House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  “I am appearing here today as chief executive officer of Pacific Land and Trust,” she continues, “and also as the board chairman of the Sparks Foundation, which is a charitable organization known not only in this county, but statewide and nationally, as a contributor to women’s causes, children’s-rights causes, and environmental causes.”

  Miranda is dressed demurely and professionally in a business outfit by Jil Sander, sheer hose, black pumps with a modest heel. Her makeup is subdued and her hair is conservatively styled, falling naturally around her high-cheekboned face.

  As she squares her notes preparatory to starting her formal presentation, the man she had fucked out on the ranch slips unobtrusively into the room through a door at the rear, taking a seat in the last row. No one pays him any attention.

  Miranda takes a sip of water, begins her formal presentation.

  “As you know, we own coastal property north of town. It’s a fairly large piece, a few thousand acres, and it’s all undeveloped. From time to time we’ve run some cattle on it, and raised a few crops, grains mostly, which haven’t worked out particularly well, due to a million problems, none of which I want to bore you with, so we’ve basically left it fallow. Except for a few small farm-type buildings, this land is pretty much like it was two, three, four hundred years ago, before anybody except Native Americans had set foot on it, and even then it wasn’t inhabited, because it didn’t produce, not even on a subsistence level. That’s the sad truth. It’s a beautiful piece of property. It would be a great location for multimillion-dollar homesites or a big resort, none of which we’ve ever contemplated, even though there have been resorts and golf courses and developments approved all around it. We’ve never asked for that, and I’m not here today to ask for that, so if you’ve been getting jittery just now listening to me you can relax. I’m not going to ask you to approve five hundred homesites or a thousand-room hotel or anything like that.”

  There are a few smiles and nervous chuckles around the room, including up on the podium where the supervisors are sitting, looking down into the chamber. No one’s quite sure what Miranda wants from them, so this disclaimer is a relief.

  She pauses, slips on a pair of half-frame tortoiseshell reading glasses. Opening a folder in front of her, she flips a few pages.

  “I should mention that this particular piece of property is very important to my husband and my mother-in-law, because it was the first piece of land their family acquired, well over a hundred years ago. The leases they arranged with the railroads and the state over the years enabled them to buy other ranches and properties, to grow and prosper.”

  She looks behind her to Dorothy, then turns back to the supervisors.

  “Because the Sparks family did well, which was the result of hard, hard work, perseverance, and guts, they wanted to help others do well also. So they established the Sparks Foundation, which, as I mentioned, is a benefactor to many charitable causes, particularly environmental ones. I don’t think there’s any question that Dorothy Sparks is the main mover and shaker in this county as far as donating her time, her energy, and her money to worthy causes.”

  Dorothy sits ramrod-straight behind Miranda. She doesn’t like having attention called to herself, but she endures it.

  “Dorothy Sparks is modest and self-effacing,” Miranda continues, laying it on nice and thick, “but she is energetic and demanding. And she and all of her family back up their demands with cold, hard cash.”

  Again, she looks at the documents in front of her, gracefully slipping her glasses on and off.

  “Last year,” she states, reading from her notes, “the Sparks Foundation donated one point eight million dollars to charitable causes, seventy percent of that locally.”

  Sean Redbuck, the supervisor who had been at the Sparks family’s Fiesta party, leans into his microphone. “That’s extraordinarily generous,” he says. “On behalf of the county I’d like to commend you.”

  Other supervisors join in, voicing their appreciation.

  “Thank you,” Miranda tells them. “We were happy to do it.” She pauses for another sip of water. “Actually,” she continues, “that sum, as generous as it sounds, was down six percent from the previous year.”

  She shuts her folder. Another quick look back to Dorothy: “Which brings us to the reason I’m appearing before you today.”

  “Last year, while we were donating almost two million dollars to charity, our coastal property took a one-point-six-million-dollar tax hit. We lost one and two-thirds million dollars doing nothing but watch the grass grow. And this year it will be worse, because the economy in general is worse.”

  She pauses, looking at each supervisor in turn. “We can’t afford to maintain this level of generosity anymore. That’s the bald truth of it.”

  Another pause. Miranda turns, her glance shifting to the man in the last row of seats. Their eyes meet for a moment, but there is no acknowledgment.

  She turns back. “Would you please put up the transparency?” she requests.

  The room is darkened as a county staffer places the requested slide in the overhead projector and shines it onto a screen at the side of the supervisors’ rostrum.

  The slide is an official county topographic map of a large parcel of property, bordered on one side by the ocean: the parcel of Sparks property that housed the dock on which Frank Bascomb and his confederates were caught in their aborted dope-smuggling attempt.

  Miranda walks over to the screen, picking up a pointer from the table.

  “This is a portion of the property I’m talking about,” she informs them. “There are several unimproved roads that criss-cross it”—pointing to various lines that run through—“and a dock, which is rarely used anymore, since no one in our family sails.”

  She waits for everybody to get a good look.

  “As charitable as we are—and I’m not shy about stating the obvious, that we are very charitable—we can’t keep running at a loss. Especially since it affects our giving.

  “Every dollar that we lost maintaining this piece of land is a dollar that could be used to protect our environment, or support an AIDS hospice, or provide needed funds to worthy artists. Those dollars could be doing good, instead of doing nothing.”

  She looks around the darkened room, from the supervisors to the audience. “We are requesting that this very small section of property—a mere one-tenth of the total acreage,” she states, to emphasize the puniness of its relative size to the whole—“be changed in its designation from Ag Preserve to agriculture-rural-commercial, so that in the future we can make something of this land, instead of its being an albatross around our necks. Because if we can’t get some kind of use from this—profit or nonprofit—we’re in danger of the Sparks Foundation drying up. And that would be a catastrophe.”

  The room vibrates with voice. Redbuck, the chairman, gavels for silence.

  “Quiet, please,” he implores the twenty or thirty people who have heard this plea.

  This request has come from out of the blue; the agenda had merely stated “consideration of Ag Preserve Parcel #1217,” which normally would have meant some petty detail involving paperwork; no one except a few county drones expected anything this radical, and for once, out of respect to the family, they hadn’t leaked the proposal. Had the specifics been publicized in advance, the room would have been packed with members of the environmental movement. As it stands, there is no one who has asked to speak to this project, pro or con. Only Miranda.

  Redbuck leans forward, peering down to Miranda.

  “What kind of enterprise were you thinking of, Mrs. Sparks?” he inquires. “Mini-estates, fifty-acre ranchettes, anything like that?” he probes.

  Redbuck, from an old valley ranching family, can’t completely lose the sarcasm from his voice; in the last thirty years hundreds of wealthy people from Los Angeles and Orange counties have moved into fifty-acre parcels, especially in the Santa Ynez Valley, termed themselves instant ranchers—although they
wouldn’t know a Holstein from a quarterhorse—and immediately called for tighter controls on county development. A classic example of “I’ve got mine, fuck you, Jack.”

  “No, absolutely not, I already said that, it’s on your record,” she replies emphatically.

  “Can you give us a hint?” he asks.

  “We have a few concepts in mind, Mr. Chairman, but I’m not at liberty to disclose them yet,” she answers candidly. “We want to make sure we can pull them off, from a financial point of view.”

  “Then why are you here at this time?” he asks quizzically

  “Because we need to know if we are going to be able to put this piece of our property to good use, a use that could be beneficial to everyone, for our own long-range planning for the foundation. Look,” she continues, “it’s real simple. We give a lot, but we’re not a bottomless pit. Nobody is anymore. The new tax laws and the changes in the economy in California have ended that kind of philanthropy forever, sad to say. Everything has to pay its way now, even charity. Or else,” she warns, her voice tinged with sadness, “there won’t be any charity, when it’s really needed.”

  She pauses once more, making that last important eye contact with the five powers that be. Then she turns and takes her seat in the first row, next to Dorothy.

  “Well done,” Dorothy whispers. “A good presentation.”

  Redbuck leans forward.

  “Does county staff have a recommendation on this item?”

  “Yes, Mr. Chairman, we do.” Rebecca Soderheim, the resource manager on this project, a nondescript woman in her thirties, shuffles some papers.

  “And …?”

  “We recommend that a change be approved, as requested.”

  “What could they do with that designation?” he asks.

  “Lots of things. They could expand their harbor, for example. For pleasure boats or commercial fishing or both. There’s a real need for expanded dock space in the county, as you’re aware of.”

  “That’s a good idea.” He glances over at Miranda. She cocks her head—“maybe.”

  Redbuck looks to his colleagues. “Any questions?”

  They all look at each other. There are no questions.

  “Well then, if there are no questions of the applicant, I suggest we put this in the form of a motion.”

  “I have some questions, Mr. Chairman,” rings out a male voice from the rear of the room.

  Everyone turns.

  A man stands. He’s somewhat disheveled in appearance, wearing a beat-up corduroy sports jacket with leather patches on the elbows, the kind you used to see on graduate students who never finished their degrees, faded khakis, a plaid work shirt, hiking boots. Long uncombed hair.

  Redbuck sighs. “What is your question, Mr. Pachinko?” he asks with exasperation.

  The man works his way to the front of the room, stands at the speaker’s rostrum.

  “For openers,” he begins, “what’s the rush?”

  “No one’s rushing this. There is no rush.”

  “Seems to me like there is. A quick presentation, a quicker positive response from county, and wham-bam, we’ve got a major change in county land-use designation. That looks like a rush to me.”

  He rocks on the balls of his feet, a welterweight ready for the opening bell.

  “Do you have a question?” Redbuck asks again, icily.

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, I do. I’ve got a couple.”

  He walks over to county staff’s table, snatches up their copy of the agenda, walks back to the speaker’s rostrum, leafs through it, shaking his head in sorrow every few pages. Then, holding it as if it were a dog turd wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper, he flips it back. It falls to the floor. Rebecca quickly picks it up, holds on to it proprietarily.

  “The Environmental Citizens’ Association views with alarm any change in land designation from agriculture to other use,” Pachinko states. “Little good ever comes from these changes, but extraordinary harm often does. Witness the recent oil-tankering controversy, where after decades of being promised no tankering, now we have it within the Channel Islands day and night. Someday one of those tankers is going to spill its guts all over our beaches and this community is going to be living with the consequences of that disaster for decades. 1969 again, quadrupled.”

  A few loud whistles and claps come from the back of the room. Redbuck forcefully gavels them down.

  “We’re not discussing oil here, Mr. Pachinko.”

  “Okay, you’re right. But the best intentions in the world—and I am here to testify that Mrs. Sparks, Dorothy Sparks that is, does have the best intentions—the best intentions in the world are for nothing if you can’t control everything, and I mean every single thing, about your own system. And to give anybody, even the Sparks family, who are without question the most generous people around when it comes to helping preserve our precious environmental treasures, a blank check without knowing on what account it’s being written, is dangerous.”

  He turns and faces Dorothy.

  “You’ll have to forgive me, Mrs. Sparks. I respect you, you know that. Probably a hell of a lot more than anyone else in these chambers, especially these five …” before the word “clowns” can escape his lips, he turns and looks at the supervisors, who are intently staring down at him … “these five distinguished, intelligent, all-knowing founts of human knowledge and foresight …”

  Bam! The gavel comes down.

  “You’re out of line!” Redbuck thunders.

  “No!” Pachinko yells back, even louder, so loud that everyone, even the few of his own people who are scattered about the room, are shocked at the vehemence. “I’m not the one out of line here today! You are! For not being extra skeptical, extra cautious. Okay. So the Sparks family are environmental heroes. I agree, they are. My organization can attest to that directly, because Mrs. Sparks and I have worked shoulder to shoulder many a time. But what happens fifteen, or twenty, or fifty years down the line, when they’re not around anymore, but this decision is? How do we know how their children or grandchildren will act? The blunt truth is, we don’t. And that’s why we don’t write a blank check against the future.”

  Once again he turns and faces Dorothy Sparks.

  “Can’t this wait,” he pleads to her, “until you have a real in-the-flesh plan? I’d be the first to support anything reasonable, you know that. But to say yes to any down-the-line idea is wrong, Mrs. Sparks. If this wasn’t your own action item you’d be standing right up here next to me, arguing my case.”

  He glares at the supervisors. “This is too important a change to rush through willy-nilly,” he cautions them. “I suggest you table this for a couple of weeks, so that the general public can be made aware, and can participate in helping you make the right decision.”

  With one more look to Miranda and Dorothy he turns and marches up the aisle and out of the room.

  “Duly noted,” Redbuck says dryly to Pachinko’s retreating back. He looks up and down the row at the other four supervisors.

  “Lest we forget,” he states, “we have a mechanism for control. Ourselves. Changing a land-use designation does not, Mr. Pachinko’s gloomy forecast to the contrary, give anyone a blank check. It may give them a check, that’s true, but we’re the only ones who can sign it. When, whether it’s tomorrow or ten years from now, this family decides on a specific course of action, they’ll have to come before us again and make their case, and if we don’t like it, we can say no. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” They are in agreement.

  “Do I hear a motion?”

  As the motion on the application from the Sparks family is made, seconded, and approved, the man sitting in the last row gets up and walks out. By the time Miranda senses his movement and turns to look for him, he’s no longer there.

  4

  WITHIN AN INCH OF YOUR LIFE

  THE WOMEN PARK IN the cracked asphalt lot behind th
e church, walk down a flight of shallow concrete steps that are easy to slip on whenever it rains, especially if you’re coming from work and are wearing heels, enter through the back door, and pass into the low-ceilinged, dimly lit basement. The church is AME, the largest black church in town, located on the east side, off Milpas. No one presently in the group is African-American, but the price is right: it’s free, because when the group first started as an offshoot of the county shelter program, this church volunteered the space.

  It’s evening, coming on eight-thirty. The light is fading in the sky. As they get out of their cars the women greet each other with muted hellos. A few hug. The cars are Mercedeses and Jaguars, twenty-year-old Datsuns and Pintos, pickup trucks, the full gamut in between. Those who don’t have cars take the bus or come on foot.

  Inside, the women set up metal folding chairs, arranging them in a loose circle on the yellowing, lumpy linoleum floor: twelve clients and the therapist, Maxine, an MFCC who’s working on her doctorate at Fielding.

  In age they range from twenty-three to sixty-one. As in all free-floating recovery-type therapy groups this one is in flux, women move in and out depending on how they’re doing and what they’re doing; right now in the mix there are five Anglos, four Latinos (three Mexican-American, one illegal from Guatemala), two Asian-Americans (Filipino and Vietnamese), and one Native American (Zuni-Navajo). Some have college degrees, some never graduated high school. Two of them, including Mildred Willard—who had told Laura about Kate—are rich women who live in big houses in Montecito and have servants, gardeners, pool men, swim at the Coral Casino and play golf with their husbands at Valley Club and Birnam Wood. A few others are working professionals—a paralegal, two schoolteachers; while others are working-class, at the level of checkers at Vons; and at the bottom of the economic rung are the welfare wives and mothers, the ones you’d expect. As different as twelve women can be.