This is the letter I wrote to interested parties involved with my dear friend’s murder trial. He was the victim, but somehow, his character has been called into question. As if he were a woman wearing a short skirt “asking for it”. It’s pretty much that ridiculous. The letter itself is no great shakes. Whenever I tried to approach this task as a “writer” I was stalled out. And also kind of hating myself for worrying about artfulness at a time like this. Also worried what Doug’s critique of it would be. He once said of an article I asked him to proof that it was “dry as dust”. On the other hand, he also said of another piece, “reads like a dream, wouldn’t change a thing.” So he was level-handed in his assessments I think.
Mostly, I am frustrated because no matter how many examples I could give to support his decency, his talent, his kindness, and his humanity – it isn’t likely to change much in the long run. If I want justice, I shan’t hold my breath. If I crave closure, I think I’ll have to look elsewhere. But this is the best I can do, under the circumstances. I hope it helps.
To whom it concerns:
I believe in the idea of sacred contracts. An idea that there are some people in your life you meet because they help you to grow, or facilitate change, or assist you on your life’s journey. I believe that I had a contract of this nature with Doug. Chance flung us together at a favorite watering hole Labor Day of 2008, where we met and formed a fast bond. This bond deepened and took on many forms throughout the course of our friendship, but we were nearly inseparable for three years, during which time we saw each other through difficult transitions through our mutual love of art, literature, music, and each other. As we once laughingly agreed, “no one loves us as much as we love us.”
It is strange for me to write publicly about Doug, and our relationship in particular, because he was a private person. Stranger yet to write in his defense, as I can’t think he did much other than to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But since this is the last thing I can do for him, tangibly, I’ll do my best. He did not abide sentimentality for its own sake, so I’ll do my best to stick to the facts – though it will be hard, because Doug’s imprint on my soul is what I want most to share with anyone who will listen.
During the time I knew Doug he went from being an Executive Chef at a fine restaurant, to working as a cook in a university cafeteria, to being unemployed and visiting the food shelf. He experienced this gradual decline with uncommon grace. Even in the darkest times – broken furnace, little food, no car – he was optimitstic. He was humbled, but never downtrodden. And even though he was unemployed he worked, constantly, both at finding a job and at making music. I knew his daily routine well, I lived with him for a short time. Up early with coffee, an hour or so at the computer either writing stories or articles for his mother’s bulletin, looking for jobs, or posting as a moderator on Huff Post. The Huffington Post was a great outlet for Doug, who was quite a hermit really, to exchange ideas and barbs over politics. He was always defending a broadly liberal point of view, but most likely the racial or sexual minority. And he did it with humor. He was so excited to be asked to be a moderator, because he was valued as someone able to diffuse contentious arguments with a sense of humor. Anyway, after that he headed to the living room to write music for the next few hours. Then a lunch break and a dog walk. Maybe a visitor in the afternoon. he retired at sundown with Otto, and later Gertie, by his side and watched movies and TV series he checked out from the library. It was an unglamorous life, but he was really contented. And he never complained much. When he did, he was apologetic.
At the same time, I was going through a divorce and learning to support myself and my two children. Doug worried and fretted over my welfare on all fronts; emotionally, physically, financially. He was sweet to my children, and he was supportive of me. More than anything, he gave me back my voice. In becoming a mother and wife, I had been living my life as if half-asleep. Doug woke me up. He believed that I was was smart and witty and funny and talented. He encouraged my writing, he pushed me artistically. He put a microphone in front of my face and told me I could sing. He modeled a work ethic that showed me how artists create: passionately, without concern for being discovered, or published, or accepted. He called me Queenie. Not because he revered me, but because it was how he wanted me to see myself.
We played. We had fun. We went for dog walks. We cooked and drank wine. We recorded albums, and radio plays. Doug’s living room was a universe where the walls fell away and anything was possible. It was a land of make-believe – our own record label, our own radio station, our own catering company, our own country of which we were the rulers. Multiple possible futures that all coincided. He was magical in that way, an allure that attracted many people to him.
Doug gave me a bed so that my kids had one to sleep on. Doug did my laundry while I was at work. He made me lunches and dinners too many to name. He taught me to cook mussels. He wrote songs for me. He made mix-tapes to accompany every road trip I took. He listened to hours of my crying, doled out reams of advice and never let me hit bottom. A bachelor to the core, he kept maxi-pads stocked in the bathroom for me. Later, when I moved to Saint Paul and would visit overnight to record music, he arranged a room in his house for me and kept it free of dog and cat hair so I could sleep allergy free. When I was on vacation in Santa Fe, he watched the weather and texted me to warn me there was a storm in the area. He was “there for me” in the most loyal and steadfast of ways.
Douglas was a complex person with a colorful life. He took the responsibility of being an artist seriously, which meant life wasn’t always easy. He kept up with his mortgage as best he could, even when he couldn’t afford food. He never let his dog Otto want for food or walkies. I was with him when they put Otto down. I so admired his strength that day. When the vet came in with x-rays of Otto’s lungs, ridden with cancer, we were devastated. He was too far gone for treatment, and Doug didn’t want him to suffer another minute. We sat together as Otto’s ragged breathing ceased. Together we carried him clumsily from the car to the back-yard. Then I left Doug to bury him in the shady area he loved to sit in, which he did, bravely alone.
He was unfailingly, even annoyingly, moralistic. I’m a bit of a moral relativist, but Doug believed in right and wrong, good and evil, and he took great care in his life to be on the right side of that divide. Apparently his Christian upbringing, though lapsed, was not a complete failure. If we argued, it was about my ethical leniency. He was the champion of the underdog, and the defender of the meek. He wrote songs about misfits: Dorca, a song about an orca who doesn’t fit in amongst the dolphins. He wrote for the abused, and the neglected, and the persecuted. He himself was a misfit, and his sympathy was always with those who society looked down on and cast aside.
Our last night together we finished up some recording and listened to all the things we had recorded together. We drank some Rolling Rock and took a cab downtown. We tried to visit the bar we had met at, but it was crowded and unfriendly feeling, so we wound up at Saint Cloud’s only, recently opened, gay bar. He was pleased to find Saint Cloud catching up with the rest of the world. Doug had gay friends, mostly lesbians that I knew of, which is why when the three assailants claimed he yelled homophobic slurs, it rang so untrue. If Doug acted in anger, it would have been in defense of a woman or gay person, not in attack of them.
When Doug moved, we grew apart, but we were happy for each other to have moved on with our lives. It was as if we had traveled through a dark valley together and then parted ways to climb separate hills. Able to look at each other from a distance, on separate peaks, we were both happy, breathing the cool clean air of what other people would call a “normal life.” We were smugly pleased with ourselves and proud of each other, I think, to have come so far. It made his death all the more a bitter pill. He had finally gotten back to his career, found a place he felt he belonged, found love and was more content than he had been in years.
I began to get messages from our mutual friend Chris late on the night of the 26th. he sent me an article with the headline, “Man Stabbed to Death In Downtown Arcata Night Before Last”. The man, unidentified, was from Minnesota originally and “in his 50s”. Surely this wasn’t Doug. Surely it could be anyone. I called Doug and got his voicemail. Not wanting to sound alarmist, I left a message for him to call me. We had texted earlier that day, about holiday food preparations of course. I was starting to worry. I texted him. Then I called Chris and he told me, “He’s gone. Doug has passed on.” “Are you sure?” I asked. He was. I was hysterical, immediately. Incredulous.“what do we DO?” I yelled into the phone. Chris said something about planning a memorial and I cut him off, “No. I mean what do we DO?” I meant, “How do we undo it?” I experienced, for this first time in my life, cognitive dissonance. The idea of Doug being dead, being stabbed, was not one I could accept. I am still occasionally shocked by it, even now.
I have experienced sudden and tragic death before, I lost my sister when I was 17, but I didn’t know what to expect from a murder and all its consequent legal implications and proceedings. An article online warned me to remember that “we have a legal system, not a justice system.” Even that could not have prepared me for what has happened since that day.
I wonder often what he would think of the events that have followed. He hated injustice, but he was also a very private person. He would be horrified to have his character smeared by strangers, but mostly because he loved his family and wouldn’t want to cause them undue pain. I wonder if he would find irony that in death he’s found a sort of twisted, post-humous notoriety, when in life, he was always a relative unknown.
I expect you’ll get many letters similar to mine. My friendship with Doug was special to me, but not unique to him. He was a remarkable man. He was like a blazing comet, but he was also heavily embodied and burdened by life. He was a vessel of light, which he shared with those he loved. When that light shone on you, it was a powerful, memorable experience. He loved easily, and almost carelessly. I adored him.
My hope in writing this is to inform the court of Douglas’ character. My hope for the case is that somehow the truth will out. I’m not convinced by the defendants’ version of events, and my most sincere desire is that I might find closure through understanding of what transpired that night. I have contacted a local friend, a defense attorney, and he is baffled by Ms. Firpo’ s recommendation to accept the plea. I don’t know or understand the circumstances which brought Doug, Nick, Sophie and Juan to this tragic conclusion. And while I may never know, I don’t believe that any sort of justice is served by the way this case has been handled.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jennifer Kohnhorst
My House On Mars 