Looking for Jim by Stuart Gibbs
The Metro sweeps me high above the Paris streets then down into the earth and through the graffiti strewn tunnels towards the Pere Lacharise station. In the daylight again I make my way to the large cemetery there. At the gates the cobbled streets of this city of the dead stretch ahead of me, its still August but already leaves are on the ground. I make my way into the maze winding paths getting shade from the ones that are tree lined.
I've been here before. On a tour of Europe with school friends in an orange Volkswagen, the make of which I can't remember. Jake was taking a year out before heading to Uni, Gavin already had a job lined up and I was set for the wilds of Cumbria and a foundation fine art course. It seemed like the thing to do before we went our separate ways. Camping out in an old Army tent we drank and had fights in countries which on longer exist, making it down to Juan Les Pin on the French south coast. There we drove around, when to the beach, drank and had more fights.
News of a ferry strike cut short the trip and we ended up in an all-night drive through France to get to the channel coast before we were stranded. By noon we'd made it to the outskirts of Paris, it would be a shame not to go into the city but how could you spend an hour in Paris, drive down the Champs-Elsees go to the Eiffel Tower maybe, no. Gavin wants to go to the grave of Jim Morrison.
‘I know were it is,' he says. ‘It's out on the east side near the metro.'
‘Well there is a quite a lot of metro here' Jake replies.
Jake tells us which station then starts going on about the wild parties and other things that have took place at the site. He'd heard that people had had sex upon the grave, but I didn't believe that part. We found our way through the maze of streets and made it into the cemetery. It was quiet with no sign of parties, but as we make our way around the network of paths we see directions scratched or painted into the stone work. ‘This way for Jim' said one with an arrow pointing upwards.
A few minutes later we come across another scrawled headstone. ‘Jim's session, keep right on' the arrow was pointing in another direction. We follow, then another message ‘I killed Jim'. The expression of a deranged mind wasn't helping us get around and we found ourselves an open space like a large roundabout or GrandRond as the sign described it. Past this the walk ways became more formal and less ornate as if this is the city's ‘new town'. We walked on till we could see the boundary wall at the end of the path. We stop at large slab which had what looked like an Egyptian figure on the top half. It's the grave of Oscar Wilde and it's covered with names and phrases in French and other languages. Seems they had been having parties here too but we'd missed them.
We never did find Jim barely managed to find the car again. Today all the graffiti guides have been removed and I have to rely on a map from the newsstand. It's difficult to read and we would have still got lost if we had this guide all those years ago. I come across old Oscar's grave at the top of the site. It has a little plaque at the base of the plinth to explain how the monument was renovated in 1992 and a request not to deface the site. Some hope. In the time since I was last here it had been cleaned and readorned with names phrases and lots off painted ‘kiss' shapes. I make my way down the hill once more and into the labyrinth. Among the trees and head stones I see the glint of metal. I head towards it and come to a barrier; there is another at the other side of an obelisk and a third ahead of me arranged to form a triangle in the middle of which is a simple marble slab with brass plate, James Douglas Morrison 1943 -1971, at the base a few flowers which had been thrown over the barrier with various degrees of success. At the head of the triangle a policeman makes sure there isn't any funny stuff. As people pass by he shouts out "Jim Morrison, this way for Jim." Maybe once he was one of the people who chalked directions on the headstones, how ironic. A couple come over to the barrier.
"Gee I'm so under whelmed," the man says. His partner ignores him and crouching down she takes out a small digital camera and starts photographing through the railing.
The man mumbles a tune as he watches her. "This is the end.. .my only friend the end..." he sings. She looks round with pained expression before continuing the task of framing another image. "Oh look," the man says and the woman jumps upright to see what was going on. A small ginger cat slowly moved past the man and between the feet of the woman to leap through the barrier. The animal pauses for a moment to look back at us then continues forward leaping onto the base of the memorial. It circles a few times then looks back at us.
"Hey Jim Morrison has come back as a Cat," the man says as the animal's intense glare is fixed on us. "Gee he doesn't look happy, either."
"He's annoyed with you mocking him,' the woman says.
What he's really thinking is, where is everyone, where's the booze, the drugs, why isn't there a party? With the new security arrangements in place, I think he might be a bit bored.
