It’s not optimism, Jenny would tell you. Just survival.
*
There is a guard standing outside your cell. He coughs into his arm, phlegmy and wet. You know why this guard is here: the Watch Log has resumed. He will walk past your cell every few minutes to ensure that you do not kill yourself. You don’t really want to kill yourself, but you would do it if you could—this situation might have a point, if you were to control it. But you have searched, and there is nothing. No shoelace to wrap around your neck. No shard of glass to slit your wrists. No meaning to find in the long, cruel wait.
*
Ansel?
The chaplain has arrived. A red mesh bag from Polunsky is tucked beneath his arm. The bald of his head shines with sweat—from where you lie on the cot, the chaplain looks bigger than he ever has. He drags a clanking metal chair across the concrete, sits up close to the bars that separate you. The Walls Unit employs a different full-time chaplain, but you requested this man come from Polunsky—you like to picture him maneuvering an old station wagon down the highway, windows open, radio humming softly.
The warden gave me this, the chaplain says, handing you the bag. Officer Billings passed it along.
You know the shape immediately. Your Theory. It has only been two hours since you arrived at the Walls Unit, barely enough time to hand the bag off to the chaplain. Not enough time to make copies at the FedEx in Huntsville, not enough time to mail those copies out to publishers, and certainly not enough time to drop a stack at the local news station. You pull the notebooks from the bag, the truth sickening in your chest. The despair blossoms slow, a leaking sore.
Your Theory—your legacy—is not going anywhere.
Bailing on the plan was one thing. You’d half expected this of Shawna. But it seems nearly barbaric, returning the Theory to you this way. You don’t have the time or the resources to send it out yourself. Shawna knows this. It would be fruitless, anyway, without her part in the plan. The irony is sharp, acidic. What you’ve done is bad, but not bad enough to warrant the attention that was supposed to come along with your escape. You could send the Theory out, sure. But at this point, it’s useless.
No one will care.
*
Why all the writing?
Shawna asked you this once, near the beginning. You were sitting on the floor with your notebooks spread around, your hands stained black with ink.
It’s the only way to be permanent, you told her. It’s like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind.
What exactly are you trying to leave? Shawna asked.
I don’t know, you said, irritated. My thoughts. My beliefs. Don’t you think it’s important to know that something of yourself exists beyond your own body? Something that can outlive death?
Shawna only shrugged and said: I think some people have left enough already.
*
You send the chaplain away. You spread the pages of your Theory in a circle on the floor, where they grimace like missing teeth. Cross-legged in the fray, you study the proof of your brilliance—it looks so small and scrawling, spread out disorganized. Notes for something bigger, notes for something better.
So. This is it. Your Theory will disappear after you’re gone, relegated to a back office at best, a dumpster at worst. A life’s worth of thinking and writing, faded into oblivion. Your eye catches a random page, lying haphazard on the concrete. Morality is not finite, it reads. Morality is not permanent. There is always the potential for change. It seems impossible that such a basic thing—potential—can be taken away.
What about the Blue House?
You whisper it, gentle at first. The pages on the floor do not move, do not rustle, only stare up at you. So you say it louder. The words echo back, bouncing hollow off the walls.
What about the Blue House?
Even if it ends right here—even if no one listens—there is always the Blue House. The Blue House is your Theory, standing steadfast. The Blue House is proof. You are expansive, like everyone else. You are complex. You are more than just the wicked.
*
The Blue House surfaced in the hot crux of summer. Almost a year after Jenny left for Texas. You were decaying, alone in Vermont; Jenny was gone, and your days were gray and silent. You had been eating hot dogs every night, cold from the plastic—after dinner you lugged Jenny’s favorite pieces of furniture to the garage, where you hacked them to bits with a chain saw.
The letter arrived in the mail one June morning. You ripped the envelope carelessly, the screen door still hanging open, confused by the bubbly handwriting on the lined notebook sheet. Her first letter was simple, only a few sentences.