Anything and everything has been written about the tragic end of the Doors' leader. But what really happened on July 3rd twenty years ago, no one has ever told.
This is because Alain Ronay, Jim's photographer friend who was the first to find the rock star in his apartment where he lay in the bathtub without breathing, had always kept quiet.
Now, to defend Morrison's memory, Ronay speaks out. He tells King all the details of that day, from the strange behavior of Pamela, Jim's girlfriend, to the doctors' incompetence, to the superficiality of the police in trying to hide the news of his death. He also remembers the happy days spent with Jim in Paris, the anguish of the singer poet, his desire to detoxify from alcohol and keep himself away from heroin.
A Frenchman and naturalized American, Alain met Jim in California in 1964. Since then they became close friends.
Friday, July 2, 1971: Jim and I were taking a walk in the Marais Quarter in Paris. The historic district served ony as a backdrop for our discussions which ranged from the Yoga teacher's visit (Jim had asked me to be an interpreter for them - the topic of their discussion: man as a tightrope walker heading towards death) to analyzing Nietzche's opinions on suicide. Jim was obsessed by death.
Everyone knew this, but rarely did he bring up this topic with me. That morning his words went back to that subject many times. I succeeded in tearing him away from his deark thoughts with Oscar Wilde.
Although neither of us had been particularly interested in him, Oscar seemed to lift our spirits considerably. A month earlier, when Jim and Pamela (Pamela Courson, Morrison's companion, editor's note) came to visit me in London, I reserved a room for them at the Cadogan Hotel near Sloane Square. I told them this was the place where Wilde was arrested.
While we were walking a connection clicked in my mind: in Paris Jim and Pam stayed in what they snobbishly called the Hotel.
“But, do you realize that Oscar Wilde lived here too? I said thoughtlessly. There's even a plaque here near the door. I'm sure of it. Didn't you see it?”
Jim didn't answer, so I added, “Watch out you don't follow too closely in his footsteps - you could end up like him.”
My words remained hanging in the air. Jim continued not to answer. What could he say? My ideas were completely out of place and I felt stupid.
Fortunately, a half empty store that faced a very narrow street allowed us to change the subject. A hand-painted sign informed us that we were at the Voix d'Orphee, but what this was really all about was not very clear to us. Even if Orpheus' Voice didn't mean much to me, it seemed however to interest Jim who insisted that I ask in French what went on in there. His mood soared when I told him it was a recording studio.
“Hey - It's almost a good omen, isn't it? I can finish my poetry record right there - that's exactly what I'm going to do. I've no intention of leaving Paris. I'm happy here. I should get back to the tapes of my poetry that I left at Village Recorders -I bet the bootleggers have already pounced on them, and maybe they're not fit for release-”
The stately houses and historic monuments disappeared when we got to Rue des Rosieres, a very colorful street full of little stores run by the most varied ethnic groups. While Jim was buying a pendant for Pam, I noticed for the first time that he tried to appear happy while I had the distrinct sensation that he wasn't happy at all. There was an indefinable anxiety in his gestures. I knew him too well.
There was something abnormal and wrong with his behavior. Something incredible because Jim Morrison never begged anybody. He said nothing. He tried to take his time, to find excuses for me to stay with him. He was desperate. This, I saw clearly. But why? I didn't ask. He would never have explained it.
In the past Jim was always successful in keeping his states of anxiety under control, even though I was usually able to pick up on them. However, towards noon there was no longer any need to guess. He was not making any effort to camouflage his strong agitation: he was shaken by a series of very powerful hiccups.
We ate in a restaurant specializing in Alsatian food. The fin de siecle decorations exploded in arabesques and art nouveau convolutions. Later in the afternoon we discovered a purveyor of cinematographic rarities, among which were some of Fritz Lang's films. We stopped in front of the shoemaker's where Jim had brought his new boots to be made wider. They weren't ready yet. Every once in awhile the hiccups returned to violently shake Jim's body. Apart from this his agitation grew worse. His nerves were visibly shaking and the reason for this was still unknown to me.
The state of his emotional upheaval reached its peak at his apartment at about 5:30 PM when I had to leave to meet Agnes Varda.
“Don't go away” - he implored me. There was something abnormal and wrong in all this. Jim never implored, it wasn't in his makeup. Then he tried to take his time and his tactics were obvious but foreign to his personality. As far as cheering you up and lifting your spirits he is the cleverest person I have ever known.
He was desperate. But why? I never asked him because I knew he would never tell me. First of all he wanted me to read the opening article of Newsweek at all costs. He seemed very serious in asking me to do this but I was already on my way out and I didn't even look at the magazine cover. It took about half an hour before I managed to walk down the stairs and leave. Jim still tried to keep me with the pretext of a telegram he was supposed to send from the post office a few blocks away. He wanted me to help him with the French.
Fortunately, a post office strke helped me in trying to get away, but Jim asked me if he could at least come outside with me. Opposite a cafe - in Place de la Bastille, Jim made his last appeal, - “Come on Alain, stay- Stay at least for a short beer with me, what do you say? Don't leave-stay with me. Do it for an old friend.” - Hiccups continually interrupted his pleading.
The show of this sudden and unexplainable change confused and upset me, above all when compared to Jim's behavior during the month just past which he spent with Pam. In that brief period he was happy, calm and free. Paris was good for him. He had gotten rid of the damage produced by fame and had found himself again. He wrote all the time, he went around town and about his business without being recognized and he had almost stopped drinking. He didn't take drugs yet.
Pam's habit hadn't yet gotten to him. She led her own independent life in Paris and did not live with him. Therefore, with a few exceptions, Jim and I spent almost the whole month of June alone together. Our days were tranquil and were probably the best we shared. Jim's repeated invitations to join him in Paris to relive "the good old days"- implied that he fully intended to bury the rock star in him. The promise was kept.
The purpose of the Paris vacation was to detoxify Jim of alcohol and for him to forget the anguish that his fame as a rock star had caused. In June of l971 Jim was very creative. He spent a lot of time writing poetry.
We went into a cafe on Place de la Bastille. We ordered and I asked the waiter to hurry. Jim suddenly closed his eyes while new waves of hiccups went through him. He was thoroughly concentrated in his efforts to get rid of them. When I looked at him I had the clear sensation that his face had assumed the aspect of a death mask. The feeling disappeared when Jim opened his eyes again. He scrutinized me, and as if waiting for me to lie he asked, "What did you see?"
"Nothing Jim, nothing."
While we were ordering another round of beers, I realized that I really had to leave and I said to him, "Forgive me but I really have to go." I rushed out and stopped next to the nearby subway entrance. I turned round to see him one more time. He was in profile and suddenly, as if he felt me looking at him, he turned and stared at me. All this lasted only a few seconds. Then I dashed down the stairs.
Agnes cast an impatient glance at me over the desk at which she was seated and repeated, "And so it seemed to you to have seen a dead man's face."
"Not a face," I corrected her, "what I saw was a death mask."
Agnes was busy looking, however superficially, for a letter in her file. I needed to see her eyes which were hidden behind her black bangs. I wanted to find out if she was indifferent, skeptical or if she was making light of the whole issue to calm me down.
"Should I go on?" I asked.
"Of course," she answered impatiently, keeping her hand in the filing cabinet as if it were a bookmark and staring at me.
"What do you mean by mask?" she asked.
"I mean the type of make-up that is applied to people after they're deceased. Jim had one of these in his book on Francis Bacon. It was a picture of William Blake's face. He had that book when we were students and lived in my house years ago."
"Now I understand, that's curious"
"Curious - you could say something better than that - Looking at it made me ill."
"I see that this has really made an impression on you."
"Jim knew that you and I were supposed to have dinner together, but he continued to insist that I join him at the movies where I sent Pam and him to see Mitchum's film."
Agnes gave me an encouraging smile and said, "If you want, we could do without going to the Vietnamese restaurant - Go with them. Anyway, I'm tired and I have to go over the text of Tango."
"Don't even mention such a thing. I don't want to go back. Let's go and eat the Seven Spices or whatever the devil they call it."
Agnes closed the shutters, turned off all the lights and the TV. Then she asked me almost incidentally, "Did he get rid of the hiccups?"
"What? No-not at all."
Early the next morning, (I was finally resting after a night of insomnia), I got up with a start with the sensation that a telephone was ringing. Since I was a guest I never answered. But I wasn't completely sure that it was the telephone in the wing of the apartment where Agnes slept that was ringing. I hurried across the entrance to the living room where the other telephone was. The line was free. A Calder mobile swung silently above my head while I looked around to find a clock. Light was coming in from the garden. It must have been about 6AM and I went back to bed with tense nerves wondering if the telephone really had rung.
When I had awakened for the second time, I was sure I heard the telephone ring. Outside the typical sounds of the market day coud be heard. I heard the thump of the mail that fell through the mail slot in the door. This meant it was 8AM. The mail always arrived punctually.
I got to the phone in time to say "Hello"- and hear the Yoga teacher, Monique Godard, excuse herself for calling so early in the morning. She was a nervous woman, smoked like a chimney, always wore very short skirts and was tall and stylish enough to be a model. Everything about her contradicted my knowledge of Yoga. Her ability as a healer had earned her an incredible reputation among her illustrious clients, the most exalted minds of Paris. She had great influence on them and although I entertained serious doubts as to her powers, I had contacted her hoping she would accept Pam as her patient. Nothing that could help Pam could be done soon enough.
"I'm leaving town and I won't be back before you return to California," she explained. "If your friend needs my help he must first see a doctor. I want him to have a check-up. You can tell him that. Does he have a history of drugs? Does he have circulatory problems? I must know this."
"But I didn't get in touch with you for Jim's sake." I reminded her. It's for Pam. I thought I made that clear. "Weren't you aware of this the other day when we were in their apartment? God, she was in bad shape."
"Who, her? I would never take her, never. But as far as your friend is concerned, I want him to see a doctor immediately. I feel these things. It could even be too late. Well, I've got to go."
"Wait- Are you hiding something from me? What-yes, well-all right, all right."
"By any chance did you also call before? No? I thought it might have been you. Do you have to hang up?"
"Please wait - then you will look after Jim - take care of him. I won't be here and I've been worried about him since yesterday. Yes. Thank you."
"Have a good trip."
This call upset me. I didn't know what to do. I was short on ideas.
A few minutes later the phone rang again. It was Pam. She usually spoke in a soft tone of voice, but this time there was a note of fear.
"Can you speak a little louder?"- I shouted into the phone as if I too had the same tone.
"Jim's unconscious and bleeding. Call an ambulance. You know I don't speak French. Hurry up." - Pam was sobbing. Then, she added, "I think he's dying."
I ran across the garden to the wing where Agnes was and knocked repeatedly at the door. She imediatey awakened. I didn't know how to use the complicated Parisian phone system and I asked her to do it for me. Agnes grabbed her orange telephone while saying to me, "I don't know Jim's address. Write it on this paper - I'll take you there, meanwhile, leave a message for the maid and Bernardo. Write that I had to go out on an emergency."
"Why are you dialing the number over and over again? What's going on?"
"Be calm. We're not in the United States here. It takes time. Bring your passport along, you'll need it."
I told Agnes not to give Jim's name, only the apartment number and I ran back across the garden to my room. When I returned Agnes was putting on a long madras dress over her nightgown while she talked on the phone, "She is American .. She doesn't speak French. Send someone who speaks English - third floor, the door on the right."
In my mind I was already on the way. I was trembling and peeing in my pants out of fright. Pam had always had a penchant for drama, but I felt that this time it would be different.
Traffic was at a standstill near the Ile de la Cite, where some students were demonstrating. They took advantage of the situation by trying to explain their reasons for the protest to the motorists. I tried to close the car window in the face of flyers they were trying to stuff into the car, but Agnes talked me out of it saying that it was getting unbearably hot.
Then Agnes managed to find a space between two buses that she could pass through with her old Volkswagen and in a flash we arrived on the Right Bank. She passed all the cars along the way weaving through the traffic, losing time only in the little one way streets around the Bastille. I wasn't able to hold myself back from asking her, "In your opinion can there be a scientific basis to the fact that persistent hiccups are a sign of imminent death?"
"Where did you hear that?"
"My father told it to me when he got them in the hospital."
"It's not true. Don't worry."
"Well he died a few hours later and I never found out if it was a coincidence or not. I didn't even think of it yesterday. Damn, it only I had."
We saw the ambulance in front of the building and passersby were coming from other crowded streets to follow the unfolding drama. An official held back the crowd and escorted us to the front entrance.
"Is he all right?" I asked.
"You must inquire upstairs. I'll take you there now." he answered when Agnes was already on the stairs. The standersby were pushed back and had formed a human barrier on the landing. I questioned their faces to discover if there were any news, but I saw nothing.
I had a flashback: While I was coming up to the landing, just last week, Jim let a bundle of firewood fall (we had just bought wood for the fireplace). He was winded and couldn't get his breath back. He complained staying that he needed the firewood to keep warm, in June.
"But do you feel OK?" I asked him. "Look at me, I'm ten years older than you and not exactly in such terrific shape, but I'm not winded either."
The third floor door was flung wide open. I saw Pam standing all alone at the end of the entrance corridor, but I couldn't see too well because of a group of officials standing in the way. They moved out of the way when I tried to reach Pam who told me that Jim was dead.
"My Jim is dead, Alain, he left us, he's dead." She added, "I want to be alone now, please leave me alone."
I didn't know where to go, so I waited for her to make the first move. She did so by going into the kitchen and leaving me in the foyer to realize what she had just told me.
I felt and thought nothing. A moment of impasse. Stunned as if boredom had assaulted me, I looked around trying to concentrate on something else. My glance fell on Jim's boots which were standing erect in the other room. The right boot was slightly ahead of the left as in walking. I felt as if I had entered a state of deja-vu made possible by years of rehearsing the same script, a gift of Jim Morrison, rock singer, dramatic actor-friend.
Thanks for having prepared me to all this, Jim. It's really been a great help.
Fuck you, Jim.
Agnes was at the entrance asking the official in charge if he was really sure that Jim was dead. He very courteously replied that they were unable to do anything for him since they had arrived at least an hour too late.
I saw Pam go into his room and didn't trust leaving her alone so I asked Agnes to stay with her. "Do you know where her clothes are? She's all wet", Agnes asked me a few minutes later. I showed her the closet near the entrance close to where an official was standing. When she moved towards the other people I whispered to her, "Don't tell them who you are or who Jim was. Let me do the talking. If they discover you're a director they could get suspicious. We must let Jim pass for a normal American citizen."
"But do you seriously think they'll know who I am? Believe me, they don't have any idea my films exist."
"You were on TV recently. Agnes Varda is about to become a very familiar name to everyone."
"Don't exaggerate." Agnes concluded going back toward Pam's room.
I heard that they defined me as an American friend of his, in the living-room and I drew close in order to eavesdrop. There was a newly arrived police inspector who had come to find out how Jim was found in the bathtub. He was coming close to the bedroom.
I promised myself not to listen to anymore details in an effort to eliminate all information that would have made that death more real.
"The condominium's concierge told me that you have lived here for over a month and that you too are American." the inspector told me right away.
"I moved a few days ago to stay with another person."
"How come you speak French so well?" he asked suspiciously.
"Because I was born in Paris, but I am a naturalized American citizen. Can we get this over with soon? I'm a little upset and I would like to."
"Give me your particulars, those of your friend, and also of his girl friend - nationality, occupation - I would like to find out if he was using drugs.
He would find this out anyway when the medical examiner arrives." He turned and asked the paramedic to fill out a complete report. The pause gave me time for an idea: Inverting Jim's two names would have momentarily taken them off the track. For the moment it was all I was able to do.
"My friend's name was Douglas James Morrison. He was American and a poet.." I waited until he had finished writing, then I added, "He was an alcoholic but he didn't use drugs."
Even if Jim's death were to have been described by the medical examiner as that of a young American found dead in his bathtub, the newspapers would have reported the item anyway. And even if Jim's names had not been reversed, there would have been readers astute enough to decipher the true identity of the deceased in question. His presence in Paris was no secret and this touch of deceitfulness was on the lowest level.
"Usually poets don't have a luxurious life-style, monsieur," the inspector observed. "How could he afford and apartment like this?"
