Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [33]
A few years later, Frank told Bessie, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in silent movies as a stuntman. He had been a stand-in for Harry Carey and Francis X. Bushman (“They were both sons-of-bitches,” Frank said), and he had also done some work for Hollywood’s first big cowboy hero, Tom Mix. He and Mix became good friends, Frank said, and good drinking pals. One night Frank was driving and Mix was drinking—or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, whoever was driving piled the car into a pole in the Hollywood Hills. Mix escaped injury, but Frank ended up in the hospital. When he came to, he found his leg hurt again, and he also found he only had half his teeth left—the ones on the right side of his face. After that, Frank decided he had seen enough of Hollywood. He went on to other places and other things.
If Bessie had been thinking about the stories Frank Gilmore told about himself, she might have noted a few things. For one, most of his tales ended in disaster, often brought on by drunkenness. She also might have noted that, since Frank was now about forty-seven, his tales only accounted for a small portion of his life, and they seemed to zigzag clear across the map of America. There was still a lot of Frank Gilmore’s past she knew nothing about, and that he seemed in no rush to fill in. Even at his most drunk, he only told so much about himself, and when he was sober, he told almost nothing. Or maybe Bessie did note his vagueness and felt relieved by it. After all those years of Mormon genealogy—all the family legends memorializing pioneer ancestors who probably, behind all the inflated and pious myths, were really hard-asses and sons-of-bitches— maybe Frank Gilmore’s reticence about his own history came as a welcome contrast.
In any event, Frank was utterly unlike any other man Bessie had ever known. Clearly, he was an older man, but in some ways Bessie thought he was younger in spirit than she was. He had seen plenty of life—he was experienced and worldly—but at the same time, Bessie felt that Frank Gilmore was still searching the world to find his place in it. More than anything, she felt like searching the world with him.
One night when they were coming out of a movie, Frank turned to Bessie and said: “Why don’t we go out to Sacramento? You can meet my mother and we can get married while we’re out there.”
She noticed he didn’t exactly get down on his knees. Too vain a man for that. But she remembered the lesson of the candy pan. “Okay,” Bessie said. “That would be fine.”
SO BESSIE WENT WITH FRANK TO SACRAMENTO, and it was one surprise after another. Soon as they hit town, Frank got them a room at the Semoh Hotel, across from one of the large city-center parks. He was anxious to go see his mother, who was staying at the Ladies’ Cottage—a rest home at the Sacramento County Hospital. On the way over, Frank explained a couple of things. His mother’s name was Fay Ingram. Like Frank, she had once worked in show business. The last time he saw her, she was married to a local psychologist, but Frank heard that he had since died.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?” asked Bessie. “Eighteen years.” Again, he said it like there was no reason to explain or apologize.
At the hospital’s gift shop, Frank bought a box of chocolates and some white roses, and then took Bessie with him up to Fay’s floor. He opened the door to his mother’s room, walked in and said, “Hey, lady, I’ve got a