Chapter 19: Who have been your closest friends throughout the years?

Originally Written April 26, 2021

Let’s go to Douglas Wyoming with Ducaj, Terrell and Dave

I’ve been thinking a lot about friends lately. In earlier chapters I wrote about playing “detecto” in the backstreets of the infamous Juarez red light district with Erik Ness, a pal since college, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2012. I wrote about “Boo Boo”, another friend since college, who these days seems lost to the QAnon insanity.

In listing my closest friends, I’d have to include Alec, who I’ve known since high school and who served as best man at both my weddings and Chuck, a journalist buddy who worked with me at the Albuquerque Journal North in the mid 80s.

Two women in recent years have become close friends and confidants, Carol, a former editor at New Mexico Magazine who I met through “Boo Boo”, and Erin, a former copy editor at The New Mexican. I love them both dearly.

I’d also have to include my brother Jack, who I see far more than practically anyone in recent years.

But the friend I’ve been thinking of most lately is Mark Ducaj, another one I’ve known since high school.

Mark died unexpectedly on March 31. His wife, Barbara told me she thought it was a heart attack.

Mark’s family moved to Santa Fe in the late 1960s, not long before my family did. I met him at the old Santa Fe Mid High where we both were sophomores. We both were in Coach Armendariz’s 4th Period P.E. class. Sometimes he’d hang out with me and fellow Mid High weirdos during lunch.

By the way, Mark’s last name is pronounced “Doo-Kay,” though Coach Armendariz, for reasons we were never sure of, always called him “Doo-KANE.”

But I didn’t get particularly close to him until my sophomore year of college. Mark had gone to Chicago for his first year of college and returned to New Mexico in 1972 or ’73. By that time we both were serious stoners and he fit right into our crowd.

In January of 1974 a bunch of us moved to a cheap apartment complex called Sunset Gardens not far from the airport. I was roommates with Steve, one of my best high school buddies. Next door was another old Santa Fe High crony, Johnny and across the sidewalk was “Amarillo” Mike (you might remember him from Chapter 12 ) and another goddamned Steve – who we’ll call “Bingo.”

Also at Sunset Gardens was Mark — who technically was a “Steve,” “Mark” actually being his middle name. His apartment was about a two minute walk from my own swinging pad. We were all there just one semester, but we packed a lot of fun and adventure into those few months.

For one thing, Sunset Gardens basically was Psychedelic Central. We’d be tripping nearly every weekend.

I’ll never forget one weekend early in the year where we all went to see The Exorcist at Hiland Theater.

Acid and devil movies. Always a winning combo.

A few days after that, Mark told of a weird experience. He said he woke up early one morning to find a strange man sitting in a chair beside his bed and staring at him.

Mark was convinced that the sinister stranger was Satan himself. So he did the sensible thing. He put his head under the covers and went back to sleep. But hearing him telling the story, for me at least, was twice as scary as The Exorcist.

(This song by Laurie Anderson wouldn’t be released for well over a decade, but that morning inn 1974, Mark thought that day had come.)

It was a fun period, but it was a decisive one for Mark and my roommate Steve. Those clowns basically never went to their classes, instead spending the day smoking dope and cruising the streets of Albuquerque.

Both flunked out. I don ’t remember which one it was, but either Ducaj or Steve earned a 0.0 grade point average that semester. (The other one didn’t do that much better.)

After that Mark moved up to Denver. One time, in the fall of 1977, our mutual friend (and one of my former roommates) Dave and I drove up to Denver to see Mark. I had to work (selling fancy cigars and pipes at Stag Tobacco) that night, so Dave didn’t pick me up un until about 9 o’clock that night.

We rolled into Denver sometime before sunrise. Dave, Mark and I drank beer, smoked dope and played guitar for a couple of hours before Mark started telling us about Douglas, Wyoming, famous for a statue of a jackalope in the middle of town.

All three of us were big fans of the horned rabbit and the tacky postcards it inspired. So as the sun began to rise we got into a car and headed north It was more than 200 miles and by then we all were pretty fried, but we made it.

A souvenir from Douglas, Wyoming

We took some photos and drove back to Denver where we joined Johnny – same Johnny from Sunset Gardens -- who also had moved there, and went to a laser light show at a planetarium. Somehow Dave and I made it back to Santa Fe and I somehow made it to work that next Monday.

I got married the first time in the summer of 1979. Mark at the time was engaged to a woman named Sue and they were supposed to get married around the same time that I was. However, shortly before my wedding, Sue cancelled the engagement to Mark for reasons I still don’t know. Mark came to my wedding, but it was obvious the guy was really hurting.

Then, just a couple of years later, he got engaged to a woman named Wendy. He brought her down to Santa Fe and she seemed nice (though with just a fraction of the personality Sue had.)

Mark and Wendy actually were living together. But just weeks before their wedding, Wendy left him with no explanation. Took all her belongings and vanished without a word.

Mark was crushed.

Dave and I both urged him to come back to New Mexico. He did, moving to Albuquerque, where he first got a job at University Volkswagen, where he met a beautiful lady named Barbara. I forget how long it was, but they got engaged and by 1989 they were married.

I was so relieved when I went to the church and Barbara was there — not ditching him like Sue and Wendy.

Mark and Barb were married for the rest of Mark’s life, more than 30 years.

Barb, who was a teacher and later a high school principal, was perfect for Mark. I’m convinced she saved his life. She loved him but gave him the space he needed and always encouraged him to make time for old friends like me.

Mark got a job working for Southwest Airlines and often got free plane tickets. One time, in the late ‘90s he called me up and said, “You know, I’ve never eaten at a Hard Rock Cafe, have you? Why don’t you take a day off next week and let’s fly to San Diego and eat at a Hard Rock Cafe.”

So, I think it was the next Tuesday, we did just that. By then we realized that Dave was managing a hotel in San Clemente. So we rented a car and drove there, unannounced. We had Dave paged, and when he saw us two idiots sitting there he started cussing.

“You assholes! Why didn’t ’t you tell me you were coming? I could have taken the day off. You ASSHOLES!”

A few years later, using free Southwest tickets, Mark treated me to a trip to Nashville where his brother Scott lives. Mark was so damned generous

Mark with Elvis in Nashville souvenir shop, Spring 2001

In early 2018, when I was hospitalized for necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating bacteria), a mutual friend of ours, Charlie Digneo, died of cancer. Mark came to visit me at the hospital. We were both so sad and depressed about Charlie’s death and my condition, we barely spoke a word.

When I got out of the hospital, Mark came up to Santa Fe and took me out to lunch at Five Guys Hamburgers. At that point I’d barely been out of the house since leaving the hospital.

It was just what I needed.

One day last year Mark called me up saying that he was going to drive up to southern Colorado just for a change of scenery and asked whether I’d like to ride with him.

I was tempted, but this was months before the vaccine and I was paranoid about COVID, so I declined.

That’s one decision I deeply regret.

Though we were in touch by email — up until a few days before his death — I never saw him again.

Every time a friend dies — which is far too frequently these days — I’m reminded of a great old folk song I first heard sung by Bob Dyan, “The Days of 49,” specifically the last verse, which goes”

Of the comrades all that I've had, there's none that's left to boast

And I'm left alone in my misery like some poor wandering ghost …

RIP Steven Mark Ducaj.

Mark and Dave, circa 2008 at my house

Let’s hear that song by Dylan with a shoutout to all my old jolly, saucy crew: