Read Online Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner - Free Book Online

startling, happy-child parody of the crucifixion.
    As they’d driven up to the farmstead that first time, Tim had talked about his life and pleasures as if no one could help but find them interesting—as indeed Peter Mickelsson did, listening to Tim with a touch of envy, wondering with momentary morbid excitement whether he too ought to have a motorcycle. (He’d had one long ago, in his farmboy and college days; an Indian.) Tim had a blond Harley-Davidson, he said; a hog, fully equipped; more lights than a 747. He didn’t ride it much, mostly just pahlished it. Mickelsson grinned and nodded, sucking at his recalcitrant pipe. Though Tim had never had much to do with boats—he couldn’t swim, he said—he’d just bought a hardly used trimaran. All these lakes hereabouts, just laying there, it seemed sort of un-American not to pollute them. He lightly hit the steeringwheel as he laughed, head tossed sideways. He also owned a camper in which he’d taken trips to places as far away as Arizona, camping his way across the country with his wife and child. Whether the child was a boy or girl Mickelsson never learned. Tim spoke of him or her as “the kid.”
    â€œWhat do you teach up at the cahllege?” Tim asked. He spoke with his head thrown forward and laid over on the side, like a motorcycle rider glancing back.
    â€œPhilosophy,” Mickelsson said.
    He looked impressed. “Philahsaphy! That’s something I never got into too much. Plato’s cave and like that?”
    â€œSomething like that,” Mickelsson said, and gave a nod.
    Tim laughed, swung his head, and hit the steeringwheel again. He was looking down into the valley to the left of them now, driving without a glance at the road but driving well. “I took an English course down at Lehigh Cahllege where we read some philahsaphy. It was hard going, but it was interesting. Aristahtle?”
    â€œThat’s one of the people we treat.” He nodded again, a barely perceptible movement, like a boxer’s feint.
    â€œIs that what you mostly do?—study the old-timers? Or do you make up philahsaphy on your own?” Now he turned back, his head still leaning toward the window, to look at Mickelsson.
    â€œWe do a little of both, most of us.” He was beginning to feel it was time to change the subject.
    But Tim was interested. “You write about things like what’s really owt there?” He took his left hand from the steeringwheel to wave generally at the world.
    â€œWell, in a sense—” Still with the grin locked on, he got out his cigarettes.
    â€œBoy, that’s interesting stuff, that’s all I can say,” Tim said, and shook his head. “You ever work on ghosts, or people that can see into the future and that?”
    Mickelsson hesitated. “Some philosophers work on such things,” he said at last. “William James, more recently people like C. D. Broad. As for myself …”
    â€œThe world’s a weird place, when you think abowt it,” Tim said. Though he was still smiling, he was watching Mickelsson closely. Now Mickelsson had his matches out. He lit the cigarette.
    Shale bluffs rose up on each side of them, large locust trees arching across the gap. Then they came out into the hazy sunlight again, and they could see the Bauer place above them, rising sharp-gabled against the mountain. The hexes on the barns, squarely lit, looked oddly grim today, more recently painted than the walls they adorned, yet more ancient nonetheless, archaic as runes.
    Mickelsson would hardly remember, later, his inspection of the house that first time he’d gone up with Tim. Everything in it had been better than he’d hoped for—the rooms larger, the views from every window more surprising. If the decor was not to his taste, he’d hardly noticed. In any event, most of it would go when the owner moved. (Pressed-board bookshelves, Swiss-dotted