Blame: A Novel

by Huneven, Michelle

  The wind was already easing off. Formation! Mary yelled as the smoke cleared, and the new world revealed itself—a blackened ground, consumed to the dirt, the trees now charred, leafless snags, some still burning at their crowns.

  Where the fire had jumped the road, dozens of spots burned—many as small as a single sagebrush, a few the size of big, vigorous bonfires. The hose crew went first with water, and the convicts followed, hacking apart the fuel, smothering flare-ups, chasing scampering flames. They were a little delirious.

  Oh no you don’t.

  Take that, you little pizzle sucker.

  Soon they were covered in white ash. In fifteen minutes the spot fires were out and the con crew was ordered to go flank the fire. Same old same old, grunt work well away from any non-con crews. They rode up behind the hill and dug line, sweating in their Nomex, their packs chafing. Their tools arced in unison, sliced through the dry duff, four swings every ten feet. They worked their way to the top of the hill and saw, below, that the new houses were safe. The head of the fire, now burning scrubland off to the south, was only a puff of smoke.

  •

  Mark Parnham visited Patsy again in November, when the season was over and she was back to weeding campgrounds, shoring up trails. He brought photographs of his son, a round-faced, round-eyed seven-year-old with his father’s small features, his mother’s dark hair. Mark said, Here, he sent you this.

  She unfolded a crayon drawing of a spidery yellow sun above a grove of black trees whose branches balanced red and orange scribbles of fire. A stick figure aimed a hose that spewed blue dots at the burning trees. Across the bottom of the page, in ungainly crayoned letters: To Patsy from Martin.

  •

  She was in the shower when a CO stuck her head in the door. MacLemoore? Director wants you.

  She turned off the water. Coming.

  You can finish. Take your time.

  She had never met with such courtesy in prison. Take your time—it was the first latitude granted. She turned the water back on. When she stepped out in her towel, CO Kessler, the homely one also called Pig Eyes, waited by the door.

  I didn’t know you were still here, or I would’ve hurried.

  No problem.

  The guard’s eyes were indeed close together, reminding Patsy not of a pig but a flounder. Hard to imagine how Kessler coped here among the merciless.

  Patsy dressed and walked with Kessler in the winter twilight down to administration. Kessler opened a door for her, followed her into the director’s office. The director was a former fire chief who had lectured them in training. Patsy? he said. He wore an ironed, clean khaki uniform. Please, sit down.

  She sat in an oak captain’s chair across from him. A Christmas wreath festooned with toyon berries hung on the wall behind his head. Perhaps he would ask her to teach English or history, as the warden at Bertrin had.

  I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you, Patsy.

  She saw Burt shot. Her father collapsed on the golf course. Another stranger dead, and she had caused it. The director, she saw, awaited her signal to go on. What? she said.

  I’m sorry to tell you, Patsy. Your mother passed away this morning.

  She wanted the words to spool back into his mouth. She turned sideways, glanced around the office with its stucco walls, hung certificates, holiday berries. Kessler’s small, ugly eyes had reddened.

  I’m sorry, the director said again. Of course you may attend the funeral.

  •

  At Our Holy Redeemer, Father Paul eulogized her mother. She wished that Father Gaspar or the monsignor was doing the service instead, not that she respected either of them after the dairy wars—Father Gaspar used liquid Coffee-mate, the monsignor skim milk—but because Father Paul wore his guitar. Her mother probably wouldn’t have cared who preached; her devotion to the Church had been elsewhere. She’d worked with the nuns at the Samantha Home for Girls and hadn’t attended mass for months on end.

  Patsy’s father sat beside her, tears sliding down his cheeks. She knew she should clasp his hand, but she could not. She could not. Burt, on her other side, wore dark aviator glasses. Bonnie and the kids filled the rest of the pew.

  Now Father Paul was singing in his reedy tenor. The Lord is my shepherd. Beside him, an elaborate, three-quarters-sized crèche crowded the altar space, the Holy Family, animals, and kings all absorbed in another story. Everything—the singing priest, the plaster figures, the full church—seemed to exist behind a yellow membrane, an inch-thick sheet of Plexiglas. Patsy jiggled her foot, jammed her hands under her knees.

  Burt had picked her up at nine in the morning. We were counting on Mom to last out your sentence, he told her. We figured you had enough on your plate.

  Didn’t it occur to anybody that I might want to say goodbye? Or make amends? What were you thinking?

  Burt had clammed up at her tone. They barely spoke all the way down the hill. Then there was an accident on Pacific Coast Highway and an hour’s delay. In Bakersfield they had to drive directly to the church.

  And how badly people behaved out in the free world. They stood and talked right in the entrance to the sanctuary while other people were trying to get inside. They blocked the aisle, called out to each other. They shuffled into pews in no particular order, squeezing past people, making others squeeze past them. They shoved. In prison, you’d get cited.

  The service ended, and she filed out with the family. Brice saluted her from a few rows back, they made motions to meet outside. In a rear pew sat a man in a black suit who looked like Mark Parnham, only smaller, milder, even more nondescript. As she came closer, he stood.

  I have to see someone, she told Burt, and went over.

  I’m so sorry, he said, about your mother.

  Oh my god. She reached out her hand, and he clasped it. To Burt she mouthed, A minute.

  You came all the way up here? she said.

  Not so far. Ninety minutes.

  Where’s Martin?

  At his grandmother’s.

  And he’s okay?

  Terrific, thanks. He looked at her frankly, with an interest and tenderness that made her straighten up.

  It’s weird how good it is to see you, she said.

  This seemed like the sort of thing we could do for each other, he said.

  Patsy turned her back to the mourners so nobody would approach them.

  I saw your mom in court, he said. Both times. She held your hand.

  She was sick then, Patsy said. But nobody told me.

  So it was a shock.

  I suspected something when she didn’t come to Malibu. But yes, a shock.

  Burt came up alongside her. Oh hello, he said, and shook Mark’s hand. Dad wants you, Pats, he whispered.

  I’m leaving now, said Mark Parnham.

  You don’t have to, said Patsy. You can . . .

  I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. And I’m thinking of you.

  He left through a side door.

  Outside, Brice handed her a letter.

  Dear Patsy,

  Brice told me about your mother. I am very sorry. I never met your mom, but knowing you I would guess that she was friendly and very smart, not to mention beautiful. As you know, my mother died over two years ago, so I can guess how you feel. I’m sure you miss your mom as much as I miss mine. Maybe wherever they are they will meet and become good friends.

  Your friend, Joey H.

  •

  Benny came in March with good news: You’ll be out June first.

  Two months earlier than expected. This brought a jolt of happiness. Are you kidding? She grabbed his arm. Are you sure? How’d you swing it?

  I just kept talking to people, asking what could be done. You got points for good work, and Parnham wrote a letter.

  You’re kidding! Did you ask him to?

  He got in touch with Ricky Barrett and me. Asked what, if anything, he could do. Ricky did some looking into it. And your brother Burt. I guess there’s a whole la
w enforcement network.

  Those guys, said Patsy, and you, Benny. You’ve all been so much nicer to me than I deserve.

  •

  Burt came to talk to her about her plans. Patsy examined her brother’s friendly, handsome face. Why didn’t the women go all noisy over him as they did for Brice? When Brice came to Malibu, a whole new set of women insisted he was a game-show host or on some soap opera. Burt, she thought, was better-looking, his thick graying hair in curls, his eyes always lit with warmth and humor. Burt, unlike Brice, truly loved women, too many in fact. But Patsy’s fellow prisoners sooner rallied to Brice’s aloofness and indifference. She’d been that way too. Show her a man who didn’t love her and she’d do her damnedest to change his mind.

  Burt grinned. Can you believe it? You’re getting the hell out. When can you get your house back?

  The lease runs till next February. I’ll have to rent a place.

  You’ll need a job. That’s the stipulation.

  I could get on a fire crew for the summer.

  Won’t the college have something?

  They don’t have summer school. But I could probably teach ESL at Pasadena City College like I did before. That would work. And I could live at the Lyster. It’s only five or six blocks away.

  Brice’s place? Is that a good idea?

  Oh god, she said. Don’t worry about that. The scales have fallen from my eyes! He’s been a good friend, but that’s it! I’d rent my own apartment.

  I was hoping you’d come near to us. Dad was thinking a halfway house—

  Is he out of his mind? Another institution? Why don’t I just stay here?

  Maybe your friend Sarah knows a place.

  Maybe.

  •

  Two weeks later, this postcard came:

  Dear Patsy,

  There’s a 2 bedroom on 2, north-facing (cool), high ceilings, claw tub, mountain view. Could be ready June 1. Shall I furnish? If so, what’s your budget (so I can overrun it ASAP)?

  Brice

  PART THREE

  Did you hear the one about the two women cellies released on the same day after twenty-five years? They stood outside the gate and talked for an hour.

  10

  June 1983

  Patsy had imagined the moment of her release as a big gust of wind lifting her up and over the hurricane fence and toppling her into a new life. In fact, when Sweeney drove her down to the gate, nobody was waiting. The sky above was a pure, clear blue, but at their feet, a fog-bank stretched to the horizon, its surface white and dimpled like a mattress or a frozen, wind-chopped ocean. It was easy to imagine that the world below was gone.

  Patsy unloaded her gym bag from the camp pickup.

  I’ll wait with you, Sweeney said.

  They stood outside the gate. Big plans for the day? asked Sweeney.

  A bath, said Patsy. And settling in.

  Yes, take it easy, that’s best, Sweeney said.

  At the familiar whine and gasp of hydraulic brakes, they stepped aside. The gate swung open and the camp bus rumbled through, a woman’s face in each window, some startled, others jeering to see Patsy there unclaimed.

  Never mind, Sweeney said. The fog slowed ’em up. Oh. Listen.

  A distant mechanical grind unbraided itself from the bus’s rumble, wove in and out of the folds of the hills, coming closer. They listened until a gold and white Blazer nosed into view, Burt at the wheel. Burt alone.

  So her father had not come. He’d asked to, and Patsy suggested he visit later in the week. She wanted to slip back into life without fanfare or reunions. But now, she realized, she would’ve liked to see her father.

  Burt, only Burt, in his BLUE BLUE GRASS OF HOME T-shirt, his curls uncombed, his face unshaven, grabbed hold and pulled her off the ground.

  •

  Patsy had twenty-four hours to contact her parole officer. Let’s get it out of the way, she said.

  The address was a drab modern building by Pasadena City Hall.

  He won’t be nice, Burt said in the elevator. Not at first.

  Jeffrey Goldstone was a short, bald, middle-aged man in a wide-sleeved flowered sport shirt. Stacks of papers and books listed around him. A blue curtain sagged off its track. Lacing his hands behind his head, he leaned back and delivered his spiel into the air above her head. Patsy was to phone him every day for thirty days, see him twice a month. She could not leave the county without his permission or go more than fifty miles away for longer than forty-eight hours without first informing him of her whereabouts. She was not to contact anybody she knew from prison for a year. His tone was weary and condescending; he spoke with a breathless rapidity that preempted interruption. He could and would come into her apartment and search it without a warrant at any moment. Morning, noon, or night. A home visit, he called it. So you remember, he said, when I go knock-knock, you open up.

  He handed her a pocket-sized directory of local AA meetings and a stack of stiff white forms to be signed at each one she attended. Let’s start with ninety meetings in ninety days, he said. And monthly urine tests.

  Wow, I don’t know if—she said, concerned about logistics.

  I could make that weekly testing, he said.

  It’s just that I don’t have a car and—

  We provide rides. He circled some numbers in the back of a handbook and passed it over. This also lists clinics, counseling centers, employment opportunities, he said. I advise you to use our resources freely. The more you do for yourself, the more impressed we’ll be. Five years could shrink to three. Any questions? Then I’ll talk to you tomorrow, and don’t be surprised when I stop by. Remember, when I go knock-knock, you—

  She hoped a nod would suffice, but Goldstone pointed at her face. You—

  Open the door, she whispered.

  •

  Next stop was her storage unit. They took an elevator to the fifth floor, walked down a dim, narrow hall. Prison was all people and almost no stuff, and this place was the opposite. Patsy greeted her sofa, embedded upright in a wall of boxes, all of it so efficiently arranged, there was enough room left to lie down. Why couldn’t she stay here, in this muffled, ill-lit room?

  She pulled two boxes labeled in her mother’s confident felt-tip scrawl: SUMMER BASICS and SHOES, PURSES ETC. These for now, she said.

  I’ve got the truck.

  Brice already furnished the place, she said. Who knows what I’ll need.

  •

  She’d forgotten—or had she ever noticed—how much the Lyster was a cartoon of a French chateau, with turrets and a pointy steep-hipped roof. Behind the facade sat a plain brick six-floor apartment building, although with tall Parisian-style windows and decorative shutters.

  Number 2C had several such windows facing north. The plastered walls were a soft, floury white, the dark old oak floors distressed but waxed to a sheen. Brice had decorated with salvage from the defunct Bellwood: a moss-colored sofa and bobbin-legged mahogany side table. The white wrought iron table in her new breakfast nook, Patsy had last seen on the Bellwood’s sunporch.

  We’ve been at it for weeks, said Gilles, a beautiful teenager whose presence among them was unexplained. Sanding, priming, painting, he said with a faintly British crispness of speech. Junking, going to the swapper. Brice found these in a dumpster behind the Pasadena Playhouse, had them recut.

  He petted a sage green velvet curtain that puddled on the shining floor.

  Nice, she said. And everything’s so clean.

  Brice made me take a toothbrush to the baseboards to get out the old wax.

  I didn’t make you, said Brice.

  He did, Gilles said. He cracked the whip.

  The boy’s skin was milky and blushing, with taupe-colored freckles to match his taupe-colored hair. His dark, plump lips were so prominent, so rosy and beautiful, Patsy could hardly bear to look at them.

  Oh god, a fireplace, she said. On the black marble mantel Brice had clustered six white teacups of differing patterns, each as delicate as a
n eggshell. Picking one up, she saw shadows of her fingers through the porcelain and a hairlike rust-colored crack. Years had passed since she’d held anything so fine.

  So? said Brice. What do you think?

  Lovely, perfect, she said, wanting all of them, even Burt, to leave, yet afraid that they would. What would roar into the silence once she was alone?

  Then they left. Burt and Brice went down for the boxes, and the boy, Gilles-rhymes-with-peel, said he would make tea. She wandered into the bedroom, opened the closet, where a dozen wooden hangers swayed. In the bathroom, thick white towels hung beside a ledge of Bellwood toiletries: French soap, tiny toothpaste, the same little giveaway sewing kit she’d used to pierce Joey Hawthorne’s ears.

  Her father had lobbied for El Puente de las Amigas instead; a halfway house, he argued, would see her through the sudden drop of structure, postprison. He was afraid she’d take up booze—and Brice—again. Her We’re just friends, Dad had sounded tinny even to her. But he needn’t have worried, not if her hunch about the beautiful teenager proved true.

  In the living room, she gazed out at the rooftop KASORGIAN CARPET sign on its rusty struts, and beyond that, a gray opacity where mountains should sit.

  Is it everything that you wanted? The boy, Gilles, came up beside her.

  Oh! I thought you left.

  I’m making tea here, he said. In your kitchen. Have you seen it yet? Come.

  The walls were paved with subway tiles. On the small apartment stove, a teakettle sputtered water into the flames.

  This was such a dirt pit, you wouldn’t believe. Gilles poured a little hot water into a Brown Betty teapot and swished it around. Mrs. Kronberg lived here forty-eight years and got so blind she couldn’t see how filthy it was. We used Easy Off on the tiles, then bleach. Brice said clean was your number one requirement.

  Gilles paused to spoon leaf tea into the pot, poured in more water. What kind of teenager knows how to make a proper pot of tea?