Mickelsson's Ghosts (42 page)

Mickelsson thought about it—thought, tentatively, hastily, about many things. “And Warren was a clown,” he said at last—vapidly, waiting for something more.

Nugent nodded; two quick jerks. “I didn't understand it at the time—and I don't mean I was wrong to admire him. Gosh no! When he got married … I guess you've probably heard he was homosexual?”

“I hadn't, but—” He dismissed it with a wave.

“But that was typical, you see! The Truth of Science, Liberal Causes, Marriage and the Family …”

“Mr. Nugent,” he said—again the young man's first name had escaped him—“you seem to be telling me that
you
have no beliefs,
you
feel like a clown. It seems to me that with a mind like yours—an extraordinary mind, if you'll forgive my saying so—”

“Mind! Oh yes, certainly!” He was smiling, ready to burst out any moment into raucous laughter. “Mind! No question!—
e
to the iπ equals minus one; this is the absolute proof of God's existence! Shall I demonstrate?”

Mickelsson reached out and touched his arm. “You stole that,” he said.

Now the leaves were moving, filling the air with a whirring sound. One second ago the trees had been as still as marble. Western light slashed in under the darkness, yellowing the drab brick buildings below, burning the aluminum verticals and windows of the towers.

Nugent jerked his arm back. “Nobody
wants
to be a clown,” he said, “except Emmett Kelly, who was human.”

Now the rain began, huge warm drops falling softly and neatly, as if aimed.

3

That Friday morning (all but the oakleaves had fallen now, and the smell of November was distinct in the air, all but the scent of woodsmoke, which would only come with the month itself in Pennsylvania), Mickelsson slept late. A little before noon a knock came at the door. He lay waiting for whoever it was to go away, but the knock came again, and, changing his mind, he got up, put on his slippers and robe, and hurried down to answer. He was hung over from drinking while he worked on the house, the night before, and his arms, his back, and the backs of his legs ached from pushing too long and hard at his weight-lifting, just before he'd fallen into bed. As soon as he opened the door he saw that he'd been mistaken to come down. On his front porch stood two young men, wearing ties and long black coats. Their plain black, carefully polished shoes looked like government-issue, and both young men had their hair cut short, like marines. He clung to his first thought, that they were I.R.S. men, or maybe F.B.I. men come to speak with him of Mark, bring him some news or warning; but he knew all the while that that was wrong. There was something drab, even pitiful about them. They wore no gloves, and their faces, especially the noses and ears, were red from the cold. Their breath made steam.

The blond one said, “Mr. Mickelsson, we're representing the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints. We understand you recently paid a visit to Salt Lake City—”

Whatever the young man said next Mickelsson didn't hear. He stared, a confusion of emotions leaping up—horror, anger, morbid interest. It was true that he'd visited Salt Lake City, but it was three or four years ago, an aesthetics conference. How had they found out? Some student? Faculty member? Their network didn't miss a trick, he'd give them that. Or was it possible that they used the line on everyone, since more often than not whoever they talked to would at one time or another have visited that exalted tourist trap? If the person they talked to happened not to have been there, no harm: the sober black foot was in the door. Did they have psychologists working for them, he wondered—people who figured out the angles of entrance, understood the insidious advantage of taking the prospect off guard, addressing him by name, seeming to know all about him, past and present? Did they have sales-pitch classes, conferences on seduction, persuasion, intimidation? It was a shocking idea, but they probably did, he decided. It was the 1980s; the world was on its last legs, Armageddon close at hand. No time for the messengers of God to be scrupulous or shy.

He realized that almost unconsciously he'd said “Yes,” nodding, admitting that he had once visited Salt Lake City, yes. Perhaps, the blond one said, he would like to know more about the Mormons. Again Mickelsson failed to react. He could have told them he knew a good deal about the Mormons. He'd had a student, some time ago, who'd broken away from the Mormon Church and had been hounded for months by their soft-spoken, black-suited squads. He'd had a colleague in California who'd been hounded in the same way for fifteen years. Mickelsson thought of the underwear he'd been told their women wore, marked with holy gibberish and never taken off, not even in the shower—a sin against life, if it was true, he would have told them—and once, in a motel somewhere, he'd read a ways into their incredibly dull bible, the adventures of the archangel Moron. He knew the good that could be claimed for their company—their music, mainly (according to Ellen, it was vastly overrated); also the fact that they were family people, unusually successful in business and agriculture, non-drinkers, non-smokers, statistically more healthy and longer-lived than any other group in America. He would even grant that sometimes, as individuals, they were apparently good people, no real fault but dullness. The daughter of a family of Mormons had been a babysitter for his children when they'd lived in California. Perhaps these two young men at his door, if Mickelsson got to know them, would seem to him as admirable as his California neighbors. In all fairness, he couldn't condemn them for coming to him as missionaries. They all had to do it for a year of their lives, or so he'd been given to understand—always in twos, each for all practical purposes a spy on the other. Indeed, it was possible that they earnestly believed whatever foolishness it was they came with. Zeal and credulity were common among the young. Ecology, politics, animal rights … He thought of Alan Blassenheim and then of his own son, as pale as this pink-lipped young man now explaining to him the desperate condition of humanity—speaking not by rote, quite, but not altogether from the heart, either; prepared to be harshly interrupted and sent on his way. The dark-haired, red-nosed young man beside the blond one stood leaning slightly forward, looking at Mickelsson, listening to his partner with keen interest.

“Listen,” Mickelsson said, raising both hands, “I'm not interested in this.” He might have mentioned the cold they were letting into the house, but he said nothing, embarrassed at not inviting them in. Maybe that was why they wore no gloves or hats, part of the strategy worked out in Utah. Eastern States. Zone B.

“I realize you're busy,” the blond one said, and gave him a smile as general and mechanical as the smile of an orphan, “but I'm sure if you could give us just three or four minutes—”

“I'm sorry, I really can't,” Mickelsson said, and started to close the door.

Suddenly the one with black hair spoke up—the back-up man, the hard-sell. “Everyone's busy,” he said and, smiling genially, cut the air with the side of his hand. “If we told you we could teach you a foolproof system for living to be a hundred, that might be different, right? Or if we told you we could make you a millionaire, no ifs or buts, no tricky fine print, you'd jump at it—anyway most people would!” He laughed, almost handsome. Mickelsson closed the door a few more inches, but the boy was no fool; he knew if Mickelsson had really meant to close it he'd have closed it. “You think I'm going to tell you that spiritual things are more important than earthly things like health and wealth. That's what other faiths will tell you. But the way we look at it, the whole thing's interrelated. You'll understand what I mean, Professor. Aren't you the author of
Survival and Medical Morals?”

The hair on the back of Mickelsson's neck stirred.

The boy went on quickly, smiling hard, no doubt sensing that he'd set off a wrong reaction, “Survival's what we're here to talk about, Professor.” Again he gave the air a slow, sideways chop. With the gesture, his craned-forward head moved like a snake's. “Isn't it possible that if people live as God intended them to live, they're likely to live longer, much healthier lives? Let me quote you some statistics about the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day—”

“Wait a minute,” Mickelsson said, feeling his face flush, his right hand closing the lapel of his robe against the cold. “I know the statistics. I know the whole pitch. I already told you I'm not interested. Now good-day.”

The boy blinked, then nodded. After an instant he said, “Thank you. Good-day, sir.” He smiled in a way he apparently intended to seem friendly, but he didn't quite make it. Sour grapes, scornful superiority crept in.

The blond one showed relief. “Thank you for your time, sir.”

Mickelsson closed the door.

The unpleasant aftertaste stayed with him for hours, like the indistinct memory of a nightmare. It was still at hand, coming over him in occasional flashes, when John Pearson drove up around four that afternoon, with the long-haired black dog in the seat beside him in his pickup. He got out stiffly, held the door for the dog, then closed the door and stood looking at the house. Some kind of object, a forked stick—a dowsing rod—dangled from his angular right hand. Mickelsson went out to meet him. “Hello,” he called as the old man approached.

“Hod-do,” Pearson said. He gestured to the dog without speaking, and at once it sat down beside the old man's left boot and stared as if thoughtfully at Mickelsson.

“Fine weather we been having,” Mickelsson said.

Pearson seemed to consider the remark, glancing at the sky—gray, wintry clouds, yellow western light shooting under them, capping the mountains. “Had a little time on my hands,” he said. “Thought I'd try to rustle you up that water.”

“Good,” Mickelsson said. “Anything I can get you?”

“Gaht it all right here,” he said, and gave an impatient jerk to the dowsing rod. He looked up at the field behind Mickelsson's house, then, after a moment, back at Mickelsson. “Everything going all right here?”

“Everything's been fine,” Mickelsson said. He gestured toward the trash bags, scraps of lumber, and crumbled shards of sheetrock piled more or less neatly near the firewood. “Been trying to fix the place up a little,” he said. He was aware that his smile was less than modest. Anyone who glanced through the windows would be sure he'd had professionals in.

Pearson puckered his gray lips, not quite bothering to nod. Then, pointing to the woodpile: “I guess you know that wood ain't seasoned.”

“Isn't it?” Mickelsson said.

“Burn that stuff in your stove, you'll wreck your chimley.” He walked over to the wood—the dog moved with him—and, reaching down with two fingers, twisted off a small branch from one of the logs. “Pure green,” he said. “Two months ago this stuff had birds in it.”

“I guess I didn't realize,” Mickelsson said.

Pearson shook his head as if in wonder, one side of his mouth pulled back. “Better let me bring you down some seasoned,” he said. “Leave this just set here for a year or so.” He glanced at Mickelsson. “I guess you ain't used to country livin.” He grinned.

“Not for a long, long time, anyway,” Mickelsson said.

“Wal,” Pearson said. He looked up at the field behind the house again, then down at the dowsing rod, getting ready to start. The dog sat watching him, waiting for some command.

Mickelsson asked, “You mind if I come along and watch?”

“Suit yourself,” the old man said.

They started up across the yard, past the overgrown garden, toward the field.

The old man walked with a look of concentration, his lips pressed together, the dowsing rod straight out in front of him, level with his pelvis, his thumbs aiming straight forward on top of the rod's two arms. Occasionally the end of the rod dipped, but apparently not to the old man's satisfaction. He walked with stiff, long steps, as if he were pacing something off. For all his concentration, he seemed to see nothing in the low weeds on the ground ahead of him but stepped awkwardly on small rocks, sticks, and ant-hills, adjusting his step without noticing. He walked straight across the field, parallel to the road, then, at the stone wall along Mickelsson's north line, turned and set off at an angle, up toward the woods. At the top of the hill, almost in the woods, he stopped pacing and, after a moment, sat down on a stump to rest. The dog sniffed his boots, then trotted away, darting here and there, keeping them in sight, searching for birds or rabbits.

“Seems like the land's gaht a spell on it,” Pearson said.

Mickelsson studied him, trying to make out whether or not he was joking, but the old man's face showed nothing, staring out across the brightly painted valley in the direction of the viaduct. It seemed unlikely that he could see that far, with those blurry eyes. The river, under the gray sky, was silver and mirror smooth. Pearson turned his head to look at Mickelsson. “Funny you ain't seen them ghosts yet.”

“I guess I'm not the type,” Mickelsson said.

The old man grinned, then turned away. “Everbody's the type,” he said. “Most likely you see 'em and don't notice.”

Again Mickelsson said nothing. It was queer, he thought—though not all
that
queer, at Mickelsson's time of life—that in the classroom he stubbornly resisted ideas that made no sense, ideas half formed, unjustifiable, while here, standing in damp yellow leaves, he accepted John Pearson's crazy opinions as if nothing could be more obvious or natural. Or was he kidding himself, talking of a classroom Mickelsson who no longer existed? When was the last time he'd insisted, in class, on his students getting anything right?

Pearson's thought had drifted elsewhere. “Down there right acrost the road from your house,” he said, pointing, glancing for a moment at Mickelsson to see that he had his attention, “they use to have the Susquehanna ice-house. Pond was a whole lot bigger then. Use to skate there, when I was a boy—me and all my friends. Used the ice-house to warm up in. They had apples there too, crates and crates of 'em; keep 'em cold through the winter. Sometimes kept bodies there, for burying in the spring. That was supposed to be a secret. Summertime we'd bring a bunch of boards and nails and make a diving-board. All that land there growin up in woods use to be pasture then—smooth pasture except for some thistles and boulders, right down to the edge of the pond. Old brother and sister that use to live in your house had a cowbarn and a silo right by that pear tree. Maybe you can see the foundation, if your eyesight's good. Burned down the same night the ice-house did. Drunken kids, likely; some of them rascals from up above the woods past my place. That was a long time after the murder and all. People use to come here from miles arownd just to swim in that pond.” Again he glanced at Mickelsson. “Sometimes the brother and sister would set on the porch and watch, though they'd never talk to you, never said a word, and nobody never said a word to them neither. Strange people, not right in their heads. I guess a little slow.”