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

“I could do that, if it’s not any trouble,” Snyder said, giving him a brief serious look.

“By all means!” Mickelsson said. “Good to see you!”

“I’m meeting some friends here,” Snyder explained, looking toward the door, then back at Mickelsson. He began to take off his raincoat. “We usually meet over at Dobb’s Country Kitchen, but some of us thought, well, you know. Support local business.”

They both laughed. Snyder folded the raincoat carefully and hung it over the back of a chair, then seated himself next to Mickelsson. “I’ll just have coffee,” he said to the waitress, who had appeared with her pad from nowhere.

“The coffee’s really terrible,” the waitress said.

“I don’t mind,” Snyder said, and smiled.

Mickelsson watched her swing away, moving past empty tables to the louvred doors into the kitchen. It was no doubt true that the coffee was terrible. Its slightly scorched smell filled all the restaurant.

Snyder leaned forward onto his elbows. His cufflinks—onyx, like the ring—blinked. Mickelsson, smiling back into Charley Snyder’s smile, was aware of ambivalent feelings. He was a hard man to dislike—even, despite his business, a hard man to distrust—but Mickelsson, tonight at least, with the thought of Donnie Matthews not far back in his mind, felt irritation at Snyder’s easy handsomeness. The man made Mickelsson feel as overweight as he was, and worse yet, as homely. Mickelsson smiled, realizing what a figure he cut. His face was puffy. Even in his prime, before it had begun to turn yellow and iron-gray, his hair had been too carroty to be anything but odd, and it had never been trainable. His neck was like a bull’s, his shoulders so large as to be slightly grotesque, an effect increased by his habit (he saw this moment, with the heightened clarity that comes of too much gin) of choosing suits too small for him. He couldn’t even feel a comfortable intellectual superiority. Snyder was at peace with the world, and evidently rich. He knew his business at least as well as Mickelsson knew his. Like water in some old-time torturer’s chamber, gloom was rising in Mickelsson, threatening to drown him. He smiled more intensely to dispel it.

“Well, what do you think?” Snyder asked. “Is the old house haunted or not?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Mickelsson said.

The man glanced up at him, as if surprised that he should hedge.

“What’s the story on this man Warren?” Mickelsson asked.

Snyder interlaced his fingers on the tabletop and looked thoughtful. “I doubt that there is any story,” he said. “He came down and made some kind of study of Susquehanna—for all I know he was interested in the history of railroads. Maybe he was in folklore. He was as nice a man as you’d hope to meet. Nothing strange about him, just an ordinary professor. Good-looking, young … I’ll tell you my theory. The whole thing’s socio-economic.”

Mickelsson waited, eyebrows arched.

“Most of the people in this town, or anyway the people I deal with, they’re as middle-class as anybody. But we’ve got more than our share of poor people, and the thing about the poor is, they compensate, if you follow what I mean. Holy Rollers, lower-class Catholics … When life disappoints them, they improve on it. You know what I mean: Heaven, all grievances redressed. But also other things. They make up for their lack of real social power with imaginary power. Witchcraft, strange legends people whisper to one another—” His right hand made a faint, dismissive gesture. “I don’t blame them. I’d probably do the same, in their circumstances.” He sadly shook his head. “Well, anyway, when that man Warren died, it was a godsend for people like that, you know? Rumors began to circulate on the kinds of questions he’d asked—probably most of them he’d never actually asked or even thought of—and little by little his death became a proof of, well, the power of the Devil. Something like that. My own opinion is, he happened to be murdered, up there in Binghamton, and it had nothing to do with Susquehanna.”

Mickelsson said, “I understand he asked a lot of questions about my place—the Sprague place.”

“I imagine he must have. It’s the best legend we’ve got.”

Mickelsson nodded. “Just about the only legend.” He smiled.

“Well, no, not really.” Snyder stopped, looking up at the waitress, who’d appeared with his coffee.

She set it down carefully. “You’re sure you don’t want anything else?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’ll be eating later, when the others come.” He looked at Mickelsson. “Do you want coffee? It’s the best in Susquehanna.” Snyder and the waitress exchanged smiles.

“No thanks,” Mickelsson said. “I may have some after I eat.”

“It’s almost ready,” the waitress said.

“Fine,” he said, and nodded.

She left.

“So go on,” Mickelsson said. “There are other legends—besides the one about my house?” He blushed, embarrassed about calling the place “my house.”

Ruefully, Snyder smiled. “You mustn’t judge Susquehanna by what its crazies think.”

Mickelsson waved as if to say, “Never dream of it.”

“Well, we have a man that can fly.” He raised his hand like a policeman signalling Stop. “No broomstick,” he said, “pure will.” Suddenly he grinned. “That’s all I can tell you. It’s interesting, of course—strange and amusing. But it would give you the wrong idea about this place, take my word. You want to know what we mainly do here in Susquehanna? We try to bring in industry. It’s no pipedream. Really isn’t. We’re on a main railroad line—even Scranton, it’s just a side-line—but trains do go through Scranton. If Reagan’s elected … I don’t mean to talk politics—”

Mickelsson waved away objections.

“Well, as to your house,” Snyder said.

The waitress arrived with Mickelsson’s open roast-beef sandwich. Meat, soggy white bread, potatoes; all covered with brown-gray gravy.

“I’m sorry,” the waitress said, “did you order a salad? I didn’t bring you a salad, did I?”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I did order a salad, yes. Maybe if you could bring it later—”

“I’m sorry. You wouldn’t believe how confused things are tonight!”

The tables were still mostly empty. Snyder smiled.

“Later