The Hour I First Believed

by Wally Lamb

  Victim Described as ‘Sleeping Beauty’

  Of the identification process, Mr. Dank reported, “People went about it quietly, but every few minutes, someone would cry out a name or shout ‘Oh, my god!’ or ‘That’s him! That’s her!’ Then they’d wail like the dickens.” Mr. Dank said his wife’s body was untouched by flame. He was told by a rescuer that she had been discovered slumped in a telephone booth near the Cocoanut Grove’s coat check area in the front foyer, a nickel clutched between her fingers. “It looked like she was sleeping,” Mr. Dank said of his late wife. “She was all dolled up. Fur stole, pretty dress. Sleeping Beauty—that’s what came to my mind when I saw my Ethel.” Mr. and Mrs. Dank had remained legally married but were estranged.

  Victim Attended Buck Jones Party

  Mary Agnes Dank, the victim’s daughter, said she had spoken to her mother by telephone Saturday afternoon, hours before her death, and that Mrs. Dank had told her of her plans to attend a dinner party that evening at the popular Boston night club. Employed by Monogram Motion Pictures as a personal assistant to Francis “Buddy” Gifford, producer of Monogram’s Rough Rider series of Western films, Mrs. Dank was part of an entourage of about two dozen guests attending a testimonial dinner honoring cowboy actor Charles (Buck) Jones, 52, a long-time favorite of American boy movie fans.

  Jones Succumbs

  Rescued by a Coast Guardsman and a taxi driver, both unidentified, Buck Jones survived the Saturday night blaze and was hospitalized at Massachusetts General Hospital. He died yesterday from smoke inhalation, burned lungs, and third and second degree burns on the face and neck. Jones’ name was the 481st added to the death roll.

  Appeared in Motion Pictures

  Mary Agnes Dank said her mother was a Monogram Pictures secretary and actress, having appeared in two Rough Rider films under the stage name Dorinda DuMont. “She was friends with Joan Blondell and Constance Bennett,” Miss Dank said. “She was going to be a big movie star.”

  Ethel (O’Nan) Dank was born in Cranston, Rhode Island in 1907, the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Michael (Sioban) O’Nan. She wed Adolph Dank in Cranston in 1924. Funeral arrangements for Mrs. Dank are incomplete.

  Sleeping Beauty, huh? Well, bad apple or not, Ethel had followed the judge’s orders. Had left Three Rivers and hightailed it out to Hollywood. Become a secretary and a starlet and probably provided other “services” to the men of Monogram Pictures. Wasn’t that how it worked out there? Well, whatever she had or hadn’t done, the restoration of her “womanly virtues” had landed poor Ethel feet up at a makeshift morgue.

  I recalled reading once or twice about that Coconut Grove fire—or Cocoanut Grove, as they apparently spelled it. Wasn’t it after that horror show that they made illuminated exit signs mandatory?

  For whatever reason these old newspaper articles had been stuck in there with Great-Grandma Lydia’s old records, it was interesting stuff. Still, I told myself, if I were smart, I’d put them down and get started on my work.

  Instead, I kept reading.

  Three Rivers Evening Record,

  Thursday, December 3, 1942

  FIRE VICTIM LAID TO REST

  Daughter, 14, Bids Emotional Farewell

  Mrs. Ethel S. Dank, formerly of Three Rivers and later of Van Nuys, California, was laid to rest this morning at St. Eustace Cemetery, this city, following a Mass of Christian Burial at the Roman Catholic Church of Five Wounds. Mrs. Dank perished Friday in the tragic inferno at Boston’s Cocoanut Grove night club, which has now claimed 486 lives. Monsignor Giacomo A. Guglielmo of the Diocese of Three Rivers officiated at the funeral Mass.

  State, Town Dignitaries Pay Tribute

  Mrs. Dank’s graveside service was attended by more than two hundred mourners, including The Honorable Arthur M. Tillinghast, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, Zachary M. Potter, Mayor of Three Rivers, and Mrs. Lydia P. Quirk, Superintendent of the State Prison Farm for Women. Ethel Dank was confined at the prison farm from 1935 to 1937, where she was “fully rehabilitated,” according to Mrs. Quirk.

  Lieutenant Governor Tillinghast brought words of condolence from Governor Robert A. Hurley. In eulogizing Mrs. Dank as “our beloved native daughter,” Mayor Potter ordered that the flags at Three Rivers’ schools and office buildings be flown at half-mast in her memory for the coming week. Mrs. Quirk spoke of the deceased as “a woman who had wandered down a wrong path in life” but who had then had “the strength and the wherewithal to turn back and travel a better road.”

  Victim’s Daughter Overwrought

  Superintendent Quirk’s remarks were interrupted by Miss Mary Agnes Dank, 14, the victim’s daughter. Addressing those gathered, Miss Dank said she wanted to honor her mother’s memory with a special farewell gesture. She began singing “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” which she identified as Ethel Dank’s favorite song. Halfway through her musical tribute, however, Miss Dank became overwrought and could not finish. She then attempted an impromptu eulogy, describing Ethel Dank as “the greatest mother in this whole wide world.” Miss Dank became angry as she spoke, telling mourners that when her mother had lived in Three Rivers, “people had no use for her, and after she left, she had no use for any of you.” Adolph Dank, the victim’s estranged husband, attempted without success to subdue his daughter. Miss Dank was removed from the premises by officials of the Three Rivers County Home for Girls, where she currently resides. Ethel Dank’s service ended with a blessing by Monsignor Guglielmo and the singing of the hymn, “Lead Me, Lest I Stray.”

  Three Rivers Evening Record,

  May 25, 1945

  GIRL, 17, ATTEMPTS SUICIDE OVER THWARTED LOVE OF BOY, 14; SURVIVES, PAYS PEACE BREACH, CONTEMPT FINES

  Miss Mary Agnes Dank, 17 year old daughter of Mr. Adolph Dank of 113 Green Street and the late Mrs. Dank, was fined $10 today in town court on a breach of peace charge stemming from an attempt to take her own life last Friday. An additional $10 was levied against Miss Dank for being in contempt of the court, the result of her verbal exchanges with Judge Joseph P. Wool.

  In response to the thwarting of what police characterized as her youthful love affair with a boy of fourteen, Miss Dank attempted suicide by self-poisoning last Friday. She pleaded a demurrer to the peace breach charge, stating that she had become desperate when the boy’s grandmother forbade the couple from seeing each other. Miss Dank argued to Judge Wool that she and the boy remained deeply in love and it was his grandmother, therefore, rather than she, who had disturbed the peace. Judge Wool overruled the demurrer.

  Investigation by Patrolman Leo T. Jakes revealed that Miss Dank had on three occasions trespassed on the property of the boy’s family, demanding to see him. On the last of these intrusions, she stated that unless the affair was resumed, she could not survive. When there was no resolution, she consumed a concoction of India ink and oil of wintergreen, which contains methyl salicylate, a poisonous agent.

  Adolph Dank told police that when he returned home from work last Friday evening, he found his daughter in an agitated state, complaining of dizziness and ringing in the ears. Later, she became nauseous and appeared to be having trouble breathing. Questioned by her father, Miss Dank revealed that, upon her return from school that afternoon, she had drunk three ounces of the wintergreen mixed with an equivalent quantity of ink. She told her father that her action was the result of a suicide pact she had made with the boy she had been forbidden to see, and that he had pledged to end his life, too. When questioned later by Patrolman Jakes, the boy stated that Miss Dank had suggested the double suicide, but that he had not agreed to it.

  Adolph Dank, an employee of the Three Rivers Bleaching Dyeing & Printing Company, sought to get a physician for his daughter but was unsuccessful. He then ran to the Curtis Memorial Hospital’s School of Nursing, where an unidentified nurse advised him to administer milk as an antidote and to treat the girl’s fever with sponge water baths. If that failed, he should send her to the hospital. After drinking the milk, Miss Dank rallie
d, her father said, but at about 8 o’clock that evening, she began to convulse and hallucinate. The police were notified and Patrolman Jakes was dispatched to the house. Officer Jakes reported that he gave Miss Dank more milk, but when she failed to rally a second time, he called for an ambulance. Miss Dank was admitted to Curtis Memorial shortly after midnight on Saturday and responded successfully to treatment.

  In overruling Miss Dank’s demurrer, Judge Wool advised her that a pretty young woman such as she had much to live for. He urged her to consider her father before committing further rash acts, to concentrate on her studies, and to socialize with youngsters her own age. Appearing before the court without counsel, Miss Dank was defiant in the face of Judge Wool’s advice. She informed the judge that her deceased mother had served as housekeeper for his wife’s family and reminded him that he, Judge Wool, was married to a woman fifteen years his junior. Miss Dank also questioned what “a white-haired man in a black robe” knew about true love. Judge Wool chastised the girl for her flippancy and fined her an additional $10, citing her contempt of the court.

  In a related matter, Judge Wool issued a restraining order which forbids Miss Dank from trespassing at the home of her former beau or from having written or verbal contact with him at the Three Rivers High School, which both attend. She must maintain a distance of twenty-five feet from the boy at all times. So that there would be no question about what was expected of Miss Dank, Judge Wool instructed Bailiff Harold Timmons and Adolph Dank, who had accompanied his daughter to court, to demonstrate the distance of 25 feet with the aid of a tape measure. Miss Dank appeared not to look at the measured distance between the two men. She exited the courtroom before being dismissed.

  Mr. Dank addressed the court, apologizing for his daughter’s behavior. He stated that she had always been a headstrong girl and that she had had a particularly difficult time since her mother’s death three years earlier. Judge Wool responded that many young people faced hardships in life without resorting to extreme behavior. The judge wished the girl’s father good luck and said he hoped never to see Miss Dank in his courtroom again.

  Tough little cookie, she must have been, I thought. Survives her suicide cocktail, and when she gets hauled into court, she gives the judge some shit…. Who had saved these clippings? And why? Damned if I knew. And damned if I hadn’t better shove them aside and get to that Joseph Campbell essay I’d assigned them for our next class. I went to my desk, grabbed a highlighter and my copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and headed back to the kitchen table.

  This first stage of the mythological journey—which we have designated the “call to adventure”—signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown…. The hero can go forth of his own volition to accomplish the adventure, as did Theseus when he arrived in his father’s city, Athens, and heard the horrible history of the Minotaur; or he may be carried or sent abroad by some benign or malignant agent, as was Odysseus, driven about the Mediterranean by the winds of the angered god, Poseidon….

  Hoo boy, I thought. I could hear their bellyaching already. And why not? Campbell was tough going. Sometimes I felt like throttling that speed-freak professor whose syllabus I’d inherited. I knew one thing: if I taught this class next semester—and I had better teach it after the sweat equity I’d been putting in—I was going to revamp the book list. But until then…

  A blunder—apparently the merest chance—reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood. As Freud has shown, blunders are not the merest chance. They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep—as deep as the soul itself.

  It reminded me of what Janis had said that day up in Hartford: how Great-Grandma Lydia’s diaries and Lizzy Popper’s letters were “unsuspected springs” that had bubbled up to the surface. That those words from my ancestors were speaking to me.

  My eyes wandered from the Campbell text to the folder of newspaper clippings at the other end of the table. Stay focused, I advised myself. Get the essay read and underlined. I picked up the folder and tried tossing it onto the counter, but I didn’t quite make it. The contents spilled onto the floor. And when I stooped to pick them up, I saw the magazine ad that was in there, too.

  “It’s time to elect Miss Rheingold 1950! Your vote may decide!” Beneath the banner headline were photos of six pretty, girl-next-door types from that bygone era: short bangs, identical outfits, red lipstick smiles. And beneath their pictures, more verbiage. “So pick your favorite Rheingold Girl and vote for her in the U.S.A.’s second largest election! And while you’re at your neighborhood store or tavern, why not try some thirst-quenching Rheingold Extra Dry? You’ll join the millions who say, ‘My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer!’”

  I looked again at those six young women. Must be what? In their seventies by now? The most striking, a blue-eyed brunette, smiled back at me. “Jinx Dixon,” the name beneath the picture said. She looked familiar somehow—unsettlingly so. Where had I seen that smile?…

  This first stage of the mythological journey—which we have designated the “call to adventure”—signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown….

  I stopped, stared again at Jinx Dixon. That was when it clobbered me: she was clearly, unmistakably, my vagrant father’s vagrant girlfriend. The kerchiefed woman who had smiled at me so unnervingly whenever I met them at the corn maze with their stolen food. The woman who had freaked out Mother when she showed up at Daddy’s wake.

  I sat there, sifting again through those yellowed articles, looking back at that old ad. I couldn’t put the pieces together…. But maybe someone else could. I closed The Hero with a Thousand Faces and grabbed my car keys.

  He’d gotten maybe a mile and a half up the road. “You know, you’re right,” I said. “It is dangerous leaving the apple house like that. Someone could get hurt. I’ll figure out a way to pay you. Why don’t you come by Monday afternoon and get started?”

  He nodded. We shook on it. I did a U-turn and headed back to the house. Truth was, that dilapidated old building was the least of my worries. But if Ulysses had known my father all those years ago, then maybe he’d known this Jinx Dixon, too. Whoever she was, and for whatever reason her picture was in that folder, I was going to get to the bottom of it.

  Later that evening, Janis came downstairs to heat up some soup for herself and Moze. “So I solved the mystery,” she said.

  “Did you?” I said. “What mystery’s that?”

  “Who those women in the clippings were. God, how weird is that, huh? Your maternal grandmother does time at a prison run by your paternal great-grandmother.”

  I gave her a look. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ethel Dank. The woman who died in the nightclub fire. She was Mary Agnes’s mother.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “So?”

  “So she was your mother’s mother.”

  I shook my head. “My mother’s mother was Moira Sullivan.”

  Janis looked confused. “Wait a minute,” she said.

  When she came back downstairs, she handed me a bent-up eight-by-ten envelope. “I found this later today, after I found those clippings. It had fallen behind the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, and when I went to close it, I heard something crinkling. So I wedged my hand down there and fished it out. You probably need this, right?”

  I opened it and pulled out a birth certificate. My birth certificate, it looked like, except something was screwy. It had my name, my birthday. It listed my father as Alden J. Quirk Jr., my town of birth as Three Rivers, Connecticut. But they’d gotten my mother’s name wrong. Instead of Rosemary Sullivan Quirk, they’d listed her as Mary Agnes Dank.

  I didn’t say much. I coul
dn’t. Couldn’t fathom what was in front of me. But after Janis went back upstairs, I opened our strongbox and took out my birth certificate. Back in the kitchen, I put it on the table next to the birth certificate Janis had found. I killed the rest of Moze’s six-pack looking back and forth between the two: the one that bore the impression made by the official Town of Three Rivers seal and the one that didn’t. I kept touching those raised letters. Kept touching her name: Mary Agnes Dank.

  chapter twenty-five

  ON MONDAY, OUT AT THE apple house, Ulysses verified what by then I had pretty much figured out: “Jinx Dixon” was Mary Agnes Dank. “He was nuts about her, your dad, and she was just plain nuts. In and out of the bughouse. Beautiful girl, though. Your family tried their damnedest to keep the two of them away from each other, but it never did no good. She and the old lady locked horns more than once, I remember.”

  “The old lady?”

  “Alden’s grandmother—the one who ran the prison. Guess in her line of work, she knew a troublemaker when she seen one. Your father’d swear off her for a while. Then the next thing you know, they’d be back at it. It was like she had him under a spell or something. But yeah, the family couldn’t stop it. Maybe if they hadn’t pushed so hard, it would’ve run its course. But Mary Agnes was as bullheaded as she was beautiful. Had a chip on her shoulder, too. I remember that about her. Probably told herself she’d be goddamned if she was gonna let Alden’s family push her around.”