Mark Fuckin’ Connolly

This is Mark. He is nice. 

We’ve been friends a long time, nearly 40 years. It doesn’t seem possible, I know. But I’ve done the math more than once, and it always comes out the same. It’s not like we grew up together or something. Our parents weren’t friends. We just know each other from college and apparently that was 40 years ago. 

Mark and I were in the journalism program together at WWU in the mid-1980s. We had both fled the Western Front, rattling down the hall to the decidedly more permissive and stony offices of Klipsun Magazine where we were not only allowed but in fact encouraged to write and publish longer form stories about bathtub ramen, academic freedom and punk rock angst in Anacortes. We had keys to the building and were largely unsupervised. 

It was during this period that Mark introduced me to a drug called Tequila. On a Friday night during the winter of 1985, a group of his friends invited me into their elder’s circle around Mark’s kitchen table in Mud Bay. In the center of the table was a bottle of Two Fingers (when it still came in the black bottle) and a salt shaker. When the tequila was gone, we repaired to the Fairhaven Picture Show to watch Stop Making Sense. I’m quite fond of both Tequila and the Talking Heads to this day, and I have Mark to thank for the introductions. I only wish he'd also taught me to dance like him. 

Mark visited me in New York during the summer of ’86 when I was there on an internship, sleeping on the floor of my tiny dorm room on 5th Avenue. He gimme the cash to give to Monte, but then I had to repay Mark—so I went with Lori to what was called ATM. Eventually I had to pay her back, but not till later. I’d never seen a cash machine before. We didn’t have the internet. 

Mark and I text now, but back in those days we wrote letters. With pens on paper we wrote dozens of letters and licked the stamps with our own tongues. It’s not like I saved them all, but I still have several in a box that once held shoes—postmarks from exotic locations like Taipei, Tukwila, Natick, New York City, Kamakura and of course Bellingham. Handwritten letters, can you imagine? 

We still read and edit each other’s writing. I’ve read a number of Mark’s excellent screenplays and he is currently struggling through my novella. I value his wisdom and insight. We’ve been friends a long time. 

The point of all this is that Mark paid off his house today. We walked into the Fairhaven branch of WECU, sat down with a rep, and he made the final payment of $405. I’ve heard of this happening in mythology, but have never seen it in-person. He could have just sent the money electronically, I guess. But, like sending a letter through the mail, he walked in and paid in-person. I dared him to do it with cash, but it was getting late and we were getting thirsty. The event itself was fairly anti-climactic. I didn’t think a small WECU branch would have a marching band hidden in the vault just waiting for members to come in with their last mortgage payments, but I thought there’d at least be confetti or some balloons. Instead Mark was handed the small white receipt in the picture and a shrug that someone from the real estate division would be in touch on Monday. Maybe Tuesday. We went for beers. 

Now that he owns outright the cabin I sold him on Gooseberry Point 19 years ago, he will retire from his job and book passage to Tokyo where his wife Yoko is waiting patiently. He’ll be back in 90 days to work on a spouse visa while telling himself comedy jokes before bed on Gooseberry Point. But once he gets that visa, he may be out of here for good. 

Safe travels and congratulations, Mark Fuckin’ Connolly!