An Arsonist's Guide To Writers' Homes In New England Part 16

"It was me," I said, not looking at Detective Wilson, still looking at my mother who was looking at her house and her fire still thinking about Deirdre's burning herself to death and my doing nothing to save her. "I did it." My mother didn't say anything; she kept staring at the fire, as if she knew that it was making her beautiful, as if fire were the best kind of makeup.

"You set fire to your parents' house before you went to meet Deirdre," Detective Wilson said, helping me out. "Before you watched Deirdre burn herself to death, you set fire to your home." I was still looking at my mother when he said this. She closed her eyes for one, two, three beats and then opened them again. For years, my mother must have hated Deirdre; for years she must have wished her dead. And now that Deirdre was dead, my mother looked no different than she had when she thought Deirdre was alive not guilty, nor relieved, nor happy. How was this possible? How could my mother know Deirdre was dead and still look at the world as if it were the same world, at the fire as though it were the same fire? But maybe this is what happens when you hate someone for so long: the person you hate dies, but the hate stays with you, to keep you company. Maybe if I'd hated Deirdre for longer, I wouldn't have felt so bad about not saving her.

"That's right," I told Detective Wilson. "I burned my parents' house. It was me."

"You were the one who tried to burn down the Edward Bellamy House. And the next day, you left the letter with that old man."

"Mr. Frazier," I said. "That's right, I did."

"And then you tried to burn down the Mark Twain House. That's where all that money came from in the envelope. And you left your driver's license with the people who paid you to do it."

"Yes," I said, "I did."

"People saw you at the Robert Frost Place the day you burned it. You made quite a scene."

"I told my story," I said. "That's true. And I left the letters behind at the other four fires. I wanted to get caught. You were right about that."

"You set all the fires," Detective Wilson said. "This fire and all the other ones, too."

"All of them," I said.

"Sam," he said softly, "is your father inside that house?"

"He is," I said quickly, before I could give myself time to think about what I was admitting to, and this is another thing I'll put in my arsonist's guide: the mouth moves fast because the mind will not.

"I suppose you're going to tell me you didn't know he was in there when you set the fire. That it was an accident."

I took a deep breath. There was that word, my very favorite: I held it in my mouth for a second, savoring it, knowing that I would miss it so much when it was gone, miss it the way I would miss my father, the way I already did, the way I still do, the way I always will. "It wasn't an accident," I finally said.

"Thank you," Detective Wilson said, his voice full of relief. I was happy for him, happy to give him the illusion that he'd gotten something right and was no longer a b.u.mbler. And for that matter, now that I'd taken some responsibility, I didn't feel like a b.u.mbler anymore, either. It felt as though b.u.mbling was a disease for which we'd found a cure.

"You're welcome," I said.

"You finally told the truth," he said.

"I really did."

"Doesn't it feel better to tell the truth?" Detective Wilson asked, but then he yanked my hands behind my back and cuffed them before I could decide whether it felt better or not.

27

So here I am again, in prison, a medium-security one this time. This time I'm not locked up with white-collar criminals, and not really blue-collar ones, either, since none of my fellow inmates seems to have had the sort of job on the outside that would require him to wear blue-collared s.h.i.+rts. But the story of the soft hero doing hard time is one you've heard before, so I won't bother to tell it to you here. Besides, I'm nearly a third of the way through my twenty years (the rest of the sentence says "to life," but who can think about that and still care about living it?), and my time hasn't been all that hard so far. The other inmates know I'm writing a book, that I'm telling my story, and they respect that and pretty much leave me alone. After all, they can't stop telling their own stories, either: to one another, the guards, their families, their lawyers, the parole board. Even if they've never actually read a story before, they can't bring themselves to stop telling their own. Who knows, maybe this lack of reading will help them the way all my reading and my mother's reading didn't exactly help us. I wish them well.

It's hard to write in here, though, harder than you'd think. For one thing, I get letters, lots and lots of them. Wesley and Lees Mincher (they're married now and she's taken his name) write me every month or so, always on English Department letterhead, and always demanding their three thousand dollars back. I write them back and tell them that I appreciate their testifying against me in exchange for their immunity from prosecution, and that the three thousand dollars have gone the way of my parents' house and they're out of luck. They don't seem to believe me; they seem to think that, as in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I've hidden their treasure in some cave. At least that's what I think they think. It's hard to tell from their letters. When Wesley writes them, the letters are so thick with verbiage that you need an explanatory footnote just to understand his "Dear's" and "Sincerely's." And when Lees writes, she calls me a c.u.n.t so often I've started to think that's her nickname for me, the way Coleslaw was for the Mirabellis. Other than their missing three thousand dollars, however, they seem happy.

Once in a while, I get letters from Peter Le Clair. He, too, testified against me in exchange for immunity and feels guilty about that in the extreme. I know this because his letters say, "Sorry," and that's all they say. I send him long letters back about nothing in particular, just so he'll have something to read besides his library books, and then something to burn in his woodstove once he's through with them. Occasionally, after sending him one of these letters, I get one back that says, "Thanks," which I appreciate.

Mr. Frazier didn't testify at my trial maybe because he hadn't done anything wrong and had no need for the immunity they offered him but I've not heard from him, not once, and since he seemed like a guy who would take great pride in writing long, formal letters with his antique fountain pen, I have a feeling he is dead and his house in Chicopee already broken up into apartments. Maybe he's with his brother, in some happier place. Last year I finally read that book his brother loved so Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward Looking Backward and Mr. Frazier was right: it's about a utopia, a perfect, egalitarian Boston of the future, so perfect that I found it wide eyed and goofy and more than a little boring. But if that's where Mr. Frazier and his brother want to be, who am I to say they shouldn't? and Mr. Frazier was right: it's about a utopia, a perfect, egalitarian Boston of the future, so perfect that I found it wide eyed and goofy and more than a little boring. But if that's where Mr. Frazier and his brother want to be, who am I to say they shouldn't?

That's not all: every day I get letters and more letters, not just from people who are angry about the houses I confessed to burning, but also about the houses I didn't burn. For instance, I keep getting letters from a woman who's furious that I tried to burn down the Mark Twain House but not the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, which was right next door. I didn't know that, as I've explained to her in my letters over and over again, but she won't listen. She insists that I didn't think enough of Stowe as a writer to burn down her house and how this is just typical and another slap in the face for Stowe and for women readers and writers everywhere, another example of how the world undervalues Stowe and her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin Uncle Tom's Cabin and overvalues Twain and his books. If there were any justice in the world, she writes, I would have torched Stowe's house and not Twain's. I agree with her, every time, but this doesn't stop her from writing her angry letters, each of which she signs "Professor Smiley," which I can only a.s.sume is a pseudonym. and overvalues Twain and his books. If there were any justice in the world, she writes, I would have torched Stowe's house and not Twain's. I agree with her, every time, but this doesn't stop her from writing her angry letters, each of which she signs "Professor Smiley," which I can only a.s.sume is a pseudonym.

So the letters keep me busy, as do my many visitors. The bond a.n.a.lysts visit me once a week because they feel so bad that I've taken the fall for them; they successfully blamed me for the fires they set, and this makes them feel guilty, not happy at all. They don't understand that I've taken the fall for them intentionally, willingly, that this is a sacrifice and not a mistake. They don't understand this because sacrifice is an alien concept to them, having made only one sacrifice themselves.

"Take our story," they tell me. "You've already taken the blame for our fires; go ahead and take credit for it now. Write a book about it. We owe you one, dude; you have our permission."

"But what about the truth?" I ask them. "'Just tell the truth, dude. You'll feel better afterward' Remember that?"

They laugh at that one every time; the bond a.n.a.lysts found that telling the truth was as unsatisfying as burning down houses or writing a book, and they're now back to a.n.a.lyzing bonds, whatever that means. But once a week they take time out of their busy schedules to visit me and help me write my arsonist's guide. They tell me the best way to burn what sort of writer's house, when you should pour gas down the chimney and when you should just throw a Molotov c.o.c.ktail through the window, and what sort of life lessons readers might learn from each method. They remind me, too, that my arsonist's guide is also a memoir and that one can't write a memoir without a troubled childhood. Except they don't think my childhood, as troubled as it was, was troubled enough. They want me to make one up. Mostly they want me to blame my father, who isn't around to defend himself or protect his story. I tell the bond a.n.a.lysts that I love my father and I miss him and I don't want to say anything about him that's untrue and hurtful. They think this is ridiculous and won't have any of it. So to get them off my back, I write sentences like this: "My father abused me as a child; no doubt that abuse contributed to my desire, in my later years, to burn." This pleases them, and it also pleases me: because if I were to tell the truth about my father, if I were to say, My father did some bad things, but I still love him, I still miss him so much My father did some bad things, but I still love him, I still miss him so much, and if I were to tell the truth about Deirdre, if I were to say, My father loved another woman and I hated her for it, and so I let her die, My father loved another woman and I hated her for it, and so I let her die, I would start crying and never stop. If you tell the truth, you will start crying and never stop, and what good will that do you, or anyone else for that matter? Besides, would anyone want to read a true story that made you start crying and never stop? Would I would start crying and never stop. If you tell the truth, you will start crying and never stop, and what good will that do you, or anyone else for that matter? Besides, would anyone want to read a true story that made you start crying and never stop? Would you you want to read such a story? Would you read it because it was true, or because it made you cry? Or would it make you cry because you thought it was true? And what would you do, what would you feel, who would you blame, if you found out it wasn't? want to read such a story? Would you read it because it was true, or because it made you cry? Or would it make you cry because you thought it was true? And what would you do, what would you feel, who would you blame, if you found out it wasn't?

Maybe one day I'll know the answers to these questions, but for now I tell lies about my father and pa.s.s them off as the truth, and this makes the bond a.n.a.lysts happy. But it also fills them with nostalgia: when I read to them from my arsonist's guide, I can see the bond a.n.a.lysts gaze longingly into the distance, as if my memoir is a s.h.i.+p at sea, and their bonds are the sh.o.r.e.

To be honest, though, I'm not just writing one one book; I'm writing two of them. Both books begin with "I, Sam Pulsifer ... ," and then one of them tells the story you know by now, and the other one is my arsonist's guide; one is the story of the one house I actually burned and the ones I didn't, and the other one is about how I book; I'm writing two of them. Both books begin with "I, Sam Pulsifer ... ," and then one of them tells the story you know by now, and the other one is my arsonist's guide; one is the story of the one house I actually burned and the ones I didn't, and the other one is about how I did did burn those houses and the details and lessons therein. I plan on calling the story you know a novel, and the arsonist's guide a memoir. Why write both books? Maybe I just want the best of both worlds, which is exactly what both worlds usually burn those houses and the details and lessons therein. I plan on calling the story you know a novel, and the arsonist's guide a memoir. Why write both books? Maybe I just want the best of both worlds, which is exactly what both worlds usually don't don't want you to have, and the bond a.n.a.lysts aren't entirely sure they want me to have it, either, which is why they insist I call the story that includes them a novel and the story that doesn't a memoir. They tell me, "You need to protect the innocent, dude," which is what the guilty always say when they need to be protected. want you to have, and the bond a.n.a.lysts aren't entirely sure they want me to have it, either, which is why they insist I call the story that includes them a novel and the story that doesn't a memoir. They tell me, "You need to protect the innocent, dude," which is what the guilty always say when they need to be protected.

And then there is Thomas Coleman. He's living with Anne Marie and the kids now, but when he visits, he and I never talk about them. He comes by himself, every other week. Thomas has put on some weight: I can see the b.u.t.tons on his s.h.i.+rt strain a little with his new gut, can see his s.h.i.+rt collar creep up and crowd his jowls, too. He always comes on Monday, always with a red face, always with that suburban man's weekend yard-work tan, and I can imagine him on my self-propelled mower; no doubt he keeps his s.h.i.+rt on, and no doubt the other Camelotians like him for that. But we don't talk about any of that stuff, either. We don't talk about whether he knew, or suspected, that Deirdre had set those fires. We don't really talk about anything at all when Thomas visits: we sit there in silence, just two ordinary men with fires and dead parents in their pasts, and a common family in their present, and who knows what in their future, and hearts with holes in them, holes that are in various stages of excavation and filling. I don't understand why he visits me; when he does, I am sorry to see him come, and then I'm sorry to see him go. I don't understand that, either.

Then there are Anne Marie and the kids. Sometimes Anne Marie brings the kids with her and sometimes she comes by herself. When all three of them are there, I talk to Katherine and Christian about their days and what goes on in them. Katherine is fifteen years old now, beautiful and tall and dark haired like her mother and something of a model citizen, too. Last week when they visited, I learned that she'd just been chosen to go to Girl's State.

"I'm so proud of you," I said.

"Thank you," she said.

"What's the difference between Girl's State and Boy's State?" I asked her.

"You must be kidding, right?" she asked back, and I said, "Yes," because I must have been.

Christian is twelve years old, smack in the middle of the age of b.a.l.l.s and bats. It's not clear he can speak about anything else, and because we have so little time together, I don't ask him to. Recently he's become obsessed with athletic footwear and its latest innovations. For basketball, Christian told me last week, the soles of his shoes are filled with air; for baseball and soccer, his shoes have spikes that are made of something that isn't metal and isn't plastic, either.

"What are they made of, then?" I wanted to know.

Christian thought about this for a minute, hard. He has a head like mine, outsize for his body and a little blockish, and I could see it begin to corkscrew with the effort of his thinking. Finally he gave up and said, "Something safe. safe."

"I hope so," I told him, and then, because I could sense the guard behind me about to remind us of the time and how we were out of it, I told them both, as I always do, "I love you," and they both nodded, as they they always do. A nod means, always do. A nod means, Yes, we love you, too, Dad Yes, we love you, too, Dad, among children who are too shy to tell their father that they love him even though there are so many reasons not to. Everyone knows that the nod is the same as an "I love you, too." This is the most common kind of knowledge. Is it not?

When the kids are around, Anne Marie and I don't talk much. But when she comes by herself, as she did yesterday, we have plenty to say. They're things we've said already, many, many times, although the questions don't seem to lose their interest because of the repet.i.tion. I ask if she's OK, if she has enough money, and she tells me yes, yes, she's fine. I know they've promoted her to full-time manager at the home-supply superstore, and so I ask her about that, and she tells me about lumber that was supposed to be pressure treated and wasn't, or that wasn't supposed to be but was. I ask her if Thomas is still living at the house, and she tells me that he is, and I ask her why, and she tells me the truth: "Because we have a lot in common."

"Like what?"

"Like you've hurt both of us a lot." I don't say anything more to this, because I know there is nothing a victimized woman loves more than a victimized man, and because I also know that what she says is true. She doesn't ask me about the fires themselves or the people who died in them, about why I did what I did or why I did what she thinks I did maybe out of kindness, maybe out of sadness, or maybe because she can't stand to think about them more than she already has and does. I will never tell her the truth about those fires, because that would mean I'd have to admit that I lied to her, again, again, and I know how much that would hurt her, and maybe this is what it means to take responsibility for something: not to tell the truth, but to make sure you pick a lie for a good reason and then stick to it. In any case, we don't talk about any of that. It's safer to talk about Thomas, and so that's what we do.

"He's really good to the kids, Sam," Anne Marie says.

"I'm glad."

"He's good to me, too."

"OK," I tell her.

"I'm sorry," she always says, and I always ask her what I asked my mother that first night I moved back home, seven years ago now: "What happens to love?" I asked her, my mother, and now I ask Anne Marie.

"I don't know," Anne Marie says, just telling the truth, that being just one of the many enduring qualities that makes me love her, still, still.

"I still love you," I tell her.

"Well, me, too," she says, by which she means, I think, that love endures, but that it isn't everything, and it isn't ever what we want it to be, which was probably what those books my mother made me read and then got rid of were trying to tell me, and us, which was just one of the reasons she got rid of them.

Speaking of my mother, she doesn't visit me much. The prison is two hours northeast of Springfield and hard to get to if you don't have a car, which my mother doesn't anymore. She doesn't have a license, either. My mother lost both in a drunk-driving accident, two weeks after I came here. She's moved out of her place in Belchertown and into my old apartment, the one above the Student Prince, so she can walk to work and not drive and still drink.

So my mother doesn't visit me much, but she does take the bus up at least once a year, for my birthday. I turned forty-five just last week, and she brought me a present: a worn, creased, used-up copy of Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance The Blithedale Romance.

"Happy birthday," she said.

"Thank you," I said. "How did this thing get so beat up?"

"I have no idea," she said, but she did have an idea, and so do I. My mother is reading again, the way you always return to something you've quit, like drinking, which my mother hasn't done. Quit, that is. I know that, too: I can always smell the Knickerbocker on her breath, her clothes, coming out of her pores. But I don't tell her what I know, and I don't tell her that I've already read and reread the book since I've been in prison. It's about a utopian community, about how a group of people in Ma.s.sachusetts tried to become one big, happy family and failed completely.

"Thanks a lot," I told her. The guard came over and made sure I hadn't been given contraband, saw that it was only a book, and then left us alone. Once he was gone, I asked my mother, "Do I look forty-five?"

"Absolutely," she said. "Do I look sixty-six?"

I didn't answer. To be true, she looks older than sixty-six. She's still thin but looks stooped and wizened now, not fit at all. Her hair is mostly gray, and her face looks grayer, too, and lined with deep wrinkles, the sort no cream can make vanish. She looks like an old woman who was once beautiful. Maybe it's all the drinking that's aged her so. Or maybe it's my father: not necessarily that she killed him, but that she hoped once she'd killed him, things would change and she would stop loving him so much, stop hating him so much, stop missing him, stop feeling so lonely, and she hasn't. But my mother never talks about my father, and I don't ask her about him, either. And for that matter, my mother has never asked me about Deirdre. She knows that Deirdre killed herself. But she's never asked me for details, never asked me why I was with Deirdre that night in the first place. She's never asked how I feel about Deirdre's being dead, about my not saving her. You never ask your son how he feels about the suicide of his father's lover, just as you never ask your mother how she feels about killing your father, just as you never answer your mother when she asks whether she looks her age.

"You never answer your mother when she asks whether she looks her age," I told her.

"I suppose that's going in the arsonist's guide, too," she said.

Because my mother knows about the arsonist's guide, and the other book, too. I've told her all about them, let her read the rough drafts of some of my chapters, too, and already she's started giving me advice: about what in the books seems softhearted and softheaded; about whether I'm as big a b.u.mbler as I say I am, or whether I'm an even bigger one. But mostly she doesn't seem to know what what to say about the books. Maybe that's why she's started reading books in general again, so that she'll know what to say about mine. to say about the books. Maybe that's why she's started reading books in general again, so that she'll know what to say about mine.

"I have to go," she said, getting up from her chair. "My bus leaves in a half hour."

"OK."

"Are you behaving yourself?"

"I am."

"Please behave yourself, Sam," she said. "I want you to come home to me." Then my mother stood up, kissed me on the cheek, and left me sitting in the visiting room until, maybe, my next birthday.

Because this is what my mother seems to want, more than anything: she wants me to come home to her. My mother knows that if I behave myself I'll be out in a little more than thirteen years. And when I do, she wants me to move in with her, into her new and my old apartment. There is a job waiting for me at the Student Prince she's already cleared it with Mr. Goerman and Mr. Goerman's son, who was the bald, mustachioed bartender, apparently. I have a job was.h.i.+ng dishes and busing tables, if I want it. My mother tells me that I could drink for free, which I admit, after twenty years of not drinking, would be a plus. I've made my mother no promises, but who knows? I'll be finished writing my books by the time I get out of prison, and maybe then I will be done telling that story for all time. And after you're done telling your story for all time, then who knows what happens next? Maybe I'll do what my mother wants: maybe I'll move in with her and take that job at the Student Prince. Maybe then we'll be happy. Maybe we'll live our lives quietly, and maybe we won't ever need to talk about the past, about the loves we've lost or the people we've killed or the fires we've set. Maybe we'll be like normal people, people who, after a long day's work, want to do nothing else but have a drink and read a book. And maybe, then, I'll be able to tell that story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the following people, places, and things: The very helpful and superbly t.i.tled A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England A Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Miriam Levine. by Miriam Levine.

The great Student Prince Restaurant on Fort Street in Springfield, Ma.s.sachusetts.

The Giustinas of Springfield and the Clarkes of Mashapaug, wherever you happen to be and under whatever aliases you happen to be traveling.

The Taft Fund, the Ohio Arts Council, and the University of Cincinnati for their financial support.

The editors of and at New England Review New England Review, Vermont Literary Review Vermont Literary Review, failbetter failbetter, and Sarabande Books Sarabande Books, who first published sections of this novel, often in dramatically different form.

Rupert Chisholm, former bond a.n.a.lyst.

Chuck Adams, Brunson Hoole, Michael Taeckens, Craig Popelars, and the rest of the good people at Algonquin, and my agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman.

And finally, to all my usual aiders and abetters: you know who you are.

AN ARSONISTS GUIDE TO WRITERS HOMES IN NEW ENGLAND

A Conversation with the Author Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion

A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR Sam Pulsifer: First, thank you for giving me the last name Pulsifer. I like the way it has the word fire fire in it, because there are fires in the book, of course, and also in it, because there are fires in the book, of course, and also Lucifer Lucifer, or, at least, Lusifer Lusifer. Very clever.

Brock Clarke: Huh? I didn't intend that at all. It never occurred to me until you mentioned it.

SP: Why did you name me Pulsifer, then?

BC: Because I've only met two families with that last name, and they're both from New England.

SP: That's your reason? That's a terrible reason.

BC: I know, I know, it's pathetic.