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THE ELUSIVE GIFT OF TRAGEDY
by
Regina Rose Murphy

The next morning, John called and told me he had in fact almost been arrested the previous day. Most of his friends hung out in front of his friend Brian’s house, which served as the neighborhood stop off. We had lived next door to Brian for several years and everyone knew everyone in the neighborhood. John had driven to Brian’s house and as he got out of his truck, three police cars had pulled up. He was handcuffed and held at gunpoint. They told him there was a report of a terrorist with a shotgun in the neighborhood, and John fit his description. John told the police he had a good job, owned his own house and had no record of any kind.

The police were angry and treated him rough; doing everything they could to make him give them a reason to arrest him. They called him names, searched his truck and became even angrier at not finding anything to at least ticket him. (After Cattel told me he might get arrested, I’d warned John to make sure he didn’t even have a pipe or rolling paper in his truck, let alone pills or alcohol.) John and his truck were both squeaky clean, which angered the police even more. Just then, a female friend who lived in the neighborhood drove up to see what was happening and they searched her car. She was not so lucky, and the police handcuffed her and gave her a ticket. The parents on the block came out and assured the police they’d known John since he was a child and that they obviously had the wrong person, which again made the police even more furious. Finally, after what seemed like hours to John, they let him go. However, even as they did so, they called him “a piece of shit.”

He couldn’t believe that they not only didn’t apologize, but also foul-mouthed him. He was so horrified at what the police could get away with that he planned to write his next song about it. For the first time in his life, he realized what life must be like for a person in a minority.

John was not nearly as upset about this incident with the police as I thought he would be. He took it as a great learning experience and felt there was a purpose in it. He was much more concerned about what he could do for the people in Louisiana affected by hurricane Katrina. He wanted to start a drive at J & R Flooring for the victims, and planned to talk to his brother-in-law, who was his boss, about it at lunch.

John believed that it’s a songwriter’s responsibility to teach through music, and his songs show this. One of my favorite songs he wrote is called Jesus Never Said You’re Not Worthy, about the fact that the Catholic religion teaches us that we are not worthy but that is simply not true. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say that. John wrote this song as a gift to me because he knew much of my work is dealing with the issues of unworthiness and self-hatred.

We went to lunch and discussed his future life. He was evaluating some short-term options, such as quitting his job and going to work as a volunteer for the Red Cross. He was also thinking of moving to Houston to be near Dominique because he missed her so much. He was looking into music schools in Houston. He was also thinking of going to Austin, Texas to visit Joe, a musician friend of his dad’s who flew to Las Vegas every year to play keyboards at the J&R Flooring Christmas party. Joe respected John as a musician and felt John could make a living running a music recording studio, which was the same work Joe did. But for right now, John’s focus was on moving back in with David and me. I told him that David and I were getting ready to go to Sedona for a couple of days and we would be back on Friday, September 23.

On Tuesday September 20, John called me in Sedona to tell me he was worried about Dominique’s safety because a hurricane was headed directly for Houston. It was still three days away from Houston so I told him to get Dominique on a plane to Las Vegas right away. I added, “Listen to me for the first time in your life. Do not wait another minute.” My ulterior motive was that I just had a feeling this would be a good thing for him. She could help him pack and get out of his house and back home to me, so I was overly pushy about it. He told me I was overreacting and that Dominique would never leave her family.

Later that day, while David and I were still in Sedona, we received a call from a neighbor because our overhead garage door was open. This is never a good thing to hear when you’re out of town so I asked John to check out the house and close the overhead garage door. He called back and said, “The only other thing that’s unusual is that the boat cover is off.” We knew we’d closed the garage door and securely tied down the boat cover when we’d left the house. My mind started working overtime. I asked John, “Which address did you give the police when they handcuffed you?” He said, “Yours. I never changed my driver’s license address from your house to mine.”

I was really concerned that the police were actually looking for drugs and that the story they gave John about a terrorist was just a cover for a drug bust. I was sure the police had searched our house and the boat for drugs. My mind was racing out of control as I could feel in my heart he was in danger. I called him back. “Listen, John, get all the drugs out of your house NOW.”

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