Barbaric' slaying in Plainfield detailed The man pictured in the link above, one Roger A. Fenner, was arrested early last friday morning for brutally stabbing to death his on-again, off-again former girlfriend. Take a good, hard look at his mug shot. What do you see? Most likely, you see a drugged-out, murderous animal. Right?
Just about 19 yeas ago, I was an 18 year old kid, playing guitar in a very crappy little cover band in some guy's basement just outside of Jewitt City, Connecticut. I was the "lead" guitarist, and we had gone through several rythym guitarists when a 26 year-old named Roger came down to audition for us. Right from the first chord, we knew he was the guy... not only did he know all of the songs we were playing, but he had flair, style and about 5 years of experence in some of Rhode Island's "A-circuit" cover bands. We jammed for several months, and Roger and I grew pretty close. He was working as an installer for a fence building company in Rhode Island, and offered to get me hired on there for almost double what I was making as a donation pick-up driver for the local soup kitchen. I jumped at the chance, naturally. I would drive every morning to his house in Sterling (and usually have to go in and wake him from his beer-soaked sleep), and after he had made himself a giant mug of tea, we'd hop into his Granada and drive over to the shop. I tell ya, it was pretty good times. We'd drive around Rhode Island building fences, often stopping off at a park overlookng Narragansett Bay for lunch. We'd sit and talk about how we were going to put a band together that would get all the prime gigs (and, of course, the prime women), or he'd regale me with stories from his past bands...in the immortal words of Tom Petty, "the future was wide open".
One spring evening, when my girlfriend and I were living at my sister's house, Roger came over seriously stressed out. Seems he owed the state of Rhode Island a fair amount of back-child support, and they had issued a warrant for his arrest. He had an older brother living in Tacoma, Washington and had already arranged to fly out and stay with him until he could save some money to pay off his debt. Not that he ever would have actually paid, but that's neither here nor there. He asked if I wanted to go with him... naturally, just picking up and movng 3000 some-odd miles away wasn't something I could just
do at the drop of a hat, but the idea had some serious merit. The area I lived in was (is?)
very economically depressed and seemingly isolated from the rest of the world. Although,maybe when you're young and extraordinarily ambitious,
any place feels isolated and small.. in any case, he left that weekend, and we spent the next 3 months or so in almost daily contact. I finally agreed, and his brother sent plane tickets for my girlfriend and I.
I moved to Tacoma in October of '89. Roger, my girlfriend and myself shared a nice 2 bedroom apartment. I found a job at Goodwill (paying a whole $3.85/hour!) which was supposed to be temporary until the rainy season ended and we cuold go build fences. Meanwhile, he worked as a DJ at a local strip club. He would occasionally bring a dancer or two home after his shift, and stay up drinking and screwing until sunrise. In January of 1990, I turned 21. Roger and my girlfriend threw me a kick-ass party. Shortly after that, things started to sour. Roger and one of the dancers "became serious". She moved in with us, and there was tons of tension between her and my girlfriend. Naturally, this all spilled over into my friendship with Roger. Everything came to a head one evening when Deena and I came home, and found His girlfriend on the phone with my mother. After a minute, she handed the phone to me and my mother proceeded to ream me up one side and down the other.. I don't even remember what it was over, but I'm sure it was pretty damned stupid of all of us. When I hung up, I laid into his girlfriend.. after all this time, I have no idea what all I said, but I
do know that by the time I had said my peace, she was in tears. Deena and I went into our room, where I got undressed and climbed into bed and read Lord of the Rings. ABout 45 minutes later, Roger came bursting in (he had been at work) and proceeded to stand over me threatening me with allmanner of bodily harm. I showed him no reaction.. none of the fear he had hoped to instill in me.. just stared at him impassively until he was done. That weeknd, Deena and I moved out.
Several months later, I received a letter from my mother. Seems Roger and his girlfriend had moved back east. To make things even more interesting, at some point when Roger lived in Tacoma, his parents sold their house and moved into a 55+ condo, so, when Roger got back east, they had no place to stay. They ended up staying at my mom's for several months. At some point, Roger got into a fight with my mom's boyfriend, and he and his girlfriend moved on. That was the last I had heard of him. Until last friday, that is.
I'm not really sure why I'm even writing all this... it's just been bugging me I guess.. I suppose in some weird way, it's got me to thinking about where I am in life, and how all those dreams we had never quite did come to fruition. Don't get me wrong... I am very happy with my life. I have a great wife who I love dearly, who not only loves me, but actually
gets me.. you know... on that level that only a very few people in one's life can. And while we're "officially" poor, with a house that's literally falling apart around our ears, we're happy, and healthy. But I guess it all comes back to choices. And of course, some things none of us can control. I can tell you that Roger made some bad, bad choices throughout his life. But I can also tell you that there were things in his past that, I believe, fundamentally changed the course of his life for the worse. In any case, take another look at the mugshot. I know you see a cold-blooded murderer, but I see the cocky young guitarist who was going to help me set the world on fire.
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