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

about it, no doubt privately analyzing, as Mickelsson had done over and over, whether it was a good idea or likely to make things worse. At last he said, just above a whisper, “Creeps.”

“They are creeps,” Mickelsson said, pleased to have been given the word for them.

Now a silence fell between Mickelsson and the boy. It was Nugent who finally broke it. “Well,” he said, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry—and I’m sorry about making a scene here now, too. It’s been a—” He stiffened slightly, making sure he had control. “It’s been a bad year.”

Mickelsson studied him. Nietzsche would say—or Freud, or any other man of sense—that the statement was an emotional con. He drew the pipe from his mouth and, against his better judgment, said, “I heard about your father. I’m sorry, Nugent.”

The boy nodded. After a moment he said, “I also had a friend die, my chemistry teacher—he was murdered; you probably heard about it, maybe I told you. Professor Warren? He’d just gotten married a week before—”

A chill ran up Mickelsson’s spine. Warren. That was it, of course: the strange, bedevilled woman he’d met at the Blicksteins’ party. Evenly, he asked, “Wasn’t he investigating something down near where I live, in Susquehanna?”

“I don’t know about that,” Nugent said. He closed one hand over his nose, breathing shallowly again, fighting emotion. “He was always looking into something or other. He had more energy than—” He fell silent and tightly closed his eyes. In a minute he would whisper again, “I’m sorry,” and would cry.

To prevent it, Mickelsson said sternly, “It’s been a bad year for you, Nugent. I’m very sorry.”

“Well,” Nugent said, and sniffled. Abruptly he stood up. “Thank you,” he said, for an instant meeting Mickelsson’s gaze.

“No problem,” Mickelsson said, and waved his pipe. “Any time I can be of help …”

Nugent nodded stiffly, then turned, off balance, and hurried to the door. He fumbled for the doorknob as if unable to see it, then opened the door, half turned back, nodded stiffly again, then quickly stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

Mickelsson sat for a few minutes longer in the now quite dark office, thinking, or trying to think. A chemist. Then at last he heaved his bulk out of the chair, dropped the tobacco-pouch and pipe into his pocket, and settled his spirit on the long, lonely drive home.

2

Now that the leaves had turned, exploding in a variety of yellows and reds here and there broken by the dark green pines, the Susquehanna Valley and the mountains rising on each side of it were more beautiful than ever. In farmers’ yards lay piles of bright orange pumpkins, and on every roadside stand, from Binghamton to Susquehanna, Mickelsson saw more of them—also apples, bright yellow pears, plastic jugs of cider. Here and there, seated on a porch or up on the gable of an old, gray barn, sometimes on a porch roof or sleeping against a tree, he saw pumpkin people—brightly dressed, straw-filled characters with jack-o’-lantern heads. Cars with New Jersey license plates cruised slowly up and down the mountain roads, pausing now and then to spill out tourists with cameras. Often they stopped outside Mickelsson’s house, to take pictures of the pond and waterfall, the viaduct and river in the distance. Mickelsson kept clear of them, more reserved than any native. (He’d seen no sign, lately, of the dark green, unornamented car that had earlier come to spy on him.) Every night, deer came to look down at his house. Mornings, the grass would be white with frost.

Halloween came and went. He might easily have forgotten about Halloween—he’d lost all track of time, floating in it as in Nietzsche’s sea of recurrence. If there were masks in store windows, Mickelsson didn’t notice them. But two nights before the real one—if he wasn’t mistaken about the date of Halloween (it had always been Ellen who tended to such things)—Mickelsson, driving through Susquehanna after dark, came suddenly on a troop of four- or five-foot-high witches and goblins, monster creatures, white-sheeted ghosts. They scattered away in all directions from the glow of the headlights. Hastily, Mickelsson laid in candy and apples, preparing for the blackmail of trick-or-treat, and just to be on the safe side padlocked the barn in which the old blue Chevy sat—in his country childhood, Halloween had been a favorite time for vandalism, especially the destruction of seemingly useless machinery. Then he waited, busying himself around the house and listening for a knock. His head was crowded with painful, happy memories—scenes, images, fragments.

Their first year at Brown, he and his family had been invited to a Halloween party given by some friends, the Vicos—the adults to drink, eat, and talk, the children to go out trick-or-treating together, maybe ten, fifteen kids. Maria Vico, famous for her sewing (she’d later turned professional, opening a store), had “created” something for his daughter Leslie; none of them except Leslie had seen it. Leslie, nine or ten, never wore anything at that time of her life but overalls, some old workshirt, and a baseball cap, her long blond hair stringy, always slightly tangled, usually (like her face and hands) not quite clean. Her greatest happiness was to visit her grandparents’ farm in Wisconsin, often with a girlfriend, sometimes with her brother, who liked it less, and devote herself to fishing, pigs, and horses. He and Ellen had not strongly disapproved of her ways; even if they had, nothing much could have been done about her. She’d been as stubborn and independent as she was winsome.

So they’d arrived that night at the Vicos’ steep-roofed, ultra-modern house with its lush plants, mysterious lighting, and invisible stereo, Leslie in her usual country-hippy garb, and after a few minutes Maria had gone off with the girls of the children’s party to the master bedroom. Joe, Maria’s husband, took the boys. When the girls emerged, with much fanfare, all the children transformed, Mickelsson’s eye had fallen instantly on