Mickelsson's Ghosts Read Online Free PDF

clamped tight on the steeringwheel—had never been friendly to the notion that human beings are free to turn into tomato plants at will, or even to the best utilitarianism, and least of all to R. M. Hare’s opinion, Oxonian and therefore unassailable, that morality is life-style. He wouldn’t have denied, if anyone other than his psychiatrist had asked him, that his search had all the earmarks of a mad compulsion, though of course one could always manufacture fine theories, delimiting categories, obs and sols.
    â€œPerhaps,” he’d said on the phone to Dr. Rifkin, back in Providence, “where I live is the only thing left that I have any real control of.” He blew out smoke, angrily drumming his short, hard fingers on the tabletop, his head down, like a bull’s. It had seemed the kind of reason Dr. Rifkin would accept. Dr. Rifkin was a fool, an absurdly sloppy thinker if indeed it could be said that he ever thought at all; but Mickelsson was in the habit of consulting him now and then, touching bases in the fashion of a sandlot ballplayer on a diamond whose bases are yards out of position but familiar.
    â€œCome on now,” Rifkin said, his voice adenoidal, as ironic and peevish as a meow. He was always saying “Come on now.” A tiresome—tirelessly tiresome—little man, slightly crabby, though good-hearted to a fault, fresh from his internship somewhere in Texas, still stained by the tan, when Mickelsson had first met him. He was painstaking; would’ve made an excellent dentist. Perhaps, like Martin Luther, he was dizzied by the stink of human breath. It was Mickelsson’s ex-wife that had chosen him, or confirmed the choice of the hospital where Mickelsson had been placed.
    Rifkin, at the other end of the line, would be sitting with his knees together, protecting his cock—long, if one could judge by his ears, nose, and thumbs—hair parted in the middle, two fingercurls in front, delicately pushing his glasses up his nose with a carefully manicured, spatulate middle finger, his thick lips puckered (moustache poised, uplifted) as if ready to give the receiver a quick little love-peck. His eyebrows would be arched in faintly ironic astonishment—possibly amusement, possibly reprobation; he purposely kept it ambiguous, playing it safe. He played everything safe. He never spoke of “Freud,” like a normal human being, always of “Doctor Freud.” On the mahogany-panelled wall behind him hung a framed pen-and-ink sketch, probably something his wife had picked out. Again the scratchy, ironic cat’s voice: “Come on now, Professor. What’s the real reason?”
    Mickelsson imagined himself saying, “All right; I murdered a dog.”
    Even before he’d decided whether or not it was funny, or whether or not it could be construed as relevant, he’d decided on discretion. He said, tapping the tabletop again, “I suppose the truth is I’d like to spite my wife, maybe go to jail and shame her.”
    â€œThat’s not impossible,” Rifkin said. “Very interesting.” He’d be sitting with his eyes closed to chinks, grinning like a fox with indigestion.
    â€œMaybe spite my children too,” Mickelsson said, “lose my earning capacity and deprive them of college educations.”
    â€œMmm,” Rifkin said, suspicious now, from the sound of it. “It’s something you might think about, anyway.”
    â€œI will, believe me.”
    â€œIs that irony I detect?”
    â€œIf you detect it, then it is.”
    â€œCome on now, Professor,” Rifkin said crossly, whiningly, “let’s not logic-chop.”
    â€œAll right. Sorry,” Mickelsson said. He glanced at his watch. “OK, so I’m jealous of my children.”
    â€œAs I say, you might think about it,” Rifkin said.
    Mickelsson shook his head. What a profession! After he’d gotten rid of Rifkin