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

now, you been dreaming like a baby. Little cottage in Eden, with a cleaning woman comes in two times a week—that’s what you think your wife deserves; she’s a human being, right? Little lower than the angels? What if the money to pay for it just doesn’t exist? Nowhere in the world? Never mind, what’s right is right, you’ve got your dream. Am I on to you? But what about her dream, since we’re ignoring reality and all its pigshit tedium. Why should she settle for a miserable fucking cottage, nobody interesting to talk to but a couple of big bossy angels, maybe a snake. You hearing me, Professor? You on my wave-length? In a perfect world you wouldn’t need me, that’s granted. But unfortunately we’re dealing with a world made of crap, world of cut or be cut, so if I was you I’d start listening to a little advice.”

Mickelsson said nothing. It struck him that it wouldn’t be easy to get back into his writing.

“Don’t send the lady another thin dime. Let her see you’re serious. She’ll negotiate—no choice! When she’s hungry enough she’ll go to court for a settlement and the judge’ll award her maybe ten thousand tops—probably less, all things considered. You can always send her a little more if you get conscience pangs. Hell, you can give her every penny you make, but as your lawyer I can’t let you commit yourself to going to prison if you should hold a penny out.”

“All right, I won’t send her any money for a while,” Mickelsson said.

“Now that I call reasonable.”

“But when we get her to court, the offer I’ve already made stands.”

“And that I call not so reasonable. But OK, OK. We’ll play it as it lays. Say, I see your kid got his kisser in the paper.”

Mickelsson sucked in his upper lip. “I didn’t catch it, I guess.”

“Yeah, one of those ‘protesters arrested’ things. I’ll slap it in the mail.”

“Do that. I’d like to see it.”

“I bet you would.” Finney laughed.

Mickelsson hung fire for an instant. “What does that mean?”

“Nothin, pal! It’s been a long time since you’ve seen him, right? He looks terrific, believe me. Peak of health!”

“I’m glad to hear it.” His mind remained snagged on Finney’s laugh. At last he said, “What was he protesting?”

“Nukes, I think. Seabrook or Yankee, one of ’em.”

“I see.” Mickelsson nodded. His fingers played absently with the phone cord. “Do send the clipping. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“Will do, pal,” Finney said. “Keep fit, now. Anything else?”

“I guess that’s it.”

“OK, then. Keep in touch—I hate surprises. Bye-bye!”

“Good-bye,” Mickelsson said.

When he looked over what he’d written he saw that he’d been right. It had terrific drive, a quality one could only call magical, easily the flashiest piece of argument he’d ever pulled off. But the mood had left him. The very room around him looked dead, as if whoever lived there had moved. Again he reread his pages, struggling to get the feeling back. Rhetoric like a delicate tracery of ashes.

Late that afternoon it began to rain, a gray, smoky rain that moved back and forth against the mountains like curtains, and Mickelsson’s depression increased. For all his work, he’d gotten out only another half page, and he did not need an objective friend’s eye to know that it was worthless. He forced himself to quit. A day like this—lurid gray sky, gray rain, gray hills—would be a good one to waste on finishing the straightening up of the mess his visitors had left. He went to the cabinet under the stereo for the one bottle of Gordon’s gin and the one small bottle of Martini & Rossi with which he’d replaced all the liquor he’d lost, paying with a check he was pretty sure would bounce, though he had, really, no idea. He fixed himself a large martini, then moved dully from room to room, putting things back into their drawers or onto their proper closet hooks, shoving the furniture back where it belonged, then sweeping and dusting, stopping every fifteen minutes or so for a sip of his drink, finally putting his books back on their shelves, this time imposing, as he hadn’t done before, some measure of organization. The size of the stack of bills on his desk made him sick. He wouldn’t think about them. When he came across the silver-headed cane in the hallway, where he’d left it that night, he stood looking at it for a moment, then leaned it up against the rickety coat-and-umbrella rack as though it had for him no more special meaning than any other familiar household object.

Housecleaning finished, he went down to the basement to look over the still-unopened boxes of tools he’d gotten from the hardware store in town, the great stack of wallpaper rolls, the paste and brushes. The basement—cellar was more properly the word—was damp, full of smells of decay. The beams overhead had patches of gray fuzz on them, like lichen or dampened ash. The stone walls literally dripped, probably not leakage from the rain outside, and the cardboard boxes, brand new a few days ago, were soft to the touch. Leave the wallpaper rolls here much longer and they’d be money down the drain. He carried them, armload after armload, up to the kitchen and nested them on the long, formica-covered counter. He must get busy soon at fixing the place up. He remembered as if from a different existence how eager he’d been to get at it all, just a week ago. Now his decision to write that blockbuster book made his plans for the house an annoyance, though of course he must carry them out; otherwise the waste of money would be criminal. He stood sipping the martini, finishing it off, his shoulders drooping, stomach falling heavily forward as in some Beardsley drawing (no doubt even now he was flattering himself: his trousers were limp, baggy, and soiled; his shoes were damp and shapeless and had a rancid smell), gazing