By Martin H. Rots

My wife and I were in Paris a few years ago and decided to visit Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery.  It was a long way from the Left Bank where our hotel was to the cemetery.  When we emerged from the Metro, it was pouring rain.  We looked around,  got our bearings and found we were right across the street from the cemetery.  We crossed the street, turned into the wind and made our way along the cemetery wall until we reached the stone gatehouse.  No one tried to stop us and we walked right through the gate.  We followed the pavement and came upon a stone building with a map of the cemetery posted on its wall.

Pere Lachaise holds the remains of a lot of prominent people including Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Alice B. Toklas and of course, Jim Morrison, who used to frequent the cemetery in his final weeks, wandering among the deceased.  Land is at a premium in Paris and the cemetery is crowded with headstones.  Morrison's final resting place is the most popular among visitors and they come from all over the world to visit Jim.

We wander along the winding paths trying to follow a map from the guidebook, but all we find is other Americans as lost as we are.  We band together, consult guidebooks and maps and after much discussion, head off in the wrong direction.  It starts raining harder, but we don't care.  We are all on a mission and we won't be deterred by rain or bad directions.  We find more Americans and feel stronger as our numbers increase.  We quickly bond as fellow travelers in a foreign land are prone to do.  Maps are once again consulted and the group, unable to come to a consensus, breaks up and goes off in different directions. 

Unfazed, Candy and I chose our own path and move out through the downpour.  By some miracle, ten minutes later, we stumble upon Morrison's grave.  There is no one there but a grim looking, very short woman in a uniform with a better mustache than mine.  She is there to prevent vandalism, but she appears terminally bored standing there in the rain.  Between her diminutive stature and advanced age, it's doubtful she could stop a ten year old let alone a determined vandal. 

The headstone is nothing special.  There used to be a bronze bust of Morrison resting on his marble marker, but it was stolen years ago and never replaced.  They've cleaned up the graffiti and the adjacent graves all seem to be employing some sort of extra security measures to thwart the fans.  They really pack the graves in here and there isn't much room to gawk.

Before long, we're joined by a young Irishman from Belfast.  It's his birthday and he has chosen to spend it with the Lizard King...or at least what's left of him.  The rain lets up and we talk while the guard keeps an eye on us.  Our new friend is a big Doors fan and he takes our picture with our camera for a souvenir.  I take his picture standing next to the gravestone and offer to send him a copy when we get home.  For some reason, he's reluctant to share his information with us.  Sparky later speculated that perhaps, he didn't have a computer.  We rich Americans assume everyone has one or two at home like most Americans we know.  I give him our email address and tell him to write.  He seems interested in a copy of the photo of him at the grave, but we never hear from him.  He tells us he's going to spend the day there standing in the rain communing with Morrison.

Ten minutes was good for me.

We never did see the large group of Americans again.  They either gave up or were lost somewhere, wandering throughout the cemetery in search of Mr. Mojo Rising.  They may still be there for all I know, soaked to the skin, condemned to wander through eternity searching for Morrison's final resting place.

I was ready to get out of the rain and have something to eat.  We found a café by the Metro station, had lunch and dried out for a while.  I ordered the basic $15 grilled cheese sandwich and Sparky had a salad.  While I sipped my second Stella Artois, I looked through the rain at the cemetery walls and thought how bleak it looked, how confining a place to spend eternity.

Spread my ashes someplace without walls.