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

dead serious, the rest of his features assembled to a hearty grin. They could always count on old Mickelsson, he thought; madman Mickelsson, born for better things, maybe for selling used cars. He was aware of Tillson’s watchful eye and the queer, no doubt accidental gesture of the right hand raised toward his grizzled chin, two fingers lifted above the rest and aiming outward, like a claw raised to strike, or a papal blessing, or the sly cobra sign of ancient Tibetan art. The young man who turned to shake Mickelsson’s hand had such glassy eyes and pallor of skin, color like a dead man’s, that Mickelsson was for an instant almost thrown. Careful, he thought, and tightened the screws on his expression, letting no muscle slip.

“Professor Mickelsson,” Tillson said, beaming with fake pleasure, “this is Michael Nugent. He’s transferring into philosophy from engineering.” He continued to beam, head twisted painfully up toward Mickelsson’s, as if tickled pink to have the honor of introducing two such marvels. Tillson’s black trousers were baggy at the knees. His shapeless black coat hung forlorn on the back of his chair. His tie was wide and wrinkled, not quite clean.

“Glad to meet you, Michael,” Mickelsson said. He gave him a nod and put the smile on energize. “Good to have you with us! Glad you saw the light!”

The boy mumbled something, accepting Mickelsson’s football-coach handshake without returning it—not just responding limply, but actively refusing to respond (or so it seemed)—and his eyes, meeting Mickelsson’s, threw a challenge. Clearly something was eating the boy. The leaden skin, the reddened eyelids, the nervous, weak mouth like a child’s all gave ominous warning. He wore a blue, pressed workshirt with starch in the collar, and neat, pressed slacks, such clothes as nobody in philosophy had worn since the fifties. His elbows and knuckles and the tip of his nose were red, as if scrubbed with Fels Naptha. Mickelsson drew his hand back.

“Professor Mickelsson, as you may know, is our department’s most distinguished philosopher,” Tillson said, and he put one hand on Nugent’s arm, the other on Mickelsson’s, preparing to press them subtly toward the door. Mickelsson smiled on, though he knew pretty well what the praise was worth, and he kept his eyes, with their familiar look of (he knew) intense, crazed interest, on the young man’s face. What a world, Mickelsson was thinking. Tillson and himself, arch-enemies, shepherding another poor innocent—fugitive from the clean, honest field of Engineering—into the treacherous, ego-bloated, murder-stained hovel of philosophy. But Mickelsson was a team man, at least when he was set up for public view—had been one all his life, even here in the Department of Philosophy he none too secretly despised. The show of happy solidarity rose in him instinctively, which was one of the reasons Tillson called on him in delicate cases like this one, whatever the delicacy of the moment might be (he would learn soon enough, he knew).

“What I thought, Pete,” Tillson said, “was that maybe you could run over Mr. Nugent’s program with him—help him figure out what he’ll need, what he might take first, and so on. What he might manage to get out of. Ha ha. Little fatherly guidance.” His face took on, briefly, a startled look; then he jerked the smile wider, the edges of his moustache twitching from the strain, and asked Nugent, “Did I remember to give you your papers back?” He looked over at the low table in front of the couch where he liked to take cat-naps—the tabletop was littered with professional magazines and a clumsy stack of student papers—then over at the desk, finally at the young man’s left hand, rising now as if of its own accord to show a ragged sheaf of forms and the computerized Fall Schedule of Courses. “Ah, good, good! If my head weren’t screwed on—” He raised his smile toward Mickelsson again, gave a little wink, and, as if without knowing he was doing it, began pushing Mickelsson and Nugent gently out of the room.

“Fine! No problem!” Mickelsson said, so heartily that probably not even Tillson understood that nothing could be farther from the truth.

As soon as the three of them were outside his office, Tillson pretended to have a memory flash and, catching Mickelsson’s arm again, said, “Oh, there’s something I meant to ask you, Pete.” He turned to the boy. “Would you excuse us just a moment? It shouldn’t take more than a second or two.” He laughed. He was already leading Mickelsson back in, drawing the door shut behind him, tossing the boy one last apologetic nod. “Sorry about this, Pete,” he said when the door was closed. “I know you don’t deal with undergraduate advising—”

“What’s up?” Mickelsson asked, hoping to cut past the chit-chat. He shifted his eyes away, forcing himself not to stare at Tillson’s hump.

“You do go straight at things, don’t you,” Tillson said, but smiling, edging away toward his desk. He cranked his head around, rolling his eye back at Mickelsson like a sheep. “I got a call from the dean about Nugent, out there. It seems he’s been going through something of a crisis—attempted suicide, apparently depressed about the death of his father. A sad, sad business.” He shook his head, involuntarily raising two fingers to his beard. “I don’t know all the details, I’m afraid. It seems Blickstein and the boy had a talk, and I understand the boy’s dead set on”—Tillson’s ironic smile twitched briefly—” ‘the consolation of philosophy.’ ” Again he rolled his eyes up at Mickelsson. “I’m sure you’ll agree that’s more your line than mine. Maybe more your line than anybody else’s in this department.”

“It’s true,” Mickelsson said, unable to resist, “I do still try to deal with life-and-death issues from time to time. But it hardly makes me a psychiatrist.”

“Yes of course. I realize—”

“It sounds to me as if the young man shouldn’t be in school at all,” Mickelsson pushed on, slightly reddening. “If we’re so hard