the world he wanted was more violence. But stepping out through his front door, he had noticed the shotgun and, for no reason, had snatched it up—symbol of his new-found urgency, perhaps. Now everything was changed: the university was ablaze with lights. Mickelsson locked the Jeep doors and got out.

The double door opening onto the hallway leading to his office was open. Like a thief he peeked in. If everything went wrong, he would meet Jessie. But there were only students, none that he knew, one of them bent down, scolding a dog that cowered and wagged its tail. When he glanced at his watch he saw that it was nearly seven. Few professors would be in their offices now, only those who taught nightschool. On impulse he crossed quickly to the stairs and went up, two steps at a time, and in the comparative safety of the upper hallway nonchalantly hurried to the mailroom, getting out his key as he went. The outer door was open, his box more crammed than ever. He sorted through his mail quickly, dropping pieces to the floor and letting them lie there, looking only for one thing—precisely the last thing he’d have read, normally—Philosophy Department and Inter-Office “To/From/Subject” memos. He found one from Blickstein, dated January 30th, and his eyes snatched out of the rest the words “Professor Stark’s Review Committee …” He crumpled the paper and pushed it down into his suitcoat pocket. He found several recent memos from Tillson. These too he stuffed into his pocket. Then he closed the box, hurried to the elevator, stepped in when the door opened, and pressed the button that would take him to four, home of the chairman of sociology.

On the fourth floor there were no classrooms, therefore no students in the halls. In fact there was no one at all in the halls up here. Above the water fountain there was a sign, black and red: DO NOT DRINK! UNSAFE! Through the window in the door he saw that sociology was closed. Though he’d had no plan, he felt frustrated. He went back to the elevator, rode down to the second floor, and walked to Tillson’s office. Here there were students, but only a few, none he recognized. Tillson’s office too was closed and dark. Beside the door there was a poster—not the usual cheap poster from University Services but something more professional, no doubt printed in town: in elegant, girlish script the words Kate Swisson in Concert, and below the words a cartoon of Kate Swisson, maybe mocking, maybe admiring. Her chin was lifted, her eyes made to seem beautiful; her throat was very long. The poster was of the kind one might see for the Guarneri or the Grateful Dead. It came to him all at once why the concert he’d attended with Jessie and the rest had been so well received, and why his student Alan Blassenheim had been so eager, the night of Mickelsson’s party, to do everything in his power to put Kate Swisson at ease. It was the idiocy factor—brainless, all-together-now humanity rising as always to the shapely worm on the invisible promoter’s hook. Sham, falsity, cuteness, crap. Surely there was no hope!

In his office he copied down the addresses he wanted from the directory, read the crumpled-up notes from his mailbox, then—forcing himself against his terrible exhaustion—hurried back to his Jeep. Looking up as he backed out of his parking space, he saw that, directly above him, Lawler’s light was on. The old man would be meticulously laboring, as always; grading papers, reading, maybe asleep over his book. Guilt flooded in. He saw Donnie Matthews screaming, “It’s just a foetus!” The image was so vivid he had to hit the brake and close his eyes.

The painful realization came that he did not feel as guilty even about the murder as he felt about his betrayal of his calling. If he’d been a true philosopher, the murder would never have taken place; but that was not the point. Lawler was not a famous man; better known as a scholar and editor than as an original philosopher, and no doubt best known as a teacher. He’d written only two or three articles, brilliant, constipated works, tortuously worded, difficult to follow, each piece fifteen or twenty pages long but carrying a line of thought that any other philosopher might easily have made into a book. Philosophy was his life: he had no interest in fame—no interest even in converting the world. He simply wrote, quietly hard-headed, what was absolutely true, so far as his reason could determine. Untouchable, at least for the moment. He had no family that anyone knew of, no friends even, but threw his whole soul into what Mickelsson played at. Once, many years ago, Mickelsson had played football against a team of Peruvians. They were not good, really; in fact they’d lost the game. But one felt, playing against them, that the Peruvians simply weren’t playing the game one knew. One felt that, for losing, the Peruvian quarterback might be tortured and sent away to prison for life, or might simply disappear. (It probably wasn’t true.) They played with a terrible seriousness he could not match or understand—he played seriously himself, by normal standards—that was the point. He had felt, playing against them, like—in Nugent’s sense—a clown, a buffoonish imitation. So now,