Blame: A Novel Page 8

  Monday’s hike, “Eternity,” was not as steep as the Burn, but three miles and an hour longer, ridge after ridge, the ocean a steady aluminum shimmer below. They came back and, without showering, loaded onto the two camp buses—con buggies, they were called. This is a little on-the-job training, a CO said. Patsy’s bus went miles inland to a public campground where two ten-woman crews cleared firebreaks using Pulaskis—a heavy hybrid ax, maul, and hoe—which proved very versatile; they hacked through root systems, chopped down saplings, and, when swung at a precise angle, sliced like scalpels through the most matted duff to hard, mineral dirt.

  After a twenty-minute break for lunch (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, milk gulped from small cartons like first graders) the women worked, with water breaks, till four, when the bus took them back.

  They don’t call it work camp for nothin’, Patsy’s roommate, Antonia, said.

  Patsy went to bed before lockdown. The front windows of the barracks were many-paned, like a classroom. She looked out through the pine trees, over wrinkled green hills, all the way down to the sea, a smear of fading light.

  Five a.m. came many hours too soon.

  •

  At Bertrin, Patsy had been in with petty, unmalicious felons—drug users, wallet-filching prostitutes, check kiters—but in Malibu she lived with killers, assaulters, armed robbers, anyone who’d done good time and had fewer than two years left to serve. Every other woman, it seemed, had stabbed or shot or poisoned some man, although Antonia confided that she was in for killing her mom.

  Your mother?

  A doozy, huh? said Antonia. I was thirteen.

  She’d come to Malibu from the California Youth Authority a year ago. The mix is better here, she told Patsy, not like the CYA, where it’s all gangs and the guards have at the girls and you gotta put out to get anything. Here, it’s all weedin’ to freedom. I could’ve got out at twenty-one if I’d shown remorse, but the situation was more complicated than that.

  •

  Lookouts. Communication. Escape routes. Safety zones. Those were the LCES, the laces of fire crew safety.

  Patsy was studying on her bunk before lights-out when Lima walked in and lifted her T-shirt. A flat pint of bourbon gleamed brown in her waistband.

  A huge part of Patsy sprang to attention with longing and terror. Get out of here, she said, then heard Lima shooed away, bed to bed, like a raccoon in a campground.

  Gloria had mentioned that someone was throwing booze over the fence.

  Weighing the brown gleam against a clear mind, Patsy couldn’t sleep. Someday, maybe, but not now. Drinking would undo what small part of herself she’d managed to gather up in prison. Plus, she had her fire-safety exam in the morning. And Mark Parnham was coming on Sunday.

  8

  He was smaller than Patsy remembered. He had a short, clipped mustache on a long, narrow face, a loose chin. His proportions were odd—too long a head, or too-short limbs, Patsy couldn’t pin it. He was reserved, conventional, a chamber of commerce sort; that was a red Tournament of Roses badge on his ivory Windbreaker.

  They sat at a picnic table under a large pergola in the visiting yard. Thank you for letting me come, he said, surveying the lawn where families picnicked and the track surrounding it where others walked. How is it here?

  Better than where I was, she said. I like being outside all day.

  You fought any fires?

  Fall is fire season, she said. For now, we’ve been clearing hillsides, shoring up trails, cleaning up campgrounds. She resisted showing him her hands, blistered despite gloves. And you? she asked. What do you do?

  Civil engineer, he said. I just now started back. I don’t know if you heard, but I took nine months off to be with my son.

  She shook her head. Brice’s informant had not relayed this.

  After the accident, he said, I went back to work and my mother-in-law watched Martin. But I called him all the time, went by at lunch, made a general pest of myself, till my pastor suggested I take a leave to be with him. Best advice I’ve ever gotten. That, and to join a grief group.

  I joined a group too, Patsy said, thinking that groups were like nets strung around the world to catch people as they raced off the cliffs. Only a few were bagged, embraced, set to right.

  One of the reasons I wanted to see you, Mark said quietly, is I’m having a hard time picturing what happened.

  He wanted to know how a car going five or ten miles an hour could kill two people. And after they were hit, were they conscious at all? Had they suffered? That’s what haunted him, what he couldn’t bear the thought of—their suffering. The leader of his grief group encouraged him to contact Patsy. Perhaps she could help him, perhaps she saw something.

  I have only the faintest idea what happened, said Patsy. I remember they were wearing white blouses and dark blue skirts.

  No, he said. Jessie was in jeans and a puffy jacket that she called her sleeping-bag coat. And Jane had on a pink pantsuit. I know. I brought those clothes home from the hospital.

  I’m sorry, Patsy said. But my driveway is uphill and you have to accelerate to get up it, and probably that’s what happened. I probably hit the gas. It was a very heavy, big old Mercedes.

  I see, he said.

  Maybe we should walk, she said, pointing to the track around the picnic area. Come, let’s walk.

  The afternoon in early April was chilly in the shade, warming up in the sun. The long grass on the hills rippled in the breeze like a pelt.

  I’m sorry I don’t remember, she said.

  I didn’t come just for that, he said. I also just wanted to see you and talk like this. Face-to-face. It’s a relief.

  You know, she said, her voice rising. If there was a way to undo it, for it never to have happened . . .

  I know, he said. I know you never meant—

  I swear, given the choice, I would trade places in a—

  Oh, he said. You don’t have to say—

  I would. I would change places. Seriously. It’s so wrong the way things are, with me being alive while they . . . Patsy saw that her blurted apologies were distasteful to him. I’m sorry, she said. I wish there was something I could do. And once I get out, I will, I’ll do whatever I can.

  Gloria, arm in arm with her long-haired daughter, strolled past them. Gloria raised an eyebrow at Patsy in a way both challenging and comic.

  I heard the homeowner’s insurance came through, Patsy said in the same nervous pitch. And I’m glad. But I want to do more for you, and your son.

  I didn’t come for anything like that, he said. The tones of impatience and anger in his voice relieved her and seemed more natural than his unrelenting kindness. He should despise her, and find her mea culpas wearisome.

  They walked in silence in the rotation of residents and guests. Fast white clouds cast intermittent shadows over them. Seagulls wheeled and cried.

  I was at Sears with Martin when it happened, Mark Parnham said. We got home, and a squad car was parked in front of our house. I knew right away the news was bad. The detective said they had you in custody, and that you’d been extremely upset. So I thought you had seen what happened.

  Patsy was gratified to learn her response to the accident. Nobody had mentioned it before. I’m sorry, she said. I don’t remember any of that.

  But you see that I had to ask, he said. The detective was a student of yours. He said you were a great teacher.

  Ricky’s a good guy, she said, although she’d never thought that before.

  They both got lost for a moment, watching their steps where the dirt track had eroded.

  With blackouts, said Patsy, you never remember what went on. Before he got sober, my father would tear apart the house at night, and the next morning he’d say, Hey—what happened to the living room?

  They passed a Latino family, two girls holding their mother’s hand, a third following with her hand hitched to her mother’s back pocket.

  I’ve been to any number of prisons for my job, Mar
k said suddenly. I did some work on climate control systems for the new women’s prison going in up north. Hard to see much good coming from such places. This is better, here.

  You’d think they could come up with something, said Patsy. So we could come out more educated, or at least less crazy, than we were going in.

  In the Old Testament, Mark said, they had cities of refuge, where people who accidentally killed someone could go live without fear of retribution.

  Like a wildlife relocation program, she said.

  He smiled, a first.

  She said, I read in the Pasadena Star that your wife taught piano.

  I don’t know where they got that, he said. She was a singer. We met in chorus at City College. She had the clearest, sweetest soprano voice. We sang at church together until Martin was born.

  A Jehovah’s Witness church? she asked, knowing otherwise.

  We were Lutherans. Jane only got into that other stuff later.

  And you didn’t?

  She wanted me to. Not my cup of tea.

  Darkness seeped into his face. She touched his arm. Did you bring pictures?

  •

  She has a twinkle, Patsy said, pointing to the girl on ice skates, her hands in a fur muff, a matching white fur collar. Her dark eyes reflecting stars of light. Behind her head, the extended leg of a passing skater.

  I took her to skating Saturday mornings, he said. In that old ballroom behind the civic auditorium. Here’s Jane maybe five years ago.

  A brunette in crisp office wear: blazer, butterfly pin, buttoned-up blouse, eyebrows tweezed to a thin line. Dark brown eyes in which the person had not quite surfaced. Shy, Patsy thought before blackness started lapping in her vision and the taste of metal flooded her mouth. As calmly as she could, she handed the wallet back and leaned down to get her head below her heart.

  She excused herself, went to the bathroom, rinsed her face. When she returned, Mark had bought Coca-Colas. They drank and watched the fog gathering down at the ocean for its slow roll uphill. Patsy was exhausted, like a cried-out child, but she felt impelled to talk. I want you to know I’m not just someone who had a little too much to drink and drove badly, she said. I had a long history of doing that, and I didn’t care enough to stop. You need to know the truth if you’re serious about knowing me.

  I do want to know. His eyes reddened quickly, still easily inflamed. His big knuckled hands rubbed each other.

  My driver’s license had been suspended. My father had my keys. But I kept another set in my kitchen. I’d taken the car out once before, that I remember. I was supposed to be going to meetings. I was lying to everybody about all of it.

  Yes, he said. But you’re not anymore.

  •

  May I come again?

  His ivory windbreaker was zipped; it crackled softly in the wind.

  We’re in each other’s lives now, he said. We can’t change what happened, but we can help each other from here on out.

  Earlier in her life, she thought, Mark Parnham’s sincerity would have made her suspicious or embarrassed her. Now she wanted to give him something in return. She said, I think I remember your daughter’s long, curly hair.

  You’re thinking of the photos you saw in court, he said gently. She and her mom got pixie cuts when they became Witnesses. Her hair was short.

  •

  You guys sure talked for a long time, Antonia said.

  They were in the barracks, which were swallowed in fog.

  Only two hours.

  You seemed into it.

  He’s a nice guy. An engineer. Sings in a church. And barbershop quartets. But you didn’t see me almost pass out. He was showing me pictures of his wife and kid. I thought I could handle it, but god . . .

  That would kill me, said Antonia.

  Yeah, it was almost as sickening as when I first found out. That horrible hot-cold hollow feeling, like I’m now doomed to darkness for eternity, like I’ve done the worst thing and it can’t ever be undone. Know what I mean?

  No. But you should say those things, exactly like that, to the parole board, Antonia said. They’d fuckin’ love it. They’d parole you tomorrow. They fuckin’ feed on remorse. If they heard what you said to me, they’d fling open the gates and give you a fuckin’ hundred bucks and send you outta here in a limousine.

  Patsy scratched at a peeling blister on her palm. Parole boards didn’t pertain to her case. She could be out in sixteen months, unless she blew it.

  Will you see him again? Antonia asked.

  He says we have a relationship, even though it started out badly. Patsy gave a short bark. Really, about as badly as possible. He says we have the power to make it a good relationship. Whatever that means.

  Maybe you’ll marry him, said Antonia. Wouldn’t that be funny.

  Oh god no, Patsy said. Never.

  Stranger things have happened, said Antonia. Janella married her rapist.

  Patsy had imagined falling into Mark’s arms with an urgency that burned through everything, but that was before they met. In person he’d been too sad and real for anything like that. She said, He’s not my type. Too bland and boring. I’d never marry anyone who sang in a barbershop quartet.

  •

  Spring rains saturated the soil, and rather than hoeing and chopping the thick green clumps of weeds along firebreaks, the women found it easier to pull them out by hand. Each clump came out with its roots bundled in heavy mud. The idea of flinging these clods occurred simultaneously. Twenty women swung plants full circle, like lanyards, then let go. The clods flew unbelievably far. The women lobbed them over power lines and were amazed when they cleared with room to spare. Up and over went the clods, then down they came like raffish green-tailed comets plummeting to earth. Simultaneously, as if a new signal were given, the women chose targets, and the air filled with long-haired clods flying horizontally and the weighty, wet slaps of earth hitting flesh. No real malice fueled this fray, and they avoided hitting the CO, who stood there saying, Ladies, now, ladies, now, ladies, please, while shielding her eyes to see the best hits. In a moment of distraction Patsy took a cold clod on the ear—she’d dig out dirt for days—and in the shocked, ringing moments that followed, as the blue sky spun, she heard one beautiful, clear note sung in a woman’s sweet voice—one high, spiraling wire of sound, on and on and on, with no break or pause for breath.

  9

  Patsy was number three Pulaski, Antonia number two. It was filthy, hard work, and during downtimes, they longed for more of it.

  Only ten of them were sent out on a dry electric day in October, when Santa Ana winds were kicking up. A small wildland fire not far from Malibou Lake threatened a neighborhood of expensive new homes. They saw the fire crest the top of a hill—a ragged V-shaped line of orange flame frilled with black smoke that billowed up into a plump, dirty pink cloud.

  They drove to a new street, where the burning hill was on one side of them, the new homes on the other. As always, the driver turned the buggy around lest they needed to escape.

  The county engines were already there, as were the Malibu volunteer trucks, the hand crew of a local private contractor, and a Forest Service vehicle. Men conferred in a huddle. The private crew was getting out drip torches, presumably to burn out the scrub up to the fire. Patsy’s crew waited in the buggy, but no orders were forthcoming.

  What we have here, their crew boss Mary said, is a genuine cluster-fuck. Then she walked over to join them.

  They probably can’t decide who’s IC, said another woman.

  Incident commander being the one who called the shots.

  The land around them was low-growing coastal scrub, with small, bushy oaks, a few sycamores and toyons. On the same side of the road as the fire, slim wooden survey stakes with orange plastic ribbons marked out the lots of a future development.

  That little fucker’s fast, Antonia muttered. They should burn it out now.

  Up on the hill, the fire’s orange, smoke-frilled V had widened almost into
a straight line. The smell of smoke filled the cab. But even if nobody did anything, the road itself would stop most of the fire.

  Mary stuck her head into the buggy with the order. Out, everyone, she called. We’re going to hold this road. Out! Hold the road! Hold the road!

  Women shouldered their gear toward the door of the small bus and began leaping down onto the asphalt. Look now, Antonia told Patsy as they were jostled forward, pushed from the women behind. Patsy hunched down to see out of a window. The fire was fully horizontal now, and the flames suddenly much taller, a wall, and sliding down the slope like water.

  Then Mary started screaming. RTO! RTO! Reverse the order. Back in the buggy. Now. Now. Everyone!

  Inside the buggy, they scrambled backward to make room again. Antonia shoved Patsy into the woman behind her as those from outside crammed themselves and their gear in. Fucker’s jumping the road! someone yelled.

  Embers swarmed and hit the windows like fat, radiant insects. Really, the flames were unbelievably close, a towering mass of shiny red fire that billowed and rippled like wind-whipped silk and bellied out at them as the buggy finally started moving. Then came a blast of dry, hot heat and a loud snapping and crackling, as from a huge campfire. A strange green light filled the vehicle. Softball-sized balls of white flame flew off a blazing tree like an explosion of phosphorus.

  The next moment, they were in the clear, under blue sky. The buggy stopped, and the women leaped out. But it was too soon, too close, a mistake, and the instant Patsy landed, before she got her bearings, there was a whoosh! and the fire’s back wind sucked her off balance, the air so hot and dry and smoky her eyes and nose instantaneously streamed liquid and her lungs filled up.

  She staggered and collided with two men hauling a hose. All around, people were cursing and throwing up. Patsy stuck her nose under her shirt.

  This is when we die, she thought with unnatural calm, here are the superheated fumes that melt lungs. She was curiously unafraid and very interested. Death by fire, she’d heard, was not like drowning or asthma. With fused lungs, there was no convulsive struggle and not much pain. You could think to the end. She found Antonia, grabbed her, and held on.