The Good Daughter

Summer of 1973. The U.S. economy was in a recession and employment opportunities at the time were bleak as I was finishing up my senior year in high school. The minimum wage was $1.60 an hour and the last job I remember working was spent digging a swimming pool, chipping away at the bedrock with a jackhammer that outweighed me on a day of triple-digit heat. Shortly thereafter I turned 18 and promptly enlisted in the US Navy. I was scheduled to report to the Naval Recruit Training Center San Diego the following February. My immediate future seemed less hopeless.



In August, the group of friends I hung out with received advance news of a series of rock concerts that were scheduled to be held at an outdoor speedway just across the border in northern Idaho. I only recognized one band - Sugarloaf of “Green-Eyed Lady” fame from a few years earlier. The promoters needed security guards and we fit the bill perfectly - unemployed, long-haired partiers. There would be no financial reimbursement for our efforts. Instead, we would receive free room, board, and a daily beer allowance. It promised to be a dream job.

The weather was perfect when we arrived on the first day of the concerts: warm and not a cloud in the sky. Marijuana, acid, and speed were freely available. I got two 6-packs of beer each afternoon and a good supply of hard alcohol was being smuggled in - somehow I managed to stay in a state of responsible bliss. We were assigned to two-man teams, twelve hours on and twelve hours off and worked all the various locations from the fenced perimeter to the concessions, on safety patrols among the crowd itself and even out front at the entrance where I soon discovered another perk of being a rock concert security guard: I could get people in for free. And by “people” I mean females. There was always a group of cute girls wanting to get into the concert. I was young, dumb, full of cum and a sucker for a friendly smile.

That’s how I met Rhona Gardner and her best friend Sue Schelin.

And immediately thereafter, 16-year-old Vanessa Ann came into my life.

The girls were Washington residents like me. Rhona and I started dating after the concerts. Sue was her best friend; her funny sidekick: always animated and with something to say about most subjects. The two were seemingly inseparable. And then there was Vanessa, Sue’s quiet younger sister. Their birthdays were less than a year apart. Sue called her sibling “the good daughter.”



Vanessa went to school, stayed out of trouble and got good grades. I found she was wise beyond her years and immediately likable. She really was the good daughter: honest and smart without being a know-it-all. Vanessa made me feel as if I had known her forever and I could turn to her for expert advice on the mystery of the female species.

I can honestly say the summer of 1973 was the best summer of my life.

In contrast, the first day of the new year would turn out to be the worst.

New Years Eve weather was typical for Spokane. The temperature had dipped into the teens and there was a moderate breeze in the air. The ground had a few inches of snow and there was more in the forecast. I was celebrating the arrival of 1974 at a party with the gang. This year we were in the basement of the home of Dee Dee Disque. ZZ Top was on the record player, Tres Hombres had come out earlier that year and I can swear I remember listening to “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” when Rhona, Sue, and Vanessa came down the stairway. Sue marched right up and announced they were there to kidnap me and that I had no choice but to comply. A friend named Matt decided to tag along and off we went.

It was well past midnight by the time we made it to the outskirts of downtown Spokane, crossing the city limits at Havana Street and continuing to 1907 East Pacific Avenue where Sue and Vanessa lived with their 52-year-old father, Lester.

The old house was dark and cold when we entered and it looked like the long night’s celebrations were ending for everyone. I vaguely remember getting ready to spend the night on the floor when Sue and Vanessa’s dad came home and I was introduced. It was after 2 a.m. and Lester had come home after the bars had closed. The next thing I remember, a dude nicknamed “Strawberry” arrived at the house. He must have seen the lights on and came over to invite us across the street to his place. Matt, Rhona, Sue and I left Vanessa alone in the house with her father. After all, it was way past bedtime for Vanessa, the good daughter. The last thing I remember is seeing Lester sitting in the living room smoking a cigarette as we walked out the door and into the cold wind, down the narrow walkway to the street and across to Strawberry’s place just a hundred feet or so away.

Shortly after 4 am., we’re playing cards when someone noticed the sound of big vehicle engines rumbling outside. The next thing I know I’m following two screaming girls out into the frozen night. My memories are a slow-motion blur that I will never forget. The house I had come from just two hours earlier is awash in red, flashing lights from emergency vehicles: a Spokane PD patrol car, an ambulance, and two fire trucks have come from the fire station that is only a block away. Charged hoses are stretched out across the snowy yard. There are firefighters milling about and smoke is billowing from the front door but no one seems to be in much of a hurry. Rhona and Sue are screaming and moaning and crying and trying to get the attention of the firefighters: Vanessa and her father are inside! Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Then Sue is in my face, begging me for help. “Vanessa!” she screams. The firemen aren’t responding. We need to get Vanessa and her dad out of the house! The firemen won’t allow me in the front door and so I ask Sue where Vanessa’s bedroom is. She leads me around to another side of the house. The two windows of Vanessa’s bedroom are too far off the ground for me to climb in - the 16-year-old is only feet away but it might as well be a thousand miles. I scan the ground and somehow notice a cement block that isn’t completely covered in snow. With all my might I heaved it through one of the windows and Strawberry leans down so I can get on his shoulders. Smoke pours from the broken window and I stick my head inside. I can see nothing but I feel my hand as the broken glass cuts into it. I cannot breathe so I lean back and take a huge breath. I am going to try to climb inside anyway. I stick my head back inside but I am blinded and the smoke overwhelms me. And then the firemen see what is happening and come rushing over, making us stop what we’re doing. I get down from Strawberry’s shoulders in defeat.

I don’t remember much of anything else. Matt and I left at some point and walked the eight miles back home. Our pants were frozen stiff in the sub-zero temperature by the time we arrived and the sun was up, though hidden behind thick clouds. I must have finally gone to sleep. My next memory is going to the funeral home with Rhona and Sue to see Vanessa. She lays unmoving in the casket and looks to be asleep. The fire itself never got to her. She died from smoke inhalation. I later discover she was found on the floor of her bedroom. The thought of her lying there so close but so far away is almost too much to bear. My next memory is of attending the funeral as a pallbearer. Sue insisted I meet her and Vanessa’s mother. Sue tells her that I tried to get to Vanessa and her mother thanks me. I am filled with guilt. I lived but that precious little girl died. The guilt is all-consuming. For the next 30-odd years, I try to bury it, ashamed at my failure, with hard booze and every conceivable drug you can imagine. The scar from trying to climb in through her window is a daily reminder of having let Vanessa down when she needed me most of all.

I left Spokane forever the following month for the US Navy. I returned for a brief visit in 1978. 1907 E Pacific Ave, Spokane, WA 99202 is now an empty, overgrown lot. There is nothing to show for that fateful night save for a cement walkway that leads nowhere…

As I write, it has been 43 ½ years since that horrible night. I have experienced several deaths in the years since but I have neither been to another viewing nor attended another funeral. I never will. I have struggled with what I believe to be PTSD all these years. I became an alcoholic and an IV drug user but nothing I did to myself could ever diminish the guilt I felt for having survived while Vanessa perished. I hated myself for having been unable to save her. I never talked with Rhona again, but after a lengthy search and some dumb luck, I was recently able to reconnect with Vanessa’s sister, Sue. Today I no longer smoke, drink or do drugs. I think Vanessa would approve.