"A lattice o’ coincidence," I heard him exclaim and I knew immediately this lanky, almost Abraham Lincoln-looking character was a kindred spirit. I thought maybe there were two or three people in Southern Arizona who could recite lines from the obscure 1984 Emilio Estevez film "Repo Man," but John Dougherty was hands down the king aficionado.
The Lattice of Coincidence, he reminded me, was when you think of something and suddenly something related appears.
Like, as the movie explains: "…suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate o’ shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o’ shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."
 John Dougherty, left, and Scott Kirtley, the day their friend Jonathan Paton joined the Legislature in January 2005. Anthony Alvarez photo |
Less than a year earlier, I had landed the job of a lifetime as associate state school superintendent at the Arizona Department of Education in what was thought to be the rising-star administration of Jaime Molera. In early 2002, I was meeting with the new government affairs director for the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. I found Dougherty to be refreshing, honest, and a true friend in a business where friendship seems more connected to political expediency.
Tucson politics can be especially grueling. As a veteran of many a campaign, I had racked up my share of friends and enemies in the game. Dougherty and I quickly found that we’d had much in common.
John had come up through the ranks of the Republican establishment in Phoenix. He’d worked for Sen. John McCain and later U.S. Rep. John J. Rhodes III until the incumbent’s spectacular defeat in 1992. Dougherty went to Washington, D.C., and worked the lobbying game. Though the money was good, he soured on the climate of the Beltway.
By the time he got to Tucson in 2002, he and I had many war stories. We had ritual Wednesday lunches at Dirtbag’s on Speedway. The political world was our oyster.
When my boss Molera went down to defeat in the 2002 primary — over bilingual education in the most brazenly racist Republican campaign I ever witnessed — Dougherty was one of the very few who fully understood. He saw the nasty business for what it was: political expediency over substance. John persuaded me to not walk away from the Republican Party.
John and I still had our lunches, even though I was no longer a political somebody. When I was called to active duty for the Army Reserve for Operation Enduring Freedom, John stayed in touch with me, one of several friends who sent me packages while I was stationed in the jungles of Colombia.
Right after I returned home, our good friend Jonathan Paton was sworn in to the Arizona State House of Representatives in January 2005. John was equally attentive to Paton when he went to Iraq as an Army Reserve officer in 2006-2007.
When I heard Dougherty was diagnosed with skin cancer I was worried, but he told me not to worry. By then I was working for the Department of Defense in Miami, Fla.
In March 2007, things were not going well. I spent a week with John at his house while he was suffering through chemotherapy. He was wiped out, but his spirit never wavered. He and I would talk about the future. Maybe he would get out of the political biz. John wanted to be a writer.
I saw him twice more. Once we went to the casino and talked about this wacky, crazy presidential campaign. But his health was obviously getting worse. The cancer was spreading. John vowed he would get better, though.
As I think about my wonderful friend, who died June 25, fighting until the end, it occurs to me it was a lattice o’ coincidence that brought us together. My brother had died far too young in 2001 from complications related to diabetes. Suddenly, John Dougherty, a clean-cut kid in a dirty business, walks on the scene. "No explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."
Dougherty was so incredibly proud of the chamber of commerce and told me Jack Camper was truly one of the kindest men he’d ever known, particularly when John could no longer work. And John loved his family, his dad and mom and his brother.
Somewhere, someday, I know we’ll ride in that ’64 Chevy Malibu together.
Contact Scott Kirtley at sdkirtley@yahoo.com. Kirtley is now an attaché assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
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